>> i hate doing these predictions of the fed. >> it's not a prediction. it's a judgment of whether it's a good thing to do. that's easier. >> it is easier, i guess. assuming the judgment's any good. i can see the argument dancing around here. i can see the argument that there is more emphasis on the forward guidance. that's an easier tool to use. it's much more like the old fed funds. i like the fact that they've gone to economic conditions for forward guidance. >> if they said we'll keep interest rates low until the economy meets this condition as opposed to six months or 12 months? >> i think a problem with that is they tried to summarize that condition in one metric, the up employment rate. now they are kind of backing away and saying that -- >> would you vote to taper or not? >> i think i'd wait.

>> wait. he said he would wait. if you were on the federal reserve -- >> it's a very close call. >> if you were on the federal reserve financial policy committee, would you be concerned there are beginning of signs that this very easy money, lots of low rates is causing excess? >> yes. i think i would point to the leverage lending market, for example, where the terms on a lot of loans have become so-called covenant lights so a lot of the terms have gotten much easier. >> banks putting fewer and fewer strings. >> right. it's not just the banks. those loans tend to be securitized. the banks originate them and some are in the market. junk bond market. and there are other signs.

i do think i would be somewhat concerned. i think the federal reserve has reacted in an entirely appropriate and proportionate way. among the things they've done is they have put out guidance on leveraged loans and said we are worried about what's happening here to the banks. you guys need to be more careful with what you put on your balance sheet but also what you originate and put through to the rest of the economy. they said they are going to include in their stress test, i guess they did this somewhat last year, next year the banking system suppose interest rates go up in an unexpected way, what are you exposed to? i think they're reacting exactly as i would hope. >> i was thinking about the many ways which the federal reserve changed in the time you were there. one big change of course is that the fed now has an explicit target for inflation, 2%. this was a big project of ben bernanke as an academic.

just to prove that academics actually can get things done, he's got it through the federal reserve. in the beginning, you thought that was a bad idea. have you changed your mind? is it working? >> yes and yes. i thought it was a bad idea because i thought the federal reserve was getting all the benefits without paying any of the costs. so people understood once we got into the' 90s that the fed had at least an implicit inflation target. that inflation expectations in the u.s. were anchored just about as well as in other countries. i know there were some studies saying there were small differences, but the differences were small. the u.s. could act in a very flexible way in response to the, the federal reserve could response in a flexible way because it wasn't in response to incoming developments like financial changes in the

financial markets environment because it wasn't tied to what at that time was seen as the way inflation targeting central banks would, which is the inflation target two years out. we could get all the advantages and not pay the costs in the loss of flexibility. it did change my mind and going through the crisis was an important piece of that. it was so important that inflation expectations be anchored to give us, because i was inside at the time, the freedom to act very, very aggressively without worrying about what would happen to inflation expectations. as i said looking at the depression in japan, i thought acting aggressively on the monetary policy side was critical. >> print all this money, lend it out and not worry people would think, except a few people who have been proven wrong, we are going to have double-digit inflation? >> that's right. so in making that even more

explicit, which they did in january of 2012, i thought was a good idea. i actually told ben bernanke before i left that he converted me over these many years, and it was the crisis and the importance of keeping those inflation expectations anchored to enable to be aggressive on the easing side that convinced me. i think a lot of inflation targeting countries including the uk treated their target in a very flexible way. to some extent, there's been migration towards the way the fed had looked at inflation targeting as an explicit but very, very flexible. so you can have your inflation target but also pay a lot of attention to output and employment. >> is it in the '60s where you get the explicit, you have inflation and employment target? humphrey hawkins?

>> '70s, '77. >> congress told the modern fed your goal is to maximize employment, maintain price stability and there's always in this conversation about whether that's too complicated. a, do you think having a dual mandate like that mattered over the last decade or two? and b, would you recommend changing it or not? >> so i think the dual mandate, i think, has mattered more in rhetoric than in action, but there has been so the fed talks a lot about that, but other central, about the employment side of it. other central banks said i think are acting as if that's very, very important to them, but i think it's probably made a little bit of difference around the edges in some of the actions. i think of the ecb tightening in 2008 and again in the summer of 2008 when prices were going up

and again in 2011 because they have only the inflation target. i think in the end, the fed paying attention to both of those things helped the u.s. economy. i think the federal reserve having -- think the dual mandates worked out. and the fact that there is a 2% inflation target makes me feel even better about the dual mandate, about paying some attention to unemployment as long as you have that long run inflation target so you are anchored. i don't think there is much difference between where the fed is today and where inflation targeting central banks are. i do think you have to pay attention to that 2% inflation target. i think it's important that the institution recognize as it does that over long periods of time, and this is in that january 2012 statement, the federal reserve doesn't control the unemployment rate. the unemployment rate is controlled by the structure of

labor markets. that sort of thing. the federal reserve can't dictate the unemployment rate. there is no permanent trade-off between unemployment and inflation, as i was taught at the university of michigan in the early '60s there was. so they need to recognize that and the way over long periods of time to stable prices and maximum and the way to maximum employment and efficiency in the economy is making sure that inflation is stable and low price stability, reducing uncertainty among households and businesses they make decisions. in the short run, and right now there is no trade-off whatsoever. inflation is well below the target and employment is well below maximum employment. >> during most of the time you were at the fed until recently, the government was always running a deficit that the fed thought was a little too big and the role of the federal reserve

chairman, i remember paul volker and alan greenspan going to congress saying you guys got to tighten your belts. you're making it hard for us. interest rates are higher than they would otherwise be. the test of this was, i think, seen as the early '90s when chairman greenspan encouraged bill clinton to reduce the deficit. it worked as everybody hope, economy got better, interest rates came down, we got more investments. the last few years have been remarkable in that the fed, ben bernanke, janet yellen and others said to the congress, i've got this all wrong. you've got policies too tight, you're not spending enough, you're taxing too much now and we can't lower interest rates so you're making it hard for us. we have a deficit but it's tomorrow's deficit not today's. that's a long wind-up to, how does the fed think about fiscal policy, and particularly, does it compensate for lousy fiscal

policy? should it lecture the authorities? should it try to guess what fiscal policy is and set monetary policy accordingly? >> i think it does all three of those things. i think it has to -- it's been given objectives for output and inflation. you have to guess, forecast, project what the path of all, a lot of variables feeding into those outcomes will be. among them is spending and taxing by the federal government. that's certainly part of your outlook. you have to take a guess as to what it's going to be like you have to take a guess at what foreign growth is going to be, how consumers will act, any other actor in the global economy that comes back. you've got to do that. at the same time, i think all federal reserve chairman including chairman bernanke have said to the congress, we're

taking this as given but we think there's a better what i to do it. you have your hand on this lever and the country would be better off with a different configuration of fiscal policy. i think the chairman of the federal reserve is in a unique position as being perceived as kind of the chief and the nonpartisan economist for the united states without an interest in the administration, without interest in the congress, and an interest only in better economic outcome. i think that's a powerful position. you have to be careful. chairman bernanke came in saying explicitly, i think chairman greenspan got into things like taxing policy and whatnot that item not sure that an independent federal reserve should be talking about. but he has talked about fiscal policy. he's talked about both aspects.

he talked both about too tight in the near term then you haven't done anything. >> what about how you make policy, should the fed tell the congress, look, we are at the limits of our authority and we are not going to keep buying bonds until you guys get your house in order? >> no. i think the congress knows what it needs to do. the fact that it's had multiple committees and groups trying to get it done, i don't think it's up to an independent central bank to use its tool to bludgeon another part of the government to do what it needs to do under its own authority. and then in bludgeoning and disciplining the other part of the government, steer away from the legislative objectives that it's been given. i think the central bank is on the best path, the most offensible path where it says you told us to do these things, that's what we're doing. if the federal reserve feels,

and i agree, if it were not to have undertaken these unusual policies, that the economy would be weaker, interest rates would be higher, there might be a little more pressure on the congress to do something. i wouldn't bet a lot of money in this partisan environment if anything would have gotten done if interest rates were 150 basis points higher, but i would bet money more people would be out of work, inflation would be lower and perhaps headed even lower. taking a chance, not doing your best to hit your legislative objectives in order to teach those guys a lesson? i don't like that. i don't think that's good public policy. >> let me ask you about one more topic before we turn to questions. i came to washington 1987. the federal reserve's communication policy was basically somewhere between nothing and mumbling. in 1987 the federal reserve didn't even announce after an

fomc meeting what the decision was. you had to discern it from the markets. you've been there as there have been increasing amounts of transparency. you were actually involved. you were writing the statements when they started to write them. i think i'll say as an objective observer, the care with which the statements were written has diminished since you left. so first of all, has it worked and secondly, is there too much? >> i think it's worked. no. i don't think there is too much of it. i do think there are limits on clear communication. i think it was very important. the first statement we put out was in february of '94 when we raised interest rates the first time in several years. we thought it was important that people know what we were doing and there wasn't much in that statement, if i remember correctly. it was just a couple of

sentences. >> give the market a heart attack. >> right. but the market survived that heart attack. economy survived three percentage point of interest rate increases in '94 early '95 just fine. that laid the ground work for the soft landing and continued growth. we thought it was important they know what we are doing and there not be a lot of uncertainty about it. over time those statements grew to add more explanation why we did what we did. i thought that was great. if they understood what which were doing, the markets were more likely to behave in a stabilizing way rather than destabilizing way if they understood what the fed was up

to. the statements and the way they've grown have been a positive -- have helped people. part of what's happened if i think back to the volker era and before, part of what's happened you had more and more people involved in the markets. you've got all these new services so everything happens instantaneously. the information spreads much faster, more people are interested. in the old days, in the '50s and '60s into the '70s, the fed was talking to a small group of primary dealers whose economists had come from the federal reserve board or federal reserve bank of new york and everybody was kind of understood where everybody else was. there were still problems. as the markets became more democraticized it was necessary to talk to more people and

explain to more people and explain more clearly. i think particularly in the crisis and aftermath, an awful lot of the effect of federal reserve policy has been in the communication. so conveying that you intend to keep interest rates low at least until unemployment is below 6.5%. >> that sounds good in theory. if you look at the past year, it seems we've seen down sides of this. it's hard to commit to a future when you're not sure what it is. the longer the statement gets, the harder for all 19 members to agree to it. how would you judge how well they've done a communications in 2013? >> i think there were some stumbles, obviously. particularly in may and june. to some extent we are seeing at least for now the outer limits of the communication. just for the purposes, just for the reasons you gave. you don't know what's going to

happen. you don't fully understand what's going on in the system, all the economic relationships between growth and employment, and employment and inflation. so there are lots of surprises there. i think the disagreements within the committee which are good, you form, congress forms committees. in order to get multiple points of view, diversity within the committee, that is the strength of a committee structure, but it impedes clear communication when it's not clear where the center of the committee is, what it's going to do. all those things limit the extent to which you can talk about what you're going to do next because you don't really know what you're going to do next. i think the unemployment rate issue is nice illustration of

that. fed put 6.5% unemployment rate on this as we won't tighten until we go below that. they started correctly saying that's not the only metric we are going to look at. we'll look at all kinds of metrics for the labor market. that's absolutely the right thing to do. in may and particularly if june, july there was this thing about a 7% unemployment rate that was forming a metric for the tapering. there were communications challenges and people misread them. maybe they misspoke. i think part of what you were seeing was the dynamics going on inside the committee being reflected in the communication outside. i hope the fed recognizes that it should be as clear and predictable as it can be legitimately, but trying to go beyond where that legitimate border is is very hard in trying to go beyond that could

constrain the flexibility, which as you noted was one of my concerns some time ago, and could mislead people. >> i want to turn to the audience. is there anything along this line you wish i asked you i hadn't you want to opine on? >> the due diligence question by the "wall street journal" reporter. >> i thought it was a courtesy to the interviewee. >> no. i'm sure the audience will come up with it. >> tell us who you are and remember the questions and with question marks. >> we can't see very well. >> if you don't have a question, i'll keep talking. craig again? you have to ask a different question. >> the guy with the mike ought to go somewhere else, i think. >> sorry about that, don. i'm craig torres from bloomberg. here is an interesting question, don. >> if you don't say so yourself. >> every forecast period the

fomc has looked for stronger growth in the year ahead or two years ahead. we've all seen the charts. actually, the u.s. economy is moving ahead now four years after the recession below the trend line of 2007. if you look at qe-3, the ten-year yield has gone up, savings rates stayed the same, investment spending isn't all that great. it's had some effect on housing, i grant you that and maybe on employment. here's the question. how do you give a diagnosis of the economy? it looks like the recession precipitated habits by businesses and corporations. i mean, sorry, households and corporations that are much more cautious and long lasting. how do you talk about that as a central bank without being so

down beat you actually form expectations to a lower growth trend? do you know what i mean? i think the fomc has to come clean on their forecast. >> are you asking why is their forecast wrong or are you asking begin that we seem to be in this period of disappointing growth, what do they do about it? >> my question is, is it time for them to be more honest perhaps about their forecast? >> i reject the premise of your question. >> they're just wrong. they're not lying. >> predicting has been very difficult. i think it's a combination of things we don't fully understand. so for one, things have happened that haven't been anticipated. one was the euro crisis and potential for the break-up of the euro zone which came back to the u.s., not only in european recession but in questions about financial stability. another one was fiscal policy.

federal fiscal policy, which was, i think, much tighter in 2013 than most people would have anticipated in 2011 or even 2012. state and local governments have been under more pressure and have cut back. there are a bunch of different things, i think, that people didn't anticipate that have held the economy back, the head winds. i think taken longer for the real estate credit and real estate markets to get going, back going again. usually residential real estate leads out of a recession. this time allows for production to get far enough below population to take care of that excess housing. and in addition, i think there

are questions about what long-term trends are here. it's -- larry summers raised and others have raised -- noted, there is long-term downtrends real interest rates and questions about what long-term growth is going forward, not only from demographics but innovation and productivity and that might be depressing interest rates, equilibrium interest rates in a way that hbt been anticipated before. what the federal reserve needs to -- has to do is say, here's our projection and how we get there and here's why we're projecting what we're projecting and it's up to us to evaluate how -- and here's how that projection and our actions lead to our legislative objectives. >> i apologize for using the

word -- is there another question in the front? >> peter brown. i was wondering if you can -- we invoked three in the weeks right before. congressman responded to 13.3 and two ways, one is the institution of the liquidation authority as part of dodd frank and the other is by amending 13.3 itself through a move the discretion of making individual extensions of credit discount window making those more broad based. if you were sitting where you were sitting in spring of 2008 and looking at the law as it was written now in 2013 and 2010, what do you think of this? do you think this is an improvement? are you better members of the board of governors of the federal reserve to respond to

these liquidity and credit situations that you are phasing with an ola and new 13.3, or is this a strep in the wrong direction? >> no, i think -- having ola is really important. we had very -- and very positive development. so we had very few choices open to us in the spring of '08 or fall of '08 because there wasn't an orderly liquidation authority. banks had orderly liquidation and we could take them over and sell the deposits and loans over the weekend. but no wasn't available for other institutions or bank holding company that weren't banks. i think we're in much better place having an ordererly liquidation authority and flexibility for the fdic to use

it punishing the shareholders, they'll be wiped out and culpable management and i agree with simon, it will be difficult -- in some cases it will be obvious who is culpable and in many cases it won't be and punishing the way it's going to be implemented and punishing the creditors, particularly the creditors of the bank holding companies. i think these organizations will be subject to more market discipline and creditors will not be free of that discipline which is essentially what happens. it's a very good change. the changes to 13.3, i think are a bit of a mixed bag and they go beyond what you said. so now 13.3 can't -- can't be used for troubled individual institutions and must be used for widely available credit.

it needs approval of secretary of treasury. i think that's going to be okay too. so my experience is that secretaries of treasury of deeply involved with crisis management and there's a lot of communication between the fed and treasury and the secretary that agreed was both secretary paulison and secretary gitener were closely working. i think that the secretary will be along in the crisis management of what i worry about two things, two other changes in 13.3, one is that if a nonbank borrows from the federal reserve, the federal reserve is required to send the name of that institution to congress that week.

now, and congress can be requested to keep it confidential. put yourself in the position of the bank. then the -- i think that one of the things -- one of the difficult problems we ran into administrating the discount window is stigma. we thought there was a problem here. inner bank funding market was broken. we wanted banks to borrow in order to keep that problem so this is the bid the market maker banks weren't lending to each other. we could lend to the banks and prevent households and businesses from being affected by the seizing up of the inner bank market and cp market, et cetera. but if you think your name might come out, you're going to be very reluctant to borrow until the last minute until the crisis is already there.

there's a real tension between the desire for public accountability of the federal reserve and what it's doing and the effectiveness of the federal reserve's actions and the pen dual um swung and too far on the transparency side. i'd like to tell a story of an insurance company executive i talked to in the spring of '08, i guess, or '09, after our securitization facility was opened and i said, your company isn't participating and you're not helping us get the securitization going again. and this was shortly after the automobile manufacturing ceo had come to washington in their private planes and this guy said, my boss told me and he was

head quartered in connecticut, that if he has to ride his bike to washington, d.c., to testify in front of barney frank, i'm fired. so we are not participating. >> one over here. and one over there. why don't you start and i think that will be it. >> sam altman, george washington finance. are there any opinions as to -- you alluded earlier to the market drop we saw. related to the possible he'sing of qe made it into the guidance. has therein been effort into discussing a level of the market that would be an allowable correction going forward, such as what we're experiencing now? >> i'm sorry, i didn't understand the question. >> i'm going to try. so how -- do you have a view on

how much of a reaction it wants to get when it tapers? what's enough and what's too much? >> i think it probably does. and clearly they got much more in may and june than they were thought they should have. when you take any monetary polycy action, you're thinking about what the effects will be on the markets and what the feedback of the markets will be on the economy and on inflation and how that feeds into your whole point of taking an action is often that get a feedback and how it feeds back on the economy. there are a couple of people in this room who worked with me on something called the blue book, the policy -- the policy choicers and we spent a lot of time saying -- trying to figure out how to say, if you do this, we expect this kind of market reaction and that will have the

following effects on your forecast. yes, i'm -- >> the track record guessing what the market would do? >> not very good. i'm looking at some -- >> and sir, your question. >> you mentioned about the lessons from japan and i agree that the fed has quickly crisis learning from japan's experience, but in the 2002 and 2003, fed also very concerned about the deflation looking at japan. so at that time, feds say for a long time and late on tightening. i think in this case you learned a long lesson from japan. >> good question. it is basically, in order to avoid japanese style inflation, the fed kept interest rates low for quite a while in the 2000s

and some people think that was one of the reasons we had the asset bubble and the bust. >> i don't think our -- my view is that our monetary policies through 2003 -- and i think a lot of the criticism is not so much in the 2003 but we didn't raise them fast enough in 2004 and 2005. i don't think that was a major contributor to the bubble. i think i would vote much more on the credit markets and standard set in the credit markets. i think another, 25, 50, 75 basis points there would have made very little difference in the housing market per se. there were other forces at work and in the end we didn't get -- we got, i think a little bit of an increase in inflation before the crash came and we maybe overshot the one point by a little bit, but i don't -- i don't think easing in contrast

to john taylor and others, i don't think the monetary policy >> you can watch president obama and other heads of state as a address thousands in johannesburg. >> house speaker john boehner officially invited president obama to deliver the annual state of the union address before joint session in congress. at the briefing, i jay carney confirmed that the president accepted his invitation. his address is scheduled january 28 at 9:00 p.m. what half live coverage. was investigation

into retired fbi agent robert levinson who went missing in iran. some of what jay carney had to say that levinson was a former contract or. >> thank you. anymore questions? the ap has based on documents that levinson was iran working for the cia. why did administration say he had been on iran in a business trip and will you continue to say that? was not a u.s. government employee when he went missing in iran. there's an ongoing investigation into his disappearance am i am not going to comment further on what he may or may not have been doing. i am not going to fact check every allegation. it was highly responsible, the

story of a to publish in which nottrongly urged the outlet to publish out of concern for mr. levinson's safety. i will not say anything that further harm our efforts to bring him home safe which is been our goal for 6.5 years that he has been missing. since he disappeared, the u.s. government has vigorously pursued and continue to pursue all investigative leads as we would with any american citizen missing or detained overseas of the team to be focused to do everything we can to bring bob, safe to his family. this remains a top priority of the u.s. government. he's a private citizen could mean the same as him being there? >> first of all, i will not comment on every allegation of the story. if somebody ist detained overseas and it is published, true or false, he is

working with the cia, it is dictated by logic. very likely put that person in greater danger. you doesn tell you is not a u.s. government employee when he made the trip. i am not going to get into any more details. i understand this a couple can issue. it deals with obviously the safety and security and the life of an american citizen. -- i understand is a complicated issue. it is under investigation by the fbi. i am limited in what i can say about it. and really beyond what i said. >> what the administration believes is the status currently? can you be specific about what efforts and the administration is undertaking to have him returned to the u.s.? >> mr. levinson disappeared from

iran. we received indications that he was being held somewhere and southwest asia. at the time, secretary of state clinton asked the iranian government to safely return and reunite bob with his family. because our readiness government had previously offered to assist in this matter. more recently, president obama raised his case in his phone call with president rouhani. saheed.ion, secretary kerry has raised these cases directly to iran's former -- foreign minister. the yield rate -- we reiterate to anybody who might have information about mr. levinson's whereabouts to ensure he returns safely to his family.

again, this is something we continue to raise at the highest to -- makeo press or clear to the iranians we seek their assistance in having returned home and to express anyone else who might have information about his whereabouts undertake efforts to return him back home to his family. >> does the demonstration believe he is still alive? 2011 were made aware in that he was at the time in southwest asia. i do not have more details or any more specifics about was we know about his whereabouts. we are very concerned about him and call on anyone with the knowledge of his whereabouts to undertake efforts to assure returns safely home. >> was president rouhani aware?

i would be surprised if he were not. i do not have direct memory of that conversation. to say with assurance, it would be surprising because it would 2011ing back to a least that secretary clinton raised the issue and called on and help becausen's they had helped in the past. bring public affairs for washington directly to you putting you in the room at congressional hearings about white house events and conferences and offering complete gavel-to-gavel average of the u.s. house all as a public service of public industry. created by the cable tv industry 34 years ago and funded by your local provider. you can watch it in hd.

next, a briefing in syria. a discussion on the recent budget deal in congress and impact on future bipartisan efforts. m lookingfrom the foru at the federal reserve system. un release a report saying chemical weapons were likely used repeatedly in syria in addition to the attack that took place in damascus. team that with the led the investigation. from the headquarters in new york city, this is 50 minutes.

>> thank you for coming. i'm with the office for disarmament affairs. i would like to introduce the people who are at the desk. the office for disarmament affairs, the head of the missions, the u.n.'s mission, and with him is a person of the organization for the prohibition of chemical weapons, one of the team leaders, and also another team leader from the world health organization.

so, the professor will make a statement and then we will take questions. i'm sorry -- i'm sorry -- i'm going to make a statement. then the doctor and then we will take questions. >> i do not want to make an introductory statement. i want to thank you for being here. there has been publication flowing after the report was put on the website yesterday. i'm simply here to answer any questions when it comes to the mechanism or anything that road plates to the u.n. secretariat and also for the overall effort that the secretary-general entrusted me with. the people who have to tell the story are the professor, and others, and they're the ones who will speak and they are the ones who will be able to answer all your questions. i'm sure you have many of them. let me turn to the others.

>> as you are well aware of, we completed our final report of the secretary-general. of the investigational allegations of chemical weapons use in syria. the secretary has received 16 allegations. we read this allegations, and seven of them warranted full investigations. the report, what you have probably studied or maybe should study, is the seven follow-up investigations. in conclusion, they split into three groups. there is one group with the allegations which is relatively large size events.

they encompass parts of the society but the military, the hospitals, the rescue workers, several witnesses, whatever. those type of allegations is quite simple to investigate, especially if you are in the site that we were in. we could not follow the second place we investigated. we were not able to go there. but the footprints in the society following a large event is so obvious that you can make conclusions from what we referred to as epidemiology. the second class of offense that we now report to our three events that happened in a medium-sized environment. it happened to soldiers, two syrian soldiers. and we find as we see these soldiers, we interviewed them, so on, in some places we were able to go. in other places we were not able to go to the site because it was contested. but the evidence in this group of events is based basically on interviews and lots were taken.

in the third class of the investigations that were performed we deal with something which is quite unique in the context of chemical weapons come and that is areas amounts being used. this comes to the incident and also another incident. the latter incident we could not pursue. the earlier one we could pursue because a woman that was intoxicated there was taken by ambulance into turkey. she died passing the border into turkey, and we could then take samples in an autopsy performance, and we could then confirm the presence of sarin or sarin signatures. these are the sorts of events we now report on, and as you know,

our mandate is only to report on the use of chemical weapons. i would like to acknowledge the contribution of my colleagues, and i would also like to acknowledge all the u.n. support that has been there from the office of legal affairs, who paid for the political route for this to be possible. but also the seven logistic efforts and security efforts with the field organizations, with the u.n. i will not say any more. the floor is open for questions, if my colleagues want to have a comment at this stage. >> ok, so we will take questions. if you could announce what organization you are with, and if you can use your side microphone, please.

>> i represent the united nations association, and i represent -- my question to you is that which is the follow-up on all anything else, everybody else asking the same questions, but you have seen, you have been to those places, and you say in fact that chemical weapons were used by both sides. now, the basic question comes in that, yes, you did not have the mandate to apportion the blame as to who is the one to be blamed. but in the broader sense, can you point in time at when this happened, and for the mitigation of the people who were hurt in these attacks that certain measures that can be taken to bring to justice the people who

did commit these crimes? did you come across any such things, and these are the questions which are now on everyone's minds. >> thank you for your question. first of all, you say that both sides were active. we do not say that. to go from this step where we are to confirm the use and to go into attribution requires quite some more efforts. it requires more resources. and on top of that, it requires that the mechanism that we are following allow methods to be used that is not allowed today. the guidelines that we are working through is set by the member states them and they are

not very intrusive. the techniques and the technologies you need to do a forensic investigation could be intrusive to the extent that it is not allowed in the guidelines. i think it was a wise decision that we should not try to go into the attribution and to try to pursue the investigation into attribution. we are there to find facts. we are on a fact-finding mission, and these facts could be used as others. others could put these facts in connection would have other information, and others pursue the issue of attribution. >> do you believe that you were given all the opportunities to perform the functions of your responsibility completely to your satisfaction, or do you think you could have had some more time to come to more conclusions? thank you. >> given the circumstances, i think we have the time and the

resources that we needed. >> what we were told that when you provided the council the briefing that you characterized the quality of the sarin as fairly high grade or high quality. and if you can confirm or say what you want about that, but what i tried to do is get a sense of the recent cases, some of the ones which involved poisoning of soldiers, whether you were able to compare the quality of the sarin, if it was a similar grade, a lower great, and if there was a big about his the mostng about recent incidents -- i know you did not have access to the munitions, and some of the

evidence was degraded -- anything that indicated that it was a less sophisticated type of delivery system or anything that indicated this is more of a do- it-yourself kind of weapon or sarin than -- >> if the chemistry is primitive, it is a difficult issue, and you need quite much chemical to be able to assess that. what we have done in these investigation is to find remainders of sarin in lots -- blood where you do not usually find sarin. it is impossible to have that discussion. when it comes to the munitions, we cannot confirm, cannot verify the allegations when it comes to munitions, but delegations talked about the catapult, like who made the device, a propane

cylinder, but this goes with the allegations. and it is not verified by us. >> [indiscernible] to follow up on munitions, we seem to have heard of occasions of fairly strange munitions, including plastic grenades, that may have been dropped by helicopters. can you comment on that? the second question, is the presence of hexamine, which you cite, was hexamine found in several of the incidents? >> i will send it to my chemical colleagues. the first one, the allegation, and some witnesses reporting that we could not corroborate the statements of the plastic cylinders, it is not verified by

us. this is in places we never saw the munition in its primary state, in its native state. so again, the missions are reported on, but we have not been able to verify it. as it comes to the hexamine, what is the significance of that? >> the significance of hexamine, some allege the hexamine is used as an acid stabilizer. others have alleged it is a remnant from an artifact of reduction of rdx, which is a high explosive. it is also used as a heating element for homemade stoves.

it has a number of uses. you will see in the final report a much more comprehensive detailing of some of the chemicals that were found, particularly in one incident. and in the samples you will see that hexamine is found. >> was that the only incident where it was found? >> those were the only samples we were able to take. it is clear in the report what types of samples we were able to take. >> matthew lee. thanks for doing the briefing. it is too rare in the u.n. system. video.sion received a

i want to know if there was a russian journalist who said there was a two gigabyte video file, and if you found a video of use, and i wanted to know there seems to be that some people say the rocket was filmed elsewhere before you guys looked at it and i wanted to know if their only one rocket you look at, and are you aware of this claim? what do you think the range of the rocket was? a lot of it seems to write on that, where it comes from, and we were wondering what you were finding. >> the incident you refer to is the correct video. that video, together with a lot of open source information, help us with the background narrative. as for the other open source information, it is difficult to verify. we have to be on site in the country to verify what sort of

narrative to spin from the sources. then you moved to the other incident and you referred to the rocket being seen somewhere else. we have nothing -- no evidence has been presented to us that would make us confirm that. what else? >> [indiscernible] >> yeah. we have seen like you have seen problems, performing studies on these rockets. and we have consulted with experts, and if you simulate the flight path, it seems not to meet where may be indicated from the report. two kilometers could be a fair guess, i would assume. it all depends.

you have to sort of set some parameters, which we do not do not know to the extent they were filled or what they were filled with. we do not know their weight. two kilometers could be a fair guess. now, what else? >> the gentleman in the second row here. >> thank you. on the attack you mentioned in the report, there was an ied that contained the gas. is that something you have seen before, that they have had it in the arsenal of the government? in syria i have not heard much about it. is that something the government would use? did you tell the security counsel about that all of the gas, because that was leaked

from the council about what you are talking about, the quality of the sarin. if you could address that. >> i tried to make some comment on the quality of sarin, and i compared it to my experience in iraq. the ied -- i am not an expert and weapons enough. we have seen other ied's before, although not as many or as well known as the ones used in iraq. there is evidence. >> are you specifically talking about a chemical ied? >> this is something the government has been using, or appears to have been using. >> i think in the history of warfare, improvised explosive

devices have been used by all parties through all conflicts at certain times within the conflicts. whether modern forces or other forces. we cannot speak to who may possess or use ied's in the country, however, i think a lot of the social media and events coming out of syria have shown that explosive devices, whether improvised or not, have been used. >> the government talks about the victims, does that tell you something? >> it is hard for me to say who is the victim of an ied. >> reports say the government is the victim. >> yes, i understand that they say it was government soldiers, but i have no way of knowing the nationality or the identity of the improvised explosive devices. >> is this the first time you have ever reported government soldiers being victims of gas, correct? >> that is correct.

we also say in the report that because of the circumstances at the scene, we could not cooperate -- corroborate the link between the gas and soldiers. >> and the other two soldiers involved? >> no, it's the same. in the city, it it corroborates the allegations. >> thank you very much. i'm from the associated press. before i ask my question, i wonder if you could tell us what you told the members of the general assembly about the quality of sarin, so we don't have to go and ask all of our diplomatic friends and get it wrong?

but my real question is that the secretary-general just urged that those responsible for these attacks be brought to justice. i know that you sort of addressed that in the beginning, but what i'm asking you is, is it actually -- if more research were done, if other people took this up with a different mandate than you had, is it possible to determine who was responsible? >> to take the last question first, it really has some political inclination, the question. we work with something we call the secretary-general's

mechanism. that is given to the secretary- general by the general assembly. but it also states sort of the rules for what can be used when you do this investigations. we can lean on what is told in the decision taken in 1989, but we could also lean on what is agreed upon, what the who could do. but it is all sort of controlled by the member states of these various organizations. so we are not free, as a police force would be free, to use any method they could to validate or have a chain of custody. member states, if several member states are not called upon going further on this, there are other ways to do that. and here maybe i should let you say something. >> thank you.

before i come back to that question, let me say that the team did not make a statement just now in the general assembly. the secretary-general made a statement to introduce the report, and then there was a chance for member states to respond to it. so they did not make a statement. coming back to the mechanism, there have been a number of calls for an additional mechanism, additional investigations, and and i think with the team has said is this is the mandate we have. this is the mandate we were given by the member states. and if there are other ways to come to a truth finding as to the responsibility, surely that will be undertaken. we must also remember that we have had two more recent experiences, recent investigations conducted. one was in lebanon, and the other was about pakistan's benazir bhutto. i can isms were decreed by the member states for those particular cases.

in this case, the secretary- general's mechanism specifically says weather, but not who used chemical weapons. -- says whether but not who used chemical weapons. >> page nine it is mentioned the commission of human rights has a more precise mandate. so that is the form of the commission. no, it is a different mandate. they are investigating any chemical weapons. >>[inaudible] >> they are part of the same thing. a good example of interagency collaboration. >> my question is, you can say who is responsible for the use of chemical weapons, though there is evidence they were used against soldiers.

then if there are other elements besides the army using chemical weapons, how can you make sure that in syria chemical weapons are eliminated in the country totally? >> this is the task we have been given. would you like to comment on that? >> i was wondering if it should be me or our cw. this is a totally new mechanism now. obviously, we have the mandate to verify that the stocks are destroyed and also verify that the stocks are actually as declared by the government. so i think this is the process that is ongoing now. the deadline is june 30 next year. so far we are on track.

but maybe scott should really address this. >> [inaudible]. another thing are the elements, other factions that are using chemical weapons, then it is not out of control, there is a war there. >> that is a good point. however, the fathers and mothers of the chemical weapons convention have not put in within the convention a requirement for and a seating member state to have legislation in the country to make it illegal to possess, use, or otherwise control chemical weapons. we expect, like all member states, that syria will

implement such legislation making it illegal for anyone within their territory or citizens of syria to possess, use, or otherwise control chemical warfare agents or chemical weapons. >> may i remind you that there is a firewall between these activities. we are confined to investigating the use. there is a total and other activity, and that is taking care of the chemical weapon transporting them out of the country. >> thank you. you were very careful with observing the chain of custody when you transferred the samples to the laboratories in europe. i understand, correct me if i'm wrong, that you had to officials from the syrian government to accompany the samples. but did you have officials or observers from the opposition? we have two parties to this conflict. unless europe represented the opposition, you must also -- because they also faced

accusations of using chemical weapons. and if you did not, why didn't you have officials from the opposition accompany the samples to the laboratories? because you really give the impression if you didn't that the government is the one that is accused. the second question is, looking at the deadlock we have with the security council and the use of veto, if the information you supplied was never used to somehow pinpoint the culprit responsible parties, would that really disappointing way great deal that so much work, so much effort, so many risks you have taken, and then they are not used to determine who is the guilty party and punish them and stop further attacks in the

future as a deterrent like this? >> the last question first. i think we have gathered as much information as we could. what will eventually happen with this information, how will be used in the future, we don't know. but it could be useful if the issue is to be pursued by some other body. when it comes to the precedence of representatives of the syrian government, and the chain of custody issue, it is set out in the guidelines that if we take samples, we are to split the samples with the member state. and the member state in this case, we do it two ways. when we take blood samples, we take blood samples, they take blood samples from the same patient at the same time, and we split it this way. when it comes to soil or when it comes to metal pieces, this is much more difficult to do. if we take a metal piece and we break it in the middle, we may have the positive side of it and they may have the negative, or the other way around.

so in order to split samples when it comes to what we referred to as environmental samples, soil, metal pieces, whatever, that has to be done in the laboratory at opcw, and the guidelines then say that the member state should be there. and there is only one representative of the member state. >> there are two parties in the conflict, and so many fingers now pointing to the opposition for the use of chemical weapons, but they were not invited to preserve the chain of custody. that is my problem with this. >> i'm sorry, let me come in. we are an organization that heels, as you well know, with member states. in the mechanism, it is clearly stated how we proceed in the case of a chemical weapons investigation. the alleged use of chemical weapons. the say. government asked the syrian government was the ones who came to us. they are very distinct guidelines. us is a 90 page guidelines.

every step is outline. on top of that, you make an agreement with the government how you proceed, and that is the way we proceed. we split samples with the government because they need to know that the samples actually were taken from their soil and from the people that they met and sampled. until the case is resolved. >> evelyn leopold. mrs. kane, have you used your considerable influence to get another agency to break the firewall? as you can see by the questions and as you have heard, it's a chasm where everyone rushes in depending on their political preference, and the issue will not be solved of whether the government or the opposition uses them unless there is naming and shaming. >> thank you for the compliment

of my considerable influence, but i'm afraid that when you look at it, i am really very pleased in many aspects that what we now have is i believe as i think of the investigation that took place, we had syria acceding to the chemical weapons convention, and that is a fantastic achievement. that leaves only four countries outside of the chemical weapons convention. two have signed and not ratified, so it is basically six, but it is a very small number. and one of those countries assured me last night they are in the process and very close to exceeding to the chemical weapons convention as well. so that is very good news. but i do think this is now, if i can call it now, a chapter of the investigation and that is a chapter that is closed. there may be something that may

happen subsequently with regard to the accountability. that is really up to the member states. on the other hand, i think the firewall has to be there because you cannot combing all this. -- you cannot co-mingle this. the firewall is therefore a very good reason and i would not use my influence to break that. >> third row. >> james, al jazeera. we now have your 82 page document of the results you came up with in this mandate. talk about future investigations. maybe your data and samples when they will become evidence. where are they, what happens to them, and how can they be attained by a prosecuting authority? could the international criminal court, can a private prosecution? who can get a hold of the role data, the role samples now? --the raw data, the role samples now? >> everything is stored and everything is accessible if

there is a legal procedure. i don't know. >> we have actually discussed this, and that is a very good question. basically, the work was done by the secretaries mechanism, so the samples and everything else is the property of the u.n. there is considerable interest not only in the possibility of following up with regards to aidan accountability question, but also considerable interest on the part of the laboratories that have performed the analyses. again, after a very long time, after many years, it was the first time for many they had such complete samples. so there is considerable interest in publishing some of the results and also having some of the research that was done on that. we have not come to a conclusion. frankly for us the first priority was to get the investigation done, put it before the world community, there it is. how the next that we need to

concentrate on is how it is going to be safeguarded, how it is going to be stored, how it is going to be guarded as a living document that can be accessed by others if so wanted. >> but if a victim of this decides to take on a private prosecution, would the u.n. hand over the samples? what are the rules governing this? >> i would have to request advice from our legal counsel, frankly. >> i think it is also important to remind you that the samples and the information that we have received is still under a chain of custody. the chain of custody did not and when the samples were open for analysis. the remnants of the material was put act into the vials, sealed up, and the chain of custody remains. >> this is a very good point, if i may add, it is a few scientific value. having seen it documented the victims in the first place, the chemical -- the clinical features, the treatment to be received.

there is a lot to be learned and validate what we think we know. about the handling and managing of chemical weapons, chemical agents. it is important that it is not just the sample itself, but also the studies and knowledge that can be used to save more lives next time it happens. >> let me add a human element to this. it were many victims, many case studies. they were videoed, recorded, etc., so there is an element of privacy also. these people trusted us with this information, so we have to be careful not to use it in a way that would be contrary to their interests. >> you also have ethical considerations. >> the woman in the first row. >> thank you, my name is sylvia. when the destruction of the chemical weapons, is there any safe mechanism to get rid of these chemical weapons? and which country will supervise

the destruction of these chemical weapons? and where will it be done? because there are reports that it be done in lebanon. >> i don't think we have the answer to your questions. chemical weapons are destroyed at this time. it is done in this country, it is done in the russian federation. there are safe ways of doing it. activity has been going on for 15 years -- >> 16. >> 16 years. so there are safe ways of doing it. a our risk assessments, all crossings taken.

so whatever the end result of this, i think we should trust, and i trust it will not stay in lebanon. >> the gentleman in the second row. >> yes, i'm from rome. when you just arrived, you said that you were able to do successful this mission because you had the mission not to find out who actually used it, just paraphrasing, but that is what i understood it to mean. which means instead year mission had been different, the way maybe the syrian government or any other -- you feel that you had not been able to accomplish what you did, and then before you arrived in syria, you must have an idea of what you're going to do and accomplish, and today, one to 10, how much are you satisfied with your work? >> i think your first question

has a political dimension and a technical dimension. if we were to an interview shame, -- if we were to do an attribution, this would be a different setting and i would not comment on that. but technically, i think we did what we could do. we used instruments that we were asked to use and we arrived at the conclusion. on a scale of zero to 10, i think we are 8.7-something. and i think it is very difficult to go from where we are using the same information. i would not be able to pinpoint who was the perpetrator. i would not be able to say that. you have to have more methods.

the have to use methods that are not validated yet and so on. so given the task, given the mandate we had, we have lived up to the scale of 8.7, i would say. >> may i comment? there is a difficulty in planning for a mission and going right after an incident, where you can undergo activities. the political negotiations are taking place, and the entry point is leaps in time. so the planning and the type of technique that you use will change and adapt accordingly. so the investigation, the scale of the tragedy was around us, but it was a few days -- the scale of the tragedy was horrendous, but it was a few days and the suffering was so great, that is one type of investigation. going into another investigation, six months later, you have to go buy a certain set

of successful and succeeding chains of thinking and proving, one after the other, and that was due to the political negotiation between the two. it was not just one technical dimension and one political one, but the interlocking of the two of them. >> one or two more questions. >> thank you. after you finish the investigation report that syria has provided under the second mandate of the elimination of the cw, presenting a declaration of what had passed, what i want to know is whether you guys have looked at it or whether it had shed any light or deepen your understanding of what may have happened or evidence of munitions that were in use were linked to the case, the kinds of things syria had in their stockpile? is there anything that provided

sort of a greater understanding of what may have happened? i understand your mandate is not to find out who, but this is kind of factual information that i think one might want to look at. >> i could say no comments, but i will give you an answer, and that is not really. no, not really, there is no information around that that shed light on what was happening. >> [inaudible]. >> i have to say i cannot answer that question. >> we said this was going to be the last question. ok, one and a half. >> are you asking us to believe that you have no inkling after all of this research and all of

this hard work and risking your life and your colleagues', you have no inkling who is the guilty party in the attacks? because if you're telling that, with all due respect, how good are your results to the future investigations or any attempt to persecute the culprits? >> i am quite happy with what we have achieved. we have probably triggered the syrian government to give up their chemical weapons. i'm quite happy with that. i'm quite happy with the scientific results and so on. >> you should be a politician, really. >> and has told before, these facts could be used by others that have the mandate. we don't have the mandate. i could speculate, and frequently when i sit by myself and friends at dinner i speculate on these issues, but i

don't have information that would stand in court. i don't have the information that would stand in court if i was going to be in court. >> so in the future, court procedures will need much, much more work than what you have done? >> it will need arm information it will need our information and more, yes. >> last question, thank you very much. >> i have a couple of questions regarding perfect nations on the report. -- regarding clerk occasions on the report. could you clarify syrian versus. signature. and i am under the impression -- and the reports of witnesses, a foul-smelling odor was clearly mentioned. so the mandate does not require linking to who did it or how it was delivered, but could you clarify the link between the witness accounts of foul- smelling gases and the evidences of the trace of sarin, and what

are the official numbers of confirmed victims and each of the four incidents? >> i will take the last point there. sarin and sarin signatures. if you are early in an incident, you may find intact sarin in the ground or in urine. you probably would not find it intact in the blood. you may if you have a quick dose and come in after that. when we use the term sarin signature, that means we have scientific evidence that sarin has been there and left a mark. the mark normally in the gas is that sarin is attaching the proteins in the blood and the methodology is to flush sarin back into the sarin form.

so there is a measure that sarin has been there and we refer to that as a signature. sometimes we refer to the signature as the breakdown product that is there. you are correct, sarin is odorless, but whatever is also there at the same time -- explosives, other chemicals -- they could smell. some smell fishy. so there are other compounds. and frequently, people are not very, very -- should i say orientated in a situation like that. their judgment is not very good. they are under enormous pressure, so their judgment is not very good. it could be other things, other smells of explosives or teargas or phosphorus or whatever.

as to your last questions, about the victims numbers -- >> as should teach you better to ask technical questions of a professor. the number of victims are reported by outside of sources. for example, the minister of health of the serious reported victims the same day. -- of the syrians reported victims the same day. so it is very difficult to ascertain unless you go to the morgue and count the death certificates. and in some of the conditions it is borderline conditions, so we really only get what is written here is what we use to compare several outside sources, in addition to the legacy report, the first responders, the samples taken. so it is really a jigsaw puzzle that we do.

>> this is a follow-up -- so the u.n. does not have any official numbers from their investigation on how many victims? it is too difficult to discern? >> one of the doctors interviewed the first day was saying, i was stuffing children's bodies one on top of the other to walk. so it is really difficult to ascertain the number of victims. it is just that what happened was of a certain magnitude. >> i would like to thank all of the members of the panel, and also thank you, journalists, for coming. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013]

a roundtable discussion on federal gun policy. manger andare tom richard stanek. followed by look at the two-year budget deal passed by the house. we are joined by david lawdar. washington journalism live every morning on c-span. >> this is a train depot. the oldest here. the hold the hustle and bustle of the active, you have phones going off. where she helped organize.

in a brigade was the high neighbor campaign technique used during his run for governor. it was a way to get the word out about jimmy carter using volunteers, shaking hands, giving a literature, and spreading the word. it was so affected a get him -- it was so effective it got him elected to the presidency. >> monday our encore of seasonon of encore two. an event with two former u.s. representatives talking about the recent budget planning congress. what it could mean for bipartisan deals. this event took place one day before the house voted in favor of the budget deal which now requires approval by the senate.

>> good afternoon. i would like to welcome you to the university of min deal reached in washington in terms implicationscal for both the democratic and republican parties as well as the origins of some of what we have been seeing in washington. we have a terrific panel. i would like to introduce the panel. , he served gutknecht in 12 -- for 12 years in the minnesota house and 12 years in the united states house of representatives. , who servedin sabo

for a long time in the minnesota house of representatives, including a speaker from 1973- 1978. he went on to washington, where he served for 13 terms, i believe, in very important positions. it passed a budget act that played a major role in the reduction of the deficits during the 1990s. mine and colleague of teaches courses as well as working with us in some of our other programming. he was a representative in the minnesota house from 1979-2000 seven.

he was also speaker of the house from 1999-2007. i want to begin by recognizing like toague, who would ask a few questions. then we will broaden the discussion how to include stephen the conversation with our panelists. >> thank you, larry. country, the conversation has changed a little bit since yesterday afternoon. congress has had some action on a bipartisan budget agreement, which i think is very good for the country. i would like to look at my two friends. was my right arm on the house floor.

, as of-- speaker sabo yesterday, being the chair of the budget committee in washington, we have had to bring people together. the agreement yesterday, rather than talking about the specifics, let's talk about the tone of it and what it means for the future. thisit signal an end to hypersensitive partisanship? to the discourse that has happened in washington? should we see as -- should we see it as a sign of some cooperation in the future? >> i think it is a plus. it sets the framework for

discretionary spending for this fiscal year and the next fiscal year. there are major problems that remain unresolved. those will remain difficult. we will find a little bit more will we get to the question of extending the debt ceiling next spring. clearly, that is something that has to happen. >> congressman, being in the republican side, now in control of the house, you read some accounts where it is not harmony. maybe because of what is not in the bill. this is your caucus.

i did not want to turn this into winners and losers. how can republican be against this deal? it is going to reduce the deficit. it does not raise taxes. it is $200 billion less. it is not good enough. in the end, it will pass. the more conservative members of the caucus will do some public harping about the deal. both of you were in leadership in the legislature. caucus,elements of the

they are always unhappy with whatever deal is worked out. i suspect that will be the case this time. it does appear the republicans have given up quite a bit. others may disagree with me. end, it is an agreement that we will get the 218 votes in the house and it will pass. there will still be some posturing and there will be some angry people. understand you are focused on the immediate, but i am curious about what you think about the longer-term implications. we have now gone through a government shutdown. we had almost default on the government's debt limit.

deal -- does this deal signal a larger change in the nature of governance? are we getting back to regular order in congress where you will get give and take? >> the short answer, i think it is progress. the longer answer, and i hate to be cynical, there is more about politics relative to policy. the politics have changed dramatically since october when obamacare started trying to enroll people on the website. if you look at the polling theers, in some respects, republicans will be driven to compromise, not only on the budget, but on the debt ceiling. is old adage in politics when your adversary is

committing suicide, do not get in their way. presidentbers for the and the democrats look so bad, i do not think the republicans want to pick fights that they may not be able to win anyway. that this is a good budget agreement and it will pass and you will see some arguments on both sides. i think the deal will be struck on the debt ceiling. it has more to do with the politics than the policy. dealen you look at this and the dynamics within each party and the divisions within the democratic party between the mainstream and the more progressive elizabeth warren side of the party as well as within the republican party and what is the death grip by the

tea party and the liberty movement led by rand paul, does this strike you as a return to the power of the leadership? >> i do not know how to read the republicans at this point. my hunch is that the leadership is going to win on this one. continuing of the resolution, the leadership lost control. politically, they paid a price for that. do not know how to predict the future. term, we still have to deal with some very tough revenue and expenditure issues. i do not see that -- those are off the agenda for the next two years.

i do not see anything happening on those issues. at some point, we need to get to them. , you mentioned how this was a prime attic -- pragmatic political move by the republicans. it is interesting the reaction from the right wing of the party. red state refer to this deal as capitulation and they were upset that the budget deal for two important leverage over obamacare. is this the sign the mainstream of the party is not ready to get tough with that 25 hard-core right-wingers in the house? is this just a temporary tactical disagreement? somewhatk it is

demeaning to refer to people as right-wingers? we do not have left wingers on the side and you call them progressives. went to washington in 1994 and we were looking at deficits of more than $200 billion for as far as the eye could see and we were very serious about controlling spending. and allowing americans to keep more of what they earn so they could reinvested in the economy. you are going to hear some real gnashing of teeth from red state , tea party types. the more conservative wing of the party will not be happy with this deal. in the end, i believe they won't

capitulate, but they will not try to block the deal. cooler heads that are prevailing and leadership is prevailing, so be it. -- theyderstand that all understand that if the objective focuses on what will happen next november, he could not be preoccupied with what is going on here in december. this is december and i thought it was january. i think the republicans won the issue on discretionary spending. the cuts are in real. -- unreal. even the republicans who worked on the appropriations committee understand thet decision on the continuing resolution.

instead of declaring deadlock, they declared victory. in terms of dealing with budget in 1993,was involved going back to where we had no republican votes, even going back to 1990 when bush was president, divided control of congress, and we passed important budget bills, and overwhelming number of democrats or for it -- were for it. if they were there in 1990, they were part of the no vote. in terms of dealing with the budget issues in a bipartisan realistic fashion, the history

in the 1990s was most democrats supported it, some republicans. i would be very surprised if that pattern changes in the future. i expect there has to be a major deal and it will have to be significant. hopefully enough republican voters to make it possible. -- passable. >> it sounds like you to agree. the republicans have a big victory. they have been able to shift the goalposts. in the ryan-murray sideon the discretionary is less by what president obama

proposed. it is even less than what paul ryan proposed. would you agree with the congressman that republicans -- with marty that on the discretionary side that significant progress has been made to the sequester and this budget deal. the issues that remain that are the big issues that we continue to kick down the road are on the mandatory spending. they are the ones that we just cannot get our arms around. unless you deal with the youtlements, can/discretionary spending another 50%, but you can never really get to what i think we all want and that is a fiscally responsible government today -- does not

>> you have to deal with long- term retirement costs. any real solution will be a combination of the two. box that has been the holdup. -- >> that has been the real holdup. obama got hammered. the head of the house republican campaign committee came out instantaneously and slammed him. he was quickly followed by progressives who solve this as another betrayal by the president. termhe issue of long- deficit challenges, medicare, social security, do you see trends in health care spending or with reform that might provide some reason for caution in going too far in medicare?

i think social security is the least complicated of the two. health care is much more difficult. the trends have been down lately. , i hopethat continues that is the case. i am optimistic about that, but not certain. if that is the case, it would help immensely. out you need is to figure how we deliver our health care in this country without that rapid escalation of costs. congress todayn and involved in budget discussions, would you be rushing into the debate? would your attitude be, let's

give it a little bit more time and see how severe this is? >> i would be trying to deal with them. ideal, id write my would have one bill with more spending for stimulus that is needed in the short term. some long-term modifications to the tax system and the entitlement system. i i would go further. i will credit president obama for really making health care a focal point of the national debate. i disagree with the plan he came up with. the truth of the matter is, if you do not get your arms around health care spending in the united states of america where

we are spending 16% of the gdp, most of our competitors are spending less than 10%. it is eating us. it is not just medicare or medicaid. when you think about the federal employees, the federal government, you the taxpayers are the largest buyers of health care. i think we have to be objective and honest with ourselves and say, despite the fact that we spend twice as much as any other society in the world, you cannot argue that we have longer life thectancies, that people in united states are healthier than the people in switzerland. -- and i started this debate while i was in congress to talk about what americans pay for prescription drugs. those kinds of studies, that kind of analysis has to be done. it should be done on a

bipartisan basis. have a so much more to hip replaced in the united states than it does in germany or anywhere else. we need to get to the bottom of some of these costs and figure out ways. i am not sure what the answer is. you could never really get control of the federal budget until you get your arms around health care. >> there is a lot of agreement on that. that is the area of nonpartisan agreement. the issue the congressman is raising is when you look at the last four or five years, the rate of increase has fallen dramatically and there is a debate as to why that is happening. is it the economy slowing down? is it affects from obamacare? the change in expectations among some of the stakeholders?

i do not think anyone has a firm handle on it. the rate of increase has come down and has helped to contribute. >> i want to ask both of you and get my colleague into the conversation. is there something about the agreement today on the budget that gives us any hints as to how other pieces of legislation by be handled by this congress? a lot of concern about the defense budget. enormous concern about the farm bill and getting a past. sed.nd getting that pas speaker, you are a farmer. a lot of our farmers in minnesota are very concerned about the farm bill. when you look to washington and

the agreement that was reached to have a two-year budget on discretionary spending, does it give you hope or realistic sense that congress is going to be able to move on the farm bill? >> it gives me hope that we will be able to move on to the farm bill. it is a path of success that can be built upon. meeting people's expectations is a very difficult thing. meet especially tough to expectations of members in a caucus. more difficult to meet expectations of special interest groups outside the caucus. the farm bill has only a few days left before esch of decision-making. -- a few days left of decision- making. everybody has to tone down their

expectations. this empowerment of murray and ryan, this empowerment of a ipartisan working group, think it does create a path for us to be -- the defense budget. there are 12 different budget bills that have to be addressed. i think this is an historical agreement, modest as it is. it does not include the big- ticket items, medicare, social security. once the appropriators have , i think they will work out those appropriation bills in a .ipartisan fashion

pass.k the farm bill will it comes into some of the things that we have been talking about. you have conservative republicans who are worried about spending and looking to the farm bill to bring some of the spending down. you have democrats that are offended by the magnitude of the stamps.the food if this scenario where this kind of murray-ryan compromise can work out the differences? or will they return to some of the deadlock? >> i want to strongly agree with maon this point. something that is not understood by most pple, once you have the number, once you have the

budget number that the appropriators can work with, once you determine how big the pie is going to be, it gets a lot easier to work out how big each slice is going to be. once you work out how much the committee gets to work with, then it becomes a much easier to work out the details of the budget. i agree with both of these gentlemen. once they have a master agreement they know will pass the house and senate and there is the will of the leadership of the house and senate to pass appropriation bills, all of this becomes a whole lot easier. it also becomes harder for whichever side, it gets harder for them to really fire live ammunition at the target because the deal has been struck and we are just arguing how big a slice everybody gets.

let me just say this about the farm bill. steve should have said, when we have record farm income and we have farmland is selling for $20,000 an acre in northwest iowa, it becomes hard for us to rationalize why we ought to be making these large federal payments to multimillionaire farmers. the whole argument about the farm bill, it a number of nuances to that. while i think it has been extremely ham-fisted the way the republicans have handled this, the whole issue of food stamp programs, the fact that we have 48 million americans on food stamps when it was designed for two or 3 million americans, it is an issue that deserves serious attention. why is that? what are we doing? understand why it becomes

incredibly partisan. we do need to have a dialogue about 48 million of our fellow citizens who have become dependent on the government for something as basic as nutrition. >> i agree. that is the question we have to deal with. it is also related to the -- to theo wherein, reality of our income has gone in this country. people at the bottom end of the income scale, that is a polarized this. -- polarizes. millions of americans are working hard and they are not paid enough for the basics of life. housing, subsidies for food stamps.