is last one, the second one, i like to ask them in a situation like this, a couple from panels, different points of view, a rock range of perspectives from which to testify and answer questions. i want you to each pic maybe two -- go back to what you heard one another saying in response. it could be response to your testimony, questions. the impact of the first panel, some things they said, things they said in the testimony in response to our questions, and think about the ways for us on the side of the dais, that you would just like to put an exclamation point behind and say as he goat out of this room d's sake, keep this in mind. these are good takeaways. that is my second question. think about that.

i first question is i have is for mr. goldstein. talked to this to some extent. i will come back and revisit it very briefly. in the past decade or so, you have overseen 12 independent reports of federal facility security. you have looked at the armed guard programs, you have collaborated with state and local law enforcement and the human capital planning. gao has also conducted what we call them covert testing. you talked about some of that that is going on of federal facilities. in other words, you try to penetrate federal facilities to test how security works. it is like what we do in the nuclear power plant world. again, for the record, how would you assess federal facility security today?

over 30,000 feet, how would you assess federal facility security today, realizing we are on a where folksum, focus on this, going back to 1995, oklahoma city -- is it getting better, worse, it is uneven? >> i think it is very uneven, mr. chairman. yes, there have been improvements since oklahoma city and since the twin towers, of course. we have had more focus on this area. we have more physical protections in many places. we have more intelligence as well. but some of the basic issues stormy unresolved, the kinds of issues that you have brought up in some of your witnesses have brought up this morning. there is still inadequate attention to many of the things that are in the forefront of what we need to do in terms of getting into a federal building and making sure that not only that the people who stand on the

front lines in federal buildings are qualified to be there and can do the service that they are that taxpayerso, are paying them for, but more broadly that we are wising using -- wisely using government resources in this area because we have not effectively adapted a risk management process to the federal portfolio. virtually every building at a level three or a level for security risk is treated in the same fashion, and we did not prioritize across that portfolio in an effective way to make sure that we are effectively spending government resources. so i think we would still have a long way to go, sir. -- ifollow-up question you had to pick the next thing or the first thing that the federal protective services are doing in order to further improve federal facility security as expeditiously as possible?

i do not know if that is a fair question. >> sure. we have talked a lot this morning about two fundamental issues, risk assessments and contract guards. while they are moving slowly, they're trying to move in the right direction in both of those areas. i think the area that still is with the security humidity is a three legged stool between gsa, the federal security committees, trying to figure out the best way to get security at federal buildings. should there really be a significant role for individual agencies within a specific building for people who do not have a lot of security background? should they be making decisions about the government's buildings? i think, while the isc has developed standards to try to improve the level of and effectiveness of the federal committees,

that is an area where they need to spend time out to figure out if that is the this way to protect federal buildings. >> good, thanks. thanks very much. i asked you, mr. amitay, to respond to my first question again. a point you would really like to say, for god sakes, do not forget this, and there's probably more than a few things that we ought to keep in mind, and we will. one or two, if you would. there you go. >> if you will indulge. hearing -- theis focus at this hearing was an navy yard tragedy. in regard active shooter, look at our jurisdiction authority. our guys responded to the navy yard. we were less than two minutes away, and we had people at the of and the department

transportation facility across the street, ready to activate and use their training and equipment. we were held back. real low-level stuff. i need you to demand accountability. referred toee, as by mr. goldstein, in 2009, after they penetrated 10 of our buildings, or fps director sat here and committed to this committee that he would fix the national weapons detection training program. to this day, that program is not complete. >> are they making any progress? >> uneven. it is scattered across the nation. i think the big problems with

visionyou finally have a visioneast somewhat of a , a headquarters, and i guarantee you once that vision leaves headquarters, goes down to 11 different regions, i think 3, 4, 5 different senior executives service officials and the message gets lost, thereby, once again reducing any semblance of accountability. andave 11 different regions 11 different ways of doing business regardless of what our headquarters says. >> ok. thank you. mr. amitay? >> yes, thank you. going off what david just said, it is true that there is a vision now at headquarters. art of that vision is to standardize the training him and

to increase the training, and the lines of communication with the regions do need to be improved. that has always been a problem that it hase fact had to deal with 11 different regions. i think you will see fps -- david mentioned the national weapons training protective program which is the x-ray and magnetometer training program pso's. this will require additional training. compare that to the current requirement of eight hours training and eight hours that is combined with 40 hours of refresher training every three years. that is a positive development. the delivery of this training -- that has been a problem and it has been slow getting it out. stretched-thine inspectors should not be doing training. that should be their mission, and they are starting to turn over tor sp1 to turn it

certified contract security instructors, and we think that is a great idea that will allow for cost efficient and faster training. an active shooter training -- f ps needs to be doing more with that. other agencies are well ahead of fps in terms of training their contract security officers to respond to active shooter incidents. i have talked with several contractors, and they basically say that with those instructions and post orders, there is some confusion for pso's as to what they can do in an active shooter situation. obviously, as the instructions do say, when you're faced with an active shooter and the loss of life, you can engage him. are they able to be more aggressive in terms of maybe detecting an active shooter, if a person comes in as being really suspicious, can make it into a guy's face and see what

he is doing? to delete the active shooter policy for this officers is do not let the threat continue, period. i think fps is working to improve the training, to bring it up to a higher quality. they're working also, as mark said, to try to monitor better their certification and training on themand, mark, stay with that, because we do think that there is technology out there. i sometimes cringe when they say we are working with the science and technology directorate, to basically try to come up with a data management system, something that, as mr. coburn pointed out, that contractors must have. there should be greater integration and terms of the comprehensive data management system. so that fps and contractors can whoho has the -- can know

has the qualifications. >> mr. goldstein, last word? >> one quick quotation for dr. coburn. gao's recommendations -- there've been 26 and only four are in process and have only been in process for about four weeks, meaning there are 22 still open, and we will provide your staff with the exact information on those. >> they're interesting. andrew for the clarification. >> some points that have not been brought up that are relevant. the first, as mr. amitay has said, it is important that there be better clarity in terms of contractors liabilities. we have interviewed dozens of contract guards over the last decade all of whom have felt they do not have clarity on what responsibilities are and when they can use force and cannot use force.

and most have told us over the years that their companies have all but said don't you ever pull out your gun, don't you ever do anything with it. there is a lot of lack of clarity in this area. the second is the role of the federalr at the protective service. it would be great if they were able to, as mr. wright said, to be able to roam around, do more things, be able to assure the security of the buildings they are responsible for. in many cases they are locked at their desk, doing other work. they are involved in getting contracts out the door, often still hundred officers, and the level of things that they are responsible for really precludes them in many instances from actually being out and about and being the eyes and the ears and taking care of the police function that they really have. that would be the second. the third, finally, is i do not believe there really is much coordination at all based on the work we have done in the past with local and state police

jurisdictions, so that when theedy does strike that federal protective service has worked out in any kind of detail with local police jurisdictions exactly what kind of focus, what kind of approach, what kind of counter measures they can take in these tragedies. more work and speed on that area as well. thank you. >> thank you. thank you all for being here. thank you for what you do with your lives. thank you for your preparation for this hearing, for your response to our questions. mr. goldstein, a special thanks to you, and everybody at gao for the continued good work that you do. >> thank you. i do not have time. our caucus lunch has begun, and i am late. so i will wrap it up here. if i had more time, one of the things i would get into is the issue of turnover among these

contract officers. i do not think we have spent much time on that. i would just say, as a closing thought, when i was governor of delaware we had a real problem in the area of information technology training folks who work in that area for us as a state employee, developing their skills, and getting hired away by someone who would pay more money. and the governor who succeeded me was smart enough to realize we ought to pay and change up the way we awarded and incentivized folks who come to work for delaware and that arena. a similar problem in the federal government. if you look at the skill sets, there is a problem in attracting skilled folks in the cyber world, and the department of homeland security, as compared

to the national security area. there is a difference. dr. coburn and our staffs and colleagues are working in a way to reduce that the severity so just hire people who will work in cybersecurity that are trained away by others. we will work on that. it would be interesting to know what we lose -- it is one of the things that we come back to, quality of training, quality of training, but not only original training, but refresher training. the thought in my background is what is going on with turnover. i guess is there is a fair amount of japanese jobs, and a in orderings done-- to benefit taxpayers, but also to benefit the contract officers who good work. i would ask each of you to respond to that if i had time. if you would just raise your hands or by raising your hand, is that a problem, a concern that we should have? ok, thanks for a much. all right. i would just say in closing, the

hearing record will remain open for the next 17 months. [laughter] 70 days, until january 3, 5:00 p.m., and the walrus crochet in responding -- and we will appreciate your responder questions. we hope you have a good holiday season. thanks very much.

>> justice ruth bader ginsburg said yesterday that supreme court justices should not manipulate their retirement so a like-minded president can .ppoint a successor then the debate on the federal budget agreement, which the senate will continue on wednesday. later, tom coburn talks about ways. federalbout wasteful

spending. on the next "washington journal ," it updated on the constitutionality of the nsa surveillance program. we talk with james andrew lewis. a discussion on productivity in the 113th congress. thomas mann and norman orenstein join us. you can see "washington journal" each morning at 7:00 eastern on c-span. we bring public affairs events from washington directly to you. putting you in the room at congressional hearings, white house events, conferences, and offering gavel-to-gavel coverage of the u.s. house. of privatervice industry. created by the cable tv industry

and funded by your local cable or satellite provider. now, you can watch us in hd. justice ruth bader ginsburg spoke about the supreme court during a conversation with theodore olson. olson recently argued before the court on to say sexy marriage -- on two same sex marraige cases. [applause] [laughter]

>> [inaudible] >> audio. someone will also have to control the microphone. [laughter] >> it is a great privilege for me to have the opportunity to ask questions of justice ginsberg instead of the other way around. [laughter] i want to thank all of you out there who planted questions with me in the hopes that i would ask those questions, but i probably will not ask any of those questions. [laughter] let's start with the supreme court of the u.s. you and your court handled the most difficult and most controversial questions of our day and of our society involving life, death, voting, property, race, freedom, and campaign

contributions -- all of those things. what is so special about this court despite the fact that you decide these controversial questions? the supreme court of the u.s. is the most respected institution in our government and has been for a long time. tell us about why that is? >> i would add that it is probably the most suspected high -- most respected high court in the world. one reason is that we have been involved in passing on laws and executive options of constitutionality. in other countries in the world, parliamentary supremacy -- it was deeply rooted.

it wasn't until world war ii that courts abroad began to engage in judicial review for constitutionality. just to take a few notable cases, when president truman decided that the country was at war in korea and could not risk a strike at a steel plant, he took over the steel mills. that was challenged. the court held, mr. president, you do not have that authority alone. you need congress to be with you. what did truman do? the next day, he turned the mills back to the owners. that is remarkable to many courts in the world. we have an excellent police staff at the court.

we have no guns. we do not have our own purse. yet when the supreme court makes , a decision like that, probably nixon.t dramatic one was the court said, turn over the tapes. and he did and he resigned from office. part of it is the court has been at this for a very long time. it is accepted. , bush v. famous case gore. know.ented, as you >> i do know that. [laughter] >> the country accepted it. no one was rioting in the street. the election was settled. the court is a revered

institution. all of the members had one thing want ton, we went -- we keep it that way. we wanted to make sure when we left the court, it would be in a secure position as it was in when we became a member. >> that leads me to a question you do decide very controversial cases. sometimes the dissenting opinions clash with the majority opinions with quite a high level of intensity. yet the court comes back together every year in october after the final decisions are rendered in june. you all seem to get along personally with one another, notwithstanding the difficult and intense decisions that are made. is that true? what are your relationships? >> it is the most collegiate -- most collegial place i have ever worked. more than any law faculty. part of it is that we know we

have to work together to keep the court in the position that it holds. gore as another example, that was a marathon. we have the argument on monday. decision on tuesday. very soon after, we had our regular january sitting. we all came together. it was almost as though nothing had happened. it was the same. we were going on to the new sitting. >> has it always been that way. there was a book written about the court called "nine scorpions in a bottle." [laughter] i know that does not reflect the relationships that exist today. some people felt that in past years, the justices on the court developed animosity towards one another.

if that is true, what do you attribute the relationships that you have now? >> different periods of the court were collegial. and on collegial -- and uncollegial. perhaps most striking example of an uncollegial court was when appointed louis brandeis to the court. wilson had appointed one before. that person did not like jews. so much so that when brandeis conference, he would leave the room. every time there is any justice, we would take a photograph. there is no photograph because refused tok randall

stand next to justice brandeis. there were animosities in the court. from time to time. in the current court, it is most collegial. >> it is well-known that you and justice scalia are very good friends and have a wonderful relationship with one another, notwithstanding the fact that judicial philosophy and your judicial philosophy can be quite distant and you have dissented from his opinions and vice versa. is that true about your relationship with justice scalia? what causes that to be true? >> i met justice scalia for the first time when he was on the faculty of the university of chicago. i was teaching at columbia. he gave a talk that was about a famous case at the d.c. circuits.

he was severely critical about that. i disagreed with almost everything he said, but he said it in such a captivating way. [laughter] even now, you have been a consumer of our products -- [laughter] our styles are quite different. style is attention grabbing. mine is moderate and restrained in comparison. [laughter] >> i find it attention grabbing when you ask me a question in the court. it gets my attention. [laughter] both you and justice scalia are opera buffs.

you go to the opera together. now i read in the paper that someone has written an opera about justice ginsburg and justice scalia. did you know that? is this true? [laughter] >> everything in the court is done by seniority. even though i'm older by justice scalia, he was appointed before i was. the opera is called scalia- ginsburg. [laughter] >> tell us about this opera. how can you write an opera about the two of you? i think there are a lot of people out there who would like to take a hand at that. will it happen? >> this is a random page from the score.

it does exist. an opera composed by a young man who advertises himself as a, composer, lyricist, and pianist, but he also has a law degree. in his constitutional law class, he was reading these opinions -- justice scalia's opinions, my opinions, he decided this would make a great opera. [laughter] i will give you a sample. this is justice scalia's opening aria. it is labeled "rage aria." [laughter] the main refrain goes this way. "the justices are blind.

how could they possibly spout this? the constitution says, absolutely nothing about this." that is his opening. [laughter] my response aria is in the style of verdi. it goes, "you are fighting in vain for a solution to a problem that isn't so easy to solve. but the beautiful thing about our constitution is that like our society, it can evil all of your co--- about our constitution is, like our society, it can evolve." [laughter] [applause]

>> i'm sure that everyone of us here are going to be wanting to stand in line to see the opera. [laughter] is it within a year? what is the plan? >> there is a a reading or a singing in february somewhere around baltimore. that will be the first time that the entire score will be played. >> justice ginsberg, in 1981, ronald reagan appointed justice sandra day o'connor to the court. she was the first woman to serve on the united states supreme court. there have been 112 appointments to the supreme court. you were 108. is that correct? when you replace justice white? >> 107 or 108. >> you are the second woman up -- appointed to the supreme court. just 20 years ago this year. what did it mean to the court

when it finally had a woman justice and when you came onto the court, two women justices? you can say what it is like now with three justices being female. >> when sandra was asked that question to have a second woman, she said, you think i am glad that justice ginsberg is on board, you can imagine the joy of john o'connor to be no longer the lone male spouse. [laughter] she was there all alone for 12 years. a sign that women were there to stay came when i was appointed. they did a renovation in our robing rooms. up until then, there was a bathroom and it was labeled "men." conference,was at

she had to go to her office. they installed a women's bathroom equal in size to the men's. things were changing. for every year that we sat one lawyer or another would call me justice o'connor. they would hear a woman's voice and they knew that there was a woman and although we do not speak alike and we do not look alike, but now with three of us, no one calls me justice sotomayor or justice kagan. it is an exhilarating change. after sandra left and i was all

alone in my corner of the bench, and i did feel lonely, now we are all over. i have been there so long, i sit toward the middle. and sonya ony left my right. those two women are not shrinking violets. [laughter] they are very active in questioning. it is wonderful for the schoolchildren who parade in and out to see that women are there. they're are part of the court's operation. >> you mentioned the oral argument process. i think most people do not know that the court hears about 75 cases a year in each case, except in unusual situations, is allotted one hour oral

arguments. each side gets half an hour. some people think that lawyers get up and lecture or give a speech as a part of their oral argument. it is not like that at all. can you describe what oral arguments are like? and how much you participate. >> yeah. let me say something about the 75 cases that we hear and decide on. by full opinion. that 75 comes from a pile of over 8000 petitions for review. from those, we select a very small number. the reason we do that is we see our job is keeping the law of the united states more or less uniform, whether it is statutory , constitutional. if everybody agrees, there is no need for us to step in.

but when good judges are of different minds, that is when we step in. u.s.ere will not be one law on the west coast, another in the middle states. the 75 we get down to that way. the oral argument time as you said is very precious. the justices have come to the bench after having done reading. i think most of my colleagues start as i do by reading the opinions. in the lower courts. i will read the trial court decision, the court of appeals decision before i turn to the lawyer's brief.

i will know if they are giving an honest account of what the decision is. >> and if they are not, justice ginsberg catches them. >> nowadays, we have many friends. so many that it is not possible for the justices to read all of them. my law clerks have instructions. read all the green briefs. everything is color coded. light green, dark green. a friend of the court reads for .e there are three piles. , one is skim. pile that saysl

read. those are the really good ones. people are not just saying, me, too. when we come to the bench, where -- we are very well armed and prepared for hearing the case. we ask the questions that we think are the most difficult ones. the ones on which the decision may turn. the advocate should have a chance to address what is on the decision-maker's mind. some lawyers resent our interruptions. they would like us to keep quiet and they would like to present their prepared spiel. that i wasthe days arguing cases, a cold bench was the worst possible because i had no idea what was in the minds of the judges. sometimes a question is asked

not so much to elicit a response from the lawyer, but to persuade a colleague. sometimes a justice tries to a -- to assist a lawyer who is on the ropes by asking a helpful question. many lawyers miss that cue because they are so suspicious. [laughter] but when i come off of the bench, i have a pretty good idea where my colleagues are on that case. we are sometimes talking to each other and talking through the council not to the council. >> have you found that certain styles of advocacy by the lawyers work better in the courts?

justice scalia was here before this group a few months ago and talked about advocacy is written about that. you must have your own views about what works and what doesn't work. could you say a word or two about that? i think a well-prepared opening sentence is a good idea. you can get that out. >> sometimes. [laughter] >> and then to ride with the wave and go where the court is taking you. don't try desperately to get back to what you planned. i always have about 4-5 points. that this is essential for me to say, the rest i could skip. i tried to make sure that in the argument i made those points. was responding to a

question, i would immediately pick up on the point that i wanted to get across without leaving a pause that would invite another another question. >> this raises a question that many do not know. you were an advocate yourself before the supreme court. you represented cases and handled cases involving the rights of women. >> and then. >> and -- and men. >> and men. >> john roberts argued 39 cases or something before he was appointed to the supreme court. does it make a difference that you were yourself an advocate and you know what it is like out there? or most of your colleagues have not argued? justice kagan was the solicitor general. she argued a number of cases that one year.

does it make a difference to have been an advocate? >> to me, it does. in this respect. i try to keep my questions tight. professor behave as a with a complicated hypothetical that goes on and on. abbreviate the questions so i am not cutting into the lawyer's time. >> you appreciate what it is and to be interrupted listen to speeches in the form of questions -- you avoid that yourself? some of your colleagues have a little bit more of a broader latitude forward that. >> yes. i have occasionally commented on

that. we appreciate how precious that half-hour is. we try to be more disciplined. it is such a contrast to observe a preceding in the u.s. supreme court and then do what i am going to do in february and go to the highest court in the european union. the justicesthere, sit in magnificent maroon, they'll that roads. they ask no questions at all. they sit through the entire argument. i think it would be hard for me to stay awake if i operated on that type of court. [laughter] >> could you comment on the confirmation process and then we will have some questions from the audience? when you were confirmed 20 years ago, the vote was 97-3. i did not look up who were the

three senators who voted against you. but i bet you could name them. but the process has become very contentious. john roberts had 23 plus votes against -- more than 40 votes against justice alito. can you comment about what the confirmation process has become compared to what it was like when you were confirmed? >> another justice and i were confirmed in the halcyon days. there was a failed nomination. justice thomas had a turbulent nomination.

the committee it was mindful the public reputation had declined because of those two nominations. there was a deliberate effort. to be civil. there had been no women on the committee. they enlarged the committee by two. they added senator feinstein and another woman to the committee. i was nominated in june. any senator could have put a hold on me so that my hearing would not come up until the new term is underway. there were three negative votes, but none of the three try to stop the confirmation process from occurring speedily. my biggest supporter on the

judiciary committee was not vice president joe biden. was chair . it was orrin hatch. had, as one announced, a long- term affiliation with the american civil liberties union. not one senator asked me any questions about that affiliation. my hope is that we would get back to the way it was. we spoke about justice alito. it was also true of justice kagan and justice sotomayor had many negative votes. a great man that i knew and loved said the symbol of the u.s. is not the bald eagle. it is the pendulum. i think the pendulum has gone

too far in one direction in the handling of judicial nominations and it should go back to the middle. >> i think we would all hope that. let's give a hand to justice ginsberg. [applause] we have time for questions. there are two microphones. i ask that you go to one of the microphones and identify who you are. no questions from the media. thank you. >> and no questions on cases that are pending decisions or about to be heard. >> thank you. my name is gary. consumer electronics association. thank you to both of you for your historic leadership in protecting the rights of gay

americans to marry. it was a terrific change that is necessary. [applause] thank you, justice ginsberg, for sharing your thoughts with us today. as an american that is part of the business community that is -- that has troubled me increasingly over the years -- there are lots of laws and there are lots-- of laws and ambiguous laws. we have example of how at&t tried to buy a company they thought they could buy, but with great lawyers and yet they were stopped by the government and it cost at&t a lot of money. business communities think they are following the laws, but they are either ambiguous or unclear. if you had a message to legislators in which you wish they could do something and you had a magic button you could press, what would you like congress to do differently than what they are doing today? >> to the first part of your

question, there are many laws that are ambiguous, dense, can be read in more than one way, sometimes in more than three or four ways. in that respect, our congress does not stand up so well. in legislative fora in the world. there seems to be a lack of discipline. used in that has been other places is to have an expert drafting committee go over the provisions and try to detect ambiguities. sometimes ambiguities are deliberate because the question was a political hot potato.

the members of congress preferred to punt it to the court. to say what the law meant. i think people in the business world who care, they let their representatives know that you are having a hard time because the laws are unclear. >> justice ginsberg, my name is josh. i work at equifax. my question for you, after same- sex marriage, where do you see the future of equal protection down the road? >> thank you for asking that question. the equal protection clause is my favorite cause in the

constitution. [laughter] i think it shows the genius of the system. go back to where it started. in 1787. the constitution opens with some beautiful words, "we, the people, of the united states, in order to form a more perfect union." if you asked the question who are "we, the people" that would not include me because women were not part of the political community until 1920. people were held in human bondage. even white males in many places could not vote unless they were property owners.

we went from an idea of we, the people that was rather confined and over the course of more than two centuries, that notion has become ever more expansive. people who were once held in slavery, native americans did not count in the beginning. women. the equal protection clause has worked to perfect a more perfect union, to perfect we, the people. the founding fathers had an idea from the start. but they were held back by their times. you heard the lyric from my aria

that a constitution like our society can evolve. >> terry. comcast, business for business. solicitor, i'm very struck are your integrity as my perception of you has evolved over the years. justice ginsberg, you have always been one of my favorites. my question -- please do not take this as an endorsement of the policy i will ask about, but term limits for the supreme court. say a term limit that would give each presidential term two nominations. thank you. >> it is a good question, but highly hypothetical. article three of the constitution says that the judges shall hold their offices

during good behavior. on the whole, federal judges have been a well behaved lot. [laughter] >> is that because everyone is watching? >> the original idea was to make sure the judges would be independent. the framers did two things -- one gave us life tenure. two, provided that our salaries cannot be diminished while we hold office. most places in the world i would have been gone years ago. [laughter] the retirement age starts at 65, 70. 75, tops. so, it would take a constitutional amendment to change that. our constitution is powerfully hard to amend.

as proponents of the equal rights amendment well know. statehood forof the district of columbia. the likelihood that you could galvanize the public to amend article three and put in a fixed term -- some systems say that the constitutional council in france has a nine year nonrenewable term. in systems that have a relatively long but nonrenewable term the notion is make it , nonrenewable so that the judges won't court favor from particular constituents. it is a real problem in the u.s. in-state judiciaries that are elected. but the federal judges are all appointed and fit during this

-- and sit during good behavior. >> showed a justice plan his or her retirement to coincide with the office of presidents of the same party so that if it is a republican appointee that justice should wait until there is a republican president and plan his or her retirement at that point? is that the sort of thing entering anyone's mind? >> i think one should stay as long as they can do the job. i suppose there were many people who wanted justice brennan and justice marshall to leave when a democrat was president. they didn't. the number one question is, can you do the job? can you think as well?

can you write with the same fluency? at my age, you take it year by year. i am ok this year. [laughter] >> that is for sure. [applause] >> good morning, justice ginsberg, and mr. moderator. i am amber with ups, the united parcel service. we appreciate you being here. my question to you is how do you find peace within yourself if there is a case that has been argued and you don't agree with what the resolution is? how do you find peace when you go home to your family? i know a lot of times in the professional arena, we do not

know how to define a professional -- a personal and work balance. how do you find that? >> you asked two questions. one concerns when i end up on the losing side. there is a famous man who said it ain't over till it's over. [laughter] think of a case that was 5-4. i was with the four. my bottom line was -- the ball is in congress' court to amend what they meant all along. within two years we had the lily , ledbetter pay act. the constitutional question takes longer. if you think of all of the great free speech dissents written

by brandeis around the time of world war i, that was a lot of -- all of those are the law of the land today. although when they were written, they only spoke for two justices. i'm always hopeful that is my opinion does not command a court today, it will in time. did you ask a question about work and life balance? >> yes, ma'am. >> yes, ma'am. >> i have two children. they are 10 years apart. when my daughter was in school, it was unusual to have a mother who was a working mom. 10 years later when my son was in school, there was a tremendous transformation in those years because there were many mothers who had paying jobs as well.

that was in the late 60's and 70's. the greatest asset is to have a supportive spouse. someone who thinks your work is as important as his. i've lived around a long life. sometimes one accommodates to the other, so my husband graduated from law school before i did. he had a good job in new york. i transferred from harvard to columbia. in 1981good job in d.c. president carter appointed me to the d c circuit. marty has been teaching at

columbia and transferred to -- georgetown. you accomdate to each other at different times in your life. >> thank you. >> last question. >> thank you. my name is scott. i'm with microsoft. i am honored, justice ginsberg, to be in your presence. you are a vibrant spirit and mind. and i can certainly see that and appreciate the opportunity to hear you today. my question is a recent presidential aspirant said that corporations are people, my friend. referring to know particular case, i am curious to hear your thoughts on the personhood. we start out with "we, the people" in your earlier statement that corporations are becoming "the people." thank you. >> a corporation counts as a

person for some purposes, but not for others. corporations don't march to the polls. so, my answer to your question is sometimes they are considered a person. for example, an entity is entitled to due process just as an individual is. the same would be true for equal protection. you can't single out one kind of business and say we will tax that business more heavily than another. we are continuing to have questions about the extent to

which a corporation should be treated in the same manner as an individual in cases where it is appropriate to recognize that a corporation is an artificial entity. it is not a flesh and blood person. >> this is a very busy time of the year for the court. each of the justices spent an -- particularly justice ginsburg -- spent an enormous time preparing for oral arguments and reading the briefs and writing opinions or dissenting opinions. this is an enormous amount of time. i know how hard justice ginsberg works. the energy and effort she puts in a job in every respect. the fact she would take the time to be with us at not her favorite hour of the day --

[laughter] we owe her a great deal of thanks for her time and her thoughtful and revealing remarks about the court. thank you, justice ginsberg. [applause] >> thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] ata senate panel will look social security, pensions, and retirement savings. we will hear from the president of aarp. the subcommittee hearing is live at 10:00 a.m. eastern. later in the day, the senate commerce committee investigates how personal information is handled, collect it, and sold for marketing purposes. live coverage at 2:30 p.m. eastern also on c-span.

>> if you are a middle or high school student, c-span's student cam competition wants to know what is the most important issue congress should address next year. make a five-minute video and include c-be sure to span programming for your chance to win your grandpa rise of $5,000 with $100,000 total prices. get more info at student cam.org. >> 12 republicans voted with all senate democrats to limit debate on the two-year budget measure. senate minority leader mitch mcconnell voted against moving forward with the bill, which the house approved last week, 332- 94. here is this tuesday's senate debate. nference, and the budget conference didn't meet. we didn't produce a budget conference. the conferees did not vote. our leaders prepared legislation that's now before us. it has a number of problems, in

my opinion. it's not the right way to have conducted this process, but the question is should we advance with this legislation or does it need to be improved? i believe it can be improved. i believe it should be improved. and i believe legislation of this size and scope that actually amends the budget control act of the united states that successfully contains the growth in spending for a couple of years ought not to be lightly amended. so what i'd likely change, i would suggest the right vote today would be against cloture and to say to the leadership and senator reid that we want to have amendments on this legislation. we're about to have a significant reduction in the retirement benefits of military -- disabled military personnel, people who served 20 years in the united states military. their pay is going to be cut as

much as $70,000 for a staff sergeant over their lifetime. and we need to think about that. we also -- this legislation, amazingly and disappointingly, has altered the ability of this senate to block increases in spending. we have a budget point of order today that allows an objection to be raised to add, to make, to require 60 votes in order to spend more than we agreed to spend. this legislation amazingly takes that away. perhaps the house didn't understand the significance of it. but it's very significant. we've used it three separate times to block tax-and-spend legislation within the last year or so successfully and help us stay with the commitment we made to the american people to keep spending at a direct level.

so, colleagues, there are a lot of problems with this bill, but the only way to fix it will be to say to senator reid and to the leadership here in the senate, the democratic leadership, let's slow down, let's give us a chance to have amendments and let's fix some of the problems. and there's plenty of time to fix those problems, send the bill back to the house and be able to pass it before the deadline of january 15. i thank the chair and would yield the floor. mrs. murray: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from washington. mrs. murray: mr. president, for the past few years here in congress we have lurched from within budget crisis to another, from one fiscal cliff to the next. when one clockdown clock stopped it wasn't long before the next got started, the constant crisis cost us billions of dollars in lost growth and jobs.

and the continued across-the-board cuts from sequestration were hurting our families and our communities and cutting off critical investments in economic growth and national security programs. mr. president, after the completely unnecessary government shutdown and debt limit crisis just two months ago, the american people were more disgusted than ever at the gridlock and the dysfunction. they were sick of partisanship, sick of showboating and saber rattling. they were tired of turning on their televisions at night and seeing elected officials saying it is my way or the highway. and they had no more patience for politicians holding the economy and the federal government hostage to extract concessions or score political points. so when the government was finally reopened and the debt limit crisis averted, people across the country were hoping that democrats and republicans could finally get in a room,

make some compromises and take a step away from the constant crisis. that is why i was so glad that part of that crisis-ending deal was creating the budget conference that many of us here on both sides of the aisle had been trying to start since the senate and house passed our budgets seven months earlier. mr. president, the budget conference began at a time when distress between democrats and republicans could not have been higher. we had just two months to get a deal to avoid lurching towards another crisis. and most people assumed there was no way the divide could be bridged. but chairman ryan and i got together, and we started talking, and we decided that instead of trying to solve everything at once, the most important thing we could do for the families we represented was to end the uncertainty and start rebilling some trust.

-- rebuilding some trust. we weren't going to spend the next eight weeks sniping at each other from our partisan corners. we were not going to use what was said in the room to launch political attacks on the other. and we weren't going to try to tackle the larger challenges we both know are critical but weren't going to be solved right now. so we focused on what was attainable. we worked together to find common ground and we looked for ways that we could compromise and take some steps towards the other. we both thought that the least we should be able to do was to find a way to replace some of the across-the-board cuts from sequestration and agree on a spending level for the short term so we could avoid another crisis. now, i know some of our colleagues want to keep the sequester caps, but democrats and many republicans believe it makes sense to replace these meat-ax cuts with smarter and more balanced savings.

mr. president, we spent seven weeks working on this. i worked very closely with the house budget committee ranking member chris van hollen as well as my colleagues here in the senate on and off the budget committee, and i'm very proud that last week chairman ryan and i reached an agreement on the bipartisan budget act of 2013. this bill passed the house of representatives on thursday on a vote of 332-94, with overwhelming support from democrats and republicans. and i come to the floor today to urge my colleagues to support this bill here in the senate and send it to the president so it can be signed into law. mr. president, the bipartisan budget act puts job and economic growth first by rolling back sequestration's harmful cuts to education, medical research, infrastructure investments, defense jobs for the next two years.

if we didn't get a deal, we would have faced another continuing resolution that would have locked in the automatic cuts, or worse, a potential government shutdown in just a few short weeks. over the past year i've heard from so many people across my home state of washington who have told me sequestration has hurt their families, businesses, and communities. from the parents of children whose head start programs were shut down or its senators wondering if meals on wheels would continue, the scientists and doctors whose investments in cutting edge research and medical cures were cut off or threatened, the construction workers who lost their jobs when projects were put on hold, small business owners whose revenues were declining due to the cuts and the uncertainty and so many more. for them, the cuts from sequestration were senseless. they were real. they were hurting. and they were only going to get worse.

so i'm very proud that our bill replaces almost two-thirds of this year's sequester cuts to domestic discretionary investments. this won't solve every problem sequestration has caused, but it is a step in the right direction and a dramatic improvement over the status quo. over the past year i've talked to workers at joint base lewis-mcchord and fair child air force base and elsewhere who have been very much impacted by the sequestration and very worried about how another round of cuts would affect their jobs and families. i've heard from military leaders who told me sequestration would impact our national security if it continued. and from companies that do business with the defense department that the uncertainty and the cuts were hurting their ability to hire workers and invest in future growth. so i am very glad that this bill would prevent the upcoming round of defense sequestration and provide some certainty for the

pentagon for the upcoming years. secretary of defense hagel and chairman of the joint chief of staffs demsey have both expressed support for this bill, as have a number of colleagues here in congress who spent the last few years highlighting the impact of continued sequestration on national security and defense workers. mr. president, the increased investments we get from rolling back sequestration over the next two years are fully replaced with a smarter, balanced mix of new revenue and more responsible spending cuts. experts and economists have said the responsible thing to do is increase investments now while our economic recovery remains fragile and workers are still fighting to get back on the job while tackling our deficit and debt over the long run. this bill moves us in the direction of exactly that. we have cut our deficit in half over the past few years, and this bill adds to the $2.5

trillion in deficit reduction done since 2011 with an additional $23 billion in savings over the next ten years. this bill isn't exactly what i would have written on my own, i'm pretty sure it's not what chairman ryan would have written on his own. i ask unanimous consent for an additional three minutes. the presiding officer: is there objection? hearing none. mrs. murray: mr. president, this bill is a compromise and that means neither side got everything they wanted and both of us had to give a bit. i was very disappointed we weren't able to close a single wasteful tax loophole that benefits the wealthiest americans or biggest corporations. i'd hoped we could extend critical support for workers fighting to get back on the job and i was very disappointed republicans refused to allow that to be part of this deal. i certainly would have liked to replace more of sequestration. i know it was difficult for many republicans to accept any increases in the b.c.a. caps at all, and i know many republicans had hoped this would

be an opportunity to make the kind of medicare and social security benefit cuts they have advocated for in the past but i fought hard to keep them out. mr. president, this deal is a compromise. it doesn't tackle every one of the challenges we face as a nation but that was never our goal. this bipartisan bill takes the first steps towards rebuilding our broken budget process and hopefully towards rebuilding our broken congress. we have spent far too long here scrambling to fix artificial crises instead of working together to solve the big problems we all know we need to address. we have budget deficits that have improved but not have disappeared and we have deficits in education and innovation and infrastructure that continue to widen. there is much more we need to do to create jobs and boost our economy, and replace the remaining years of sequestration and tackle our long-term fiscal

challenges fairly and responsibly. so, mr. president, i'm hopeful that this deal can be just the first of many bipartisan deals that can rebuild some of the trust, brings democrats and republicans together. i urge my colleagues to support the bipartisan budget act of 2013 and, mr. president, i want to thank chairman ryan for his work with me over the last several months. i want to thank a number of members who have worked closely with us including ranking member van hollen and every member of the budget committee here in the senate who worked hard to pass a budget, start a conference and get a bipartisan deal. when we come back next year, i'm ready to go to work with chairman ryan or anyone else from either side of this aisle who wants to build on this bipartisan foundation to continue addressing our nation's

challenges fairly and responsibly. it isn't going to be easy, but the american people are expecting nothing less. thank you, mr. president, and i ask unanimous consent the mandatory quorum required under rule 22 be waived with respect to the cloture motion during re. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. the senator from georgia. mr. chambliss: mr. president, i rise today to speak on the bipartisan budget deal that is currently before the senate. chairman ryan and chairman murray have shown us true leadership on divisive and complex budget issues. the legislation we have before us today is the embodiment of compromise, something that has unfortunately been absent in washington as of late. they have crafted a bill that sets forth the guidelines for spending for the remainder of this fiscal year and the platform for the next fiscal year. this deal wa will set overall discretionary spending for the current fiscal year at $1.012 trillion, an amount that is approximately halfway between

the senate budget number and the house budget number. this number is also less than the 2000 spending levels set forth in chairman ryan's 2011 budget. while the overall spending number is higher than what i would have wanted, the house and senate budget committee chairmen were able to craft a budget deal that produces $23 billion in net deficit reduction. now, very honestly, $23 billion with the deficit that we've been running is a mere pittance and i think all of us who are concerned about the debt and the deficit of this country would like to see that number higher. but more importantly, they have produced a budget that will set in place some fiscally responsible spending policies and give us a way forward. regardless of how each member of this chamber feels about the resulting policy, we should all recognize the importance of this

agreement and thank the chairmen for their tireless work to end this chapter of political disagreement. although i would still prefer a grand bargain to solve our fiscal crisis, this deal marks the first step in that journey. congress will now be in a better position to tackle the issues of taxation and entitlement reform in the short-term and i truly hope that the committees of jurisdiction will take this as a sign that that does need to be what happens next if we are truly going to address our fiscal issues. mr. president, the budget deal before us is not perfect. there's a lot in this proposal to like and there's a lot in this proposal to dislike. but there's one provision related to military retirement pay that will certainly have to be addressed after the passage of this bill and it's one of the provisions that, frankly, i don't like. i'm told by pentagon officials

that this provision basically came out of nowhere. i think it is terribly unfair to our men and women in uniform. they should not have a disproportionate share in our deficit-reduction measures. however, i feel confident that this issue will be resolved in the near term. i've had a conversation with the chairman of the committee on armed services as well as a number of other members of the armed services committee that are committed to making sure that we address it and that hopefully we come up with some alternative before this provision takes place, which doesn't happen, interestingly enough, until december of 2015. many georgians have served with honor in our military, and while the changes to their annual cost-of-living increase may appear insignificant on paper in this bill, this is real money promised to those who put their life in harm's way in defense of

this nation. and i want to assure our servicemen and women that there is ample time to address this issue before it takes effect and i'm committed to addressing it and i will not turn my back on those who fight and have fought for this country. that said, this budget deal is a necessary and crucial step towards a functioning congress. with passage of this budget de deal, we can close the book on discretionary spending arguments for the next couple of years. we can turn our full attention to entitlement reform and tax reform as congress debates raising the debt ceiling once again next year. also, with this bill we will no longer need to provide additional flexibility for defense spending. this bill will give the defense community the resources they need, number one. in conversations with top officials at the pentagon and within the intelligence community over the weekend, they

have urged the support of this bill as a way to address the current budget crisis. and i am extremely sympathetic to both those communities and wanted to make sure that whatever product came to the floor of the senate, that it did that and this bill does address the shortfalls as well as the flexibility issue in the defense community as well as in the intelligence community. i was pleased the approach that the budget chairmen took will not turn off sequester but will instead extend the mandatory cuts for an additional two years beyond what the budget control act proscribed, because as i see this, this is about an $85 billion fix on the sequester that keeps it from going too deep into the defense budget that had the potential for causing real problems within the pentagon as well as within the defense -- the intelligence community.

mr. president, with this budget deal, we can also put in place a 302-a budget allocation, the top-line number that congress can spend on discretionary spending. this will for the first time in several years allow the appropriations committee to do the job that is actually intended that they do. our appropriators have previously been forced to make spending decisions without a top-line number and through continuing resolutions. they had no information and no guidance from congress. it's no wonder that our spending has caught up with us. the country benefits when congress approaches the appropriation process through regular order and not through last-minute continuing resolutions. this agreement makes that process more likely. the budget committee chairmen have also made a gad-faith effort to -- a good-faith effort to attack the real problems in our budget by cutting money from mandatory programs rather than searching for more discretionary cuts.

in their agreement, they took notice of how often the federal government has given special treatment to certain groups and they have taken efforts to curb that. and while many outside groups may attack these reforms, they are representative of the types of reforms that will have to be included in any future agreement to achieve entitlement reform, which at the end of the day is where the real problem in our federal budget lies. mr. president, this deal does little to address the $17 trillion debt but it is a start down that road, and i truly hope this will lead to more serious discussions on the floor of the united states senate about our debt and a solution for how we're going to see that $17 trillion we paid. -- repaid. in all, mr. president, this budget deal represents a partial completion of the work the american people expect from us. while far from perfect and

leaves much to be desired, but the prospect of compromise on the single most important issue of our time requires the attention and serious looking by every member of this body. i will vote for the passage of this bill because it lays the groundwork for the next chapter in our pursuit of fiscal sanity. mr. president, for three and a half years now, senator warner and i have been involved in seeking out a much larger debt and deficit-reduction deal than what is currently before us. we know the american people are tired of out-of-control spending and don't understand why congress can't address our $17 trillion debt. it's not rocket science. the bowles-simpson commission gave us a road map three years ago this month and i regret that the white house has not followed the leadership of its own commission. but this bill represents a small

step towards the type of cooperation that will be necessary to comprehensively address our debt and deficit. it is my hope that this agreement allows that effort to restart in a meaningful way. and, mr. president, i yield the floor and suggest >> on our next "washington journal" and look at the district court ruling on the constitutionality of the nsa surveillance program. we will talk with james andrew lewis from the center of strategic and international studies. and a discussion on productivity in the 113th congress. the brookings institution and norman ornstein of the american enterprise institute join us, and they co- authored the book "it is even worse than it looks." you can see "washington journal" every morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span.

the'm standing in front of 1905 wright flyer three, the third and final experimental airplane the wright brothers built and today it survives as the second oldest of the airplanes today. this airplane, which orwell right considered the world's first practical airplane was constructed and flown in less than six years time between the time that they build theirkite of theiruccess particular airplane. it is also a plane that was built less than two years after hawk,rst flight at kitty north carolina, december 17, 1903. what is interesting to think about is that the wright flyer and kitty hawk flew just four times on one very historic day. they were four very important flight and they were the proof of concept, heavier than air flight.

the airplane behind me was capable of repeated takeoff and landing, repeated flights, of not just for a few seconds at a time but upwards of 40 minutes by october of 1905. this airplane could fly graceful circles, figure eights, it could bank and turn and fly very much like a modern airplane flies. this is very much a modern airplane capable of being 3 independentrough axes of flight -- pitch, roll, and yaw. wright brothers aviation center next weekend as both tv and american history tv look at the history and literary life of dayton, ohio. saturday at noon on c-span2 and sunday at 5:00 p.m. on c-span3. senator tom coburn released his annual report on what he calls wasteful federal spending. the oklahoma republican took questions at this 25 minute

briefing. >> sorry to keep you waiting. i just voted against cloture on a bill that raises $60 billion in spending, and has $34 billion in tax increases on the american people. we have outlined the books today -- whether you agree with my people or not is not the issue. the fact is if you look at the , $700 billion in deficits, some grown up in the room has to question whether or not we are spending money wisely. inside the waste book is a what -- is $30 billion of what i considered stupid and poor judgment when it comes to spending money in a time when we

have very little money to spare. we have also had the defense department and others screaming -- people in the other non- defense assessed -- department screaming about the cupboard is bare. the fact is, it is not true. congress is probably going to pass this bill. the house already has and the senate probably will today. but it shows you that congress does not have its eye on the ball. and we are not spending money in an appropriate way. we still provided money to study romance novels. we provided money to the state department so they could buy some votes by getting likes on facebook. we even helped nasa fund studies of congress. my contention is that had congress been focused on doing the job of setting priorities

and cutting wasteful spending, we could have avoided the government shutdown and the budget deal that we are now considering that raises the -- which actually goes the government and raises the burden on the american taxpayer. my favorite program in this is the fact that the air force but $600 million worth of airplanes, and as soon as they were delivered they shipped them to the desert. and this is the same agency that $7 billion leave worth of equipment in afghanistan, wasted valuable equipment because it is too hard to utilize it in some other area of the world. this report speaks volumes about why the american people have lost confidence. why congress' ratings of six percent.

the truth is we would rather borrow money than cut spending. that is the truth. the american people have a right to expect more from us than that. we see no waste. we cut no waste. and we embrace increasing the burden on the american people because we will not do our job. it is republicans and democrats alike. with that i will take your , questions. yes? >> you do this every year. can you tell us if anything has ever resulted from this? has congress ever gone back and said, hey -- >> what is happening about these airplanes. i have been raising cain about them for months. transferred will be to the forest service or department -- their culture department. they will be used but probably not on the way that is most efficient. it is really interesting if you

dig into the background of the airplanes. the military came up with all kinds of excuses why they didn't want to use them. the real fact is the afghan military one of the c-130s instead of these and we are going to you it to them. we will waste another $400 million by giving them four c- 130s. again, here is my point, does congress hold the administration accountable? does it hold itself accountable? who makes that decision? are they still at the rank that they were? if there were supply problems, which they contend maintenance and supply problems, then why aren't we holding the contractor accountable? there is no accountability, and that is a function for leadership. -- function and result of poor leadership. i will give you a controversial one. political science funding to study congress, it is pretty obvious what congress'problems

are. the american people have it figured out. should we be spending money we don't have, borrowing from mark hits, to study congress? we got rid of political science theing of nsf --much to chagrin of political science professors around the country. again, it is not whether something is good or bad or whether we ought to be making wese decisions at the time are barring significant amounts of money against the future of our children. if you have a surplus and you set what can we do out of the surplus, maybe those might be an appropriate thing to do. but we are not in surplus. we are in much more dire straits that we willerm not recognize now in the short term. the way you get out of a trillion dollar deficit or $700 billion deficit is cutting a billion dollars at a time.

cutting billion -- $30 billion at a time. whether you agree with me or not that some of the should not be done, you cannot disagree with everything that is in the book. shouldn't we have eliminated a bunch of these things rather than raised $24 billion in fees on the american public? chris? >> in regard to the budget agreement, some people are saying a it allows congress to return to render -- regular order on the budget. could congress start looking at this? >> yes. we could have done appropriation bills last year. why did we not do that? i mean, they came out of the committee. you're asking the wrong person we are not doing regular order. that is a decision fully made by the majority leader. he chose not to put appropriation bills on the floor. the one he did put on he pulled after two days.

regular order is a function of leadership. it is not a function of a budget deal. we had caps. sequester caps. again, congress' willingness to live within the means provided --the american public republican and democrat a lot. you republican defense authorizes and appropriators who don't like limiting our spending. but yet will not do the hard work of eliminating the in theness that is expenditures every year of the federal government. if you actually did the oversight -- this is not hard to do. this is all googled. all it takes is somebody willing to say, maybe we ought to get rid of the foolishness. and again, that goes back to leadership. committee leadership, subcommittee leadership, appropriation leadership.

it requires people to do the right thing for the right reasons. yes, ma'am? >> on facebook you highlighted a bunch of things related to waste -- in the waste the book you highlighted a budget things related to military. do you anticipate more waste? toi don't think we begin uncover and they're what the waste is. there are some good things happening in the military. if you look at general -- and what she has done in terms of the depot and putting in modern management techniques, which she did, continuous process improvement, and saving $1.4 billion last year. but that is leadership exerted by her in her branch of responsibilities, some $47 billion of responsibilities. what we ought to be doing is praising generals that actually lead and get out and do the right thing with the wrights guilt sets and actually save you -- save the american people money. in my mind, if you wanted to

save $100 billion a year at the pentagon you could do it without any difficulty, without affecting our readiness, our training, or our supply. we listed that in "back in black" and it has actually gotten worse and not better. yes, ma'am. i wonder about the timing with the budget deadline being this week. the appropriations deadline in january. how would you ideally like to see this progress forward to address the issues? i think committees of congress ought to be charged with the doing oversight first. i will give you a great example. the labor and workforce committee and the house. we put out a study on job training. he offered. all of these job training programs and gao does not have metrics that are working -- they

took 36 programs and converted it into six. we have done nothing with that in the senate. here's a way to save billions of dollars in the year that the house has done and it has not been considered in the health committee in the senate. i go back to make the point that the charge are to be in the appropriations and authorization committee is to do oversight, find the waste, where can you consolidate, eliminate overhead, where can you streamline things given where we are today? what we tend to do is create new programs and not look at the programs running and where we could save the american taxpayer money. 2014 the preparation coming up -- >> could be, you bet. oversight this. if you actually wanted to read some of the 50 or so reports that we put out in the last five years, if you are a curious appropriator, you might find some valuable information in there that might.

the problem is, like anything else, nobody looks at it. it is hard work. and the reason it is hard work to cut spending is because somebody's asked gets bored -- somebodyored him as does not give money. what does it translate into? somebody is not happy with me at home. and it translate into the real problem, more in congress are more concerned about getting themselves reelected than fixing the country. >> with the debt ceiling vote coming up again in march, what is your approach to that going to be? do you think that you should demand cuts in exchange for voting to raise the debt ceiling? , i do not think the american people believe there is a debt ceiling here.

hasn't ever not been passed? it is alive to say to people there they debt ceiling. every time the curricula divisions in this town figure out there is a way to raise the debt ceiling. if in fact you just did the one percent rule that has been proposed by people and you cut the budget one percent a year, in 10 years you would have a balanced budget and you would not have to increase the debt ceiling anymore. it does not say anything about reforming the tax code. have not voted for a debt ceiling increase because i think it is not honest with the american people. it is meaningless. we ought not to spend money we don't had -- have and the reason we ought not to be spending the money is all we are doing is decreasing the standard of living of the present upcoming generation. surely in $3 trillion worth of

spending we can find one percent or two percent or three or four percent at is wasteful. and all we did is put out with this book -- i did not include 200second 200 or the third of things that most reasonable people with any common sense or work history would say, that is not good value. i am spending. the question is, where is everybody else asking the questions as we continue to borrow ourselves into oblivion? 700 billion, everybody taking a breath, 700 billion dollar deficit. think about that. what is going to be required of the young people of this country just to service the $700 billion from last year. to me, this is a moral issue. when you are spending money on

things you don't have of things you don't absolutely need and the result is lowering the standard of living for young people in this country, i think that is immoral. not just wrong, but morally wrong being irresponsible the future. and it says nothing about how a cloud to the opportunity to take advantage of what the country historically and set up to be the most potentially beneficial place to start a life. i don't know -- historically i have not been a good spokesperson for other republicans. let's put it that way. >> just wanted to ask about what congress can do -- a lot of the research projects in the report, --se decisions are made competitive processes where the

agency picks the project. what can congress do about some of the research projects? then -- >> that is a good question. it historically has been a problem with congress and you can take the affordable care act, if you want, and say that it's a great example. --n congress legislature legislates, if you want to the process, most of the time they legislate without them having the knowledge they are doing. therefore, what they don't have the knowledge they leave up to the bureaucracy. most of the time it is 80% of what they are doing. legislators actually know their issues, know the programs, know-how they were, and write specific language that directs the agencies on what to do. that requires work. you have to know the programs. like the program we are getting ready to reauthorize. in homeland security. i know that program. i know how it works. i know where it is failing and i

know where it is not working. when we reauthorize that we will be very specific on what we tell homeland security to do. that requires hard work. most people around here do not want to go to the depths of the knowledge of that, so that is getting grant out the things that would seem to be very questionable to the commonsense person, the average american. it is because we have not reined in their power to do those kind of things. appropriate to make sure some become synergistic, right in any way that does not look like an earmark, but we will not do any will -- anything on how to make a judgment based on sound principles and good findings. and so, the problem is congress. you can't blame the bureaucracy. you've got to blame congress. yes, sir. >> has wasteful spending got them -- gotten better in your

time here? looking atpeople are it more appropriately. i am not sure i can quantify it. the budget is so much larger than it was. we are twice the size we were in 2001, so the budget in terms of total dollars is twice as big. whether the wasteful spending is twice as much or not, i am not sure. but here is the one thing i know. whether washington knows it or not, the american people know it. if you look at all the surveys about what they think is wasteful spending up. . and when they see this, what our when wethey to think buy seven hundred million dollars of airplanes and half we are going to cut up and half of them we will put in the desert. what are they thinking about that? with commonfit sense. the question is, it is just washington. that is not a good enough answer anymore. and the long run, it is not going to be a good enough answer

because it will directly impact the standard of living of the people of this country. outn "back in black" we put $9 trillion worth of savings. can't you find a chill you out taxes ornd not raise spending? what the career politicians want to do -- that is what will go down on the senate floor. we will come to an agreement because it is politically smart to do it but financially it is stupid for the young people in this country. side, or anyense of the amendments you were hoping for the defense bill related to any of these projects? amendments are not going to be considered. i think what we all to do is hold contractors accountable. there's two sides to the defense department. actually, three.

one is the things they do that don't have anything to do with defense. we all to get those out of the defense department because it is not fair to say the defense budget is this when over 10% of their budget has nothing to do but defense, but members of congress put it there because they control it. that is number one. major two, how do we buy weapon systems? you will never solve the problem of cost overruns in the pentagon until you make it where the contractors in this country -- unless you make it where the contractors have capital at risk. they don't have any capital at risk. it is all cost. then you see with the f-35 was a littoral combat ship -- total cost overruns because the contractor is making money every time the dollar goes over. until they have capital put at risk -- they know how to control costs, but they also know how to milk the system, and now there is no penalty for milking the system and no reward for controlling costs. >> why isn't there more support for this?

this has been going on since $500 hammers and $600 toilet seats, and yet there doesn't seem to be any progress made. how is this going to change the dna? change isn't going to it. the only thing that is going to change it is for the american people to quit sending people up ofre with the motivation "how do i stay here?" the reason i am a term limited senator is i don't want to fall into the habit of making a decision on what is best for mike -- for mike political career than for the country. that is why term limits have to happen in this country. i guarantee if you had really strong term limits, the people who would be here would not be the people who are here today. it would be a different set of people. it would be somebody who ran a camera for years and actually knew the hard knocks of life, who was up and down in their profession, who knew life was not there and would apply the

judgment they learned in life in terms of applying it to the rest of us. elitism in washington that absolutely stinks. and it comes from careerism. >> you talk about the nfl and the nhl and other professional c6ganizations under the 501 that is -- >> espn put a lot -- put on a nice piece about it. ae fact is, if you are in state that has a pro football team or runs a program off tournament, the career politicians are afraid to cut you. that is $100 million. that hundred million dollars that we are getting to be very easy to groups of people in the front offices of these major are payingmoney you in taxes to make up for it. we don't havehat

another cosponsor speaks volumes about the cowardice of washington. pack -- tax earmarked specifically for some of the most well-to-do people in the country and i can't get a cosponsor? what does it say to you? i recommend you go look at what espn did on it and how they laid this out, showing what a sham it is. so, it goes back to the question the gentleman in the back asked. who's here? i love football. i love golf. that a personink making $40,000 a year ought to pay a penny more in taxes because the elites in these offices get a special tax break and take home millions of dollars every year. and we are asking the regular so they canless

have a whole lot more. it is not right. and it is not any different than an earmark in a spending bill. it is a tax earmarked for specific people. >> the argument of it being a trade association supporting sport in general -- >> just like all the architects around the country and just like the real estate agents. except that the heads of most of those organizations don't come anywhere in terms of their compensation. >> i am wondering on the -- iuction of the weapons don't know, but i imagine the pentagon has said in some of the , it will cost more to bring them back home than to destroy them. they don't want them falling into other people's hands -- have a that says is they crystal ball that says we will not need them again in some

other area of the world. it also speaks volumes about their ability to contract on the equipment and the costs. go read the history of what happened in afghanistan and iraq and read the sigar report on the waste associated with military procurement, a rush to build all of the mraps and we will be cutting them up when in fact we may need them somewhere else. some of them is a consequence of making a good position now based on what was a stupid decision before. when the history is written about the logistics of iraq and afghanistan, it will be a case history of what not to do. in terms of how you supply troops, how you do it. >> can you comment on the cost of the obamacare promotion

website? what is the come from? footnoted -- $60 million of it is advertising for -- website and $319 million $600 million of it is advertising. but it does not include any of the back end cost. i'm not critical spending a lot of money to get the website up here today will get it fixed. the amount of money they spent -- when you talk to the people who actually do this for a living and know how to do it we will pay for five times more than it should've cost. opportunity is lacking in congress that's because they are political jobs instead of competency jobs. take some of the people who have actually run large organizations and bring them into run organizations here. we don't do that. have ag people that

political chip that is old and put them in positions of responsibility of whether he has the competencies to be able to do the job. it is not any wonder that we fail on both capability and leadership when it comes to a lot of positions and a lot of agencies. thank you all very much for being here. appreciate it. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> a couple of "politico" events -- we will hear from peter baker of "the new york times", kelly o'donnell, and jake tapper from cnn. and later this morning on c- span3, white house senior

adviser valerie jarrett will speak with the politico 9:10spondent ben white at eastern. " begins in aournal moment. we will take your phone calls and tweets, plus we will look at today's news. a senate finance subcommittee hearing on pensions and retirement savings begins at 10:00 a.m. eastern. later today, the senate commerce committee investigates the marketing of consumer information, live at 2:30 p.m. eastern. and coming up this hour, an update on the u.s. district court ruling on the constitutionality of the nsa surveillance program. we will talk with james andrew lewis of the center for strategic and international studies. then a discussion on the productivity of the 100 13th congress.

thomas mann of the brookings institution ornstein join us. they co-authored the book "it's even worse than it looks." ♪ host: good morning, everyone. by a vote of 67-33, the senate cleared a procedural hurdle on the two-year budget deal, paving the way for passage as early as today. a dozen republicans joined 53 democrats and 2 independents. final passage takes 51 votes. it will be one of the last acts of the senate for the 2013. the house is already adjourned for the year. halfway through the 113th congress, is your representative or senator reflecting your views in washington? republicans, (202) 585-3881