the speaker: thes who will be in order. the prayer will be -- the house will be in order. the prayer will be offered by our chaplain, father con roy. chaplain conroy: lettuce pray. eternal god, we give you thanks for giving us another day. we pause now in your presence and acknowledge our dependence on you. we ask your blessing upon the men and women of this, the people's house, who are returning this day to their stations here on capitol hill. as the new session is in its early days, help each member to obey your law, to do your will, and to walk in your way.

grant that they might be good in thought, gracious in word, generous in deed and great in spirit. make this a glorious day in which all are glad to be alive and ready to serve you. may all that is done this day be for your greater honor and glory, amen. the speaker: the chair has examined the journal of the last day's proceedings and announces to the house his approval thereof. pursuant to clause 1 of rule 1 e journal stands approved. the pledge of allegiance today will be led by the gentleman from north carolina, mr. holding. mr. holding: i ask that everyone join in the pledge. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the speaker: the chair lays before the house a communication.

the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives, sir, it has been an honor to serve my neighbors, friends and family of florida's 19th congressional district. regardless of some personal struggles in 2013, this year has already been thremmedsly positive as i focus on my health -- tremendously positive, as i focus on my health, family and faith. unfortunately some of my struggles had serious consequences. while i have dealt with those issues on a personal level, it is my belief that professionally i cannot fully and effectively serve as a united states representative to the place i love and call home, southwest florida. i hereby submit this letter of resignation as the representative of the 19th district of florida, effective 6:30 p.m., eastern standard time, january 27, 2014. please find the attached letter i have submitted to governor rick scott. on a personal note, mr. speaker, to you and our colleagues from both parties, i thank you. thank you for the tremendous support and encouragement.

often times in congress our personal relationships and successes are overshadowed by intense but meaningful and necessary debate. however, i leave the house of representatives with friendships and memories of great men and women dedicated to helping and improving the lives of our fellow americans. as an eternal optimist, i know there are great things in store for our country when we find ways to work together. whether it is as a father, a husband or in any fewer endeavor, i hope to contribute what i can to better our country in the years to come. signed, sincerely, trey raidle, member of congress -- radel, member of congress. the speaker: for what purpose does the gentleman from south carolina rise? mr. wilson: i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute, revise and extend my remarks. the speaker: without objection. mr. wilson: mr. speaker, earlier this month i unveiled my legislative priorities for 2014 and promised the people of my counties that i would continue to advocate on behalf of the missions at the savannah river state. a department of energy facility

that has experienced several setbacks as a result of the administration's confused policies on clean, nuclear energy. on friday i hosted a round table a with contractors, community leaders and locally elected officials to discuss the path forward. having all parties in the central setting gave me an opportunity to hear their concerns, thoughts and proposals for jobs. while many different priorities were discussed, everyone shares the same objective, ensure current and future missions remain in tact with a dedicated work force for environmental cleanup, nonproliferation compliance and national security. as a -- as the only member of congress who has worked there, i am confident that as we all work together for these missions, our goal will be accomplished. in conclusion, god bless our troops and we will never forget september 11 and the gleeble war on terrorism -- global war on terrorism. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the speaker of the house seek recognition? the speaker: mr. speaker, i ask

unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman the speaker is recognized for one minute -- the speaker is recognized for one minute. the speaker: today in our country far too many americans have been unemployed for too long. out of every 10 people looking for work, nearly four have been looking for more than six months. what for many families began as a crisis has turned into a reality. a new normal. this is why the house has passed dozens of jobs bill that would create a better environment for hiring and more economic growth. one proposal awaiting action in the senate is h.r. 803, the skills anth. right now if you want to acquire new skills to qualify for a good job, you're up against a job training system that's a maze of overlapping programs an waste. the skills act streamlines and strengthens the system to make it more effective for those who need help. it reduces road blocks for both job seekers and employers trying to find the right candidates. while our economy has been changing the way we help

prepare our workers has not. and with so many americans still asking the question, where are the jobs, it's clear ly past time that we do. this unfortunately not only senate democrats have failed to act on this measure, their focus continues to be on improving unemployment. our focus should be on improving employment. making it easier to create jobs and to boost wages. to help the nation's long-term unemployed, the senate should pass the skills act as soon as possible. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from north carolina eek recognition? >> address the house for one minute, revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. hode hold mr. speaker, it is hard -- mr. holding: mr. speaker, it is hard to see anyone out of the obama administration singing high praises with the nuclear ideal with iran. iran has taken to the media to declare how the obama administration is overselling

the terms of the agreement. how there will be no dismantling of centrifuges and how the united states, quote, surrendered to the iranian nation's will. so while this administration, mr. speaker, gives back access to billions of dollars in frozen assets and relaxes sanctions on the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism, iran, their centrifuges will continue to spin. history has taught us that we are dealing not with an honest broker in tehran. the election of president rouhani does nothing to change the fact that the supreme leader is still in charge. and nothing in this agreement denuclearizes a hostile and oppressive regime. thank you, mr. speaker, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. pursuant to clause 12-a of rule 1, the chair declafere -- declares the news to recess until approximately

effectively serve as the united states representative. the congressman has spent time in a rehab program. this is his first term, his resignation is effective tonight. we will be taking you live to the center for strategic and international studies to hear a discussion about the future of

nato with senators john mccain and christopher murphy. we will have that live, you're on c-span, at 4:15 p.m. eastern time. hillary began at the university of arkansas in 1973. hillary came in a year later. her career began right inside of this building. the universityat of arkansas, where she was a professor and she taught classes like trial procedure and the prison project. >> hillary was wellesley educated, ivy league live -- lot -- ivy league law school grad. at his time, nixon had been impeached two weeks before she taught her first class. hillary clinton, live on c-span and c-span three. >> as we stabilize the financial steps to gettook

our economy growing again. jobs asas many possible. to help americans who had become unemployed. that is why we extended or increased unemployment benefits for more than 18 million americans. made health insurance 65% cheaper for families who get their coverage through cobra. and past 25 different tax cuts. let me repeat, we cut taxes. 95% of workingr families. we cut taxes for small businesses. we cut taxes for first-time homebuyers. we cut taxes for parents trying to care for their children. we cut taxes for 8 million americans paying for college. >> our preview program starts live, tuesday night, at 8:00 eastern. followed by the response from the republican conference chair,

cathy mcmorris rodgers, and your reaction by phone, facebook, and twitter. the state of the union, tuesday night, live on c-span, c-span radio, and c-span.org. >> earlier today, michael p vollmar said that with the extreme these and exchange commission dad set -- said that with the securities and exchange there was work to be done on money market reform and financial regulation. he is one of the newest members of the sec. he spoke for about 25 minutes. >> good morning, ladies and gentlemen. welcome to the chamber. i am president for the capital markets. i am pleased to see so many of

you here today. particularly so many above board. this is an important topic and an important speaker. i immediately want to turn it over to chris donahue. federated is a $350 million manager of assets in pittsburgh. anyone who has met chris knows that he is the classic american that started,idea in fact, probably stepping on at least one of your lines, but started i think the family was looking at things ranging from dairy queen to financial services. fortunately for our country, they chose financial services. one of the things we have embedded within our mission statement is the role of providing financial services to fuel the american economy has never been more important. we hope that subsequent efforts with families making decisions to build will choose

greater businesses around financial services. i will only say three quick things. anyone who knows chris knows that he has his priorities straight. his family, his community, giving back, they always come first. second, he fundamentally believes in doing right by the customer. , investing inback the community, being a great civic leader is as important as being a great corporate leader. reasons,reason, those we are pleased to introduce chris donahoe, a federated. [applause] you, david. good morning, all. it is a great pleasure to meet to introduce our commissioner representative today. he did teach at iowa state university, which means that he knows a lot about real weather and real winter. i am not just talking about what

outside, i am talking about the climate in this town. he has stood on principles, learning economics, working at the sec in risk analysis, working in the senate with the ab and flow of legislation, as well as the private sector, where he learned about something called the marketplace. yes, and he didn't work in both the bush and obama administration white houses. i understand he is not currently working on his memoirs. an academic powerhouse who actually knows real stuff. this real stuff, i think, could play well in the subject of jurisdiction. differences that are important .atter for example, is it wise to take football, baseball, basketball, and manage them all the same just because you want to call it prudential ball? maybe not. if we had done what he wanted in

his time in the senate, we would have a crisp definition of systemically important, and not what nobel laureates now call a radio tour a grab bag. he is a founding father and real educator on economic analysis. what does that mean? it means doing the right thing for the right reason. it means being aware of unintended consequences. asking and answering the right question. i can remember a time when my five-year-old son asked me -- what is hell? i launched right into it. good boys, bad boys, especially obey your father. i was hitting it out of the park. i look at him, his face is all contorted. i said -- what is the matter, do you not understand? he said he didn't get it. he said -- what does it mean when you say -- what in the hell is going around -- going on around

here? [laughter] cost analysis means rigorous work, not just doing what the philosopher king deems appropriate. have ais morning we champion of investor protection, student of efficiency, and thankfully a protector of the capital market. dr. and commissioner. -- dr. and commissioner, michael piwowar. >> thank you. david, i want to thank you for the work that you do to promote global american leadership in capital formation. i have had the pleasure of working with a number of great and talented people at the chamber. i wanted to mention a few of them before the outset of my remarks.

tom, it has been great in joining you in your efforts to make sure that financial regulatory agencies not only follow the law, but take into account the best available information on regulatory consequences. trenchesp was in the with me during the height of the global financial crisis. lee's continue to advocate not only for bringing regulatory and public transparency to the over- the-counter derivatives market, but preserving the main street ability to hedge unique business risks. alice joe, i have enjoyed working with you on money market refund forms that are consistent with the goal of preserving the product for investors and the short-term funding markets. everyone fornk being so understanding about rescheduling my speech, which was originally supposed to be done in october but was postponed because of the government shutdown. thank you for being so understanding for that. i am happy to finally be here to talk about the issues we are facing at the commission.

i doubt i need to give a disclaimer that the views i express on my own, they do not necessarily reflect the views of the commission awry fellow commissioners. in fact, i am pretty sure that most of my views do not. [laughter] like to do is take the opportunity today to articulate how i believe an sec commissioner should approach everything that comes before the commission. with a is confronted wide range of matters, including rulemaking, exempt requests, guidance, and enforcement actions. regardless of the area, when making decisions the commissioners should be guided simply by the core mission of the sec, protect investors, maintain orderly markets, as well as capital formation. my overwhelming philosophy is very simple. it boils down to a question that i ask myself every morning on the way to work. what can i do, today, to help to

advance and defend the core mission of the sec? i choose those words carefully. can be usedds that to describe sports and military strategies, appropriate analogies for an sec commissioner. some days i feel i am in a friendly competition involving well enforced rules. other days, i seem to be in hand-to-hand combat with outside forces. for my remarks today, i will first explain what i mean when i say advance to the core mission -- advance the core mission of the sec. then i will focus on how we can and should defend the mission. by way of example, and as i will discuss further, money market reform presents an opportunity to advance and defend the mission of the sec. i have not reached any conclusions on the substance of money market reform, but i want

to preview how i am approaching the issue. time permitting, i will be happy to answer any questions you have. obviously, we are quite busy frankur job act and dodd act rulings. nonetheless, there are additional areas in which we can and should take additional efforts to advance our core mission. let me highlight just five. the first is a comprehensive review of equity market structure. a recently given speech in which i called for a comprehensive equity market structure review program, drawing on lessons from the 1963 report of the special studies securities market of the sec, and the 2012 u.k. foresight program, report the future of computer trading from an internationalist -- international perspective. without going into to great detail here, there are two key features of my vision in terms of what i think we should do for comprehensive market structure review. first, to allow us to cover a wide range of topics, we should,

at the outset, consider it to be a multiyear review. second, so that each issue can be considered an sufficiently addressed in depth, there should be leverage -- a leveraging of resources from outside parties with marketing structure experts from the private sector and academic worlds. sized pilotsmall program for capitalization programs. it is clear that a one-size- fits-all approach to the market structure is not working for these companies. one idea for trying to improve the trading of small-company securities is creating a pilot or a ram for alternative sizes. i support such a pilot and would like to see it incremented as soon as possible. if increasing the size is not increased the benefits that proponents suggest it will, and i myself am a skeptic, a pilot program nonetheless will provide useful information about the

dynamics of liquidity in our equity markets are can be applied elsewhere. third, incremental fixed income market structure changes. during their previous tour of the commission i was very involved in the price transparency initiatives in the corporate and initiative -- corporate and municipal bond markets. we were able to show that --viding these actually drew actually decreased transaction costs, despite what the dealers say, translating into savings of more than $1 billion per year. shows thatresearch more can be done to enhance fixed income markets for the benefits of investors and issuers, including opportunities to pick low hanging fruit. for example, while commissions on agency transactions must be disclosed, the same is not true for markups and markdowns on principal transactions without risk, though they are economically equivalent. i have asked the office of municipal security who work with

me to develop proposals to improve how the fixed income markets operate. firm overreliance on proxy recommendations. i see many similarities between the influences of proxy advisory firms today and how credit ratings agencies were relied upon before the crisis, good and overreliance from investors on their recommendations. investment advisers are increasingly looking to the recommendations of roxie advisory firms for the purposes of satisfying the duties of voting clients. effect, shiftsin fiduciary duty from the advisors to the proxy advisory firms, which due to their relationships with issuers of securities, may have their own distinct conflicts of interest. the commission hosted a very productive proxy advisory services roundtable last month that highlighted these issues, making it clear that we could not continue to ignore the need

for reform. i will note that the chamber was an effective participant an important and that roundtable. the commission must not lose the momentum generated from the roundtable and should quickly move forward with initiatives to curb the unhealthy overreliance on proxy advisory firm recommendations. fifth, compliance with section two, executive order 13 57 nine, retrospective analysis of existing rules. two years ago, president obama signed an executive order that among other things, direct independent agencies like the sec should implement a plan to conduct ongoing retrospective analysis of existing rules. the stated goal was to "determine whether any such regulations should be modified, streamlined, expanded, or repealed, to make the agency program more effective or less verdant some in achieving regulatory objectives. the commission has not yet undertaken a serious effort to

conduct a retrospective analysis of the existing rules in accordance with the directive. this must change. as if the sec did not have enough to deal with in terms of advancing the core mission, as i said from the outset, we are faced with the need to defend it . i currently see to outside forces threatening our ability to protect investors and maintain overly efficient markets and promote capital formation. the first threat is a special interest from all parts of the lyrical spectrum trying to co- disclosure regime to achieve their own objectives. thecommission should -- commission should carefully consider whether additional disclosures benefit investors or enable special interests to the detriment of investors. with our current regime i worry that investors are already suffering from what former sec commissioner calls information overload. the commissioner points out

that, ironically, as investors are overloaded, more disclosure can result in less transparency and worst decisions, in which case capital is allocated less efficiently and market discipline is compromised. last year he called for a top to bottom review of the commissions disclosure regime. i wholeheartedly agree. such review could help us to identify special interest disclosures that have artie crept into our regime and are counterproductive. the second threat to our core mission is banking regulators. trying to impose their bank regulatory constructs on sec regulated investment firms and products. the commission, not the banking or prudential regulators, are responsible for regulating the securities market. my concern is that the banking regulators, through the stability oversight council, are

reaching into the realm of the sec as a market regulator. accordingly, one of my first acts as a commissioner was to request that i'd be afforded an observational role at these meetings. understand that the dodd frank act designates the sec's chairman is the commissions only voting member. however, the statute also designates a commission as a member agency of -- member agency of the council. toortunately, my request visit these meetings as a nonparticipating guest were denied. i do not think that they were unreasonable requests. i did not ask for special favors. i simply asked that they treat the sec the same way they treat the federal reserve. if you look at the minutes past meetings, publicly available on that website, you will see three people from the federal reserve regularly attend these meetings.

fed, theman of the fed's voting member, and his two guests, a federal reserve governor and the president of the federal reserve bank of new york. i would like them to extend the same courtesy to the sec and other member agencies. one of the responses i received to my request was that of the sec started bringing multiple people to these meetings, then every agency would want to do the same. my answer to that concern is that the f sock should get a bigger table. alternatively, we could stop allowing the fed to bringing -- stop allowing the fed to bring three people to the council meetings when others are afforded only one seat. this is not merely an abstract issue for me. regulators exert substantial influence and represent an existential threat to the other member agencies.

last september the department of treasury office of financial research published a study, and i use that term loosely, preparing on the asset management industry. the study sets the groundwork for the regulation of asset managers. among the council members, only the sec solicited public feedback regarding the study. i applaud the chair for doing so . in response, the commission has received over 30 comment letters, including one from the chamber. i've e-mailed the believe that before they decide whether to further study action being unwarranted, the collective voice of the public and sec should be heard by the members of the council. this is all the more important because the vast majority of asset management firms are of course sec related entities. the other issue on which they have ceded ground is money market reform.

money market fund reform. one of the most shocking decisions in their 80 year history was the wholesale abdication of their responsibility to the money market funds. this choice has been widely criticized by former chairmen, commissioners, and senior staff as threatening the independence of not only the sec, but the other independent regulatory agencies as well. and i am in complete agreement. the only somewhat coherent systemic risk argument about money market funds that i have heard articulated is that a run on money market funds could lead -- could lead to banks failing because they cannot rollover short-term debt. if moral of that story, true, is not that money market funds have structural vulnerabilities, as has been said by banking regulators. the moral of that story is that banks are too reliant on short- term funding. thebanking regulators have

ability to address such a shortcoming directly. the dodd frank act weakened or repealed that authority. timead of them spending enabling banking regulators to approach their jurisdiction in securities regulation, where our staff has the secure -- superior expertise, the council should focus on fulfilling their own mission of identifying threats to the financial stability of the united states. i have identified three entities that i think they should consider reviewing as non-bank, systemically important financial institutions. -- the federal government, the federal reserve, and the basel committee on banking supervision. ,erious academic research previous actions, and common sense support designating all three of these or potentially thinking about all three of these as non-bank.

lucas, a prominent m.i.t. economist, former assistant director at the budget office, makes a compelling case that the government is a significant source of systemic risk and qualifies as a mandate to monitor and study it. respected and why you financial economist posits that governments effectively operate as shadow banks in the financial sector and that their role as shadow banks has been at the center of the financial crisis and that they continue to pose a threat to financial stability. they even recognize that the federal government has a significant impact on the financial markets. at a recent meeting, the council discussed the effects of the government shutdown and debt ceiling impasse, including short-term funding markets. the federal to reserve, their balance sheet stands at over four dollar trillion in assets and continues

to grow at a tapered pace of only $75 billion per month. the executive director of the cowrote a paper famously titled the dog and the frisbee, where he makes the academic case for simplicity in banking regulations. among other things, the paper explores why complex regulation, like the risk weighted capital standards, are not only costly and cumbersome, but sub optimal for preventing and controlling financial crises. now, i thought i would end with some words on how thinking about additional money market fund so,rms are needed and if how i will evaluate each alternative. one of the first contest -- contexts i use is the baseline. what is the starting point from which i will evaluate any proposed regulatory change? tempting to, it is

start with the baseline of september, 2008. however, the commission adopted a number of new regulations in 2010. the stated objective of the rules was to increase the resilience of money market funds to economic stresses and reduce the risk of running on the fund. therefore, the proper baseline on which to identify additional proposals is the current regulatory framework. from a cost-benefit perspective, what about additional regulations? what about the cost of those? those questions, we need to understand how effective the 2010 regulations were. the divisions of economic risk analysis has done an excellent job answering those questions in their 2012 staff report and

commissions relief proposal for money market forms. after carefully reviewing each of these documents and engaging in each of these with market participants and staff, i have concluded that money market fund regulations were necessary, but not sufficient. they've provided much-needed protection. however, the forms were not mitigate the first mover and join them by the investors. there also remains a need to provide investors with more timely information about fund holdings, including the value of , other than, that

is the concern while noting that the sec's objective is to preserve the benefits of money irket funds for objectors with thoseking associated costs. thank you all for your attention. i am happy to answer any questions you might have. [applause] >> if you have a question for the commissioner, please raise your hand. someone will bring you a microphone. we ask that you keep it to getself and we will try to through as many as possible. just a second, commissioner. theye context of the sec, have made significant progress in embedding economic analysis

early on in rulemaking. for us it is never a case of more versus less, but more right but there is no checks and balances, no similar process. when that be a first? who would not require at firstonal action point, they have made tremendous strides. it was normally done on the back end of rulemaking, affectively and ex post justification for a decision that was already made. count up the number of people in terms of compliance, multiply the number of hours by the rate table, that was sort of the end

of it. you use the word embedded, which i think is a great word. our current chief economist is very effective at getting our economists involved earlier and more formally in the process. now, wheree point, in terms of the rulemaking, economists are involved in the baseline alternatives out there. how can you identify the potential costs and benefits of each of these alternatives, rather than a rulemaking team deciding on a particular alternative? sock,r point about the f that is right, i have never gotten a clear answer. i asked my staff on the hill about the legal obligation for them to do cost-benefit analysis. executive agency. or is it? are they considered an independent agency? are they bound by the aba process?

a goodseems to have answer on that. on whether or not there are even particular checks and balances, which is troubling to me. i do not know the right answer, but you are right, agencies could unilaterally try to impose that greater on the council in the context of asset management firms. i see that the sec could be a leading voice on that. i do not see banking regulators wanting to take that on, but that could be a useful place for us. in terms of arguing the world and doing rigorous economic analysis. >> questions? >> right here. just wait for a microphone.

>> are you able to tell us when we might see a staff short report under dodd frank? >> so, there are actually two reports under 417. one of them is close to being done. in the other one, staff is considering comments. i cannot remember one day, 1, 1 and if it is months -- one day, even if it means months. the other will take a little bit. >> right here.

nasdaq.thaway, thank you for your remarks this morning. as an economist i fully support but my question for saying when we supply that there was economic analysis that was inadequate no further explanation. would you support a more wholesome economic response while working on other rulemaking from the staff? >> yes. [laughter] is particularly important. a concern i have not heard before, but i will definitely look into it. we can talk, off-line, about

particular issues involved in that. having said that -- i had not heard that in the context of rulemaking. newsec, we started a website called the midas system. i forget what it stands for. it is an acronym for data analysis. it provides useful statistics on the markets out there. one of the things, not only is it providing you information for market participants, but there is a place there for public feedback. the comments i get from folks, when people do provide feedback or ask questions to the staff, the staff is very responsive in terms of getting back to folks in getting them answer on something that they can look at the underlying data for. i would definitely support that. >> thank you. commissioner, thank you for outlining five areas that you

feel the sec could make advancement on. could you share which of those five areas there might be more agreement or opportunity to move forward with your fellow commissioners on? what you might highlight or think we could see progress on? >> sure. in terms of the comprehensive market structure review, the other commissioners have all various forms of market structure reviews. my would be broader, more long- term, and take into account a lot more issues. there is potentially coalescing around reagan ms issues. there have been a lot of changes to the market. we have done what i call a lot of ad hoc reviews.

on the pilot program, on i --ticular program about program of that, i am a skeptic that it will have all the benefits the proponents think it will have, but i think it is still a good idea. we need to try things to help small cap companies. it is a private -- pilot program that we could limit the timing of. there is also the legislation that would require the sec to do it. my fear is that the legislation would wind up in a place where it would be too prescriptive and i worry about particular market participants getting their business models written in. i want to commission staff to design what they think is the best study to answer the question they want ask him whether or not it has particular attributes, so be it. the new data that we get that is underlying the system will allow

us to come up with different measures of equality that we have never been able to do in the past. i said that we could learn more about the liquidity dynamics that are there. proxy firms, proxy advisory firm do not know.ns, i my fear is that we are going to lose momentum on that, you know? we had the roundtable, but what thatlear was that not there was unanimity, but broad support for doing something in the area. whether that something is done at the staff level to address the no action letters out there, that has a better chance than engaging in rulemaking, but who knows if we get coalescence around those changes. we could maybe see something moving in that space. fixed income, changes in that market, i think that some of the other commissioners have said, publicly, the there are some things we can do in that market.

an area that is near and dear to my heart. at the commission before i worked a lot on those initiatives. if you look at the retail thand, it is a lot wider what we see in the stock market. i think that we could do a lot in terms of helping retail investors. we talk about fixed income structure and we are down to pennies, so the pennies, trading in pico seconds. in the bond market we are talking about a much wider spread. in that area, as i mentioned, we got staff to -- those are the ones who have built up optimal securities. it literally used to be two people for a long time. they actually have a staff looking into these issues and are saying -- what are some 2, 3, 4 ideas that all of the commissioners could coalesce around.

i do not think we need comprehensive reform there. in terms of retrospective analysis, that is just one that i think that we need to be doing on an ongoing basis. just -- hey, let's look back at the rules on the books, but in terms of when we start considering things like additional regulations and disclosures, what are some other forms we can get off the books right? do that, in the context of the consolidated auditing trail, there is a real opportunity there, moving forward, the sros are working hard on that right now. there consolidated trail is a real opportunity to evaluate and find out a number of different reporting systems that we could actually sunset, which would lessen the burden not only on the regulated entities, but on the staff as well. those five.

of course, the chair sets the agenda, so we will see. in my weekly meeting with her, i will bring up all five, as i always do. that struck us from the supervisory roundtable, there are some quick sentences. with that be a good place to start? whether it is investor advocates or all the users of the system agreeing. it really starts with transparency. the proxy advisory firms have become a kind of black ox standard for corporate governance. some transparency as to which of the customers is advocating for particular exchanges, so that people know who is asking. that might be a good first step for everyone to agree on. >> i agree. for me, as i mentioned, it is the overreliance. why is this overreliance?

if we can address that, these other issues might fall away as well. ,t was not the firms themselves it was the unhealthy overreliance on those. dodd frank has done good things in that regard, instructing the agencies to remove references to credit ratings agencies, putting the burden back on investors to do their own due diligence and have a less unhealthy reliance on the ratings out there. i see similar things in the proxy advisory firm. in your remarks, you talked about the challenges of coordinating among dozens of regulators in the united states. challenge of coordinating internationally is even greater. that were roundly criticized here, like mandatory firm rotation gaining traction in europe, and other issues like that. i know that the intent

among regulators is to coordinate better, but that is so hard, what you really see happening is kind of everyone building fortress regulatory structures just in case coordination does not work out. >> i think that is absolutely sec, we participate in a number of international dialogues, working with a number of different groups out there. one of the challenges for us, in that environment, we are one of the few sort of fewer market regulators in the world. the fsa has broken back up and they have the fca in the u.k., back in our space, but a lot of times in those events we are talking to markets regulators who are part of a bigger regulatory structure that is also a prudential regulator with a prudential view of the world. prudential regulators, one of their hammers is bank like capital requirements. if they see a nail like a money market fund, they will put bank

like capital requirements on them. an insurance fund, bank like capital requirements on them. this is another area where we need to maintain jurisdiction is market regulators and are fundamentally different view of the world. the markets are messy, we are ok with that. markets generally work and are generally good for the economy. >> you mentioned money market funds and the idea that there could be more timeliness and valuation on the holdings in the funds. what is in mind there? anything that the industry could be working on right now? , somenow that the shadow folks have sort of, my understanding is that a lot of the industry is moving towards daily posting of the shadow value and want to get more understanding of the industry process there, what would be the of doing those

particular things. i should mention that in terms of -- i have not made decisions on any of these things, but in terms of floating that asset value alternative, one of the is thathat i believe before we consider whether or not it would be a good idea to float that asset value on either some or all money market funds, we need to get an answer from the treasury about the tax implications. that is a threshold issue for me. it would be a responsible, i think, for the commission to move forward on floating the value without getting a good answer in terms of the tax implications. i know they have done a little bit on the wash sales side, but we need better answers on the capital sales side. on the hill, engaged in discussions with treasury, there

was the question -- is this something that treasury can do with existing authority? or would it require additional legislation? i have not gotten a good answer on that. one of the things i will prepare for is getting a good answer on questions i the have is -- if those funds are so does -- so systemic, as they claim, and we need to do something with floating the asset value, then why has the chairman, who is also the treasury secretary overseeing the irs, made it a priority to get an answer? >> questions? let me ask one final question about going back to the theme of your speech, which is the need for more effective coordination among regulators. in particular, if you look at the recent example of the volcker rule, where you have five regulators trying to jointly implement a rule with

five very different approaches to supervision enforcement, you have already seen on the first couple of issues that came out, because of the lack in the proposal, there is no system to coordinate. it is hard enough when you have two parents in a household, hard enough to get alignment on enforcement. in this case, we have put five folks in charge of looking at very complex issues. they have very legitimate differing views on the right answer. right.ink that is i guess it takes a village to raise the volcker rule. that is what we should be saying on this one. [laughter] that is exactly right. there was a lot of intense coordination leading up to the final organization of the rules. to me, once a rule is finalized, that is not the end of the conversation. that is a continuation.

it may be a different direction of the conversation. i dissented on the final volcker rule, even though i think it moves generally in a great direction. sec staff voted for the proprietary trading side, and i think staff did a tremendous job moving the rule from the final proposal into a final rule, towards more of what the congressional intent was and the intent of the original volker concept. there are so many moving parts to this that we need to get answers on, we did not know what they were going to be. it just so happened that days it showedassed that, that there was a conversation that is still continuing. folks do not have a clear -- market discipline to want to comply with the rule do not have

a clear path forward in terms of who they talk to, in terms of getting the answers. the mechanism? the framework? we need to get the regulators together to develop a framework on how to deal with these things . rather than dealing with them on a one-off basis. is it a statement? a letter? a companion rule? it is a bit of a keystone cops approach to this, sort of running around like crazy. why not pause, propose, let the issues come out over the next 30, 60, 90 days, deal with them, and then take the time to come up with a framework in terms of dealing with interpretive guidance, faq, and the fact that you have compliance. how do these regulatory agencies -- the rules say one thing, but how do these examiners actually

monitor compliance? these are huge challenges we are looking at. >> ladies and gentlemen, please join me in thanking the sec commissioner. [applause] ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us today. we are adjourned. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> turning again to capitol hill, the house is in at 5:30 eastern for legislative business. three bills dealing with natural resource legislation. later this week, a ban on federal funding of abortions and possible funding of the farm bill. the house in recess, for part of the afternoon we will be taking you live to the center for strategic and international studies for a look at the future mccain andh john

christopher murphy. that is live here on c-span at 4:15 eastern time. >> bill and hillary came here right after graduating from yale. hillary came a year later. her career began right inside of this building. she left the law school at the university of arkansas, where she was a professor. >> hillary was wellesley law schoolvy league grad who had worked in washington, d.c. as part of a campaign. at that time nixon had been impeached two weeks before she taught her first class. >> first lady, hillary clinton, tonight at 9 p.m. eastern on c- span and c-span three. radio and c-n span.org. >> the real moment started with

two gentlemen. one of them was jack dorsey, the other was noah glass. they were close friends who o,rked at a company called ode a podcasting company in 2005. the podcasting company was failing. they had been out drinking one noah and jack had been out drinking one night and jack had this idea that you could build something that would tell what you were doing at the moment, a very pithy thing like i'm a i'm drinking, i'm eating, or i'm at the park. and noah glass, his cofounder at this company had the idea that you could be able to share with your friends and connect with your friends. he was going through a very difficult time at the time, noah was, and he thought that this thing called twitter that they created would make you feel less alone. that was the genesis of the idea, but everybody had a different concept of what was once it started to grow. >> new york times tech reporter

nick bilton looks at the origins of twitter tonight on the communicators at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span2. on c-span,rrow here live coverage of president obama's state of the union speech. this morning, we got a preview of what he might say during "washington journal." host: welcome back. our guest is todd zwilling. tomorrow, president obama heads to capitol hill for the state of the union. guest: this is his sixth speech. for those of us that work around here, let's be honest. it is one of the rare occasions that the public really pays attention to the president and congress. things pop up when there is a big news event. this is his chance to capture the attention of the country in primetime.

ratings last year were down for the state of the union, among the lowest in the last 20 years or 30 years. still there were 30 million viewers, which is a lot. it is not celebrity bachelor. but it's pretty good. you are looking for public attention and that is the president's opportunity. from the president's perspective this comes as no surprise. he has a congress that is recalcitrant, not coming along with his agenda in any way. the only thing congress is getting done is among itself, things that have to get them like fiscal cliffs and spending -- that have to get done, like fiscal cliffs and spending bills, 15 days late. it looks like we are on the cusp of a "farmville". but two years late.

they have been working on it for two years. most people watching the speech should know legislatively it is not going anywhere, especially in election year. what the white house is told us to expect is a president who will work for the congress when he can. he uses executive power to get things done. the president can issue executive orders.

this is a president who is traveling a lot, getting with ceos, getting with captains of industry so that he can be seen as doing something for an agenda when congress won't come along. congress is extraordinarily unpopular. the president is not doing great himself. congress is much much worse. one thing the white house has been saying, and it stands to reason -- if you are going to congress saying these past this, please pass that -- converse saying please pass this, please pass that come a you don't want your success rate tied to people who are batting seven percent or eight percent. see what you can do on your own. more importantly see what you can be perceived to do on your own and a time when the middle class is not doing well and the country is hobbling back to economic recovery. people don't like washington but they want to see some measure of action. that is the marketing million the white house is operating under. -- marketing mileu the white house is operating under. host: our phone lines are open.

how much of the president's approach will be tied to the fact that 2014 is election year, a number of competitive races, democrats need to can train -- need to regain control of the house and senate? guest: democrats, roughly half the people, are looking up at that podium and saying give us some firm ground to stand on as democrats. you mentioned taking back the house. we can name one or two -- i would say they have a good chance of taking back the house. only the most partisan democrat believes that. really what's democrats are fighting for is preserving the senate. democrat scored and mated a

message that started to emerge a couple of months ago. we saw a lot of debate over extending unemployment benefits. it dovetails with a large part of the message you are going to hear from president. the white house is recasting this as economic mobility. as the country is limping toward recovery, middle-class wages are stagnant and have been for many years. that is not new. you are going to see a message the democrats like that they think appeals to a lot of modern voters. -- moderate voters and not just liberals, one of income equality, employment insurance, minimum wage increase, making college more affordable. sort of the bread-and-butter middle-class issues you are going to see the president mentioned.

democrats want to run on those. we just got done talking about the fact that congress is not terribly interested, particularly the republican house and the senate minority, in passing anything the president will call for. the president can go around and say i have my pen and i have my phone and i am going to be executive about these things. article one of the constitution does not give him a love -- give him a a lot of leeway in terms of federal minimum wage increase. and it doesn't give him a lot of leeway in terms of unemployment insurance. the white house has not said this directly but there are people who know the policy here saying the white house can do something about the minimum wage. i don't know if there is a federal employee that makes minimum wage. the president can drag his pen across an executive order and say that federal agencies have

to favor contracts from private companies. they have to figure companies -- favor companies that offer at least $10 an hour. $10.10, i think that is the increased immigrants want. increase that democrats want. that provides a little bit of a market push and it will cause employers who do business with the federal government, which we all know is worth billions, to boost the wages of their workers. and for those workers, questionable about what kind of accomplishment can be agreed upon. host: our first call comes from milford, delaware. caller: i think in the state of the union -- i hope he does address the minimum wage. what the guy just said about favoring companies, using executive orders to lead them towards that. i hope he also addresses

immigration policy. i think that will help win -- help in 2016 with taking back some of the seats. don't think we can take back the house but i do think the democrats could gain a lot of momentum. minimum wage is something everybody needs and wants. i thank god i do not have to work under minimum wage. i have a great job. i don't know how much but i think it needs to be addressed.

host: the caller mentioned immigration, which is something i left out. i bet you a dollar we will hear the president's talk about immigration. in a congress that does relatively little, immigration has a pulse all of a sudden. democrats have been confidence that the immigration issue is playing well for them. they either get the policy -- politically untenable for any party that wants to run nationally. in the midterm election, they have their own local issues. republican leaders know that something has to get done for tweet 16 and they have to improve their position. it does have a pulse -- for 2016. and they do have to improve their position. but we are told to expect from the republicans and immigration plan that is designed to get bipartisan support. one of the key areas of

disagreement between the president and house republicans is a pathway to citizenship. not expecting the republicans to have a pathway to citizenship in their bill. republican leaders have been telling us that this is specifically designed to sit down and try to get something passed. this may be the one bright legislative spot you see early this year. i would say after immigration, the only other thing that gets done in this congress is things like the debt limit. host: jay carney was on abc's "the sweet." let's take a look at what he had to say. -- abc's "this week." let's take a look what he had to say. [video clip] >> what we saw this week was an

-- what we saw last year in 2013 was a washington that cannot deliver to the people. folks want to come up to the middle class. guest: congress has had a bad year and the president has had a bad year in terms of the public's perception. the president has not had a lot of legislative victories. those things that have passed have been sort of avoiding disaster, but no big legislative successes. republicans perceive that conservative republicans caused it. it affects everyone's rating. obamacare was a disaster, that do not help the president. -- did not help the president .ea

syria has not helped the president. if you remember back a couple of months, a sort of diplomatic stumbling where russia came to the rescue and rescued the syrian chemical weapons confrontation. that did not play well for the president. they are looking for some perception victories as well. the state of the union is as good a place for any for the president to regain his footing and push off on solid ground. democrats want that, too. the risk very little room except maybe on immigration for this divided congress and this president to come together on major policy issues. going it alone is the best he can do right now. host: eric is on the line from baltimore. caller: good morning. i think the state of the union is like a traditional thing to be done. it does not resonate with the american people like i believe

it used to. we are not united in any way. some of the things obama wants to accomplish, he will not be able to do. his big shot at doing controversial things. something,nted to do when he first got in would have been his big shot at doing controversial things. now he couldn't have made a dent in our budget crisis and being united. republicans are not going to give him anything he wants. for us to sit here and he says the state of the union and we are united, we know that is a lie and a farce. hopefully we have some republicans to try to sign on. you talked about immigration.

that's all fine and good, but let's worry about jobs. jobs, jobs, jobs. if he can get some of that done, we will be united. without getting these people that are unemployed, getting them back to work that will , unite the country. thank you. guest: the caller is correct. the president did use a great deal of political capital. that is why we have the affordable care act. which progressives, for all of their griping about the guts of it are thrilled. a health insurance program for tens of millions of people is a major a congressman, assuming -- major accomplishment, assuming the law continues. there is no reason to believe that it will not. beyond that, i don't know the president to try to convince

-- is necessarily going to get on the podium and try to convince people that the country is united. the subtext of his matches is -- of his message is that we are not. dual not cooperate with me. -- you will not cooperate with me. you do not like my agenda. i will go around you to the public. you saw rand paul yesterday criticizing the president. four ruling by fiat and power grabs. the republican leader mitch mcconnell has used similar language about abuse of power in the white house in many different regards. i do not think he will be disappointed to see a president play act like the country and the congress is united. >> next up from oklahoma. next up from oklahoma, naomi.

caller: i have a couple of points a lot like to make. we have provisions to feed people, house them, take care of them and other provisions. to keep them out of poverty. i was wondering what laws do we need? you say congress is not working with the president to pass laws. i do not know what new law that we don't have that we need now. for my last question on whether the president is black, he is as much white as he is black and people need to get over that race. guest: taking the second question first. may be we will leave it there. i'm not sure we will solve the nation's race problem at this table. the president is a first. there is a national conversation -- any time any big-time

first, there is a national conversation about it. i don't know that we have to go much further than that. in terms of programs for the poor. -- for the poor, one thing you are going to see when you talk about income inequality, one thing you are going to see, i mentioned the farm bill. it is a gigantic bill with lots of complicated formulas for sugar and dairy. and the rest of it. the largest part is food stamps. supplemental food assistance for the poor. house republicans passed a bill that would've passed -- cut the food stamp bill. by over $40 billion. had trims democrats of only $4 billion. and looks into the emerging deal that house republican leaders say they will find the votes to pass on their side with cuts of roughly $9 billion.

by closing some loopholes there , are some various programs that are perceived as gaming the system. in connection to a heating program. looks like it will cut about $9 billion over 10 years without cutting the value of benefits. that is something the democrats have wanted all along. that is not a new law. that is existing law. you have obamacare. there is a medicaid expansion that was designed for low income people. many states did not expand it. i do not know the president will ask for any new laws in the state of the union to assist the poor. there was some money for head start. that was a priority that democrats wanted. under sequestration, a lot of these programs were getting cut.

progressive democrats insisted and went to the mat on that issue and got more money for early child could education. -- childhood education. incidentally, they did not get more money. there is not money for everything right now. host: i want to ask about the politics. in today's "new york times" jeremy peters writes about how many republicans are departing from the state of the union response script. and once careful response to be as uniform a message as possible is given away two free agencies. talk about that. guest: which ones is the question. this reflects accurately the state of the republican party right now, which is divided into itself.

you do not need a bunch of disparate state of the union responses to know that. look at the republican members of congress who are getting primaries. mitch mcconnell has incredible -- a credible challenge from a tea party member. you have the tea party response. rand paul is giving the rand paul response. there is the official republican response. let's start with rogers. not the only woman but the highest ranking. she is from washington state. i think the publicans are open -- i think republicans are hoping she can speak in a real way into the camera and to american people in response about home issues. she just gave birth to her third child as a member of congress, which is a record, i think. she is a mom and a repeated mom

as a politician. that is the official response, the one they would like to break through the most. lee especially, and cruise to a lesser extent have been pivoting off of the legal debacle, at least for moderate voters. pivoting off that and starting to talk about other issues besides the affordable care act and obamacare all the time. lee has given a couple of speeches to solving poverty and income levels. most of the nuts and bolts will not surprise you -- low taxes. incentives for hiring and such. lee has been pivoting off that a bit. on cruz, there is another renewal of the debt limit coming

up in the next couple of weeks. maybe by late february congress will get to debate this. we have been around this track twice already. twice they have raised the debt limit. and ultimately, without any policy changes. but major confrontations and potential defaults. what is going to happen with the value of u.s. treasuries? and credit worthiness and borrowing authority? mitch mcconnell asked yesterday on television whether they would demand spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt limit. he didn't say exactly that, but he did say republicans would demand some types of policy changes to go along with the debt limit. that is not saying we demand dollar for dollar spending cuts. the language is loose, and intentionally so. but ted cruz remains steadfast that the debt limit should not be raised without spending cuts.

he cannot stop it probably, but he can make it difficult for mitch mcconnell to make a deal. depending cam and listened to -- depending on who is listening to ted cruz, echo, kate the debt cruz, it could affect the debt limit issue. host: john from atlanta. caller: how are you doing? they should call the pinocchio awards. nancy and harry sing a song. it may be -- i think the mentor could do the carlos sr. and jr. performance and that should be transparent. thank you. guest: jokey and sarcastic, i guess. i think he was referring to the nancy pelosi and harry reid.

if they all got on stage together, something i would watch. caller: hi. yes. i do not care -- the woman called and said barack obama is half white. maybe she needs to go down to the senate floor and let them know that. they fight this man on anything he has to do. for all the good he has done, does he get credit for any of those things? no. but for any new thing, social security, some moment in cincinnati, barack obama. they are going to fault him and are not going to work with him unless he signs his executive order. those congressmen that are

collecting funds on that, they should not be allowed to. for one thing, they are serving in the congress. they want to cut from food stands and that is a crying shame. and i feel for our president. any time a white man takes the oval office, i think things will go back to the way the tea party wanted. guest: the president is frustrated with congress, without a doubt. plenty of reports that in his private meetings he expresses his frustration with the state of relations with the congress. his relationship with a lot of congressional democrats -- this is a convoluted problem. aside from the large problems

between democrats and republicans. the opposition strategy the republicans have taken on since early 2009 is a part of it. congressional relations have not been very good. in terms of subsidies in the farm bill, one of the programs that is getting cut in the farm bill is direct payments. a lot of farmers get taxpayer money based on how much land they have. not according to how much they grow. it is designed to support farmers when crops are bad. that program has been seen as a boondoggle and money going out to people who are wealthy anyway. the formal is changing in a way -- the formula is changing in a way that is supposed to be more sensitive to the realities of farming. direct payments largely out the window.

the color can take a little comfort in that. host: our guest this segment is todd zwillich. our next caller is kimberly in washington, pennsylvania. caller: good morning. i have two concerns. with the obamacare, the health care -- host: go ahead. caller: until we get a cap on the cost of everything, there is not any kind of insurance that will be able to help us. i have breast cancer and trying to get my five year survival rate clearance from my oncologist. he hasn't seen me in four years and three months. just for an appointment, he wants between $86 and $414. i work part-time. i live with my daughter. i am baffled.

i'm not eligible for any kind of health care or any of that. why is it from $86 to $414 just for a meeting with the doctor? as far as the race thing. if you are member when bill clinton was in office hillary , tried to get us health care. she was white. it is like a scam. so long as somebody tries to take from them and they are going to fight them. it doesn't matter what color they are. guest: you would have to know more about the caller's income situation. to know what she is eligible for under the affordable care act. but with $377 a month, you would qualify for medicaid in any state in the country. if not medicaid, premium subsidies under the affordable care act. she mentioned the issue of cost. one of the main criticisms of the affordable care act is there is not a lot of cost control.

it brought a lot of people into the system but didn't have a lot of downward pressure to lower health care costs. one argument is that as more people are insured, it spreads the risk, if you can get those people to sign up. we are years from knowing if that party the policy will be a success. there are not a lot of price caps. members of congress are talking about bringing back some price controls on prescription drugs that used to exist, to try to lower the government's cost but the public cost on -- not only the government's cost, but the public cost on pharmaceuticals. that may go somewhere in the next couple of years. but the caller is right that there is not a lot of downward pressure on prices in the affordable care act. host: next call on the line for democrats. caller: i heard him talking about the president's executive powers.

how far can the president go with that? we know we have a congress that doesn't do anything. it looks like the next year or two we will depend on how much he's able to do. and how much power he has with his executive powers. i will take my answer off the phone. guest: the president can exercise executive power in anything in the executive. we talked about new requirements to contract, to favor companies -- for federal agencies to contract, to favor companies increasing the minimum wage. that could be a policy the white house puts out. he can do plenty with the military. with the pentagon and federal agencies as well. he cannot raise taxes or revenue or spend new money. he cannot pass new laws. he can bring others to

microphones who want to be seen next to him or threatened those who don't. that is the bully pulpit part. not the executive pen part. the president does have some power in this regard. it remains to be seen exactly how effective this can be in how effective the president is at how much he is bringing the country forward in the time of stagnant wages. we will see about that. host: you mentioned the farm bill. there might be some action on that this week. what else are you expecting? any important legislation or hearings that you are following? guest: the farm bill will be the most important thing, if it does come to a vote. that could be up as soon as wednesday on the floor. it would have to come out today. unemployment insurance failed

before the break to get 60 votes. republicans do not vote to extend benefits after bipartisan discussions broke down. that discussion will continue. democrats feel that is dovetailing with the message the president will have. they do have one or two republicans with them. there is a little bit of bipartisanship there. they have dean heller from nevada. the house will vote on an abortion bill. there is already no federal funding allowed for abortions as part of spending bills that went through about 10 days ago. this provision has implications for here in the district of columbia for how they can spend its own local money on abortion services and family planning.

one hearing that i will be watching is in the judiciary committee. it could be wednesday or tuesday. eric holder comes in for an oversight hearing. there will be plenty of issues discussed. there have been a couple of things that the attorney general will be asked about. nsa surveillance for sure. the president announced his potential policy changes and some policy shifts on data collection from the nsa. he said he was tasking the attorney general to come up with new recommendations -- the president said we will still have access to this type of information. i think it is important and protects the public, etc.

but members of congress and the white house have come to understand because of revelations of edward snowden that he cannot continue as it was. the attorney general is task with helping the president assad -- helping the president decide where should this data live. should it stay with the nsa? live in some other place? not a physical lace, but some other place in the cloud or some third party has a lock and key and you can only search it with a court order from the fisa court. that is one thing the attorney general is going to be asked about. and the other thing is the treatment of mr. snowden himself, who remains in russia. the president and attorney general have been asked -- there is a criminal investigation. so he does not answer. but they have been asked about

how snowden should be treated as a whistleblower. tried in courts should he come back to the united states? should he be given amnesty? i would imagine he will be asked about that. host: i want to stay with surveillance. given the amount of public sentiment about the issue, but also the president just gave a sweeping speech about the nsa. do you have any insight about that? guest: i would be surprised if he spent a great deal of time on it in detail. i would not be surprised if he mentioned it in passing or parenthetically. the president devotes part of -- always devotes part of the speech to national security. i am sure he will talk about iran. he probably has to mentioned syria. under the national security tent. it would be hard to give a state of the union speech and pretend the nsa issue is not out there.

but he did give a mob -- give a major policy speech that was detail.ff from that in he will probably mention it, but probably not a lot of time. host: texas, jeff is on the line. caller: good morning, y'all. how is it going today? my comment is on the minimum wage hike. i am and employer and own my own country. -- my own company. i just got done with my taxes. eight dollars an hour for my apprentices. i am paying $14.46. if they make me raise my apprentices to $10 an hour, i -- which will put me close to the $20 an hour mark after everything is said and done -- i will have to drop my apprentices because i'm not going to pay somebody that does not know the job that much money. i am an employer with under 50

employees. all of my employees are being dropped to obamacare. everybody says insurance costs go up every year anyway, but what they don't understand is this year they're going up close to 50% in some places and almost 25% everywhere. the normal rise of tech percent -- of 10% or under is not a big of deal as what has risen now. i am going to have to drop my employees because of the wage. i have to drop them and put them to obamacare. there is no way i can afford to pay these high rates. that is my problem. if you have a solution to that, i will take it off air. thank you. guest: the crux of the debate of the minimum wage debate. individual employers bristle at the prospect of being forced to raise wages for people at the

bottom of the income scale. particularly small businesses. organizations in washington -- they are not a traditional our player with congress. it is a separate kind of republican politics. they will make it again if the president tries to legislate on the issue of minimum wage. the caller is correct that it would present difficulty for him and his business. the counter argument is that as middle income and lower income struggle, corporations are sitting on record amounts of cash that they are not putting back into the economy. a lot of that money is staying in new york and in banks and not circulating in the economy.

in the way that trickle down economics has always reassured us it would. raising the minimum wage is stimulative because people at the bottom of the income scale do not save a great deal of money. they do not take a lot of that money and sock it away. what they do is they spend it on rent, groceries, clothing. the idea is it is stimulative. if you are in retail, having more people walk around with more money in their pocket is good for everybody. that is the counter argument. host: just a couple of minutes left this morning. todd is on our line for democrats. caller: hi. i wanted to make a comment about

what mr. zwillich said about the president and the executive powers. i guess it makes the president look like he's limited as far as what he can do. if he is limited, it should be blamed on the two parties, as far as what is happening in this country. there was a botched previous administration. they could take 8-10 years to get back. is that a correct scenario? guest: it is so difficult to say. there is the old saw about the ship of state, that it does not turn on a dime. the president has reminded the country that the state of the economy he inherited when he took office. we were already on a slide. the housing slide that took place after that and the worst

recession in 80 years after that. any president would be having a difficult time in terms of policy and in terms of politics of getting out of this. republicans know that the president owns the economy. presidents who preside over bad economies tend to do poorly. president who preside over good economies do very well. in terms of public perception there is a lot of unfairness on , both sides of that. but that is the way it is. that is the way it shall remain. i think the white house knows that. republicans are trying to narrow their message getting down to 2014. jobs and the economy are critical. employment is critical.

but republicans message runs into a loggerhead when the country does not see them cooperating with the president on jobs program and infrastructure spending. more important to republicans is obamacare. callers who were frustrated with their employees, frustrated with sign-ups. the program is in its embryonic stages still -- i should not say that, it has been born. but its infant stages, if i can extend the month -- the metaphor. republicans are running on frustration with the affordable care act. they are already running ads against democrats who support the affordable care act. mark pryor in arkansas is trying to defend his vote on obamacare. he's not the only one. it probably goes to tell you,

washington is an ecosystem. everything is connected. just like in the jungle when things feed, it helps other animals. maybe it's gives you an idea as to what republicans are eager to get something passed on immigration. they did poorly with latino voters. if they can get something done with the white house we can , focus on this one issue that will help us the most, the affordable care act. host: we will leave it there. our guest has been todd zwillich. thank you for being with us this morning. guest: my pleasure. >> and house members back on capitol hill today in at 5:30 p.m. eastern time for legislative business. three bills on the calendar today dealing with natural resources legislation. let it -- later this week, we

could see the federal ban on funding abortions come up. for strategicter and international studies, discussing nato will be senators john mccain and senator murphy live right here on c-span at 4:15 p.m. today. how many young people are signing up for health insurance and what are obama administration's expectations in terms of the health care law? this is from today's "washington journal. host: our guest for this segment is rebecca adams. a was a big wrench mark of the -- a big benchmark of the affordable care act, the role of young people. what do you see so far? guest: the administration put out the first demographic breakdown. what we're seeing is that the administration and others have targeted 40% of the sign-ups would be among young people,

people 18 to 34. that is not happening so far. about 24% of the people signing are young people. that is in proportion to the population. that means the administration has a lot of ground to make up in the next couple of months he for open enrollment ends. -- before open enrollment ends on march 31. host: taking a look at those numbers. that average being lower than the benchmark, what does that mean? guest: the reason why people are looking for young people is that it is a proxy for health. the administration wants more people signing up for care and will need care if you have a lot -- then will need care. of 55-year-oldot

signing up they will be using , their health care quite a bit. you need the younger people to subsidize those costs. there has been a concern that insurance companies might raise their premiums next year to make up for any losses they have this year. host: when can we expect to see an updated number? you mentioned the demographics that came out. guest: they do it every month. expect to see it soon. then we did see on friday that it out a little bit of -- that they put out a little bit of information. they said 3 million people have signed up for marketplace plans. they did not break it down for us. we do not know if there's an increase in the number of young people signing up or not. host: our guest is rebecca adams, an associate editor for cq healthbeat. we would love to have you join the conversation. we want to hear from you --

you can also talk to us on twitter, or on facebook on e- mail. what efforts has the administration made to reach out? guest: the administration is doing everything they can to get young people out. they have a budget for paid advertising. it is they are trying to gear it $76 billion. towards young people. that is for the open enrollment period. they are advertising during the upcoming olympics. they are enlisting celebrities to talk about it. they have some paid ads with some basketball legends. those came out recently.

magic johnson and alonzo mourning. they are highlighting these videos on funnyordie.com. there is a new video out with that. they are trying to convince people that this is something that they need and this is protection that can help them. they are trying to explain how the market has changed since the affordable care act took place. host: our first call from arizona, anthony. caller: good morning. i am calling because the affordable care act has allowed my son who is in college to get a policy. as we all know that until age 26, i believe. he has spent a little time in college. he ended up -- it ended up the policy do not cover more things

-- did not cover more things than the university covered. is,significance of it to me i have two children. one child is married in just had their third child. she is paying $1500 deductible for that third child through her husband's insurance policy. i grew up in a family of single- parent, seven children. we were on welfare. associated with that was limited health care. it is so critical that we all understand health care is more than just the dollars spent. it is a lifetime of how your lifestyle is going to end up. i am 54 now. i will try to live another 20 or 30 years. i have some serious health problems. early intervention would have made a key decision on how my

life would have been. i have been able to get on top of it. but overall, i have stressed to my children, you have to have health care. when i left the military, i spent $600 a month to make sure i had coverage until i could get a job that provided coverage. guest: the caller brings up a lot of interesting points. there is a theory that prevented -- preventive care does improve health outcomes. that is one reason why the affordable care act does require health insurers to cover preventive issues for people. hopefully that will help improve health outcomes among different demographic groups and among the population as a whole. he did mention his son was able to stay on his insurance policy until he was 26 years old.

that happened about six months after the law passed. people now, 3 million young adults have been able to stay on their parents' health insurance policies. people cannot go to the -- people can also go to the marketplace to check out and see whether the coverage that is available would be helpful to them. a lot of them would be eligible for subtitles as well. -- for subsidies as well. host: look at this chart. they say that there was a more than eightfold increase in december for young people that selected a marketplace plan. explain to us what that means in english. guest: sure, sure. there was a surge in december.

the number of young people who signed up grew more than the number of people who signed up in general. there was an eightfold increase among young people. there was a fivefold increase among the population as a whole. they see that as generating additional interest among young people. we are starting from a very low starting point. the first day it was operating, only six people were able to sign up. they believe that as the march 31 deadline approaches, more and more young people will try to sign up for these plans. they believe older people, sicker people were the first ones to sign up. they think as time goes on, more and more young people will show interest. host: next caller from michigan,

steve. go ahead. caller: hi. how are you doing? host: go ahead. you are on "washington journal." caller: how many people suffer over obamacare? where is the freedom of choice? guest: the individual mandate. most americans need to buy insurance this year, the law says. the penalty is $95 or 1% of your income, whatever is more. the supreme court upheld this as a tax. you can get exemptions, including if you cannot find affordable insurance. there is a provision that

requires people to buy insurance this year. host: peter from kentucky, funny -- who is 26. caller: good morning. my question is concerning the percentage of 18- to 38-year- olds that signed up. when i signed up, i was given a notice letter that are needed to know about my prison release records. what was the purpose about that? guest: i do not know about the prison release records. i wanted to mention there are call centers that people can call into if they have trouble enrolling online. people can go to in person centers for help.

that has been really important when we saw the problems with healthcare.gov. there can be navigators and counselors to help you walk through the process. you can go to any of the online brokers. or you can talk to a regular broker. host: if i am under 34 and i sign up, what kind of premiums am i looking at compared to the other people in this population? to sign up under the aca. guest: people who are younger have cheaper insurance than older people. the law has a three-to-one ratio. insurance companies can offer younger people a discount. they can offer rates to older people that are three times the rate for younger people. that is a little different than

what we saw previously. some insurance companies had a five to one ratio. that means they can charge older people as much as five times what they charged younger people. younger people i be paying a a little bitaying more than what they paid in the past. the federal subsidies can be very helpful. they are probably eligible for interesting help. you get a premium discount if you have -- if your income is less than 200% of the poverty -- less than 250% of the poverty level. that is about you get a discount $28,000. on everything if you're between 100% and 400% of the poverty level. abouts about $11,490 to

$45,960. those subsidies can help quite a bit. host: brian is 47. caller: i was wondering the difference between canada and what we are using right now. that is all. guest: canada has a single-payer system that is different from what we are seeing here. the obama administration did not pursue a single-payer system. they knew it would not be able to get through congress. canada has a system that is government-run. what we have here, the government regulates the private insurance. the government also offers subsidy help and financial assistance to people who cannot afford it. it is very different from what they have in canada.

host: target last week said they will stop offering plans and send her employees to the marketplace and that home depot has done that. guest: employers are saying we can provide financial assistance to people and they can get a better deal in the marketplace. it is better for them if we get them a little money to buy insurance in the marketplace. we may see this continue as a trend. host: morgantown, bob is on the line, 62. caller: good morning. we have kind of muddied the waters on how a society as. -- what a society is in this country anymore. i am 62. my automobile insurance goes to help subsidize the higher risk of the younger people. my taxes have gone to help pay

for schools and universities and such. my insurance premiums have gone to help subsidize people with families. i do not mind one little bit. i do not mind one little bit. we're forgotten the concept of society a little bit. guest: there are all sorts of subsidies. those are examples that we see all across society. younger people will be subsidizing the cost of older people if they buy insurance. that is part of the deal. younger people will be paying in i should say healthier people. we do not know the health status of these people. healthier people are paying in for protection. when they do have high costs, those costs will be covered.