racial segregation, including rosa parks. rosa parks was inactive. she didn't just refuse to give up her seat by accident. it was a concerted strategic effort to try to transform democratic institutions. >> the history professor neil joseph specializes in the subfield of africana and what he >> his latest will be in book stores march 4. sunday he will take your questions, in-depth, live for three hours, starting at noon eastern on use's book tv. >> homeland security secretary jay johnson testified wednesday before the house homeland security committee. g-8 agenda ding the and border security. here is a look at one of the many hearings you can see in their spirit at our website,

c-span.org. >> we must deny entry to terrorists, drug traffickers, human traffickers, transnational criminal organizations and other threats to national security and public safety while, and i emphasize this, continuing to facilitate legal trade and travel. in this regard, i, too, congratulate our law enforcement and national security partners and the government of mexico for the capture and arrest this weekend f guzman on february 22nd. d.h.s. must continue efforts to address the growing cyberthreat to the private sector in the dot-gov networks shown by the

ongoing series of attacks on public and private infrastructure. many in con depress have expressed a willingness to help in cybersecurity. we appreciate that. have studied h.r. 3696 out of this committee. we think bill is a good step forward. we want to continue working with congress on this and other legislation to improve this and the nation's overall cybersecurity posture. we must continue be vigilant in prepping for and responding to disasters, including floods, wildfires, wirment, tornadoes, hurricanes, droughts and chemical leaks like the one into the elk refer in west virginia that threatened the water supply of hundreds of thousands of people. finally we must be mindful of the environment. first we operate in a time of severe budget constraints. as secretary of the department of homeland security, i

therefore believe i am obligated to identify and eliminate inefficiencies, waste and unnecessary duplications of resources across the large and de-centralized bureaucracy, while pursuing important missions such as the recapitalization of the aging coast guard fleet. second, i am mindful of the surveys that reflect that morale is low. i intend to constantly remind our work force of the critical importance of their homeland security mission and that the department's greatest asset in pursuit of these mission is his our people. i will be a champion for the men and women of d.h.s., and i will advocate on their behalf. i look forward to working with this committee. the chairman is correct that i am actively working to fill the vacancies in senior management positions. i do that on a daily basis, and i look forward to a shared

vision and a partnership with congress on our important mission. thank you. >> in terms of fundraising, is this a technique that you hope will prove fruitful, a technique in campaign fundraising? >> i don't think that is any of your business. [laughter] >> i think the glamour of ragan had less to do with his hollywood roots per se, like it wasn't the glamour of hollywood exactly. but it did have something to do with the skills and the grace he acquired as an actor, the fact that he always hit his mark. being ed like -- he made out there and fielding those questions look effortless, which is another aspect of glamour. so people who were likely to support him politically could see in anaheim the ideal

candidate, the ideal representation of their views -- in him the ideal candidate, the ideal representation of their views. they weren't waiting for him to fail. as he got older it became more of an issue. but especially in the early ys he had a certain look about him, a word that talks about how to be a successful politician of the day. >> defining and using glamour, sunday night at 8:00 on c-span's "q & a." >> the pentagon on monday outlined its budget for the next fiscal year. wednesday morning, acting defense second christine fox expanded on that budget, including planned cuts and the size of the area. this event from the american enterprise institute is 50 minutes.

minutes. >> so, i want to thank all of you at american enterprise institute for the great work that you do when the opportunity to be with you today. as mckenzie said, secretary haeckel recently announced a number of recommendations and proposals that will be contained in the defense department fiscal year 2015 badges admission. it goes about pain that make in spending choices as having more losers than winners due to the fact that budgets are tight and could get even tighter is no way to win a popularity contest. in many respects, there is something in the package to set up just about everybody's alarm bells and on which meter. from my perspective and as i hope my remarks will make clear, the two categories of stakeholders most protected from these changes are people we should all feel the most accountable to. the average american fighting man woman in the average american taxpayer.

to best take advantage of our time today as well as this informed audience, i thought i would might be useful to provide a broader context, thought processes and strategic shift underlined the fy 2015 proposal. we are unveiling this latest budget at a time of continued transition and insurgency for the u.s. military in terms of its role, mission and available resources. the past decade has dominated by the protected land wars in the middle east and virtually shut. today, in even as the fight weinstein in afghanistan, the military focus is preparing to counter a variety of security threats and embracing opportunities on all points of the compass. recognizing that america was answering this is doric inflection .2 years ago, president obama issues strategic guidance to the defense department that articulated ours.security priorities and

most important military mission. because these priorities weigh so heavily on the recent veggie choice is, it is worth revisiting them briefly. .. enhancing capabilities in cyberspace, maintaining a small, smaller but credible nuclear deterrent and continuing a

military presence in pursuing security cooperation in multiple regions europe africa and south america though at reduced size and frequency. okay that list is not a short one. it reflects the president's chief objectives of protecting the american homeland and fostering stability overseas by supporting traditional allies cultivating new partners and deterring would-be adversaries. v. strategic tenants are affirmed and refreshed in the 2014 quadrennial defense review scheduled to be released to congress with the official budget submission. all of the reviews in recent years have rautins into sharper focus to historic realities. first, as you can see from that list the world has gotten a less dangerous turbulence or in need of american leadership. there is no obvious peace dividend as was the case at the end of the cold war. second, there is a strong possibility that under current

law most notably the return of sequestering in fy2016 resources for national defense may not reach the levels envisioned to fully support the president strategy. consider the recent fiscal history. the budget control act of 2011, even before the sequester provision was triggered. they reduce projected spending by $487 billion over 10 years. the next two defense budget submitted by the president states generally on this fiscal fiscal course of last year's request added another $150 billion in reductions that loaded towards the end of the. map. as director dod cost assessment and program evaluation organization during this period i worked closely with the services the joint staff and the secretary on putting these budget plans together. while no government official in or out of uniform likes having their projected funding reduced,

most senior military leaders consider the 2013 and 2014 budget plans supportive of the military's mission and global obligations as defined by the defense strategic guidance. then, of course the department along with the rest of the executive branch got hits with sequester just under one year ago today. with military compensation which represents one third of all defense spending off-limits by sequester the operations, maintenance and investment accounts received disproportionately steep cuts. the result was more delayed modernization and readiness short that are still with us today. some relief and certainty arrived in the form of the bipartisan budget act signed in december. but, for 2014 and 2015 the vba still reduced its defense spending by more than 75 really an dollars relative to the budget plan submitted by the president last year.

and without farsighted bipartisan action by the congress sequestration will return in fy2016 cutting defense by more than $50 billion annually through 2021. this brings me to the defense department's response to these fiscal challenges. with our leadership's stern warnings about sequestration appearing to fall mostly on deaf ears in the congress last year one of of secretary hagel's top priorities is to repair the department for a narrowing defense budget lower than expected wanted or needed. the secretary recognize the those of us charged with helping to prepare the u.s. military for the future have to deal with the world as we find it as it is, not as we would like it to be either beyond our borders or within the boundary. in the political environment we are not likely to return to levels of spending favored by

the most ardent defense proponents and organizations like aei on the hill or frankly in the pentagon. now the budget plan announced monday would provide $115 billion more over the next five years then sequester level funding. if it is a realistic puzzle that reflect strategic as well as the resources the department might reasonably expect to receive albeit with strong leadership and cooperation in the congress. if enacted it will help remedy some of the damage article is by sequestration albeit with continued training and maintenance shortfalls in the near term and potential cuts in the future. if the $26 billion provided by the administration's proposed opportunity growth and security fund is also approved for fy2015 the military's near-term readiness picture improves

significantly. the budget plan and associated proposals divide a sustainable path towards shaping the force able to protect the nation and fulfill the president's defense strategy. albeit with some additional risk. as the department assessed our strategic environment options in risks we have drawn upon work from outside organizations. aei has made important contributions to our understanding on all of these issues. i will dive into a couple of areas and then close by addressing one overriding concern sequestration on which we should all be in agreement. there was a reason to exercise much aei and other think-tanks presented alternatives to the budgeting qdr. given concerns about potential near-term threats the budget that more of an emphasis on protecting readiness but otherwise there was a good deal of overlap in the overall thrust

of your recommendations. we found that in order to ensure adequate funding for new peer kerman to research and development, there was no choice but to also reduce force structure. now to be sure strengthening the future military contains real risks. as a smaller force no matter how ready are technologically advanced we can go to fewer places than do fewer things, especially specially when confronted by multiple contingencies or a scenario in which -- is required however attempting to retain a larger force in the face of potential sequester level cuts would create an effective decade-long modernization holiday on top of the program cancellations and delays already made and while the odds of the major conflict against another technologically advanced military power are relatively low the consequences of being unprepared for such a contingency could be catastrophic. we also have to consider how these cuts to investment funding

may impact the availability of the private sector industrial base in strategic assets. in the recent budget decisions we were guided very much by the lessons of past major drawdowns. after world war ii korea vietnam and to a less extent the cold war. in each case the u.s. military kept more force structure think of it adequately trained maintain and equipped given defense budgets at the time. the defense department was thus forced to cut disproportionately into account the fund readiness and modernization. the worst example of this phenomenon was the military of the 1970s. that is why for many parts of the military secretary hagel chose to reduce capacity, the quantity of forces available for global engagement deterrence and crisis response. in order to ensure those forces were properly trained and clearly superior in arms and equipment.

i also know mckinsey and others have written about the need to pare back the department overhead costs in the proverbial back office. the idea being that squeezing more savings out of that dock office copy the need to shrink the military further. during last year's skimmer we did take a hard look at the pentagon bureaucracy the office of the secretary of defense headquarters joint staff and agencies in field activities and found that some reductions are necessary in some savings are possible however achieving savings in the military proverbial tale takes several years and produces significantly less in bankable savings than is commonly believed. furthermore analysis shows that dod's headquarters structures comprise just over 2% of its personnel and 1% of its budget. one always said and done an enterprise of the u.s. military

size complexity and global reach requires a substantial administrative and support operation. these backend functions can certainly be done more efficiently with fewer contractors in fewer executives, generals and admirals plus their associated staff and that is why secretary hagel announced last summer he would cut civilian contractor personnel by 20%. the total savings however are a fraction of the reductions required by either sequestration or frankly the president's budget over the next decade. the efficiency efforts extended to the services their force structure and operations maintenance as well. the navy for example is pursuing aggressive cost savings initiatives including reducing support contracts and achieving better pricing initiatives to maximize the possible size of their ship inventory, however these efforts generally --

generate fewer savings and planner counted on in her budget there will be little choice than to further reduce the size of the navy's fleet. finally another the various proposals over recent years have been criticized as budget math, not strategy and when confronted with major spending cuts especially on the scale and schedule of sequestration there is no avoiding the imperative to seek savings and fast. yet i would suggest the notion of crafting a strategy totally devoid of risks and totally dis- encumbered from resources is a logical fallacy and historical fiction. for starters a relative strategy is not to set goals and preferences put together on the assumption and help with the money will just follow. in reality strategy requires a symbiotic relationship between resources outcomes and action. in the real world are military is provided with a certain level of funding as was the case in

each of america's major conflicts enduring the riskiest periods of the cold war as well. as analysts and yes strategists we do an assessment of what this will buy in with the options are. it's an iterative process and these results are linked with major parties as ellen to the present. each strategic element in forms another on a path to final decisions. the result of this feedback loop is a strategy that is neither budget driven nor budget lines. remember that even the largest defense budgets will have links as well as knowledge and ability to predict the future. so they always contain some measure of risk. i'm talking about risk in the pentagon at issue is not the ability of the u.s. to prevail against many adversaries but how long it takes and at what cost, material financial and human.

that does not mean however that we can ignore or rationalize the strategic consequences of flushing the resources available for national defense. if we don't like a strategy that results in additional funding is required to allow for a different set of trade-offs and lower levels of risk. for this budget plan we added the $115 billion above current law in order to have a reasonable opportunity to fulfill the president's strategic priorities albeit with higher risk for certain military missions. this brings me to the sequestration slated to return in current law and fy2016. as a result of the last few months of analysis we were able to identify with some decision with the post-sequestration military would look like a over the next decade. that means significantly fewer ships including at least one

less aircraft, dropping the army down a bit further to 420,000 active-duty soldiers ,-com,-com ma cutting more air force squadrons delaying or curtailing the purchasing of joint strike fighters and other platforms critical to u.s. air superiority and shorteninshortenin g combat units of spare parts, basic maintenance and the ability to to have complex military training. consider most significasignifica ntly the kind of world that could follow several years of sequestration. the u.s. could not respond decisively to simultaneous aggression by two states thus inviting military adventurism by potential adversaries. our forces could not play quickly and in strength to respond to disasters overseas or other contingencies that require america's leadership. some allies and partners would be more likely to hedge their bets and cut side deals with

their larger and more aggressive neighbors and finally america would remain the world's military power but would no longer be the guarantor of global security that can be counted on to protect our values, interests and allies. these are the kinds of scenarios we need to consider, the kinds of discussions we need to have. after looking at these issues carefully analytically with real data for many years as recently helping secretary hagel for the recent budget review i know this much. pretending that a return to sequester is not harmful is the most harmful thing that we can do. there needs to be a serious national dialogue on what is sensible, sustainable and strategically sound defense budget looks like. we believe that we have proposed that budget this year. if our elected officials and

body politic conclude that they truly want a diminished role for the u.s. in and the world and we can start ratcheting back the corresponding military investments and force structure but as i wrote a few months ago after being at the pentagon the first time around let's drop the illusion that by efficiency and managerial talk the u.s. military can absorb cuts of the size and of this immediacy without significant consequences. as defense leaders we must prepare our institutions for leaner times and make sound choices. the country as a whole including its elected leaders need to understand the strategic and human consequences of reducing drastically the resources available for national defense and in so doing reducing america's role in the world as a global power and a force of stability. it is up to all of us in government and out, to make the case and make the choices necessary on behalf of the men and women in uniform for our country's security and

credibility as a global power. so thank you again for this opportunity to speak with you and now i look forward to your questions. [applause] >> thank you so much. we are still going to get ms. fox out of here on time this morning. as you know she is very generous and is a very busy woman. thank you very much. it's very enlightening and i agree with you. we are on agreement on pretty much everything. we spoke yesterday at the pentagon and another enlightening conversation with the secretary and if you could clarify perhaps a little more notches for me but really for the audience. there are two budgets but there is one -- coming over but in the budget that's coming over that is slightly higher the 115 billion

that you outlined are basically off ramps for policymakers and dod. some of them are and in some of them are out however but you still have a long list of options that you pull from so it may not be clear to policymakers right away. for example you clarified yesterday at the pentagon that's a consequence of sequestration is an army that drops to 420,000 active-duty soldiers. that is built in the budget. you hope that you don't have to do that and understand that but there are other things like the aircraft carrier that are in the budget but that you could take it out if you need to be funding does not materialize. could you walk through what is baked in an baked out of this cake? >> i think please try harder we couldn't have made this budget more complicated. so it's very hard to explain. there are multiple budgets and vetted in this submission so maybe i could just walk through the list even more than i did yesterday if that would be okay for this audience.

first of all we will include a description of the force forest that i touched on in my remarks on what the sequester force will look like. we actually have the services produced at sequester level for the first time so that is the first time we actually have the detail necessary to clearly show do you like this picture and if you do they keep going on the sequester path. that will be not submitted at budget level even though we have added the pentagon but the description included in the budget. that leads me to the actual budget which has two budgets and it. we did this planning and as i said in my remarks complex force structure takes time to get out and is really hard to plan for so bringing the army down smartly not the way we have done it before meaning the swiss cheese army but an army that remains capable as you bring it down is hard. it takes a lot of time and planning and the army and marine

corps did that planning. we left that in the budget but we know where the offerings are so forget assurances that we are going to the president's budget level in 16 rather than sequester we will plan that offramp and put that into the budget's mission next year in the year after. the aircraft carrier is another one. we have to take a carrier out of sequester. again you have to plan fueling in the yards and all that planning so frankly that planning is still in the budget but in 15 we will kind of cold. we won't take the people out. we won't take the air wing out. we will put the ship in the yards and start the actions that you would take whether you are going to refuel it put it back in service or take it out of service so we have time. again if we get some assurances that the budget is going up instead of down in fy16 we will keep the carrier. if however we go back to sequester we really have no choice.

it's true that the budget is higher, $115 billion higher so what we try to put in there are things that we could reverse more quickly than the kinds of really complicated things i just mentioned. so programs he would just cancel or parts of our structure you would just take out immediately like the kc-10's or an fortunately readiness which we put a lot of investment and in the $115 billion that again we just have to stop doing. it's a complicated story as i have said and thank you for the question. he gave me a chance to at least walk you through what we have tried to do. >> i will offer one comment in sympathy to you and your colleagues. as sequestration hit last year and the comptroller sent over his report and there was one from the pentagon last summer you are coming off the continuing resolution and sequester and then there was a budget finally and then there

was sequestration. maybe i reversed the order but they all three came back to the session and even to look back a year ago was very complicated to get a clear sense of what the impact of last year sequestration so i know we are talking about the moment. when i try and look back i know congress really struggles with this to be sure. i would just say in great sympathy to you that this is a very cloudy budget picture and my only worry is that because it's so complicated again it's hard to get capitol hill to be as sympathetic as we are. it's very confusing and i know that's not your fault. one question on your navy yard. you mention specific in the comments and i know will be of great interest to the audience in washington but if there aren't certain savings that you get out of contracts and shipbuilding in particular you

would have to make other decisions to free up funding do you -- will you elaborate on a that quickly please? >> it's actually a rod package of acquisition related deficiencies that the navy has proposed this year. we touched on efficiencies and we have all pushed on efficiencies. 200 really in today and we have another package this year so we think efficiencies are important but when it comes to the agency it's difficult to count on it. you want to have efficiency because you are going to be tougher in your contract negotiations in going to get more stability and be a partner with the industry or you were going to live with fewer support contractors than you planned. the navy did really detailed work on that this year and they have projections and we are excited that they did that because if the whole department

could do that kind of thing we could do even better with the money that we have which is obviously the goal but i did want to mention that we are counting on those predictions. they were able to keep force structure slightly higher than what we predicted in the skimmer because of those efficiencies so it reinforces the points you have made on the value of efficiencies. the more efficient we get the more efficient for structure we can keep. on the other hand there's a bit of gamble he here and i'm excited the navy is giving it their best shot and secretary and kendall and i looked at it hard and we are fully in support of them and hoping their successes will migrate across the whole department created. >> that's fantastic. we will be watching that closely. we are going to open it up to questions from the audience. we have about 15 to 18 minutes. please wait for the microphone.

>> george nicholson a policy consultant with actual operations. i was on capitol hill yesterday on the seminar services committee before senator mccain put the hold on the nomination. one of the questions is in your inputs in the budgeting concerns the concern about retiring the a-10 which the senator from new hampshire is adamantly against senator blumenthal says he will reconstitute a combat rescue helicopter program. the issue right now with the army and the big battle they are having in reducing the car both the air force but with those inputs of those change what kind of impact will that have on the budget and where does the money for that come from? >> thank you for that question. this is our annual challenge and it has been frankly since the first 487 billion-dollar reduction in the budget. we worked very hard in the

department as i know this audience appreciates to take a holistic view and it's a tightly crafted package where if you don't get this something else comes out and then it goes to the hill and they take it piece by piece. i wish i had a magic solution. all i can say is we are going to do everything in our power to explain those trade-offs. if they force, as they have every year, is to keep things that we don't want to keep something else happens and we are at the point even with a 115 billion additional there are few places -- few places i can come out and it ends up coming out of readiness or we end up slipping and sliding with programs even more expensive. we are up there trying to make that case and trying to do a lot of that myself. i have done a lot of the analysis behind these things for the guard for example. the secretary asked me to establish a tiger team with the

guard in the army to put together the facts and come up with a balanced fact-based rationale behind all of our reasons and we are continuing to work to see if we can't come together on this and not fight ourselves and kick it to the hill. things like that we are working as hard as we know but frankly we also need your help. everybody here could help us make the case and force us to keep something we don't need an and something we need where at the point where we have to take it out somewhere else. >> thank you. >> absolutely. of great interest to aei as well. >> thank you. richard from the british embassy. you mentioned the upcoming pdr and with the degree of budget uncertainty i am berry relieved to hear what you describe as slightly opaque but there does

seem to be uncertainty on what sort of budget you could base a strategy on. clearly you need to have a strategy. can you give some sort of indication of the thinking of how your pdr can come out given the extent of the uncertainty? >> absolutely. qdr as i know this audience knows it's supposed to be fiscally unconstrained. it's a the strategic aspirations of the department and it didn't do that. that's just the bottom line. we made a choice. i think of this qdr as the qdr that looks to achieve the defense strategic guidance slightly refreshed but in a resource informed more austere way and to articulate clearly what we would do, with the geostrategic context is for that

the gst came out two years ago and looking at what the resources as i pretty much just laid out will support and where the risks are and then a little bit on sequester. qdr tracks very closely with the kind to remarks that i just made and you did it in an iterative way because we really did want to put forward in this qdr a few of the world that just didn't match the reality. >> christine this is great to hear. i'm with opposed nay will graduate school. one of the things that struck has struck me in the last two years as the importance of storytelling and what i find is people who are part of the inner circle when they write it, they can understand it. they don't test it. in many ways is kind of like the problems we had with the health

care. they didn't go out and see if it works in those at the bottom who will have to use it. i guess my suggestion is you might want to bring a random collection of people together to look at it to see what they don't understand. i just went through something like this last week with the navy admiral and all of a sudden when he presented it the audience got it so it makes a real difference doing those tests with people who don't understand the detailed. >> it's a terrific suggestion. thank you for that and we should do that. i'm going to take that back because we aren't communicating. we were not able to communicate the impact of the sequester last year because we talked about readiness and nobody knows what readiness is. i have the opportunity to do an npr interview and i knew, my great staff helped me. if you use readiness it's not going to communicate so i talked about having your teenager drive to ohio in a snowstorm. you want to make sure they can drive.

you want to make sure they can drive in snow. you want to make sure their car works and it's been service and if it breaks down they have a spare tire. that is what readiness is for all of our ships and airplanes and tanks and so forth. it's a little longer than the word but i think those kinds of points that you are making are so important. we go into the pentagon and i get it so trying out our story on these outside groups is a triptych ideas so thank you. >> to your point and questions i was thinking about her a conversation this morning and yesterday and i was literally, i'm so frustrated with the pentagon's inability to get to congress. it's kind of the first question in the audience and it's not just people focused on the hardware but it's about the national guard and retiring fleets of aircraft and ships and

other priorities. i was thinking in terms of what would that be like and i haven't given this enough thought is you will find out he my 3-year-old son i said what if i taken to the hairdresser and i say you have to take an inch off of his hair but don't take anything off of the front or or the sides of the back or the top. when they sent the budget d. they were going to fence off anywhere from 1/2 to two-thirds virtually cutting everywhere and the one third that is military personnel compensation particularly. understand the messaging and it's something we give great thought to. aei. do we have any more questions? >> thomas frist berg. my question has to do with right now and i think you acknowledge to our conventional forces are in the near-term going to be superior to any of our adversaries so what you are

really at is terrorism cyberwarfare and other asymmetric attack dix and yet we talk about needing extra aircraft or joint strike fighters and i was wondering is there discussion in putting money into current weapon technologies that are probably built for an enemy that doesn't exist at this point. is that going to hurt us 20 years down the road when they conventional adversary such as china may rise? >> so said another way are we living in the past with our force as we move to the future. we have to move to the future and the budget does for example we actually took out more air force structure than we would like to protect the new long-range bomber and we are

detecting cyber. we are texting soft so the aspect is the force we see wearily vital for the future are protected at the things like aircraft carrier, we thought in the skimmer be would have to go down to nine or eight with sequester and i think your study also took the carriers down more the outcry of going to 10, if not had any more calls on anything than that and i am by my own admission an aircraft carrier analyst myself so i have a lot of experience with this and i get it. it's incredibly important capability in the force. it's a huge simple -- simple. look at how china is trying to announce if they are going to push a their aircraft carriers. we we are putting him in a position where he has to look the global community and i and save we are bringing our air carriers down at the same time

china is trying to build them. your point is spot on. if we think it's important got to be able to play and is not the first time carriers have had this problem. in the whole cold war the soviets put enormous energy enormous money into taking out the aircraft carriers and the strikers and that is how i cut my teeth in this business, figuring out ways to make it survivable and actually we did an awful lot in those days. none of those things would work in today in today's world but we are so used to dominating and we don't spend anywhere near the money we should on electronic warfare and deception and other things like that can make a huge difference and in this budget environment we can actually afford things like that. we need to be more creative so that's .1. joint strike fighter is another program that suffers from the

same challenge of how can we talk about shorter range in a world where they are pushing us further and further out and i think the same point comes in, we have to recognize jsf is the only jet we have built that is built from the ground up to be survivable in a challenging bw environment for example. that's a tremendous capability. we haven't started to figure out what we can do with that capability and there are phases two and a complex the early phases may not be all to use jsf but eventually you can get in there. so across the spectrum i think your point is very good and it's not lost on us. we have to make sure that the platforms we have today can work tomorrow and we are preferentially trying to protect those investments. >> in fact what we did briefly

at the exercise which last summer as ms. fox knows we conducted a management review and had the opportunity to discuss that with you and this winter it was a shadow 2015 budget/qdr and what we found it aei basic he was we have to cut further than sequester levels in the budget year that you are and so you could free up money to make investments in electronic warfare and other enablers like she talked about combat logistics as well as space and satellite so you take bings down even further than the sequester asked for and it's a difficult situation and all the more reason why you look for additional help in funding. >> thank you for saying that. that is very true and very important for people with understand. >> hi. i mary walsh with cvs news. i wonder if he you could expand on your remarks drawing down the

armies smartly. you have a force now that is highly-skilled in combat and i was recently at some training and when you have combat veterans conducting training it's a totally different game out there. yet it is those seasoned combat veterans that are potentially the ones that will be taken out of the army or forced to retire or just leave the army. how do you draw down the armies smartly? >> so the army is extraordinarily capable right now in counterinsurgency operations for example. one of our challenges for all the force, not just the army is we have to rebalance the force towards full spectrum operations so we actually feel in addition to the challenge that you rightly raised we have to actually add readiness investments to the army to help

them recover their full-spectrum capabilities and again this is a readiness challenge we face across the entire force so as we bring down the army we want to have the money to keep the army we have at that time ready and repurposing for a globally available for some any type of conflict so we need to keep those seasoned combat veterans. we can't let them just leave the force. if we were to be sequestered and we took the army down immediately we would lose all of those people just as you suggest and we would not have the money to rebalance in the way that i described. so that is what we mean by smart while we have a force, the size of that force we want to be capable and the next year will get a little smaller so we will need that force to be capable and so forth. we are really going to have the readiness dollars to keep the

whole force capable of we have to try to manage through that. the quicker you take down the force the more you break it and lose the very talent that you need, the quicker you take down the money will you keep the force large the less ready it is so it's a really tough set of trade-offs. you try to make the army. the army has done all this very hard work which is why we left it alone. how do you bring it down relative to the budget you expect to have, keep it as ready as possible until you reach that end state where the money is enough to keep the force that you have modern and ready for today's world. that's just going to take time and the more time that we have smarter we can do it and hopefully that answered your question. >> we will take our last three and go here, here and here and then we will finish. >> hi good morning. megan was defense daily.

you have spoken about the challenges of trying to cut from the tail instead of the two. i wonder how you look at things like dod schools base operations and from a services perspective how they are looking at the battlefield setting type things and whether that is falling into tooth or tails when you are looking at where to cut. >> we you're looking at everything is on the table and it has been for a couple of years. schools are on the table. we looked at schools. scammer went from very benign efficiency initiatives all the way to very aggressive that included the schools and then we turned it over to the chiefs and the joint staff and the chairman reid a process and they concluded that schools were really important to the quality of life of the military families their kids are out of school all the time. some confidence that dod is

going to make sure we provide for their families education was important to the future force recruit and retain so we honor their perspective obviously. the compensation package they have come up with this frankly hard enough but we looked at it and i want you to know that we lifted everything. you talk about the logistics and things like depp does so yes we have looked at that as well. here's the situation. there are lots of things we could do and would actually like to do to reduce the base infrastructure. we have about 25% more bases and installations than the size of our force would require and that is why we ask for rack and 2017. it's dead on arrival but we needed. to consolidate depos we need a brac so all awful lot of our dandified efficiencies for logistics have to be part and parcel of a brac. if you put brac in the budget in

the early years it cost money and the later years it saves so in this submission with brac starting in 2017 there's not a lot of savings but we put the money in to pay for brac because we feel we needed so badly for the very reasons that you suggest. >> thank you. right here up front. >> i am from south korea. how many army troops would affect the presence in east asia 28,500 troops are stationed now. secretary hagel said he wants a substitute you too with global

hawks and this is a technical question. do you want the allies of the country to substitute with their own global hawks? >> so the importance of our relationship with korea and the importance of our commitment to south korea and the troops on the peninshupeninshu la is not affected by our plans. in fact it was one of the strategic imperatives has an input is besides the army and other forces for that matter. so there will be no impact at all in our agreements or commitments to korea and we made sure that as we went through. the challenge for the smaller army at 44450 we believe it's manageable of course. general odierno would prefer more flexibility but it gives him enough flexibility to meet the requirements that any korean contingency would require to

sustain our commitment to the forces on the peninsula and protect the homeland but the smaller the force the less else you can do. it's not korea. korea was an input. on youtube and global -- you too and global hawk generally speaking anytime we can work closely with our allies and share capabilities and equipment it's a good thing so we have been back-and-forth on the u2 and block 30 decision and i would say it has always been a close call. when we looked at it this year the operating and sustain the cost of the global hawk block 30 have come down significantly. the contractor perhaps because we said last year we weren't going to keep it became very aggressive to help us get those costs down and we are appreciative that and of course the air force is working very hard themselves so i don't want to take away any credit deserving to the air force for getting those costs down.

with those costs down and make sense to keep the global hawk block 30 and the implications to our allies is something i look forward to working with you on. >> very quickly last question please. >> hi. a similar question. secretary hagel said you also mentioned the pentagon -- [inaudible] so i wonder what kind of an impact this would have on the region on southeast asia. thank you. >> if i understand the question you're you are asking about her strategic imperative to rebalance to the asian-pacific oarm does this budget supported and the shorter answer is yes just as our commitment to korea

and plans for korea was an input to the budget so was the rebalance. we intend to continue to do a lot of the things that we are already doing. for example the marine corps are deploying to australia and doing operations in australia for the first time in a very long time. we are continuing with putting lcs and in singapore we have to bear in two more are going. the president or secretary both are making numerous trips to the asia-pacific ale ward and with regard to the critical capabilities that we need to operate successfully in that region now and in the far term essay is mentioned -- had mentioned the preferentially protected those capabilities like the submarines in the bombers. 60% of our fleet is oriented toward the asia-pacific oarm the future so i think the rebalance to asia is very real. it's a continuation concern.

it's part of everything we are talking about from managing the secretary's travel plans to the inputs that we make to the budget. >> it's a great question to conclude conclude with and i have learned so much more about the defense budget spending this time with you and i want to thank you so much for your time. you were nice to take questions from everyone. thank you all for coming marx coming up, remarks by governor jan brewer. a tax reform proposal. -- the president is in minneapolis to discuss transportation and infrastructure funding. >> on the next washington journal, congressman phil roe on the gop alternative to the

alternative -- obamacare. and later, nbc news correspondent harry smith talks about his documentary looking at marijuana in colorado. washington journal is live every morning at 7:00 eastern. you can share your thoughts on facebook and twitter. >> federal reserve chairman janet yellen testifies before the senate taking committee thursday. the first time since being confirmed to lead the central bank. you can watch it live at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span three. you can also join the conversation on facebook and twitter. >> blown out and broke.

year in, year out. they fought the worst drought in history. they stopped, choked to death on arrenaron lined. -- b land. many were ahead of them, but then he stayed. hopes, andinery, credit were gone. resettlement.s. administration documentary "the ins."that the plao sunday at 4:00 p.m. eastern on c-span three. >> now, a statement right arizona governor jan brewer. bill the religious rights

that would have allowed businesses to refuse service to gay customers and others. >> good evening and thank you all for joining me here this evening. i am here to announce a decision on senate bill 1062. as with every proposal -- great concern and careful evaluation. i call them like i see them despite the cheers or boos from the crowd.

[no audio] i have asked questions and i have listened. i have protected religious freedoms when there is a specific and pressing concern that exist in our state. i have the record to prove it. my agenda is to sign into legislature -- i made my priorities for this session abundantly clear. among them are passing a responsible budget that continues arizona's economic comeback. from ceos to entrepreneurs to business surveys, arizona ranks as one of the best states to grow or start a business. our immediate challenge is fixing a broken child protection system. instead, this is the first

policy bill that crossed my desk. senate bill 1062 does not address a specific or pressing concern related to religious liberties in arizona. i have not heard one example in arizona where a business owner's religious liberty has been violated. the bill could result in unintended and negative consequences. after weighing the arguments, i have vetoed senate bill 1062 moments ago. to the supporters, i want you to know that i understand that long-held norms about marriage and family are being challenged as never before. our society is undergoing many dramatic changes. however i sincerely believe that senate bill 1062 has the potential to create more

problems than it purports to solve. it could divide arizona in ways you cannot even imagine and no one would ever want. religious liberty is a core american and arizona value. so is nondiscrimination. going forward, let's turn the ugliness of the debate over senate bill 1062 into a renewed search for greater respect and understanding among all arizonans and americans. >> [indiscernible] >> the new website makes it easier than ever to to keep tabs on washington, d.c. and share via facebook, twitter, and other social networks. easy search functions make it easy to find a day pass event.

you can send links to your video clips via e-mail. just funny share tools on our meal player or look for the green icon links 12 our site. -- throughout our site. if you see something of interest, click it. sure it with your friends. it with your friends. >> the house ways and means committee chairman reviews his proposals. this briefing is 20 minutes. >> hello and good afternoon. there have been so many changes to the tax code over the last

decade, more than one every day, that it is now 10 times the size of the bible with none of the good news. i know that seems like an old joke now. you may have heard it several times. when i travel around michigan or anywhere around the country, it still gets a pretty good laugh. as i listen to hard-working taxpayers talk about how we need to simplify and six our broken outdated tax code. what isn't funny is the impact washington's constant tinkering with the tax code has had on our economy and our families. - we don't have to look long before we see but the current tax code has done to jobs. wages have been steadily falling over the last five years. this economy cannot even produce enough jobs for all the kids coming out of college today. there are a record number of young americans who are moving back in with their parents instead of launching their own careers and starting their own families. the last time we reformed the

tax code was 1986. that was 28 years ago. america, once the beacon is now falling behind. it risks falling even further behind unless we take action. the time to act is now. america cannot afford to wait. i really saw up close just what a mess washington was making of the tax code back in december of 2010 when a few of us in the administration, the senate and house would huddle on a daily basis to figure out how to handle expiring tax provisions. there was no rhyme or reason and no justification for such short-term policymaking. justifh short-term policymaking. not when the real world makes business decisions on a long-term basis. after that, i sent the committee to focus on comprehensive tax reform. we held over 30 hearings including the first joint hearings with the senate since world war ii on tax policy. 11 i levin and i formed partisan working groups to

tackle different policies. we also launched tax reform.gov which produced more than 14,000 public comments on the need for and suggestions on how to do tax reform. we have done this in the most open, transparent and bipartisan basis, getting input from all sides. askedugust, the democrats to see a bill to start analyzing. a lot of republicans have asked to see a bill to start analyzing. we have already lost a decade. he for we lose a generation, we must enact real, meaningful tax reform to get this economy back on track. a simpler releasing -- what a simpler tax code looks like. more importantly, what that could mean for america's families and job creators. my plan is guided by one simple principle. when it comes to the tax code, everyone should play by the same rules.

tax rates should be determined by what is fair, not who you know in washington. tax reform act of 2014, is a three-point plan. first, we need to make the tax code simpler and fairer so companies can do their own taxes without being audited or worrying about someone else who can afford high-priced talent getting a better deal. we flatten the tax code by reducing rates and collapsing brackets for virtually all taxable income. ensuring that over 90% of taxpayers face maximum rates of 25% or less. the plan also reduces the corporate tax rate to 25%. we make commonsense reforms like increasing the standard induction and the child tax credit. what that means is that 95% of the country no longer has to itemize. they can get the lowest possible

tax bill just by filing the basic 1040, nomura itemizing, no more keeping track of all those receipts and filling out extra schedules, forms and worksheets. second, we make the tax code more effective and efficient by getting rid of special interest handouts and lower tax rates for individuals, families and businesses. this will allow small and large businesses alike to expand operations, hire new workers, increase benefits and take-home pay. you will hear a lot about one provision or another. fairerwant a simpler, and flatter tax code. when we ask the american people, more than 80% said the complexity of the tax code hurts the economy. by a two to one margin, they support making changes. even some of the most sensitive policies like the home mortgage reduction and charitable contributions. what they really want and what this plan delivers is a stronger economy.

they want to feel like they have security in knowing they, their children and their children's children will be able to reach for and achieve the american dream. after streamlining the tax code, the independent analysts say this plan could increase the --e of our economy by 3.4 $3.4 trillion. economicthe stronger growth, we will see nearly 2 million new jobs created. a $700ill be up to billion in additional federal revenues that can be used to lower taxes even further or reduce the debt. what is the impact of that kind of growth on middle-class families? because we will have a healthier economy, wages will start to go back up. families will have an extra $1300 in their pocket at the end of the year. that comes from a combination of

lower taxes and higher wages. the tax code more accountable to hard-working taxpayers. no more hidden provisions that only benefit a favored few. to bailoutncreases washington from its debt and deficit problems. if we are going to close a loophole, the american people should get the benefit of a lower rate instead of just handing them money over to washington so he can spend more. we close a lot of loopholes, we got a lot of the junk out of the code. our plan reveals 228 sections of the tax code. we cut the size of the income tax code by roughly 25%. tax reform needs to be about strengthening the economy, making the codes blur and fairer. today we had the opportunity to make the first step forward. this is the kind of tax code the american people need and deserve. before he opened us up to questions, i want to draw your

attention to a list of the major provisions in the press release. when you are talking about the entire tax code, there is a lot to go over. i want to highlight a few items on the list in addition to lowering rates, this includes simpler improved taxation of investment income. we tax long-term capital gains and dividends as normal income but exempt 40% of such income six tax, resulting in a percentage point decrease from the maximum rate individuals pay today. lowest achieves the level of double taxation on investment income in modern history. we completely repeal the alternative minimum tax both that the individual and corporate levels. this is something that congressman richie neal has made his life's work. benefits, weion adopt recommendations coming from the bipartisan education groups led by congressman diane black to consolidate education tax benefits. along with the additional money

from stronger economic growth, ilies can more easily afford the cost of a college education. the more affordable care -- while the plan generally leaves obamacare policies untouched and for a later debate on health care, there are two main subsections -- exceptions. one, a repeal of the medical device tax. second, a repeal of the medicine cabinet tax which prohibits the use of funds from tax-free accounts to purchase over the counter medicines without obtaining a prescription. infrastructure investment, the plan dedicates $126.5 billion to the highway trust fund. simplification for seniors, the plan adopts a proposal supported

by aarp and atr that requires the irs to develop a simple return to the known as form 1040sr for individuals over the age of 65 who received common kinds of retirement income like annuity and social security payments. giving, the plan expands opportunities to make tax-deductible contributions past the end of the year. incentives,manent simplifies exempt organization taxes and sets a floor instead of a cap to the amount of donations that can be deducted. the economic growth in this plan will increase charitable giving by $2.2 billion annually. i am sure you have a lot of questions. i am happy to take a few of those now. later, we will post a more detailed background walk-through of the plan for members of the

media. that will be a 4:00 p.m. this afternoon. thank you. chairman, yesterday senate minority leader mitch mcconnell said he and his -- he saw no chance for passing tax legislation this year. this morning, the speaker wouldn't promise a vote. when asked for details, i believe he said "blah blah blah." do you feel you are being undercut? >> i don't think we can afford to wait. to settle for an economy that grows at 2%. i am not going to settle for high unemployment, kids living at their parents and not getting out on the run. i am not going to settle for declining wages for the middle class. we need to be the party of growth, opportunity, restoring

the american dream. haveis something americans hungered for. we have an obligation to debate the big issues of the day. i put out this draft so we can engage the american people on this. i think this is something that as i have traveled the country, this is something that people very much want to see move forward. >> mr. chairman, this seems to be one of these intractable things. since 1986 we haven't made major changes. isn't the tax code kind of right where everybody wants it? democrats and republicans want to change tax policy. you want to eliminate loopholes. they have already started to do so in the last 48 hours. sincere have been times 1986 when our economy was strong. that is not the case now.

we have an obligation to find ways to get economic growth, hope for families, opportunities for families. for the first time ever, we have a tax bill that will be scored in what we call a dynamic way. that is why i was able to give you those figures in terms of 20% added to gdp, almost 2 million jobs, higher wages, more charitable giving. these are the kinds of things that i think people want to see. investment in infrastructure. the other point that i have to make is since 1986, other nations have been changing their tax policies. there is a reason some of our american companies have moved to places like ireland. canada has dramatically reformed their tax code. mexico is beginning to do the same thing. if we don't act, we fall further behind the rest of the world. in the 1980's, we had the lowest corporate tax rate in the world. today we have the highest. in order to build this country

back -- i want to see a strong america. i want to see us have the strongest growing economy in the world. tax reform is one way to do that. there are other issues that also help move us forward. tax reform is a big one that moves us in a positive direction according to the nonpartisan reveries that analyze our tax bills. >> the second part of my is about folks who want to protect things the way it is. you say if we're going to compete with other nations we have to get with it. [indiscernible] >> we need to have this debate. we need to move the country forward. that is why this is a discussion draft. so we can begin to engage the american people and small business owners and families on how best we can move this country forward. >> when you were asked in

november by the leadership to come up with a democratic partner to come to this podium with, why did that not happen? you have a partner in the white house who said they favor a corporate tax plan. why don't you take them up on that offer and began negotiating? >> one of the reasons -- first of all, there is a corporate plan in this discussion. i think it will help modernize our tax system in a business sense. think that the problem with just to incorporate only is you don't get as much economic impact. first of all, more than half of asinesses are organized individuals. if you do corporate only plans, what happens to those small businesses that file as individuals? i think it is important to move

forward on what i would call a comprehensive plan that involves both individuals, small businesses and corporations. not all corporations are large but many of them are. many of them do business internationally. that is a different part of the economy. it is important. a lot of these proposals that i have mentioned have both republican and democrat support. i think you will see as we move forward, you will see the fact that there is a strong dynamic score here, a lot of interest in getting this economy back on track. >> is the credit union tax exemption preserved? >> that oppression -- that portion is not going to be addressed in this bill. >> is that one of the loopholes in the code? reformink we do need to the law with regard to carried interest.

particularly when the activity is more like wage income. we take a commonsense approach to where the activity is more like wages it will be reported and taxed as income. i think that is an appropriate reform. advertising taxes? >> one of the things we are doing in this legislation -- and there is going to be a detailed briefing on this policy -- but i businesses,r all the top rate is going to be 25%. there is a significant rate reduction. one of the things we need to engage people on is the trade-offs we are making in order to lower rates. with regard to advertising, the first $1 million of advertising will be expensed as is now. i think that the 25% rate and

the growth that comes from that that ourhange means economy grows by 20%. [indiscernible] >> many businesses organized this way because of tax reasons. would prevent them from organizing as a c corporation if they wanted to. important to the revenue-neutral in this bill. we are in a static basis. we are also distribution only neutral. this is about how to move forward with the fairest plan possible. >> the tax on large banks and insurers, can you provide an

industry-neutral -- >> as we look at the financial side of this bill, we need to look at the fact that the top rate that corporations will pay is 25%. that is a 30% reduction from the rate they pay now. beorder to be able to revenue-neutral, there are going to be certain trade-offs. one of the things we're going to be able to do is have a public discussion about the trade-offs that have been made in this legislation. >> can you list those trade-offs? >> there is going to be a detailed briefing. i think i already answered that question. >> could you talk about the decision to do this 35% bracket? i know you wanted to get the top rate down to 25%. next when you take

this to the committee? >> let me answer the second part first. the committee has a bipartisan meeting tomorrow where the joint committee on taxation will walk through the details. the treasury has also agreed to send staff to that. we will be coordinating with them. lew hasy lwq has -- agreed to provide support on this. isi said, this plan distribution only neutral. there is not going to be a tax cut at the top and. with the changes surrounding the fiscal cliff, there was a significant change in the baseline at the top end. this bill simply continues that change that was made in the last year. thank you very much.

>> president obama traveled to minnesota for a speech on transportation infrastructure. he announced that his budget for postal includes a transportation reauthorization. from st. paul, this is 25 minutes. >> please welcome u.s. secretary of transportation, anthony fox. [applause] >> hello, st. paul. how are you feeling? it is great to be with you this afternoon. it is a privilege to warm the stage up for president barack obama. [applause] this marvelous, beautiful

building is one reason why st. paul is so unique. [applause] we are here today to celebrate the transportation vision you have as well as the program that helped make it possible. your vision is unique and together we have helped you to realize the vision you have for st. paul and the greater st. paul area. as we travel around our great nation, it is clear that so many communities like st. paul also have a vision. i can also tell you that a big portion of our national to-do list still remains unfunded. five years ago, this depot would

have been on your list and would have likely state on that list for years. like thousands of projects nationwide, it would have sat there collecting dust and becoming even more expensive every year we waited. part of the reason for this is that projects at the local level have traditionally been really hard to secure funding for. at least that is the way it was until five years ago. five years ago, the president signed the american recovery and reinvestment act. [applause] you heard of it. it set aside the first $1.5 billion for a program that would

fund the country's worthiest transportation projects and we called it tiger. what it has done is nothing short of game changing. tiger has enabled communities to dream again. to help make projects happen. projects that would have been difficult if not impossible otherwise. in los angeles, the port needed about a mile of railroad track lay down so they could transport goods faster from ships to the shores. tiger made that happen. near where i am from in north carolina, there was a bridge in the i 85 corridor which carried tremendous amount of freight but it was considered the worst bridge in the entire state. tiger provided funding to help get that bridge repaired. to say nothing of the building that we are gathered in today right now.

tiger played a big role in restoring this depot too. [applause] for five years, we have seen tiger investments like these translate into more jobs, better economies and a higher quality of life all across america in all 50 states. there will be a sixth round of tiger this year. [applause] i want to give a shout out to members of congress who made it possible like senator patty murray for their bipartisanship and couriage. you should also thank the builders of projects like this one for proving that tiger can

work and create jobs. most of all, most of all, you should put your hands together for the man who is about to get behind this podium. [applause] because when he steps up here, we are all about to take another step towards a faster, safer, stronger america. ladies and gentlemen, it is my privilege to introduce the president of the united states. [applause] [cheers]

>> it is good to be back in minnesota. i love you back. good to see you. can i just say that when we got off the plane, secretary foxx who is from north carolina turned to me and he said, this is the coldest i have ever been in my life. we were only out there for like minute. hich goes to show how soft you

folks from north carolina are when it comes to weather. i on the other hand, from chicago -- i walked down the stairs i was [applause] like, this is balmy, this is great. february in minnesota, can't beat it. in addition to secretary foxx, give him a big round of applause for that introduction. [applause] you have got to bang champions for the people of minnesota here today. representative betty mccohen and representative keith ellison. you have your mayor chris cohen in the house. he new mayor of minneapolis is

here. and my great friend who told me i was running for president before i knew i was running for president, love that man. now i want to thank everybody who showed me around union depot and gave me a preview of this new light rail line. it is fantastic. [applause] i also just want to say, even though he is not here today, i want to say to everybody how michelle and i have been keeping in our thoughts and prayers one of the great americans that we know, walter mondale. [applause] now, like millions of americans i was watching the olympics. minnesota sent 19 athletes to the games.

[applause] that is tied for second-most most of any state and they did us all proud. it is not shocking that minnesotans might be pretty good at the winter olympics. what is interesting is that once again, the tiny town route that it really is hockeytown, usa. tj's shooed outperformance against the russians, i enjoy it a lot. i tweeted about it. we spent some time over the last few weeks on hockey. i am not here to talk about ockey.

by the way, i cannot play hockey. i grew up in hawaii. we do not have hockey in hawaii. i am here to talk about what you're doing in the twin cities. and how you're helping to create new jobs and new opportunities or every american. we are at a moment when our economy is growing. our businesses have created about 8.5 million new jobs in the past four years. unemployment is at the lowest it has been in over five years. in minnesota, it is lower than it has been in 6.5 years. by the way, you have got a great governor. he is hoping to make that happen. in a lot of ways, things are looking up. in some ways, the trend that had been battering middle-class families for a long time has

gotten even starker because those at the top are doing better than ever while wages and income for a lot of families have barely budged. too many families are working harder than ever just to keep p. as i said at the state of the union address, our job is to reverse those trends. we have got to build an economy that works for everybody. we have got to restore opportunities for all people so that no matter who you are, where you come from, what you look like -- you can get ahead if you work hard. i laid out an opportunity agenda that has four parts. number one, good jobs that pay good wages. manufacturing, energy, and

infrastructure. over two, train folks with the skills they need to get those jobs. something that your senator is working hard to do everyday. number three, guaranteeing every child has access to a world-class education. number four, making sure that hard work is rewarded with wages you can live on and savings you can retire on and health care you can count on. that is what we are fighting for. minnesota is helping to lead the way on these issues. your state legislature is poised to raise your minimum wage this year. i called for a new women's economic agenda. it is actually a family economic agenda. equal pay for equal work. leaders in your state legislature are working hard on this because they know when women succeed, america succeeds. [applause] n all these issues, we are

reaching out to members of congress, looking to see if they are willing to work with us on some of these priorities. what i also said at the state of the union is, in this year of action, whenever i can partner directly with states or cities or business leaders were civic leaders to act on this opportunity agenda, i am going to go ahead and do it. we can't wait. we have got to move. we have got to get things going. too many families are counting on us. so yesterday, i launched new hubs to attract 20th-century

manufacturing jobs to america. today, i am here to launch a new competition for 21st-century infrastructure and the jobs that come with it. any opportunity agenda begins with creating more good jobs. one of the fastest and best ways to create good jobs is by rebuilding america's infrastructure. our roads, our bridges, our rails, our airports, our schools, our power grids. we have a lot of work to do out there. we have to put folks to ork. one of the most difficult things about the financial crisis was the housing bubble bursting. construction workers were hammered harder than just about anybody. while we have cut the unemployment rate for construction workers almost in half since 2010, too many are

still looking for jobs at a time when we have got so much that we ould put them to work on rebuilding. we have got ports that aren't ready for the next generation of supertankers. we have more than 100,000 bridges that are old enough to qualify for medicare. everybody knows -- and nobody knows better than minnesota, when we go through a winter like this, roads are racked, full of potholes all across the country. other countries are not waiting to rebuild their infrastructure. they are trying to help build us today so they can outcompete us tomorrow. as a percentage of gdp, countries like china and germany are spending about twice what we are spending in order to build infrastructure, because they know that if they have the

fastest trains on the planet or he highest rated airports or the busiest, most efficient ports, that businesses will go there. we don't want businesses to go there. we want them to come here to minnesota. we want them to come to the united states of america. that means the best airports, roads, trains, should be right here in america. at a time when companies are saying they intend to hire more people, we need to make that decision easier for them. we can create jobs at the same time, rebuilding our transportation systems, power grids, communications networks, all the things that commerce relies on. and it helps get workers to those jobs. the bottom line is, there is work to be done, workers ready to do it. rebuilding infrastructure is vital to business.

it creates good paying jobs that annot be outsourced. this is one of congress's major responsibilities, helping states and cities fund new infrastructure projects. part of the reason i am focused on this is because congress has an important deadline coming up. if congress doesn't finish a transportation bill by the end of the summer, we could see construction projects stop in their tracks. achine sitting idle, workers off the job. next week i am going to send congress a budget that funds rebuilding our transportation infrastructure in a more responsible way, by doing it over four years which gives cities and states and private investors the certainty they need to plan major projects. projects like repairing essential highways and bridges, building new transit systems in ast-growing cities and

communities so folks who live there can get to work and school every day and spend less time sitting in traffic. and we are going to have to contract smarter transportation systems that can withstand the worst impacts of climate change like bigger surges of water in recent floods. ll told, my transportation budget will support millions of jobs nationwide and will pay for these investments in part by simplifying the tax code. we are going to close wasteful tax loopholes, lower tax rate for businesses to create jobs here at home, stop rewarding ompanies for sending jobs to other countries and use the money we save to create good jobs rebuilding america. it makes sense. there are leaders in both

parties who are willing to reach across the aisle in congress when it comes to american infrastructure. they know how important it is. infrastructure didn't used to be a partisan issue. it shouldn't be democrat or republican. everybody uses roads, ports and airports. unfortunately, time and again, there have been some republicans in congress who have refused to act on commonsense proposals that will create jobs and grow our economy. it is not that they are -- that they don't like roads, they just don't want to pay for them. it doesn't work that way. you have to come up with a way to get these projects going. hile congress is deciding what to do next, i am going to go ahead and do what i can to create more good jobs. that is why i came here to st.

paul. this project symbolizes what is possible. union depot was renovated and expanded with the help of what we call tiger grants. these are competitive grants that we created part is the ecovery act. also known as the stimulus, which actually worked. the idea is if a city or state comes up with a plan to modernize transportation infrastructure, i will have a significant impact on economic activity, and if they line up other sources of funding to pay for it, they can win a tiger grant and the federal government becomes a partner. so far, these grants have given a boost to 270 infrastructure projects across all 50 states. you heard secretary foxx talk about these grants. they're hoping cities like l.a. and states like north carolina. they helped you rebuild this depot into a hub that will bring different modes of ransportation together under one roof. amtrak is going to be here. the new metro green line will be here. [applause]

i just had a chance to take a look at some of those spiffy new rains. they are nice. they are energy-efficient. they're going to be reliable. you can get from one downtown to the other in a little over 30 minutes instead of, when it is snowing, being in traffic for ver two hours. he trains were made in

california which meant folks were put to work here in the united states building them. here is the best part of it, not only have you made a more efficient transportation system, cutting down commutes, saving on gas, reducing carbon pollution, but this depot has also helped boost economic development in st. paul. ust across the street, the old downtown post office building is becoming apartments and shops. all told, more than 4000 jobs were created from this project. and we are seeing businesses pop up and new development crop up all along the way. so everybody is winning. n part because of some

flexibility that we showed during the planning process, the line is also going to stop in some poor neighborhoods that often have difficulty getting to the places where there are jobs. it is going to help folks who are willing to work hard to get into the middle class, help them get access to opportunities that up until this point, they had a tough time. we know this works. today, we are kicking off the next round of competition for tiger grants. mayors and governors, city councils, state legislatures, all of you watching here today, if you have got a great idea for your city or your state then let us know your plan. if it will encourage economic activity and support local businesses and help put people to work, then your country is interested in partnering with you. tiger grants are the only way that we can help cities like st. paul and minneapolis rebuild their infrastructure. you have federal funding to help build the green line. that is going to make it easier than ever to travel between the two cities. you have thousands of construction workers from all over minnesota helping to build

it, nearly 200 police officers, maintenance officers being hired. that is not counting all the jobs being graded in the offices an apartment buildings. because the train stops at neighborhoods that have access to public transportation, those folks are going to work. all of this can be duplicated all across the country, but unfortunately funding for these projects are going to be in eopardy unless congress passes this new transportation bill. i want everybody to understand. the good news is, keith ellison, betty, they are already on board. [applause] some democrats and republicans are already working together to make sure transportation funding doesn't run out. we are seeing some glimmers of ope.

this new round of tiger grants was a result of bipartisan cooperation. that is what needs to happen. we're going to need your voices telling a story around the country about why this is so important. roads and bridges should not be a partisan issue. more americans should have access to the kind of efficient, affordable transit you're going to have with the green line. there is no faster way or better way for congress to create jobs right now and grow our economy right now and have a positive impact for decades then if we start more projects and finish more projects like this one. let's create more good jobs, smarter schools, better airports, faster railways, better broadband networks. let's educate our kids and workers better. let's rebuild an economy where everybody has a chance to get ahead. this is the beginning not the

end, we have a lot more rail we have to lay. we have a lot more roads we have to travel. let's get going, minnesota. thank you. god bless you. god bless the united states of america. cable satellite corp. 2014] national captioning institute]

>> coming up tonight on c-span, a hearing on potential rules regarding tax-exempt status for nonprofit organizations. deputy defense secretary hristine fox discusses the pentagon budget for 2015. house ways and means chairman dave camp introduces his tax reform proposal. >> on the next "washington journal," a gop alternative to the affordable care act. the chairman of the democratic caucus discusses the house democratic agenda. later, nbc news correspondent harry smith talks about his documentary looking at the marijuana industry in olorado. "washington journal" is live every morning at 7:00 eastern on

-span. > the new c-span.org website search. easier to it let's you access our daily events. new tools make it easy crer to create short video clips and share them with your friends. just find the share tools on our video player or look for the green icon links throughout our site. watch washington on the new c-span.org. if you see something of interest clip it and share it with your friends. >> a senate appropriations subcommittee looked at alzheimer's disease.

you can see this hearing in its entirety at 4:55 eastern here on c-span or anytime on cspan.org. >> thank you very much for having me, mr. chairman, and the members of the subcommittee. thank you for the opportunity to testify today and for the opportunity for me to be called an expert at something because that's cool. i don't know if you know who i am at all. you told me you never saw knocked up, chairman. that's a little insulting. >> i want the record to note. >> it's very important. >> i want the record to note this is the first time -- i will wager this is the first time in any congressional hearing in history that the words knocked up have ever been used. >> you're not going to like the rest of this then. >> first i should answer the question many of you are asking. yes, i'm aware this has nothing

to do with the legalization of marijuana. this concerns something i find even more important. i started dating my wife nine years ago when her mother was almost 54 years old. the first time i met her parents i was excited to spend time with them and make lauren think i was the type of guy she should continue dating. my s this trip when i met now mother-in-law laura admitted to me and herself something was off with her mother. both of her parents had alzheimer's disease. soon after this trip her mother was diagnosised with early on set alzheimer's. at this point my impression of alzheimer's is what i assume most people's impression is. i thought it was something only really old people got and i thought the way the disease showed its was in the form of forgotten keys, wearing

mismatched shoes and being asked the same question over and over. this period which was the only way i had seen it displayed was the way it lasted for a few years. after that is when i saw the real ugly truth of the disease. after forgetting who she and her loved ones are forgot how to speak, feed herself, dress herself and go to the bathroom herself all by the age of 60. lauren's father and a team of care givers dedicate their lives to letting her be as comfortable azshek be. there is no way to prevent, cure or even slow the progression of alzheimer's disease. another thing i didn't realize until i was personally affected is the shame and stigma associated with the disease. i'm told of a time when cancer had a stigma people were ashamed by.

people stricken would hide rather than be voices of hope for other people in similar situations this. is where we are at with alzheimer's disease. it's because of this lack of hope and shameful stigma my wife and myself and some friends decided to do something to try and change the situation. we started hilarity for charity. it's a fund we have to raise money to help families struggling with alzheimer's and support cutting edge research. the situation is so dire it self-medicatede, child to start an organization. >> the i.r.s. commissioner discussed the potential rules in a house

appropriations subcommittee wednesday. this is two hours.

>> the hearing will come to order. this is the first hearing of the year for our subcommittee. welcome to all the subcommittee members. glad to have you back. a warm welcome to our subcommittee's newest member. he is not here yet. he will be down at the end. we look forward to having him work with us. today the subcommittee will hear from two panels. we will hear about the activities and operations of the internal revenue service. our witness is irs commissioner. welcome to you, sir. we appreciate your return to the service and thank you for taking on this task. we also have russell george and nina olsen. we appreciate the careful and constant oversight of the irs. we have not heard in some time from ms. olsen, so we are especially eager to hear from her. as a matter of house keeping, i wi b will be following the five minute rules for that members. i do not plan on cutting anyone off in the middle of their sentence, but if everyone could keep their questions and comments for when we get to that