out of it. what is your view on it? >> for the regulated part of the that ise conglomerates, what people are worried about. for the pieces of this conglomerates that are subject to a robust regulatory regime, i think the fed should and already does have discretion to defer to that capital regulatory regime. if they are doing things outside of that regulation, like credit default swaps in london, then they should be subject to the same standards that banking conglomerates doing the same activity are subject to. even insurance companies -- i regulated part, to defer to a state regulatory regime that seems adequate. where do you think insurance companies put their dollars?

securities,ked bonds, sovereign debt, corporate debt, commercial loans, real estate loans -- this is where they put their money. the risk, whether the bank making the loan, or the insurance company, the risk of the same. to suggest it is an insurance company, does not need capital roles, that is not right. we need a more thoughtful dialogue. heorry so often these regulatory movements can get started with soundbites, and of a sound bite is we cannot have bank rules apply to insurance companies. i do not know what that means. except leverage is back. stakeholderse your , policyholders, depositors, to harm if you are over leveraged and get yourself the trouble. -- yes, it canc be done. >> i am not going to get my big

question. i am sorry. if folks have questions out there? i think there is a mike. >> given your experience at fdic and what you were just talking about with the mega financial institutions, how would you feel about putting up an insurance program like fdic to apply to the mega financial investment institutional companies, maybe fyic, that are required to pay a premium based on their size and leverage, so when a crisis comes up and they have to be bailed out, much of it is hovered by the insurance instead of the public, because today

they are essentially getting free insurance as they have more decades, and there have been hundreds of millions of dollars spent bailing out financial institutions that took excessive risk am a they did not pay for it, and came back and got more profits until they cause the next crisis. how do you feel about having a much broader institutional insurance program that they have to participate in? >> i would go the opposite way. i think we need more market discipline. say,nk clear rules shareholders, bondholders of institutions, to impose losses him a that their creditors will be subject to loss. taxpayers are going to get involved. if that money still falls short -- to get a fund, a

, and the ideaough was not to provide insurance, but provide working capital, because you have to provide liquidity support to these institutions as you unwind them. this fund would have been there to provide liquidity support will while any losses would have been imposed on the stakeholders , shareholders, creditors. we got that through the house. we could not get it through the senate. i go in detail in my book as to why. right this morning. the administration did not support us. secretary geithner work with several republicans to kill it. it was called ironically a bailout fund. this is something i wanted to impose on institutions over $50 billion, so if you have a lot of short-term funding, you would pay a fairly high fee.

died in the senate. they called it a bailout fund. with somethingt that was kind of silly. there was washington for you. [indiscernible] what i have been working for and what we successfully got into is to make sure the creditors of these institutions know they are on the hook for lawsuits, and get more market discipline on them from that perspective. also the ability to fire boards which will also discipline management. >> question, yeah? >> i am a medical and social science researcher, and i reviewed your book, and i highly recommend it. it is a wonderful guide for understanding these complex issues as well as activism.

can you comment on senator warren's 21st century glass-steagall act? the other has to do with efforts to restructure -- and i do not know whether you can say anything about edward demarco. is a hero in this sense, trying to protect our money, as he was vilified by senator barbara boxer. the last question is, one of our gubernatorial candidates in maryland is trying to put forth a foreclosure moratorium bill. is that something that you think is a good idea? how might you crafted? is thereany way -- anyway you can go back the last five years to help people who did not get help who were swindled? warren-mccain, a 21st

century glass-steagall, ice just at that we go through a process banking activities, and it all be separated stand-alone subsidiaries that are eponymous from each other. i would be happy to take a look at this bill if they could get traction. if there is another big problem, i think you can see that bill through very quickly. on reform, we subsidized housing too much. i know what i would want to do is unrealistic. subsidiesrow housing out. i would like to see them withdraw. think we used to many resources in that direction, and there are other areas of our

economy that hurt in the process. that said, if they are not going to be that, the approach of senator johnson that was built on the corker bill, which is you are going to have a government make an explicit charge for it, thatt have the model -- was a bad model. d dimarco was unfairly vilified, some of the things he did. he was following his statutory mandate. work at fannie and freddie. i wish him well. i think we owe him a debt. thatoreclosure moratorium, conversation will take a lot longer than we have now. it is said that we did not deal

with that problem. pat is still dragging our economy. housing market is not recovering the way it should come and that is because we never dealt with underwater mortgages effectively. >> time for one more question. >> hello. hi. question -- the fdic this last week announced that it is going to sue the 16th largest banks for the libor. i think that is great. you are not the chairwoman now, but i am very happy to see that. does this indicate that the federal government is finally able to defend its interests much at -- with as aggressiveness that jpmorgan and wall street has to defend their interests? a person put that

out a warning that the derivatives bubble is growing, thanks only have 4% of equity to the ratio of their total assets, and even if a decline in their said theurs, he banking system will not be supported because it will not be one bank you can resolve. he was on a panel with you about six months ago in congress, and michael said, would you reinstate? yes, that is what i am trying to tell you. the question is, how much is it taking this long to get it through? why come if he said the elizabeth warren-mccain tell not going to take place, because we cannot wait until the next crisis, it is going to be too late, and he said you are going

to be bum rushed into another bailout if you do not put this in place. should be definitely on the federal reserve board. i vote for him for president, thomas honig. it is the libor suit -- important to understand what that is about, because i also applaud the fdic's courage in pursuing that. fed -- these activities are not done inside insured banks. a were done outside in a holding company. in new york they were the primary regulator. the fdic has found a hook to come in as receiver on the theory that by manipulating the libor rate, some of the banks that failed have lost money on their loans because if you are manipulating the interest rate,

you are charging lower rates on your loans. are on the losing side of an interest-rate rate swap, it would cost you money. their authority is limited to recovering what they can show that libor and the relation cost these failed banks. it is one additional pool that is used and should be used, and i applaud them, but they are constrained in acting as receiver there and are limited in their legal powers. honig, i think he is great. he is a great public service, smart, understands the financial sector. committed. president, ifor will work on getting him over at the fed, but we need more people like that. go-getterscouple of who at the table, making arguments, driving things forward, and to some extent --re has been a it as a

there has been a bit of a delay game. they have tremendous power. with glass-steagall, they have to mend this political power. look at what they are doing to poor dave camp. you can agree with that or not, but all these bullies piling on somebody onre is the democratic side defending him. at least he has stepped up. it is unseemly. members of congress who signed their names to letters are lining with them and they do not seem to have repercussions in their home districts. this is one of the reasons i wrote my book. takes -- people need to notice when things like this go on, you are going to give money to their opponents, if they see them doing it. otherwise, all the money in the financial sector comes in and

youcises influence, and will get what you have now. deborah solomon and she lived there. have you sold the movie rights? >> no. >> opportunity. >> there you go. are --re going to -- we sheila, in 45 minutes we are having drinks next door, with deficit cocktails. she did not hear the announcement earlier. now we have two special conversations coming up. ,he first is with jason furman former director of the hamilton project. .e has a twitter handle c

i would rather have furman the great. also our newest recruit to our editorial team. peter is a contributing at her with "the atlantic," a very distinguished political commentator. how much many of you watch "house of cards"? i am really addicted. now in the next season i keep doing it. i enjoyed the sessions where kevin spacey talks to the audience. kevin spacey style, what you do andknow about these two, the puppet strings in washington really penetrate every corner, what you do not know about jason whoan is his sister-in-law, has just left a prominent law practice is now going to run the kids got which peter's to. we will have full disclosure.

>> thank you very much. that is happening in new york. let me start with a macro question. when economic historians look at this time in american history, what you think they will see as the central economic drama of this era? the resolution they are looking at. if you look at a couple of your resolution, they are going to see a massive crisis in which major decisive actions were taken and a significantly worse outcome was avoided. if you look at the amount of wealth that was wiped out in the onset of the crisis, it was about five times as large as the shock that led to the great depression, and the outcome was

completely different. if you zoom out a little bit further, they are going to see two big trends happening simultaneously. one is productivity growth, which had been very fast in the postwar years, had been slowed down a lot, started to pick up, but did not get back to where it used to be, and at the same time that relentless trend of increasing inequality continued, and the combination of those meant that if the economy recovered families continued to face significant challenges in terms of their incomes. >> talk about the first one. why this sort of productivity growth did not return to where it was, and what should government do to help her do so? 1960's, we950's and had a lot of neat things, inventions from the 1930's, yet engines, rubber were commercialized and put into use.

you saw significant public investment in the 1950's and the 1960's, the interstate highway system being the most notable, but as a share of the economy come across the board, we were making bigger public investments then and we are doing today. , mobile computing, cloud computing, all of that is helping us today, but it is still not being complemented by the types of investments we would like to be making in terms of public investments and in terms of innovation. some critics on your left might say that you had an opportunity to do a bigger kind of public investment in the midst of the financial crisis at the beginning, and that cannot happen. when you go back and look at the question, do you think the obama administration took it as shop at that major public investment that would've been helpful, when productivity was just stymied,

or how would you tell that story? >> you could make a major public investment in the recovery act in 2009. we had $100 billion that just went in innovation, energy, scientific research, buildout of .he internet, or tax incentives what we have not had, especially on the infrastructure side, that we would like to have is a more sustained ongoing commitment, and that is something we are proposing now, is a four-year reauthorization plan for service transportation that would put more dollars in, but reform the put new institutions like an infrastructure bank, some of these sustained ongoing things we are trying hard to do and may build on what we have already done. >> into someone on the right to would say i do not believe that government is going to be able to use that money effectively to stimulate the economy, that the

economy is still terrible, what kind of evidence would you offer them that in this era it actually shows benefits? >> i would point them to economic evidence, the rates of andrn for infrastructure, how that exceeds the cost of the federal government. goell them why don't you talk to business leaders. almost all of them uniformly talk about the importance of infrastructure. i think what is important about these things is you get jobs today and they are an investment in stronger growth, higher incomes in the future. if you do not like to jobs today, part of the equation, and just want to be yourself excited about the future and what it does for our growth, productivity, that is fine, too. that is more than enough >> reason to make those investments. mentioned, point you inequality, which has been in the news so much, why should americans care back -- should americans care about inequality

per se, and there has been a devout -- debate whether or not inequality is tied to upward mobility or not. inequality isith you have a combination of a slower growth rate in a typical family's income, and increase in inequality, and it continued low-level mobility, and it is a combination that has everyone so concerned. if incomes are rising strongly, but there was divergence and lots of mobility, we would be less worried. we would be still word, something that we could do. there is also a question of if we are not to everything we can on inequality, are we doing everything to field the full team in terms of what we need to do in order to draw on the talents of all of our people? there was a recent report out of the imf that finds evidence that

backs up that proposition, that a lot of inclusive policies can also be growth-oriented policies. i think we think all else being equal, more inequality will lead to less ability -- less mobility. [no audio] x is some of our policies have been successful in combating that trend, either getting people into more education or reducing discrimination. i would not count on that continuing to work going forward if we cannot tackle the inequality itself. things you have written and talked about a bit recently has been the unheralded success on the world on party -- war on poverty. why do you think it was more successful than people in the for, and there was a wide

perception that a lot of money was spent and not much came out? >> if you look at a flawed statistic that does not include all the programs that were created or expanded by the war on property, you would think it is a failure. the official poverty measure does not include the child tax credit, does not include a lot of what was most important. if you look at statistics that include those programs, you will see the poverty rate was reduced from 1967 until today because of those. we would also like to see market incomes rise. we have not come at a big part of that story is the minimum the has fallen by 1/3 in inflation-adjusted terms since the late 1960's, and that has been a big headwind for families. a lot of our programs have helped that. the earned income tax credit brings people into labor force, encourages more people work.

they are not just getting paid as much because of the developments >> in the overall economy. another issue on which may seem people like ripples -- people's perceptions are are on obamacare. you have written about the way in which you have seen obama start to bring down health care costs, expand coverage, and yet in the polls obamacare remains revelatory and popular. i want you to talk about what you think obamacare is doing out there in the economy, and then talk a little bit about why you think people -- doesn't this suggest you have suggested is reflected in people's suggestions? act, orffordable care obamacare, is about coverage, quality, and cost. the public attention has focused most on the coverage part of the equation. it is quite understandable in the month of october we were not getting a lot of coverage

for coverage because of the website situation making it difficult to sign up. that will become clear that we have now reached over 5 million in the marketplaces. we have many more in medicaid. there will be more and rolling by the -- enrolling by the deadline at the end of the month. the coverage will be increasingly objectively clear. inequality are harder to observe. what we do observe his overall growth in health care costs is growing at the slowest rate in over 50 years. we know that cannot be fully explained by the economy as we get further and further away from the recession. that is not the reason it is happening. we cannot -- that cannot be fully explained by other factors, like higher cost sharing, which has been a decade-long trend. we know it cannot be explained by prescription drugs coming off patent, because you have seen a

slowdown in hospitals, actors, and acute care. would you have rolled out all those explanations, it makes you take a much more serious look at whether the affordable care act had anything to do with it, and the answer is, yes. the congressional budget office said money would be saved this year through payment reform. if you take the plausible spillovers when medicare reform some of the way it pays private payers, tend to follow, that expands into a much larger group and i think is a meaningful part of the story. certainly not the whole store. causes, butot of that deserves an important place on the list. americans --ike that is not registered in public perceptions yet? oni am less of an expert what is or is not registered in public processions, and i relate. ficult thing

to disentangle. your insurance company is not overpaying for a hospital stay as it used to. you have a readmission that got -- because of the affordable care act. it is hard to send a tv channel and interview someone who was hospitalitted to the because they upped their quality. that person does not know that it was them, but we know the a readmission rates come down sharply, and 120,000 people would have been readmitted at present rates and have not been. >> in terms of your priorities, the most pressing challenges facing the country economically, you mentioned infrastructure, productivity, inequality, where would you rate the deficit on that list? >> i think the deficit is part of the strategy for sustainable, medium, and long-term growth.

we have made a huge amount of progress in that regard if you look over the long run. the next 75ap over years is considerably smaller than what estimates of a were a couple years ago, but there still appears to be a fiscal gap. just rates right now are quite low, but if we do not do anything to address this problem for five or 10 years, i would not want to count on a continuing. if you want to have sustainable growth, you want to deal with it, but you can deal with it while also making more investments upfront. also a big part of our problem is not the traditional and balance between revenues and spending, which is what the deficit worriers are worried about, to some degree, appropriately. is a composition of that spending, that we are not investing enough in research on education, infrastructure, and the combination of how we collect that revenue, on the business tax side, that our rates are too high and have too many loopholes. >> if you want to change that

composition in order to deal with this gap that you talked about, where are the elements you will be able to find the cuts so you can refocus resources on things that are more pressing? >> on the tax side, it is quite clear, as we have one of the narrowest tax basis of advanced industrial economies, and the highest rate of any of them come and you can solve both of them simultaneously. when it comes to the spending side, part of it is making sure you bring in additional revenue, which you can do by cutting spending, which we effectively do through the tax code on tax benefits for high-income households and use some of the savings from that to reinvest in education infrastructure. we also continue to build on the model on health care, ringing down total national health expenditures, so we can reduce premiums for seniors, and extend the life of medicare.

>> when you look at the >> when you look at the impact of this years globalization has americans, how would you make the case? obviously, there is a lot of concern, especially among low-income americans, that globalization has not been beneficial to them. how do you make the case that globalization has actually helped the ordinary american, and what are the kinds of things that would need to be done in order to make that case more convincing to people? >> i think there is an important net, what the impact is of globalization. what we are more focused on is net net, out the impact of our policies. the question is, will they --

the question is not will they add or subtract the question of globalization, but how are you globalizing? for a couple, are you raising environmental standards with your trading earners jack are you taking the barriers and breaking them down? are you going into those countries that often have higher terrorists than we have an having access to our -- higher tariffsts -- higher then we do. it is important to be expanding the opportunities and options that consumers have as well. >> going back to the clinton administration, it seems that at politicalhe 1990's, leaders have been saying the new free-trade agreements pushing the agenda of greater trade and

easier investment is nothing that will help ordinary theicans am a and yet political side of the party that was never that supported to begin with, it looks like it's only become more hostile. what element of this argument is not getting through. and what could be done to make it more effective? >> my job is to explain the economics of it. i have a naïve belief that it will have some impact on the debate. that is my piece of the division of labor. part of that is explaining that the debate feels and sounds like the same debate over and over again and i relate to that, but it's actually not. these are new types of trade agreements that are being negotiated in new ways. they are trying to overcome different types of barriers and they are with different types of countries. instead of having a debate about

something that happened 20 years ago, take a look at these and figure out what it means going forward and how best to do them. for qhink we are ready and day. i see a hand up in the fender. -- i think we're ready for q and &a. i see a hand up in the center. >> i thank you for your service. and i think president obama for all his work. workeds to be that you very hard and the administration bring us tohard to this day. we are sustained and we are moving forward. but the perception is totally different. vision thathe president obama talked about as over to of rebalancing asia and the core of its economy

with revenue and what you are talking about with jobs, britney back to manufacturing, bringing backthe market -- bringing the manufacturing, bringing back that give us al level playing field to gato there has been a lot of -- a level playing field? concerns been a lot of about that. i have heard others asking why the president has not addressed the people of this nation, of the u.s., about the real meaning of the asian rebalancing and the ppt. moment that you abouto president obama the rebalancing to asia, how

important is? theuse when he missed opportunity in asia and the government shutdown, that affected our economy significantly. he talked about the importance of tpp. -- >> he talked about the importance of tpp. recently andd there have been a number of high-profile speeches, including one recently at the center for american progress. you will hear that increasingly from the administration. what is important is also for us to be negotiating those agreements and to have something to show for it, and something tangible in terms of what it means for jobs and for good paying jobs. because ultimately, you are selling not just a broad theory, but an actual, tangible outcome, and you will be seeing more of that.

>> my name is pat malloy. i'm a washington trade lawyer. formula that accounts for net exports, and when net exports are negative, they detract from gdp growth. my understanding is we've run about $9 trillion of deficits in net exports in the last 25 years or so. under that formula, does this mean that it has subtracted from gdp growth in this country? case,ly, if that is the would it not be important to set a trade policy in which we set a goal of balancing trade, and then reevaluate things like the tip forkeep it -- the t

balance. there are a large number of people in the country that do not think trade has been beneficial. >> what i look at is what direction we are going and if you look at our current account deficit, which is basically our one othercit, plus term as a share of our economy, it has actually fallen in the last couple of decades and it is lower now than it has been since the mid-1990's. if you look at the last couple of years, you see exports making an important contribution to our economic growth. i would like to make sure that andeconomy is sustainable our economic growth is sustainable. one part of that is having the best possible opportunities for production and good jobs here in

the united states. there is a whole range of policies, whether that is investment in infrastructure, or education, or what we are doing in terms of health costs. and it relates to our international policies as well. >> one more question. >> go ahead. >> thank you very much. thank you for giving me the opportunity. i missed it the last time. , insofar asdvisor the economy is concerned, and uke spoke about globalization. i'm a freelance journalist. i write for asian pacific audiences. publiccontribute to some -- publications in the philippines. talking of globalization,

partnered with other countries, tpp's and stuff like that, if i --e to point out an address and address the impact of climate change regarding the visibility of the global economy , if iter growth, and also may request you to address what , that apparently based on the findings or the the ozone -- iis mean, carbon footprint that is damaging the environment and causing typhoons not only in asia, but in other countries as well. it is being proposed that therefore, to help the developing countries for their need for energy for growth, what

regarding fostering economic growth at the global level, especially developing country? >> i think there is no question that climate change threatens our economy. while you cannot tie any given event to it, we know that the events we are dealing with because of climate change are more frequent and more severe. that will only get worse. that has a whole set of costs in terms of the costs we undertake to mitigate it. the cost of the increased economic instability that it introduces. of ultimately cost in terms the damage inflicted as a result. why thehat is part of president is so focused on the issue of climate and has a economicction plan and motivation in addition to the broader motivation. >> jason, thank you very much. [applause]

>> thank you to my jason furman. thank you, peter byner. we are almost at the signature cocktail time. we are very lucky to have from the afl-cio for our last session. we're going to try something a little bit different. we are going to have steve cummins and mark -- margaret carlson interview richard trumka at the same time. [applause] >> put you there. put margaret there. >> let's put you in the middle. >> i'm on the far left. >> it has been all of you -- all of you may be tired and you deserve a medal or mug or t-shirt for being with us for most of the day, but those who

have been videoing this deserved to each. each.rve two i want to thank them for being with us today. [applause] margaret? >> it is great to be here with you. a real working man. apparently, the people i know have never really had a job where they work with their hands. i mean, i wouldn't know what to do. affinityhave as much with how hard it is. when i see a war on working people, which if you give the many benefits, they are basically lazy and will stop working. you give them unemployment benefits and they won't work because they don't want to. most of the people i know, including my brother who was laid off a year ago, they are dying to get jobs. they want to work. this is a leading question to you, but it really bothers me, the attitude that is now

prevailing -- >> i thought you were going to give me a ruthlessly devilish question. >> i know. are you disappointed? >> it really is disappointing, because i see people every day trying -- struggling to try to get by, to send their kids to school, to keep a home. wages have been flat. here is the economic reality of this generation. productivity has doubled, and wages have stayed flat. that money has actually been stolen from working people. used to exist between working people and capitalism has been shredded. now, twoe both right things. they are very angry about it. but at the same time, they are very hopeful. a realsigns right now of historic moment in the united states that is changing the debate from what it was to how

forait -- raise wages working people. and you see it from the pope to the president to the fast food workers to the daycare workers. workers everywhere are talking about how we raise wages come how we work together to raise wages. wages, how wee work together to raise wages. i think my legacy, i think probably the reagan administration where we were all ruggedly independent and we don't need anybody. and if you work with people and you need people, then somehow you are inferior, that is taking a toll on the country right now. thereis not anybody out that does not need others help. >> can i just do a softball follow-up? >> please do. >> thank our for the pope, by the way. he is one of mine. >> he makes me proud to be a catholic. he really does. >> i know. but he makes me out to be gay.

-- >> he makes me proud to be gay. >> we are all proud appear. >> the gays love the scope. the robes, and the shoes. >> that is such a fact. gap, however, did not begin to -- >> the gap, however, much untilo grow as more recently. there is no maximum wage, as far as i can tell, for ceo's. there is no maximum wage. whereas we are going to fight forever over a minimum wage. >> that is absolutely right. you look at it, the ceo's salaries have increased 831 times over what the minimum wage is. , if minimumpt pace wage had kept pace with ceos, it

would be $28.75 right now. if we had kept pace with productivity, it would be about $18 78 five cents. -- $18.75. if you we had kept pace with inflation, it would be about $10.75. we could lift millions out of poverty. that has got to be a good thing, no matter what party you are in. it is a good thing for us, for the economy, and for the country. and we're going to fight over the same tired old dead arguments that they say. well, if you increase mental weight, will lose jobs. we have been at 37 times and -- if you increase the minimum wage, you will lose jobs. we have increased in 37 times and we have not had that happen yet. would you rather keep wages where they are, or get a rate -- it a raise to $10.10 and risk being fired? i know what they will tell you. they will say, i will take the risk. i need the money.

work should reward people and lift people out of poverty. it should not trap people in poverty. and right now, we are already at the minimum wage and working 40 hours a week and you end up in poverty at the end of the year. it is trapping them in poverty. people who even advocate doing away with the minimum wage. >> i'm going to let steve a cup and ask the hard hitting questions. >> i've been worried all day about what question i would lead with. i have been giddy and trying to be comedic. i was going to ask, does rich trumka day trade stocks. and then i thought, maybe i better not ask a question. they did not seem appropriate. but did you say stocks cap the -- >> did you say stocks? >> it's such a ridiculous question. it could be stocks. -- socks. >> the reason this discussing --

this topic we are discussing i find a bit traumatic and difficult is that when you think about how turbocharge the economy is -- we had a dinner last night with a guy who works in science and technology, and he give us insight into the transformational change of technology, robotics, and , except in everything the malaysian airlines flight that disappeared. but i sometimes worry that these discussions of labor are so trapped in the past that we seem trapped about preserving equities that used to be there. you begin thinking about the world that we will have five years from now, it's not just ipads and iphones. we have a completely transformed relationship with technology. i don't know how much of it will be made in the u.s., but it will have a transformational impact on people, workers, how people interact. if the american labor union

thinking about that? -- the american labor movement thinking about that? are you thinking about not preserving what we have had in the past, but positioning yourself for the future that is coming like a sin on me at us? us?ami atynonymy >> we adopted these economic policies that were storing to lead us over the cliff before the recession. and then the recession comes and it leads us over the cliff. recession is the over, people pretend might none of this happened and they are trapped in the same economic policies that led us there. they won't analyze things. they won't say, maybe we should really examine whether it is whetherregulation, giving wall street everything it wants, whether doing with

multinational -- doing away with multinational corporations, maybe there's a better way to do it. but what we are hearing is, if you take a little more around the edges, then everything will be ok. it won't be. it will lead us to the same exact result. being trapped in the past is a dangerous thing. the labor movement for years sort of denied what was happening. that globalization was going to make a difference. but i think about 10 or 12 years ago, that started to change. , theu look right now largest provider of adult education and skills training in the united states other than the military is the labor movement. we provide skills training for everything. we are trying to reach out and get people careers. we are trying to reach back and give people remedial training, so communities -- kids in communities that have lost and

cannot pass an entrance exam to an apprenticeship school, we can given the schools -- the skills that they need to get there to give them a career. we think about it all the time. we think about the policies that are necessary. we think about what it is going to take to have an economy that works for everybody. top one percent, steve, but for everybody. and we see precious little in the way of new ideas coming out of wall street, and quite frankly, a lot of the policymakers here in d.c., and even at the state level. >> thank you. stateoman, our u.s. representative -- >> can i have a drip of water? >> yes. folks, can you toss me a bottle of water? >> this is going to be a short interview. >> there we go. >> that one was yours.

this is a lesson that everybody ought to learn. we have water and everybody has a water. >> ambassador roman was here and , of course, he has been working on these two big trailed -- trade deals, tpp and tpi the with europe. nfluestion is whether the -- the afl-cio has found itself supportive of any of the big trade deals that we have done, and if not, what would it take for you to be supportive of any trade deal? and what would it take for you to be supportive of these trade deals? >> first of all, we have supported some trade deals. they have not been many, because most, if not all, of the trade agreement have been fashion on the nafta model. even its creators and a couple

of others have said it failed. they were supposed to raise living standards on both sides of the border. they haven't. all threendards in countries have stagnated or dropped. they were supposed to increase our trade outland. we went from a surplus to a deficit. it was supposed to create jobs and we have lost jobs. as long as it is predicated on a nafta model, which is a failed model, it will be difficult. up, we submitted over 300 recommendations. i don't know how many of those are going to get through and make it to the offering table, let alone agreement. >> you don't know because you are not in the process, not consulted, and we don't see what is going on in the trade deal? >> the actual negotiations and the product are secret. we don't know. we have been consulted.

and to mike frohman's credit, he asked us what we want. but there is a difference between saying, what would you like, and seeing what you would like coming out in the final product. he could ask all he wants. or he could never ask. as long as what we want and need comes out in the final product, then we are ok. i am fearful that precious little will be in the tpp and we will be in another trade agreement that is modeled after nafta. if it does, that we would have to oppose that, because that has been in our opinion corrosive for working people in this country and has not been good for anybody. there are a lot of things that could be done to help us. we could go after currency manipulation. in 19ives people countries around the pacific rim an unfair advantage over american producers and manufacturers. there are other ways that they violate the trade agreement. china does not enforce its child labor laws him a prison labor

laws, health and safety laws, or minimum wage laws. that gives them an almost 60% advantage over an american producer. door, you go opening the you have 40 or currency and 60 of the other, and they have a 100% advantage over the american producer. we think that is right fair. we want a level playing field. i'm hopeful that we can support it. the trade agreement with europe, that is a different story. it may be that europe is in the position that we are with mexico. agreement, or bad an agreement that is to our vantage, we will suck jobs out of -- to our advantage, we will suck jobs out of europe like you haven't seen. >> you are ok with that. but i don't think that is good. i think it is -- >> i don't think that is good. i think it is a short-term strategy. what i like to see jobs here? absolutely, i would.

but any trade agreement that is a one-way trade agreement with any part in -- with any partner will not endure. we need a balanced agreement that has both sides winning and the workers both win. >> margaret? >> is there an enemy within the say, for where workers instance, in tennessee, are voting against collective bargaining? >> well, let's be truthful. workers in tennessee did not vote against collective bargaining. they voted because they thought they would lose their jobs if they voted for collective bargaining. as a this will come surprise to a lot of people in this room. the policy of the united states is to encourage the process of collective bargaining. it is written right into the law , not to tolerate, not to allow, not to be neutral towards, but to encourage it.

corker -- r >> he didn't read that, did he? >> he skipped class that day. governor that said, if you vote for collective bargaining, we will take away all of the subsidies of this company. he had a head of the senate and ahead of the house that said, we will take stuff away and you will lose your job if you vote for collective bargaining. they were not even doing what the employer wanted. in this specific instance, volkswagen wanted to have a codetermination council, a works council, where we could actually work together and help land and do things, and actually succeed. they weren't worried about unionism. the fight isn't about a union being there. -- the fight is about a union being there, not whether it is good for the company or bad for

the company or whether the orders want it or do not wanted. but what is good for them politically. they stepped across the line and they broke the law. i think other people in the area will be emboldened when we get a new election and they will join a union too. >> there was an op-ed that said, i'm entitled to it a difference ofopinion and freedom expression. xp is not entitled to violate the law and threaten people if they exercise their rights. not even a senator is entitled to that. quite interesting. >> you know, it is interesting. were one of those workers that was denied collective bargaining, it's not real interesting. it is sad and tragic. inequality in this country grows. upward mobility in this country

is growing. put that at the bottom end of the led see countries right now when it comes to upward mobility. there is only one way to eliminate inequality in this country, and that is, to give workers the collective right to bargain collectively with their him lawyers. -- their employers. this year, whether you have a union or not, every worker ought to be able to bargain collectively for better wages with their employer. you don't have to have a union, but you can get together and they cannot fire you or discriminate or discipline you for that. look, unless we find a solution to inequality, at a certain , it becomesquality self-perpetuating. those that have the most then make the rules, the tax little -- the tax rolls, the labor laws . they even make the voting laws, whether you can vote or not.

it becomes self-perpetuating. the middle class in this country will only be restored if we give workers bargaining power and the ability to negotiate a fair share of what their labor has produced, whether you have a union or not. ask one small question and then you can go next. -- >> one small question and then you can go next. you are one of the most powerful men in america. the joke about having a cameo somewhere, you and grover norquist. you're the most powerful guys around the town. tom donohue also helps run the town, the u.s. chamber of commerce. a very powerful guys. and john engler at the business roundtable and others have been doing so much. the businessine roundtable, the u.s. chamber of commerce, and the afl-cio all lined up saying more infrastructure is vital for the

country. we are eating our seed corn, and we are not taking this seriously. you are all on the same page. why hasn't your performance in has been so pathetic -- why your performance in that been so pathetic in terms of results cap a >> because it is not about solving problems. it is about ideology. you have a small group of people that say, country b. ee will not be -- country, b damned. we will not raise taxes. yearst you $22 billion a if you are in business just waiting, because of bad roads, business, and things of that sort. intermodal means of transportation that do not connect with one another. it cost you another $20 billion a year if you are writing back and forth as a commuter, waiting in traffic.

the country used to have world-class infrastructure, and now we are dropping like a rock in a deep pond. we keep getting worse and worse. the society of civil engineers right now.a d plus it will drop again next year. some of the business forums downgraded us from 11 down to 17. in terms of world infrastructure. next are you and tom donohue still talking about this? x at -- >> are you and tom donohue still talking about this? >> absolutely. we agree on infrastructure. we agree on the need to do immigration reform. wages won't be able to go up in this country as long as people whoan abuse are undocumented, take away their wages, use them to drive wages down. we agree on that. we agree on manufacturing. we are going to try to do

something jointly on manufacturing has well. the things that we can agree on, i try to work with him because i think it is good for the country. but i hope it is, too. let me ask a question about the way women wage parity. would likely earn 77% of what he would earn for doing the same job. what are you doing to get parity for women and minorities in wage levels echo >> first of all, if you have a union that does not exist -- >> doesn't it echo >> no, it doesn't. women make the same as men. union, you make $898 a year -- i mean, a week. if you are nonunion, and you make 600 $76. if you are a latina, you make

$838 if you are in a union, $547 if you are not in a union. overall, it's about a 20% difference. but if you are in a union, you get the same wages that i do. and number two, raising the minimum wage will help. it will lift more women out of poverty than a lot of other things well. and that includes the tipped wage. by the way, the two -- the tipped wages $2.13 right now. it has not been increased since 1991. 77% of the people who get it wages are women. and -- get tipped wages are women. bringing up the tipped wages with minimum wage will help dramatically. >> for the folks watching on television right now, tipped wages means restaurants, and other wage positions? >> any place where you depend on tips for your salary.

restaurant wages are one of the big ones. but other ones, doorman, things like that. if you are working at morton's over here, tipped wages are all right. $250.meal is $150 up to and if someone plunks down 18% to 20% tip, that is good money. but if you are economical, like where i grew up, and breakfast is $3.50, that it is pretty slim. >> and many will not give you 20%. >> the tipped wage needs to come up. it will help women significantly. >> restaurant tips are better than hotel tips, because restaurant workers got the tips on the credit card. what can you do for hotel workers to get the tip on the credit card? in other words, if i go to a restaurant, the tip line is there. if i have an expense account, -- gets paid by

>> [inaudible] exactly, yeah. this is a good agenda item for you. my will -- my grandmother was a woodworking class irish hotel worker here. >> we work on that continuously. there are also health and safety issues. >> pat, do you have a question you go pat malloy. -- do you have a question? pat malloy. i have to call on him. i'm scared of him. he is irish. >> pat malloy. i'm a trade lawyer in washington. an article in the new york times recently said we should focus on the trade deficit, that it is a real problem for this country. $9you know, we've got about trillion worth of trade deficits in the last 25 years.

many people, and including warren buffett, have said that we should set a national goal to balance our trade. i have asked to previous speakers whether we should do so . i did not quite get clear answers. does the afl-cio support a national goal to balance trade, and then to evaluate trade agreements, whether they are helping us do that or not? >> absolutely. i could end there, but i won't. yes, we do support that. look, we have a deficit. there are four ways to fill the gap. one is, government spending. we are about maxed out there and you're not going to do much more government spending because of the political will. investment, we are not going to invest much more. we are almost back to the recession levels of business and that's not going to happen. another is consumer spending. 72% of the economy is driven by that.

we have stagnant wages, so that is not going to increase. the only other thing is net exports. the only way to balance the budget in the short-term is net exports. get it down to zero. net exports are the biggest thing we could do. look at the value of the dollar and look at those who are undulating their currency. play with those two figures and we can get it down. here is the gimmick that we use. and -- mike froman probably told you, well, if you take away energy cost, our balance of trade is almost equal. that's the new standard. they started measuring trade and exports differently. if you go back to the old standard that has a uniform measure, so we can actually 2015, you will find that we have a tremendous difference in their. year,illion probably this

or three percent to four percent of gdp, depending on the actual figures. >> it was billion rather than a million. you said million. i want people to understand it is billion. yes, billion. >> i wanted to make sure people did not think you meant million. we are running out of time. >> to very brief pieces. first of all, picking up on a conversation that we had in the early 1980's when i was working for senator john glenn, you had a remarkable story as someone from the mining community that went to law school and did lots of things that this audience should know and i thought was terrific. you said at the time -- i was concerned about medications of image in the movement. you said the time has come for it to change its national image and to use the sophisticated tools of communication.

people here who are pros at that. that issue has yet to be addressed. that is number one. the second statement, last year, your wrote an op-ed -- you wrote an op-ed that was also wonderful to read. which was, the afl-cio is reaching out to groups that are too small and too poor to be regular chapters of the movement. i am a rock -- a volunteer representative of one of those. we volunteer to protect a group otheren mainly against organizations. they cannot afford to protect their cpa. i have yet to find out how that can be made real in schools and other places where these people are trying to be being -- to be made unions. the second one first. first, if you just listen, we'll introduce a bill that will give them the tools to bargain collectively with or without a union. second, prior to our convention

in september, six months before that, unlike any time in the past, we reached out to our progressive friends in the community. we brought in a couple hundred of our progressive friends and said, look, we have three major committees that are going to chart the future of workers in this country. they want you to be part of those. here is what we used to do. we would say, here is our plan. come join us. they either would or they would not. this is a much different dynamic. we said, help us develop a plan so that it meets your needs. we brought people into the committees. we took the committee meetings to the convention. we brought those progressive friends. not union members -- not union members, but progressive friends and allies, and made them part of the convention. they helped us adopt the course of what we are going to do, and they said raising wages in this country is the key question and the most important thing you can do for us. so we are working with them.

we brought in taxicab drivers that are excluded under the law, because they are supposedly independent contractors. of themrecognize 20,000 in new york city. we brought in day laborers. we have an aggressive and strategic partnership with a laborers, home care workers, -- with day laborers, home care workers. we're working with the health and safety rules to get them fair wages and decent treatment on the job. i believe my job is to make sure that workers live better, that they get a better chance. i joined the labor movement because i believe it was the best vehicle to create massive social change that helped workers. and i will die trying that. image issue, you're right. but we have been working on that. we have been doing a lot on image. we have been doing a lot of redefining ourselves. not just what we say about ourselves, but how we act

ourselves. changing or conduct so we are less self-centered and more out reaching to the community, bringing the community in with us and building programs together, educating them, and then executing together so that the entire community can benefit from those efforts. i'm extremely proud about that. are we going to continue to be people like the politicians in tennessee that have a vested interest in trying to knock us down? absolutely. but who led the fight for immigration reform? that was the american labor movement. -- giving 11 million people who are citizens in every way except on paper, giving them a chance is good for this country. uset currently stands, they

the workers that are out there without any right to drive down rate -- wages for everybody. i will give you an example that happened two weeks ago. a guy by the name of francisco workern undocumented .orking in los angeles employers cheat him out of 40% to 50% of his wages by misclassifying him. he files a claim. the department of labor orders a court ordered mediation. he shows up for the mediation and is arrested and deported. his employer turned him in and deported him. message for every other worker in that area is, enforce your rights and you're going to get deported. they become a permanent underclass that drags everything down. it because it is morally right, but we should also do it because it is economically the right thing to

do for those workers and for every other worker out there. we are leading those fights. we are leading the fight to increase minimum wage. minimum wage does not affect a lot of my members. some of them, perhaps, but not a lot. 3.5i tell you one thing, million people that live and work 40 hours every week and end up in poverty is wrong. we are country that can do better. let me just say this one last thing. right now, there's probably a kid in southeast washington, d c who is about to make a decision. his dad and mother work for minimum wage, 40 hours a week, and a slave away and are just getting by. and at the other end of the blocks is a guy with a roll of money that big. i new car, a new suit, looks like he has the world. kid to giveg that up the chance of a life like that because it's illegal, and

he should give it up, to slave away at an wage and live below the poverty level. -- at minimum wage and live below the poverty level. that is a decision no american should have to make. i intend to fight to make sure that we do better than that and i won't quit until we do. that is part of our legacy. [applause] will register your self -- restrict yourself to a 0-second question. >> i will try. my daughter is the cashier and a union member. paidame work and she gets $7.25 and the person next door gets $15 based on when they signed up. an i want to ask about

appeal on union supporters that uaw was not going to be aggressive enough. uaw and equal pay. i cannot proceed without letting jewell ask a question. he taught me a lot about economics. go ahead. >> i wonder if you could elaborate about the growth of contract labor, especially in manufacturing. there was a troubling article in the "washington post" recently about a guy that was working and getting fraction of the pay and not getting any benefits. uaw and contract labor.

pre-k's first of all, uaw is a great union. if you look at all the benefits that they pioneered over the years, it is almost laughable to say that the uaw is not going to fight for their members. to be thelso fight vanguard of the civil rights movement. they were out there fighting for every worker and they were a great union. the members that i know understand that first of all, the union is not the members. it is not some workers log somewhere that is called the uaw. the unit is made up of those 2000 workers at volkswagen, and those 2000 workers at volkswagen will decide what they want, what benefits they want, and the uaw will give them the know-how, the mechanism, and the structure to help them achieve it. but those members are the uaw. system was aeight fad. employers decided, the best way

for us to reduce costs right now is for us to have two tiers. we told them it would not work. people get resentful. people say, i'm doing the same job as you and your making twice as much as me, it's a stupid system. and it is being phased out. it will be phased out in grocery stores like it has been phased out all square. trolls -- joel's question? >> contract labor. >> you have companies that do not have any of the employees and here is what they do. you will come in and organize a group of people and the next week, the company is gone. it is designed to try to keep workers from being able to get a fair share of what they owe. they ought to have.

turn people over too fast and you cannot keep a quality product. are starting to come back to where they are saying, we want a solid workhorse. the peripheral stuff -- a solid workforce. the peripheral stuff will be integrated. we will concentrate on employee that are well trained the shop. ended aove the way you few minutes ago. could you do that again? [applause] >> thank you very much. let's wait here for a minute. >> congratulations to you all that made it for eight hours. the third annual economy summit, or the steve clemons lollapalooza. m&tnt to thank you for bank, and other underwriters.

we do now have the signature cocktail room open. it is through the back doors. thank you for coming once again. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> a reminder if you have missed any of the daylong summit, you will find it on our website www.c-span.org. looking for reaction on twitter, atlantic econ tweets this.

there is more on twitter. have an appeal to the speaker if he wishes to continue this. mr. speaker? >> there is no question in my mind that the arguments and the statements that i set on the by complaint of the members, first that they had not been notified. i don't believe that they were notified. i do not believe truly that they did not get noticed. you totwo, i'm inviting hear a dialogue on my perception of what american policy on foreign affairs should be. -- young to go back didn't tell me you're going to go back to 1972 get clips. 1972 in this instance.

i have the greatest respect for the chairman of our intelligence committee. you are going to ask the question as to war policy and how they felt about the vietnam did youthe question of, beat your wife lately? i want you to come in and answer the questions on the philosophy that you have been. you talk about angola. you don't talk about angola. very people that later on the exit people were opposed to. you don't say anything about things of that nature. very interesting. my personal opinion is this. you deliberately stood in that well before an empty house and challenge these people and you challenge their americanism. and it is the lowest thing that i have ever seen in my 32 years in congress. >> mr. speaker, if i may reclaim my time. let me say, first of all --

>> i move we take the speaker's words down. highlights from 35 years of house floor coverage on our facebook page. c-span, created by america's cable companies 35 years ago and brought to you today as a public service by your local cable and satellite provider. chairmanican committee reince priebus is predicting a normal election year for republicans. he spoke today at the christian science roundtable with reporters. 625can see his comments at -- 6:45 p.m. eastern. by debbiebe followed wasserman schultz, who spoke at the national press club in response to what reince priebus has to say. and tonight at 8:00 eastern, russian cooking -- russian president vladimir putin's statement about incorporating

crimea into russia. c-span2 a story about general david petraeus. a story about real america begins at 8:00 eastern with the 1972 documentary of the history of heroin. but the so-called millennial generations have had a hard time getting started in life because they have come into a hostile economy. they are paying money into a system to support a level of benefits for today's retirees that they have no realistic chance of getting. when they, themselves, retire. there needs to be a rebalancing of the social compact. it is a very important challenge. it is a very difficult challenge for this country politically. not a leave social security and medicare half of our budget, or about to become half of our budget and it is by far the biggest thing we do, but it is

symbolically the. statement in public policy that as a country, we are a community, all in this together. these are programs that affect everybody. and the old map of these problems does not work. >> paul taylor on the looming generational showdown saturday night at 10:00 eastern and sunday at 9:00 on book tv's afterwards. and then your chance to talk to being west. he will take your calls, comments, e-mails, and tweets on the mideast, iraq, and afghanistan live from noon to 3 p.m. eastern. also this month, join the online discussion of their biography of stokely carmichael. >> congressional budget office director doug elmendorf today said that the u.s. economy remains about 6 million jobs short of where it needs to be. he was interviewed by nancy cook of national journal.

this was at the economic forum hosted by the atlantic in washington. >> i have confirmed that it is true that those of you have the temerity to hang out all day for this discussion, we are serving at our festive reception the lehman dropped and the festive martini. let me invite to the stage nancy cook. in a conversation with doug elmendorf, director of the congressional budget office. [applause] >> hi, everyone. thank you for joining us. the cbo has been under fire a bit lately, so i'm glad you're

able to join us. >> i'm happy to be here. >> i just want to start off with a sort of broad question, since this is all about the economy. surprised where we are in the economic recovery? >> yes, we have been surprised and disappointed by the pace of economic recovery. i think the people who were more right or those who had looked more carefully at the experience of other countries and earlier point of the u.s. experience had that were onses housing and the financial system. , like carmen reinhart, kevin rogoff, and vincent reinhart found that recoveries from those events are very prolonged relative to the post war u.s. experience. in retrospect, we put too much just the postwar experience, but we understood sort of interpretive

event. but we put too much weight on a rapid monetary policy response and fiscal policy response. we thought that would be enough notut the economy fairly -- a v-shaped recovery, really, but a quick u-shaped recovery to bring the economy back more strongly than it has. the past several years, we have marked down our projections for economic growth. is stillthat there considerable slack left in the economy, considerable slack left in the labor market. watchingeen carefully the structural factors that have example,e economy, for labor force participation is down considerably over the past several years. and a big chunk of that, we think, is due to the demographic changes, particularly the aging of the population and moving of baby boomers into retirement. but also, a significant chunk of

the decline is in the labor -- stems from the weak economy. some in the labor force that are out will say out permanently. but many others, we think, will come back as the economy strengthens. our view now is that the economy will, over the next four economr years will return back to full and limit. we think that will come from a healing of the underlying economic problems that stemmed from the housing boom and bust. but we think the economic boom will pick up the cousin of the drag we have seen in the last couple of years will not be in place. we expect the economy to rebound. but we have been wrong before about that. i think that we have learned, as many other forecasters have learned, just what a prolonged process it is to work off the

excess of the housing boom to work to rebuild a financial system. have you change anything , or thely at the cbo way you go about forecasting, if you guys feel that you are a little bit wrong in the way you view the economic recovery? >> i am not sure that we change anything in our own processes. at the very carefully successes and failures in our forecasting process. other research. it is not that we are unaware of it. i think we misjudged the underlying resilience of the u.s. economy. our forecast tend to be quite similar of consensus request forecasters. our forecasts are conditioned on current law and fiscal policy.

private forecasters are trying to guess what congress might do. we are not allowed to do that. if we lookdifference at the details. forecasting is very hard. one thing i was struck by in the latest budget outlook that you guys put out in february is just that you predict that the unemployment rate will remain under six percent. that is still high. it will be in an election year. what do you think that will mean for unemployment? in our estimate, there are 6 million more people who would be unemployment rate were back down to the pre-recession level and the labor force rate were back up.

jobs that6 million our economy is short today, in our estimate. that has big economic costs. personal very large cost to people and their families. in particular, we have, as you know, a rate of long-term unemployment. people who have been out of work for half a year or more is extraordinarily high. it is today higher than it has been at any point. people of greater personal hardship. if they had savings, they worked through them, perhaps. also, they find it difficult to get back into the labor force. that is from deterioration of their skills,

from not keeping up with changes in how work is done. but some of that tends to be an unfair stigma that attaches to people who have not worked for a long time. resumesout a number of who were the same in every the amountcept for of time they were unemployed. those would've been unemployed a long time, it was harder for them. it is hard for people to get back in the labor force. some people have taken up disability insurance. and they're likely to stay on the program or move into social security. the consequences of having unemployment so high for so long are profound. this will have a long long

shadow. the experience is unusual in the u.s. over the last 70 years. but it has happened in other economies. of hasest work i'm aware a very large collection of expenses across the world. country that had this kind of crisis has taken backwo eight years to get to the precrisis level. this is an economy that is a custom to growing and should be growing. accustomed to growing and should be growing. to thes your reaction desire to extend unemployment benefits? >> policy choices depend not

just on analysis on the consequences of different courses of action, but also how to weigh those consequences. nothing special about our values. our job is to help congress understand the consequence of actions. we said a number of times that extending unemployment insurance would provide a short-term boost to the economy because the money would go to people who would be likely to spend it. that will increase the demand for services and workers. but there are other benefits, as well. and there are people who would look for work less vigorously than they might otherwise. we laid out the consequences of that.

we have offered to congress a number of times menus of possible ways of providing stimulus to the economy. >> i want to talk about the politics of the cbo. firegency has come under recently, particularly from the white house. the remotes you put out on the effective minimum wage, which the white house came after the forecast after, and also the report about the affordable care act. what sort of pushback have you gotten from white house officials and from congressional democrats over these reports that did not support the political conversation the democrats want to have now? >> we do not get private pushback from anybody really. we have pushback from the administration because i have no private conversations with anybody india administration. i think that is appropriate.

we do not get private pushback from members of congress. when they are not happy with us, they provide public pushback. [laughter] and in lots of different ways. cbo is to do analysis without caring who will be made happy or not unhappy by the result. congress is paying us to do objective analysis. to do analysis that draws on the best thinking in the analytical ,ommunity and among technicians whoever we can consult to help us do the analyses. we reach out to a lot of people for substantive feedback. we give no heed to whether certain results of hours will ,et a lot of attention or not

or get favorable attention from some and not from others. shortly after i started my job, which is now about five years go, i was taken to launch by the former director of the cbo, and everyone had their stories to tell. i did wonder whether i should go back to the office, get on the metro, and go home again? [laughter] because the stories are really something, when you hear the whole collection over launch. importantly, it is the essence of what everyone at the cbo does. everybody comes knowing that this is a place where we will do really high-quality, objective work, with our own value judgments and policy choices not entering the conversation. is notength of the cbo in me or the other directors. he it is in the entire -- it is

in the entire institution. we get some attention and sometimes less. some people are happy or unhappy. they will make speeches. or they will testify. or they will send tweets or letters. or they will do whatever they do trade that is ok. do you ever worry about cbo's ability to maintain the nonpartisan environment or the mission for a nonpartisan environment moving forward? >> i do not worry about our ability to do objective work. it is so ingrained in the organization and the people who are there. in an environment that is highly ,artisan, as washington is things can be viewed through partisan lenses. they can be viewed as subjecting

partisanship. even if a particular estimate is viewed as nonpartisan, there could be questions about why we estimated effects of this proposal and out that proposal. why did you write it this way and not that way? why did you release it on this day of the week and not that day of the week? we were a lot about making sure that we present the work we are doing anyway that demonstrates the objectivity. i do not worry about the analysis being objective. i worry about the analysis being right. we tackle topics that are very competent. our energies are eroded by trying to take the best evidence from conversations with practitioners or people administrating federal rules.

trying to produce the best estimates we can is very, very hard. we have a terrific group of people. but we worry about that. >> i want to talk about the budget wars that consume washington, that consume a lot of my life for two years. what was your reaction to the budget compromise that senator patty murray and paul ryan came up with in december. do you feel it was accurate in tackling the issues everyone had been fighting about? >> when i testified to the committee in november, i said near the end of the testimony that, given the budget challenges, big steps were better than small steps. small steps are better than no steps. and i added no steps were better than backward steps. [laughter] have to be very careful.

the agreement that chairman murray and chairman brian came to and was endorsed. they were small steps. it was not endorsing the particular actions included good it was the coming together of people to agree on something. the fundamental challenges we faced remains. the fundamental challenges come from growth in spending for social security and the major health care programs, and the government as a whole is not getting bigger, relative to the size of the economy. under current law, all federal

spending, will be a small share of gdp than it any point in 70 years. social security and the major programs will be much more expensive relative to gdp. that is coming from the aging of the population. there will be one third more people receiving benefits a decade from now than there are today. it will be partly from the rising cost of health care person. increase as as before that. it still rapid enough to push up health-care spending. and then there is the subsidized health insurance for lower-income americans. with those three factors at work of programs are becoming much more expensive. we have a choice as a society to

either scale back those programs, relative to what has and promised under current law or to raise tax revenue to above historical averages to pay for the programs, or to cut back on other spending might even more sharply than we already are good -- are. we have not decided, as a society, what we are going to do. combinations -- combination of the street races will be thick good we presented a amount of options. there are a lot of possible ways to proceed. it could be unpleasant, in one way or another. decided how much unpleasantness to inflict.

everyone on the hill is exhausted by the budget wars. when do people need to start worrying about these questions of spending? the economy recover slowly. that reduces spending on certain programs. we passed substantial legislation in 2009 to provide stimulus for the economy. our projections have shown for a while that it has come down

toward something in the two to three percent range. deficits started to rise again because of underlying factors that are amassed by the decline and other factors. those factors will show through clearly. the current level is the same that we've had over the last the challengeeard is the deficit rising. there is a high level of public debt held by the public that is now 70% to gdp.

was.is way above where debt will level of slow the growth of wages. it also reduces the ability to respond to crises that arise. the reason why action today is becauseneficial we want to make changes in programs for retirees. it is better to make those with a warning. one wants to set them in motion early. >> i think we are going to take questions from the audience now. people with microphones, if you just want to raise your hand. >> good morning.

my name is tom. i am with a technological consulting firm. i have a question about the technological driven inflation. i wonder whether you have done any work in that area looking at the effects of the internet, driverless cars, machine to machine technology, sort of the next generation and how that is going to impact employment. and if you connect that to the lack of economic growth. somewhat of have a future, and some people might painted in the other direction. >> we have not looked very carefully about the issues you raise. we have a limited number of

things we can tackle. growth istion of close to the average of the last several decades. we are not looking for a pickup or slowdown. there are pieces people have made. we are sticking with the historical average. wages, we think wage will be some return growth as the labor market tightens over the next several years. the share of national income going to workers has been on a downward trend. then it started falling since the boom. we have seen a pickup but not go back to what it has been in the past. we think inflation is likely to stay low.

the federal reserve will respond to pressures, one way or the other. >> we have another question here. there are two issues that come to mind. entitlement when it comes to social security, and people have paid into that while they were working. how do you adjust that as an entitlement when americans have done this? policyyou focus on tax americansou said, continue to subsidize exxon mobil with their outrageous profits? one of the options that we offered to congress in the fall was to change the tax treatment of companies that were tracking

resources like exxon mobil. that is one of the possible ways of moving forward. on social security, we don't use the word entitlement ourselves. it is different connotations to different people. in fact, from the point of view of the government, people paid into that years ago, but it was fund other activities. of argument is that people come to expect certain things and started counting on certain things to be there for them. i mentioned about how one wants to change those programs and have given people a warning about those changes coming would be important.

>> one quick question i want to ask you.

the number of votes that -- voters that are eligible to cast a budget -- ballot. we are focused on an agenda, which includes the contract between democrats.

young adults can stay on their parents insurance until they are 26. the seniors that i stand online behind before the affordable care act became law. they have believe two or three of them behind. i were forced to take them all home because of the coverage gap. take the difference between a republican candidate who wants to take all that away and democratic candidates who think the benefit should remain. >> you can stay -- see all of the speech later today. that is followed by chairman debbie wasserman schultz. that is here on c-span. then at 8:00 russian president vladmir prudent -- putin spoke.

and secretary of state john kerry spoke as well. that'll begins at 8:00 eastern. >> does he wish to continue this -- this?mark >> there is no question in my mind that the arguments came to me by complaint. i do not believe they were notified. they did not get the mail in their office, number one. i'm inviting you to hear a dialogue on my perception of what american policy and foreign affairs should be. grade youto go but

didn't tell me we were going to go back to 1972. question,ng to ask a as to policy and how they felt about the vietnam war. or did you beat your wife lately? i want you to come in and answer the questions of the philosophy that you had then. you do not talk about how during the eisenhower administration, we were the very people that the nixon people were supposed to. you don't want to say anything about angst of that nature. my opinion is this. well and on that challenge these people and challenged their americanism. it is the lowest thing i've ever seen in my 32 yein