we are going to acknowledge the way the world is. we are going to be effective in doing that. we just have to acknowledge that this is part of this challenge. much of what we structured originally was we insured congress as the elected representative of the citizens bring thetion will primary tools to ensure compliance. we find ourselves in a situation where much of our public does not trust many elements or has low confidence in many elements of our government. you do when your compliance strategy was founded on that approach? hopefully you will see some things over the course of the next few months -- i'm not here to sell anything. i'm not here to convince anybody. stick to the facts.

let people make well-informed decisions as to what they are comfortable with. that is what we need to do. we need to focus on the mission and stick to the facts. >> one last quick question. those of us who support and have worked with both the fort meade dhs havethe [inaudible] in roles in missions related to the cyber arena. what is the partnership you have in place or are putting in place? >> for me, i'm very fortunate. i partner with a cabinet secretary who i have worked with before in my career. jeh wille fact that just pick up the phone, and rogers will pick up the phone and talk to secretary johnson about, we need to do this or that. regularly.e meet

we talked to our teams about what we need to do to create stronger partnerships. what i have argued is that nsa and u.s. cyber command have great capabilities, but we have got to do this in a partnership with others. government, our biggest partners are the dhs and fbi. that is the way it is going to be. that's what we need to do. i am not about control. the team at fort meade has to hear me say, it is not about control, it is about outcomes. i don't care who gets the credit. we are going to provide manpower and capabilities to support others. defend about helping to america and its allies. it is about providing capability for the greater good. that is what we are doing in the cyber arena. partey need to do that as of a broader partnership -- i would only highlight for my perspective i love our partnership with dhs. member 2, 3 years ago

arguments about who ought to do what. -- remember two, three years ago arguments about who ought to do what. no longer interested in what i consider the mindless debates. [indiscernible] i am not interested in control. i'm interested in outcomes. >> you can come to my living room anytime. [laughter] [applause] >> the cato institute will host aboutussion tomorrow increasing congressional transparency through wikipedia. questions about how the online encyclopedia shares its information. that is live at noon eastern here on c-span. evening, a debate over genetically modified foods. it is between consumer advocate jeffrey smith and biotech entrepreneur. they offer opposing views of food safety at an event hosted by the vail symposium in

colorado. in its august is recess, many members have been holding town hall meetings in their districts. house democratic caucus chair met recently with constituents in northeast los angeles, where he talked about a range of issues that included the economy, immigration, and foreign policy. this is an hour and a half. >> welcome, everyone. great evening. another l.a. evening, right? thank you for taking the time to be here. we are going to try to move through this town hall the way we always do. what i will try to do is outline what we are going to do. xavier becerra, very privileged to be in my 22nd year as a member of congress. i thank all of you for giving me that opportunity. whok you to so many of you i have seen in town hall after town hall that we have done.

thank you to those who participate in the townhouse that i do from washington, d.c. when i cannot be home. i love it that you participate. let's keep doing them. let me run through a little bit of the format, for those who may be new. most of you have been to my town halls in the past. we have a little bit more than an hour. i will give you a quick presentation of what is going on in d.c., what is pending in washington, but reserve the rest of time for you to ask questions. we typically get more questions than we have time to answer. it is not me picking favorites in terms of who gets to ask the questions. we ask you to fill out your name on a piece of paper. randomly i will select the names. we will go right through as many as we can as quickly as we can. i ask that everyone can find themselves to asking a quick question or making a quick comment. i told my staff to try to keep me on the clock to try to give

as concise and answer as i can. often times it is tough. i find you tend to ask really good questions. sometimes i have to dig the per so you get the meat of the response. for thehank the center arts in e-gov for letting us use the facility. let's give them a round of applause. useagle rock for letting us the facility. let's give them a round of applause. [applause] >> let me introduce my staff. when i'm not here, i want you to know who you can connect with directly. my outreach supervisor in charge of this particular town hall is dale greenberg. dale is right here. -- gail is right here. the boss in los angeles, raise your hand.

deputies. i have two field deputies who cover the entire district, 700,000 people. yumi, raise your hand. ervin, right over here. the two field deputies. who manyrk supervisor, of you speak to when you have an issue you need to have resolved. michael nelson. my senior caseworker. raise your hand. i have two of my d.c. staffers who are here this week. since we are not having votes, this is the best time to have my d.c. staff connect and coordinate with my district office staff. otherwise it's too difficult to get them to leave and come over here. my chief of staff who is new to the position, less than two months, but who has been with me for several years, is sean mccluskey. sean is right here.

sean is my new chief of staff. he has been my policy director for quite some time. if you want to talk health care, this is the guy to do it with. this is my new communications director, danny herrera, who is right over here. need to hire marriott she, danny is probably as good in mariotti as he is in communications. he has a voice and plays guitar. let me introduce our interns. they get the widest round of applause at the end. they do tremendous work. fabulous college students, and we get them for free. from u.s.c. .esar gomez, make sure that they wave their hands so we can say thank you to them for their work. [applause]

who is doing are translating for those who need assistance with understanding what we are saying. [speaking spanish] who has got the earphones for the spanish translation? here we go, right here. i want to thank our guests from the los angeles police department to be with us today. if we have any questions that are particular to the lapd, i know they would be willing to respond. there also here to make sure everything goes well. ever since 9/11, one of the requirements is that we make protecting we are your safety as well as mine. lapd has been great.

we never had to use their services, but it's great that they make themselves available. let me introduce to you the senior lead officer. thank you all very much for being with us. [applause] ok. having done that, let me just again mention a few things about d.c., maybe to stimulate conversation, but mostly to give you a sense of a report of what is going on. did our newsletter hit? i hope most of you receive the newsletter that i recently sent out. we have copies here as well. it gives a little bit more information about the things going on. let me mention a couple of things that are pressing. thatyou may have heard congress finally was able to reconcile differences in past legislation to deal with the veterans administration crisis going on with our veterans.

essentially, with so many vets now coming in as a result of now finishing up their tours -- tours of duty in iraq and afghanistan and elsewhere, but did because the president something that i think presidents before him should have done a long time ago, and that is to re-gauge the condition of some of our far backwho serve as as vietnam. remember agent orange? who wentgave vets through and gave service full accountability and credit for their service, having served in a time when we use things like agent orange. many of them came back, suffered healthwise, and we never gave them full credit for the disability that may have been due to the fact that they served at a time when we were using certain chemical agents. said, it isama

tough to be able to document 100% that your chronic emphysema or whatever else it might he was caught by agent orange -- caused by agent orange or something else. but there is a chance it could have been. veteransan make these get only partial service from v.a. and then have to find services somewhere else at a high expense, the president said it is time to give service to our men and women who serve and consider it 100%. as a result of that, more [inaudible] made use of veterans administration health services. he put that in combination with all the men and women coming back from iraq and afghanistan, and it was too much. a soldier surviving what would have killed that soldier 40 years ago in vietnam. it's a different thing. thank our they are surviving, but they are coming back with

injuries that really make it difficult for them to come back and adjust and get back to work and all the rest. the legislation, essentially a compromise bill said this. for veterans who have been waiting for more than 30 days to get into the v.a. system to get their care or for veterans who live more than 40 miles away from a veterans administration health facility or hospital, and it is a real burden to have to travel more than 40 miles just to get them service, they are going to be able to go to a health care provider locally, close by, without having to go to a va hospital or v.a. center to get their services. that is to get them through the door right away. we are also providing additional resources for the v.a. to beef up its current health services so they can bring more of the doctors and health-care providers to provide those services have got into the system. what we're trying to do is beef up the v.a. as quickly as we can so we can provide them with the

services they earned. that has now been signed by the president. two, we just passed a bill which i don't think was the greatest bill, but it is a patch bill, on transportation. in l a, we are seeing major projects move forward. you have heard the purple line, now going to the west all the way close to the ocean, is back on track. we were able to secure. we were able to secure over $1 billion in federal funding to make that possible. that will really help us move forward with that project which is costing several billion dollars. we secured close to another $800 million in federal loan moneys. that is about $2 billion we will get from the federal government to help extend that subway line to the west. we recently secured about two quarters of a million -- i'm billionwo thirds of $1

for the regional connector line, downtown. if you try to travel mass transit downtown on the trains, you often have to get off one to get on another. with the regional connect, it will be a seamless trip so you have a one seat ride from east of downtown to west of downtown. it will make it a lot more convenient for people who want to use mass transit instead of their vehicle to get around. we got a grant commitment from the federal government for two thirds of $1 billion and $2 million in loan guarantees as well. that will help cover a large portion of the cost of that regional connector. we are also going to be doing construction on the 6th street bridge. it is in need of refurbishing. it will be a really good project. it's not just going to be a slap job. it is a historic bridge. we are doing a lot of things. if you think about it,

transportation projects are not done in three months. many are not done in three years. they are very big projects. the difficulty in washington, d.c. is we have not been able to get consensus, bipartisan and bicameral consensus on reauthorizing the transportation legislation, the law, that makes possible all these major infrastructure projects in transportation for rail, for ,ighway, for subway, for buses for freeways and roads. these past couple weeks, we passed a patch bill that moves us forward for about eight inths, which is good because about a month the highway trust fund was going to be so depleted that the federal government was going to have to start informing the states, you know the money you were expecting to get from that formula funding out of the transportation fund?

we are going to have to pare back. if we give you the full amount you were due for august and september, we will run out of those trust fund moneys to quickly. the state cannot go to some contractor who is about to purchase a whole bunch of steel for a bridge renovation, or the guy who purchases the asphalt and cement to do the highway renovation. do me a favor. buy four months of that stuff. you don't do it that way. time is money. we have to do what we typically do, which is a five to seven year bill. those major contractors know, i can forecast for five or seven years for what i need because i know the money will be there. when we come back, hopefully we will get back to work on doing the long-term transportation bill that everyone needs so we can get those tax dollars that you pay when you go to the gas station and pump gas in your car. for thoseat helps pay

projects. we need to get that money coming back in a smart way. there are any number of ways i can tell you about. about education. we can talk about the current status of immigration, the whole situation at the border with these kids that have come, the humanitarian crisis we face at the border. let me do this. let me stop now and see how much time we have. good 45 minutes. i will stay a little over. i can stay after we finish grade oftentimes some of you want to say a quick hello. after we break, i will stick around for a little while longer . if you're going to say hello, let's make it a quick hello. oftentimes someone will try to unload all their cares and concerns, and i have a line of people who just want to say hello and it is tough. let's see how much we can take care of right now. let me conclude by saying as we

get ready to start, here is the bowl with all the names -- l.a., we are starting again to see activity. residentially we have seen housing prices jump again, i think a little too fast. if you live in eagle rock, it is reminiscent of what we saw before. it is heating up too much. that is a good sign. i just told you about all these construction projects. i met with a bunch of guys for breakfast from the building and construction trades. they are finally feeling pretty good. some of the had highest rates of unemployment over the last several years. you had somewhere between 15% to 30% unemployment laborers, operating engineers, all the construction folks are really feeling it because everything got shut down. now they are starting to churn, and they like that. and they are decent paying jobs. we need to jumpstart the economy

more. we have seen some good signs. danny, do me a favor. turn on the projector. things are still tough for a lot of families in america. they have gotten better. last month we had more than 200,000 jobs created by the private sector. that is good. the actual unemployment rate kicked up, not down. what is going on? a lot of who during the 2008 crash who could not get back to work real quickly, they left completely the workforce. they are what we call discouraged workers who don't even get counted in the unemployment race. now they are feeling better and they are coming back into the system. even though 200 plus thousand jobs were created last month in this country, the unemployment rate went up. that is because more of those discouraged workers are now filing again to get noticed to

be part of the system to try to get jobs, which is good. i don't think you can see that very well, can you? because of the lights from the cameras, it is also tough. here's another chart. let me hold it up. that's the beginning of the 2008 wall street crisis, where essentially everything shut down. just a quick note. in september 2008, i remember democrats were the majority in the house. nancy pelosi was then the speaker of the house. on a saturday, i was in california. she called. to do a, we need

conference call. i just got a call from the president, who was then george bush. ussaid he needs to speak to because he needs immediate action on a bill he wants to send to us on monday. said,onference call she so this is what the president just said to me. bill.going to send me a that bill is going to ask for $800 billion. he needs it by monday. if he doesn't get it by monday, wall street will crash and it will take the whole economy with it trade -- with it. we started asking the questions -- what do you mean? how will it be used? it was a one-page bill. it did not even say how the money was going to be used other than to help stop what was going to happen with this implosion in wall street. if you remember those days, the legislation did not get passed on monday. a lot of folks were saying, $800 billion? for whom and what?

you lookat time, if back, the market gyrated. it was swinging like 600 points in a day. what was going on is the beginning of that red. the beginning of that red is job losses. lines, those are months where in america we were losing 21,000 jobs for americans a day. over 800,000 americans in the month of january 2008. i'm sorry, january 2009. belowt period, everything the zero line, those are all job losses. in that period, we lost 8 million jobs. in that short period of time, the economy collapsed. you could not borrow any more. small businesses no longer had a line of credit. thanks for not lending. -- banks were not lending. they did not know who they could

lend to and who would pay back. when they stopped lending, they stop the wheels of the economy. months sinceutive a little after that crash, we had job growth. see any blue line above the zero line that matches anything here, the loss of jobs. , 280,000 jobs a month before -- good. when you lose 800 in one month, you need four good months to catch up to that one month. worked reallyhas hard with the private sector to see what we can do, but that is a lot of making up to do. that's the difficulty. many of us believe we still have to jumpstart the economy. there are some simple things we can do to do that. we think we should concentrate on mostly middle-class americans right now.

they're the ones who have been hit the hardest. if you are rich, you will not feel it. warren buffett lost major dollars, but he's making major dollars now. income, wevery low have programs to help you from falling through the safety net altogether. we'll let people die on the streets and suffer that way. but the middle class, try to send your kids to college today if you're making $60,000, $70,000, $80,000. it is difficult. try to buy a house in eagle, which is not beverly hills -- eagle rock, which is not beverly hills. we like our home in eagle rock. there are some basic things we can do. one of the things that some of us would do is -- to me, this one is an easy one. if you are a company in america and you decide to shut down some of your jobs and then you reopen

some of the manufacturing in another country, you get to write off the cost of opening up the manufacturing and hiring people in that other country even though you let people in america go, so you could do it there, maybe at a lower cost because the wages are lower. if you open a new job in america in your company, you don't get any kind of tax relief for that. it's a little upside down. we give you tax relief if you ship a job overseas, but we give you know tax relief if you open up a new job for an american here. in money that we give away tax credits to companies that ship jobs overseas to give tax credits to companies that commit to create new jobs. not a job where you fire fight people -- fire people. net increase, you want to do a net increase, we should give you a tax credit.

employee pay. it's pretty stagnant right now. that was one of the problems in creating jobs. we don't see a real big bump in salaries. where we see big bumps in salaries, ceo pay. if you are a worker in a company, it is not unheard of to watch your president and chief executive officer make about 400 times what you make. 400 times. when i was a kid, when my parents were working hard, the difference was between the president of a company and the line worker was about 35, 40 times greater, which is still pretty good money. today it is about 400 times. let's do this. you know that when you pay salary as a businessperson, that is an expense. all your salaries to all your

employees are expenses. let's say i make $10 million in profits in my company and i pay myself $1 million and i pay the rest of my workers another million dollars. that is $2 million in business expenses i have. net that away from my profits, i end up making $8 million in profits. have $1 million in expenses for my employee salaries and i pay myself $9 million? that is a total of $10 million. guess how much i haven't profits now? zero. how much do i pay on zero profit? zero. why should we subsidize companies that are willing to pay ceo's in the tens of millions of dollars by giving them tax breaks by being able to write off the cost of part of that ceo salary when it is so high? one of the ideas that i agree with is if you are going to pay your executive, chief executive more than $1 million and you

want to be able to write it off, you have to show you have also increased the pay for your front-line workers as well. therwise, you can raise salary for that ceo but you cannot get a tax write off for having done that. we can't continue to see middle-class workers have their incomes stay stagnant when cost of college, cost of housing, cost of health care goes up. i will stop there. let's take questions. thank you all for patiently listening. let me pick a few names. ok, i got three names. we will go in the order i selected them.

if you will step out of the aisle, that will make it easier. we have microphones we will hold. first person is anna garcia. [indiscernible] and then we have hunter cobb. favor, your do us a comment as concisely as possible. >> thank you for holding this town hall. my question is regarding the issue of unaccompanied minors. we know that unaccompanied minors have gone through severe trauma. how likely is it that these children are going to receive refugee status? the situation at the border, most of the kids who have been coming are coming from three countries -- el salvador, what a mullah, and honduras -- guate mala, and honduras.

the law provides relief for those kids if they can prove they have a fear of persecution or death would allow them to gain asylum. refugees are different from asylees. a refugee is in the home country and saying, i need to escape this. someone on the ground is saying, yes. like in syria, like in iraq. you have relief organizations that take your information and say you cannot remain here because you will perish. these rebels will come after you, etc. we know you are a refugee and you then get to come to a particular country. and asylee is someone who says, i had to flee my country. i did not tell you or anyone else because i had to do it in secret. and now i'm here at the doorstep of your border. if i am sent back, i fear persecution or death. please give me asylum.

if theyds would qualify can meet that standard for asylum. it is a distinction a lot of people don't make. do they qualify? if they are under 18 years of ,ge and they are unaccompanied then the law says you treat them minor differently than a minor who is with an adult. that minor may not be able to make the right decisions when asked questions, why did you come, etc. they will be given a hearing process. came with an adult goes through the process with the adult, which is far faster because you can ask the adult, do you fear persecution, do you want to go back. if the adult says, i want to go back, then we process them quicker and we send them back. have seen the news were some of these folks were sent back because they could not prove

they had a fear of persecution or death. the standard will be for these kids. can they prove fear of persecution or death? many of them well, because many of them will tell you they have witnessed murder and torture of their family members or others. many have told stories of how they were told that if they don't join a gang, they will be killed. there are some stories i won't repeat here that are just gruesome. for some of those kids, i suspect they will be able to make their claim. if they are children 10 or 12, it will be tougher. that is why they will be given assistance to do that great if they can't make a claim, then by law they will be returned. the sticking point here is the time it takes to process them. it is a large number. we are not equipped. there are 240 immigration judges in the united states. angeles,unty of los there are twice as many judges

just in the county of los angeles as there are the total number of immigration judges for the entire united states of america. you have this bottleneck, and that is what is making the processing take a while. oft will happen is a number these kids if given the opportunity to present their case properly will be able to make that claim. many of them won't. they will be given the opportunity. in the interim, while they're waiting to have their hearing, the law requires they be treated under the least restrictive setting as possible. you don't want to have a kid locked up in a jail cell. if there is a way to have them with a responsible adult who is related, we will do that. if not, you try to find a temporary setting, perhaps foster care. if not, groupon capacity. that -- group home capacity. that is when you do. there is legislation about what we will do, whether we change the law or not. a lot of different ideas of what we do.

some people want to change the law so you have five to seven days to process them and send them back. i'm against that. for the grace of god, it could have been me -- i am a son of my country is better than that. we can do this the right way. we don't have an obligation to keep kids who come simply for economic reasons. if you were duped into coming because somebody said, come to the u.s. and they will give you a permit and you get to stay -- no. i want our country to have a good heart, but i don't want to be duped either. we have to do this the right way. we will have a situation where people prove it. if you can't prove that, as much as i feel for you because you have economic conditions, you have to do it the right way. next question. and then, hunter. >> i'm over here.

thank you for giving me a minute or two, congressman. that sometimes some of us who are very low income, the city, the country keeps on taking from us. it's very difficult. i know there are lots of people out there who need and all of that, but there are also the ones who don't want to give a penny. i'm not saying don't take some if you really need it, but when and of us are in dire need that is taken away from us and more, one of these days they might as well just dig a hole in the ground and put us there. there is anything you can do up there, thank you. >> i appreciate the comment. we have a responsibility as a subornation to our people and our nation. medicare, is through

through the program for students who are going to go to college, we try to figure out ways to make it possible. i am the first in my family to get a college degree. i got a lot of financial aid from stanford university. my parents chipped in as much as they could. i worked my four years while i was going to stanford. summers i worked construction with my dad. had it not been for the pell grants and financial aid and student loans that i was able to get at low interest rates, i could not have gone to stanford. we have to do what we can. the best way to do well abroad is to do well at home. if we are strong at home, domestically, we can be very strong abroad. your point is well taken. we are a country for a reason, to show that we can do it right and hopefully by our example and our assistance, we can help others do it well also. right now, especially since we are barely coming back from that deep recession, it is time to

really make sure that we take care of folks in america who work very hard to build this country. while i don't think we're ever going to shirk our responsibility around the world, i do think we have to be very smart about how we do things, whether it is iraq or people who come to our border, we have to do this the smart way. what we don't want to do is give the wrong impression of what we are trying to do, whether it is in iraq or with kids at the border. thank you for your question. before hunter begins, let me pick out a couple more. that is pretty random, right? it looks random? ok, so the next three after ,unter will be liz

[indiscernible] and then luis perez? in the back. hunter, go ahead. i listened to your presentation on the economy. the thing about the $800 billion bailout -- i think people are tired of these stories. the economy is not recovering. the bailout was not necessary. it did not work. the country is in a mess. what i would like to ask is, if you look at china -- people know , china's economy is booming.

if you watch "60 minutes," they want people to think that all that china is doing is willing a housing boom. but they are building infrastructure and railroads. their big project is going to the moon, and mining the moon fo r helium three. it is developing fusion energy. we are shutting down our fusion program. obama is shutting down our fusion research and our space program. why don't you demand that obama get the hell out of there? we need a president like kennedy who's going to say, we are going to go to the moon and do things big again. like had a driver -- kennedy had a driver to land the man on the moon -- that transformed the whole economy. we could change -- it changed education and industry. alexander hamilton knew how to

finance industry. i would urge you to study this. passed a have glass-steagall instead of bailing out the banks. >> let me try to touch on them and be concise. questions.reat i wish i could dive into the deep part of the pool and talk about it. that is what makes this job interesting. one, there is a recovery. is it as robust as it should be? absolutely not. even the president will tell you that. on that bailout for wall street, i voted against it. at the end i voted against it. don't believe that the bill -- it gave too much to the banks, and not to the people who were hurting. when the banks decided to take mortgages all over the country and slice and dice them into little pieces and combine them and make them into stock so that

they took real estate, whereas before a bank used to lend you they, and that mortgage -- would hold that mortgage and you pay on it -- and for the life of the mortgage, you had the same lender. the bank held your mortgage. so long as you were paying, they were ok because they were getting good interest off of you. some got clever on wall street. instead of one mortgage for $500,000, it is now 1000 ortgages for $500 million whatever the amount is. you cut it up, and you say wall street, sell this little piece with this 1000th of a piece of x amount ofe for money because it is backed by 1000 mortgages. that is what wall street did. took all these mortgages.

horrendous, and sold them out there in the market. when people started to say, i can't pay that because interest rates have gone up, people started to realize their houses were not worth what they thought and they could not make the payments anymore. the banks started to say, we cannot pay them that stock anymore because we are not getting money. the trash.t led to that is why you saw all these homes just plummet so quickly. all that paper was bad, all those mortgages were terrible, and the stock that was backed up by those mortgages was even worse. the president, then president bush and i said to my democratic leadership, if you want me to vote to give $800 billion to the folks who essentially helped maneuver this crash, i want to make sure the money is getting down to the people -- the decent people who are trying to buy a home but have no choice and have to pay

high prices, because the market was crazy. at ebola i was looking to help my parents buy a small house -- eagle rock i was looking to help my parents buy a small house. people thought, that is what the market is today. these are decent folks, not the folks who are saying i'm making $30,000 a year and i still have to buy this house. there were a lot of those, too. the money was going to the banks. there are a lot of folks who said, i have a mortgage that is valued higher than my home is valued at, but i made a commitment. even if i were to sell my house, i would not get enough money to pay off my mortgage. those folks to me were being responsible. they were hoping that with time the value of their home would catch up to their mortgage. to me, those are the folks that

you should say, let me help you. you are paying that mortgage -- interest rates are at 2% or 3% now. let me refinance. you still have to pay on the value of the mortgage, but at a lower interest rate. at least let me save you money on the interest the banks would not renegotiate. they would renegotiate because they -- would not renegotiate because they could not anymore. they had sold it off to the stark market and it was in 1000 little pieces. they had to get 1000 different owners of that mortgage to sign off on the renegotiated rate, and they couldn't. i said, why am i going to give the bank the money, this $800 billion? they are not going to do help the almost -- home owner who wants to be responsible. we ultimately did recoup the $800 billion, with a little bit of interest. 2008, there was no guarantee.

there was no mandate they had to pay back. banks will always make money. i wanted to seek two provisions. i went to help the homeowner, and see a guarantee that the banks would pay back. there was no mandatory repayment. we did get the money back. the homeowners had still not totally been helped. i voted against that. in terms of mining all this stuff, the president is doing everything he can to get us into renewable energy. i'm with him on that. i'm with him and going towards solar, wind. you can see what happens when you rely on petroleum. our prices at the pump go haywire. we should not be dependent on foreign oil. nor do i think we should have to to extract whatever petroleum is in the shale that is up in canada and let them use

a pipe that will go through america to go to the shipping ports in louisiana so they can ship the oil to china and other countries abroad, never leaving a bit of oil for the u.s. to use. they want to use american soil to rent a pipe so if it blows up and some terrorist hits it, america suffers the consequences but all the oil gets sought a broad -- sold abroad. i don't think we need to go to the moon to be innovative in what we do. i think the president is trying in that regard. hunter, i would disagree with you on that. but i do agree with you that the bailout was not the best way to do things. i will admit even though i voted against the bailout that it did help stop the hemorrhaging. i went to see peaks on job creation as big as the valleys on job loss. that would be a true robust recovery.

to do that, you have to start paying people real wages. it cannot just be temporary jobs. income wagest be jobs. ceo's are making tons of money. there is more money parked on the sidelines by corporate america today -- over $1 trillion that they have in cash that they are waiting to see where to put it and where to invest it. of good stimulate a lot growth. we can jumpstart the middle class if we do this the right way. let's go to the next question. luis, you're on. >> thank you, congressman. of those negative job losses, most of the increases are minimum wage. >> you're not seeing the recovery. the guy that lost the job is getting the job back that pays as much as the job he lost. 2008lot of problems in subsequently were caused by wall street, by the banks.

stand on putting forth the policies to nationalize banks that take money from the government in the future because they are quote, too big to fail? how about setting up public banks like the north dakota, and supporting elizabeth warren in her suggestion on allowing the post office to be banks for basic banking services? this will really help the consumer. one of the things we want to -- the engine of our economy has been, is, and i believe will be the middle of america. rich folks can only buy so many yachts. poor folks can barely buy the basics. it is middle-class america that buys the new clothes washer when the old one finally breaks down for the third time.

middle-class will say, son, daughter, you are 18. i will give you the seven-year-old car and now i will splurge and get myself a little vehicle, brand-new vehicle. those are the things that turn the economy. hasmiddle class, while it some disposable income, does not have enough that it can be hogwild. the other two demographics, rich or very poor, they could only stimulate the economy so much. going-class, you get them , we're in good shape. in the 1950's, when all the servicemen and women came back after world war ii, they needed something to do. they wanted to get to work. we did the g.i. bill and got educated. they became the engineers. then eisenhower said, we are never going to face a situation like in world war ii when we were not prepared. we are going to build a highway

situation that will connect us to every part of the country so we can never be caught off guard. whole bunch of construction workers went to work. the reason i went to stanford, probably because my dad was busy with highway 5, highway 99. he had work almost all the time, except when it rained. he knew as soon as the sun was out, he was working. he was not making a whole lot as a laborer. he had about a sixth grade education. he got paid about $14 per hour, with benefits. he was stable enough for nine months. how many construction workers do you know today they can send their kid stanford university? question --fficulty that is a difficulty. we honor the middle class, look at them is what they are, the

jewel. the middle-class is the largest segment of america. if we make him feel like that i can afford to give the clothes washer, ok, i will let my kid have that car. i can afford it and get myself a little car. that is what keeps the economy going. i agree with it in that sense. here is where i want to be a little realistic with you. i am not happy with the big banks. to me,e people would say hobby air you are endangering the economy, i would say this. the banks would get what they needed the end of the day. ever seen a bank that doesn't get what it needs? the odds are always stacked against you. a creditor always has you by the neck. to me, the banks don't have a right to control our lives, but they are very important. we sell what happened when they

would not lend. when the banks get a cold, we get the flu. we don't need banks that are so big and loose with your cash that we can't control them. what we need to do is have a way to make sure that you don't go hog wild. they were essentially vegas on wall street with your money. them can put restraints on , the banks did not even know how much value they had in some of the stocks that they purchased. they were betting against themselves, these hedge bets. they would head to the sum of their investments would lose. if they did lose those investments, they were ok, they hedged against a loss. it's crazy. i agree that we have to do

something about the banks, that's why we have credit unions and savings and loans. but we have to have a financial system that works for everyone. especially for small businesses. without that line of credit, that makes it very tough. i'm being told that we are pretty much out of time. we will see a few mornings before i go to you. >> i am here with a group, as you can probably tell, but also a constituent of yours. i live in mount washington. i have a short comment followed by a question. our group continues to advocate for copperheads immigration reform. some of that reform can come in for arm of changes

punitive system. what i want to ask you -- would you like to get more details, if , about what may be coming down the line in terms of administrative relief? have said this before. you have probably read and seen and heard about this on the whole immigration issue. it is a political issue more than it is vowing a substantive mechanical how you solve it issue. 400 days ago, more than a year ago, the senate back in june of last year passed a bill that dealt with every aspect of immigration under the law. they went through and they look at what wasn't working well and

the tweak it, looking at system that wasn't working and they proposed tweaks. it was comprehensive. it dealt with the whole issue of border security, trying to update and innovate with new ways of doing things. so you wouldn't just put a whole bunch of bodies on the board when we have technology to help us address these issues. with the whole issue of visas, whether for family unification or work purposes and theweak the system so that smarter system would impact our needs as a nation. it tweak to their whole system of dealing with people at the workplace. remember, what drives undocumented immigration is at the end of the day, these folks are getting jobs. why are they getting jobs when they don't have the right to work in the country? employers are hiring them.

the legislation dealt with the you only met that people who have the right to work in the country. matched with those who would check to make sure that they hired you the right way. it was a bipartisan bill that passed. for for -- for 400 days it languished in the house. we authored a bill that is almost exactly like the senate bill, although we think we tweak it better, smarter. we have about 200 signatures on there right now. with 18 more members we could pass that will.

we have been talking about that till in the congressional budget the sort of nonpartisan neutral referee telling us what ills cost. so we have a sense of what we are doing. it would save us close to one dollar trillion for the economy, essentially getting rid of so much of the underground economy that these folks live in. publicd put them in the economy, where they would be paying taxes. employers could no longer pay them the just cash and the taxes that go with it as well. vote on thata bill. the president has taken some administrative steps where he can. the president doesn't pass laws. the constitution says that only congress can pass laws. the president executes the laws. the president has the right to use his discretion on how he executes the laws.

is one of the reasons there is now a lawsuit against the president that is a crazy thing, but the house is now suing the president because he is trying to enforce the laws. in the 1990's, things have doubled in size in the last 10 years. honestly they did a pretty good job to help stem the flow of folks coming to the country without documents, but there are ways to make it work at her.

before i go after the kid in school, the valedictorian in his the president proposed a program called deferred action for children. kids who were brought into this country when they were very small and have spent most of their life in this country. most of them don't remember where the home country is that they came from. on to behem have gone valedictorians, great universities, serving in our armed forces. rather than going after those folks, let me on down the guys trying to sell drugs to our kids . i have limited resources. he has used his discretion on resources to deport people in the country without documents.

that is the use of executive discretion. the president has said that since the house republican leadership has told us last month that they will not has any immigration legislation for the remainder of the year, the president said -- ok, at your request i waited to see if the house would pass a bill to match the senate so that we could get a bill that by statute fixes the broken immigration system. you are now telling me that you will do that? i can within the confines of the law to use my executive discretion to implement the law as best i can. right now the president is reviewing the best he can do with his executive discretion to make the immigration laws work as best possible. what might he do? you might try to do some things that diverge or redirect resources away from the mother

or the grocery store trying to and a diverge it to the guy who's trying to be a gang member. he will try to target as much as he can towards those who are trying to do us harm. it will be somewhat imprecise, but that is what he is trying to do. how far can it go? that is more there, because again he cannot change the law. he can only enforce the law using his discretion. a perfect way to do things. the deferred action program for these miners who are right now pursued for be deportation, that is only temporary. at any moment the program could be canceled. the new president comes in and says -- i don't like this executive order. those kids are back in the deportation mine again.

he can say that this is how he wants to enforce it. we are hoping that he will enforce it in a smart way that directs resources to go after the guy trying to do us harm, helping families that are just working without that fear of persecution. rather than going after folks who years ago would have been able to stay we pass a law, let's focus on the folks we really need to get out of the country. before we go, let's pick two more names. after this will be stella lopez. batting cleanup?

jim, you will be our last question her. >> good afternoon, sir. i have a comment for you. changing or weakening laws the present children in crisis, we ask you to keep intact the reauthorization act of 2008. the lawis talking about that i previously described the itls with the border kids, was passed in 2008. i want to make this clear. it was passed in 2008 bipartisan way. george bush was president and he signed it. essentially it says that for children, if we find that they

arrive at our border and they are unaccompanied, we are going to try to figure out what is going on. in may not remember this, 2005, 2006, 2008, we were finding a lot of kids coming from places like china, coming on thesecontainer cars big cargo ships. human traffickers, often sex traffickers would put kids, little girls into these cargo containers and shipped them on these boats and be part of public freight and then they would pay off people and get these kids and put them into sex , essentially put the enslaved conditions in the u.s.. bipartisan lee everyone came forward to say that we can't let this go on.

we have to go after these guys were trying to smuggle human beings in this way. most of the kids were coming and it was under severe conditions. can you imagine the long trip from china and a cargo ship, a container that you can't get out of? the law was passed for that reason. because most of these kids didn't know english, they didn't know what their circumstance would be, we provided them with legal assistance of the they could tell us what was going on and that way if they got shipped back they would not be persecuted or killed. was the reason for the law. some people are saying that we now need to change the law to not provide that due process for those children that they come unaccompanied.

if you are asking not to change the law, i believe you, we want to have the system faster. get rid of the bottleneck. nook and give these kids chance to make the case. them, we canping do this the right way, quicker, so the what we can do is prove to the world that if you have a real claim, we have always been willing, but it has to be a real claim. as i said, stella. and after that, jim.

>> we get a lot of information and you are doing a wonderful job. >> i asked her to say that. >> that's not true. on the radio, i think it was this week that i heard about 2023. happen, that it will but a lot of people are on social security. we have so much money, your $800 america is not the way that used to be. we know that, we understand that. , i worry, many here

the nation is pushing many state sound for these people in their homes. as we are all knowing here, and our doing the work nation, maybe we have to send some money and open the column so that we can have the money for this country. many people are having a good time and others are just dying because it is not enough help for them. i cannot say more. thank you very much for everything. >> thank you for the question. longer than- i took normal on social security, i hate rumors.

social security is a real challenge in the future. it is not going bankrupt, it is not broke, and it has never once -- not like some of these banks, not like enron, not like worldcom, it has never once failed to pay in full and on time to every single american who worked in this country and retired or became disabled or the surviving spouse or child paid in. never once. in 78 years has it failed to pay the people who earned their benefits in full and on time. in those 78 years we have gone through 13 recessions. the last one was really bad. recession,ht of that 800,000 jobs for americans in one month? every single american on social security got their social security check.

this is simple math that you can check. i'm not making up these numbers. i'm a mess because i may talk willbout trillions, but i be pretty close to accurate on the billions and trillions. in the 78 years how much of we contributed? we have contributed in every paycheck. our employer matches that. taxed.r employer gets it is not free. we pay for it. how much have we put into the social security system? about $15 trillion.

i might be off in my number , but don't try to figure out how many zeros. it is a lot. equation has more than one variable, right? how much has social security to you as a beneficiary? or for the beneficiary costs? how much? about $14 trillion. i know the math is tough, but you can do the subtraction. in, $14lion brought trillion sent out, what does it leave?

one dollar trillion. your parents taxpayer money, your grandparents taxpayer money, never yet spent. social security is not done. that money they collected in excess of what was sent out has not just been put under a big mattress. it is in bills and bonds. this is the way that it works. the folks who say that there is a fiction trust fund, that is your money -- you pay it, fica tax, social security gets ist money and it says here the money we got for this month. whatever the amount is, these are treasury bonds to replace what you just gave me. they are in 2%, 3% interest, not much.

it does earn interest. how much that we have not used doesn't earn an interest? close to two dollars show you and. how much is in the reserves that has not yet been spent that is available? close to three dollar chilean. social security is not broke. there is a challenge. i can see the challenge in the room. the challenge as well. we are a member of the baby boomers. there are a bunch of us retiring now. not me, not yet, but we are getting close. we did not have that many kids. so, we don't have as many people working, paying into the system on social security. that was this big lit the baby boomers retiring.

suddenly things are little offkilter. more people need to come in to make up for the people retiring. that three years dollar trillion will be totally depleted. what happens the day after? it will now be based only on what americans working contributed. what does it provide to was collected? if you receive social security today, anyone in this room, imagine in 2034 someone who would want to get 100% of what you are getting would only get about 75%.

as i think they have attempted to make clear, that is tough. that is the challenge of social security. by the way, it levels off. it does not go strictly downhill. what happens is the kids today who are working and watching their parents and the baby boom generation retire, remember, they will start to retire. will have a bigger population than the relative size of the baby boomers. it levels off. no one wants to get $.75 of what people today are getting on a dollar. so, we are challenged with social security to make sure that between get -- we have 20 to continue to give a robust retirement benefit. you do that using simple math. you increase the input or

decrease the output. input is taxed. output is benefits. some people say to raise the retirement age later in life. that is one way to cut benefits. some people say to change the cost of social security inputs to keep up with it. cut in benefits. some people say to remove the cap on how much people have to pay it in, on how much of your income gets taxed at 6.1%. it is cap at $17,000. if you make 100 $17,000? that's to say you made 100 team -- $117,000. more thanfett makes $117,000, right? once he has

paid him first one hundred $17,000, everything after that, however many millions it is, on taxed for social security purposes. some people say that they should raise the cap more. it is very simple. inputs or outputs. we can solve that, we just have to have the will. i would never support saying the system doesn't work, you should be going bankrupt. by the way, you know how much you pay in fees for your social security system to work? less than 1%. i know that many of you probably have financial advisors. have you checked how much or financial advisor charges you to advise you? that they're not

talking every month about how much to charge you. trillions of dollars for 60 million people. one last thing about social security, on top of the fact that it has never failed to pay on time and in full throughout the 78 years it has been around, it is not just retirement benefit. it is not just a pension plan. by the way, it is better than a pension plan, you cannot outlive social security. you can outlive your pension, but you cannot outlive social security. that is the commitment that every generation behind you has made for you. the life, itit for your life, of social security. no matter how long you live. no pension in america tells you that. recognize aren't

the americans today who are retired and not getting social security. so, they get survivor benefits out of it. not only that, if you become disabled, guess what? you get disability benefits as well. social security is a pension plan, life insurance policy, and disability insurance policy wrapped up in one. to any insurer and find out how much they would charge you to provide you with disability, life, and the pension and annuity. find out how much they would charge you. compared to social security and you will see why it is the best deal. today the population of seniors living in poverty is under 10%.

for socialot security and medicare, half of seniors would be living in medicaid. you are a woman, you should attack anyone who you aru should attack anyone who [no audio] by the time they get into their 80's, it is almost 100%

>> i will send every border patrol agent after someone who does that. you just should not do that in this country. last question, forgive me. jim, close us out. make it a good one. and you hear me? >> we can hear you. >> great. the issue that should be on everyone's mind nonstop and become infuriated is we are into globalrching

thermonuclear world war iii with russia and china. the obama bush crowd, cameron in britain, the queen and so on, they are hysterical that the british empire was and is collapsing and that the russia china india and others, the bricks countries are building a new system for the future. what those nations are doing in brasilia from a few weeks ago, they are setting up a new monetary financial economic system to finance infrastructure development all over the world. my friend mentioned the chinese program. russia has a similar one. obama says there is another one and we are not going back. and that we don't need these newfangled technologies, and that is of the scene. john kennedy is rolling over in his grave at obama's to that effect. i am not kidding about world war

iii. it is the assessment of the russian government that obama try ampany are going to thermonuclear showdown like the cuban missile crisis very soon, except these clowns around obama think that they can win the new -- win a nuclear war. they are nuts. they are fascists. what is going on in ukraine proves it. i met with your top staff people here in los angeles. you probably got a briefing on it from gail. she seemed quite on she and just. i talked to john, your legislative director in washington. also to the lady who is your foreign-policy adviser at the caucus office. what i laid out before the coup d'état backed by the u.s. isernment and key allies that this is what is coming and it has to be stopped.

>> any judeo ahead. >> i'm almost done. >> the obama c.i.a. director has now admitted your colleagues, senator feinstein on the senate intelligence committee, who have been investigating the criminal activity of the whoosh cheney cia, kidnapping people all over the world -- >> any judeo get to the point. >> the point is that brandon has now admitted, according to your testimony, that same cia has been spying on senator feinstein, her entire staff, her entire colleagues on the floor. what do we have? obama says he has got confidence -- >> jim, give me your question. >> very simple, are you going to go back to washington and impeach this not cso be like a >> i'm notat or not?

sure who the reference was to, but i hope it's not too people who have been elected to office, i don't think it is an appropriate way to refer to anyone who has been elected to office. with't grace that comment a response other than to say that elected office is not easy. i tell you that as someone who has now served for more than two decades in office. i think the president is trying the best he can. i think that george bush tried the best that he could. i disagree with some of what they do, but i don't refer to them as you just did because in this country we are fortunate we get to say that because we have leaders who have allowed us to protect the constitution. trying to respond to your point. this -- there is -- there is -- how can i say this?

is a dangerous world. there is a lot going on in the world right now that we cannot predict. that we, ourselves, by ourselves cannot control. ukraine, syria, , the, north korea situation in central america, that is desperate as well. for different reasons. i did not get elected to tell you that i want the u.s. to be the top of the world. and i did not get paid for it. we are out there in a lot of places around the world with our armed forces -- we have a lot of good being done. i think that is important. no one ever pays us for it. we foot the bill for all this stuff. world a little safer? someone should be paying us a little bit more. how long have we had our troops

in the dmz in the korean peninsula? i did not see the check. i believe the u.s. has a major responsibility around the world. everyone looks to us. we have a responsibility to lead. but we don't have to be flexible. i really the kernel of what jim said, which is that we have to understand what we are facing. i think i do verge from jim on most of the other points you made. let me try to summarize by saying this. syria -- i told the president that if he was going to go in and use our military through the air because the syrian government -- because there was proof that the syrian government had used a weapon of mass distraction, chemical weapons, i would support that.

ofave never been a big fan using the military unilaterally. i voted against the war for that reason. if it is a no-no, that is an no-no. using our boots on the ground to show you that if you use chemical weapons on a mass population or a weapon of mass distraction, you are going to pay the price. if i could just in this? my point is to say that now, with regard to ukraine, a rack, i look at things differently from syria. to me a rack is not a country -- to me, iraq is not a country. it is sectarian populations.

the data i see a sunni arab soldier defend a shia -- sunni iraq soldier defend the civilian, or a shia iraq soldier , ornd a sunni iraq civilian plugged in occurred instead of she or sunni, then i will consider it a country, but right now kurds defend kurds, shia defend shia, sunni defend sunni. i am not interested in sending in american soldiers to figure out who they should defend. we just saw what happened in afghanistan. until those countries want to be more responsible for their future, i am not interested in investing american lives to do

what they had to do at the cost of 4000 americans in a rack, another 1000 and a half in afghanistan, tens of thousands coming back wounded. we have discussed that with the veterans administration. i think we have got to be smart. we are never going to lose our role in the world to try to help bringing prosperity to other countries like ours. but at the same time, we have to either a careful how we use our military and armed forces. jim, i would say that i think the president is trying hard and i think that he recognizes when you have soldiers who served four or five tours of duty, it is time to give them a rest. unless you can prove to me that iraqis are going to do something special to prove they deserve to to waitded, i am going see what happens in that civil war. ukraine, i think the russians are going hog wild.

but that is in their backyard. if something were happening in our backyard in this hemisphere? what would we do? would mexico be teetering? rico, territory, or the dominican republic and haiti get into a crisis where we felt like we wouldn't have friends there? i suspect not. we invaded grenada. what is goingear on. maybe not legitimately, but you have got to get inside that brain. because i want to get inside that brain before i send troops to defend someone i don't understand. flags tod to present this thousands of fallen soldiers. it's not fun. it's not fun. i am going to make sure that if i present the flag to the spouse of a fallen soldier, it will be for good reason so that i can say to that spouse -- your husband, your wife died for your

country and you should be proud and i am proud of what they did. i want to make sure that i can say that with my heart fully behind it. i don't agree with most of what you said, but if i could agree with you it would be to say that we have to be smart in how we use our power and how we help the world and we can be duped into thinking that just because we are the biggest power in the world that we should get involved in everything. with that, you have been great. we went longer, i thank you so much. we will do it again. thank you for participating. thank you to c-span for the coverage. everyone have a great evening. [applause] lawmakers are meeting with constituents while congress is in recess. senator johnhat thune in south dakota tweeted -- "thanks to the usf football team for having me speak on faith and leadership this morning." next, joe garcia, democratic

representative -- "this morning i help to hand out book bags full of school supplies, glad to be helping the kids in the 26th district. kline, inn john preview. he represents the second district of minnesota. utah senator mike lee recently attended an event recognizing the 33rd anniversary of the economic recovery tax act signed by president ronald reagan. senator lee spoke from the ranch in santa barbara, california, where he talked about the future of the republican party and pointed at grassroots movements like the tea party. this is one hour. >> we are so honored to have each of you here today. a special welcome to our c-span audience who is joining us from

the young american foundation tax cut celebration commemorating the signing of the largest tax cut in american history by none other than president ronald wilson reagan. the young americans foundation is committed to ensuring that increasing numbers of young americans understand and are inspired by the idea of individual freedom and a strong free enterprise with traditional values. as a principal outreach organization of the conservative movement, the foundation introduces thousands of american youth to these principles. we accomplish the mission by essential seminars and educational materials as well as internships and speakers to young americans across the country. in the spring of 1998 the young americans foundation step heward and we believe, as did, that freedom is never more than one generation away from

extinction, therefore we preserve the ranch as a living monument to president reagan, passing on his ideas to future generations. in his farewell address to the nation he said that all great change the ginza the din at it -- dinner table. the reagan solicitor general truly believed this and lived it in his family. he often discussed various aspects of judicial and constitutional doctrine around the table, from due process to the uses of executive power. ronald reagan also said -- there is a flickering spark in all of us that at the right age can light the rest of our lives, elevating her ideals and sharpening our appetite for knowledge. it is safe to say that directly helped to light that spark for his son, mike. he attended most of his father's arguments in the supreme court, giving him a unique hands-on experience of the understanding of government up close. early on he acquired a deep

respect for the constitution. today, senator lee fights to preserve that document in the u.s. senate. before he entered the u.s. senate, senator lee received his undergraduate at byu. had to proceed just clerkships, one of them including for the not quite yet u.s. supreme court justice, sam alito. he also served as general counsel for governor jon huntsman and was an assistant u.s. attorney that got to go back to the u.s. supreme court for a one-year clerkship under the then u.s. supreme court justice, sam alito. senator lee is no stranger to the young americans foundation. he spoke there this summer immediately after his 2010 election and then returned back in 2012, having also spoken for the national student service conference. he understands the importance of reaching young people with conservative ideas, so it is no surprise that he has been before

an audience more than most of his colleague. ofy of you may have heard him referred to as one of the three musketeers of the u.s. and it, but i like what worldnet daily had to say about him, the gop's renaissance man, so obviously relishing his ideas on an impressive variety of issues, constantly working to come up with innovative solutions for modern times. he shows that conservatism can be solutions oriented. let's hope that his colleagues on both sides of the aisle and take a page out of that playbook. to see a prominent conservative politican take up the mantle and offer the leadership that the senator does is refreshing. it is a cause for great celebration and quite rare these days that we see anything encouraging coming from washington. get ready to have your hope her nude and join me in welcoming my friend, senator mike lee. [applause]

>> thank you so much for that kind introduction. thank you to all of you for being here. it is an honor to be here at the reagan ranch. my wife ando have my daughter with me. you met than just a minute ago. the last time you are here was a couple of minutes ago -- years ago. our two sons were with us. they are not with us now, but they enjoyed it here as well. every time i think of james and jonathan to about the experience i had with them a few years ago driving down the road with both of them. to a popularning song on the radio. on this occasion, for some reason the words came true to me more clearly.

suddenly i was four or five by what the singer was saying. these were dreadful words. not the words that a god-fearing father of three children would want to listen to. i immediately seize control of the volume knob and i turned it down. words aret these horrible, why are we listening to this? my son said -- without an -- without batting an eye, dad, it's not bad if you don't think about it. suddenly the thought occurred to me that my son must be advising the president of the united states. [laughter] you see, there are a lot of things around us in washington that are not that big, only if you don't think about it erie it but you are here today because you are here today because you're thinking about it and are trying to make a world better place, which is what the young americans foundation does so well. i am honored to join you for this occasion. it really is an honor, by the

way, to be invited here to speak on this occasion today, or on any occasion. for conservative politican, being invited to speak at the reagan ranch is a little bit like a musician being invited to play a set at sun records or or a ballplayer taking the field at fenway park. i am humbled by the opportunity. my first real exposure to the reagan administration occurred when i was about ten years old. my father, the late rex e. lee, my dad had just taken a job in the administration as the solicitor general.

we moved into a quiet suburb and it had a different feel to it in my hometown. i felt like an outsider. i still do. that was my first real exposure to the reagan administration, my dad. that was his client. the u.s. government was his lien. the president of the united states is the chief executive officer. therefore president reagan was my dad client. learn how to channel reagan's voice and message to the supreme court.

he enjoyed that job very deeply. could tellhe bat i that this was going to be an interesting set of circumstances ire it even as a 10-year-old somehow intuitively understood that this was going to be an historic administration. my dad definitely had an interesting job. in part because the solicitor general of the united states had a ceremonial uniform of sorts that he wears while arguing cases. it is called "the morning suit." you might have seen one from time to time on "downton abbey, what you'd have to look there to see one. the cope with long tails, kind asfunky stretch pants, and it turns out as my dad later discovered in court, you are not ever supposed to wear a button down collar with your morning suit. he was much reprimanded by chief for doing that.

i was mortified and intrigued by the morning suit and as part of what convinced me to go to court as part of what -- to go to court to watch him argue, one of the main reasons initially was that i knew if i expressed interest in going to court with my dad, i could miss school for a few hours. in time i learned much more about the supreme court and about what my dad was doing in front of the highest court in the land. when i got there, when i watched him argue these cases on behalf of the reagan administration, i did not always understand everything that was being said. was a bitspects it like attending church in a foreign language. to hold still -- in fact the security personnel in the court come around and tell you to sit up straight if you were slouching. you could not talk. you had to pay attention. so, i did.

even though i could not understand all the words, i started to understand that there is a rhythm to the court. i loved watching my dad argue there and watching him represent his positions, represent resident reagan. what i learned most of all in court is perhaps the fact that there is a certain cadence and a certain rhythm to being a good advocate for good government. what he was. but just as there is a familiar cadence among skilled lawyers, so too is there a familiar cadence for conservatism itself. no one understood that cadence better or more completely than did president ronald reagan. he had the cadence of confidence. he had the cadence of courage. he had the cadence of compassion.

roll those together and you have a winner. thenext time you call reagan ranch, i hope you will be placed on hold. there is a reason for that. i would not ordinarily tell someone that i hope they get placed on hold, but trust me on this one, get it on hold the next time you call the reagan ranch. here's why. if you are lucky enough to have that experience, you will hear that same confident cadence of conservatism in the voice of ronald reagan, which you will hear on the phone when you get it on hold at the reagan ranch. it is my hope that today and moving forward those of us who honor ronald reagan's legacy will not just talk about him, but listen to him, and perhaps most importantly that we will do our best to learn from him and, ultimately, act like him.

that is what we need to do is americans. americans -- and for conservatives in particular -- the legacy of ronald reagan will always serve as an inspiration. but it should also serve as a great challenge to each of us. that part, the enduring challenge to the movement and the party, to the nation that he revived, that i would like to discuss today. asking about the perks of the son of the solicitor general, it did not occur to me at the time.

they thought about it as the beginning of his legacy, as the beginning of that moment as the beginning of reagan's legacy and the country's triumphant era, eventually ushering in the longest peacetime recovery in american history. abroad,in the cold war restoration of the american dream right here at home. .0 million new jobs 49 state landslide. tear down this wall. i submit that it is not the only way that conservatives need to study and emulate most today.

the obvious achievements fall from august of 1980 one and provide a showcase of what we can learn from our 40th president. of the most important lessons we can take our from ronald reagan's hard and heroic work leading up to his electoral victory in 1980. the four-year stretch between 1976 and 1980 was a time that was somewhat similar to our own time. unemployment rate appeared to be coming down, but it was still far too high. the economy was recovering, but not nearly enough to restore the broad prosperity that we badly craved. energy dysfunction, rising prices, and unfair tax system were eating up the gains that

working families saw in their day to day take-home pay. but it was not just about statistics. humiliating failures of leadership at home and the rod throughout the previous decade had taken their toll as well. a psychological pall was descending on the country, leaving americans uncharacteristically anxious and pessimistic. when grinding stagflation steered us toward yet another recession, many americans began to wonder if our best days had come and gone. it was in that time, in my view, that reagan did perhaps the most important work of his career. ronald reagan in the late 1970s was a prominent figure, but not

a powerful one. he was no longer governor. his primary challenge against a sitting president of his own party had failed, and made him a pariah among a resentful republican establishment in washington. and the conservative movement he led was once again in the political wilderness. the situation was bleak. but, as always, where others saw obstacles, reagan saw opportunities. he saw what too many in washington did not, that a disconnect had opened between the american people and their leaders. president carter's approval rating fell into the 30's, and congress's into the 20's.

that seems high by today's figures. [laughter] according to the latest figure i saw congress was hovering right around 9%. lessnk that makes us popular in american dental bill castro.- then fidel one of my colleagues said who one earth are those 9%, and why do they approve of us? [laughter] not a great time for our country. the republican establishment, timid and unimaginative by nature, hoped the democrats' unpopularity might allow republicans to win a few elections by default.

but this status-quo strategy did not interest reagan. it did not interest him at all. reagan wanted to build a new republican party, a new majority coalition, a new conservative movement that would not just cut across party lines, but permanently redraw them. he had a much bigger vision. reagan noticed that, aside from america's political and economic elite, the rest of the country suffered under increasingly liberal policies. they were holding down those who were most in need of economic opportunities i. the political, corporate, and

media opinion leaders were doing just fine. the people shouldering the brunt of big government's failure were the working men and women of and aspiring to america's middle class. they were the ones whose neighborhoods saw rising crime rates. they were the ones whose communities were threatened by family breakdown. they were the ones whose jobs were hanging by a thread. they were the ones whose children couldn't to go to college, whose sons and brothers came back from vietnam only to be insulted by those they had fought to protect. they were the ones who couldn't afford gas and groceries because of the energy crisis and inflation. unlike the poor, who attracted washington's sympathy, and the rich, who could influence public policy, the mass of americans in the middle were being ignored, slighted, and left behind by the

political class in washington. the 19th century economist william graham sumner had a term for the american caught in the middle, "the forgotten man." as sumner put it in his famous essay of the same name - "[the forgotten man] works, he votes, generally he prays, but he always pays, yes, above all, he pays. his name never gets into the newspaper except when he gets married or dies. he is strongly patriotic. he is wanted, whenever, in his little circle, there is work to be done or counsel to be given. all the burdens fall on him, or on her, for the forgotten man is not seldom a woman." it was these familiar friends and neighbors from all races and

creeds and regions, people all americans know and most americans are, that ronald reagan believed made our nation good and great and beautiful. they were the ones, reagan understood, conservatism could help the most. indeed, in a national review essay a month after the 1964 election, before his name was ever on a ballot, reagan reminded a defeated conservative movement - "we represent the forgotten american, that simple soul who goes to work, bucks for a raise, takes out insurance, pays for his kids' schooling, contributes to his church and charity and knows there just 'ain't no such thing as a free lunch.'" to ronald reagan, these americans were never forgotten. from the beginning, he built his

politics around a profound respect for the honest, hardworking men and women who made america work. many of these americans, like reagan himself, believed government should stand on the side of the little guy against unfair concentrations of political and economic power. they still believed that. and so did reagan. it's just that by the late 1970s, the democratic party's leadership in washington had gone washington. the new left did not oppose, but had come to enjoy, the unfair privileges of concentrated power. the ruling class in washington not only ignored working families' interests, but openly disparaged their values. now, reagan knew that while middle class americans were disillusioned with washington democrats, they were equally

suspicious of washington republicans, with good reason. liberalism may have been failing, but to many americans in the late 1970s, conservatism was at best a cobwebbed theory. reagan needed a way to transform this anti-liberal majority into a pro-conservative majority. he didn't want to spin them, or play on their fears. he respected them, he wanted actually to persuade them. he knew that abstract theories and negative attacks weren't going to cut it. reagan needed to make conservatism new, real, and relevant. he rebuilt conservatism with a concrete agenda of innovative reforms to directly help and empower all of the forgotten americans whom liberalism always

leaves behind. he advocated marginal tax-rate reduction. this, reagan correctly promised, would allow workers to keep more of their own income, raise wages, and create new jobs. he advocated a strong dollar. this, reagan correctly promised, would help us gain control over the inflation that was gnawing away at middle-class wages, savings, and aspirations. and he advocated an aggressive defense build-up. this, reagain correctly promised, would help us expose and defeat an aggressive, atheistic, and violent empire that threatened the life of every american, and the future of every child. so often, reagan's success is chalked up to his personal attributes.

these were not insignificant, and are missed to these day -- this day. his charm, his humor, his political and communication skills. he had all those things when he ran for president the first time. but alas, those personal attributes alone were not enough. we must always remember that in 1976, conservatives found a leader for the ages, but they still lost. by 1980, they had forged an agenda for their time, and only then, with an agenda and a messenger for that agenda, did they win. armed with this agenda, reagan not only confronted liberalism head-on, he also connected with

those long-forgotten americans by aligning his movement, his party, and his message around them. it's time for us to do it again. the similarities between the late 1970s and today seem to grow by the hour. now, as then, our economy is struggling. the great american middle class is beset with anxiety. stagnant wages don't keep up with the rising cost of living. for too many americans, opportunities seem to be narrowing, and the american dream seems to be slipping out of reach. meanwhile, a chasm of distrust is opening between the american people and their government. both parties are seen as incapable of producing innovative solutions to growing problems, or uninterested in

even trying. reagan's "forgotten americans" are once again being left behind. once again, the left has betrayed the trust of the american people. but the right has not won it back. so it seems to me that conservatives today need to do what reagan did in the late 1970s, identify the great challenges holding back america's working families, and propose concrete, innovative solutions to help overcome them. just like reagan did, as conservatives today we need to re-apply our principles to the challenges of the moment. we need to offer the country a new, positive reform agenda that remembers america's forgotten families and puts the federal government back on their side. a real conservative reform agenda has to do more than just cut big government.

it has to fix broken government. reagan did just that a generation ago. since then, new challenges have emerged, demanding repair, and conservative principles can once again point us toward exciting, innovative solutions. i find it interesting that most americans feel forgotten, left out of the debate, left behind in their efforts to get ahead, while shouldering the burdens of failed policies, without a voice in what matters most. the ironic part of having a podium and a microphone is that most americans want someone in washington not to speak to them, but to listen to them. "fix it," they say. "turn it around," they demand. "will government ever work for me, or will i always be working for it?"

reagan listened to the forgotten and the disillusioned american. can we be our best? i know that we can at least be better. congress can do better. we can expect more out of our leaders, more out of ourselves. we can fix, cut, and tear down walls that confine our liberty, in any era. we can expect more. we can expect reform. let me give you a few examples. a conservative reform agenda needs to reduce taxes for families. today, marginal tax rates are much lower than they were in august 1981. they are so low that almost half of all households pay no income tax. but most working families are still overtaxed, some by thousands of dollars a year. how? because of the hidden double tax

the current system imposes on parents through the payroll tax to fund our senior entitlement programs. many tax-reform plans today ignore this problem, and would actually raise taxes on working parents. for single parents, this might as well be a "keep out" sign on the front door of the middle class. it's an unfair attack on individuals, families, and neighborhoods, forcing them to make decisions based on what government wants instead of what they want. conservative tax reform today needs to fix this unfair parent tax penalty, to level the playing field for the hardworking families raising the next generation of americans. a conservative reform agenda also needs to spur economic growth. new jobs come from new businesses.

but all the taxes and regulations government foists on the economy actually hurt newer, smaller businesses and help large, politically connected corporations, which can afford all the lawyers and lobbyists to comply with all the rules. people who fear that the economy is rigged today are right. it is, and government rigs it. today in washington, economic policy is driven by a corrupt alliance of big government and big business conspiring to keep out the new, disruptive

competitors that innovate, transform, and create new jobs and growth. true conservative reform should level the playing field for all businesses, small and large, new and old. that's where new jobs, innovation, and growth come from from main street, not wall street, k street, and pennsylvania avenue. look at our nation's infrastructure. america needs more highways, more bridges, more local transit. but the old federal transportation trust fund is now permanently insolvent because 20% of the money it takes in is skimmed right off the top by special interests, bureaucracy, and inefficiency. real conservative transportation

reform could cut out those beltway middle-men. we need to create a 21st-century, open-source transportation network of sustainable, local innovation that empowers america's diversity and ingenuity. another example is our broken higher-education system. today, the exploding costs of and restricted access to college are leaving millions of workers without the skills to succeed in the global economy. millions more are being saddled with more debt than they'll ever be able to repay. washington sees this structural dysfunction, and immediately launches into an argument about, the interest rate on student loans. we shouldn't be arguing about tenths-of-a-percent on $40,000

tuition, we should be fixing the system so college doesn't cost so much in the first place. and we need to increase access to new schools that can accommodate the needs of non-traditional students, like single parents, who can't afford to study full time. a conservative reform agenda must confront a welfare system that isolates the less fortunate. a reformed system would start to bring the poor back into our economy and civil society. real welfare is not about dependency, but mobility, designed to make poverty temporary instead of just tolerable. a conservative reform agenda must include plans for an energy revolution. just look at what's going on in north dakota and texas and elsewhere. let it create all the jobs and opportunities and energy independence it can. let all energy producers compete

on a level playing field, new technologies and old, large businesses and small, with equal opportunity for all and cronyist subsidies and special treatment for none. and finally, this approach shows us that we can't just cut obamacare, or even repeal it and go back to the old system we had before. instead, we need to move forward with real healthcare reforms that empower patients and doctors, not big government and big insurance companies. under the radar of the mainstream media and beltway politics, the conservative reform agenda we need is starting to take shape. as you can see, the content is different from reagan's agenda. but the goal is the same, reforming outdated policies to put government back to work for

those forgotten americans. growing our economy and strengthening our society. and finally bringing the american dream back into the reach of every american willing to work for it. 33 years ago ronald reagan set over there and signed into law the historic tax bill. it was midmorning, a fairly heavy fog. as he was signing that bill into law, the son seemed to be cutting through the fog. it was morning again in america. that time approaches us again today. like reagan's, the agenda i am describing is based on something too often missing in our politics today, respect for the american people.

as president, ronald reagan understood that the forgotten americans were the people really in charge. and they still are. the people, not billionaires on wall street, are the customers who decided which products and services and businesses would rise and fall. the people, not the activists and academics and celebrities, decide the values that guide our neighborhoods and define our culture. and ronald reagan was okay with that. he celebrated it. his agenda was designed to give ordinary americans even more power to make those decisions. he respected them and trusted them, and thought the government should simply get out of the way. he knew the answer was not to get america to trust washington, it was to get washington to trust america.

today, some see it as ironic that as reagan decentralized power to a diverse, divided nation. and as he did so we came back together. but it's not ironic at all. it's the tried-and-true genius of the american way of life that has sustained our exceptional republic for more than two centuries. reagan's agenda was an attempt to empower americans to come together to make our economy more wealthy and our society more rich. reagan knew, and proved to a cynical elite, that freedom doesn't mean you're on your own, it means we're all in this together. and really, that is ronald reagan's enduring challenge to conservatives, and republicans, and all americans, to believe in

each other. to trust and respect the courage and industry and wisdom and ingenuity and compassion and hope of our people. a renewed commitment to reform can not only put america on the path to recovery, but reunite our nation after too many years of bitter division, and empower our people after too many years of falling behind. a new generation of problems demands a new agenda of solutions. to answer reagan's challenge, and to once again remember america's forgotten families. ronald reagan signaled the cadence of courage from this spot 33 years ago. it still echoes from these hills. today our duty is to answer the call. we must dare to be better. dare to look ahead past the next election, into the next decade

and beyond. dare to make the changes today that will shape the america of the future. enlist as 21st-century reagan revolutionaries. see beyond the next eight years into the next 80. join me in taking the road less traveled. we are the forgotten americans who have new ideas, start businesses, start families, volunteer as room mothers and little-league coaches, we are the flag raisers, the builders, the workers and the inventors. we are the dreamers and the stewards, we are the shopkeepers by day and the homemakers at days' end. we are the people who james madison, george washington, thomas jefferson, and abraham lincoln, had in mind and ronald reagan did not forget.

we are the light emanating from the city on a hill, we are the keepers of the flame, the guardians of liberty. we are the people, the unassuming heroes marching forward in reagan's cadence of confidence in that quiet adventure we still call the american dream. thank you very much. may god bless america. [laughter] [applause] they asked me if i would be willing to answer questions. i will be happy to do that. want,n ask anything you law, politics, gardening,

fashion, rock music lyrics, i don't know, anything. >> minding the store the scott. i would like to know why congress can at least pass a law that the language of the united states is english? it is english. we continue to operate our government proceedings in english. many reasonsf the why we need to continue to speak in english and write our laws in english is because ours is a society that operates on the basis of rule of law. consist of words, and in order for them to have meeting we have to be speaking the same language. do not know why this is a controversial topic. in my opinion, it should not be. it is very expensive, and all of my balance, and five different languages.

it costs money. >> it is important to remember that our elections are run on a state and local basis. state and local governments will the precise competition of the ballot rather than congress. >> question or suggestion. assuming the republicans get control of the senate, maintain control of the house, you still have a veto to look forward to strong.ing twoo can you write legislation that would give enough that solve the problems you go if not you are looking at two more years of spitting cat. >> yes. if any of you did not hear the question, he is asking whether -- if republicans are able to take the majority in

the senate, if there is in the legislation we could get past into law given the fact that we have a president who will not likely agree with publicans all the time. i think there are a lot of reforms that americans want and that americans needed a president obama would be hard-pressed to veto. there are a lot commonsense solutions that have been there for a long time. i've cited a few examples of things that i think this or any president would be hard-pressed to veto. one that i will mention briefly relates to the way we fund our transportation infrastructure. currently, the federal centsment collects 18.4 per gallon on every gallon of gasoline that americans buy. we take that to washington and we wanted through the washington filter and then the people in washington decide on the basis of a very complicated formula how to redistribute those funds back out to the states. is spentl that money

by the states. what we need is not more government bureaucracy, what we need is more steel and concrete in the ground. i have a proposal that would reduce the share that his collected, that would be enough existing maintain the interstate system. the difference between 3.7 would bed 18.4 cents collected and spent by states pave the best reason to do that is because you achieve about a 20% efficiency greenroom you do it that way. this will result in more money going to concrete and steel going into the ground. that in turn relates to more affordable housing that is accessible for most americans, and is conveniently located close to where americans want to live and work. it is the kind of reform that i th