see a correlation in those areas where there is not market competition among hospitals you have higher premiums. in that situation -- and that situation has to change if we are going to deliver value to consumers. that is part of the equation. it goes right into the -- >> we will eat the last 15 minutes of this as the house gets ready to gavel in for morning hour. the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. the chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. the clerk: the speaker's rooms, washington, d.c. november 17, 2014.

i hereby appoint the honorable virginia foxx to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. signed, john a. boehner, speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the order of the house of january 7, 2014, the chair will now recognize members from lists submitted by the majority and minority leaders for morning hour debate. the chair will alternate recognition between the parties with each party limited to one hour and each member other than the majority and minority leaders and minority whip limited to five minutes. but in no event shall debate ontinue beyond 1:50 p.m. the chair recognizes the mr. bela, rom texas, or five minutes.

mr. villa: i rise today to urge incution of additional funder for alzheimer's research in the national institutes of health budget. this disease affects over five million americans and every 67 seconds someone develops alzheimer's. the impact op these patients and families is immense. congress must act now to make sure money is available to understand and treat alzheimer's. as the appropriations committee drafts spending legislation for the current fiscal year, it is critical that the n.i.h. budget include an additional $200 million for alzheimer's research. the requirement for this funding was validated by the national alzheimer's plan, a comprehensive congressionally directed initiative which serves as a blueprint to ensure that tax dollars -- taxpayer dollars are carefully invested in medical research. one in three seniors who die each year have been diagnosed with alzheimer's or dimensiona and the center for disease control notes that it is the sixth leading cause of death in

the united states. in addition to the terrible toll on individuals, the cost of treating alzheimer's will cost over $214 billion this year. with so much at stake, an investment of $200 million in 2015 is clearly justified and we must also continue to provide funding for alzheimer's research in future years. on behalf of texas families affected by alzheimer's, i urge my colleagues in congress to support increased funding for alzheimer's research. i yield the rest of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the chair recognizes the gentleman from texas, mr. poe. for five minutes. mr. poe: i ask unanimous consent to revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. madam speaker, the

call of the wild from mammoth african elephants and rhinos has grown meek and blissfully silent. the culprit? outlaw terrorists who are tracking and hunting down these massive creatures to fund their filthy terrorist enterprises. our enemy is sophisticated and well funded, but their weapons, surveillance equipment, and training, food, lodging, and travel costs a lot of money. isis has a terrorist army that has raised billions of dollars through extortion, drugs, bank robbery, kidnapping, and oil smuggling. there is one source of funding for terrorism that is being overlooked, poaching. madam speaker, the illegal wildlife trade in africa is a $7 billion to $10 billion a year business. according to the nonpartisan congressional research service, a rhino horn sells for $65,000 a kilogram in asia.

that's more expensive than silver, gold, diamonds, or illicit drugs. the number one buyer of ivory is none other than china. with big profits in high demand poaching has risen dramatically. madam speaker, 2/3, 2/3 of central africa's forest elephants in the central africa have been wiped out in the last 10 years. 100,000 elephants were killed in africa between 2010 and 2012. and just those 10 years, central africa has lost 64% of its elephants, according to national geographic. one of those elephants killed was the one pictured right here before he was killed. he was called by some as the world's biggest and largest elephant. he had tusks that reached to the ground, as you can see. last june he was found in a swamp dead, killed for his tusks. he was 45 to 46 years old.

the poachers finally got this old bull. terrorists have died this lucrative industry of systematic killing african animals as another source of cash to fund their murderous enterprises. the al qaeda affiliate, al shabab, generated between 200,000 and $600,000 a month from just tusks according to the african elephant action league. the blood money accounted for as much as 40% of al shabab's total operating budget. these terrorist poachers not only kill african animals, but they kill the wildlife wardens guarding them as well. other terrorist organizations implicated in the illegal poaching trade include joseph coney's lord resistant army and the -- in central africa and boko haram in nigeria. unsir prizingly these terrorists have also taken advantage of the instability and corruption in african

governments. terrorists sell their bounties under the radar in the illicit market. the penalties for those caught poaching are minimum mall. for terrorists looking to avoid detection, make a lot of money and not face consequences if caught, poaching is their grand bargain. so what's being done? our intelligence community has yet to establish a clear understanding of which terrorist groups are the most involved in poaching and who facilitates the worldwide transactions from africa to other countries. we need wildlife trackers to track the money trail and the destruction of these creatures. the administration needs to have a plan to stop this eradication of mammoth animals. multiple agencies from the state department, u.s. fish and wildlife service and others have been involved in efforts to eradicate poaching but it appears no agency has taken the lead. talk must turn to action. last february the presidential task force on wildlife trafficking issued a national strategy for combating wildlife

trafficking. but there is no implementation plan. nine months later we are still waiting for a strategy to go into effect. meanwhile, endangered species are being slaughtered like this one and terrorists are being paid from the sales of endangered species tusks and horns. preserving endangered species is a noble goal, but the fact that killers worldwide are using this money to fund terrorism makes it even more urgent we stop this ruthless criminal conduct. these terrorists kill animals so they can get money to kill people. the combination of these two evils, the killing of endangered species, and innocent civilians who further radical terrorism is an international threat. the world cannot allow radical islamic fundamental -- radical islamic fundamentalists to continue the wholesale slaughter of rhinos and elephants to fund their reign of terror. make terrorists extinct not

these animals. otherwise the only rhinos and elephants our grandkids will see are the stuffed animals at toys r us. that's just the way it is. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the chair recognizes the gentlewoman from new mexico, ms. grisham, for five minutes. ms. grisham: i ask unanimous consent to presented. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. madam speaker, i rise during national family caregiver month to recognize the millions of family caregivers who do incredible work every day and to talk about the future of care giving in this country. right now the vast majority of care services in the united states are provided by family caregivers. they do this out of love for their loved one, to restore and maintain respect and dignity, and because the vast majority of disabled adults and seniors

rely on medicare as their primary insurance, and medicare does not pay for long-term care services, and they are ineligible for medicaid which might. 49 million americans provide more than $520 billion in care to seniors and adults with disabilities every year. they manage a range of really difficult responsibilities because they have a friend or a loved one who is older or who has a disability that is in need of extra help. i know how tough it is to be a family caregiver because i am one. my mother, who lives with me in new mexico, and relies on me to oversee her care and also provides financial support. these are difficult arrangements for a number of reasons. having a parent rely on a child when they have spent their life being the caregiver can be a tough transition to make. family caregivers navigate that relationship while taking the time to call insurance companies and hospitals to

insure their loved one is getting proper care and while often having to use their own resources to cover many of the costs associated with that care. they do it out of love and they do it because they know that their mother or their husband or their friend wants to remain as independent as possible. and they know that they want to live out their lives with dignity. i think they have earned that right. but these family caregivers cannot do it alone. they need someone to take their sister to her appointment and when they get busy with the day at work. or to make sure that their dad takes his medication while they attend a parent-teacher conference. already in this country we have more than four million men and women who have chosen direct care as a career and provide these kinds of services on a paid basis. but if you look at the shear demographics, that's not nearly enough. as the baby-boom generation continues to age, demand for services will increase. and the gap between the number of family caregivers and direct

care workers and the number of people who need services will continue to grow. in 2010 there were seven potential caregivers for every person over the age of 80. by 2030 that ratio was projected to drop by almost half. to 4.1. in the direct care work force, demand is projected to grow so that the u.s. will need at least one million more direct care woy, over the next 10 years. so we face real challenges and a growing -- in growing a work force that will help meet the needs of our population. at the same time, our economy continues to slowly recover from the great recession. young people looking to enter the work force along with workers who are willing to retrain want to find jobs in a field that's growing and can provide them with some job security. so i see two challenges that i think can be solved with one coordinated national effort called care corps. a bill, h.r. 5288, creates

national care corps that will place volunteers in communities to work with seniors and individuals with disabilities who need extra support to live independently. in return for their services, volunteers will receive health insurance and other benefits along with a post service educational award. this award can be used to pay for up to two years of attendance at an institution of higher education or to pay back educational loans. but i want to end with what i think will be the program's legacy if we are able to get this done. care corps' provides opportunity for intergenerational relationships, for seniors and young people to learn from each other, and us as a country to gain a better sense of our history to the people that lived it. anyone who has ever been a caregiver will tell you not just that it was challenging but it was also incredibly rewarding. i want to thank our family caregivers who are already filling a serious void in this country, and i want to urge my colleagues to support them by

supporting the national care corps' act. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady yields back her time. the chair recognizes the gentlelady from north carolina, ms. foxx, for five minutes. ms. foxx: thank you, mr. speaker. today i rise to recognize letter carrier margaret hutchins who delivers mail in the country club road area, the boone land of u.s. 601 and hampton vill side of old 21 west upon her introduction into the prestigious million mile club. marching get received this high honor from the national safety council in recognition of having driven in the workplace for at least 30 years or one million miles without incuring a preventable motor vehicle accident. let's think about the magnitude of traveling one million miles. that would be two trips to the moon and back. at the celebration honoring her accomplishment, margaret thanked the customers on her

route and said she knew god was looking out for her during those 30 years of accident-free driving. this honor illustrates the dedication to excellence that margaret practiced every day and her customers are fortunate to have such a reliable and hardworking letter carrier. i yield back, mr. speaker. . the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes the gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. thompson, for five minutes. mr. thompson: friday was the closing of the public comment period for the environmental protection agency proposed aters of the united states, wo tus, which would expand the scope of federal authority of federal and governmental land uses across the united states. enacted in 1972, the clean

water act was between the states and federal government and e.p.a. in order to identify sources through a range of pollution control programs. this new proposed rule is a direct threat to the long standing federalist approach by the law which has been long supported by republicans and democrats alike for over four decades. it's through this federalist model which enables regulators at the federal, state and local levels to provide adequate exibility to address water quality. pennsylvania has demonstrated a track record of success in improving and protecting the ecological health of its waters. unfortunately, the proposed rule would dramatically expand the federal authority to the detriment of our economy and at the expense of existing state-federal partnerships which would have been effective in protecting the biological

integrity of our water sheds and waterways. for this reason i, long with senator pat toomey and eight others of the pennsylvania delegation in the u.s. house of representatives voiced our strong opposition to this flawed policy. in comments submitted friday to the agency we outlined concerns specific to our home state and constituents including counties, municipalities, farmers, foresters, so many that will be nelltively impacted if this is blemented. there is widespread agreement that the clean water act has been a beneficial tool to our nation's water quality. while it has been limited to navigable waters, this has been the subject of much litigation and regulatory action. complicating the issue further are supreme court decisions have not adequately described the scope of federal authority under the law resulting in times and conflict. while the existing lawnd the

supreme court left uncertainty on what stwutes a water of the united states, previous holdings have made clear that federal government's authority is not limitless. unfortunately, the proposed rule assumes just that, a limitless federal authority. mr. speaker, the reason this is so concerning is that many of these issues are best regulated at the state level. in a manner that recognizes regional differences in geography, climate, geography, hydrology, rainfall, among other variables. rather than stringle the law, it creates more confusion, confusion that will delay permitting and undermine strong water quality programs that exnist pennsylvania and other states. moreover, this type of uncertainty is susceptible to misinterpretation and application which holds substantial costs across the various clean water act programs and will likely enforce more law enforcement actions and third party

litigation. the economic impact of the proposed rule will be far reaching. activities that drive economic development in pennsylvania which as highway, pipeline projects, energy production, infrastructure projects, farming, flood control and public work projects will all be subject to federal permitting if this is finalized. a rule will make more ditches into tributaries, routine activities in ponds and impoundments could trigger permits which could cost up to $100,000 or more. these permitting requirements would trigger additional environmental reviews which would add years to the completion time. which means more cost to landowners and more regulatory burdens on the states, all with no guarantee or measurable benefits to our waters. mr. speaker, we all agree that managing the nation's water is critically important, but in this case, the federal government has failed to recognize the fundamental role that states play in meeting our shared goals of clean watersheds and water resources.

mr. speaker, it's time for e.p.a. and the corps to vacate this proposal, get back to the drawing board and fix the fundamental flaws within this role. the american people, including my constituents in pennsylvania, deserve as much. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. pursuant to clause 12-a of rule 1, the chair declares the house in recess until 2:00 always, here on c-span back at 2:00, eastern.

liveis a look at our other coverage, including remarks from the chair of the nuclear regulatory commission. she will speak on the national press club on the safety of more than 100 u.s. nuclear power plants. will hear a report coming out from the national association of criminal defense lawyers. hear about the findings from former deputy attorney general and chief judge alex's and ski -- alex kaczynski. >> the 2015 c-span student cam competition is underway, open to all middle and high school students to create a documentary on the theme the three branches and you.

there are 200 cash prizes totaling $100,000. >> next, a look at fiscal policy in the next congress, including changes to sell social security, medicare, and the tax code. the bipartisan policy center and the conical -- and the concorde coalition. this is an hour. , thank you for coming to our panel discussion. i am the director of the concorde coalition and i will be moderating this. second totake a quick

thank congressman woodall's staff in coordinating the logistics of this event and i want to thank the house budget committee for letting us use their room this afternoon. policy makers on both sides of the aisle have sought common ground put our nation on a andainable path reinvigorate our struggling economy. failed these standoffs to produce a so-called grand bargain. with the deficit having fallen since its peak in 2009 and washington mired in gridlock, some have suggested it is simply time to move on from the debate. our long-term fiscal outlook remains as challenging as ever. soon as 2016 and, deficits are projected to rise with no deficits in sight projecting $1 trillion by the end of the decade. the next congress will face a number of budgetary deadlines that will demand action before

the next election. our hope is those of you in the audience who work here on capitol hill will turn these polities -- turn these policies into -- those of you who hope to that thehe mantle know conquer coalition and the rest of us are here to assist you. we have a great panel here today, and we have some potential solutions and what they might look like. we have the senior policy director of the responsible budgetary organization. in 2011, he spent three months on a supercommittee. next we have steve bell who is the executive director of economic policy at the bipartisan policy group, and then we have bob bixby, executive director of the concord coalition. he proposed a comprehensive bipartisan solution to address

the nation's fiscal challenges. with that i will pose of the first question and then we will open it up to the audience. the first question is what do you see are the major opportunities that lawmakers can take advantage for the economy? >> thank you for the concorde coalition and for organizing this event. it has been mentioned that i have substantial experience failing to achieve a grand bargain. the concept of the grand bargain it was relatively straightforward and it was a concept that was pretty broadly

agreed to. there was broad agreement as to what this agreement should look like. both sides would have to agree to cap's that would restrict growth on both defense and nondefense, and democrats would have to agree to perform at the entitlement programs. republicans would have to accept reform that would raise additional tax code changes, and they would use the money to reduce rates and simplify the code and promote growth. both sides would agree to give the economy some space to grow. so the formulation was ready simple.

entitlement reform, tax reform, and giving the economy time to grow. unfortunately, that is not where we ended up. when a speaker boehner and president obama tried to negotiate one of these grand bargains in 2011, we ended up with theories of caps on defense and nondefense spending. they we ended up with some revenue, not from tax reform but raising rates at the top 1%. it was less revenue and it got in different ways, and then we let the sequester hit. in said of going for the entitlements we win back to the defense and nondefense. this puts us in a situation where we did not get the grand bargain, but we did get substantial debt reduction. almost entirely in the short and medium term. we were able to meet stabilization for our debts in the last couple of years. now we took a big chunk out of the grand bargain, and i don't want to declare it dead right here and right now, but over the next two years, we are going to go back to this grand argan table and try to try it again.

we may be moving in the opposite direction. right now before the end of the year, we will deal with the tax extenders and then we will renew them, and the way we deal with that will probably increase the deficit and move it in the wrong direction. by the end of march, we will have sustainable growth rate that will cut the interest rate, so if we want to avoid that, it will cut the deficit. these will actually take us backwards and in race some of the progress that we have already made. but there are also opportunities

to move forward. these are called many bargains. i consider these many bargains on tax reform and health care. there is good news on that front. on the health reform side, there is actually an agreement from the tri-committee that we need to take the current sustainable growth rate and replace it with something that actually rewards physicians based on value of care. there is broad agreement and a piece of legislation that chairman widen supports, and this would take the original plan and replace it. on the tax side there is also some good news. if you look at the talking points after the election and

try to find what the president of the republican had in common, there was not much. there is agreement on both sides that we need to get rid of some of the tax breaks in the corporate tax code and use of that money to make our corporate tax code a little more competitive to read because we have so many loopholes and other breaks in the tax code, we are not raising very much revenue. frankly, we are not internationally competitive. if you look at the framework that the president put together, there is a lot of overlap. there is good compromise there. so the problem is the easy part. it is agreeing on the goodies. we wanted to give the positions a better formula and make our companies more competitive, but also in doing so we run the risk of increasing the deficit. we think it should be paid for but in a way that moves the ball forward on health reform and tax reform. for those of you that picked up the packet when you came in, it

was just released and we put it in a plan that is called the prep land. this plan would assume that we go with the permanent replacement of the sgr that has been discussed and it would expire the tax extenders for two years and show how to pay for it. so we are actually rewarding quality of care and not quantity of care. this takes place by looking at new payment models and getting rid of payment disparities and in sending providers to provide more quality. the other third of the offsets, from beneficiaries. right now there is a crazy quilt system within a medicare cost sharing systems, and they all by additional wraparound coverage, and we propose replacing that so that everyone would have the same deductible, about $600, give everybody an out-of-pocket

limit, and medicare beneficiaries would be able to control their health care costs and they would have more protection against catastrophic risks. overall, we have done analysis and we have found the cost sharing would decline out-of-pocket costs, and it would also save medicare money. there are more details in the plan. finally, the tax extenders. we can't keep dealing with these tax extenders two years at a time.

what we propose is a fast-track process to get it moving, we know the pieces and we know what we need to do to lower the rates and reduce the deficit. we got to get moving and we do not want to be stuck in this game where nobody wants to go first. we also came up with a package that would come up with a two-year extender as we work for corporate or vote individual tax reform. this package would not raise anybody's tax rates, and would not cut any tax break, but it would increase compliance with the current tax code. first it would just collect the taxes that people already oh, and secondly close the most egregious loopholes in order to avoid people getting away with pain less taxes. that would buy enough time for us to offer the comprehensive tax form and decide how to reduce reform so that we could get a reform to tax code. this is an excellent step forward, but it would not solve our debt situation and it would not be a grand plan, but it would be a step forward. this is an opportunity that i do

not think we should mess. i'll he have one minute left, and i do think there. the highway trust fund, which expires in may. there is a disparity as to how much we are raising on the gas tax and how much we are spending on highways. for those of you who get this joke, we are running out of pensions to smooth. we can't keep doing this forever. we have to come up with a permanent solution. their art hans of ideas out there that we would be happy to discuss. finally, the social security disability trust fund will run out of money in 2016. when that happens, there will be a 20% across-the-board cut that would affect everybody. i don't think it would be politically easy, and i think there would be a missed opportunity.

there is so much room to improve this program, so even though this next year is going to be the year of the grand bargain, we still have an opportunity to deal with the health care reform, tax reform, and dealing with more important issues like highway trust fund and social security issues. thank you, everyone. >> my name is steve, and i work for the bipartisan policy center. i will probably offend everyone here because we truly are bipartisan. we have talked to everyone from tom daschle to trent lott to olympia snowe. let me talk about 1981 through 1986, i was on the staff budget committee. you have -- or you had the opportunity if you picked it up,

a chance to look at this chart. this is not a joke. this is reality. you might remember when the late senator from pennsylvania got on the floor of the united states senate and outlined what the hillary clinton health plan would look like. and everyone said that was crazy and you can't do that. well, what most of them did not realize, we were already doing this. this is the way that the budget and appropriations process works now.

it is not with any particular wisdom that i say 90% of the budget members and their staff do not know how the budget process works. about 80% of the house in the last four electorate cycles, and almost as many in the senate, and none of this is intuitive. we had two or three of us that worked on it, i left in 86 and i left it to my friend bill hoagland, and i blame most of this on him. [laughter] we talked about a plan that very as people have had. we will have a plan, like 3.0,

because one and two were torpedoed. but the plan has to be something that deals with the complexity of how you get things done in the senate and the house. we would also therefore come out with recommendations to change the budget process itself. when the budget for started after the 1974 budget reform and impoundment control act, it was a leadership committee in the house. the leaders in the house picked -- just like they always do --

on your rules committee, individuals. we had a double chairman because he was the chairman of appropriation and chairman of the budget. that lasted one year. the jealousies, that you would imagine, happened. it led to the budget committee becoming really a committee you get stuck on if you really -- unless you are a cpa -- you really did not want to be on this committee. so we believe the composition of the budget committees should change. it should go back to becoming leadership appointed committees. example, under this mess, very few people have a dog in the fight. most of the committees in the senate, for example, are not involved in the budget process. so when we start, we put a budget together in february and it will get reviewed in april, and there is about 25 people in the united states senate, half members, have staff that know what we are doing.

we bring it to the floor, and we say, what good boys we are, we would like you to do this. and then they say, what is this? that is a legitimate question. one way around this is to put senior members of some of the authorizing committees and at least one member of the senate and the house appropriations committee's on the new budget committee. this is so way they can go back and talk to their membership as it is being formed, saying that

this is what they want to do in the jurisdiction of our committee, what you guys think? that is an early buy-in to an exceptionally complex situation. so that is the composition we think is extremely important. the next important thing is to admit that in 1985, i and the rest of the staff were compelled to write a document. let's talk about these across-the-board cuts. here are the things that it does not do. it does not prioritize programs. it says at the f-16 is just as important to the future as the f 35. no rational person in the pentagon would tell you that. it says that the money that we give is just as effective as

money that we give on a bilateral basis. we know that that is not true. but we know that they are all cut equally across-the-board. that is a nice way of not managing. it is a stupid way of managing. it has led us to the situation where i can say that even though she said this in a private meeting last week, former ambassador michele flournoy, who is one of the authors of the

preliminary report on the defense panel, said, "under the 2016 sequester cap's that are under current law, the united states of america will not be able to create a strategic defense plan." many in the audience were surprised by that. the moderator asked, do you still mean that? she said i absolutely mean that. a republican absolutely agreed. we are hearing from very smart people that we are cutting back on all sorts of things we ought not to be cutting back on. we are going to add an additional trillion dollars to

the national debt after all of these cuts. these are the smallest programs and the slowest growing programs. when your members went out and said in full faith, i am going to cut the deficit, i am going to balance the budget, i am going to make some sense of this, they did not realize that two thirds of these decisions had already been made. under the sequester, about 90% of these decisions had already been made before they take the of of office. i want to conclude by talking a little bit about the debt ceiling. the reason -- i was very lucky. i got to work for a man named howard baker and a man named pete domenici. there is no reason to have one man have power over the debt limit and use it as a hostage. it is long past its usefulness. i believe very strongly that we

should not have a debt ceiling vote in the united states house and senate. we can use the budget process to get around that. it is not only me, it is the conservative government in australia, great guys, they decided that they were going to involve their legislature in setting a debt ceiling. so they did. for two years. and then that same conservative government said, oh no, we are not going to do this again. and they removed that particular provision allowing the us

trillion parliament to set debt ceilings. the debt ceiling to me is just like monetary policy. do you really want 535 people of various backgrounds and inclinations setting monetary policy for this country? you might want it, at first blush, but you ought not to want it. so we believe in getting rid of the debt ceiling and getting rid of the sequester caps, imprisoned -- improving the composition of the budget committees, and improving the complexity that many of you would find very interesting as you go along this year. >> thank you, steve. i will talk about some of the things that he touched on, but i want to reiterate, i think as mark said at the beginning, we have made some progress from the debt coming down from the

astronomical heights that it was at in the last couple of years. it provided a sense of relief, and people thought, naturally, we can do it to other things. but there is still a need for a long-term fiscal outlook to be addressed. we are still on and unsustainable path. the debt will start going up again fairly soon. so we really don't have a mission accomplished situation. it is time to maybe do what we can. i agree that there probably is not a grand bargain on the horizon anytime soon. i am a reconstructed grand bargainer. but it is probably not going to happen in the next two years.

i have spent a lot of my time in iowa and in new hampshire, not running for anything, that trying to raise the profile of the fiscal issues for the presidential campaigns, because i do think that a budget of the next president is going to be very important in that regard. but that does not mean that we should be giving up on anything happening here in the next two years. there are some opportunities to address these fiscal issues, maybe not grant bargaining, but there is a way to do some things in a bipartisan way to help that could clear a way for these parties to work together and perhaps build some public trust. perhaps washington can work and get some things done. the highway trust fund is a good example of something i think that the two sides could work together on.

at the same time, there is a consensus that we should have a viable infrastructure in this country and that the current revenue stream is not enough to pay for the expected expenditures. so it is a fairly straightforward problem in that regard. it should be something that we should get a longer range agreement on, one that you don't have the constant threat of projects being shutdown of people losing their jobs. there is another deadline coming up and we have another opportunity to address that and hopefully both parties are getting close to an agreement on that.

we also have two other things that i would like to spend more time talking about. one is the debt limit, to pick up where steve left off on, and the other is social security system. i think those are two that get a little bit more into the longer-term outlook. we have other shorter-term things that have to pass through funding for next year. that comes up pretty quickly. i fully endorse mark's idea to have them paid for. i would just are from scratch and let them all go and only extend those that are paid for. i think that is a good opportunity to really scrap the tax code by letting these things expire and see what could be enacted in the light of day.

but to get into those two other issues that have a little bit longer-term connotation. social security disability, think about this. people tend to think that social security is a problem way off in the future. the trust fund will go bankrupt in the 20 30's, why need to worry about it now? well, for one thing, the program is running a cash deficit. social security is paying out more than it is taking in right now. that situation will continue to get worse. but the disability portion, that is programmed -- not programmed, but projected to -- run dry by the fall of 2016. interesting timing!

[laughter] what would happen in the fall of 2016 if there wasn't any action? that is not going to happen. nobody wants that to happen. some piece of legislation affecting social security is going to pass in congress before that. the question is, is it going to be another punt too kick the can out the road shifting money from one trust fund to another, or could it be an opportunity to look at some broader reforms that would be improved. remember, it is a leading indicator here. the main reason it is running to

the shortfall is the demographics. it is an early indicator going off for the full system. it would make sense in that context to look at a little bit broader of a picture. one of the things about social security reform is that something will say it should not be considered as part of the grand bargain. and we can do that. there is opportunity to do that. that is one thing, it is dicey when you get into social security but talk about dicey, i mean, disability benefits, right before the election. i don't think so. so that is an opportunity. the other one i will mention is the debt limit. i feel like steve about the debt limit. i have been advocating balanced

budget and debt reduction for 22 years. not as long as you, steve, but long enough. so i take a backseat to nobody on the idea of controlling debt. i think that there should be a mechanism in place to control debt. i don't think the current debt limit is the best way to do it. i think, for a couple of reasons, for one, the number itself is arbitrary. it is not linked to any particular economic goal, which it should be the debt to gdp ratio. the number, the actual figure is not that important.

it is where it is going as a percentage of gdp. so i would like to see a debt limit, if we could link it to gdp. i think that the penalties for breaching the debt limit should be tied to the policies that produce the debt. so if you are exceeding some targeted level of debt, the penalty should not be to default on the government obligation and endanger the credit worthiness of the united states. why don't we do something that affects those policies? if it has to happen automatically like sequestration or taxes, tax expenditures, if you can do that in some way, that would make the debt limit -- i want some sort of mechanism that would be effective. i do not think -- the problem is it is a trigger that cannot be pulled. ultimately we have found nobody is really willing, thank god, to default on the debt. it is not clear it is an effective deterrent going

forward. it has been used in the past to get things done. but i really think, agree with steve that time may have passed for that. i'm not sure it is going to be effective going forward because people are sick of the act of defaulting on the debt, threatening to default on the debt and it plays into part of the frustration the public has as i hear in new hampshire from people who wish things could work in washington. so i hope we can find a more effective debt limit and use the opportunity, whether the debt limit or the highway trust fund, if we can use the next couple of years as a way to set up, to make progress, and maybe set up things so that next time around, mark and steve and i will not be failures in our attempt to bring across a bigger deal.

>> i want to mention one more thing. october 1 next year, mary ryan was a partial relief of the sequestration. mary ryan it was ending, and starting in fiscal year 2016, that sequestration comes back. there is an opportunity to replace some of those across the board short term cuts with some sensible reform. >> all right. thank you for your insight on that. i guess we will open it up to questions from the audience if anyone has them. c-span had a mic they wanted to use. did anyone have any questions? >> i noticed in a footnote you

will have a more detailed description of the fast track process? do you have a preview? >> we are working on -- there are many ways to write fast track. we're not going to say this is the one. we are trying to get a sense of what kind of has the most a viability. we should have something out the next month or so. >> a comment and a question, i guess. gio did a report earlier in september, warning about the long-term situation. when the administration released its deficit numbers, the treasury secretary and omd director were mind reading, as it was, and said that they solved the deficit problem. the debt is still an issue. i don't know if you have comments on that. i have a follow-up question. what do say to the paul krugman's of the world to say the problem is solved?

>> a friend of mine, when he was nominated to be secretary of the treasury, my old boss introduced him to the finance committee. he knows numbers very well and he is very smart. i think he is reciting the company line. i say that with great respect for him. i think he is repeating the company line. no intelligent person can look at the probable path of our debt with 10,000 to 11,000 people a day retiring and going on medicare. and that number increasing and say we are on a sustainable path.

>> it is a situation where the numbers are mostly right. but the context is missing. one group says we have cut the deficit in half. deficit in half. that is true. we almost cut it 65% during its peak, but we cut it after raising it 800% in the recession. we need some context. yes, we have stabilized the share of gdp the next few years, but at a record high level we saw during world war ii. i think there is context that you need. i think the administration is just wrong on this. something that is bothersome is folks were saying don't worry about the short-term deficit. the real problem is the long-term. and they were right when they were saying that. we should not have been worried about the trillion dollar deficit in a recession. now the problem is the long-term

deficit and those same folks are bragging about the short-term deficit. it is on a pretty unsustainable trajectory than before. >> the economy has been recovering, which is a policy that whatever you think of why it is doing it or whether the administration has good policy, the economy has been recovering. so it is a fairly normal recovery. the deficit, when i say fairly normal recovery, i mean the deficit is coming back down. it is really that trajectory going forward and that is the demographics and that makes it difficult to talk about because it does involve popular programs like social security and medicare, which will get more expensive because there are more beneficiaries, even if growth

stabilize, it will be a very expensive growth in these programs because the number of beneficiaries because then you have to think if spending has gone on autopilot, do we need to look at a way of raising revenue? what are the historic trends looking like? and so politically, that leads to a discussion neither republicans or democrats want to have. so really a lot of this is really demographically different when you look at the future. those are the things we need to get at long-term. >> the question i want to ask, you have sequestration that goes into effect october 1. and then we have these mandatory caps on spending the next eight years.

my membership administers a low income housing programs, and mark you did a great job on that. and even sequestration aside, just when the caps on domestic spending, we face de facto sequestration in terms of budget allocation. the only way we're going to get more spending is if congress and the administration are willing to be honest and deal with the side of the budget where they can really address the growing cause and that is entitlement and bringing in new revenue from tax reform. it just seems like domestic discretionary programs are going to be squeezed and national defense will be threatened. this is a box that is just -- this is unsustainable.

how do we get out of this? >> i agree absolutely it is unsustainable. here's the problem. and i think bob put it well. 1.3 trillion dollars. now we are at $450 billion. isn't that great? ok. we were at 17.7. now we are at 19. we are going to be at 100%, depending whose numbers you want to use, 100% of debt to gdp in the lifetimes of every person except for a couple of us in this room. what has happened since the birth of almost everyone in this room, are the health programs. 1964 medicare. medicaid. other things like that. our inability to make the

changes that countries like sweden -- we think of them as socials, and that they don't have any discipline -- things sweden has done, norway has done and other countries have done, we are not willing to do. they actually took money from beneficiaries making 100 kroner and they say next month you are getting 95. we can't say you're getting $100, you're supposed to get $103. you have to think about the lunacy of that. what we are also doing is this -- i will close with this. there is a famous guy at johns hopkins university. he does immensely important cancer research. when the sequester first hit, he was asked to comment on that.

here is what he said. three years from now, somebody's mother named sadie is going to die of cancer. and it is a cancer we are working on right now. and that we probably could either cure or put into remission, if we did not have the sequester. he is not a republican. he is not a democrat. when someone tells you we are not going to be able to defend national defense interests, and another person tells you people are going to die that don't need to die, because of the way we are handling the federal budget, you need to pay attention. i'm a grand bargainer. i am the only one. we are all grand bargainers. we all agree it is unlikely. the fact we agree it is unlikely is depressing to me.

>> chris fisher, when congress very came close on sgr this last year, there was concern that the value-based reforms were inefficient and that you are doing a permanent repeal and something that only holds down the program and only paying for it for 10 years. when we switched to the one-year fix, there was a complaint that now we are going to have to pay for the 11th year. how is this is an opportunity for long-term fixes if you're talking about permanent repeal of something you only have to pay for for 10 years? >> good question. let me start with the tri-committee bill, because it is an excellent starting point. there are areas where we can better promote value.

there are areas, i'm not going to pick on anyone, there are types of physicians we could pay less. so i would personally go further. it is a good starting point. the problem is we do not have a plan to pay for it. now the growth rate has helped slow health care cost. it has not worked to keep physician cost down. it has actually increased utilization. what it has done is it has forced politicians almost every year to replace one year of cuts with 10 years of reform. sometimes they are bad, sometimes they are good. but they are pretty helpful. rather than paying for one year of cuts with 10 years of reforms, paying for 10 years by itself is way better. what we're doing now is we have $25 billion increases and we do not get it back until the middle.

that is number one. paying for 10 years over 10 years is better than one year over 10 years. i would hope what we look at our permanent payments. there is an incredible amount of work we can do. both with provider incentive and beneficiary incentive to make everybody better at controlling health care cost growth. that is going to end up with a reduction within the decade and over the long run it can help with health care spending in a way that is better than the current sgr formula. >> i think we have time for one or two more questions. >> so it seems like a lot of people in this room you think you can solve the problems. the numbers are there. obviously there is going to kind

of be room on the edges. it is now that smart people can't come to together and fix it. it is a political problem. mark, you talks about using some of these short-term solutions to build goodwill and to get people started on coming up with political solutions. can you give an example of what you envision that would look like? what is the first step? >> it is an excellent question. a lot of decks are reshuffling right now, particularly in the senate. everyone is still trying to figure out how they are going to play right now. so i could not tell you for sure the first step. if i had to pick one, i would say an agreement to move forward on taxes. right now the president says he wants tax reform. none of them agreed to do it. i think them agreeing, that is how it happened in 1986.

i think that it is small. it is just a branch. it does not solve our problems, but it is an important first step. >> if i was going to give one piece of advice to the president of the united states, and he does not want to hear it, but i'm going to say it anyway, it would be this -- when you produce your budget for next year, make it a budget that balances within three years. balances within three years. there are people to the left and the right of me who would say the old man has gone out of his mind. ok. >> i would not say that, steve. not out loud! [laughter] >> mind reading. >> but as a practical political matter, getting deficits down to 18% of gdp moves no one, other than the wall street journal and the financial times, i have not

seen that on the front page of any newspaper. they look at something called the balanced budget. if i were the president, i would bite the bullitt that need to be bitten. i would make recommendations to increase revenues. at some point you have to realize you don't have enough money to pay for the promises. i would cut programs and make recommendations to change programs over time that would lead, as mark said, to a balanced budget. the only way we were able to do this in 1986 was because ronald reagan said to his people, i don't care about the rest of this stuff. i want a tax bill passed. i have seen personally the letter he wrote to bob dole saying this is what we need in

tax reform. the only way we got a balanced budget in 1997, 1998, was because bill clinton listened to a guy named bob rubin. he had a lot of market sense. he said, mr. president, nobody cares about interest rates or markets. but it is going to eat us alive if we do not do it. and to his absolute credit, over many months of painful negotiation, of which i have some scar tissue still, we came to an agreement that yielded a balanced budget. people remember two things about bill clinton. one i will not mention. [laughter] but the other one is a balanced budget. so if i were jack lewis or somebody like that and i wanted to get a grand bargain, i would

not wait for 535 people to get together. i would say this is the way i'm going out. it is going to cost this much money, 19.9% of gdp. we're going to do it with the highway trust fund, medicare, medicaid, and he would get the same reaction bill clinton got from mrs. clinton and patrick moynihan, which is what in the hell are you doing when he signed the welfare reform bill and the balanced budget bill. if you don't have somebody, if you do not have the guy or gal that is going to put their political standing on the line, you can't expect people -- what does it say in the bible? who will charge to the uncertain trumpet? you have to have a certain trumpet, somebody to say we have

a balanced budget. what do you got? >> i know what i would like. i would like a budget resolution. a nice, old-fashioned budget resolution that the house and senate pass and negotiate and then, you know, pass a joint resolution. concurrent resolution. >> we don't have joint resolutions. >> but that would set the discretionary level spending -- then i would go through the traditional appropriations process and actually pass the appropriations bills. and in that budget resolution you could set targets for tax reform, or maybe some health care reform, something like that. and you can make some assumptions about highway

spending. you really could deal with a lot of these problems, or at least set the groundwork for dealing it. maybe even something about the debt limit into the budget resolution. that would really be nice, if i could get -- and of course the president is not involved in that. maybe if steve gets his wish, congress would work with that in the budget resolution. boy, it is not that everything would be solved, it could be widely ignored. this happens. but i think that would be a real good thing to try to get a lot of the stuff in place. >> all right. it looks like we are just about out of time. i want to thank everyone for coming and let's thank our panelists for talking to us about these important issues. [applause]

on the handouts outside is my contact information, so if you have any additional questions, you can shoot me an e-mail and we hope you found the discussion informative and for those of you who think you are bosses would be interested in tackling these challenges, don't hesitate to give us a call. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] this work, work on changing the eps -- epa process. the hell reporting on the house gop, reporting chairmanships today.

mccarthy,ehner, kevin and others will be on the steering committee. they will be interviewing candidates for open slots. one of the major open chairmanships is the house chairmanship committee. another on the house intelligence committee is appointed by the speaker only. holdrats are scheduled to their leadership elections tomorrow. the hill also reporting on another big issue on capitol hill, immigration. we could see executive action by president obama this week and republicans have home and discussions about how they would react to an executive order, including a possible government shutdown. we took a look at immigration this morning on "washington journal." host: our guest is brian bennett, correspondent for the "l.a. times." tell us what the president is considering on this executive action. guest: the president has a list of options of things he can do without going to congress.

there are 2 types of categories of things he can do. one is small tweaks to the way the immigration system works, and the other is a bigger, more affirmative program that would encourage people in the country illegally to come forward and apply for a two-year work visa and two-year promised they would in the deported. that would be modeled on a program that we saw obama launch in 2012. under that program, just under 600,000 people who were brought here as children illegally have come forward and paid a fee and gone through a background check and been given temporary work visas and a promise not to be deported. the idea would be that if obama decided to do a program like that, he has to decide what population to invite to come in and apply for that type of temporary relief. some of the things they are considering is making that

available to parents of u.s. citizen children -- they are here illegally but the children were born here and when you come to the states you can become a citizen. host: exactly what is executive action? explain that to us. as the president is going around congress, circumventing congress, exactly what would he be doing? guest: the white house has decided they have the power to dictate who is deported and who is not deported. they are using a concept called prosecutorial discretion, a power that any prosecutor around the country uses every day. prosecutors on a local level will decide, today i can prosecute 100 marijuana cases or i could go after prosecuting one murder. i'm going to put my efforts

towards prosecuting a person who i feel presents a threat to public safety. that is the use of prosecutorial discretion. the obama administration says we have power from congress to deport people from the country. we are focusing our efforts on deporting people who pose a threat to public safety, who recently crossed the united states, or are repeat immigration violators, people who have already been reported before and came back. host: we will have our regular three phone lines on the air. host: and we do have a fourth line for this segment, for folks who are here in the u.s. illegally. host: we certainly hope you will

call in as well and show your situation and your thoughts on everything that is happening here in washington. our guest is brian bennett of the "l.a. times." he will be with us for about 35, maybe 37 more minutes. we are about this potential executive action, which could come as early as this week. mr. bennett, how long is the president been considering executive action, and what brought them to this point? how much work and study brought them to the point where they might do this now? guest: the president started talking about this earlier this year and the president was under a lot of pressure from groups you have been looking at the record of deportations under his presidency and felt like he hadn't done enough to protect families and keep families together. he was getting a lot of pressure from within the democratic party to take some action. when the senate immigration bill was not taken up in a house, the

president was under pressure to do what he could on his own. and he asked his new head of the department of homeland security, jeh johnson, and what changes could be made to make it more fair and more humane in the way it operates. host: give a sense of the legal arguments on either side as to whether the president has the authority to do this. guest: the arguments against him being able to do this would say that this is too big an extension of the idea prosecutorial discretion, to deciding who is going to be deported from this country when you are talking about hundreds of thousands or millions of people should be left to congress to decide and not to the administration. on the other hand, people have

been pushing the president to do this have said that president obama inherited an aggressive deportation machinery that was put into place under george w. bush and the senate immigration bill would have given legal status to a large portion of the 11 million people who are here illegally, and it is not consistent with that for the president to sit back and let the deportation regime continue to deport people if the senate law had passed and become law, would have been allowed to stay. host: one more quick question before we get to calls. are taxpayers on the hook for any of this is the president signs executive action? what is the cost and who pays? guest: when it comes to this program or something similar bigger, those programs are

technically fee-based. they need to be covered by the fees that the people applying would pay. initially you have to put in a lot of staff hours into deciding it and putting up the applications and receiving the first batch. there is an upfront cost. theoretically it would be covered by the fees. there are other tricks that are being considered to the system someone that would expand the number of high-tech workers. there is a certain number of visas given and one of the options would be to allow people to bring more family members with them on the visa so that you would be able to have more people coming in for technology jobs. host: let's go to the first call for brian bennett of the "l.a. times." tom, independent, welcome. caller: thanks for having me on this morning.

host: sure. caller: i have a couple comments. it is not that immigrants are -- i mean they are causing problems, but the government needs to step up and take accountability for what they do. there is so much stuff going on here that i don't think the american people even realize. everybody wants to talk about the family and the family this and family that. our state governments don't care about none of that stuff. but immigrants coming in and making them illegal, they will be paying taxes and all the other stuff that we do that they are not doing that people complain about them doing. they have been here forever. they are europeans, they don't have no problem, they just file for a visa and get it. why can't mexicans file for a visa? the jobs they do that, face it, whites, blacks, all of us were not want to go out there and pick lettuce in the middle of the heat.

i am in the construction business so i know that they do it cheaper, and the big business steps in and they don't -- they pay them like they do, rip them off. this thing is all about money. you have the family law system that is totally corrupt. you've got mediators, judges that -- i mean, half of what our problem is, most of it is family law system. everybody's complaining about divorce in this country, and then once you get into that system you get put in their, like a segregation. they put you down there, welfare, and they destroy you -- host: let me jump in. do you have a question for the reporter, brian bennett? caller: uh, not really. guest: he brought up some good points. there is a concern about people,

especially some republicans on the hill, that opening up the doors like this and increasing the number of work visas will put pressure on the job market and make it harder for americans to get jobs. i think those are real concerns. on the other side, you have people saying that they people are already working and already in the market and what you can do by giving them a legal work permit is give them a little more leverage with their employer. right now there are abuses that are happening to people here illegally because employers can take advantage of them because of their status. by giving them legal work permits they can improve their working conditions and are more likely to pay taxes and pay into the system, more likely to pay into social security. you can boost revenues to cover that. host: here is a recent piece by brian bennett. this is in the "l.a. times." shot of the many immigration protests in and around town. you have a quotation from the

speaker of the house, john boehner, last week. "we are going to fight the president tooth and nail if he continues down this path. this is the wrong way to govern." they are also talking about suing the administration. how would that work and could it be successful? guest: congress has discussed suing the president before and the suits haven't gone anywhere. they have trouble figuring out exactly what standing congress has to sue the president. it tends to be more about theater and public relations, these threats to sue. the budget discussions, on the other hand, is a real immediate power that the congress has. right now republicans are talking about, look, if obama goes forward with these immigration actions, we have the power of the purse and we can

cut off funding to these programs, agencies that run this, or try to cut off funding to the entire government and shut it down. obviously, there is a political risk to the government if they do that -- republicans if they do that. they have been politically unpopular for shutting down the government before. obviously, there is a lot of blame to go around. that is something we will watch play out the next few weeks. host: dan in new york. go ahead, please. caller: my question is, i have a daughter who was born here. i came here in 1987 -- 1997, sorry. the problem is, i used to work for an italian company. i was sponsored by the company. when i was sponsored by the company, i got the approval from the board of labor department.

now, my company -- i don't know for what reason i got a letter from immigration to get the appointment, but my company did not want to release the taxes, what they pay for the year, how many employees they have and stuff like that. because i am a skillful tailor. i do all kinds of handmade suits, handmade garments. i am stuck in a situation, and i'm playing by the rules. i am playing by the rules, because i pay my taxes every year, everything. now i am in a situation where i'm stuck between two rock. there is no way i'm really getting ahead, actually. now i'm no longer working for that company, because they closed a lot of stores and stuff like that -- host: you are calling on the line set aside for folks you legally here in the u.s.

explaining your situation. what is your message to the folks in washington? we might see an executive action by the president and a big fight to follow. caller: well, my main focus is that -- host: dan, you there? caller: yes. host: go ahead. caller: my main focus is on -- i don't know why the republicans and the democratic cannot come to a solution where they can actually give -- focus on the skillful workers, the people who are really paying into the system, they are going by the rules and everything, and just focus. there are so many skillful people in this country. host: thanks for calling, dan. brian bennett. guest: this is why the business community is so frustrated with the immigration laws now and why the chamber of commerce backed the immigration bill, because

they see a logjam for business in the united states getting workers who have specific skills they need and they want to be able to go on to the global marketplace with that. right now there are caps on the number of visas in different categories and certain situations, long lines for people to come in here. one of the things that the congress could do if they passed a law would be to open that up and clear that up. people have argued that by opening up the legal avenues for people to come here and work, whether in skilled jobs or agriculture, you take some pressure off the border, and people who want to come here to work have a legal way to come you're so they don't try to sneak across the border and the people trying to protect the border can focus on drug smugglers and nefarious people who are trying to cross illegally. host: you mentioned the chamber of commerce.

have they come out with a position on the possibility of executive action? guest: the chamber of commerce is in favor of anything that makes business run better, and their position is that they hope president obama makes some changes that would open up visas for companies, and make it more easy for companies to get skilled workers in the country. host: more of your calls in a minute but more voices from the hill. a couple of voices on the sunday shows -- congressman tom cole and congressman luis gutierrez were on the abc program. [video clip] >> i think the president would be much better advised to wait until congress is sworn in. he is tried to pick a fight. >> but we are talking about couple months. >> a couple of things. they want a more border patrol agents. they were included in the senate bill. we just came from an election

cycle in which not only was the border not secure, but isis and ebola was coming through. they mixed all of this together and then they say we are poisoning the well. all i am saying is this -- there are 4 million americans this and children. you just heard the speaker say that this is a fight that he is going to have with the president. he is wrong. he will have this fight with millions of americans -- >> this fight is not over immigration. this fight is with the process the president is using, a process the president himself said was unconstitutional a couple of years ago. host: flavor from the hill, the latest debate. anything you want to add, brian bennett? guest: well, it is difficult but the timing is coming right after a big republican win. president obama has promised to take these actions before the end of the year, and the

republicans are feeling energized, they feel like they have a mandate from voters to come in and do their priorities, and they are frustrated that in the middle of all this, president obama has made a promise that he would go around them and take a bunch of executive actions on this heated topic. when it comes to -- we are in a moment where we could have had republicans and democrats coming together and saying let's find some common ground issues that we can agree on, like corporate tax cuts or infrastructure investments, and there is frustration that the immigration issue is being thrown in as a spanner in the works. host: let's hear from kevin in pennsylvania. caller: yes, good morning. thanks for c-span. i got a few comments and then a question. the leading senator that speaks

for the american workers is senator sessions. he has suggested strongly that the congress, that they do in fact have the power of the purse and that we should have a short-term funding of the government if president obama tries to do something, this executive action, which is really unprecedented in magnitude -- there may have been smaller ones. but there is a lot of different things. the election was largely about immigration, and the republicans won. this is elites versus workers. it is just astonishing that the other side, the workers side, is not able to really get any kind of hearing in the mainstream media, generally speaking. the one issue that never even is spoken of is the -- one day i read in "the wall street

journal" and "the new york times" that because of technology, the loss of jobs over the next 20 years is as much as 40% in jeopardy. and then the next day we hear that we need immigration reform, and references made to the comprehensive immigration bill that the senate passed, and they don't speak about the fact that it would -- 30 million workers would have gotten green cards over the next 10 years. again, it is elites who want to depress wages against workers who want jobs. it just continues -- host: thanks for calling. brian bennett, he mentioned jeff sessions, incoming budget chairman. here is a tweet he just put out. "no surrender on immigration. congress must prohibit funds for executive amnesty." i think we have some sound from him -- we don't have sound but we do have the tweet. respond to what the caller and senator sessions are saying.

guest: senator sessions is laid out for many years the strong argument that we have been in a recession and have high unemployment rates and this is not the moment to be bringing in additional workers. the counterargument to that is that some of these service jobs, employers are finding it difficult to fill. senator sessions most recently has decided that he is going to push the republican leadership to enter into budget discussions over the immigration bill and threatened to shut down the government. or at the very least defund parts of the government that would be executing parts of the executive immigration act. host: our guest is brian bennett of the "l.a. times." previously he has worked at

"time" magazine where he was a reporter in hong kong and bureau chief in baghdad. learning a lot about the nuts and bolts of potential executive action and what reaction to it might be. gene, you have been hanging on in wisconsin. go ahead. you are on the independent line. caller: yes. i don't agree with this immigration for the simple reason that your forefathers, when they got to new york, there were only allowed one million people, there was people shut off and they had to go back to the old country. i think maybe you should like -- people that got here that are in the 80's and had a foothold in the united states, they should stay, but a lot of these other ones they are always talking

about 5 million. there are 11 million, 12 million people here and i don't think there is -- that is fair to anybody else. 11 million people looking for jobs, and they are taking them away from the regular citizens, and whatever happened to the nation of laws? the nations of the law on the old one says right out that you have got to go and stand in line and then get your green card, not come sneaking across the border. i think that is absolutely wrong. if i go down the street and break the speed limit, the cop is not going to pat me on the back. he is going to give me a ticket. host: all right, gene, let's hear from brian bennett. guest: interesting point in that he feels like if people have been here for a long time, since the 1980's, maybe they should have some consideration.

and that is one of the points that is being considered by the obama administration. maybe you open up this executive action program just for people who have been here for 10 years or longer, and maybe have deep roots here like u.s. citizen children, and the rest of the people have to fend for themselves, have to find a legal way or go back to their home countries. this is really the debate. you have 11 million people here, some of whom have been here for a long time and have roots in the community. some of them, their only crime is that they come here illegally and the question is what can you do about that. do we want to stand millions of dollars in law enforcement resources going into communities and finding these people and putting them on our planes to go home, or should as a society should we decide to reach out to

them and do a background check and encourage them to become legal members of the workforce? host: we have someone in this country illegally from alexandria, virginia, on the line. caller: good morning. this is francis. good one, c-span. host: tell us your situation. caller: i've been here 24 years. i'm a nurse, i think the school. we are sorry we are illegals. we have committed a crime and we thank the american people to forgive us for being here illegally. now, this issue -- it is a no-brainer. the republicans are the problem. what is the problem in going to allow the congress to have a debate and make this into a law and help people? i have a daughter serving in the united states military right now. and they want to deport me? i've been out of sierra leone for 24 years.

i don't have enough relatives there. if i go back i'm going to my death. i'm sorry, america. we are begging the republicans, please have mercy. 2012, barack obama got into the white house for the second time, and it was based on, i believe, the immigrants, hispanics who went out there and voted. so let's respect that, for the first part. last week's elections is what people say and the man is taking the law into his own hands and taking executive action. they are to be ashamed of themselves. they push this man to go this far and they need to do something. thank you very much for allowing me to participate. host: the words of francis there, in this country illegally, asking for mercy. guest: francis has been here for more than 24 years and his daughter is in the u.s. military

and he is working as a nurse. he obviously has deep roots here. is there a way for the government to allow francis to come forward and -- i did this wrong thing and i want to pay a fine and get right with the law. right now there isn't a way to do that for someone like francis, and the question is should the president do that on his own, or should you wait for congress to do something like that? one thing that francis brought up is that last year the senate passed a compromise solution, a bipartisan solution, and some people believe that if the house had taken it up for a vote, there would have been enough votes to get into the house. but speaker boehner didn't feel like he had the backing of his caucus to do that, and never came up for a vote. host: here is a question via twitter. "could the guest explain why president obama said he couldn't take action two years ago and

now he can?" guest: this is absolutely a dilemma for the president. he said in 2011 that he couldn't take action on his own. that was in the run-up to the senate bill being debated and he was trying to put pressure on congress to act, and he was trying to answer lessons from the immigrant community, who were frustrated by the large number of people who are being deported under his administration. and so he was making the point that there is only so much i can do on my own and i need congress -- the person who made that comment has a good point. there does seem to be an inconsistency there and he believes he has the authority to do it now. the difference, if you want to parse it a little bit, is there any exact -- any action obama does take will not be permanent. another president could reverse

it. that is the difference between the executive actions he might take on immigration and an actual law. host: remind us what the president's deportation record has been and what is happening right now. guest: when the president came into office in 2009, president bush presided over a massive increase in the number of order virtual agents and a large investment in the deportation apparatus inside the country, and that started to play out while obama was president. right now the united states can deport about 400,000 people. what president obama decided to do was say i have got this deportation apparatus and i want to focus it on people who have recently crossed, who are a threat to public safety, or who have violated the immigration law multiple times. what we're seeing is the number of people who are being deported

have been apprehended close to the border is going up over time, and the number of people being deported from the interior -- which is sort of what normal, average people think about when they hear the word "deportation," people being deported from the interior united states, taken from their places, that number has gone down over time. if you can imagine, since obama came to office, he has deported fewer people from inside the united states and deported more and more people from the border areas. host: laura is standing by in pennsylvania, republican caller. caller: good morning, gentlemen. as a republican, i am with jeff sessions basically saying that the election had consequences. most people want the border sealed. they don't want the illegal people just crossing over, including the children that came unaccompanied. it was an outrage. that is what the election was about.

rush limbaugh and the fox news has been showing tapes of obama saying "i can't do some of this legally," and yet he is proceeding to do this illegally. i think the compromise would be if he is calling on republicans to give him a bill, i think the 2 things who could be in the bill both by boehner and mcconnell to get together right now and say we agree, let's do border security right now, so that isis and, you know, any other illegal person can't come through the border without us knowing. second is employer verification. all the people who have been calling in saying they are illegals, was social security number have they been using? you know, we need to have employer verification where we say that these are the legal people here and if you want to give up 5 million people knew social security numbers, you wait until the new congress

comes in and then the president, who lost this election, deals with those. host: thank you, laura. brian bennett. guest: it's a good question, could the republicans come up with a border bill right now that could pass the house and the senate? they would be reliant on president obama signing the bill. obama does have the power of the pen. one thing that has changed is that the republicans, because they control the senate and house starting in january, they could put together a sort of republican version of the comprehensive package, and then they wouldn't have to be negotiating as much with senate democrats or democrats in congress. they would just be negotiating with the president. there could be a possible path by which the republicans say, look, let's put forward our solutions, here is our solution for tightening the border, here is our solution for opening up some of the legal avenues that

the business community wants, and we are going to put this together in a package and put it on the president's desk and see if we can get him to sign it. host: chris in florida, independent caller. caller: how are you doing today? host: doing fine, chris. caller: i want to clarify a couple things. with all these people being deported, the high rate that they are not departing from inside the country, it is actually the people turning away from the border. they are not even coming in, but obama is counting them as being deported and that is why the numbers are so high. you say it is fee-based. is that going to cover the social security that these people are going to receive, the disability, or the older illegals that are going to be getting this amnesty? that is every teacher out there with over crowded classrooms, let's bring in more kids.

how do the unions feel about it? in my area every construction job is done and roof that is put up, it is illegals on the roof. they are in our health care system and not to mention the swelling prison population. all of these costs are not being addressed at all, but you say that we could spend millions of dollars, but we are spending billions of dollars in pricing these people to come in. and once this is granted, bottom dollar, more people are going to flood the border. host: touching on a number of different areas. guest: this is a good question. i don't know what the cost would be at this point of the executive action that obama might take. we don't know what is actually going to be -- we don't know the scope of it. when the senate was considering their immigration bill, they had the congressional budget office run the numbers and they found

that based on all the different things they were planning to do, legalizing some people here illegally, bringing in some more foreign workers, that there would be extra money coming in to the u.s. treasury through taxes and social security payments that would offset some of the additional costs that would be incurred by the social welfare systems. i don't know -- it is worth looking very closely at what the cost implications long-term for communities would be by allowing people to come forward and giving them 2-year work permits through a program that obama is considering. host: steve king, republican from iowa, warning of a constitutional crisis over all of this. what can you tell us about timing? congress is not in session next

week, but what about timing? guest: so we don't really know. the president is returning now from a long trip to asia, and my understanding is he is going to be presented with sort of a final draft of options. and he could make a decision as soon as friday to announce what he is going to do. they could decipher a whole list of reasons to delay that a few weeks. the president has promised to act by the end of the year. but there are other considerations. they do need to congress to pass a bill that would continue paying for the functioning of the government between now and the end of the year. they are going to have to weigh the decision of whether to take this action now or have it play into the negotiations over the funding of the government. host: one other tweet to take a look at from congressman gutierrez.

"115+ have signed a letter asking for executive action soon." we have bruce, republican. caller: good morning. i am passionate republican. i am an african-american. i accept the fact that this is the lowest voter turnout in 72 years. obama didn't lose an election. the people that didn't follow their team, they lost the election. he made promises to all the people and he had to live up to those obligations he spoke of when he got elected. i understand that people want immigration to work the way they want it to work, but they have to consider some things, like if we are going to let people in to the country, all of a sudden, and everybody -- and they raise the minimum wage -- obama can't

do everything he wants to do. it would be crazy if the republican party allow him to do everything he wants to do. my heart goes out to everyone with a problem in the world. america has got broad shoulders but it can't support everybody. people come across the border and we don't set the rule of law, we alienate our neighbors to the south. we have to live with these people forever. they are not going anywhere. how they feel about us as neighbors matters. we can't just ignore them. but at the same time we can't ignore the rule of law. host: thanks for calling, bruce. any thoughts? guest: it is difficult timing for the president here. he has promised to take executive actions and the republicans have come off a major win at the polls and they feel like they have amended to execute their priorities, which do not include the president's priorities on immigration.

and so we are going to watch this play out over the next few weeks and see what kind of reactions the republicans have to whatever steps the president decides to take. host: down to our last couple calls. burke, virginia. caller: thank you for c-span. if employment of illegals in the united states can be stemmed, if regulation and rules can be set up to make sure that employers are not hiring these folks, with that be more of a long-term, serious way kind of to put a halt to this thing? guest: i think that is something that republicans and democrats have compromised on. in the senate bill, bipartisan bill, there was agreement that they would increase employer verification.

right now there is a voluntary program called e-verify that employers can check the immigration status of people they hire and that bill would have made that mandatory and required employers across the country to do those checks. and the argument being that you deter people from coming into the country in the future. if it is hard to get a job here, it will be harder if you don't have papers, then you make -- you create a disincentive for people to come here in the future. he doesn't address people who are already here, which is something that policymakers have grappled with. people already here, people in the workforce. we are an innovative group of people and people find ways to get around innovation. host: one last caller, ross in texas. caller: thank you for taking my call. two comments. first, congress is up in arms

now, but for the past two or three years, they have been busy re-voting in voting obamacare 35, 45 times come when they should have been working on it first. secondly, what the caller before me said, we are really not going to put a lid on the problem until we start locking up company owners who employ illegals. we needed to lock up the company owners and that will solve the problem right there. guest: that is another question, something the business community is reluctant to sign off on, doing tougher employer enforcement. under president george w. bush there were more workplace raids where immigration agents went to workplaces and checked immigration status of workers directly. the democrats -- a lot of democrats didn't like that because they felt it was like

punishing the workers themselves, many of whom were working in substandard conditions and didn't go after the employers enough. this is something that policymakers have to hash out, what is the balance between punishing employers who take advantage of illegal workers and hire illegal workers at substandard wages. host: we are just about out of time. "washington journal" is available every day. the u.s. house gaveling in that. live coverage on c-span. the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. the prayer will be offered by chaplain, father conroy. chaplain conroy: let us pray. dear god we give you thanks for giving us another day. we ask your special blessing upon the members of this people's house. they face difficult decis