wanted to ask you, the news next week is all going to be about sequestration. the president is going to propose ending it. this is something that sounds like in theory something both parties can get behind. how do you think this is going to play out? it is doable to do in the next year's spending bill? >> i hope it is. there is widespread agreement that sequestration makes sense. it doesn't prioritize. it doesn't say we should cut here and spend more there. it is an across-the-board situation, which should be done away with. i think the president is right. obviously the debate will take place over the devil in the details. that is where the debate will take place. >> and the budget chairman, what do you make of his ability to work with you to get that in place in a budget? >> i have known my for many years. i like mike and i look for to working with him. >> the president announced thursday he is not seeking to end just sequestration but his

budget proposal will call for a 7% increase over the cap'scaps. is that going to be dead on arrival on capitol hill? >> you will have to ask the republicans who control the house and the senate. my own feeling is that at a time when the middle class continues to disappear, when we have the highest rate of poverty in the industrialized world, when millions of seniors are struggling to put food on the table and pay for their medicine , when young people can't afford college, we have to start investing in the future of america. we have to protect most of vulnerable people in this country. that is going to cost us money. the way you do that is -- the state of the wealthiest people who are doing phenomenally well. you're going to have to start paying your fair share of taxes. >> there are areas where you can find agreement on the budget. what are the areas of common

ground there potentially? >> i think one area of common agreement is there is widespread understanding. i suspect that everybody in america agrees that our infrastructure is crumbling. that's our roads, bridges, water systems, airports, you name it. according to the american society of civil engineers we have to invest trillions of dollars just to bring our infrastructure up to par. we are way behind europe and china in terms of what percentage of our gdp we invest into infrastructure. i have just introduced legislation which will call for a trillion dollar investment over five years, creating 13 million jobs. i would hope in that area we can come together and say we have to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure and in the process, we can create millions

of jobs. that is one area i hope we can reach an agreement. >> senator paul introduced a proposal this week that would let companies repatriate offshore earnings -- if money comes off of that they would use it for infrastructure. what do you think of a place where the money could come from? >> the smith -- this is based on >> i'm not a great fan of that plan. that plan is is based on the fact that we have huge amounts of money from corporate america city in the cayman islands. that is a mechanism by which large corporations and wealthy americans avoid paying their fair share of taxes. it is estimated that we are losing about $100 billion per year because of that tax loophole. the idea being floated about his is rhetorical to make them pay

their full share of taxes, we will make them pay for substantially less. i think they should pay their fair share of taxes. if you want to know how to raise revenue, a modest fee on wall street street transactions will help us but also raise a substantial amount of revenue. in fact, at a time when the top 1% are doing phenomenally well, we should ask the very wealthiest people to pay their fair share of taxes, it makes no sense to me. you have hedge fund managers making millions of dollars. they are paying an effective tax rate lower than a truck driver or teacher. there are fair and progressive ways to raise revenue. with that revenue i would put it , into infrastructure, making sure our young people can go to college, and not leave school deeply in debt. >> infrastructure is one of the things both parties want to broadly work together on. republicans say they want democrats to come on board on

these new trade agreements how . how do you plan to handle this with your role on the budget committee? do you think this as any prospect of getting through congress this year? >> i think those are separate issues. i think there is no denial and it is not controversial to say that our infrastructure is crumbling. we used to be first place in the world in terms of the quality of our infrastructure. today we are in 12th place. the 50 states of this country, we need a huge that huge investment to bring our infrastructure up to par. we have got to address that. we cannot turn our back on it. as a former mayor, what i can tell you is if you do not invest in roads and bridges it ain't going to get any better. it's going to get worse. the trade issue is another issue. it is a fairly controversial issue. it is one that i strongly

disagree with the president on. you will find that trade relations with china have cost us millions of decent paying jobs. companies have shut down in the united states of america, they have gone to china, gone to mexico, gone to low-wage countries. the minimum wage in vietnam is $.56 per hour. frankly i don't think american , worker should be forced to compete against people who are making orinda sleep low wages. if we learned anything from the past it is that these trade agreements benefited large corporations. our working people have paid a terrible price for them in terms of jobless loss and a race to the bottom. i think we should kill this agreement and come up with something that works for workers, and that multinational corporations. >> senator have you started , talking with conservatives who

share maybe not exactly quite the same approach on fast track? have you started having those conversations to build a coalition against fast-track? >> there are those conversations are taking place. i know they are taking place in the house of representatives. in terms -- we talked about fast-track, which is obviously the prelude. what bothers me in addition to the fact i strongly disagree with what i expect we'll be in the tt pttp which is a continuation , of pass trade policy, the lack of transparency in terms of this fast-track is something to behold. the truth of the matter is there something like 25 chapters. i believe there are thousands of pages, highly complicated legal documents. members of congress are allowed to see the documents but they are not allowed to copy the information. they cannot bring experts in with them. there is very little

transparency in terms of the fast-track. i hope for that reason alone the fast-track will be defeated. >> senator sanders, i wanted to ask you, hillary clinton made delay for her presidential campaign until the summer. do you see the opportunity to influence the democratic side during primaries? what is your decision-making process now? >> as i indicated on many occasions, i'm looking forward to running for president of the united states. i think people understand that this is not a simple decision. not just for yourself and your family but for the viewers. ,i happen to believe that in these extraordinary moments we are living in, which speaks to the collapse of the american middle class and the of seen

level of income and wealth inequality, which speaks to the disastrous supreme court decision on citizens united, which allows the koch brothers and a few other billionaire families to be the wealthiest -- to be the most powerful political entity in america. we are looking at a billionaire family that will have more political power than either the democratic or republican parties. that smacks to me of oligarchy. you are looking at climate change. and lest we get our act together and significantly reduce carbon emissions this planet could be , five degrees warmer by the end of the century. we are going to need bold leadership. we will need people to take on the billionaire class to prevent this country from moving in the direction of oligarchy. every morning i wake of and i say, these are issues that have to be dealt with. running for president of the

united states who are prepared to deal with these issues. on the other hand, you are going to need a gazillion dollars to take on the koch brothers. how do you organize those people? i will not run for president if i can't do it well. so i will be in the hampshire this weekend. i will be in iowa again in a couple of weeks. i've been all over the country. we are talking to a lot of people. it is something i like to do but i can't do it, won't do it, unless we can do it well. >> do you think you are the best person to take on the koch brothers? do you think there is anybody else. do you think hillary clinton is in a position to do that? >> you will have to ask hillary clinton about that. if i run i'm not running against , hillary clinton. i'm running against wall street

and their greed that has helped to destroy this economy. i am running against citizens united. i am running against those people who did not climate change. i am running for working families. what hillary clinton or mitt romney had to say, we can debate those issues. in terms of what hillary clinton has to say, you best ask mrs. clinton. >> let me say from a tactical standpoint, the political playbook says she may not announce all the way until july because she doesn't see any primary challenge on the horizon. i'm not sure what that says about your potential candidacy. if you are the only one that dares to get into the ring how , does that play out? >> well if i'm the only one on , the -- i don't know how it plays out. she will make her own decisions and i will make my decisions. >> thank you.

>> on the issues you have been talking about, income equality, climate change, is there in another country out there that does all of those things well? what are some model policies you look to? >> look there is no country that hasn't been hit by recession in recent years, no country that is not struggling with one or another issue. there is a lot to learn from countries in scandinavia, which have far more egalitarian policies than we do. for example, the united states is the only nation in the industrialized world that does not guarantee health care to all people as a right of citizenship and yet we spend almost twice as much per capita on health care as the u.k. or countries throughout europe. you think we have something to learn about health care in that regard? that maybe the function of private insurance companies in this country is to make as much

money as they can out of our health care system rather than , have us provide quality cost-effective health care to all our people. there is a lot to be learned from scandinavia. in education there's a growing , awareness for this country. if you want to send your kid to college now, it's simply unaffordable. what sense does that make in a highly competitive global economy, when we need to have the best educated workforce in the world, that we have a large number of kids who can no longer afford to go to college. we have others coming out deeply in debt cannot do the work they want. we have young people graduating medical school or dental school hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. should we learn from other countries and say we want to capture the energy and ability and intelligence of our young people?

regardless of income, oliver people should be able to get a higher education? i think so. we spend a huge amount of money on defense. we spent almost as much as, not quite, as the rest of the world combined. can we have a strong defense and at the same time make sure we are funding infrastructure funding education adequately? our childcare is a disaster. there is a lot to be learned from a lot of other countries. those who say we are going to make government work for the middle-class and working families of our nation. >> we have 10 minutes left. >> i wanted to follow-up. i wanted to get your impression of what the president did this week in proposing this repeal of the tax break. and then backing away from it. did he make the right move? >> i think he made the right move by backing away. i think he also made the right move about saying that -- this

is a very bold act, but i would go further. it is no small thing for the president. you want to get two years of education, it is going to be free. my own view is we should brought broaden that, saying you want to go to any public college university in america? have the first two years free. i applaud the president for recognizing that it is insane, so many of our young people cannot afford to go to college. >> in the senate this week and last week, we saw lots of votes on amendments, including several on climate change, which kind of split the republican party. climate change has been an issue of yours. what message did you receive from republicans, supporting some of these? what do you think about that? >> let me just say this and be honest. look i'm a progressive, my views

are different than conservatives, moderates on all kinds of issues. i have to tell you that with what the republican party is in terms climate change, it is not just wrong. it is an international embarrassment. from the scientific community's perspective there is no longer a , debate on climate change. there is number debate. the overwhelming majority of scientists tell us is climate change is real, climate change is caused by human activity, climate change is already causing devastating problems and if we don't get our act together in terms of cutting carbon, the diamonds we are seeing now will pale in comparison to what we will see him years to come in terms of rising sea levels, drought floods, disturbances. in terms of the vote that took place, all he did it say that he recognizes climate change is real because climate change is

always real. i'm not saying it is caused by human activity. i offered an amendment that we encapsulates what i just told you that we have a window of , opportunity to transform our energy system to prevent damage to our country and the world. by the way, that takes us to the issue of campaign finances. no accident, but the koch brothers make most of their money in fossil fuels. they put huge amounts of money into the political process. that is a very scary situation when you have a party, virtually the entire party, willing to reject science while receiving a campaign contributions from big energy. this is an issue above and beyond the politics that worries me very much for our kids and our grandchildren. >> did you not see any progress in the fact that five republicans did vote for an

amendment that said humans are contributing to climate change? did that surprise you? >> i gather that the most -- i don't want to be too facetious here. i suppose it is a step forward. you go to the international community and 54 members of the senate took the controversial position that climate change is caused by human activity. what will the scientific community say? are you kidding me? there is a minimal amount of progress. clearly it is an embarrassment. i think it is an international embarrassment. i think we can disagree about how you proceed. we can disagree about how you do it. we have to move away from fossil fuels. there should be no disagreement

that carbon emissions and human activity is the basis for climate change. >> six minutes -- left. >> the president for years the fine that people above 50,000 should pay more. where do you draw that line? who should be protected? >> i can't give you an explicit answer right now. i think the president is roughly in the right ballpark. it is not just the individual taxation. the basic premise that we have to look at is that in recent years, we have seen an explosion in terms of the increase of income of the wealthiest people in this country. at the same time, we have seen a decline in their tax burden. that makes no sense to me at

all. second of all, it is not just individuals, it is corporate taxes as well. you have major corporations like general electric horizon boeing, and others who in a given year in recent years have paid zero in terms of federal income tax. they paid less than you did. despite making billions in profit. that makes no sense to me. i think we need real tax reform was >> not only the wealthiest people in the country but the largest corporations to start paying their fair share. and we need to use that money to invest in infrastructure, invest in education and use it to reduce the deficit. we cannot continue down this path where so few have so much and so many have so little and these wealthy people end up paying a smaller percentage of their income in taxes than they used to. that makes no sense to me. the last point i would make about that, if i could.

one of the things the republican party will be doing i suspect very shortly is attempting to cut social security. they will point out that we are an aging population and the combined cost is going to go up, which is true, but there is a very simple solution to how you deal with that. you have some money making 10 million a year, some of the making 118,000 per year. those people are putting the same amount of money into the social security trust fund. if you lift that cap you can raise enough money to extend the life of social security and expand benefits, which is what i believe we should do. too many seniors in vermont and all over this country are struggling to pay for their medicine, pay for their heat pay for their food. they cannot do it on $13,000 per year in social security. we have to expand those

benefits, and the way we do that is to lift the cap. >> a lot of people would assume that you wouldn't work with republicans. we know that's not true. you worked with senator mccain last year on a veterans reform bill. who do you get along with best? is there something that would surprise us about your relationships with the republican party? >> until a month ago i was , chairman of the veterans committee. i worked very closely with senator mccain and with house republicans to pass what some would consider to be more -- one of the more and important pieces of legislation. there are some very sensible republicans that i can work with and democrats can work with. lamar alexander is chairman of the health education and welfare committee. i look forward to working with him.

in terms of infrastructure, the need to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, i suspect we can work with him as well. >> final question. we are almost out of time. >> you have talked about the democratic presidential field what are you seeing in the , republican presidential field? what are you hearing? what does the general election matchup look like? >> i'm not much into speculation. i really can't tell you. this is what i can tell you. i think we have an american people who are demoralized politically. the real story of last midterm election was not just the significant republican victory it was the fact that 63% of the american people did not vote. i would hope that whether you are republican democrat, or independent that we can restore hope and faith in the american

people in the democratic process that we can start doing , things that improve life for the vast majority of our people rather than billionaire campaign , investors. >> senator sanders explained that he is an independent, which is how he landed an assignment as the lead democrat on the budget committee. what kind of power does he really have in that spot? >> in a minority of the senate you have more power than you would in the house. in the house you just get run over basically. he has a few tools in the senate . when the budget comes to the senate floor, if and when the republicans try to move one, he will have the ability to force. the amendment.

there are ways to use the budget process to basically have show boats, but boats where everyone can point back to during the campaign to talk about. it really gives him the chance to make people go on the record and do that. >> and the new majority leader has called this a return to regular order and open rules which will allow an amendment process. how long before the republicans begin to regret how open the legislation processes? >> just this week we started to see the senate democrat campaign arm start attacking republican senators who are of for reelection in blue states and how they voted for some of these amendments. have they voted on climate change? have they voted on any sort of energy amendment?

there is an opportunity for democrats to attack them. i think it really depends on whether democrats can keep these amendments germane. i don't think they will. i think you will see people offering for minimum wage. a lot of these goals are not something necessarily they will pass. the democrats are in the minority. this is why you didn't see this happen very much under harry reid's majority. he knew keeping these tough votes away from these honorable vulnerable senators could be beneficial. >> they are making the opposite argument. we are going to let our members compile a voting record. they have a hard time distinguishing than cells from other democrats because not that many things divided them.

they are going to have the ability to differentiate themselves from the party. the tricky part comes when you have items you have to pass. when the budget is on the floor and you need 51 votes and only three people can vote against it. who gets to do that? that's when it's really going to start getting tricky, that situation of the must pass bills that are hope yes, vote no process. >> we spoke with senator sanders about his presidential bid. how does that overlay the agenda that he hopes to pursue from his budget position? >> he is looking for a soapbox to talk about the issues that are important to him, which are income inequality, climate change, big banks, education all of these things.

the ranking member of the budget committee is somewhat thankless. there is no way he will be able to persuade republicans. he will be on the floor a lot and he will be talking about it a lot. we'll be able to make republicans vote on these amendments. it was interesting to hear him say that he was not running against hillary clinton, because he's really trying to walk this fine line and present himself. he seems reticent to do anything to damage hillary clinton before he is fully stepped in. i kind of seeing him trying to thread the needle right now. i don't think even he knows how exactly this will play out. >> thank you for your questions. thank you for being with us this week. >> keep track of the republican-led congress and follows new members to its first

session, new congress, best access on c-span, c-span2 c-span radio, and c-span.org. >> tonight on q&a, dr. francis jensen on the recent discovery about the teenage brain. >> they don't have their frontal lobes to re-cause-and-effect consequences of actions. their frontal lobes are not ready not as readily accessible. they have frontal lobes, but the connections cannot be made as quickly for split-second decision-making. also, a lot of the hormones are changing in the body of those young men and women. the brain has not seen as yet in life, intel you get teenage years. so the brain is trying to learn how to respond to these new -- locking onto synapses and receptors. they are trying to by trial and

error. that contributes to this roller coaster kind of experience that we watch his parents. >> tonight at it :00 p.m. eastern and pacific on q&a. >> a bipartisan policy center will hear from thom tillis from north carolina tomorrow. he will talk about his experience in state government his recent election to the u.s. senate, and what he hopes the new congress can publish in the your head. senator tillis serves on five congressional committees including armed services veteran affairs, and judiciary. watch c-span live at noon eastern on c-span three. >> the second court of appeals recently considered a case challenging the health care laws contraceptive mandate for religious affiliated employers. the roman catholic