that's creating this movement for justice all across this nation. she's very clearly and profoundly and without hesitation spoken to all of us to this nation. her actions have shouted it out that black lives do matter that that black lives do matter. that all lives in america matters and that black lives matters also. thank you madam speaker. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back.

>> i move that the house do now adjourn. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on the motion to adjourn. so many as are in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have t the motion is adopted. accordingly the house stands adjourned until 11:30 a.m. on tuesday may 5 2015.

involved in the arrest of freddie gray who died last month after being injured in police cuss totty have been charged criminally. states attorney marilyn mosby announced today. charges range from second degree murder to misconduct in office. "the sun" says warrants were issued for the arrest of all six officers. it wasn't immediately clear where the officers were friday morning. read more at baltimoresun.com. coming up here on c-span in under an hour we'll take you live to the benning penning for a briefing from defense second ashton carter.

he'll talk about the pentagon's annual report on sexual assault in the military again live a 1:00 p.m. eastern. the house wrapped up work for the week. passing the military construction and veterans' affairs bill yesterday. and today the energy and water bill. they also yesterday passed the budget conference report. a vote there of 226-197. the conference report setting the budget and spending plans and priorities for the next fiscal year. here's what the debate looked like from yesterday. georgia. mr. price: thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, let me begin by thanking everyone involved in getting us to this moment where we have an agreement between the house and the senate budget conferees on a joint balanced budget proposal before the congress. all members of our committee and the conference committee and their staffs should be commended for their hard work and i want to commend specifically the staff directors on both sides of the aisle.

rick and tom made certain their respective members were prepared for the activity we've gone through over the past four months. we are set, mr. speaker, to adopt the first balanced budget of this kind in over a decade. that's important not only from an historical perspective but also for what it says about this congress' commitment to doing the work that the american people sent us here to do. to get it done. to move forward. with positive solutions for a healthier economy and a stronger more secure nation. what we have before us today mr. speaker, is a budget that balances within 10 years without raising taxes. reduces spending over $5 trillion over that period of time which will not only get washington's fiscal house in order, but paving the way for stronger economic growth, more jobs and more opportunity. it invests in our nation's priorities ensures a strong national defense and saves and strengthens and protects important programs like

medicare and social security. mr. speaker, i know our friends on the other side of the aisle, we'll hear from them and they may have a difference of opinion, and if passed as pro -- past is prolong, -- prologue, we're bound to hear from them. they'll say our budget will, in their words quote, hurt the middle class unquote. that statement bears no resemblance to reality, mr. speaker. . the policies of president obama that led to the worst economic recovery. stagnant wages, underwheeling growth in our economy and the economy grew in the first quarter by ..2%. there is a reason for that. we need to get the economy rolling. the best thing we can get for the middle class is get our economy turned around soy more jobs are being created and more

dreams being realized. guess what, mr. speaker? our budget does that. more effective and more accountable lifting the regime off the jobs -- backs and american companies can better compete more effectively in the global economy. by doing all of that the congressional budget office tells us that we will bring in deficits and lower government spending, which will have a positive, long-term-impact on the economy as well as the budget. benefits like increases in the pool of national savings and investment, which would allow for more growth and job creation and more economic security. our friends on the other side of the aisle, they are fond of attacking our efforts to save, strengthen and protect programs like medicare, medicaid and social security. why some folks here in

washington would be willing to let these programs go bankrupt is beyond me. medicare and social security are going broke. that's not according to me but the trustees of the programs. medicaid is not working for patients or the doctors who would like to be able to serve them. the status quo is unsustainable and doing nothing is un defensible. we have to save these programs for the sake of beneficiaries and future generations, and our budget does just that. further, our budget prioritizes the safety and security of the american people channeling important resources to our men and women in uniform. we do so in a responsible way, in a manner consistent with current law and without allowing further across the board cuts in defense spending. there are those who criticize on how we do that and i respect their opinion, but we are faced with largely complex national

security threats and we need to find a way to move forward to ensure those protecting our lives and freedom have the support and training that they need. i look forward to an open and honest debate about the vision we put forward to get our nation's fiscal house in order, to strengthen our nation's defenses and to ensure a healthier economy for all americans because that's exactly what this budget agreement does. i urge my colleagues to support the agreement. and i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from maryland is recognized. mr. van hollen: i rise in strong opposition to this budget conference report. i do agree with the gentleman on one issue which is the staff of the budget committee on both sides republican and democrat, have worked very hard. mr. speaker, i have to say that the product that is brought before us today is the wrong

direction for america. we began with a house budget that was wrong for america. we went to conference with the senate budget. it was wrong for america. so it's not surprising, but it is still disappointing that we come to the floor today with a budget that's wrong for america. why do i say that? well, look, we are entitled to our opinions, but we don't get to make up our own facts. and the reality is, according to the nonpartisan congressional budget office, the folks who are referees in this house and this congress, where people have competing opinions, they have said that this republican budget will slow down the economy over the next couple of years. it's right here on page 3 of their report. real g.n.p., real economic growth per person will be lower by .6% under the specific paths than under the baseline 2016 to

2018 c.b.o. budget estimates. let's translate that. what that means is that compared to what would happen in the economy without the republican budget, if we didn't have this, this will make things worse. this will slow down economic growth. this means less economic growth per person in the united states of america. that's not me saying it, that's the nonpartisan budget experts saying it. so it's going to slow down economic growth, although we have good news, some good news in the economy, right? we have seen month after month of positive economic growth. we would like to see the economy grow faster and grow stronger, but we have seen over 61 consecutive months positive economic growth. why in the world would we want a budget that in the next couple of years slows down that economic growth according to

the congressional budget office? it gets worse than that, because one of the chronic problems we have seen in our economy, mr. speaker over the last many years not just two or three or four, but over decades is this phenomenon where americans are working harder than ever, they are more productive than ever, but their paychecks are flat, their take-home pay is flat. so you have rising and working productivity people working harder than ever but not translating into higher wages and benefits. you know back about 30, 40 years ago, we had a chart with rising worker productivity and guess what else was rising with it? worker wages. last 30 years, we have seen people working harder than ever, productivity is going up, but wages for most americans have been pretty flat in real terms. the gain of that increase in worker productivity has flowed

to folks at the very top end of the economic ladder. and god bless them, but why would we want to bring a budget to the floor of the house that squeezes even tighter and harder the people who are working hard every day and not seeing their paychecks go up? how does their budget make life harder for most americans? first of all, it increases taxes on working families. they get rid of the bum up in the child tax credit. they get rid of the strengthening of the earned income tax credit. they eliminate entirely the college deduction that helps families afford college in this era of high tuition rates. they eliminate the at affordable care act tax care credits meaning millions won't be able

to access affordable care. students, they start charging students higher interest rates on their loans. right now, a student in college doesn't have to pay interest on their loan while they're in college. our republican colleagues apparently think a trillion dollars of student debt is not enough. they want to charge them more. it's a fact under this budget. seniors, they want to re-open the prescription drug doughnut hole. it's not a secret. as a result, seniors with high prescription drug costs on medicare will be paying lots more and paying higher co-pays for preventive health care under this republican budget. so working families, students seniors all squeezed even tighter. i'll tell you who is not

squeezed at all under this budget folks at the very top. this budget green lights the romney-ryan tax plan. what does that plan propose? let's cut the top tax rate for millionaires by a third, a third. take it down from 39% to 28%, 25% range. that's who gets a big break in their tax rates. so while they're cutting tax rates for folks at the very top, what else are they cutting? they're cutting our kids' education and cutting investments in science and research like n.i.h., cutting modernizing our infrastructure, which helps power our economy. why? because they are cutting the portion of the budget we use to make those investments by 40% below the lowest level as a share of the economy since we

have been keeping records, in the 1950's. that is a disinvestment in america. so they are cutting those investments. i tell you what they don't cut they don't cut one special interest tax break to help reduce the deficit, not one penny. apparently that corporate jet tax deduction, they need it. apparently that special tax rate for hedge fund managers, they really need it because they don't want to eliminate any of those to reduce the deficit, but they want to increase taxes on working families and cut our investment in education. and here's the sad part about it mr. speaker. after all that, it still doesn't balance. not by a long shot. here's the chart. sorry we have to go through this

math so many times but i will tell you that the current chairman of the senate budget committee, senator enzi talked about this budget accounting scam that is at the heart of the republican budget and heart of the claim that they have a balanced budget because you see they claim that at the end of the 10-year window -- they also say they are eliminating the affordable care act. but guess what? the budget relies on the same level of revenue as the affordable care act. so if you get rid of the affordable care act and those receive news, you aren't close to balance. i apologize, mr. speaker. i tell you what else it doesn't take into account. the tax provisions.

you may recall, mr. speaker, that we had on this floor, about 10 days ago a republican proposal to eliminate the estate tax for estates over $10 million. that was the overwhelming economic priority of our republican colleagues to get rid of the estate tax for states over $10 million, 5500 people in this country per year. you can put more people on a big cruise ship. that added about $260 billion to the deficit over the next 10 years. guess what? wasn't accounted for in the republican budget. and if you did account for that and the other tax cut measures for special interests that are being brought to the floor it's even further out of balance. this is just "alice in

wonderland" accounting. we should be going back to the drawing board. we haven't talked about the whole sort of shell game with the o.c.o. account, which is having an impact on appropriations bills here in the house because our republican colleagues are doing the exact opposite what they said we should do last year. read the republican own budget conference committee report. let me close with respect to veterans, because the reality is that the first bill coming to the floor based on this budget conference report for veterans and military construction, the veterans of foreign wars says it's bad for veterans. it has a lower amount for our veterans than in the president's proposal. so we believe we should be true to the values and priorities of this country. and we don't think that means

giving folks at the very top millionaires and others cuts in their tax rates while disinvesting in the rest of america. i must strongly oppose this budget conference committee report, because it really does take america down the wrong path and i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from maryland reserves. the gentleman from georgia. mr. price: i yield three minutes to the vice chairman of the budget committee, mr. rokita. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for three minutes. mr. rokita: i thank chairman price for his leadership. i thank my colleagues. robust discussion and debate.

but we come out of those lates nights, those long hours with the product here today. and the product here today unfortunately is a more rare product than it should be. you see, mr. speaker, for the first time since 2001 14 years, we have a balanced joint budget resolution. bicameral. and as a relatively new person to this chamber, in my fifth year you think about why that's the case. unfortunately you have to conclude that most of the time we're talking about the demagoguery. some of which we just heard. half the story so to speak, what's really going on here. if we would have full, honest discussions about where this country really needs to go, where the federal government needs to go in terms of improving its debt, deficit picture, the whole budget picture, you'd really see that

the economy in this country could be better off with those honest full discussions. this budget, for example, does balance in less than 10 years without raising taxes. without raising taxes. the gentleman very much knows -- the chair: the gentleman from indiana controls the time. mr. rokita: the gentleman very much knows that the budget committee doesn't write tax predescriptions. it's the ways and means committee. but we say in our budget document, the ways and means committee should get on with the business of tax reform. what the congressional budget office that the gentleman mentioned says is that over the 10-year window of this budget agreement, the economy will grow $400 billion. that's hardly a contraction. $400 billion, at least to some of us, is a lot of money and that's great for economic growth. this budget agreement does

that. see what i mean mr. speaker. by the whole story? it also ensures a strong national defense, making sure that our troops have the money they need but remain accountable to the money that's given. it gives us a chance to repeal in full taxes -- in full, taxes and all, obamacare, and allows us a chance to start over with patient-centered health reform. hasn't been done, we haven't had that chance in a long time. you see obamacare, mr. speaker, is an expensive proposition and we're seeing more and more proof of that every day. strengthens medicare for the future without county affecting those near retirement now. this is important. some of us, for my friends on the conservative side have looked at the press reports and found, hey, we've given up on medicare, absolutely is not nor for social security. these are the drivers of our

debt, mr. speaker. our budget language remains in tact. the fact of the matter is this conference committee report in knew merrickly driven -- is numerically driven, not policy driven. for everyone, this is what's driving our debt. these pieces of the pie that are all attached together. whether social security, medicare, medicaid or the interest we owe ourselves and others for the amount of money we're borrowing. our ideas for correcting this debt, the drivers of our debt, are still in place. and i call upon the authorizing committees whether it be energy and commerce, ways and means, education and work force or other committee, to start working on reforming this debt. this budget agreement mr. speaker, gives us the opportunity finally, after 14 years, to start down that road. this is not a conclusion, this is the beginning and i ask my democratic friends to join us

down that road. i yield back. the chair: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from georgia reserves. the gentleman from maryland is recognized. mr. van hollen: thank you, mr. speaker. i'd actually encourage all those authorizing committees to get to work trying to implement this budget so the american people can see just how bad it is and i would be curious as to whether they're actually going to do it in the couple months. i yield three minutes to the gentleman from new jersey, mr. pascrell. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new jersey is recognized. mr. pascrell: thank you, mr. speaker. mr. ranking member. i rise in strong opposition to this budget. there's football and then there's fantasy football. mr. ranking member, you are being very charitable when you use the word scam. this is a real lemon. by any stretch, and you'll have to use your imagination. this is a formula for another 2007-2008. this would be a duplication and

the pain caused by those, that decade, that eight years of the 21st century, the budgets from 2001 to 2008 when we cut taxes in 2001 and we cut taxes in 2003, and then 2007 and 2008 the world fell apart. why? enormous loss of jobs, every month. look at the numbers. you want to hold up charts? hold them up. this agreement uses gimmicks to balance the budget and does so on the backs of the poor and the middle class and senior citizens. it imposes its cuts on programs that assist low and modest income americans. even though they constitute those programs less than 1/4 of the federal spending.

the republican plan would cause tens of millions of people to become uninsured or underinsured and i know how you're careful to even talk about that. in other words, if we're going to repeal the affordable care act, make sure you put in a sentence about what we need to do about those people who have preconditions. phony phony phony. you said it. we didn't. slashing funding for education, for research, for infrastructure. wait until the bridges fall down and more people fall into the water. cuts to nutrition. cuts to health. that will only increase poverty. your claims that this budget balances is a total farce. not a semifarce a total farce. congressman van hollen produced a very strong, fair budget. it was a strong budget it was

dismissed. but i like it. i like it. i like it when we are seen as irrelevant. we do our best work. so that's what you got in front of you. this budget, while calling for a complete and total repeal of the affordable care act continues to assume the law's $2 trillion revenue. that's not a farce. that's fantasy football. how could you do that? the bills -- bill stinks but we'll use the money in the bill. explain that one. one more minute. mr. van hollen: i yield the gentleman another 30 seconds. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. pascrell: to me, when we get to taxes, this budget assumes that revenues remain unchanged from our current law. someone needs to have a conversation with the chairman

of the ways and means. because he seems to be unaware. in fact, he stated explicitly that he doesn't think we should be using the current law baseline. he said it, i didn't. two weeks ago this same majority and i end on this point, mr. speaker we passed $294.8 billion in unpaid for tax cuts -- tax breaks for paris hilton and ivanka trump and rest of that crowd and their fortune, enough to be left a nice inheritance. much of that money has never been taxed in the first place. with that i yield back, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. members will remember to address their remarks to the chair, not to other members of the body. the chair recognizes the gentleman from georgia. mr. price: thank you mr. speaker. as i said when we talked about in the first time around, i said folks across this land, if they turn on the television and

they take a look, you got one parent yelling at the other. hide the dog and the cat and the kids sweetheart, they're talking about the budget. the distortion and the misrepresentation that's coming from the other side, mr. speaker, it really is absolutely phenomenal. i am pleased to hear that the gentleman likes their budget. and i commend him for liking their budget. but let me just state for the record, mr. speaker, that neither their budget nor the president's budget ever, ever ever gets to balance. the american people can't live on borrowed money. the federal government ought not do so either. our budget gets to balance within a 10-year period of time, it does so without raising taxes. that's why the american people are going to appreciate the work that's being done right here. i'm very, very pleased to yield three minutes to a member of our -- an incredibly productive member of our committee, a member of the conference committee, the gentlelady from tennessee mrs. black. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady is recognized for three minutes. mrs. black: i thank the gentleman for yielding. mr. speaker what a difference a year makes.

since i came to congress in 2011, my house republican colleagues and i every year, to pass a responsible, timely budget that confronts our runaway spending in washington, but many while the senate democrats refuse to pass a budget during the four of the last five years. that ends now. this year our new american congress worked to pass a balanced budget in both the house and the senate and to then unify our budgets through regular order. i had the distinct privilege of serving on the budget conference committee and i'm pleased with the final product that we were able to deliver. this will mark the first balanced budget, joint budget resolution, since 2002 and we get it without -- did it without raising taxes. we didn't stop there. this budget would also erase the president's disastrous health care law, allowing us to

start over on reforms that put patients and their doctors in charge, not washington bureaucrats. and we used the critical reconciliation tool to help to ensure an obamacare repeal bill that reaches the president's desk so that we can put him on record, forcing him to make a decision and defend that to the american people. once more, this plan supports the growth of $1.2 -- 1.2 million jobs over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan congressional budget office. mr. speaker, as has been said many times before budgets aren't just a series of numbers. they are a statement of our values. i believe the priorities found in this budget are shared by my constituents and reflect the values that we are all proud -- that we can all be proud of. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from georgia

reserves. the gentleman from maryland is recognized. mr. van hollen: thank you, mr. speaker. we keeplarying this mathematical fantasy that somehow the republican budget balances. i just want to turn to an authority, he's the chairman, now chairman of the senate budget committee, and here's what he said last year. quote, one of the problems i've had with budgets that i've looked at is that they use a lot of gimmicks. now when there was an anticipation that obamacare would go away and that all of that money would still be there that's not realistic. i'd like to see us get to a real accounting with the budget. guess what mr. speaker? the affordable care act is still here, the revenue is still here and the republican budget assumes that revenue for the purpose of achieving balance at the same time they're getting rid of the affordable care act. that leaves people's heads spinning and it means the budget is not in balance. i'm now happy to yield two minutes to the gentleman from kentucky a distinguished member of the budget committee, mr. yarmuth.

the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from kentucky is recognized for two minutes. mr. yarmuth: thank you, mr. speaker. i appreciate mr. van hollen yielding. we're talking a lot about gimmicks and even at the conservative financial times said the republicans had to resort to smoke and mirrors to make this budget balance. i want to talk about one of the other tricks that's used. what the republicans' budget uses is they do something called dynamic scoring. which basically allows to you project all sorts of -- probably at least speculative growth based on policies that they would anticipate doing. now, here's a real world example of that. this weekend is the kentucky derby. it would be as if somebody went out and said, i'm going to buy a 2-year-old for $2 million. and then that 2-year-old i'm sure is going to win the kentucky derby, so i'm going to use that $3 million purse that horse is certainly going to win next year and i'm going to plug that in to my budget so my budget comes out ahead. yes, it could happen.

but there's no evidence to believe it will happen. that's one of the ways that this budget reaches so-called balance. there are other macroeconomic effects which we ought to consider, however. as we've mentioned several times, this budget would direct the repeal of the affordable care act. a professional services firm just did an audit of kentucky's experience over the last 14 month, 15 months, with the affordable care act. here's what it said would happen in kentucky over the next six years. $30 billion in increased economic activity, $44,000 -- 44,000 new jobs and a positive impact on the kentucky state budget of $850 million. that's what would be eliminated from kentucky, that's another effect of the republican budget. think about what it might do in other states california, new york, florida in a state like kentucky to have that much impact, the national effect would be very consequential. so aside from all the truly

damaging ways in which this budget effects our economy and our -- affects our economy and our citizens, we have to take note of the fact that there are impacts beyond just the federal budget and this budget would be a disaster for the american economy and the american people. i urge its defeat. . the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from georgia. mr. price: i yield three minutes to a productive and delightful member of our budget committee and a freshman member of our conference the gentleman from michigan. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized recognized. mr. moolenaar: the house and senate will adopt a unified resolution for a balanced budget. the 2016 federal budget resolution will start the guardrails for federal spending

and is a step in the right direction for our country. families in my home state of michigan and across the country tighten their belts when there is a change in household income or expenses and washington needs to do the same. the 2016 budget resolution does not raise taxes on hardworking americans and keeps the promises that have been made to seniors while slowing the soaring national debt, leaving less debt to our children is vital and if we fail to act, debt payments will crowd out spending for the priorities of the american people, including national security and protecting the great lakes. this budget provides for flexibility and gives states the opportunity to innovate on medicaid policy, allowing them to design a safety net that works best for those in need. this will move medicaid further away from marks bureaucrats and closer to the people it was meant to serve. this budget also calls for tax

reform which has the potential to add one million new private sector jobs. the tax code is over 74,000 pages long and was last overhauled 29 years ago. it's time for a pro-h pro growth tax code that is simpler and fairer. this budget addresses our country's fiscal problems in a responsible way and puts a brighter path for our children and grandchildren. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from maryland. mr. van hollen: i'm now pleased to yield three minutes to my friend and colleague from maryland and the distinguished democratic whip, mr. hoyer. the speaker pro tempore: the democratic whip is recognized. mr. hoyer: i rise in opposition to this conference report. written by house and senate

republicans alone. it reaffirms their commitment to a severe and unworkable policy agenda that would harm the economy and stands little chance of being implemented. this budget conference report draws heavily on house republicans' budget framework by eliminating the medicare guarantee, turning medicaid into a cap block grant, limiting pell grants for college students and cutting knew trishon assistance while hiding $1 trillion in additional cuts behind a magic asterisk to be filled in at some time in the future. these props if enacted would be disastrous and i would suspect even most republicans wouldn't vote to make them law and i predict they will not vote to make them law. still many of the proposals

must be taken very seriously. the republican budget report includes reconciliation instructions to fast track to repeal the affordable care act jeopardizing coverage for millions of americans, with no alternative in sight. it continues the republican policy of sequester for nondefense priorities this year, a disinvestment suggestion. and undermining of america. its economy and its quality of life. and further limits our ability to invest in priorities like education, research and infrastructure by $496 billion below sequester levels. -- over the ensuing decade. this is the same sequester policy that the republican chairman of the appropriations committee called, and i quote,

unrealistic and ill conceived. let me repeat that. that's the republican chairman, hal rogers kentucky, of the appropriations committee, said that the policies being pursued in this budget are unrealistic and ill conceived. he's right. and shamelessly they propose to do all of this while exempting defense spending from the sequester caps. defense spending needs to be raised. it ought to be raised honestly and not pretend some slush fund will pay for not contingencies which it is intended to do but regular defense which we need to do. this conference report is essentially a work for fiction. proposal you will debated as a message to the republican base.

so i urge my colleagues to defeat it and instead let us work together in a bipartisan way to replace the unrealistic and ill conceived and i would add -- may have 15 seconds. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. hoyer: replace this unrealistic and ill conceived not my words but representative rogers' words and sequester caps that enables congress to invest in america's future growth and prosperity. that is what our constituents want. that's what we owe them, honesty and responsibility. i hope this resolution is defeated. and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from maryland reserves. the gentleman from georgia is recognized. mr. price: i remind my friend that we look forward to enacting and bringing forward the policies that are incorporating

within this budget and just last night, the armed services committee passed out on a 60-2 vote 60-2 vote policies that are consistent with the spending on the defense area in this budget. i yield to -- i'm pleased to recognize the gentleman from south carolina, who is a wonderfully productive and energetic member of the budget committee, mr. sanford, three minutes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. ms. sanchez: you know, in watching -- mr. sanford: i'm reminded of the saying if you like sausage, don't watch it being made. same is true of the budget process and the legislative process. it is an imperfect process, but what we have here is the house and senate coming together on the budget is something we haven't seen on a long, long

while. we didn't see it while harry reid was running the senate and consequence of the house and senate coming we will go to 11:30 tonight and do that week after week after week going forward. i myself will come down with an amendment on energy and water. i suspect other members in this very chamber will come down with similar amendments saying we need to add something here or subtract something here. and that process of scrubbing the budget is something that has been absent for years. that process is called regular order but regular folks back home would call it common sense because it's what they do every day. vital to running an organization is the ability to go in and say this isn't working over here, i think we need to take from this low performer and it's done in churches, families and businesses and needs to be done in the federal government. as a matter of process is what we have is important for too

long our federal government has been running on automatic pilot. domestic discretionary has been running on automatic pilot as we run on c.r.'s and omnibus bills. you would go bankrupt if you say i take what i spent last year and spend it this year and that's the way the federal government has been running and this budget moves us away from that process. i think it's also important in fairness to my democratic colleagues is this is important from the stand of democracy. when you have a c.r. it is often leadership and staff as opposed to rank and file members going down to the floor saying we need to subtract here or adhere. two different levels. are there still deficiencies? obviously so. when you look at the budget cap issue, if you look at the issue of off-budget, those are

pathways to oblivion. they have to be addressed. the bigger framework that has been set in place by moving in regular order with the house and senate coming together thanks to your leadership is vital and i will be supporting this measure. with that i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from georgia reserves. the gentleman from maryland. mr. van hollen: i yield one minute to the gentleman from massachusetts terrific new member of the budget committee, mr. moulton. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. moulton: i rise today to express my opposition to the republican budget because of the way it treats our nation's veterans. as i have said in the budget committee debate the republican proposal does not provide our past and present service members with the resources they need upon their return. protecting our veterans is not an option. it is our duty.

we owe it to our veterans to provide them with quality health care, education and job training and long-term treatment they have earned through service to our nation. it is more than just a moral obligation, it's also a wise investment in america's future. you know, the greatest generation was not called the greatest generation in 1946. that term didn't come about until the 1990's. so it had as much to do with what our veterans of world war ii did after the war when they came home as what they did in it. to ensure that success for today's veterans, we need to do much better than the republican proposal. as a veteran, i see firsthand that insufficient funding for v.a. programs creates an environment where our veterans fall through the cracks. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for three seconds. mr. moulton: i do not support

throwing money but insufficient funding for the v.a. will only exacerbate this problem. caring for our veterans should be a national priority. the budget before us fails to prioritize our servicemen and women, and i urge my colleagues to vote no. and with that i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from maryland reserves. the gentleman from georgia. mr. price: how much time remains on each side. the speaker pro tempore: 13 1/2 minutes and the gentleman from maryland has 8 1/. mr. price: i yield to a senior member of the budget committee, the gentleman from florida mr. diaz-balart. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for three minutes. mr. diaz-balart: i need to commend and thank chairman price for the hard work inputting this budget resolution together. this is a rare occasion on this floor. been a long time since we had a budget agreement. and it's not an easy thing to

do. as one of the house budget conferees, i can tell you that a lot of work, a lot of difficult choices have to be made and mr. chairman you have done a spectacular job in getting us here to the floor. one of the most important things, mr. speaker, that the budget resolution has is to frankly set the stage so we can move forward on the appropriations process. we need a budget that puts congress and our committees on a path to move forward and this budget resolution does it and it balances the budget within 10 years, and it does so, mr. speaker, without raising taxes. and it's no secret. i believe and many of us believe that the first responsibility of the federal government is to protect the american people and it's no secret that the world around us i think greatly due to the failed foreign policy of this administration is almost in

flames. we see growing instability and growing pressure to our allies and we see the thugs and the enemies of freedom who believe they have a green light. so we must provide for a strong national defense through robust funding of our troops, of their training, equipment and readiness. this budget does so. it accomplishes these goals while staying under the budget control caps. in other words, adhering to the law of the land. it funds the military over the president's request without breaking the law and without raising taxes. again, something that is easier said than done but chairman price has been able to do that. at a time when we see china their growing defense capabilities north korea and iran, north korea already has a nuclear weapons program and iran

is pursuing theirs and growing threats from terrorist groups, let's not forget what our number one priority has to be. this budget resolution reflects our commitment to national security, to the men and women in uniform, to the safety of the american people. it does so, balancing the budget within 10 years and does so without raising taxes. i know it's very easy to be critical and very easy to lecture why this is not perfect. it's been a long time in coming. i'm grateful for the leadership of mr. price, of his counterpart in the senate, chairman enzi and i ask the members of this distinguished body to approve this well thought out, hard negotiated budget that funds our priorities, doesn't raise taxes and even balances within 10 years. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from georgia reserves. the gentleman from maryland is

recognized. >> i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from georgia. mr. price: if i may inquire of my friend if he has any more speakers. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from maryland is recognized. >> i'm pleased to dwreeled -- mr. van hollen: i'm pleased to yield two minutes to the gentlelady from california, ms. lee. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady is recognized for two minutes. ms. lee: thank you, mr. speaker. i want to thank you for your tireless work as our ranking member on the budget committee. it's truly a pleasure to serb with you. a budget is a moral document. a document that really reflects

our values as a nation. unfortunately, budget just does the opposite. mr. speaker once again this congress is poised to take a huge step in the wrong direction. the budget agreement before us is truly a work hard, get less budget that uses accounting gimmicks to balance the budget, once again on the backs of the most vulnerable. it calls for cuts to nondefense discretionary programs funding $496 billion below the already dismal sequestration level. this means further cuts to education, infrastructure, veterans' and health programs that have been eviscerated by slash and burn republican austerity plans. today more than 45 million of our fellow americans are living in poverty this agreement will push more people over the brink. with $300 billion in cuts to snap, our food assistance $431

billion in cuts to medicare, and a half trillion in cuts to medicaid, struggling families will continue to fall further and further behind. we can't forget how these cuts disproportionately affect our communities of color who are more likely to be living in poverty. once many -- once more, this is the latest in the republican fixation on repealing the affordable care act, which they've tried to repeal 50 times. the number of uninsured americans has gone down by 1 million people since the law was eneighted -- enact. why do you want to take health insurance away from 16 million people it continues to use the oco account as a slush fund for pentagon spending. i introduced an amendment in

committee to eliminate the account increase of $36 billion included in the house republican budget. members on both sides of the aisle have criticized oko as an affront to transparency and congress' constitutionally mandated oversight responsibilities. mr. speaker last month we introduced our democratic congressional progressive caucus and congressional black caucus alternative budgets. those budgets reflect real solutions to lift americans out of poverty and support the middle class. i urge my colleagues to oppose this misguided an very cynical agreement that would put us on a path to a greater, unequal america that provides less liberty and less justice for all. it doesn't reflect who we are as a nation. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady's time has expired. the gentleman from georgia is recognized. mr. price: i'm pleased to yield three minutes to a senior thoughtful member of the budget committee, the gentleman from california, mr. mcclintock. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for tree minutes.

mr. mcclintock: i thank the gentleman. with this vote, our nation is about to take its first step away from financial ruin and back to prosperity and solvency. our nation's debt has literally doubled in eight years. now exceeding the size of our entire economy. that debt requires us to make interest payments of $230 billion this year. that's nearly $2,000 from an average family's taxes just to rent the money that we've already spent. on our current path that burden will triple within the decade eclipsing our entire defense budget. medicare and social security will collapse just a few years after that. time is not our ally and the future is not a pleasant place if we continue just a few more years down the road that we've been on. that's why this budget is so important. it changes the fiscal course of our nation slowly pointing us

back toward solvency and prosperity. it restores congressional oversight of an abusive federal bureaucracy. it rescues our health care system from the nightmare of obamacare. it rescues medicare from collapse. it adopts the time tested pro-growth policies that produce the reagan economic recovery and the uns predened prosperity of the 1980's. and if we can implement this budget in 10 years deficits will turn to surpluses and we can begin paying down this rues now debt at a pace that assures that students now in college will retire into a prosperous secure, and debt-free america. it's not perfectful it's not complete. ahead of russ many months of legislating to build a governmental streamlining and reforms it calls for. but if we can set this course and if we can stay this course,

one day in the very near future a new generation of americans can know just how wonderful it is to awaken and realize it's morning again in america. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from georgia reserves. the gentleman from maryland is recognized. mr. van hollen: thank you mr. speaker. i'm pleased to yield one minute to the gentlelady from michigan, another one of our terrific new members of the budget committee ms. din fwell. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady is recognized for one minute. mrs. dingell: thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker the report before us today is deeply flawed. it forces hardworking families to work more and take home less and put ours country on the wrong path. it concerns me that the budget put forth by my republican colleagues does not address the deep, arbitrary and damaging budget cuts we are facing right

now. these caps that are so bad that they were never meant to become law and are now a reality a reality that we're gutting our military anded harming working men and women and their families in multiple ways. the gimmicks and the -- gimmicks in the conference report do nothing to address the long-term structural problems the budget cuts have created at the pemming and they do nothing on the nondefense side to help hardworking families buy a home, send their children to college or enjoy a safe, secure retirement with adequate health care. democrats have a better way a better budget, one that creates greater opportunity for secure future. we need a secure budget and we shouldn't stand for anything less. thank you mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady's time has expired. the gentleman from maryland reserves. the gentleman from georgia is recognized. mr. price: i'm pleased to yield one minute to the distinguished majority leader, the gentleman

from california, mr. mccarthy. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman the majority leader, mr. mccarthy is recognized. mr. mccarthy: i want to take a moment to thank the chairman. he's done a tremendous job. he's brought another budget to the floor that balances but he's done something no one has done in six years. he's brought a bicameral budget. that's something that we shouldn't just take for granted. something that the house and senate couldn't do for quite some time, and your leadership has been tremendous. to my friends on the other side, you make a lot of debate. i look forward to hearing them. i'm thankful this time you have more democrats on the floor than you did a couple of weeks ago, that's helpful. it's helpful for a debate and this is the place we should have it. two weeks ago i was on this floor to talk about our budget. and i said that a budget is a vision for the future. it sets out your priorities but also shows your values. well for the first time in six years, the house and senate have

gotten together, worked out our differences and drafted a bicameral budget. this budget shows america exactly where we stand. with this budget we have a choice before us. do we keep going down our current path or do we change course. our current path adds to the debt. it's stuck in the past. in fact, the budget the democrats offered would never balance. so my question to everybody on the other side of the aisle, and especially to my friend the ranking member, we have a family close in age. we have children. about the same age. so my question to the other side is simply this. how will our kids invest in the future when they're busy paying for our past? the intudget a different course. it says that we will balance the budget and then actually start paying down the debt. it says that it is a more

dangerous world so we'll increase spending for defense. it says we will repeal obamacare, and it says no new taxes. it says that it's time to grow america's economy, not washington's. -- not washington. you know mr. speaker, the future is not about washington. it's not about government trying and failing to solve our problems. while adding more and more debt that our children and grandchildren have to pay. america's future, our 21st century will be built by american people. that's what this budget would do. it's the foundation for a strong american future. and a future even brighter than our past. and i look forward to taking the first steps to that future. and i look forward to not leaving our children, our debt, but leaving them a brighter future where they have greater opportunities. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from georgia reserves. the gentleman from maryland is recognized. mr. van hollen: thank you mr. speaker.

i would say to the republican leader, who mentioned children of america, that if the children of america learn republican math we're going to be in real trouble because they won't be able to count. as the senate republican budget chairman has said this kind of budget approach that claims balance because they take the level of revenue from the affordable care act when at the same time say they're repealing the affordable care act i think most kids can figure out that's a shell game and we're going to be in real trouble if that's the basis of teaching math in our schools, not to mention the fact that we've got a budget here that's squeezing people who are really working hard while providing a green light to tax cuts for people at the very top. that's also not a set of priorities i think that we want to pass on to our children wem

want an economy that works for everybody. an economy where everyone who works hard can get ahead. and i don't see how we're going to get our kids ahead by providing tax cuts to folks at the top while cutting our kids' education and making them pay more for their college loans. that's a recipe for decline. i reserve the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from georgia is recognized. mr. price: i'm pleased to yield two minutes to the distinguished majority whip, the gentleman from louisiana, mr. scalise. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. scalise: thank you, mr. speaker. i want to thank the gentleman from georgia for yielding and for his leadership in bringing this budget to the floor. i want to thank the entire budget committee and conferees for doing the hard work and responsible work of finally focusing on bringing responsibility and fiscal discipline back to washington. if you >> a reminder that you can watch all of this online at c-span.org. we are leaving this now taking

you live to the pentagon to hear from defense secretary ashton carter and others for the annual report on sexual assault in the military done by the pentagon. >> may have ended yesterday, but because of its dangers to our men and women in uniform and its impact on our mission, our commitment to stopping sexual assault cannot cease. as i said last week to local students at georgetown university and sexual assault first responders at fort meyer, one reason the military is among america's most admired institutions is that we're a learning organization. we strive to understand and correct our flaws. and today d.o.d. is releasing our annual report on sexual assault in the military for fiscal year 2014 and i'd like to say a few words about what we learned from the data contained in this report.

about how to understand and correct our flaws and some new actions that we're taking based on those insights. under secretary carson will make doctors and dr. nathan galbreath will give a briefing after this and take your questions. now, while the top line numbers in today's report were included in our report to president obama this past defense, the full analysis gives us much more detail and makes clear where we need to do better and lots tells us how. first, we developed a new and better estimate better how many experienced sexual assault last year. yielding an estimated number of 20,300. that's clearly far far too many. but we judge it is a work

accurate measurement of sexual assault because it is more in line with the range of crimes that military law defines as sexual assault. while the new estimates support our existing trend data on unwanted sexual contact, which the former methodology measured, this new measure will be the one we'll use going forward. second, through the analysis in the report we're getting a clearer picture of how this crime is perpetrated on men. compared to women, men are less likely to report and more likely to experience multiple incidents by multiple offenders. and they're more likely to view the incident as hazing or an attempt to humiliate. third, the survey suggests that 22% of active duty women and 7%

of active duty men may have experienced some form of sexual harassment last year. that's abhorrent and has to stop not just because it's flat out wrong but also because the data show that those who experience sexual harassment are more likely to be sexual assaulted -- sexually assaulted, so we have to better protect permissive behaviors like sexual harassment. fourth, we're not making enough progress on countering retaliation. too many service members the data shows feel that when they report or try to stop these crimes they're being ostracized or retaliated against in some way. in short, the report makes it crystal clear that we have to do more and it gives insights

on how to improve this ongoing campaign to ensure dignity and respect in our institution. as i said at georgetown last week no man or woman who serves in the united states military should ever be sexually assaulted nor should they experience reprisals for reporting such crimes. today i'm issuing four new directives that move us forward in accordance with this data. these directives are based in part upon what we learned in this latea report and each will continue to -- in this latest report and each will continue to eradicate sexual assault from the ranks. for example, based on what we've learned about the lirning between sexual harassment and -- link between sexual harassment and sexual assault, i'm directing the services to update their prevention training to incorporate what we've learned and have that integrated in the training. based on what we're learning

about gender differences, we're also going to look at how to best meet the needs of men and women who are seeking treatment for sexual assault, and based on what we're learning about retaliation, especially from one's peers, i'm directing that we develop a d.o.d.-wide comprehensive strategy to prevent retaliation on behalf of victims of sexual assault on other crimes. to re-emphasize what i said last week, even though sexual assault is a disgrace in any form and happens far too often across our country, it's a particular challenge for us here but our military also has particular strengths in dealing with this problem. we believe in an ethos of honor and trust. we've tackled tough problems

before, and, again we're a learning organization so we'll keep getting smarter we'll keep getting better. we'll keep doing everything we can to beat back sexual assault, and we won't let up. thank you for coming here this afternoon, all of you, and thank you for your interest in this very important subject. >> [inaudible] >> thank you mr. secretary. my name is brad carson. i'm the acting undersecretary for defense and personnel and readiness. i'm greatly appreciative of secretary carter's leadership and his commitment as he just discussed to addressing this critical and challenging issue. as he said, sexual misconduct in any form, whether hazing, sexual assault or rape has no place in our nation's military. nothing is more important to

force readiness than the health and well-being of our service men and women and their families. in my new role as the acting undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, i am deeply and very personally committed to identifying and eradicating any environment within our military where sexual misconduct is tolerated condoned or negligently overlooked by military leaders. and doing so from the highest to the lowest unit levels. today with the release of the 2014 report, we have an important opportunity to look at what where we stand compared to previous years' statistics and discuss, also, where we need to be. over the past decade the department has dedicated substantial resources and energy to better understanding the issue of sexual assault and implementing crucial reforms such as developing professional and effective training curriculums, skills and personnel to run response and prevention programs across the

world. these programs are all available to service members and provide immediate crisis, medical, behavioral and legal health services and legal services to military victims of sexual assault. much work has been done on this issue in the last few years. the military operates today in compliance with 54 sexual assault-related initiatives, promulgated by secretary carter and his predecessors. over 100 sexual assault-related provisions of law enacted by congress and we grabble with the implementation of over 150 recommendations from federal oversight bodies including the government accountability office, the response system to sexual assault adult crimes panel, the judicial proceedings panel and the u.s. commission on civil rights. together since 2012, these actions have fundamentally improved the department's response to the crime of sexual assault. we now have many options in place to help victims report

sexual assaults, seek assistance and services for their health and safety, understand their legal rights and options and maintain their privacy, if they so choose. many of these program elements did not exist as recently as even three years ago. these efforts have yielded progress in our fight against sexual assault as dr. gal breath will further describe, we'll continue to see an unprecedented increase in the reporting of sexual assault from victims. which suggests, which suggests growing confidence in the department's response system. and estimates indicate overall occurrences of the crime have decreased since 2012. with that said there are still far too many instances of sexual assault in the military, and we have a long way to go to eliminate the crime from within the ranks. but we do need to build on our current progress as we continue to work on the problem areas.

i share particularly the secretary's concern about retaliation and ostracism so often associated with reporting of sexual assault. this is an area where we need to dig deeper and learn more so we can better address these experiences. just related to sexual assault but for the protection of all our people courageously reporting wrongdoing. there are already some efforts under way to address retaliation, and as you have heard, secretary carter's directing me and the secretaries of the military departments to take additional actions squarely focused on this one problem. and i am up for the challenge in my new role. as i mentioned upfront, there's been an unprecedented focus on this issue for the past several years and has led to meaningful progress. there is much more work still to be done. looking ahead, we'll remain prevention focused and continue an uncompromising commitment to victim care. personally, i intend to sustain the high level of leadership

focus and attention that this issue so demands. as we build on the progress we have seen. our men and women in uniform deserve nothing less. dr. nathan galbreath of the sexual assault prevention office will take you through slides to discuss details of the report released today and he'll stand by to answer your questions as well. thank you. dr. galbreath. nathan galbreath: good afternoon. my name's nate galbreath and i serve as the senior subject matter advisor in the sexual assault prevention response office. i'm a clinical psychologist who treated both victims and perpetrators of sexual assault and have also served as a criminal investigator and a forensics specialist for the air force office of special investigations. our office director, major general jeff snow, would be here to brief you today except that he's attending to a family emergency and our thoughts and prayers are with him and his family during this very

difficult time. the report that we're releasing today fulfills an annual requirement to provide congress with the number of reports of sexual assault that we've received that involves service members, the dispositions or outcomes of those reports and the progress that we've made in improving sexual assault, prevention and response. in conjunction with the release of the report, the secretary of defense has improved our efforts in eradicating this crime from the military and i'll asks those in more detail in just a moment. as secretary carter and mr. carson indicated, this report -- this year's report is a bit different from previous years' annual reports. as you may rekale, this past december we delivered a report to the president documenting our progress in combating sexual assault in the military. that report covered a three-year period. today's report provides greater detail in covering our efforts in f.y. 2014. new today are follow-up analysis from the 2014 survey conducted for us by the rand

corporation and top line results of the survey were released along with the report to the president last december and showed that past year prevalence of unwanted sexual contact is down significantly for active duty women since 2012 and trending downwards for men. as a reminder, unwanted sexual contact is the proxy measure we've been using to estimate the prevalence of sexual assault since 2006. now, while it's important for us to be ability to -- able to link to prior survey findings on this measure, we also asked rand to check our methods to ensure we're surveying military personnel in the most effective way possible. as a result, rand also included in the 2014 survey a new measure of sexual assault developed by experts to better align with language in military law. the new measure found a similar top line prevalence estimate for sexual assault as our prior estimate but also found some meaningful new insights which are detailed in a follow-up report being released by them alongside ours today. also in the report is a status

on our efforts to implement legislation, policy initiatives and recommendations from oversight bodies. lastly, the report looks -- provides the final f.y. 2014 reporting data. these numbers will look familiar to you because we reported them last december. however, we've since gone through and validated our data which has resulted in some minor adjustments. we know our reports contain a lot of information, largely because we're doing a lot to combat this crime, but i want to boil some of the messages down for you here. overall occurrences of sexual assault against military members have decreased significantly since 2012. as you all know, sexual assault is a very underreported crime. as a result, we implemented a number of policies to encourage greater reporting by victims as victims who report the crime are more likely to engage care. in it addition, reporting is the only means by which we have to identify those who commit the crime and then hold those offenders appropriately accountable. these policies appear to be

working as we've experienced an unprecedented increase in reports of sexual assault over the past two years. our final statistics for f.y. 2014 indicate that number of reports we received this year are 11% over what we received last year and 70% over what we received in 2012. we now estimate receiving a report of sexual assault from about one in four military victims. up from one in 10 military victims in 2012. we're also making progress in holding offenders appropriately accountable. with d.o.d. authorities taking disciplinary action against 76% of military subjects this past year. now, that reflects a 3% change than what we reported last december which was about 73%. but once again, through data validation process we found additional cases and included them in the numbers. on the other hand, our surveys have not shown progress in

reducing the number of victims who perceived some form of retaliation associated with reporting this crime. but i want to point out that our goal in asking about retaliation on surveys is to better assess victim well-being and the stress they encounter. this important feedback is making our program much stronger, and i have a bit more to say about that in just a moment. analysis of the 2014 survey supported previous findings on the association of sexual harassment and gender association with sexual assault. specifically, those who indicated experiencing sexual harassment under gender association are also more likely to experience a sexual assault. that's information that we've had for some time but the rand report and the analysis thereof has refreshed that data and provided us additional information about those relationships. the survey also identified important differences in how sexual assault is perpetrated against men and women. men that have experienced a sexual assault are more than -- more likely than women to describe the event as hazing

and nonsexual. these and other findings help improve our treatments efforts with men. once again these findings underscore important connections between unit climate and sexual assault. this is why many of our prevention efforts have focused on giving commanders the tools they need to assess their unit climates and promote solutions that respect the contory bigses of -- contributions of all. i'd like to provide you highlights of the 2014 survey and some new follow-up analysis conducted by the rand corporation. by the wade, rand corporation is going to be available to -- by the way, rand corporation is going to be available to answer any questions you may have because i will only sketch the highlights. the survey conducted last summer contained two measures to estimate the past year prevalence of sexual assault. the first measure, unwanted sexual contact, is the survey question the department has used since 2006 to estimate the number of military victims of

sexual assault. and using that measure, there were an estimated 4.3% of women and .9% of men on active duty who experienced some form of unwanted sexual contact in 2014. now, based on those rates, we can do population estimates and that number we estimate is about 18,900 active duty members experiencing unwanted sexual contact in the 12 months prior to being surveyed. both the rates and the population estimates are down significantly over what was measured in 2012 as well as what was measured in 2006. a second measure to estimate the past year prevalence of sexual assault was also included in the survey last summer. this new measure developed by crime survey experts, military attorneys and status citieses was designed to better align with the sexual assault

offenses in military law. now this found similar top line estimates of sexual assault with 4.9% of women and 1% of men indicating they experienced a sexual assault in the past year. these rates are not statistically different than the rates of sexual assault estimated with the prior measure of unwanted sexual contact. like the prior measure this new measure also shows risk of sexual assault is five times greater for women than men. however, because there are significantly more men in the military than women, the estimated number of active duty men who indicated experienced a sexual assault last year outnumbers the estimated number of active duty women. there's some other important findings with regard to how the experience in the sexual assault in the military differs by gender. men who are assaulted are more likely to experience multiple incidents in the past year, be assaulted by multiple offenders

during work or duty hours, describe the event as hazing or intended to abuse or humiliate them as opposed to having some sexual intent. experience physical threats or injuries during a penetrative assault. however, men are less likely than women to experience a sexual assault that involves alcohol use or tell anybody about the event or file a report. these findings have important implications for our training, for our prevention and our treatment efforts as well. just for a brief review, let's look at those two survey measures side by side. ok. all total there were an estimated 20,300 active duty members who indicated experiencing a sexual assault in 2014 using the rand measure. while the prior measure and the new measure seem to yield slightly different top line population estimates those estimates are within margins of error of each other and are not different statistically, and

you'll note since december the population estimates have been refined slightly. but i also want to illustrate to you that the number of sexual assaults in the report being released today is about 148 more than what we reported back in december, largely due to our data validation. >> what do you mean by data validation? nathan galbreath so in order to develop those -- to get those numbers, we basic leaf took a 30-day -- six-month process and scrunched it to 30 days. as we went back and revalidated each of the reports we came in, there were additional 148 reports that we were able to include in this year's report. we also asked rand to update our sexual harassment measure to better align with law and department policy. rand estimated that about 22% of active duty women and 7% of active duty men experienced sexual harassment last year. now, while these estimates are

report in and of themselves, they take on new importance with regard to their relationship with sexual assault. these findings further validate the existence of a continuum of harm in which sexual harassment and sexual assault coexist and serve to reinforce each other. something we described more fully in our d.o.d. prevention strategy that we leased by the secretary a -- released by the secretary a year ago. please keep in mind that one may not cause the other. sexual harassment may not cause sexual assault, but these problems are both closely related and highly correlated. i'd now like to briefly outline some of the other work that we've been doing to improve sexual assault prevention and response. since 2012 congress has passed 71 sections of law containing more than 100 unique requirements in national defense authorization acts. and we've been working to implement all of those. in that same time period, the secretary of defense has directed 54 initiatives to improve sexual assault

programs, including four new initiatives today. last spring, the response systems to adult sexual assault crimes panel released their final report and in that congressionally directed panel, they made recommendations to response and the military justice system. now, while we've made a great deal of progress in these and other efforts, we still have much to do especially with regard to victim perceptions of retaliation associated with reporting a sexual assault. when the president directed us to provide him a report in december threen, we developed a list of -- 2013, we developed a list of metrics to help demonstrate our progress. now, we chose to track retaliation because it's something that we never want a victim to face after reporting a sexual assault. we elected to measure retaliation in three days through a trend measure from prior surveys through our new

survivor experience survey and through climate surveys of our military units. these sources allowed us to get a better overall picture of survivor experiences reporting the crime. now, unfortunately our surveys of the population did not demonstrate progress in this area. while our military members generally gave high marks to their unit leadership for establishing climates that would welcome reporting, far too many respondents to the 2014 rand survey indicated perceiving some retaliation associated with their report and this was echoed on our survivor experience survey where survivors indicated they received support from their commander but that support tended to wain as they dealt with people lower down the chain of command. it's important to note however, that survey responses should not be reviewed as an indicator of actionable offenses under military law. in other words, there are other elements of proof that go into it and evidence that must be gathered in order to establish whether or not an offense has

occurred. however, we use our survey data in order to assess victim well-being and to determine methods to better support them. now, since the department delivered the report -- delivered the report to the president, we've been working very hard to get -- to learn more about retaliation. however, the date i.t.a. we gathered from sur-- data we gathered from surveys did not allow us a visibility into the problem that we needed. as a result, we're going to revise our survey measure and we're going to improve the way we ask this question to better align with law and department policy. much like the approach that rand took in designing the new measures for sexual assault and sexual harassment. so what are we doing about this? following the report to the president, secretary hagel directed that we he hans the training we give to soup advisors of our service members in order to identify and better address measures that could be retaliatory. another initiative directed by the secretary following the december report was for the

services to engage command to prevent retaliation. now, we're doing this through our case management groups. now you may not know but each month installation commanders in their role as the chair of the case management group are asking about retaliation experienced by victims, first responders and by bystanders that might have tried to intervene. those commanders in their role as the chair of those groups are referring these allegations to the proper authority, whether they be the services inspector general, military equal opportunity office or the unit commanders. having commanders ask regularly about retaliation demonstrates our resolve to protect victims and others in our response system and let's everyone know this behavior has no place in the military. now, last february, secretary hagel issued a third initiative to address retaliation. this directive brings all stakeholders within the department together that addresses retaliation as well as identify mecknesms for

commanders to address this behavior in their units and this initial philadelphia also includes a focus on retaliation carried out through social media as well. however, as you heard from secretary carter, we must do more to prevent retaliation. therefore the secretary is ordering us to develop a strategy to prevent retaliation associating with reporting any crime, not just sexual assault. this last initiative joins three others that are being released today, and i'll tell you more about those in the text above. first, the secretary is directing that the services capture lessons learned from the 2014 survey and incorporate those findings in their sexual assault prevention response training. second we'll evaluate our current treatments for men and women seeking care for sexual assault to make sure it reflects gender differences. it will inform providers to address the specific needs of men and women in treatment. third, we'll be employing a common across the department to

determine the prevalence of sexual assault and sexual harassment. this strategy will follow a number of recommendations made to us by the rand corporation as well as the law that requires us -- requires us to conduct our surveys every two years. it's important for us as a department to speak with one voice on this topic. however, in offyears similar to what we do at military service academies, we'll be conducting forcewide focus groups to identify emerging trends and follow up on matters captured in our biennial surveys. it was my intention today to give you a snapshot of our efforts to combat sexual assault as well as demonstrate progress that we're making in implementing the over 200 provisions of law, the directives and recommendations to the department. this unprecedented leadership focus has resulted in an improved understanding of the problem and how it impacts the military. i just kind of like to share with you a personal note on -- an observation that i have. when i joined sapro in 2007, we were barely receiving 1,500

reports of sexual assault a year. this year we received 6,131 almost 3 1/2 times as many. more reporting connects victims with needed care and services. it helps them heal from their -- this terrible crime and helps them restore their lives. even with the increase in reporting, though, by service members, sexual assault remains underreported and we encourage any service member who's experienced a sexual assault to choose a reporting option that's right for them, to make a report and get the help that they need and as you might know, service members can talk to someone about sexual assault by calling the safe help line at 1-877-995-5247, and can find their nearest sacc i go being to www.safehelpline.org. i'd be happy to answer any questions you might have. >> dr. galbreath, i don't

understand the disparities there were fewer assaults but more reports, nathan galbreath: what we're talking about is two different sources of data. reduction in the prevalence of crime. in other words, our estimate of how often the crime occurs. and that's the -- that's the numbers that we came out with, the 18,900, or the 20,000. that's how many we think are out there. however, as far as the numbers of reports that actually come in and -- of people that make a report to us that number has increased by 70% in the past two years. so people walking through the door making a restricted or unrestricted report has increased by that much and it's an all-time high this year. >> so there were -- it's fair to say from 2012 to 2014 there were more instances in the u.s. military there were more sexual assaults? nathan galbreath: i'm not saying that. the incidents that you're

talking about have come down since 2012 while the number of reports of that have come up. we track both numbers because this top number even though it's the top number is like our denominator and how many of that got reported and that's our numerator, those are the reports that come in. >> i'm sorry. what was the actual number that used the 5131? nathan galbreath: 5131 reports. >> that's up from 30-something? nathan galbreath: that's up from last year. last year the number was 11% less than that. i don't have the number right off the top of my head but we can get that for you. >> i can get that. thanks. nathan galbreath you bet. >> hi. just to follow up on courtney's question. could you walk us through how you estimate the top line number? how do you get maybe for every report you receive there's four you don't have out there. so how do you know there's about 20,000 sexual assaults and yet only about 6,000

reported? nathan galbreath: ok. so how we do that is through the survey that rand conducted for us last summer. and what we did is we asked all that -- there were about 560,000 people invited to take this survey. we had about 170,000 respondents, about a 30% response rate, which is very good. and in -- out of those respondents we asked them if they experienced a sexual assault by using the questions that rand had developed for us as well as that unwanted sexual contact question. these are measures and they don't ask, did you experience a sexual assault last year? that's not what these things ask. the questions are behaviorally based. they list off behaviors. for example, did anyone force you to place their penis -- did anyone force their penis in your mouth anus or vagina? they're very clear language to make sure they understand what we're talking about.

and based on that and other vy tearia, rand was able to calculate an estimate rate for how many people said yes, that happened to me in this last year. so using the rand new measure 4.9% of women indicated that they experienced a sexual assault in 2014. and about 1% of men indicated that, yes, i experienced a sexual assault in 2014. now, that percentage those are important percentages. oftentimes we wonder, how many people does that account for? and so when we go and we use those -- the number of people in the military, because these surveys are done representively. in other words, the results are weighted to represent the entire force. when we calculate the number of people that 4.9% represents, that's about 8,600 or so women and when we calculate the number of men -- as a matter of fact, crystal, can you bring up

the slide? one more. one more. one more. keep going. right here. so when we calculate how much this percentage account how many women this percent accounts for, we get this number here, about 9,600. when we estimate how many men does 1% of our active force account for, it's about 10,600. we add those two together to get the 20,300, more or less, due to rounding, it's a little bit different here. and that's our denominator. and then we measure the number of service member reports that we get. now, this number of service member reports we get are at an all-time high as well but our numbers include that 61-31 includes civilians that reported to us that they experienced a crime. but because i do an apples to apples comparison here, i factor out those reports and i look at how many service

victims made a report to me versus how many service members i think are out there. to my number -- that's where i get my estimate of about one in four victims of sexual assault make a report to the department versus what it was in 2012 which is about one in 10. >> based on it, the number of assaults in the military is actually dropping? nathan galbreath: yes. >> it includes civilians. can you give some sense of how -- what percentage of civilians? nathan galbreath: about a quarter involve civilians who made a report to the department. that is our task from congress is to report to them not only the sexual assaults experienced by victims in the military but also sexual assaults that may have been perpetrated by members of the military as well. and so that -- that might include some civilian victims and that's what we count in our data. >> can you just describe a little bit more, who are these civilians? these are contractors?

nathan galbreath: these could be people in the local community. they could be foreign nationals. they could be anyone that comes in contact with a military perpetrator. >> from "usa today." can we talk a little bit about the retaliation issue? so it's about 2/3 of women who report, is that right? nathan galbreath: of the women on the survey who indicated that they experienced a sexual assault in the past year and made a report to the department, to a d.o.d. authority, about 2/3 of those women indicated that they experienced some form of retaliation associated with that report. >> ok. so for years we heard there is zero tolerance for sexual assault. this would indicate that message isn't getting through to a lot of people, right? if they're retaliating against someone who has brought forth a report. nathan galbreath: keep in mind, this takes time. ultimately what i would tell you is last year we did some focus groups with people to ask them, what do you think is anything changed in the --

since you've been in the service? as a matter of fact, we asked this of our most senior enlisted folks and some senior officers in our focus groups. do you see any kind of -- do you notice any change to how things are happening and what they said is, yes, absolutely. it's night and day how we communicate about this and how we address this in our units. there might always be one or two people that disregard that and, remember, one jerk in the department -- in a unit can cause a lot of problems. but ultimately we're giving people the tools to assess the climate, to understand what they can do to solve the problem and also to -- and also to hold people appropriately accountable. >> it sounds if 2/3 of the people who are reporting this are being retaliated against, it's more than a jerk or two? nathan galbreath: here's the deal, that number, like i said in my comments, that's not necessarily -- those aren't necessarily incidents of retaliation. those are perceptions of our victims that have taken the survey, that they perceive things -- they might have been

retaliated against. i've treated victims of sexual assault. i will tell you after you experience trauma the world is a much darker place and you begin to see things a little bit differently than you did before. in order for things to be -- actual retaliation episode to be established there's perceptions is just one element. the thing that the complaint that might come in. but there's additional evidence that must be gathered and other elements of proof such as intent of the person and things along those lines to establish that. that's why i said that our surveys, 62% there should not be taken these are reports of retaliation. this is not the case. these are things we asked for their perceptions so we can better assess their well-being. but there's a lot more needed in order to get after that. >> on retaliation, with 10,600 men, i realize it's a much smaller percentage, still a fairly -- a larger number of men than women experiencing

sexual assaults under the methodology. why on a separate slide did you say -- have an asterisk saying the men perceiving retaliation is not reportable? why is that the case? nathan galbreath: that's a statistical issue. with the number of people that fit in that category, when the margins are too wide we can't report out the result. men did experience -- we know that men did experience some retaliation but we just didn't have enough confidence in the result. in other words, if i tell you that it's a certain point and the margin says it could be 30 points below or 30 points above, i can't report that out. >> why is it different for men than women? nathan galbreath: largely for the men -- keep in mind of the men who experience a sexual assault, very small numbers report. and one very small numbers report, very few may have experienced that retaliation afterwards. and so there's great variability.

>> follow up on the question again and please forgive me about the statistics. 6,131 sexual assaults reported in 2014. that's an 11% increase, correct? nathan galbreath: yes. over f.y. 2013. >> ok. how do you get to conclude there have been fewer sexual assaults? nathan galbreath: so a lot of people think that the number of reports of sexual assault equals how many incidents occur every year and that's a mistake. that's what we mean by it's underreported. it occurs much more often than it's ever reported and that's true both in the military and in the civilian population as well. so a public -- we adopted a public health approach in 2010 that basically married up surveying for prevalence, surveying how often it occurs and matching that to how often it's ever reported. and the reason why we do that

is -- as a matter of fact we used that not only for sexual assault, we use it for influenza, all other sorts of public health problems. we do that because we need to know what do we think how bad could this problem be versus how much of it are we seeing in our reports. people come in and tell us about. and what we're saying is that we have always kind of -- which have' been able to estimate the number of occurrences through these surveys, and that's that 20,000-some that we think that are out there versus the number of reports that come in and we want to improve, increase the number of people that report this. because what research says is that when you bring more people in when they come and report, they're more likely to engage care and services and get that restorative help that they need in order to heal. >> so the actual reports have gone up?

nathan galbreath: the actual reports have gone up. but the -- >> estimates are that it's going down? nathan galbreath: you got it. that's exactly right. >> the 61-31, that does not include any harassment, right? nathan galbreath: that's right. >> hi. lee martinez of abs. the 19,000 number is -- lee martinez of "abc news." the 19,000, what's the break down of the 26,000 by gender? nathan galbreath: the 26,000 by gender it was -- stand by. that's last year's numbers. the -- very similar in breakdown. i believe it was -- you know what i'm going to have to get back to you on that. i just -- i can't recall that right off the top of my head but it's a very similar breakdown to what i had before. i apologize. >> and the perception of males this is hazing, does that point

to institutional pattern here as opposed to behavior culture where this permeates and continues on? nathan galbreath: you know, i don't have that information. we're asking rand to do us some additional analysis on that but i just don't have that breakdown beyond what they were able to get for us as far as whether they thought it's hazing or intent to abuse or humiliate. >> i have one last one. the numbers between 2012 and 2013 there was a significant jump. could you just talk a little bit about why the reasons why there was such a jump? nathan galbreath: i wish i could tell you but we do believe that it's a lot to do with our policies that are encouraging people to come forward. like i said, one of the things we put in place in 2005 was restricted reporting which allows people to come in and engage care and services but not initiate a criminal investigation.

and what we were finding is that people would rather suffer in silence rather than come forward and sometimes, you know subject themselves to the legal system. so experts told us we needed that confidential reporting and so we put that together. in addition, what i would also tell you is that it's the senior leadership focus i think has a great deal to do with it. like i said, before 2012, what i would tell you is we worked very hard in the sexual assault prevention office to put policies in place but one of the things what was amazing, when mr. panetta put this on his calendar it just energized everyone and the senior leaders started talking about it every single day. i'm sure you heard every secretary of the military service and chief on -- in the military talk about sexual assault and that never happened before. people hear that and they say, these people -- i have more confidence in it because people

are talking about it and they're inviting me to come and make that report and we think that has everything to do with it. >> thanks, everybody. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> a reminder, too, you can read the pentagon's annual report on sexual assault in the military. we've linked it on our website at c-span.org. from the baltimore sun this afternoon, the six baltimore police officers involved in the arrest of freddie gray who died last month after being injured in police custody have been charged criminally. states attorney -- state's attorney mosby and the mayor five of the six officers charged are in custody. she made that announcement within the hour. when that announcement was made shortly thereafter on capitol hill on the house floor, bobby rush, congressman from illinois, came out to speak about the indictments. want to show you that and also some of the comments from

potential 2016 presidential candidate, jeb bush. the chair recognizes the gentleman from illinois mr. rush, for 30 minutes. mr. rush: i ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. rush: i want to thank you mr. speaker. within the last hour or so, there was a decision by the baltimore city state's attorney mosley, in the investigation of the death of freddie gray a black man who died under

questionable circumstances. circumstances that kind of made us all wonder where the truth lies circumstances that cause young people and others to take to the streets across this nation, circumstances that brought into a sharp, bright light. the question of justice in america the question of police misconduct in america the

question of mayhem in america, the question of poverty in america the question of violence in america. freddie gray's murder, freddie gray's death and the question of circumstances around his death brought into sharp relief all these issues of race and living in an urban center. . brought into sharp relief. since the years or more of determined, callous

disinvestment in our urban areas years or more of joblessness bad schools bad housing bad health care. 50 years of hopelessness. but in the last few minutes, mr. speaker, this brilliant young, courageous african-american woman baltimore city state attorney marilyn mosby made a decision and she kded that -- decided that, yes, notwithstanding all the differences of opinion, to

change stories, the moving target, notwithstanding all of these things are happening, she decided that freddie gray was murdered. freddie gray was murdered. and that she would indict the police officers who were responsible. and by indicting the baltimore city police officers who were responsible for mr. gray's murder, she made a giant enormous step for justice, for

young people, young african-american men and women young people who live in our urban areas. by her decision today, just a few moments ago, she has done this nation an invaluable service. especially for young people. especially for the african-american and other minority youth. these young people have for decades now yearned nor justice -- for justice as it relates to police misconduct, police brutality and yes police murder.

this new standard for justice is a standard that now transcends baltimore transcends even the entire state of maryland it transcends and reaches to other points all across this nation. ferguson, new york city, chicago, cleveland, other places all throughout this country. mr. speaker, as an african-american male who represents the south side of the city of chicago i know firsthand about police

misconduct, police mayhem and police murder. i must say madam speaker mr. speaker that in my 68 years living mostly in the city of chicago, i have never seen the wheels of justice move so profoundly, so pointedly and so purposefully as i have witnessed with baltimore city's state attorney marilyn mosby's action. she's raised all kinds of

standards. for all of us who fight for justice, who want to see justice delivered in the true american way who want to see an end to all the machinations and excuses and turning away, closing our eyes to police misconduct in our urban areas, this wonderful, courageous young city states attorney has raised the standard for prosecutors all across our

great nation. she's raised the standards for mayors and chiefs of police and other law enforcement officials . she's raised the standard for even those who are in this body . opening our minds, open our eyes and see the truth. let me just say right now mr. speaker, that the police officers of this nation, the overwhelming majority of them are good hardworking defenders of the community. they're not law breakers, they're there to serve and protect and we honor them and we lift them up.

but there's a few who think that they can get away with all kinds of illegal actions just because they can get away with it. because the system has a tendency and a habit of protecting even those who violate not only the laws of this nation but the spirit of the laws of this nation. these laws that keep this nation together, these laws that make us have an identity as one nation under god, indivisible with liberty and

justice for all, these police officers, this minority of those on the urban police forces across this nation, these are the ones that abrogate the constitution, short circuit our constitution, short circuit our quest for justice, our appeal for justice and our right for justice. short circuit those just for their thrill of the moment. can you imagine mr. speaker, being handcuffed and leg cuffed laying down face down in the back of a paddy wagon

driven recklessly determined by those police officers who were driving, who had him in custody, to maim, harm brutalize him. tossed about because of sudden stops. you are in the back of a pady

wagon handcuffed, legcuffed and these police officers getting a thrill out of tossing you around in a sealed encased paddy wagon. not caring about the broken parts of your body that might occur, not caring about whether you really lived or died. -- whether you really lived or died. not really caring about the oath that they were sworn to when they were hired and when they took that oath to serve and protect. all those things became secondary to their thrill seeing how much havoc and harm

they can cause to this black man in baltimore. yeah they thought they would get away with it. that no one would even think to question their decisions their thrill seeking. their conduct. but thank god there is a woman in baltimore who said to them to all the police officers who are like minded such as them, said to the nation no more no

more. not this time. you're going to be indicted and you're going to be charged. and that's the way it is. grieving mothers mr. gray's mother, his father, his relatives, his loved ones his friends his neighbors will know there will be justice for freddie gray. i said in chicago there will be justice for freddie gray. from this nation's borders,

young people are rejoicing now that there is soon to be justice for freddie gray. mr. speaker, ms. mosby's actions, her courage, her dedication her commitment her decisiveness has spoke to an ideal that's creating this movement for justice all across this nation. she's very clearly and profoundly and without hesitation spoken to all of us

to this nation. her actions have shouted it out that black lives do matter that that black lives do matter. that all lives in america matters and that black lives matters also. thank jeb bush: it's important to reflect that a young man died. this is not just a statistic a young man died. secondly a lot of people lost their lyelyhoods buzz of this. allowing the riots to happen was disturbing. i do think that public safety is

the first priority for any city or any government jurisdiction, in this case. a lot of people are going to suffer because of what happened. hopefully order is going to be restored. thirdly, i just say, i think it sends the wrong signal not to have a baseball game with people in it. i think we need to recognize that life doesn't just get paralyzed when tragedies occur. you can't allow that to happen because it might create more of them. so now now that i've got that out of the way, i do think the tendency, particularly on the left is to blame, create a set of reasons why this happens. and the president's view on this, i thought he started pretty well by talking about they had one sentence in his response about the decline of families in urban core america and i think that is absolutely true.

but there's much broader issues that go along with this. the pathologies that are being built of people that are stuck in poverty, where you're born poor today and are more likely to stay poor. we need to deal with this and i believe conservatives have the better approach. his approach is to say conservatives haven't offered up enough money to get me to be able to create programs to let people be successful. well, at what point do go past? $10 trillion? $1 trillion a year? at what point do you have to conclude that the top-down driven poverty programs have failed. i think we need to be engaged in this debate as conservatives and say there's a bottom up approach, it starts with building capacity so people can achieve earned success. having higher expectations, higher accountability and dramatically different kinds of schools, and the kinds of things that will yield a chance for families to be able to survive in a really difficult time. here's the big challenge i

think, for people born in poverty today. if you're born poor today, by the time you reach 18, it's possible you'll never have a job in your entire life. i mean that's the world we're moving toward. dramatic disruptive technologies, putting the first rung on the ladder higher and higher and higher. if we don't get this right, we're going to have an america that is radically different than what created its greatness. and the ability for people to rise up, i think will be challenged in ways we can't even imagine. so you know, having this conversation in the broader sense, i think, is probably not appropriate completely today. i hope conservatives don't feel compelled to pull back. we don't need to be defensive. it's the fail prod agressive policies, i think, that we need to address. we need to offer compelling alternatives to it. >> let me circle back on the rioting, specifically. you're not running for any

municipal office but mayor giuliani said the approach is the first person who throws the rock gets arrested. jeb bush: the broken window policy has been proven successful. you don't have to take it to the eblings dream of police brutality but there needs to be a certainty of punishment that creates order and security. who are the people who get hurt by this? it's the shop owner. it's the person who now may lose their job in a business that can't reopen. it's the nursing home. it's the church. these are people, this is the community that, you know, creates the vie brancy to allow for these communities to be successful are always hurt the most in these kinds of -- kinds of events. i think the mayors record when he was mayor of new york, creating this strategy with the police department was the right one. >> reaction@th -- today to the

indictment of six police officers in the death of freddie gray. a tweet from hakeem jeffries, congressman from new york, saying a step toward justice in the death of freddie gray. from justin amash, thankful that the process of justice has begun for freddie gray and his family. those we entrust to protect us must never be allowed to abuse power. this morning in new jersey, prosecutors say a guilty plea by a former ally of new jersey governor chris christie is providing some answers about a politically motivated scheme to close lanes on the george washington bridge two years ago. that came after governor christie spoke this morning about jobs, the economy, and his ideas for entitlement and tax reform, education and immigration. he was speaking at a breakfast hosted by business and technology groups in northern virginia.

governor christie: thank you. thank you all very much. thank you. gary announced that i gave him permission to go off script, i turned to congresswoman -- to the congresswoman and said, who am i to tell people not to go off script? can't be a hypocrite up here. so thank you all for inviting me. i'm happy to be back and i want to thank bobby billberg and all the people here -- bobby killburg and all the people here at nvtc for giving me the chance to come back and talk about issues that are facing our country right now and get the time to take some of your questions, which i enjoy doing the most. let's start with the group of folks i'm in front of this morning and this region. this is obviously an extraordinarily important region in our country's future.

the technology industry here has provided an extraordinary amount of economic growth and jobs, great innovation for our citizens, and extraordinary promise for the future if -- if -- we decide to get our country moving in the right direction, do the things we need to do. this region, of course, over time, has become completely interwoven with the government. we understand that. but we also know that there has to be continued really robust growth of the private sector to make sure that we don't have any region this or any other one, become completely dependent upon government for your economic growth your economic vitality. it needs to be a partnership and a partnership that works, but that partnership is driven best when it's the private sector driving growth, driving innovation and then can offer that innovation and those ideas

to government as a way to improve the services that government provides. to the folks that we serve each and every day. and so i would urge you to continue to push the government to do the things we all know commonsense dictates but that all too often are left by the side of the road in the political carping and sniping that goes on most particularly in our nation's capital but -- capitol but every once in a while in state capitols as well, like mine. i met one gentleman this morning who has a business in new jersey and told me that he was a beneficiary of some of the tax incentive and tax credit programs that we put into place and he told me that it literally saved his company and that they're now growing and they're hiring and that's the kind of partnership i'm talking about. a partnership that frees up your ideas and your hard work to be

able to succeed through the initial challenging times to be able to grow and expand and that helps every person in new jersey, not only the ones who wind up working there but also the broader community that benefits from that company's involvement in the community philanthropic activity, and the money that they provide in salary and benefits helps to strengthen the fabric of our state and its people. by making them feel good when they come home at night from a good-paying job that brings meaning to their lives. to be able to provide for their spouse and for their children. and to be able to, for them also to be an active, involved member of the community. all of this is interconnected. and there are times that i grow frustrated about the fact that many leaders in government don't see the obvious things that need

to be done in order to take advantage of the extraordinary resources we have in this country, most particularly our human resources. to be able to make our country grow and be a better, more prosperous place. i saw this in new jersey firsthand through the type of policies that we now have seen in washington over the last six years. between 2000 and 2009 in new jersey we raised taxes and fees at the state level alone 115 times. 115 times. and what were the results of that policy? also we grew spending by 56% at the state level. over those eight years. what happened as a result? new jersey had a jobless decade. that period of time we grew netzero private sector jobs. and that was during a period of

time in that eight years when we did have national growth. coming out of 9/11, prior to the recession of 2008. yet new jersey did not benefit from any of that. why didn't we benefit? because we put in policies at the state level that raised taxes, that increased spending, that extended regulations to all these new areas and that made new jersey a place that became more expensive to do business more onerous to do business and as a result people voted and they voted with their feet. businesses left. or just decided they didn't want to take the risk that went along with growing a business in that type of environment. that's why in the five years now since we came into office, we've grown 175,000 new private sector jobs.

now some people may say, well that's good but not great. i'd like to do better too. but in light of the fact that we had nearly 10 years of zero private sector job growth, we're fairly happy with the fact that we, our policies have been able to push that forward. how have we done it? first of all, we've done it by reducing government spending significantly. in our state. think about this. in the budget i just proposed for fiscal year 2016, which will be adopted at the end of next month, discretionary spending, which means spending on everything in state government other than pensions, health care and debt service, is $2.5 billion les he -- less than it was eight years ago. not $2.5 billion less on the projection not like they do it in washington. and then call it a cut. this is actually less spending $2.5 billion in less spending at the state level. how do you do that? well we have 8,500 fewer

employees today than the day i became governor and we did it without any layoffs. all through attrition and being able to then make government become more efficient and more effective. you want to reduce spending, the first place you have to start is reducing the payroll, the size of government. we put in $2.3 billion in business tax cuts and tax incentives. that has helped to spur growth in our state and how folks who were already there not only want to stay, but want to grow as well. it's been extraordinarily important to our economy. as we mentioned, did a number of other things in the tax rem, but what we need to do -- tax realm but what we need oto do on the national level is what we're continuing to do on the state level in terms of entitlements. i spoke a couple of weeks ago at st. anselm's in new hampshire about a vision for entitlement reform. and the fact is, we need to tell

some truth to people. i've been talk about this since 2011. 71% of federal government spending is now on entitlement programs. 1%. to give you some perspective on the growth of that, when john kennedy was elected president in 1960, entitlement spending was 26% of the federal budget. it is now 71%. so you'll have lots of people who come before you i'm sure over the next number of months who want to talk to you, and i will briefly this morning, about national defense and about education, about research and development, national institutes of health, things that we need to invest in to make our country continue to be a cutting edge leader around the world. but if they to not first talk to you about how they're going to reform entitlements, with all due respect you should just eat your breakfast not pay any attention. because the fact is, if you

don't get that 71% under control, where are you getting the money to be able to do those other things we need to do? and no one likes to talk about this. nasty business. talking about raising the social security retirement age two years over the next 25 years. brutal. absolutely brutal. talking about doing the same thing for medicare eligibility. two years over the next 25 years. fact is, though, we need to do these things. and why? not only here to bring you bad news this morning. i'm here to bring you good news. you're all living longer. congratulations. [applause] and not only are you living longer, but you're living better. we're living better, longer into

our lives. medical innovation, pharmacological anyone no vation has allowed us to have a longer, better quality of life. this is something to be celebrated. the average age now of a woman in this country, mortality age is 83. average for a man is 79. when these programs were developed, by the way, i heard some of the women chuckling out there, but you should know, you should know that in the last decade we're catching up. we're down four years now. we were down six years before. we're coming. [laughter] laugh now. but these programs were developed when mortality was in the 60's for both men and women. so we're living 15 to 20 years longer and expecting these systems to continue to support us through that length of time.

the other thing i talked about, i think is common sense call as well. we -- commonsensical as well. social security. the idea of social security is to make sure that none of our elderly grow old in their lives in poverty. if there's somebody making $200,000 a year in retirement income retirement income, d they really need their social security check? you know everybody in this room knows if you're getting $200,000 a year in retirement income, you've got at least $4 million or $5 million socked away to throw off that kind of money and probably more. that social security check is that making the difference? in the quality of your life? the same way it would make a difference in the quality of life of a person who is living from social security check to

social security check to pay their rent, to buy their food? now, i have people say to me i paid into the system, i deserve to get it back out. i'm entitled. hence the names of the programs. there's lots of things, you know that we pay for that we get nothing back for in return except a sense of security. i pay homeowners insurance. i'm sure you do too. we pay it every year. because in case our house burns down, we want to be able to rebuild our house. if you live there for 20 years, 30 years paying homeowners insurance every month and then you go to sell the house, do you go back to the insurance company and say, hey, by the way, looking good, right? no problems. house didn't burn down. i'd like that money back. if you don't mind. this is meant to ensure that people did not grow old in poverty.

you know i was talking to my friend mark suckerberg, about this entitlement reform idea and he said, what, chris, do you mean by entitlement reform. i said mark, if i have my way, it means you get nothing. the fact is, i think most people who have been extraordinarily successful in america will understand this. that we need to make choices in this country. you'll notice i just talked about means testing social security and medicare. i talked about raising retirement age. and i have not been vaporized into the stage. this idea that this is the third rail of american politics and you can't talk about it has, as its underlying premise, that people in my business don't trust the american people enough to tell them the truth. that may be true, that there's lots of people in politics who don't trust the american people enough to tell them the truth. i do. i absolutely believe that not

only should we, but we must, because we want this country to be the kind of place we need it to be for our children and our grandchildren. we better start addressing this. i do not want to be a member of the first generation in this country's history to leave the next generation a weaker, poorer, less opportunity-filled country. because we can't let go of the idea that we get everything we want. that's not the way you run your businesses. and it's not the way your government should run this country. [applause] let me tell you, we have lots of ways that that money could be utilized. to help make this country grander, stronger, better than we are today. we need to reform this tax system both at the individual and the corporate level it is

onerous, it is onerous compared to almost any system around the world, and we need to get to that and get to it right away. second thing we need to do is reinvest in our national defense. the united states now because of the conduct in my view of foreign and defense policy by this administration, can no longer be counted on by our allies and is no longer feared by our adversaries. that's 0-2, everybody. you have to be able to do both of those things and we're doing neither. allies around the world are running from us. and pursuing their own course. adversaries are showing new aggression everywhere. iran, not only on their own but through their sponsorship of hezbollah and hamas and other terrorist organizations. our inaction in syria has led to an exacerbation of the conduct of isis not only in the

northeast but in europe and coming to a theater near you soon if we're not careful. mr. putin in russia, at least in my mind is clearly trying to put the old band back together. he's working and moving his way crimea ukraine, and if you're living in one of the baltic states today members of nato if you really believe that that membership is a full membership or a junior membership? the conduct of our country has them nervous. has democracies like poland nervous. our allies are concerned. and our adversaries are emboldened. the only way for us to turn that around is not only through a more robust and a more direct and more honest foreign policy, where we draw lines and mean it. not say never mind when it gets

a little difficult. and where we invest in a national defense that once again prevents con we don't invest in national defense to have conflict. we invest in national defense to prevent conflict. but we should be investing in research and development and in new ways to lengthen our lives and improve the quality of our lives. but none of these things are possible to approve science and technology and engineering and math education for all of our children. but none of those things are possible. if we don't get our house in order. i've seen this in new jersey where the canary -- we're the canary in the coal mine, everybody. the mistakes that have been made over the past decades in new jersey take a lot of effort to try to fix. we don't want to place our country in the same position. and so, i come to you this morning to let you know that the reason i'm telling you this is

because if you all don't get it and start to fight for it we have no hope. the people who are leading this technological revolution in this country, the thinkers, the doers, have to also be the leaders. it can't just be men and women in my business. it has to be men and women in yours. don't fall victim to the conventional wisdom that says, something is not politically popular we shouldn't talk about it. because i don't want to be in old age and i don't think you do either looking back on the missed opportunities that litter our lives rather than the fights we took on that were necessary to fight. so the message i bring to you this morning is born of the hard work of trying to dig a state that had been in awful difficulty out of it and from

having traveled the country over the last year, 106,000 miles, to 37 different states, that is wracked with anxiety and that anxiety is not just economic anxiety, it's the anxiety that comes along with watching a government that's not doing its job. we need to start doing our job again. that's what you pay us for. that's what we need to get done. i'm going to stop because i want to take your questions more than i want to hear myself talk anymore. [applause] >> thank you governor, for your candor and vision and being here with us this morning. we can take a few questions from the audience. if you have a question please proceed to one of the two microphones in the center of the room. be prepared to identify yourself by your name and company affiliation and consistent with normal practice at the nvtc,

this is for people in business, it is not open to members of the media. you can listen, but not ask. so first question. i'm going to ask the first question unless i see somebody, which i do not. governor. i have a question. you've talked -- there's -- you've talked about cutting entitlement spending because mathematically it's definitely something we must do. i think it's pretty clear you're not going to raise taxes. so you have taxes spending, the only third area is economic growth. what will you do for economic growth? governor christie: i think the only way we solve our long-term debt problem is through economic growth combined with the type of restriction of spending i talked about. you're not going to be able to fix an $18 trillion problem with just one or the other. and this is a place where i differ significantly from the president.

the president believes that he should be the one deciding who the winners and losers are. the government should decide. and that if you're a winner, he'll make money from you and give toyota people he'd rather have do a little bit better. that's never where -- that's never the way the country succeeded. the way to get economic growth, and i'll have more to say about this next week is to fix the tax system. the tax system is now a clear disincentive to growth. we have seen it all over this country. the president has taken victory lap for 2% or 2.5% g.d.p. growth. it's the weakest recovery from a recession in modern times. and the jobs that have been created have not been the type of really good-paying jobs we saw created in the 1980's and 1990's. they are now jobs that are predominantly at the lower end of the wage scale and many of them because of obamacare and o'factors aren't even full-time

jobs. and so the way -- and other factors aren't even full-time jobs. the way to expand growth is to get a tax system that encourages people to pepe trait money back to the united states -- to repatriate money back to the united states, lower taxes, the president thinks the way to stop corporate inversions is to pass a law against corporate inversions. he wants to treat the system rather than the disease. let's change the tax system so that no c.e.o. feels it's their fidureyashe duty to their shareholders to engage in corporate inversion to maximize the value of their shares so they'll want to stay here in the united states. those are ethis first steps. >> thank you. >> govern christie todd soudermire. innovation has been a real friend to the technology industry. could you talk about your views on immigration reform? governor christie: sure.

i think the way to start this conversation in the country is to see if we can agree on two basic facts. fact number one is that people who are here in an undocumented status are not going to self-deport. so let's start with that. they're not leaving on their own. second, as somebody who was the united states attorney in new jersey for seven years in the bush administration, i can tell you that there are -- that there are not enough law enforcement officers at the local, county, state and federal level to be able to forcibly deport people who are here in an undocumented status. if you start out agreeing with those two facts we then have at least the beginnings of the outline of how we have to start to try to fix this problem. part of the reason i think it's so inintractable in the country though, is because the executive branch hasn't done what the executive branch is supposed to do, and that's execute and enforce the laws in this country. so you have people believing and not wanting to engage in any commonsense discussion of reform of the system because they don't

believe that whatever changes are made in the law, that they're going to actually be enforced. and quite frankly employers are a huge part of the problem. you know, i'm not a guy who is in favor of building a fence or wall along the entire length of america's southern border. it's too expensive it's inefficient and i'll tell you i've never found a wall or fence that people filled with the human will can't find their way under, over, or around. and so there may be spots where a wall or fence may make some sense. and there may be spots where technology to enforce border security can be used. but in the end there's a will the of undocumented folks in new jersey and i have met many of them. i will they will you that not one of them has ever come up to me and said, the reason i came here illegally to the united states is because i wanted to vote. none of them ever said that. every one of home to i've spoken to said they came here because they wanted to work and support their families. so here's the thing. you know if we know that, if we

know that, then let's start talking about the issues that really matter in this and not the ones that are just emotional. so the idea that employers, all employers, shouldn't be subject to e-verify makes no sense to me. if we set up a system that people are then going to be willing to buy into, they need to know this is going to stop. and we're not going to be back here again 25 years later having the same conversation. and if folks know when they come here they're not going to get a job if they come here illegally the incentive to come is going to be significantly less. and so we then will have an opportunity to discuss the broader issue of how do you deal with the folks who are here already and how do you deal with the issue of legal immigration, and how do we make the qualitative and quantitative decisions on legal immigration that we need to make? but until we have an honest conversation with the american people about the fact that the president of the united states is not going to look the other way on the issue but is going to

enforce the laws and not just democrats but republicans too that the laws are not only going to be enforced against those who sneak their way in, but against the business community who exploits that. we need to do both. then we can, in a commonsense way, qualitatively and quantitatively look at what to do with the people. but until we have that conversation, we're going to continue to bicker and demonize and demagogue this issue. because there's too much political capital in it to do otherwise. we need to force people to look at it in another way. >> following on the -- >> introduce yourself. >> steve cooker, i'm with monster worldwide. governor, following on the notion of immigration there's a piece of it that really is at the center of the technology in terms of bringing on qualified individuals, people who can really do the work, people that are professional and technical in nature.

we see that we sometimes struggle with finding those types of individuals within their -- within our own backyard and at the hard of that are all the stem initiatives that i think that are growing up. the other side of that is, those professals that come from elsewhere and to -- those professionals that come from elsewhere and attracting them and keeping them here in the united states, can you talk to both sides of that? one is what can we do to keep those people who want to immigrate into the united states here in a professional capacity and the other side, what can we do from an education perspective in preparing our work force for those type of jobs? governor christie: i'll start with the last and then go to the first. you know, this is one of those situations where reform of our education system is so incredibly important. what you're talking about and what most businesses want is an education system that produces results. you know, i don't think the

american people have shown any reluctance to invest significant moneys in our educational system. from k to 12, to community colleges, higher education in the four-year college and university space and graduate school. the problem is that you're having problem finding enough people within our shores to address the needs of your business, that's the premise of your question. we need to make sure that we have an educational system that is providing the type of results that we have. we have to work on the potential of children not the comfort of adults. and unfortunately especially in the k-12 system we're much more focused on the comfort of adults than we are on the potential of children. that's the only explanation for not having a longer school day and longer school year in this country. the only explanation. our school calendar is ridiculous. it's based on the agrarian calendar. i can tell you even in the garden state kids are not

leaving school in june to go and till the fields, -- the fields everybody. it's not happening anymore. and the fact is, why don't we then, like many of the other industrialized countries of the world have a longer school day and longer school year? we don't because the power and the authority of the teachers' unions. that's it. that's the only reason why. you want better stem education, those kids are in school from september to july. and they're in school until 5:00 or 6:00 rather than 2:00 or 2:30, and they're getting the type of exposure to all of the things that they need to to be able to improve those skills that will happen. just like in your business when you work better and harder and longer. almost invariably your results are better. so we need to have a national conversation about how we educate our children. we're still educating our children the same way we did in the 1800's. 20 25 chairs and desks facing

forward to a white board or black board with one person standing in front talking to them for a limited period of time each day, for a limited period of time each year. everything everything else in american life has been improved, modernized but education. at its core, yes we use computers now it's one of the great moments when my 11-year-old daughter bridget started taking computers when she was 8. and she said dad when you were 8 who did you have for computers? [laughter] i said, no one. no one. the world has changed in that respect. but not much more in the world of education. is my point to you in terms of, if you're ranked in the 20's in the industrial world in math and science, what makes you believe that 10 or 15 years from now we'll still be the number one economy? hope? prayer? we have to change this. and secondly, what i'm implying

in my answer is, once you get a system that people are willing to buy into, then you can start having the discussions about quantitative and qualitative choices in legal immigration. but until you get to the base problem of what we permitted to happen over the last 25 to 30 years, and the feeling amongst so many people in our country that we're not willing to enforce the laws, why are they going to buy into a whole new set of laws that i think the government won't execute on. we have to have that conversation and the idea that if someone brings a particular quality or set of qualities, that that would help our country even more, that that's something that should be considered in the immigration process. is it -- it's an important idea to discuss. but if we don't get to the underlying problem first, we're not going to ever get there. and you're going to continue to be frustrated. so let's get to the underlying problem, fix it, and then our frustrations will abate if not eliminate on this topic.

>> next question. >> hi, governor, i'm carol cornman with police. incorporated, an i.t. services company. i want to get your opinion on the a.c.a. and how it's been set up and the reporting. i'm baffled a little bit that even small certified businesses, and we're all about small businesses growing yet under the a.c.a., small businesses are classified as larbling businesses in some cases. i just wanted to get your opinion on that. governor christie: my opinion on the affordable care act is that it goes exactly in line with the philosophy i was talking about earlier in my remark and -- remarks and the difference between myself and the president. you know let's look at my state of new jersey and let's pick the state of wyoming. what person in this room actually thinks that the health care challenges that i face for my population in new jersey of .9 million people in the most --

8.9 million people in the most ethnically diverse state in the country, most densely populated state in the country, are the same as the health care challenges faced by governor meade in wyoming? you don't have to know anything, right, anything about health care to know those two places are significantly different and face significantly different challenges. you understand that, i understand that, the president of the united states refuses to acknowledge it. the idea that you can have one national system that is going to appropriately, efficiently, effectively address the health care needs of the population in new jersey and health care for the hoplation in wyoming is ridiculous. and the core weakness of a.c.a., besides the fact that -- the factor you mentioned in terms of the nondisparate treatment of business the tax increases, the mandates, all those things the core problem is that this just

won't work. because the challenges i face in new jersey are so significantly different than they face in other parts of the country and other states. we should be going to a system that's state-based. where governors work with the people in their state to say what is the best way to access health care in a state like ours? and you know, the way businesses will be affected by that is when governments closer to you are making the decisions you have much greater input. i know small business owners in my state. i work with them all the time for our economic development authority, through our local chambers of commerce. they have access to policymakers in a way you'll never have access to federal policymakers in that way. so i'm a repeal and replace guy. i absolutely believe that obamacare is not salvageable and needs to go. but we also can't be the party that says, it needs to go and we'll get back to you in a couple of weeks about what actually we're going to do. the american people will not go

for that dodge. so we need to come out and talk as a party about what we want to do. i will tell you that my inclination is going to a state-based system. because i just believe as a governor that, you know what gary herbert decides in utah versus what i decide in new jersey versus what matt meade decides in wyoming versus what phil bryant decides in mississippi, are all smart specialized things we know about our states. we get input from folks leek you. that's my view on it. the onerous nature of this is going to suffocate businesses, has already suffocated jobs and we know that. the 30-hour work week. all these things that are going on now surrounding a.c.a. has just suffocated economic growth and the president doesn't want to see it or acknowledge it because he believes in an omnipotent, omnipresent federal government and i don't. >> three more questions and that will be it. please keep the questions short identify yourself first. >> jim toland.

as a followup, clearly obamacare hasn't been the most popular legislation or program with the republican party. and it does seem like people talk about repeal and replace but there's much more focus on repeal. the question really is, what's the replace? status quo wasn't working very well either. 50 million people uninsured, it's got to be more than we'll do it at the state level. what's the program to get a program that actually addresses the pathologies of the old system without baggage of the new? governor christie: we should get there and talk about it but take a deep breath. it's may 1. you know. i don't -- quite frankly, i think all of us have to go about this in a responsible way. there's been more emphasis on repeal. you can't replace until you do repeal. so there's been more of an

emfasigs on repeal. but the fact is that all of us who are responsible and for those of us who decide to run for president, it's going to be our job to come forward with a specific plan and ideas. i would -- what i'm trying to give you is a window into my approach. i'm not going to sit here this morning and lay out my entire plan for replacing obamacare, with all due respect. we'll do that in a different setting that makes more sense. but what i'm telling you is the directional guidance i'm giving you is that i believe this is a problem that's much more appropriately dealt with at the state level than it is dealt with at the federal level. all you need to do is look at the growth of medicaid over the course of the last number of years. the last 25 years medicaid has grown over 00%. and the economy has grown 200%. so you know, this system where the state pays for half of the cost but has almost no influence on the rules, which is where we're headed and where we are with obamacare, i think is a

failure. and i think we're in the same spot. will be in the same spot with this kind of exponential growth if we allow obamacare to continue. >> but isn't that the same dodge --? >> this is not a time for discussion. next question please. >> governor, my name is paul stide, i'm with effective communications, also i'm a native omendham, new jersey. governor christie: my hometown. >> two yeses -- two questions about superstorm sandy. how in your estimation is the recovery going? and how has -- have the events of superstorm sandy shaped you as a man and shaped you as a leader? governor christie: i'm a -- on the recovery the recovery is going very well. now our businesses are back up and running.

our jersey shore tourism last year set a record year. in the second year after sandy. and most of the new jerseyans who lost their homes are back in their homes. whenever i say that, i'm mindful of the people who are still not back in their homes. and there are some who are still not back in their homes. and so i always say to people, the recovery is going really well unless you're not back in your home. if you're not back in your home the recovery is going miserably. one -- one of the problems in the aftermath of katrina was that there was significant rampant fraud in louisiana. and as a result, the federal government does what federal and state governments do all the time. they play the last game rather than the next game. they look at what happened and they made the rules on aid so onerous, not on the state necessarily, but on the individuals in terms of proof and paperwork, that it held up a lot of what's going on.

i think h.u.d. in particular has seen this over time and have begun to loosen up on those things and allowed taos get those people who are not in their homes at a much faster pace. we've spent billions of dollars already. we've increased resiliency in our states so when the next storm comes things will be better. i think overall the recovery has gone well. when you think about this, when i woke up on the morning after sandy, 365,000 homes had been destroyed. in 24 hours. 365,000 homes. we had no pow for the more than 2/3 of the state. -- power in more than 2/3 of the state. we had 50-plus gas stations open and operational. most of the state highways were closed. all the schools were closed. there was no wastewater treatment plants in the state. it was as big a disaster as any state has ever ever sustained. and we're back on our feet and

people are back in our homes and economic activity has resumed so i feel very good about that. in terms of me, i can only tell you that in 2011 there were lots of people who urged me to run for president. and when i made the decision not to, i did something my political advisors said i should never say. i was asked, of course if you would be when you say you're not running for president i was asked why and i said because i'm not ready. and my advisor was like, no, no, no. that will last forever of you not saying you're ready to be president. you can't say that. i said, well it's true. sandy went a long way toward making me ready. when you sit around a table and you get the reports of that destruction rks and that level of pain and loss and then everybody, your cabinet, your law enforcement, your national guard all sit around the table and after they report all that, they then look at you and say,

ok, what are we going to do? you get prepared as a leader in those moments like nothing else can prepare you. because you have a blank piece of paper in front of you. and human suffering all around you. and everybody, not just the people around the table but everybody in the state is looking to you to say, please fix this. please help. and that's why when i was going through sandy, i never spent more than half a day in the emergency operations center. from the day after sandy forward, i would spend half the day in the emergency operation center with all the different people i had to talk to get briefed by and give instructions to. and i would always spend half the day in one of the -- in one of the towns that have been destroyed to actually remind myself all the time about who i was doing this for and what they really were concerned about. and i can't tell you in the beginning how emotionally impactful that was. to walk into a town like belmar

which i did on the first day after the storm, a jersey shore town, and have a woman come up to me and grab me and begin to hug me and say into my ear i've lost everything. you're the only person who can help me. those are moments in my life that i'll never forget and have changed me as a person and have molded me as a leader. but in the end what people want is the truth. they want you to be decisive. they want you to be present. in their lives. when they feel as if their lives are at risk. and so sandy has changed me in every way that sandy could change somebody, that something like that could possibly do to both your mind and your heart and i would have never wished that on my state, ever, ever. and hope and pray it never happens to anybody again at that level of devastation. but we learned from it.

we're a better state because of it in the end. and what -- and once we get everybody back in their homes i'll be able to breathe a sigh of relief and say, you know, mission accomplished. but until that time you can't. you just keep plugging every, every day. [applause] >> one more question. >> governor christie this is isha chaudr, i'm with a global insurance brokerage. can you talk about the importance of having honest conversations with the american people. i would like to know how to balance the receptivity of receiving that information from the american people coming from politicians. governor christie: everybody approach this is business differently. i'm someone who always tries to

err on the side of letting people know what i really think. [laughter] this has to do with how i was raised. we're all a product of our parents, right? sometimes we're thrilled about that sometimes we're not. i know my children will spend a significant time complaining to someone about something i did that i really thought was good when i did it but obviously i was completely wrong, right? we're all products of our parents. i grew up in a house with an irish father and a sicilian mother. [laughter] now, you all know what this means. this means i became at a very young age expert at conflict resolution. all right. i'm the old etc. son in that family and it's not that my mom

-- oldest son in that family and it's not that my mom was argumentative. it's just that she never found an argument that wasn't worth having. in her view. you know. and she used to tell us, whatever was bothering her all the time we'd say like mom enough, stop. she'd say to me, no no, no, no, i'm getting this off my chest and i'm getting it off right now, you're going to listen. there will be no deathbed confessions in this family, you're hearing it now. and i will tell you that you know, it forms who you are right? the ethic i was taught is if there was a problem, talk about it now. if there's an issue get it off your chest. if you feel something, let people know it. and so it's hard then to get into politics and say, i'm going to conduct myself completely differently than the way i've conducted myself for the 40-plus years before i got involved in

politics. my mom used to say to me all the time christopher, be yourself. because then tomorrow you don't have to worry about remembering who you pretended to be yesterday. it's great advice. i'll end with this to give you greater insight to the impact this has on real lives. so i -- i'm talking about my mom in the past tense because she passed away 11 years ago next week. and she is the formative figure in my life and i tease my father all the time he comes to my town hall meetings, i say to understand my parent's relationship, in the automobile of life my father was the passenger. [laughter] he really doesn't like that. but i do, so what the hell. so m