majorities. these majorities hang on a razor's edge in each election cycle. the incentive structure, as is described, works against what it takes to legislate consistently unproductively. the political balance sheet weighs heavily in the favor of scoring partisan political points over against compromise and legislating. the calculus will change in one direction or another. i think it is shifting under our feet now. i'm speaking for myself and not for crs. republicans do have some reason to be more comfortable in their majority, at least in the house, then they have been. democrats have reason to be more resigned of their minority status in the house. research seems to indicate that the structural advantages are strong for republicans in the house. the imperative to score partisan

political points might not be as critical as it has been. as the political balance sheet begins to shift may be ever so gradually in favor of other things than scoring political points, it might even go in the direction of showing that you can govern or get things done. in effect, in this formulation compromise and consensus building can become on some issues political benefits for the majority party and maybe for more than that. i will stop right there. i just want to say that i thank you again for the opportunity to the bpc and the political scientists in the washington area to talk about the print. we appreciate the publicity that it is getting at events like this. john: great. we are going to stay here in our chairs. i will turn to sarah binder. they have comments about the print. colleen and john noted that it

has 29 essays. they are going to go through them one by 1 -- no. [laughter] they are not going to go through them. they will pick topics of interest. we have it well set up to have the house and senate well represented by each one of you. don, could you give a little summary of what your reaction is to it? and then tell us some of your thoughts about some of the pieces that you are looking at. don: i will take the first 250 pages. [laughter] don: thank you. i want to commend the bpc for organizing the event and inviting me here and to congratulate crs on its 100th anniversary. i think this book is a testament to the type of quality staff you have and the diversity of subjects that you cover. it is marvelous. i cannot say i have read it cover to cover, but i have had a lot of the high points that i thought related to what i know and what i want to know a little bit more about. it is a great thing to read.

what i thought i would do is relate some of the first things in the book on not necessarily the role of members so much, but there is a great introductory chapter that traces the history of the congress and that brought back to me a lot of memories. because i have actually been observing congress for five decades. i started in the summer of 1965 as an intern with john anderson and he had me covering the joint committee. i met some brilliant political scientists like roger davis, who was kind enough to lend me the manuscript that they were about to publish, "congress in crisis." john mentioned something that is very apropos. throughout the last half-century, congress has always been portrayed as being in crisis -- an obstacle course on capitol hill is another one of the titles and so on. here was a joint committee trying to work through this to get some ideas of how to improve

the institution. i remember that it was surprising to me, since a lot of this was fresh coming out of iowa and not having been to dcb before, that here were especially a lot of witnesses reading from the same page and that page was the same page used in testimony back in 1945 before another joint committee. there were three obstacles to congress doing its job. one was the senate filibuster. the second was the seniority system. the other was the house rules committee, which was then controlled by a conservative coalition of southern democrats. often resulting in 6-6 ties and getting things out of the rules committee. these are what i call the three horsemen congressional apocalypse. fast-forward 10 years to 1975. what happened in 1975, the

culture rule was changed, from 2/3 present and voting to 60 votes. the rules committee had been brought under the aegis of the majority party. they were nominating members from -- and the seniority system was dismantled that year with three members outed saying that caucus members be voted by chairman rather than being elevated. there was a lot of things going on, a lot between 1965 and 1975, a joint committee produced something in 1966, and came it to fruition in 1970. there were things that change the face of congress. roger covers this in a lot of chapters.

they had a committee bill of rights that meant members could override its chairman to get things on the agenda. they had more open meetings and hearings required. televising hearings in the house was allowed for the first time. the senate had been doing it but sam rayburn put the kibosh on this. there were a lot of transparency reforms taking place throughout the 1970's. this was a reform revolution taking place in the congress as a whole, but a lot of this was going on, happening in the house. i thought what i would highlight three things that i think have changed dramatically since i first came full-time as a staffer in 1969 with john anderson, covering the rules committee for him, and coming on to the rules committee staff. one is the shift over time from committee governance to party governance.

i would say the turning point here happened with a letter written by john laforce cosigned by 40 democrats in 1979, speaker tip o'neill saying give us more closed rules. we're spending too much time on the floor with amendments being brought up by the minority, used for political ads, and tip o'neill gradually obliged, and we began to see more restrictive rules. when i came in 1969, the only bills that had closed rules were ways and means committee bills. bills were shut down altogether on the floor from being amended. that was one of the things that happened that i thought was very dramatic. the shift in power that happened between committees to the parties and their elected leaders was a result of the fact

the committee chairmen now had to be responsive to the caucus but they had lost a lot of power they used to have when it was concentrated in their back pocket. that was one of the things that happened. to add to that, the leadership bringing the committee along on having their way on the house where they could change a bill altogether. lee hamilton later recounted how he would bring a 25-page bill to the rules committee and it would emerge as 50-page bills after things were added. that was the other thing. the third thing, transparency, and my boss was a great supporter of the sunshine rules that began to come forward in the 1970's, making committees a lot more open, more permeable. we had a lot of subcommittees created.

the transparency -- and then we went in 1979 to opening the house floor to tv cameras and the senate in 1986. these are the three major changes i have observed, some for better, some for worse. but it is overall the congress is better for it because it has always had a bad reputation with the people. ms. binder: i was going to remark that i would self assign a field trip. i would walk over to the madison building -- i recall a crs window where you can get reports and go into the reading room and then go back to work. i never thought 30 years later i would be talking about the 100th anniversary of crs.

i think i am the world's biggest fan of crs, particularly in recent years, but despite the rise of what we might think of as data journalism and increased importance that reporters play on gathering information and data about, in particular congress. i think crs remains on the top that they are not only the masters of collecting these types of data. they know which data are meaningful which are not and how to make sense of them. they understand not just the details, but the institution but how they fit together as well as for why these details matter for understanding congress today as well as in the past. that strikes me as what has been brought together in the evolving congress report. briefly, two general observations about the report and highlight three chapters in particular. first, i think the report offers both a deep appreciation of the

micro level, whether behavioral at the level of the member, or institutional, at the level of the rules and institutions, but not only the micro contexts, but also the broader macro context, the legal context in which congress tries to work in sometimes cannot. a chapter in particular makes clear our ability to understand how congress has changed requires us to think at the micro level as well as step outside the institution to understand the forces that have tried to effect change. in a world where we try to find these explanations to single out the one thing that has made the biggest difference, i think the report is an important and refreshing way to encouraging us to think more broadly about multiple exclamations that may

come to bear in explaining the development of congress. so second general observation, i think the chapters collectively point us to a very path-dependent way of thinking about congressional development. the idea that past choices within the institution very strongly affect future development in the institution. sometimes that path delivers what we think of as increasing returns to the institution, so that members might benefit from those inherited practices, so they do not want to give them up. and colleen's chapter gives us the sense that their willingness to struggle to keep those practices so it improves their ability to get a defense bill each year. sometimes i think the report makes -- the path that generates decreasing returns.

the case in point, from walter's chapter, the evolution of the extended debate in the senate and senators' willingness to exploit the roles, but at the expense of the ability of the institution, decreasing the ways that the system can be working which was on full display this week as the majority tried to get through the iran bill. two general reactions that i think of the lessons of the volume. i would offer three more specifics to highlight from the chapters. first, the walter chapter, what

he speaks to me there is he puts into perspective these recent calls for the return to regular order, particularly in the senate, and as walter puts it this week, that regular order is a flexible construct, that calls for regular order, and when i say regular order, i usually put quotes around it. now i have permission to do that. the call for regular order misses the evolving nature of congress on the floor, and today we have a new procedural normal, and that is what we see majority leaders struggling with last week and this week. and changing the leaders of the senate and calling for the return to regular order, they might be necessary, but not sufficient to change the way the senate operates. if regular order is a textbook -- flexible construct, we need to be clear what we are try to restore in the way the senate works. second highlight from the chapter on the defense bill, which tries to address the public, why is it in this stalemated institution the armed services committee each year returns an annual defense authorization bill.

and she recognizes the ways in which they are struggling to keep the annual process going as it encounters other issues on the senate floor points to three issues here. there are practices, the way hearings are constructed consultations across defense agencies as well is across staff. the bipartisan staff culture not even just physically sharing space, but the longevity of the staff, and the repeated interactions across staff that we think perhaps helped facilitate the types of negotiations necessary to come to an authorization each year. and colleen notes the closed markup on the senate side, although not on the house side but raises the question about whether closing the doors despite all the benefits of transparency, whether there are trade-offs and perhaps closing the doors, keeping lobbyists and journalists out of the room, might help foster these deals,

we are trying to expand the pie in how the senate operates. third, the chapter on collaboration, a look at the difficulty of sustaining relationships in today's senate with a classic quote from tom daschle, "because we cannot bond, we cannot trust, because we cannot trust, because we cannot cooperate, because we cannot cooperate, we become dysfunctional." probably what i took away most from mark's chapter was the carefully worded criticism of political scientists, suggesting we had perhaps lost the sight of this social part of social choice, and where we are good at social choice, but do not good at understanding the nature of

social life, which is hard to study in a systematic way, how majorities and coalitions are built, but i think as a report suggests it warrants a sustained a more systematic attention of students of congress like myself. so on that, i will stop there. mr. fortier: thank you. john and i will take some time to ask questions and have a conversation here, and we will turn our audience. at the risk of going on too long, i have two related questions, with an advertisement about what the bbc has done. my first one to john haskell who hinted that the era that many of us look bad to as the golden era of congress, of american politics, much of the late 20th century, was maybe an aberration, that we had political parties that were not left and right as much, much more overlap, that some of the institutions of congress really

stem from this party differences, seniority, the importance of committees decentralization of power from leadership. i wanted to go further on that to say if that is the aberration, do we know some things about earlier eras and how these things work? maybe pick up on your optimistic note that parties are more separated, and still can be productive in some ways people think. i want to ask sarah, where sarah was picking up on putting scare quotes around the term "regular order." we had a commission at bbc looking at a variety of things focused on congress, with a lot of former members, a had an interest in regular order matters. you're right, we have to know what that means. but let me put it this way. i think our members were

concerned that in this old world where committees dominated where power was decentralized, the legislative process functioned in a certain way, but today as we have had an incredible amount of centralization of power, we have lost the role of committees, of average members, of debate on the floor, so even a simple way of thinking of regular order as schoolhouse rock version of legislating that we think about legislation and debate and refine it in committees that we have a relatively robust floor debate where voices are heard and that there are conference committees to resolve differences between houses somehow grafting some of that older traditional process on today's world would have a benefit. it does not necessarily fit currently with the party system, but it would have a benefit. i mentioned our healthy congress index, which is meant to mentioned how congress is doing,

how much the senate is opening up to amendments, how much members of congress are working in d.c., how much -- how the committees are doing and how the floor debate on the house looks. those are some of the things we should get that that is restoring the old era to maybe a new system. i want to get your reaction to that. both of you want to -- mr. haskell: an advertisement not just for walter's chapter, but mike's chapter. those are the two most sweeping chapters in the volume, and both emphasize among other things -- the partisan situation particularly post-world war ii different than it typically is and there is more ideological overlap. the other thing emphasized that sometimes people miss, it is not as though the issues battles were less intense, it is that --

which is to say whether it was commie witch-hunting in the 1950's or the whole range of battle on medicare or federal aid to education or especially civil rights -- the battles on those issues were more intense really than the battles we have today about incremental changes in the size of the government or incremental changes in the tax code, i think. it is just that the parties did not line up along those issues. and that has real institutional effects. today, to the extent we have serious disagreements, i think none of them quite as intense as the battle over civil rights through the 1950's and the mid-1960's, a lot of them line up on the way that the parties break down. that is one thing that people forget about. it's not more intense now. the book about some of the congressional activities in the

early to mid 1960's with regard to the great society is an eye opener that they had to change congressional rules to get things done because congress was not functioning. ms. binder: a good question -- how do you have a set of routines on the floor that you are trying to get back to some sort of decision-making where there is a capacity for offering consideration of amendments, amendments to amendments, and working your way so the majority leader does not feel compelled to block off amendments by filing cloture. if there is some sort of procedural practices that we are trying to get back to, the question is on the challenges, i think i have come to the conclusion that it is hard to institutionally reengineer the chambers unless members and

parties' incentives are compatible with the exercise of those procedures. the classic example is the supercommittee created out of the debt debacle in the summer of 2011. they designed an almost failproof system, no filibusters, special rules balanced committee, some with -- some way to engineer so if there was a bipartisan consensus, it could be protected to the process on the fourth and to the president. but they could not reach the incentives, which were not aligned to find a way to come to that agreement to be protected. the question on the senate floor in particular is, are members and the parties' incentivized sufficiently that they have restraint to allow the collegial process to go forward? just watching what was going on, we have been attuned over the last several years to think the

problem is these competing party messages and that harry reid as majority leader did not want to expose his party to threats from the minority party, but what has been very clear this week and last week is the problem of the majority leader is the restraint not from the other party, but the strength of his own members who found the amendment tree and found a way to get in the mix, and that in this case blows the thing up, and we are back to the old ways of shutting off amendments, much to everybody's discontent. the question is, how much can we institutionally engineer our way back to a functioning senate and what is the raw material are the leaders working with? we have interesting good examples coming out of committees, and that speaks to colleen's point in the venues where we have senators who are used to working with each other and mark's chapter, if you can find these negotiating spaces

where people trust each other and have some past history perhaps that is the environment in which they are able to close the doors often defined that way to say we are going to give your party what you want, and craft a bigger deal. i think those who see that coming out in education, on the iran bill, but the question is 100 senators, can you sustain that on the floor, and that is the big challenge. mr. haskell: what you're saying, that mcconnell's life is organized around five senators who are up for reelection in 2016. if the senate looks dysfunctional in some way, that does not help keep the majority. there is the political incentive structure, really. mr. sides: there have been a couple articles recently that

argued the congressional capacity is in decline. the article talked about congressmen being lobotomized, because you have seen a reduction in the number of staff. there is a companion piece by a former crs staffer who argued that crs has suffered in some respects in terms of the number of resources it has in the number of staff it has. i wanted to get your sense of whether you guys saw that as true and the tenor of these articles is that it is problematic, but where do you guys come down on the policymaking capacity that congress has right now? ms. shogan: we're happy at crs.

the appropriations committee continued to fund us. we're happy to come into our jobs as we enjoy our jobs and working through congress. it is addressed in part in the evolving congress. we have one chapter on legislative branch staffing that talks about changes in branch staffing. one thing important to keep in mind about legislative branch staffing is that as we have been talking about here today, when there are larger effects going on in the larger macro political world, that affects the decisions that members of congress make. one of the chapters we have not talked about is the one about how technology and how technology and communications is changing in the world, and then also eventually on capitol hill with the rise of social media and how members represent

constituents. when you start to communicate with constituents in different ways, necessarily you need to hire people to assist you. we know on capitol hill there has been more resources directed toward press secretaries coordinators, and it is finite resources. you do that, there are less people available to other -- to work on other functions that a member is responsible for. i also think the larger picture respect to the 1970's and the purpose for the legislative reorganization act and why did congress decide to look at itself in the early 1970's and pass the modification act, and that has to do in part with not congress internally and congress' policymaking or representational capacities, but those capacities vis-a-vis the executive. one of our chapters in the evolving congress talks about resources afforded to the

legislative branch, and they pale in comparison. that is historically something to keep in mind, that really congress, no matter who is in control, republicans, or democrats, senate, it is one branch of government and its ability to garner collect information and analysis to enable it to bridges but in the policymaking lawmaking functions vis-a-vis the executive branch. i think that is something that perhaps congress understood well in the 1970's given the pressures of situation the presidency was in an something that perhaps they would start to look to today. mr. fortier: that does not make

it any easier for us, but are more essential. >> did you want to weigh in with your top 15? mr. wolfensberger: "roll call," over the years i have kept track of that and those at one point it was if the percent of those people were committee staff where nowadays only about 20 to our committee staff. the rest are leadership staff. that shows you an example of the shift in power from committees to leadership. we looked at the titles of the staff and a lot of them are communications director,

assistant to medications director. it is shifted towards messaging and that is a big part of what goes on. in the process, policymaking takes a backseat for a lot of members and gets back to the incentive system. is there incentive there for members do get engaged in policymaking, do they really want to go back to more detailed amending processes in the committees and so on, and that is of the that i still haven't answered, and it varies, but the committee markups are now perfunctory. you come back here at 4:00 and

we will have 20 votes on amendments, and that will be the markup. things have changed considerably. mr. fortier: although committees' influence may have waned, but never still want to be on them. that puts pressure on leadership. mr. wolfensberger: what is the main incentive there? do those committees attract campaign funds? mr. fortier: it is both. ms. shogan: members choose constitutional functions. one is policymaking. the other function is representational functions. personally, i think the representational unction is equally as important to the policymaking function, and at crs we support members in both of those capacities. they are related to each other not completely distinct. it could be that the emphasis in this time has shifted from policymaking and perhaps more heavy into representational. another point made in the essays when i was reviewing the evolving congress in the past couple weeks is the size of the members' house districts has grown over time, over 700,000 people in a house district average. the amount of time to represent that many people obviously, even

if everything else was held constant, if there were no other changes in the larger political environment, just that alone would necessarily probably shift time and resources toward that function. >> do we have a microphone coming around? we will ask you to identify yourself. we are done at -- where's the microphone? ok. we will go back here and ask -- >> good morning. bethany jones. i am with the agronomy crops and soil society. first of all, i read most of the chapters, well written, and a really good read. so, if you have not read all 490 pages, go for it.

my question is the theme of the chapters that i felt were interesting, there was this theme of globalness and this connectedness. i think we are all familiar with the saying, all politics is local, but i'm interested in the question of has politics changed to be more global. i was wondering if colleen or john could comment on your observations or things you have noticed about how decision-making, congressional decision-making, has evolved to be more about the global context. ms. shogan: american politics has become more nationalized. even though they spent more time in the states than in previous eras, you would think that perhaps localism would reign supreme. i think what they are spending

time talking to people about is of course to some degree local issues and local concerns, but i think it is also that interaction with constituents about national and possibly global issues. and this, once again and goes back to how communications are with constituents. the messages they are sending. i was part of a research project about looking at one minute speeches over different areas and goading them as a distribution of speeches in the house. it was amazing how these speeches in the 1970's, 1980's, 1990's were still talking a lot about local concerns going on in their district. over time, that decreases and at becomes more about partisan messaging and national issues. so, i think that just in general, how members interact

with who they represent is more in line with what you observed. >> certainly, social media makes the represent tatian all -- representational aspect effort. that may be what you are referring to with respect to your question, that a lot of the bigger issues we struggle with today are international. whether it is time a change or any of a number of others and it may have been less of the case in the past. >> high. -- hi, i am richard skinner from washington university. this year amount of time members spend on fund raising.

that is not that surprising. most members want to be as safe as possible, but most members are pretty unsafe. one thing we have seen in congressional elections is they are nationalized, partisan, local and individualized. those things that were so important in the 1960's and 1970's are less important. so why do members spend so much time fundraising? is it just pressure from the hill committees? is it important to the error advancement -- to their advancement in congress? what is lacking in the work of congress that members are spending so much time on this? >> it is hard for me to say anything about members exact motivations but i will say, yes the reelection rate is also involved. that is actually reflect did in sam gehrig and kevin coleman's speech in the evolving congress

about what has changed and what has stayed the same. we know what has remained the same in part is incumbent rate so it is not like a whole lot of members are losing left and right. but having spoken -- worked with someone who lost, i will tell you that affect on other senators was in measurable. it was not that they were feeling the primary challenge immediately but it was because now they knew someone very well who had lost a primary. so, it is not so much you are going to lose the election it is that you know someone who lost the election that motivates you to act in certain ways. it does not necessarily have to reflect the percentages, the empirical does not matter as much as knowing someone who went through it and that will change and alter behaviors in the ways you suggest. >> you partially answered your

own question. there is pressure on the side of the hill. you can suggest that members see the causal link going in the other direction, the reason i get elected is because i have a war chest. and that is one way to combat it. >> it is the sign of the times when the word primaries becomes ever. "i might get primary did." -- pimrimaried." before they are freshmen, they sign a leadership pact. why? because members are getting dubbed a certain amount depending on their role on the committee's and so on. this is increasing pressures for raising more and more money. >> one more implication of the nationalization of congressional election that john referred to

is that it is harder for members and income when they vote for members in the apposite party. when you look at it over time, it is a fairly unremarked upon trend. what grew substantially into the 50's and 60's is basically down to what it was before the increase. there is still a small income and see advantage but it is much smaller they are in it used to be. it is not true just for governors. it does not mean you need to spend four hours a day on the phone fundraising which is what they told freshmen members to do after the 2012 election, maybe that is not rational allocation of time, but i think in and environment which is nationalized and the apparent advantage has become reduced

you can see perhaps why there is some internal pressure at least four members themselves to go out and fund raise. >> coming, right there. >> thanks very much. my name is jim. i served in the house for 10 years. all of what you said in the last 10 minutes, especially, you may win the primary but you might have to spend a lot of member -- money every six years or every two years. now you have to raise much more money ban used to have to to protect that. that has changed a lot about you spend your time, how often you go back and it has a huge impact on how your day is scheduled and that has really changed a lot. especially now, companies can spend millions to unseat you and that has changed everything. i think it is most unfortunate but that is my personal open you in.

>> that is like what they said earlier about the legislative role and the representational role. if you have to spend more time doing that, there's only a certain amount of time in the day there will be less time on oversight or something like that. >> fill wallach from brookings. i may be obtuse here, but can you talk a little bit more, what do you mean when you say representational? a combination of constituent service and, sort of, feeling like you are there to the constituents who want you to be there, that when i think about representation it is sort of representation to what end and what context. so, i guess i would just be curious to know, you know, how that compares in taking the long view. what representation looked like 100 years ago or 50 years ago and what you think has changed now.

if you think there is some basic change of expectations from constituents about what it means to be a representative. >> right. yes. a very good question. i want to make sure everybody recalls that i said representing -- representational lawmaking and the other are not opposite. they feed act and forth and into each other. what we have meant very interested in at crs, myself and two other political scientists we have written a number of crs reports on social media and how members communicate via social media. we have seen a disruptive change and represent tatian all functions since the -- in representational function since the advent of the internet and e-mail.

before, members receiving a lot of constituent feedback by telephone or snail mail, which was manageable because you had a staff assistant and legislative correspondents and assistance led by the legislative or that what he answer that mail and it was all self-contained. now you have thousands and thousands of and thousands of e-mails coming in on a weekly basis that you have to sort through, process. one of the most interesting changes, by electronic communication, particularly with the advent of social media and we have been thinking about this at crs and otherwise. who you represent. who you represent, and someone wrote a really seminal article about a decade ago about representational models. one representational model that she talked about but she did not

put a lot of emphasis on was this idea of surrogate representation. what happens when you are representing someone who did not vote for you but you represent a cause or in issue. we see through social media that embers interact with people on social media or get feedback from people on social media let's put it that way, or their staff gets feedback and there is no way of knowing if these are people they actually represent in their state or their district. it enables members of congress not to have to serve in the times that john was talking about as proverbially called back-benchers. people that are rank-and-file members. there are not committee they are not leaders. your representational function is right much focus on your district and your state will stop now, that is not necessarily the case. you can't build a national

following for yourself if you are adept in the new ways of representation. it may go well beyond the district or the state. to me, that is very interesting. that is a large-scale change and has a large impact on the road for the functioning of congress and we are just at the asp. -- just at the cusp. we could have a whole different thing at the end of 10 years. >> as we measure members twitter feeds even, this is amazing stuff. [laughter] >> your book is entitled "the evolving congress," on the day of the british elections, maybe

you can put it into perspective in a representational way, the u.s. congress is by far more constituent-oriented and has resources that any other organization in the world pills by comparison. years ago, a conference we did with the brits who were excited that their constituency was about 1/10 the size of ours that they now had a second staffer. this was thought to be the permanent campaign. so, this is, you know, we talk about staff but maybe you can just put a little bit of perspective about the bulk of the constituent service or staff is dedicated to this thing comparatively. >> i am not a comparative vest, but in a personal office, a member that may have a committee staff depending on what his or her situation is, if they are a ranking member or a subcommittee

chair, in a personal office everyone in a personal office, everyone, every single person, i think, there could be exceptions but i think this is a safe distinction to make, everyone in the office is somewhat involved. that is taking in feedback related to a member's policymaking decisions, about whether he or she is going to cosponsor legislation or vote this where that way or make particular decisions one way or other, but it is also taking feedback about what local concerns are, and how national issues affect the locality. that is the other thing, how national issues affect the locality. which is very important and that is the blurring of the line. >> it you can look at it, the policy world, the national policy. out of the right idc the

conditions of the district or state and so they are all right-i've. -- right- eyed. other things, depending on their position, might be more national. >> i think i would encourage us to even put -- the defense of the eye analogy is going to get me in trouble. this is part and parcel about the politics. how will these votes be perceived? how will i justify my vote at home? what do the leaders want? they are never separated. right? that is why the purple office is part and parcel about

keeping in touch with member districts. >> still looking for questions. you had one before so i had you in my queue. >> i have already put the coffee cup so you do not kick them. with the cartoons, the issue of partisanship. i wonder if the extent to which is different in the ideological sense. ideology abstract things like state rights, have long been economic interest, of civil rights, protecting from feudalism and so on. now, one gets the feeling particularly in the house, there are members who do believe in a crusade for smaller government as an abstract, -- as an abstract concept. so, a portion that no longer

believes in fast food at mcdonald's. firstly, does the increase in and abstract ideology effect the function? >> i think there are two constants. i was thinking about this last night. what are the constants in member behavior? the first has to be the desire for reelection given to us by david mayhew. second, i would put second to that, is that members actually believe in this stuff. i mean, it is not fiction. it is true. i would not just segment that to anyone with a particular ideology. the ideology over more liberal activist ideology. it is a more generalized statement. i think the chapter i have on

here or on senate armed services, i think i make that point in their in this virgin, which is, i have a great quote from someone they actually believe in helping servicemembers. they believe in making sure we have a strong national defense. this is something they wake up in the morning and they think about. and so, it is not fiction. in particular, i like that personally. this is me speaking as a non- employee. that is why i like working for congress. he can is whether or not you agree with a particular member or staffer or whoever you're working with, the passion that people bring to the job. the particular belief is set aside. the and with which they want to get something done. people come to the hilt not for the glamour, not for the high salaries, but people come to the

hill because they wake up every morning and they think they could get something done that actually helps the country. that is the second thing that motivates members of congress behind the motivation for reelection. panel member: at the end of the day, so many people in this room who interact regularly with members of staff and all that, why did they go through that unless they believed in it? i am large we only hear this all day every day. my enlarge evil would not do what they have to do to be there and go through what they have to go through money raising and everything else unless they had some larger exception to that. most of them left or right really believe in something or they would not do it. panel member: it strikes me that one of the differences that

republicans confront is that there are conservative movement forces in broader policy that were not there in quite the same way and you can chase modern conservative movement to goldwater and the tax revolt but i think there are institutions outside of congress now whose job it is to police what numbers do in terms of overall, is government having a girl or a smaller? grover norquist, americans for tax reform, there are a lot of act as we could put in that category. in the era of the 50's, 60's, there was more interest group activity around abstract ideas and that is a different context for members is a combination of politics and policy.

>> they use the term ideologue which means on, unbending, and so on. they are against everything in the congress and unwilling to even bend to compromise on a hill because that is a dirty word in itself -- compromise. those are two things, i do not know how you pin down the ideology. panelist: i am almost tempted to call on people. i want to make sure i am not missing anyone who wants to chime in. let me ask a broad question. and get some final thoughts. john, you may want to follow up. i want to talk about john

haskell's earlier point. many of us look at this through a framework that the party system has changed dramatically. the party system is more polarized. we have had that in past times, but all of the political beliefs were not in one party or another, they were across one party. people worry that we are stuck. that it is a tough time. we are not going to get out of this. you gave a hint there is a new path. a thought the party system has changed. i will throw it open to all of you, are we in this era with polarized political parties where therefore congress is in a tough mind? or, are there are hints of where congress maybe going or the party system maybe changing where we move out of the paradigm we are all talking about. john haskell: i -- dawn: i think

we have the lowest approval ratings and so on. i think public opinion does influence and pressure members into new ways of doing things or just doing things, so that is what i would contribute. >> the political balance sheet might not the all about the tight majority because they are not as tight as they were certainly i mentioned this before and if you think of it as purely political, which is how they do it, mcconnell will not be in the majority in 2017 unless things are done to benefit and if you think of it in particular political terms

think change. i think the politics are a little tiny bit different now than they were before. the republicans are getting, in the house, used to a situation where, unlike with speaker he seemed to be able to reinforce some lockstep. speaker boehner does not seem to be as good as that. that is not criticism of his ability to lead, it is the nature of the coalition and it might open up opportunity for cross-party agreement and i think we've already seen some of that in this congress. sarah: my hunch is there is more variation, even with the polarized congress, we will see more.

there is a way up on jamming the works and the unified party control does not last that long because the majority party tends to overreach. i think there is ample room forcing more change along the way. we might say, this time it is different that i think we might overestimate that will stop >> do you want to comment on that or do you want to ask the last question? >> i am not as optimistic, i guess. it ended strikes me that we are seeing the variation we are seeing. i think it is small baby steps. right? the broader, you know, ideological parts. difficult to overcome. it strikes me that, sort of channeling, you know, francis lee here as well, we are not

moving towards a less competitive system anytime soon. in terms of the percentage of americans that identify with republicans and democrats. obviously, the senate is very much in play. the white house is in play. 50-50 right now, back of the envelope will stop i don't know. that to me suggests that, you know, control of government is at stake. really hard at stake. hard to take tangible steps, steps that would really actually suggest a different congress that might register with the public as a different congress. >> you do not have to answer this question, but you can't say last words to bring us to the end. we are all encouraging you to buy this book, see the movie great will stop but, would you like to say a last word about the enterprise to ring us to the

end? >> i have been involved with a lot of research projects over my career as a political scientist. this has been great for me to work with john and all the authors the panelists and experts who in addition to their regular duties want to emphasize that in addition to answering the request to come in for members of congress and their staff, in addition to that, they found the time outside of regular work hours, in weekends and evenings, to write these very insightful chapters. i think it is -- i am very proud to be part of the institution of the congressional research service at the library of congress, also a terrific institution. we are really happy every day coming to work to help serve members of congress with the goal of and in warmed national

legislature. as long as we continue to be funded, as long as congress was is to be there and help them, we will keep showing up for work and producing, hopefully more documents like the one we produced for the evolving congress. >> thank you all and thank you for the audience for being here. [applause] >> the new congressional director he is a handy guide to the 114th congress with color photos of every senator and house member plus bio and contact information and twitter handles. also, district maps, a photo map of congressional hill, the president's cabinet, federal agencies state government's. order your copy today for $13.95 plus shipping and handling through the c-span online store at two span.org.

>> president obama will participate in a roundtable discussion on u.s. poverty. live coverage from georgetown university tomorrow at 11:25 a.m. eastern time. later in the day, sloan gibson will testify about veterans health care benefits. that is live from the senate veterans affairs committee at 2:30 eastern, also on c-span3. >> next, a conversation on u.s. infrastructure investment needs. we will hear from investment secretary foxx and siemens ceo eric spiegel. bloomberg government posted this to our panel. >> good morning, everybody. my name is josh east right and i had the agency here.

-- i had the agency here. this is the kickoff of infrastructure week. those of you joining us online please feel free to keep engaging with us throughout the day on twitter. our mission here at bloomberg government is all about giving washington decision-makers the tools they need to do their jobs better. with dozens of bills already introduced a around structure issues, certainly this is a topic our customers want to know about. this is impacting everyone in this room and across the country. that's why we're hosting several events in partnership with our friends building americans future. we are proud to be hosting today's event with the entire steering committee for

infrastructure week. i find myself thinking about london. you might ask why. it is because i live there full-time and part-time for the last 18 years. the huge and sustained infrastructure investment that i witnessed their first-hand is nothing short of amazing particularly in such a short time. in that time, i watched things like the heathrow express get built. i can tell you that is much better than in new york heading to laguardia or jfk. i watched the building of the london overground and the crossrail which will literally revolutionized the way people get from east to west across the city of london. i have watched the renovations of nearly every major train station across the city. it goes to show that one city in 15 years, when there is political will and sustained investment, we can make progress. today we are focused on u.s. infrastructure in we have a great panel set up. we will be hearing from ceos,

members of labor and business, infrastructure experts and of course shortly from secretary anthony foxx who is joining us for the second time in two weeks to talk about infrastructure. welcome back, mr. secretary. of course, later, we will be hearing from amtrak's biggest fan, vice president joe biden. before i hand this over to fill medically -- phil mattingly, i would like to ask joe timmons to introduce our first speaker. thank you for joining us, i hope you get the chance -- i get the chance to meet many of you today. jay, it is all yours. j mattingly: thank you for that kind introduction in for bringing us together this morning to officially kick off a week where we aim to draw

attention to a crisis. to motivate lawmakers to act and to galvanize supportja for infrastructure thaty manufactures and all americans need to compete in the global economy and secure our economy for the future i want to give a special shout out to secretary anthony foxx not only for being with us today but for continuing to relentlessly fight for our nations infrastructure challenges. this guy never stops and manufacturers are grateful for his leadership. it is also great to be joined by three leaders to consistently want to start making how we move commerce a priority again. governor ed rendell, my good

friend eric spiegel, the president and ceo of siemens america. and paul your row seat. -- and paul yarossi. tomorrow lunge her in ceo of schnitzer steel -- tamara is the president of the u.s. department of congress or in of directors. traditional and nontraditional allies as well, locust on the broad competitiveness implications of infrastructure investment. the nam is proud to lead this effort with our partners. the afl-cio. the u.s. chamber of commerce. the brookings institution policy program.

the american society of civil engineer and holding america's future. over the last few years, infrastructure we cast transformed from a handful of events led by a small group of organizations to a nationwide initiative. this week, more than 80 affiliate organizations will host more than 40 events from alaska to washington, d.c. and everywhere in between. scores of mayors and legislatures are raising this with their members. the service sector is bringing their story to our nation's leadership and we will hear from our highest elect did and federal agency officials throughout the week on federal actions to repair and modernize our aging infrastructure. ladies and gentlemen, the timing could not be more appropriate. 20 days. 20 days.

that is all that separates us from a highway shutdown unless congress extends federal highway and other transit program funding. another short-term extension would be the you at this the 33rd time in just six years that congress failed. failed when faced with the need for a new transportation measure. not just highways, but taking decisive action to build our future. i think we can all agree that this is simply unacceptable. it is unworthy of our country, a country that was created on infrastructure systems that empower us to achieve the greatness -- the greatest. of prosperity in history. congress will likely come up with temporary patchwork yet again, but we must insist on more. our elected officials have a choice.

do we want america to be yesterday's story? or do we want it to be tomorrow's? we need a well-funded multi-year service -- surface transportation authorization and we need it now. that is why your voices are absolutely essential to educate lawmakers to build momentum and to move us forward. beyond just the measures of today, but move us forward for solutions for a better tomorrow. whether it is an engineer at a plant in baton rouge, a welder on a shop or in peoria, or a researcher in a lab in pittsburgh, the more than 12 million men and women who make a living in many factoring, and indeed, all americans, are counting on this progress. i know secretary foxx is counting on that as well and he is strongly committed to a writing our ports and runways and restoring our roads and railways, to rebuild america.

secretary foxx has impressed both republicans and democrats with his tenacity for improving our nation's transportation system and it is a distinct pleasure to welcome me him here today. ladies and gentlemen, i give you the american director of transportation, anthony foxx. anthony foxx: it is great to be here at the beginning of transportation week i want to thank jay timmons and the entire group here for hosting this incredible week. a week that brings together entities as diverse as the u.s. chamber of commerce and the national association of manufacturers as well as the afl-cio, nonprofits like build

america's future and brookings into the american society of civil engineers. they are all incredible partners to what we do. i was thinking about what i might say today, how i would try to talk about this subject with perhaps a fresh lens. into then, this morning, i was watching es e.on and -- i was watching espn and i saw in a basket ballgame yesterday the clock was running down and lebron james got a shot with less than a second left. he nailed it all stop the team one. everybody was excited -- he nailed it. the team one. everybody was excited except the folks in chicago. we have a clock that is running out. we have 20 days left. guys i wish we had the

equivalent of lebron james when it comes to taking the kind of courageous stands that need to be taken to move this country's infrastructure forward. but alas, he plays basketball and he is not in congress. you know, the challenges we face in infrastructure are real, they are unassailable from the standpoint of the facts that we know. we know that, for instance, the american society of civil engineers has found that surface trance per tatian -- surface transportation investment needs to grow by $20 million by 2020. we've recently completed a draft study called "beyond traffic" that we are not investing enough to keep our infrastructure together. in fact, we cited we are still

falling $11 million-$20 million short of maintaining the infrastructure we already have. it would be one thing if we were a static country and we just had those needs. you consider the fact that over the next 20 years we will have 70 million more people competing for the same road space, the same transit space, the same rail space. the problems will get harder. the congestion will get worse. if we do not do something dramatic and do it quickly. we already know, for example that instead of investing more we have six states that have announced they are pulling back almost $2 billion in projects. states like tennessee, georgia delaware arkansas -- there are a few others.

so, at the very time the country needs to be growing, we are pulling back. and, i have to tell you that as a former mayor, there is an even deeper level of pulling back that you are seeing that is indivisible. you cannot want to private. but, let me tell you how lays out. you have a big multi-your project that will transform your city or your state. it is going to cost multiple billion dollars to do. the money has to come in over several years. you have got a plan that you have to get through in environmental process. it you have to spend, in some cases, tens of millions, in some cases hundreds of millions to get through that first phase. let me tell you that those big transformative projects, they are not being done. they are not being planned.

and so, we are not even in a position today to turn on the light switch and go big as a country week as we have been through 32 short-term extensions over the last six years. so much uncertainty at the federal level that it is crippling our system. now, i did not come here to kick off infrastructure week to sound dire or dour, a better word. i came to sound committed and focused on these solutions. the president and i have introduced a solution. it is called the grow america act. it is a six-year bill. the size of it is 478 ilion dollars. it would transform our nation's infrastructure. it is a bill that would what

$317 billion in our highway system over six years. a 29% increase. $150 billion in our transit systems, a 76% increase. and, it would also include rail. intercity passenger rail as part of the trust fund so that we can build america's surface system one year, one brick, one piece of steel, one train at a time and keep it moving for multiple years. well it you say, well that sounds good but how are you going to pay for? here's how we pay for. we a ford through tax reform. taxing untaxed corporate earnings overseas. about 1-2 trillion dollars of those proceeds is sitting over there right now. apply a 14% tax rate and that generates the amount of money we need to go forward. we have an idea. it is on the table.

the way we pay for it, the way we suggest, is not very different from republican ideas you have seen come up including chairman camps proposal last year that was put forward and is in active conversation about how to move forward. and yet while we continue to work on this long-term approach we are 20 days away from running out not only running out of the last extension, but running out of our ability as a department to use the little bit of money we do have to support our nation's infrastructure. this is worse than last summer in that respect he comes of this extension goes without being pushed forward and some way, we will not have the ability to spend the dollars we do have to support this nation's infrastructure. it is that serious. so let me just say this, at the

end of the day, i think while we are all here -- why we are all here is because we recognize this is not a rational argument or rational debate we are having. we know we have big infrastructure and maintenance needs. we know we have the need to go big as a country. it is not the acts that are in the way. it is the result. so, we come together here to really try to rally the country. to understand that we have a future in this country that we can't build and choose for ourselves and we have a defunct future that will be far worse. if i were to suggest to you that two or three things without to focus on. number one, focus on growing the amount of investment we are making in our infrastructure. i hear people saying, let's get the highway trust fund stabilize. but i just told you that just stabilizing the highway trust

fund is not in outcome. it is a mass problem and it does not address the maintenance problems we have, does not address the needs we have to expand and build new infrastructure. in so, we need a vision that points towards substantial growth. not flat-funding. not funding for inflation. funding that actually moves the dial forward. secondly we need to kick about policy changes that give our country national goals again. if we are going to ask the american people to put more money and infrastructure we need to show them something different. something better. or example, we need national goals again. we need to have a national freight strategy that is actually funded. that will happen us move -- that will help us move forward better than we do today. we need to have the ability for these large growing mega-regions

across the country to make some of the transportation decisions they need to make on their own. our proposal provides for that. we need to streamline our permitting system so we get projects done faster. and, it can be done without jeopardizing the environment and also getting us better results and better outcomes at a lower cost. these ideas are found in the grow america act. they are ideas that can move america forward. i say to you, let's not just let this conversation be about getting financing stabilize. let's make it also about the policies that support the dollars so that the american people get the kind of system they use are. i sail the time, my job, my whole job is to make sure america's infrastructure is as good as the american people. if we all do that, we're going to make this country great.

thank you so much. [applause] >> secretary foxx. now i would like to welcome the worst panel up. the president of siemens usa and governor rendell, i think everybody knows. my take away from the comments is labor on james will soon be running for the 11th district seat in ohio and will need a position on tni immediately, at which point he will change the world. but jumping off a little bit on the secretary's comments, a lot of people in this room do not disagree about what is needed and do not is agree from a headline from one of the events a couple days ago that the current state of play is embarrassing in terms of the u.s. infrastructure as it

stands. on this panel, with the three distinguished gentleman to my left, we will get into that and have questions from the audience at the last 20 minutes. i want to put them on the spot early because one of the goals here is to talk about the future. some optimism in the midst of all this pessimism. if you could quickly, what is one policy technology thing that you are seeing in your business or in your travels on a regular aces that is most exciting to you when it comes to change or the future. evernote, i will start with you. governor rendell: [indiscernible]

>> the one thing that is happening then i think is very important is that when you bring transportation down to the local level, it gets funded all the time. i do not remember the exact number but 60% of ellet-making was passed -- ballots-making was passed at the state level. that is with the understanding that a national type of infrastructure funding is needed. this national system is needed and that is what is exciting to me.

>> i think the important thing to me is that cities get it. we have a large manufacturing days. when i go out and visit mayors in cities, they get the fact that they need more better mobility. whether it is light rail or buses or whatever. they are finding ways to get the money and they also understand the need for a more intelligent infrastructure. smarter billings, smarter buildings, smarter -- we need to get more of that action at the state level as you are saying and more at the federal level. i think the cities get it, and to me that is where the action is. >> we will get down to the cities, but i want to start with federal. governor, the joint study today showing on the city level so like city will stop -- salt lake city.

the case studies are there. the statistics appear to be there. what is the gap when it comes to the federal side of things that you guys are saying? governor rendell: norquist has paralyzed this town. everyone thinks the problem is partisanship. the problem is no one has any courage. they are afraid to raise their hand. if we had a federal ballot on raising the gas tax, it would pass with 135 votes in the house and 85 votes in the senate. but we do not have a secret vote. it takes pushing the button, raising hand, going online. good god, my first year as governor i raised the first tax increase in pennsylvania's history and i got reelected by 51% margin in a decidedly purple

state will stop if you give something to people in return for raising their revenue, they will support you. they will support you. and it is proven. the fact that you just quoted. it is actually 74% in the last election of the ballot initiatives approved. the difference? the ballot initiatives are key to specific projects. we are raising the sales tax in charleston one half a penny so we can revitalize the port of charleston. it passed overwhelmingly because people understand their economy is linked to the port. but the gas goes into the big hole of government and we demonize government so badly that the public does not really get it entirely and no one has the best of both. host: you told me before, when we are 20 days out from the cliff, that is when you find yourself in washington.

what is the response you get from lawmakers? >>: i want to say it is better but it is hard to find someone who knows how to do it other than the way we have been doing it. we have been debating changing funding for transportation. probably for more than five years. we have not come up with a better way. so, just what the governor said. it is going to take urge but it is time to use that courage and do it. i just want to say something about your original question quickly. part of the real issue with the federal bill is a lack of knowledge of what it really is. what we are really talking about. i find that a lot. government wants to talk about that, let's put it right on the

table. if you take the program back to the states,the federal program pays about 52% of all surface transportation. back up to the states, it's 52% of their program. the other thing is how much it costs. pick a number. if you have 25 and you drive 20,000 miles, it's going to cost you $150 a year for $.15 gas tax increase. i'm not going to say that's a small amount of money to a lot of people. but when you think about jobs and what it could do for this country, for less than three dollars a week, it's not the huge drain on the economy that we hear about all the time. >> if the point is, people trust

that their money is being utilized, why not? aren't we all now saying it's more -- >> you devolve the states and give them decidedly who has the best money. maybe these states would do it. but it's not what devolution is. it we've learned that in social programs and we've learned that across the board. just recently, it did not work 50 years ago. net national system of highways we are a nation. we have to be tied together.

>> you work for an international company. is there a quantifiable impact on your business the way the u.s. is currently operating? i mean, compared to, perhaps other places. >> it definitely protects investment decisions. when a company looks at making investments, you will be close to the big markets. you want to have skilled labor. you want to take a look at paces -- places where you can drive innovation. not just removing products around the country but also for x wording. that's when we start to find real flaws in the u.s. economy. when i talk to people on the hill, i talk about infrastructure which is why we

recently did a study that you mentioned for the economic development research group. hundreds of millions of dollars of growth. looking at the university of louisville and kentucky. the infrastructure is really a growth story. so over time, you will recoup the money from them. the focus here really is on spending as opposed to growth. >> places where your company is looking and where localities are making the investments in trying new things, perhaps. that you are close to a process

of and clearly how they have set themselves up from a local level? >> when we start to think about putting new manufacturing we spent a lot of time in the state in the city. they had an old, retired rail spur. we spent time with them saying that this plan is built for the u.s. market and built as a global export market. we need to have that rail spur reconnected. oftentimes we have roads then need to be rebuilt and revamped. the same thing in kansas where we build big wind facilities. we needed road ramps. before you commit to making an investment, it's not just about tax breaks and it's not just about the labor pulled. it's really about can i get the infrastructure i need to learn the business?

i talk to other global companies . on the margin, we are investment because of our infrastructure. >> talk to me about what it's like to be in that position as you are competing to get folks like siemens into your state. >> you are exactly right. i took apart and put aside money for economic development. if the company needed a rail spur attached to one of the short lines, it would cost $4 million in the state would pay the $4 million. bingo. the biggest real estate developer in the country wanted to go to life center in butler county.

we built the access road for $10 million. it is key to economic development. our sagging infrastructure is killing us. they are deepening the panel mocon now so the supertankers from asia can come through. they don't want to unload in california. they want to come through the canal, unload their goods in the northeast. 12 major northeast ports. of our 12 major ports, only to our sufficient to take those. so for the time being, those little ships will dislodge their cargo in canada. and invests tens of thousands of longshoremen jobs and trucker jobs. what do longshoremen jobs and trucker jobs have in common?

they are high-paying middle-class jobs. they are's -- they are between $70,000 and $90,000 a year jobs. all the politicians talk about those jobs but they don't do anything to spur middle-class jobs. if i wanted to revive the american economy and create wage growth, i would put $200 billion a year in addition to what we're spending now in the revitalization program. the electric grid, broadband you name it. repairing the american infrastructure for 10 years. that would create somewhere between 4 million and 5 million well-paying middle-class for the next decade. we ought to be doing that.

>> as we move forward and think about the infrastructure, there are numbers out there like a backlog of $3.6 trillion and a big funding gap. i think one thing we need to do is be a lot more strategic about how we use the money. there is a tendency to peanut butter the money across all locations and states. where you have an opportunity to get investment, private investment, it's going to create jobs and help the local city. that is where the money ought to be put. they come in with a specific investment. i don't know if i will have that money and if i can do that. i think if we are more strategic about how we do this, we

probably need a little bit less money and a little more bang for their buck. >> is there something out there right now? >> one thing that is out there we're looking at the rift loans. that is a big opportunity for places were you have mobility projects. all aboard florida is privately owned and operated and will bring a higher speed. i did not say high-speed. higher speed rail. in the next phase of that the owners and operators will be looking for some kind of rough loan.

a lot of money sitting there, we need to come up with the sensible projects to be able to track that money. >> what is the actual on the ground impact going close to cliff? can you see it in your business planning? and in your time in office? >> it makes it difficult at plan any long-term project. the money we get, it's impossible to do any long-term planning because you need a consistent funding stream. there's no question about that. when you did the water resources bill, the reason we don't dredge those ports as quickly as we should is there's something called a harbor maintenance trust fund.

congress borrowed half of the trust fund to patch holes in the deficit. and the resources bill reduces that each year until it phases out in 2025. all the money is used for dredging and all those things that are necessary for harbors. the one that allowed an integrated approach and planning, it was enormously successful. it allowed for projects of a larger scope and was a new public-private partnership. we did two projects with six other states. we improved rail freight to magically -- dramatically. in the companies put up about 40% of the money.

>> map 21 which was passed almost three years ago now had a policy reform. would you think about fix it first, we have to have a safe infrastructure. the national system was planned. it's a good time to look at how we are running our freight plan to accommodate was new in the world. in the container ships are door as much as they are port to port. and they have to be able to go port to port to run their businesses. i'm with the governor. hate saying it going to halifax or to redistribute.

it doesn't make sense to anybody because we don't have the port facilities to make it work in deepwater and be ill to get the project off the court. not that we don't love canada. there are so many things to be positive about. and what we can do, there are safety issues that are coming out one after another. we start with collision avoidance systems, intelligent highways. even as much is that, we can make great environmental strides. and with the robust bill, we can start to do with those issues, too. there will be a lot of benefits.

by opportunity to go to college was because my grandfather had a construction jobs when he came to this country and it moved him into the middle class. a construction job manufacturing job cuts through the entire cross-section of the american workers. it from unskilled laborer to advanced degree engineer. everybody gets a job and it has upward growth. very few jobs have that potential that you can go in as an unskilled laborer. many consumers who can consume. >> from the corporate planning side, going cliff to cliff, is there a noticeable intangible impact? >> we have invested over 25

billion in the u.s. over the last decade. they are typically investments that take two or three years in planning and another depending on how big the project is. they are not something you're going to decide on and build in six months. you got to know what will be out there over the next five or six years. unfortunately, a lot of it was built in the 19th century. not even the 20th. in these to be maintained and repaired. and so those were spending money to upgrade. another part of infrastructure investment that people don't think about. on average, it's over 27 years old.

as you mentioned, we are looking at digital technology around street automation, parking automation, highway automation. the digital economy is coming very quickly. the manufacturing is changing dramatically. you know all of those need to be upgraded to be competitive going forward. there are issues long-term that we need to address. >> want to open it up for questions. but there is way too much agreement here. governor, is it something corporate america wanted when you were in office on the infrastructure side of things that was completely untenable to you that you thought was shortsighted and might continue

today? the oa seem very in lockstep on this. what do you disagree with these gentlemen on? >> you have the chamber of commerce. it those are two organizations that can't agree that today is monday. this is an area where there is universal agreement. we all know this needs to be done. do it. the only problem i ever had with corporations and corporate interests are, in most cases, exactly the same. the only problem i had with corporations is tax breaks. whether we call them expenditures are loopholes we

had a corporate income tax and it was the second highest in the country. we get all sorts of complaints by the chamber. i said, how can you complain about the corporate net income tax when three out of four of you don't pay a dime on it. and income tax on corporations federal tax. what do you think the effective tax rate they pay is? i will give you two tickets to the next championship game. a few paid zero. but what do think the effective rate is? 17%. a sit of the top of the world it would put us right in the

world of taxation. >> the governor will be taking those tickets. >> we have 16 minutes left. you guys are a lot smarter than i am. introduce yourself at the start and fire away. >> jeff corey with the design build institute of america. talking about completing projects faster. i wondered what your thoughts were on project delivery. a lot of focus on the financing. what about delivering messages with design build? >> one thing we only touched on was the return of investment that comes from investing in our infrastructure, no matter what

kind of infrastructure. and when we look at projects i've been doing a lot of design build. it comes down to what is the best method for delivery. you will see it as more and more part of how projects are delivered. but it doesn't work for every job. >> to find the most cost effective and quality effective ways to do things, the design bill is one of those things. one thing we started to do in pennsylvania is packaging the contracts. packaging 27 bridges in one geographic area. 27 bridges is more a tractor to accompany them one bridge. it's incumbent to use all the new technologies in the way we procure services for

infrastructure. >> how do you get companies that are not direct beneficiaries of these programs? companies that are totally dependent on transportation for their model but are not terribly engaged in this debate? how do we get these folks involved? what do you suggest for those of us in the transportation world? we see this same -- we see each other a lot. how do we get more faces out here that also believe america needs to invest in infrastructure?

>> mcdonald's probably gets all of their things shipped to them. the cost of shipping, the time it takes. we need a federal capital budget because as long as infrastructure is in the regular budget, you will always be third or fourth. people like mcdonald's get it because they get the cost of a pothole is a broken axle. it is somewhat low on the party system. we want consumers who can consume. mcdonnell's benefits and everybody benefits from we have a thriving economy.

if the u.s. department of transportation is right, we have a billion dollars from the stimulus. a healthy america and economy trickles down to everybody. >> sophisticated investors understand the modern infrastructure. for example, salt lake in

louisville kentucky can put together a case around those benefits. people don't understand how much investment will be driven along that line. you talk about the amount of investment that would occur around that, it kind of dwarfs. whether its high-speed or light rail or whatever, take a look at the revenue from tickets minus the cost. it will be very difficult to justify. our studies show that cities connected grow at 2.7 times what the city is not connected to the rail. people fight to make sure that they are connected to these lines. companies don't yet understand things like the value of light rail.

they don't really understand the details of that. state governments understand a lot. some cities more than others. a lot of people don't understand the magnitude of the difference if you have modern infrastructure and world-class mobility. >> just to add to that, i would put any transportation projects return on investment. i would not fear most any transportation project. commuter rail, light rail transit, they don't survive

without having the ability to bring people in even though it may cost a little more. somebody has to fill all those tall buildings. the return on investment is significant. still, the return is here. the national association of manufacturers is here. they are not one of the usual suspects. a lot of people surrounding infrastructure week who are uses of the transportation system and who benefit from them that are starting to have a voice right now. >> and along those lines, it wouldn't be an event if i didn't have a shameless plug. to break out of the bubble, that

is a way to reach out on social if you are a social media person or are attempting to be one on this day. that will definitely let people know where you are. >> you talked about the need for sophisticated investment and better communications. i think on the public side we are unsophisticated and not communicating well. i think it can be a double-edged sword. there's a great return on investment. i pay taxes for a new subway system.

a great new transit stop that would be great for me. i want to get my money's worth. i go there and the landlord says well, this is the average rate you would pay anywhere else you were next to the station so you need to pay a premium rent. so i had to pay a second time to use the infrastructure of already paid for in my taxes by paying a higher rent to the landlord. that infrastructure can bite us in the but that way. the development we want to locate near the infrastructure ends up moving away because land prices go up. the land price goes up because the infrastructure has. but that value ends up as a windfall for the people lucky enough to own land next to the station. we tax the middle class to

enrich the affluent people you're the highway and we wonder why people are not enthusiastic. >> i suggest moving 10 blocks away and taking the bus to the station. but seriously, you make a good point. don't give the right argument to the american people. no one likes to pay more in taxes. but the right argument is, you are paying a tremendous cost by in action. -- inaction. the average driver that drives 12,000 miles a year's ben's $818 more because we have an inadequate infrastructure.

i had a friend -- it was almost from sea to shining sea because of the terrible winter we had. he blew out three tires. any idea what three tire replacements on a mercedes costs? he can handle the tax increase for another decade. just for the cost of inaction. till people a cost of doing nothing is higher than the cost of doing something. host: time for maybe two more. panelist: i think it is a good point you made, the value goes up, but that is one of the mechanisms you need to count in terms of funding these projects. the value to the average consumer is