[indiscernible] >> finishing up with former cia deputy director michael morell. we will air this again later in

the program schedule, or you can watch it again shortly online at c-span.org. we do have more life events coming up today. joe manchin will be speaking at the brookings institution this afternoon. he will be talking about governing from the middle. watch his remarks live at 2:00 p.m. eastern on our companion network, c-span3. later, it's more from the road to the white house with hillary clinton. she would making her second appearance in iowa. she is talking about ideas to expand small business. you can see that live at 3:45 eastern also want c-span3. president obama is traveling today, he will be in new jersey this afternoon to talk about community policing here it he is expected to talk about a drawdown in the amount of military equipment being provided to law enforcement. that starts at 3:10 eastern. you'll be a watch it online at c-span.org.

the president is expected to acknowledge the camden police department is a national example. this the headline from philly.com. the story says it's a good example of a community that's putting innovative strategies in place to advance committee policing. cecilia munoz is the director of the white house policy council. she said the president chose to visit camden because of its emphasis on committee policing to reduce crime. from the same website comes this related headline -- camden county police department struggling to keep officers. the camden county police department even as it receives praise for reducing violent crime has struggled to retain officers since it was formed two years ago. nearly 120 officers, including large swaths of recruiting classes have resigned or retired, making the department's turnover one of the highest in the state. the attrition threatens to be an obstacle for the county run force in its quest to build a

strong relationship between officers and residents. read more from both of those stories at philly.com. that is the website for the philadelphia inquirer. looking at congress this week both the house and senate return for business today here on c-span. the house will gavel in a new and eastern for general speeches. legislative work begins in 2:00 p.m.. human trafficking and coast guard funding are among the bills on the counter. later this week, members consider the highway trust fund and legislative branch spending. the senate also returns at 2:00 p.m. eastern today. more work is expected on the trade promotion authority bill. later this week they work on expiring patriot act provisions. here's a deeper look at what to have this week on capitol hill. host: just one more week on capitol hill before the house and senate go out for their memorial day break. joining us for a look at that last week ahead is lauren french, she's a congressional reporter with politico, and two big deadlines ahead. the patriot act and the highway trust fund. the house passed its bill

dealing with the pay trocket -- the patriot act. n.s.a. surveillance, renewing expiring provisions. what's the status of the legislation in the senate? guest: that's a lot more complicated than it was in the house. the house passed it with an overwhelming number of members supporting the u.s.a. freedom act but that legislation is not being picked up in the senate. mitch mcconnel wants a clean re-authorization of the patriot act, the program most notably known because of edward snowdon and the release he did. but there's critics of the patriot act and the bulk collection of american data who want to see the u.s.a. freedom act or a bill like it on the floor instead of the patriot act. host: senator rand paul finding himself against mcconnel. guest: senator rand paul said he would likely fill bust fer mitch -- filibuster if mitch mcconnel puts up just a clean patriot act. he's concerned because it allows the government to collect

information without warrant or notification. he would filibuster that bill if it came to the floor. mcconnel is pushing other republicans to have the votes needed to pass that and move on to other measures. host: and another deadline coming up is the highway trust fund. senator carper said, today senator boxer and i are back with a bill to compel congress to fix the trust fund this summer. what's the status of that? guest: the current authorization ends the end of this month. lawmakers are on a very strict deadline with the upcoming construction season. there needs to be money available to keep the projects going forward and building. what is happening here as you see in the senate and the house

a two-month extension of that authorization to fwi lawmakers much more time to figure out how to pay for a long-term extension. everyone involved wants a five-year or longer highway trust fund, the sticking point is how to pay for it. democrats are advocating for an increase in the gas tax, but that's not a popular proposal among republicans. host: the senate moving forward with trade promotion authority what do you think we can expect in floor debate and will the senate finish this by the end of next week? guest: expect a contentious week in the senate and then to a lesser extent in the house over fast track trade authority. democrats, there are some democrats who want it but they went with senator reid earlier this week to stop it from going forward until there was currency debates and other bills considered.

but now that it's going to be on the floor, you'll see democrats railing against fast track authority and the qualms they have with the upcoming transpacific partnership, that large trade deal. it will be a contentious week. and there's no guarantee that trade is dealt with by the senate. they might not get to it, or it might not pass. it's all very much in flux. of course if it does pass it goes to the house where the future of the fast track authority is much more uncertain. host: affecting also the t.p.p., transpacific partnership as well. let's move on here, former secretary of state hillary clinton was supposed to testify before the select committee on benghazi as early as next week but then as you write, the chair of the select committee, trey gowdy, said he won't allow her to testify until certain documents are turned over. what's happening here? guest: he flipped the switch to turn attention away from hillary clinton to john kerry, her

predecessor -- her successor. he said he can't have hillary clinton come in and testify because he doesn't have the evidence he needs and she's insisting that she'll only appear before the benghazi panel one time. gowdy's fear is she comes in and then new evidence comes out, when new documents are made available, they will have missed the opportunity to question her. he's saying without all these documents, she's won't be appearing, trying to amp up pressure on the obama administration to get the documents they have been waiting for, in some cases for six months. host: thanks, lauren. your twitter handle is @laurennfrench and the politico website. >> the new congressional directory is a handy guide to the 114th congress with color photos every senator and house member, less violent contact

information, and twitter handles. also, district maps, a full map of capitol hill, at a look at congressional committees. the president's cabinet. federal agencies and state governments. order your copy today, is $13 a-day five cents plus shipping and handling through the c-span online store at c-span.org. >> the u.s. house gavels and for morning our noon eastern. live coverage on c-span. right now, a roundtable on income inequality from today's "washington journal." host: there's been a lot of talk about the gap between the richest americans and everyone else. we will be talking about this special roundtable. we are joined by scott and michael. president obama in 2013 called this economic inequality issue that defining challenge of our time.

would you agree with that? guest: yes. the doubling of the top 1% of the income share, runaway income at the top. a real hard hit meeting class. median incomes are down 8% since 2000 and the precarious market situation, a lot of unemployment continuous employment. host: talk about the growth of any quality. -- inequality. are we hearing so much about it because this is an issue that is running away? guest: i think we have heard a lot about it the financial races -- crisis because we dodged another great depression, there has been a lot of economic anxiety. inequality was high before the financial crisis and we tended not to hear all that much about it. there was no occupy wall street were not talking about it as the defining challenge of our time.

i think as it continues to expand we will see inequality as an issue. host: talk about the roosevelt institute and some of the policy prescriptions that your group recently put out. guest: we just released a big report called rewriting the rules. people talk about weak economic performance over the past 10 15, 30 years, they tend to emphasize things like globalization, technology, and skills. we really wanted to emphasize public policy decision, the rules of the economy, how labor markets are set up play just as much of a role and certainly a greater role than is commonly acknowledged. a lot of these changes we argue have not aid the economy stronger and in some cases, like financial deregulation, may have weakened it. we think it is within our

capacity to rewrite these rules. host: for viewers who want to check out the report it is rooseveltinstitute.org. we are doing our phone lines differently this segment as we talk about income inequality in this country. if your income last year was under $25,000, 748-8000. between and $60,000,748-8001. a line for $26,000 those who made over $100,000, 748-8003. scott winship, or policy? guest: i think income inequality has been overstated as a problem. i worry about inequality of

opportunity in the research i've done and tried to highlight that others of done. it doesn't make a very strong case in my view that if you care about inequality of opportunity that income inequality ought to be the thing you target. i'm more concerned about upward mobility from the bottom. i think the way to do that is to do a lot of experimentation at the federal level with programs that tried to increase the skills of kids, change the behavior parents, it would have federal safety programs that have some bad incentives, where people are discouraged from working, saving, marrying, i think we need to have some reforms in the area of higher education, financing as well. i wouldn't tend to put forth an agenda that is specifically trying to reduce income inequality. host: a chart to demonstrate what we are talking about.

this is the percentage in change in real income from 1980 to the 2012. blue line on the top is the top .01% of earners in this country and the red line is the bottom 90% in this country. you can see the percent change in real income since 1980, staying flat for the bottom 90% and going generally upward for the top .01%. michael, is it just a matter of getting people more ability to break into that top point 01%? guest: no, we do not believe so. these are symptoms of our economic malaise. we really need to tackle the underlying illness and that is that there are a lot of rules that are channeling wealth upward, redefining finance corporations, labor markets, intellectual property. all taken together it creates

this divergence. it is not a recovery that is broad-based. the 1% looks like it is coming down back to 2007 levels. that should worry us if we think that these trends are very likely to continue forward. host: in terms of changing the policy regime, is it a matter of heavy taxes on that .01% to try to move money down? guest: there is also things political scientist call market conditioning or pre-distribution, everything from labor market regulation to the minimum wage that set of the market. we told that towards the top 1%. -- tilted that towards the top

1%. i think it is time we pulled it back. host: scott, i imagine you do not miss fairly agree. guest: lots of disagreement. i think the story they want to tell in the report that the rise income inequality beginning in the early 1980's facilitated by these rules changes that he talks about have had negative consequences, i think a big problem for the report is the timing of the story does not work out. the growth in income slowed starting early in the 1970's, predating the run-up income concentration by a decade. productivity slowed in developed countries around the world countries that had a lot of inequality, countries that did not have that much. there are a number of instances like that where the financial sector has become a bigger share of the economy. this is not something where financial-ization has affected.

hopefully we can have a discussion about trends in living standards as well. the chart you referenced visually downplays how much there has been income growth for the middle class the congressional budget office indicates that it's been something like -- it has been something like a 40% increase since 1979. not a lot of change since 2000 for sure. we are almost back to the levels that were essentially all-time highs for living standards. host: scott winship's website, manhattan-institute.org, and rooseveltinstitute.org. we want to hear from our viewers and we have divided them from income last year. peter calling in from valley cottage, new york for people who

made between $51,000 and $100,000. caller: i want to talk about the 800 pound gorilla in the room. the nonpartisan congressional research service report studied immigration and middle-class income from 1945 to 2013. as immigration slowed between 1945 and 1970 incomes increased. when immigration increased, the incomes went down and then went flat. crs reported that the foreign-born population of the united states surged from 9 million to 20 million in 2013. incomes of the bottom 90% dropped 7.9% from an average of 33,000 621 to 30,980.

there are other contributing factors, globalization, out sourcing, declining utilization, trade deals that are bad advances in robotics and technology. when you have a weak economy or slowly growing economy you will not be able to absorb all these people. we bring in 1,002,000 immigrants legally every year that are competing with american workers. this legalization effort that was being pushed a year ago, they want to double that. host: peter is an valley cottage, new york. in your report the roosevelt institute talked about this idea of immigration. guest: certainly having a large part of the labor force essentially be in the shadows of labor law and not having basic right, basic protections, the ability to go to law enforcement or other types of agencies is a

real detriment to other workers who have to compete. we feel you can make the labor floor much better for everyone by incorporating people formally. there's a lot of different ways to measure this but my understanding is that immigration has fallen quite dramatically since the great recession, and there may be outflows. certainly the mexico. we do not see this renaissance of working-class wages so there are other factors at play. i think a lot of people look at this and say it's a contributor at the margins, but somewhat of the big contributors. host: scott winship, did you want to jump in? guest: i think i do agree with what mike said. the research literature is all over the place on this question. i do think that the caller brings up an important point which is that a lot of the in the report could have benefits but a lot of them could have cost as well.

i think a lot of them that are not as rarely discussed in the report, whether that is more spending on federal policies that would increase deficits or economic growth that way. i agree with mike about overall how important immigration has has not been for wage trends over time. host: in terms of spending henry wants me to ask you do about under investment in american infrastructure and american workers. guest: i think the infrastructure problem in the u.s., this is a bad time to cite the literature on this given that we just had this horrible amtrak accident but i think they have made a pretty strong case. a researcher that has been on blogs, he makes a very strong case that it has been overstated. we want to maintain our infrastructure spending for sure.

i think what the recovery showed is that even when we boost spending on infrastructure it does not have very strong, especially short-term impact on employment distribution so i think infrastructure has been oversold. as a way of boosting the middle class. host: income inequality, the income distribution in the u.s. is our topic for the next five -- 45 minutes or so on "the washington journal." jim is up next, kitty hawk north carolina. good morning. caller: good morning. one of the problems i think we have in this country is the low savings rate. without money in the bank it is very difficult to negotiate any kind of union contract or just discuss those possibilities with your management.

i can recall my grandmother -- my grandfather was a cabinet maker and my grandmother had this jar in the pantry and she saved one dollar or two dollars a week. i said what is that money for? she said it is for a time when we go on strike so i can pay the mortgage and feed the family. i think that is one of the major problems in this country. earlier in the day on another network i heard that people between 55 and 65, 60% of them have no retirement fund. what is going to happen to those people in the next 10, 20, 30 years, living to the tune of 80 or 90 years old? host: michael? guest: there has been a big experiment with 401k. people just have not historically ever received that way. it is differently to save off of

yourself. people generally retire off a government pension or private engine. -- pension. the gap there is pretty big and startling. we have seen internationally where a lot of these private savings vehicles essentially make -- -- an experiment of the danish pension section. we call for bolstering social security. we think that is the time-tested, well proven solution. i think the reason for the decline of the strike which happened much earlier, in the 1940's after a lot of change in the labor law, it rings down the strike level do not want to blame it too much on individuals. we think it is really a function of labor law that has caused that change. guest: i think this is one of these crises, the retirement savings crisis that has been overstated.

there is really good research showing that our official data that people use to gauge the adequacy of retirement savings and how much income retirees have is really understated. incomes of older americans. i think it is a misreading of those sorts of statistics that lead you to conclude we should spend more on social security, which is really going to eat the rest of the budget along with medicare as things currently stand, even if we do not expand it. i think that is a real trade-off. host: income inequality is the topic of our roundtable this morning on "the washington journal." here is a another chart showing the wealth share in the united dates from 1913 to 2012 of the top .1%. you can see once it was passed 2010 or so that number over 20% of the wealth share of the united states is held by those on top.

we are talking about income inequality. calvin is up next, winston-salem, north carolina. good morning. caller: good morning, and kudos to c-span for the continuous excellent job you and your team do. host: i appreciate that. caller: the nature of a capitalist system is to have built in income inequality. going back to the fight of -- the fifedoms of europe which was the predecessor for our current american capital system, there will always be those who have the capital and those who will seek to work using their capital. income inequality is built in. the second thing i would like to mention is a book called "the millionaire next door" by a couple of doctors that was published back in 1996.

it points out a couple of things, and piggybacks on what the gentleman mentioned, millionaires live next-door and are inconspicuous because a lot of their habits, their saving and spending habits, the values that they have in terms of emphasizing education, deferring immediate satisfaction to look at the long-term benefits of a decision, that is what really makes people wealthy and prosperous. i do not think it is a total government thingnor do i think we have to let free enterprise solve the situation. host: scott? guest: i think the caller makes an interesting point that there are people out there that are millionaires who we might not expect were identified as much. for somebody who tends to worry less about inequality than other people it is hard to understate

how much inequality there is in the united states. the inequality between larry ellison, who is often the richest person on the charts in america, and mitt romney, is as great as the inequality between the top 1% and the average middle-class family. it is astonishing how high inequality levels are in united states. i think you need to make a case why that is a problem. host: do you want to jump in? do you want to jump in? guest: they said earlier, you want to include sociology individual and family decisions. we think those tend to be overrated compared to the normal conversation. a general tendency toward

inequality, of course, we have always had inequality in the company -- in the country. one thing we have noticed is that a lot of those things change very rapidly. ceo salaries relatively flat and certainly do not have the explosive characteristics of after 1980. there are different ways to set up with some people called the varieties of capitalism. ones that are more inclusive that work better for more people and one that channels income to the very top. host: john from pennsylvania, made between $51,000 and $100,000 last year. caller: 100 years ago upton sinclair said something like if it is difficult for a person to understand something, if their salary depends on them not understanding it, you can take

the manhattan institute heritage foundation, american enterprise in two and club for growth, you can apply it. as far as the income inequality, the facts are there to back it up it would be nice if c-span had the roosevelt group on as much as heritage and the other groups. you guys definitely have the right wing think tanks on their tubing much. as far as income inequality goes, the facts are out there. host: scott, do you want to talk about your group and michael, i will let you do the same? guest: the manhattan institute is a free market think tank in new york city. we advocate the government play a role where it can help but generally we are a lot more

worried about government failure than market failure. i was at the brookings institution before i was at the manhattan institute. i think the caller is identifying some problems there that are on both sides of the aisle for sure. ultimately i would encourage him to read my own stuff on inequality and see whether i have the facts wrong. host: it is manhattan-inst itute.org. and the roosevelt institute. guest: we were to keep the legacy of franklin and eleanor roosevelt life. we started a think tank in 2009, financially -- primarily focused on the financial reform. host: roosevelt institute.org if you want to check out that website.

laura, good morning. caller: it is both my husband and that -- my husband and i making that we are now retired. i wanted to address president obama's conference on inequality because it seems like he was blaming whitey instead of addressing the fact from all these institutes, especially the heritage in the tiered -- heritage institute, the number one grouped are single female-headed households. one income and barely with a high school education. if you wait and get married then you will have two incomes and you will yield your way up and you will save. he did not address the fact that lacks account for 12 to 13% of the population but have 70% to 80% of out of wedlock births. these kids that are raised in

ingle family households -- in single-family household have more problems. if you wait and get married and commit to the mother of your children then you can work your way up and not be trapped in poverty. host: michael, i'm going to let you jump in. guest: what we have emphasized is that the causation runs both ways. sociologists have talked to poor women who are not getting women. -- who are not getting married but they find their economic conditions are too unstable. a lot of times they cannot find men stable paying jobs. we want to say the causation runs both ways. economic performance can cause weaker marriages. people who have higher student loans are likely to delay marriage.

in the report we do emphasize mass incarcerationn, an important policy change that is influenced income for particularly people of color. it has really -- an attempt to lock a lot of people out of the labor market. we need a good bipartisan effort to evaluate our criminal justice. host: what do you think applies here? guest: i think the caller has a point that the upward mobility in the united's eight is -- in the united states is more of a problem of upward mobility for african-american. family structure is a big part of the problem there. i would add a couple of other things. i think another very big problem is the extent to which people of color are concentrated in

neighborhoods that are poor. there was a big report that just came out by a harvard economist. it essentially found that if you grow up in a poor neighborhood it impedes your upward mobility. the other point of my family structure is important, it is much broader among the african-american community among people who do not have a college degree. two thirds of seven-year-old i think was the last research i saw, or living with just one parent. i think this is a national problem that transcends race. host: we have about half an hour left on our income inequality roundtable. anthony is waiting in atlanta georgia, and made between $25,000 and $50,000 last year. caller: good morning. host: good morning. caller: i wanted to make a

comment about something you said at the beginning. the .01% doubled their wealth. my question is, what do you guys feel like would actually help the inequality gap? you say education reform but people are going to school and then they are coming out in debt. i just do not see where it is going. do you know what i'm saying? host: scott winship, i will let you start. guest: let me identify a couple places in the room court where i agree -- in the report where i agree with remedies. government is unfairly protecting incumbent organizations or businesses, or where we are overpaying for things as a contractor. i think in the report they talk about defense contracting.

if you live in washington, d.c., you cannot help but notice how many very wealthy people there are. i think there are areas where we could increase competition and if we included some deregulations that helped smaller businesses break into markets are currently we have got large corporations lobbying to keep them out, that is something that is hurting the national economy increasingly a lot of conservatives would get kindness and oppose this crony capitalism. host: michael? guest: i think people has widened his suggestion that everyone should get one more year of education than i thought was necessary. a lot of it returns to higher education and has kind of plateaued out.

i think the caller is correct in that and our report has a lot of different suggestions. one is emphasizing employment -- unemployment. if we decreased unemployment you would see a lot more broad income growth. a higher minimum wage -- a higher tax margin, provides a disincentive to step up the salaries. doing something with corporate governance. we discuss them in the report. host: tallahassee florida, for the line that made under $25,000. caller: i just wanted to say that i noticed over the years in my retirement -- i worked 35 years in the private business.

my husband worked for the state for about 35 years and after he retired, unfortunately he passed away with cancer, but he had over 300,000 in his retirement working for the state. i would like to know how the state employees and government employees and up with so much in their retirement while private workers do not fare so well. i will take my answer over the air. host: scott winship. guest: i think the major reason is what is called defined-benefit retirement plans are more comment in the government -- or more common in the government sector. your employer guarantees you a fixed amount of income based on how many years and your level of

income upon retirement. in the private sector workers are contributing to themselves. a lot of people on the left wish that we had more of the former, the defined and if it's plans -- the defined benefit plans. what we are seeing in the public sector is that pension plans been severely underfunded and it is questionable whether a lot of folks, especially starting out today, or ever going to see that retirement savings in the end. if it ends up that employers have to take back some of their promises and say, we will not get as much as we promised you. younger workers are getting less generous packages so near retirees can get the full commitment that was promised to them. it is sort of an unsustainable model. host: michael is this a place

where there is some agreement? guest: i would have to know more about the plan. he has social security for one third, private savings, and employer pension. no matter how that was in play in the 1950's, that is mostly gone now. we need to rely more on private savings and employer pension so we should think more about social security. host: on the line for those who made under $20,000 sam. caller: thank you for the very interesting topic. the past couple of calls have been towards retirement more than income equality. i am fortunate in the fact that i was able to retire relatively young, because over the past 10 or 12 years i saved almost

everything i need. a caller earlier talked about the benefits of two incomes or being married and how that was wonderful for saving money. so we have divorce and get rid of a freespending wife. when it comes to the inequality argument, what causes it, how to solve it, and cetera, it comes down to as far as i'm concerned that the unions have been decimated. business, republicans, conservatives, capitalist went after them with a vengeance and consequently, they have been knocked down to very, very small membership. if you go back to the glory years of the 1950's through the 1970's, my father was a union member, worked in a factory and need a good enough living that we even had small home on the

lake. you cannot do that nowadays. you take a look at those charts, the host showed when earlier were the upper income folk, their income has skyrocketed whereas the middle class working class has stayed flat. what more proof do you need? there are other charts out there that show wealth, ownership of wealth, where the top 1% owned about 50 to 70% of the total wealth of the country whereas the lower 99% or 90%, whatever the number, bones practically nothing -- owns practically nothing. i do not presume to be as smart as your guest, but nevertheless the fact exists that income inequality exists and it has

gotten worse, not better. host: michael. guest: i like his point that a lot of callers were talking about retirement. what other people care about is security, will they be homeless when they retire? in addition to helping provide a broader base of income, -- i think that is the thing that need to be emphasized more going forward. i want to hear from a voice, and not be trapped in the 1970's. there is a real opportunity going forward but we could end up in a world where it all goes to the 1% were we are broadly -- or we are more broadly prosperous. host: john, good morning. caller: good morning. i was calling to say something

about the 1965 reform. that is when all these inequalities started. these people that got this welfare, and it has totally run rampant for the past years. the income, the parts were they get earned income credit, that is tax reform and it is ridiculous that the government has supported these people. i understand, if you go out and work, there are jobs out there. people can get a job. even picking up trash alongside the road or whatever. they would rather sit at home and not do nothing. that is my feeling.

i would like to hear what they say. guest: i think the welfare system we have in the country did have a lot of problems with it around discouraging work. i think it still does to a pretty large extent. in the 1990's we implemented a number of reforms to cash benefit that people received. they were time-limited, there will work requirements. they were sent to the states in the states were allowed to be much more flexible about the rules. we made it a lot more difficult for poor people who did not work. at the same time, the caller alluded to the earned income tax credit which made it easier for poor people who do work. the research has showed that it really induced a lot of lower income people to work. single mothers work a lot more today than they did.

their incomes are higher so i think it was a successful package of reforms. i think we ought to build on it. it is really a different issue than inequality and the changes in inequality that we have seen over time. guest: i think the earned income tax credit is a good program. if a person works full-time, should they be in poverty? i think as a society we tend to think no. it is a mixture of making employers chip in more and tax members -- taxpayers chip in more. president obama and marco rubio have proposed to extend. host: you bring up some of the statements that are being made on the campaign trail but several talking about it. why are we hearing so much about it? will it be a key issue in

the 2016 election? guest: if we had really high income growth year after year like in the late 1990's this would probably be a different conversation. people think if unemployment gets low 6% we will see more wage growth and we have not. if that trend continues, it will make us really examine how our country is working. it is bad for dialogue about inequality. host: scott, are you surprised hillary clinton is talking about this, marco rubio is talking about this? several members of congress also appeared guest: -- talking about this. guest: jeb bush, it really is an issue that i think a lot of people are going to talk about in 2016. i think you will see inequality

of opportunity is a bipartisan issue and people will have different selections based on whether they are on the right or left. if hillary clinton is the nominee, she and her husband had done very well since leaving the presidency and i think it will be tricky for her to talk about inequality. host: we have about 15 minutes left to talk about this topic with our roundtable of experts. we will go to marry grace from cranston, rhode island on the line for those who made between $51,000 and $100,000. caller: i want to thank c-span for having both sides speak as you always do. i know some folks get disgruntled but i always think you are fair and balanced. with that, my question is for

scott. you talk about how marriage really hope with -- really helps with any, putting both incomes together. have you ever explored the variables of gay and lesbian and how they can contribute? they have had so many problems in trying to get equal right. in some states as you know, they do not allow gay marriages and so forth. i would like to know if you explore that. guest: i have not personally. i think you have to distinguish a few issues. marriage is important for inequality. it is more for inequality between the middle and the bottom versus the top 1% and everyone else. when you think about inequality i think you have to distinguish between those two issues. i support marriage equality. will it effect can come and equality, probably not.

it is just the numbers of gays and lesbians are very small and not all of them want to get married. certainly philosophically i support it. host: michael, and he thought? guest: i generally agree. host: marianne is in pennsylvania on the line for those who made under $20,000 last year. caller: good morning. until this country decides to take the jobs and look at them as important instead of paying sports players so much money because they can knock a ball so far were movie stars or ceos. a few years ago at the beginning of the 2007-2008 i wound up getting a job as a casework in -- a caseworker. we started out at $27,000.

i have a bachelors degree and a teaching certificate. it is a burnout job also. i lasted two and-a-half years and i was the third person to leave that year. until we decide -- teachers, even teachers in 1998, i made $27,000 as a substitute teacher. we need to decide what is important and what is not. people are putting their money in the wrong cases but they do not seem to care as long as they have their thumbs on their phones and looking down. pay attention, america. spread the wealth around. host: that is marianne with her thought. cornell is next in new jersey for those who made between $51,000 and $100,000 last year. caller: good morning, gentlemen.

the problem with income and equality is that -- and i do not want to totally blame the republicans -- but the problem is that they do not want to have the wealthy to pay just a little more so that we all can prosper. i live in new jersey where we have the highest taxes and insurance in the country. i will be 59 in february but i'm still scuffling and wondering how i am going to make it in retirement, and i have been working two jobs for over 20 years. i do not see an end in sight. now the problem is that children and grandchildren do not have a chance anytime -- the top 1% to

2% owns 90% of the wealth. if you were to double the minimum wage you would still have problems. host: before we go to the panel when you say children and grandchildren do not have a chance, you mean a chance to move up into a different income bracket? caller: to survive where wages are. the top 1% to 2% do not want to let the wealth spread around. the decline in unions, the unions are what created the middle class. the problem is, in the public sector unions are a little higher because it is usually friends and family and they are not going to mess up. but in the private sector unions are down to 7% or less. host: i got your point.

scott winship, mobility issues. guest: i think it is important to distinguish between the state of things and whether things are getting worse or not. we do have upward mobility in the united states that is too limited if you start in the bottom fifth. there is about a 40% chance you will remain there. president else, there's only a 30% chance you will make it to the middle class or higher. is it connected to income inequality? there, i do not think there is a whole lot of evidence. economic mobility has not fallen. there was a new paper that came out in november that was looking at mobility in canada, sweden and the united states and it found for men the united states does not have worse upward mobility than canada and we. -- and sweet.

den. i think it is problem to be clear about -- i think it is important to be clear about what problem we are addressing. host: i want to show viewers this chart from business insider, the probability of a child to enter the top 20% based on their parent's quintile. can see the chances going up as the parent's income goes up. guest: the most important decision that a child will have -- will make his who their parents are, and they do not have that decision. any quality has gone up in the past 20 and 30 years and opportunity has remained relatively flat. it was increasing in the 1980's

according to research from brown university. if we look at the past couple of decades it is flat but low compared to peer countries. our inequality is high but our opportunity is high compared to the countries of europe. host: just a few minutes left with our panel. we will try to get as many of your calls as we can. we have been waiting on dover, florida. caller: i am retired but i did want to tell you my story as fast as i can. i was not just very poor, i was very, very poor. my dad had a fourth grade education, my mom had eighth grade, and when jobs were scarce -- i am 83 years old -- they

followed food and vegetables. when i was a teenager they went to new york and worked and i stayed. we never got one red cent of government assistance. when i got out of high school i went to work at a bank and worked for four years. i happened to marry a man who had three degrees. he had a degree in a >> we believe the remaining moments of this discussion here. you can see the rest of it online at www.c-span.org. the house is about to gavel in. legislative work will get underway at 2:00 eastern today. on the agenda, debate on anti-human trafficking legislation and funding for the coast guard. later this week, debate on the highway trust fund and legislative branch spending. the senate is also in today.

lawmakers expected to continue working on trade promotion authority. later, debate on patriot act provisions expiring next month. see this in life this afternoon at 2:00 on our companion network. now live to the floor of the u.s. house on c-span. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.] the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. the chair lays before the house a communication from the smoker

. -- speaker. the clerk: the speaker's rooms, washington, d.c. may 18, 2015. i hereby apint the honorable -- appoint the honorable steve he womack to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. signed, john a. boehner, speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the order of the house of january 6, 2015, the chair will now recognize members from lists submitted by the majority and minority leaders for morning hour debate. pursuant to clause 12 dash a of rule 1, the chair declares the house in resell

network it's more from the road to the white house. hillary clinton will be talking, making her second appearance in iowa since announcing her candidacy. she's expected to discuss ideas on how to expand small businesses in the united states. that's at 3:45 p.m. eastern. again, that's on c-span3. president obama is on the road today. he's in new jersey later today. he'll be talking about community policing. the president is expected to announce a drawdown in the

military equipment being provided by local law enforcement. he will be in camden, new jersey, at 3:10 eastern. c-span.org will have that for you live. earlier today, former deputy c.i.a. director talked about his time with the c.i.a. touching on some of the key events that took place. he also refuted claims that an author made last week that the details that obama administration revealed regarding the death of osama bin laden are not accurate. >> again, do you have any comments about that? >> so he ledges a lot of things. in this london review of books storied 10,000 words. he ledges that the pakistanis were keeping him prisoner at that compound. he ledges that we learned about

bin laden's presence at the compound from seen area pakistani walking in to our embassy in islamabad and telling us that in return for $25 million. he ledges that the pakistanis were aware that we were going to do the raid and in fact allowed us to do the raid. it is all -- it's all rubbish. almost every sentence in that article is wrong. i was in the room for every discussion about this at the c.i.a. and i was in the room for every discussion about this at the white house. i was there when our guys came in and said we have followed somebody that we believe to be bin laden's courier to his home in pakistan. i was there when our guys you know, watched the compound for months. i was there when our guys said, you know, we've come to the conclusion that he's there and

there was no information provided us by the pakistanis or anybody else, by the way. i see that in the media this morning, some confidential german sources were claiming the germans provided us with information. not true. i was there when the president of the united states decided we were not going to tell the pakistanis in advance. not because we didn't want to. there would have been nothing better for the relationship between the united states and pakistan and then to have worked together on this but we simply couldn't trust the pakistani system. not the pakistani government, but the pakistani system to have him leave the compound before the raid ever happened. and i was there when the pakistanis learned about this and were deeply angry with us. you know, and i was sent by the president of the united states to pakistan to begin to put the relationship back together after the bin laden raid. so everything seymour her shall

said is wrong and he -- hersch said is wrong and he said he got this information from a senior intelligence official who was close to the operation. whoever that source was was not in any room i was in. >> tonight on the communicators, members of congress on n.s.a. collection of phone records, privacy and net neutrality. >> section 215 authorizes the metadata collection, you know, the bulk collection authorizes because last week we found out that the second district federal court agrees with justin amash and i that this patriot act never authorizes these programs, that these programs are illegal, but the n.s.a. will tell you these programs were authorized by section 215 and then the fisa court, you know, proceeded to write a warrant that covered every american citizen. i think our founding fathers would be appalled.

>> i think our policy is far from being up to date. we have a policy that's actually, you know woefully out of date. we have copyright policy from 1976. a lot has changed since 1976. we have the electronic communications privacy act, which was done in 1986. i started working on email in 1989 when mostly people could send an email with someone they worked with and now we have, you know email as a standard form of communication, one of the most popular forms of communication and yet we still have a situation where a piece of paper in your desk drawer is held to warrant standard, law enforcement would need a warrant to access that information, but an email you have that's been stored in the cloud for 180 days or more is not subject to a warrant standard. mr. collins: we're not making a comment, but we're saying is the internet needs to be open and free and it needs to be something -- anytime the government gets involved there

is this open-ended pandora's box of where it will lead to next and in district committee we had hearings which they can't answer basic questions about what even their own rule does. we're simply saying at this point, let that be an issue for congress. let it be an issue for the elected people but not put in place by bureaucrats that has consequence from the elected populous. >> tonight at 8:00 eastern on the communicators on c-span2. leaders from the cable and telecommunications industry gathered recently for the annual cable show. it's now called the internet and television expo. it included f.c.c. chairman tom wheeler about open internet rules and why internet service providers should be regulated. he was followed by people from time warner and cox communication who criticized. sows from showtime, amc and fx

how it's being changed by the media landscape. this is over an hour and 20 minutes. >> thank you alfred. it's great to be here at the cable -- wait a minute. it's great to be here at intx, the internet and television expo. you know, cable isn't in the title of the show anymore. i heard that michael powell now said that cable is a dirty word. i remember when the show was very creatively named something like catv 77 or things like this, and then some young whippersnapper, and barbara,

you are, because nothing happens without barbara york, changed the name to the cable show. and now you've moved on from that. congratulations on once again reimagining and reimaging this industry and this gathering. you know, reflecting back on the days of catv and forward to the broadband era is to trace an amazing path from community antenna television to the expansion of television and now beyond to broadband. you deserve congratulations for what you achieved as cable companies, as video companies and as network builders.

you also deserve -- and alfred made comment about this -- you also deserve straight talk about what it means now that you are first and foremost broadband companies. you have pledged as an industry to assure that the internet remains open and free, and in that goal we are in violent agreement. we do differ, however on just what that means. we part company according to your recently filed motion papers, over the so-called internet conduct standard, the requirement that internet service providers not engage in

conduct that impairs an open and free internet and goes beyond an obvious bright line rules of blocking throttling and paid prioritization. the internet conduct standard, if you will, is the going forward rule. now, often people say to me you know tom, i know that you won't do anything crazy in this internet conduct standard, but what about those people that follow you? and my response is, i take you at your word that you will protect an open internet, but what about those people that follow you? the purpose of the open internet order is not to create an obstacle course to test the

ingenuity of i.s.p.'s in how they structure certain activities, it is rather to address broad outcomes not just the bright line rules of blocking, throttling and paid prioritization. the purpose of the general conduct standard is to address effects that are anthithetical to standards not to interfere with or disadvantage access to the public internet. so too, with the application of title 2 to interconnection arrangements. and on june 12 when this order goes into effect, in will be in

effect strong protections to shield against harm to an open internet, and from that point on we cannot go backwards. now, beyond the open internet however, i want to celebrate today the two great accomplishments of this industry accomplishments that run from your roots to today and one great new challenge created by your evolution beyond cable television to become the nation's dominant broadband provider. part one of the story begins with primary business of cable systems when it was video. cable was an investor and

infrastructure, a fierce competitor and an innovator. the first accomplishment of that era of course, was a coaxial wiring of america. it was something that took an enormous effort by what began as a remarkably entrepreneurial but also fragmented industry. it requires a tremendous amount of civil engineers and a tremendous amount of ingenuity to meet the extraordinarily diverse circumstances of our far flung nation. and it was accomplished against the determined opposition of a telephone industry that recognized from the very beginning the threat inherent in a second wire into the home and office. and it was accomplished despite

legal constraints on the industry's offerings that were downright hostile. now, as everybody in this audience knows, the investment that set the foundation for today's industry was undertaken for the -- for purposes that have almost nothing to do with what the industry has become. what began as a coaxial cable network designed to retransmit distant broadcast television signals has become literally an essential part of our country's infrastructure. the met more if i cisbegan when -- metamoiphisis began when they could get very high speed

transmissions. in the intervening 25 or so years, the resulting hybrid fiber could he ax network has become -- coax network has become cost-effective efficiencies and scaleability. and it has become the enabler of one of the most transformative development in human history. in the process, it has also provided an illustration of the challenges -- of the challenge -- of the challenge and response. that's what i want to say. the challenge and response nature of competition. this is a theme that i've tried to focus on during my time at the f.c.c. that for every challenge there is always a

response. two decades ago as the cable industry began to expand its broadband capabilities, the telephone industry responded but unleashing d.s.l., a technology that had long existed but had not been deployed in american homes. both cable and tell could he -- telco customers benefited and both flourished. the -- it helps to bring us where we are today vastly better transmission speeds and an unimagineably larger and more vibrant internet ecosystem. the second great accomplishment of your industry was the expansion of programming that

you -- and to be fair, the b.b.s. industry, that your distribution network facilitated. the great increase in programming is a reflection of an effect that your industry's entrepreneurial energy and investment have had on the broader ecosystem. good distribution systems do that sort of thing. they invigorate new uses. you know, today's viewers may not be fully conscious of it but the increase in the quantity and quality of programming is according to professor david waterman, the f.c.c.'s chief economist the most astounding chapter in the history of television. that story can be told in a quan tative fashion as well.

-- quantitative fashion as well. it has grown to such a handful in the mid 16970's to over 900 today and the f.c.c. itself stopped counting at 565 in our annual video competition report for 2006. in investment terms, cable networks spend only about -- spent only about $250 million on programming in 1983. 30 years later that figure has exploded to over $26 billion, more than twice the program spending of all the national broadcast networks combined, and the result is an enormous inventory of programming. that expansion of programming is seen and heard in shows that push the boundaries of

creativity like "the sopranos" "homeland," "mad men" all of which appears on cable channels. it also greatly expanded sports programming. we all remember when it was the game of the week. that was all you could see. now you can watch the ohio state buckeyes every week all the way to the national championship. you knew i would get ohio state line in here somewhere. but if, as some say, this is truly the golden age of television, then it's you that made this possible. and like your entry into internet access in the 1990's, the creation of so many programming possibilities in this century spurred others to respond including new and

potential competitors whoa use your broadband -- who use your broadband pathways to deliver video to their customers. which brings us to part two. last year at this gathering i said that you had become more than about video that you had become broadband and that your new business had become and would be going forth broadband and that's true because as you know, last year the cable industry hit a critical tipping point. in the second quarter of 2014 and for the first time, the number of cable broadband

subscribers exceeded cable tv subcribers -- subscribers and you have wisely changed the name of the cable show to emphasize the internet. but there's a more profound name change going on. you're no longer the cable industry, as michael powell said yesterday. you are the leading association of leading broadband providers. it's something to celebrate. now, the recent decision of comcast and time warner to abandon their proposed merger has relevance to this point. brian roberts' leadership and

his simple and poignant statement that it's time to move on was not only a thoughtful response but it was also directionally correct. it's time to look forward not backwards. this is not the time to dwell on the reasons why the federal communications commission, the department of justice reached the conclusion that this proposed transaction would not be in the public interest but it is important to understand that the tipping point from cable to broadband came while this transaction was under review. we recognized that the industry had changed and we saw concrete

evidence of the new competition and business models made possible by high speed internet access. in other words, we recognized that broadband had to be at the center of our analysis and that video was in essence an application that flows over networks and that could be supplied, both by the owners of facilities and by competitors that use broadband pathways to compete against the owners of those broadband pathways. this shift has implications far beyond this transaction for the industry at large. when i appeared before you in the second quarter of last year

, at the moment when this tipping point was actually happening, i made two points that remain important today. first, i said that we have to assure the openness of broadband networks and the internet for all lawful uses. i'm living up to my commitment at that time that, quote you can be assured that i will raise this issue every time i am invited to address an ncta gathering. and second, i said that when it comes to broadband the cable industry has important technological advantages a leading market position and very limited regulation. it is, to engage in understatement, i said, an unusual situation.

the only way to maintain that situation is to uphold your responsibilities. so now your principal business is broadband. the service you offer is critically important to all americans from getting and keeping a job, to staying in touch with family and friends, accessing entertainment engaging in government, not to mention doing schoolwork if you're a student and countless other applications. and the broader ecosystem you help support is extremely important to the creation of american innovation and the growth of the american economy.

now, as you have changed so have the issues and the obligations and the opportunities. this is the key challenge for your industry. first, to continue to invest and innovate so that the united states has first-class broadband transmission facilities. second, to live up to the commitments that you have made in the open internet debate to avoid discriminatory acts that will impair the value of broadband and affect the internet for those who make use of its manifold possibilities. there are some factors that can

complicate meeting these obligations. you don't have a lot of competition especially at higher speeds that are increasingly important to the consumer of online video. a fully competitive marketplace would bring with it intense and constant pressure, pressure to improve, just as it did in the days of cable d.s.l. competition. more competition would be better and that's why we granted the preemption petitions filed by two communities that wish to expand their gigabit networks into surrounding areas, including areas where people had no broadband at all. now, i recognize the challenges

of overbuilding and to encourage it is not to assume its immediate appearance. and while i know that it is an anathema to your geographically defined way of looking at the industry, i believe, as some in the industry have already demonstrated, that it can also be an opportunity. let me tell you a story. plane years ago at ncta when we were trying to grow out of the catv business, we passed out little looseout paper weights in which were embedded small dried flowers and imprinted on those paper weights in gold capital letters was, plant a

four in the -- plant a flower in the vast wasteland. by bringing competitive alternatives to television viewers, this industry did just that, and the video business was changed forever. then your industry went on to upgrade to compete with the telcos and to dominate broadband. now the question is whether consumers will have competitive alternatives for broadband. to hearken back to what you did before. will you now plant a flower in the competitive broadband desert? now i know that only rationale for such an investment is to generate economic return. that's why in the open internet order we constructed it so as

to put broadband providers in a situation where they could profit from the value of their investments free from any limiting rate regulation. history proves that absent competition a predominant position in the market such as yours creates economic incentives to use that market power to protect your traditional business in a way that is ultimately harmful to consumers. this was chairman powell's message in his well-celebrated silicon flat iron speech when -- in which he identified four internet freedoms that were -- that was essential for the industry to preserve. this was a recognition repeated often since and most recently in the open internet order that it is not just useful but

necessary to ascribe rights to the users of the internet distribution system vis-a-vis the owners and operators of the system. your challenge will be to overcome the temptation to use your predominant position in broadband to protect your traditional cable business. the internet will disrupt your existing business model. i know i'm not telling you anything you don't know, and you know you can take that to the bank because it has done that to everyone. my thought today is that you've disrupted your business twice before, on the path from catv to cable programmers to broadband.

those who stay on top are those who embrace change. in ways larning and small the way the f.c.c. has done and continues to do what it can to encourage your industry to meet its broadband related challenges and responsibilities large measures, of course, include the open internet orders, freedom to security a return on your investments while also prohibiting actions that would harm the open internet. the open internet requirements are intended to safeguard the internet's dynamism by assuring that you're -- by assuring what your companies have pledged that the internet will remain open and free. the commission has its work to do to clear obstacles to competition. we will proceed to consider

whether to adopt a technologically neutral definition of a multichannel program dwribsor -- distributor, and to be candid, i favor a technological neutral definition that includes internet-based companies that choose business models that fit in this status. new obligations from congress are also focused on competition. an advisory committee is working hard to deliver a report by september on the critical question of security that promotes supplied devices and we must begin a rulemaking to review how to apply the totality of the circumstances test to assess whether retransmission consent negotiations are being conducted in good faith. on these issues we will seek your comment. we are committed to empowering

competition, and one more important thing that has come into focus following our open internet order. i intend to ensure that you do not conduct excessive rates for pole attachments. today the wireline competition bureau is issuing a short public notice calling for comment on the pending ncta and comptel competition for consideration seeking to clarify the commission's intent from its 2011 reforms to level set the cable and telecommunications rate for pole attachments. once the record is refreshed my expectation is that a recommendation will be made to the full commission to take any action that it can to further align cable and telecommunication rates.

now i know that this industry and this association do not support the recent open internet order. as i have made plain hopefully throughout this presentation today, i believe the rules that we have crafted provide what's needed to enable an economic return that will justify new investment and secure an open internet. but i also believe that we can note where we agree and not only where we disagree. this year michael powell told congress that, quote cable broadband providers are unequivocally committed to building and maintaining an open internet experience.

we welcome that pledge. maintaining, improving and protecting the broadband transmission system is the right thing to do. america depends on it. thank you very much. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the moderator for this morning's first panel. media and entertainment reporter for cnbc, julia boorstin.

and now welcome our panelists. first, the executive officer of cablevision corporation, james dolan -- chief executive officer or cablevision systems corporation, james dolan. next the president of cox communications, pat hesser. -- pat esser. the president and c.e.o. of liberty global, michael fries. the chairman and c.e.o. of time warrener cable -- time warner cable, rob marcus. and the president and c.e.o. of charter communications, tom rutledge.

julia: i want to thank you all for joining us here this morning. and on the heels of chairman wheeler's comments i'd love to have you react to them. first, we have to address the elephant in the room. we have five cable companies here. i think you guys maybe could work out some deals in the next half an hour. tom, rob, you guys are sitting right next to each other. anything you want to discuss? [laughter] >> let's move on to chairman wheeler's comments. julia: other than brian, everyone else is here. so -- now but seriously, m&m, what's the next big thing for m&a, rob? rob: we're focused on time warner cable right now. we're really not going to comment further on m&a. julia: tom. tom: the world is full of

possibilities and i can't tell you any of them. julia: no, you don't have to say. tom: as chairman wheeler said and as tom said, it's time to move on. i'd like too see us move on to consolidation of markets rather than paying attention to the entire country or just individual -- the operators -- james: and the one market we know best, new york, i think the consolidation of that marketplace would provide one, a great deal of ingenuity and much more access to resources for customers and lower prices. and it would be great business. julia: you're proposing -- james: i think i'm proposing a commune.

julia: what are you propose something james: well, what i think is that, for instance, in new york, if new york was one market, if new york was operated like one market, you would see things like wi-fi distributed throughout the entire marketplace to sign on, sign off the access to wi-fi and that very important technology become ue big tuss throughout the marketplace. and it's how customers react with their broadband companies in that marketplace would provide a lot of efficiency and there would be a lot of opportunity for innovation. julia: but what does that look like? you compete a lot with verizon fios. do you want to make a deal with them? james: no. julia: do you want to make a deal with time warner cable? james: yes. julia: ok. we're making some progress. james: and comcast and the other operators there. but it's not just -- look, new york is not -- that's one marketplace.

if you look at marketplaces laugs, -- los angeles, chicago, if you look at one company -- not company but operation there's a lot more you can do. julia: what do you think tom? tom: well, i agree. the deal that we had that didn't work had a lot of trades and swaps and the logical putting together assets so you could get the scale even at the local level that you need to be a quality service provider and to roll out products in a way that are efficient and innovative. the industry is still in a stay the way it grew up of having lots of tv marketplaces where the efficiency of the platform isn't being fully realized and that's truth throughout the country. so there are, you know there are scale opportunities all throughout the business that aren't being realized. julia: pat, why does cox fit into all of this? pat: first off i feel like i'm

on match.com. we're trying to update our relationships status right now in front of about 10,000 people. [applause] pat: this is really awkward up here. you know, i don't think any of us -- jim may but i don't think anyone will speculate on what we will talk about with each other because we won't to on a stage in front of a bunch of people. i will tell you that cox enterprises if we believe in a place -- we've consistently in our history made commitments long term. there are a scale and benefits to consumers if we fix some of the markets. it will take time. julia: mike, what's your perspective as someone who's not involved in the domestic marketplace? mike: i'm baffled by it all to be honest with you. and i'm baffled by the chairman's remarks. i'll say it because he doesn't regulate my business. i found them -- very curious.

on one hand he says that cable industry, through consolidation, through scale, you know, foster innovation and programming as a closed network. yet, there's a presumption of guilt and a punishment of success that this industry has achieved that i've never witnessed before in my life. [applause] mike: for years -- for years i've asked european regulate oirs and european business folks to look at the u.s. market for guidance. that is not happening today. i'll tell you european regulators are also baffled by what's happening here. on the issue of scale, i will tell you that, you know, we are able to achieve that in a country like holland which is only seven million homes, we can own those homes end-to-end, 100% of them, and regulators see that's good for innovation, good for infrastructure investment good for everybody

and we don't need to abide by rules that presume some actions that may be harmful but we don't know for sure but just in case, you know, we're going to do these things. it's really -- it's terrible regulation. i'll just say what these guys are probably thinking. it's terrible. julia: do you think -- do you think there are lessons to be learned in the u.s. from the way european regulation has been handled? mike: yes, sure. what european regulators have focused on is a level playing field. they have focused on a light touch. they have focused on infrastructure competition. they have not arbitrarily defined broadband as 25 meg for example. what example is there for a telco could invest? there is stuff that the u.s. can learn. is it too late? i don't know. that's not my game here. you guys will find out. we're happy to be abroad, let's put it that way. [laughter] julia: i see you nodding.

>> well, we suffer from the stockholm syndrome here in the u.s. so we have to be careful about our captors. [laughter] tom: the -- you know, i thought -- it is interesting how the businesses evolve. you know, people want to call us a broadband company and we are but our cost of programming exceeds our broadband revenue. just to put it in perspective. so we still are a video business broadband business, we're an entertainment and communications service provider. when we started building our networks with fiber-optics, we weren't being it to build broadband. we were building it to build interactive television and telephone. broadband came out of it. i think what people call the broadband market today 15 years from now will be a different kind of product set. and what we call ourselves will be different. and the way we describe our products will be different but our networks and the capability of the digital infrastructure

that we have and our ability to provide quality service is where the opportunity is. so i find these artificial distinctions really interesting academically but they are not what i think about from a marketplace perspective. julia: rob, it sounds like you worked very hard to grow the video subscriber numbers. even as people talk about how individual i-is less important and broadband is more important. rob: i went to comment on one other thing. unlike mike, i have a business that is in fact regulated by the chairman. i feel like we operate in a different environment than he seems to live in. in my world broadband is incredibly competitive. and it's investment we continue to make day in and day out to make our product better. so again, i wonder what the problem really is. we're making broadband more and more capable and, you know, i think that's -- that is reflective of the success of

the environment in which we work. mike: and to say the cable industry here hasn't embraced the internet as a distribution platform for video is crazy. how many people out there are using a tv product every day? just raise your hands generally. that looks like 25%, 30%. i asked the question last year it would have been 10%. tv everywhere has been a tipping point. the fact i can watch where it's my xfinity go, thousands of hours of content, looks the same user interface, if that's not embracing the internet for video platforms, i don't know what is. i agree with you, i don't think it's necessarily an accurate reflection of what's happening here. rob: by the way, we embrace over-the-top video. we think it's a fantastic application of the broadband we deliver. we welcome it and we try to

facilitate great experiences to our customers. as to your question of video growth, we long ago abandoned focusing on individual product as opposed to customer relationships and we're intent on growing customer relationships, whether those are video customers, whether they're high speed data-only customers or ideally triple play customers. we like to sell as many customers as we can, as many products as we can. so i kind of resist this notion of focusing on product centric definitions of customers. we want to expand the breath of our customer base and we want to sell them as many things as we can and that may not happen at the same time so a broadband customer today may be a triple play customer tomorrow. and similarly, a video customer today may be a triple play customer tomorrow. of course every individual one is important so, yeah, we're very proud of the fact that we grew 1ridio customers this quarter. julia: before we talk more about over-the-top and some of the new offerings out there, i know you have some very disruptive offerings. i want to get a couple more

questions. how problematic do you think title 2 is for your business? i know we have the -- the lawsuit on behalf of the cable association. >> let me do this because two words gets thrown together. net neutrality and title 2. our industry has demonstrated since 1997 that we're committed to net neutrality. we don't block sites. we're very transparent how we manage our networks and we're not choosing which bit comes to your home. and we've been demonstrating that for 18 years. title 2 is different. title 2 is taking a business that's been very heavily funded $23 billion we've invested in our network since 1997 and for making all of this investment and taking all of this risk, the rules get changed. while we're totally exposed and continuing to invest in our networks, all of a sudden the

rules get changed with a rule written in 1930 to apply to a business that doesn't apply to 1930. i think it's a very dynamic business because broadband has shown so much growth economically to the industry. we've seen early signs within weeks after title 2 coming out of the f.c.c. that we're already seeing poll attachment fees going up, new classification of taxes, my legal costs are going up, the legal structure i'll have to put in place with all the filings and complaints that will come through this process. at the end of the day my customer pays for that. i just think it's un-- you're hearing a repeat here. i don't think it's needed. it's unnecessary. it was a -- a presidential candidate. herman is on the radio in atlanta. i don't care if you like him or not. herman said there's three things you know about our government if it doesn't move, they'll -- they'll fund it,

they'll sustain it, they'll create programs to support it. if it moves, they'll tax it. and if it moves too fast they'll regulate it. i feel like we created this american dream -- [applause] pat: i agree. and somewhere we got out of sync with the regulators and we've got a more balance. julia: jim, what do you think? jim: really, for us -- essentially i agree with what pat's saying. for cablevision we're in a very highly competitive marketplace and to be honest, i don't see any of these regulations affecting us much at all. the competition is what regulates our marketplace. he did say that competition is what was important. i do worry one of the things i thought i heard the chairman say was something akin to government subsidized

competition which i think is very dangerous. julia: one thing that you've been very focused on is this idea of disrupting the traditional tv bundle. it seems like in a lot of ways you're embracing cord cutting with some of your offerings. jim: we're embracing the customer. we did a -- an accounting study at the company. and we attempted to associate all of the direct and indirect expenses with each one of our products. and when we were finished with that study we found that broadband outperforms video by 7:1. for every dollar of profit i make in video i make $7 for profit in broadband. the -- so -- and we see the customer as wanting more and more broadband and wanting better and better cockettift. they want it in their homes --

connectivity. they want it in their homes. they want it out their homes. they don't want it to break. if it does they want it fixed immediately and the first time. those are the things we're focusing on. julia: you just shook your head. are you worried about chord cutting. rob: i think something i did hear is that he said that he's not embracing chord cutting but rather embracing the customer and i think the reality we're all dealing with here is that to the extent there are behavioral trends, to the extent there is content that is better for customers, we have to embrace that. our business depends on enabling customers to get what they want, when they want it, where they want it and how they want it. and i think those of us who embrace it will be the ones who succeed. julia: well, the question is what does the future look like? we have sling tv doing their news. slim pamage. much paired down package.

and then you have verizon with its custom tv bundle which is being sued by espn. i'm curious where you see the future going in terms of over-the-top packages? i mean, you're bundling hbo now with broadband and hulu with broadband. i believe you're the only one doing that so far. so i'm curious to hear about the slimdown bundles and whether you'd carter these over-the-top chord cutter bundles? tom? tom: those there cut the chord before internet television was television would cut to go over the air. they would cut for personal reasons. they were about to move or get -- go to college or come back from college or for economic reasons, personal reasons. that has always been going on. and the cable industry has tried at various times to put different packages together to

satisfy people mostly income-related, with television service. and if you sell a product to people that isn't what they expect in terms of the full access to the services that they in their minds think of as cable, they don't stick very well. so these markets are very fluid. people come in and out of them. and the more variety and package functionality that you can provide an individual, the better off you are as a company because you're saving somebody. people's needs change in time. i think what is going on now is you have some products that are coming direct to consumers, some products are coming in packages we can sell. you can mix and match them together and satisfy niche customers. people who buy hbo, people who buy showtime. some people don't. in fact, the majority don't. people always had choice in what they buy in their subscription package. how you put that together is

what we do to satisfy people. and so where it comes from or whether it's over-the-top or whether it's part of some cable service, it really doesn't matter. you know, what cable is is three different regulatory regimes for bits. and two copyright regimes for bits. and how you mix and match that and satisfy customers is the art of being a good packagers. julia: what do you think mike? mike: so we're not burdened by the historical or the existing cost base that u.s. operators are burdened by. we look at it, as tom and rob say, in a very simple way. we're in the business of plug and play. we're in the business of seamless connectivity. in our case, connectivity across wi-fi and mobile. we have a big mobile business. we want customers to feel connected to our networks wherever they are. and we want them to choose our networks because they're the fastest, the best, most reliable. on top of that we want them to play on our networks.

we want them to play more or less depending what they choose to do. play with content, play with the internet. play with any aspect of what can be offered across that network on your choosing. they're becoming device agnostic. the fact my kids watch their content on tablets or smartphones, they don't care where it comes from. what did netflix teach us? principally it's about the app the user experience and the user interface. what we did is adopted an app essentially that puts that plug and play experience together and allow you to search for content, find content in a way that you're used to doing on other applications. we preempted o.t.t. in europe. we launched our own version of netflix called my prime. it's available on every device. in the end it's about plug and play and if you keep it simple and you offer consumers what they want, why would they get rid of one or the other? it's a -- pat: it's a story that gets missed all the time.

if you talk video consumption globally there's more video consumption going on in the world or domestically than at any other time in history of the world and the investments that companies sitting on this stage have made. cloud-based d.v.r.'s or multiple tuners. we made a reference here about over 90 tv everywhere apps. huge libraries. we ourselves have given our customers more places, more devices to use the content and one of them is the broadband network. .