executive actions on the environment and other areas that could lead to one or more partial shutdowns? if he can make his way through that, i think he has relatively smooth territory through the rest of this congress. >> , norm.ou last but not least, john fortier. john has been looking very closely at the fundamentals in the senate contests. john fortier: great, thank you. i would like to thank all of you and look forward to henry's book. is it ready for christmas where we have it in our stockings? henry olsen: it will be ready for your stockings. [laughter] john fortier: we created a new insult. instead of being two faced you can be four-faced. i think lesson two or three old

familiar faces are enough to win. i will let you follow up on that. , we have very different characteristics. we have gone through a phase last election where republicans had many more seats that they could challenge. and a date addition to the -- in addition to the number of seats, republicans did very well last election picking up extremely red states that had democratic senators. there were six states that were rock red republican states and they had open seats. republicans picked up all of them, plus north carolina and if you swing states as well. those of the prompt -- those are the prime targets than a world that is well aligned for the republicans are holding republican seats and democrats are holding democrat seats. what does this election look like?

24 big numbers are, republicans of four election, while there are only 10 democrats of your seats. and they just looking ahead, if in thek at 2018, and is opposite direction with only eight republicans and 23 or if 25 count the independence, democrats bring you can imagine that the fundamentals are very different in these types of elections. one thing that is different about this election coming up is that there is one seat that looks like a very red seat that the republicans one last time for the democrats print that has an illinois. that is one that they should win. very difficult atmosphere because of the character of the state. the other opportunities for democrats are swing states. some of them are democratic leaning swing states. the list is relatively long. it would be a very good win for

presidential candidate" were to be a democratic way. it can imagine a big wind sweeping in. but those states are more competitive republicans will win some and lose some. wisconsin, the most endangered for republicans with ron johnson off against feingold looking to go back to the senate. florida, which is an open seat in the sense that both primaries are quite interesting. you know that was going to come out of it. bothis potentially -- sides have better and worse candidates in their primaries. ohio, where rob portman is facing a good recruit and the side.atic democrats have done well recruiting in the senate. governor ted strickland has

--win statewide. he is still a very formidable force. looking down to other states that are competitive but probably the candidates are not there to pull out the races. pennsylvania, north carolina, iowa and places like that in nevada is the one place where democrats will have to watch. it does not like michael bennet is going to get a serious challenge in if you look at the race they need four seats to win. or five seats. and the bottom line is we're looking at a senate that is more democratic emma is closer to 50 just democratic chemicals are to 50-50. it is hard to tell at this point. karlyn bowman: john in the expert on early and absentee voting. i am wondering what we have seen

since 2012 election that we will see. john fortier: the trend over time, i wrote a book on this not so long ago. the numbers have started to go up and up since then as they had been before. so the direction certainly is more rather than less on both voting by mail and voting in person. roughly 40% ore so in the midterm election according to surveys. that orprobably be slightly higher this time. a couple of trends, we have already had states like oregon and washington data voting 100% by mail. we now have the state of watches more or less that we ourselves to everyone. 95% vote by mail. it is essentially a vote by mail date. places like massachusetts moving in that direction. more only voting, more absentee voting. the extra resting development is

a couple of states moving to new modes of registration. this is because the left is excited about it. the democratic side is excited about it. in oregon it will happen in 2016 people who go to the dmv do not interact with anybody of the voting process and automatically get what on the rolls. they could act out of they want to do. in california which has adopted this fact is, but will not be quite ready to go into thousand 16, these could be significant changes in the registration of states and it may lead to other states adopting. karlyn bowman: thank you. we have all kept to our five minutes. i'm turning to what i call the lightning round. interesting no one mentioned hillary clinton yet on the panel. let's start with a question of bernie sanders upping his compare and contrast attacks at this point with any do ask that

is designed to raise questions about her honesty and integrity. how serious of a problem is this for hillary clinton? >> honesty and integrity is serious problem for hillary clinton, most voters don't think she has those qualities. whatever you want to say about her, that is not a positive when you're running for president in a general election. i think that it is interesting that bernie sanders has taken this attack. user therst of a position that he's not going to ask questions about the e-mails and so forth. he's dealing with a democratic electorate but i understand it has nearly universal positive feelings for hillary clinton and very little appetite for an idea that she might not be honest and trustworthy. they are loyal pretty much down the line. a real path forward for bernie sanders.

one of his problems obviously is that in a democratic primary overall, approximately 25% of the voters are black. to doy clinton is going very well against bernie sanders, and he is just not the kind of candidate that black voters go for. black voters tend to be pretty well now i unanimous in democratic primaries, as they have been in general elections. so, i do not see this is a game changer. karlyn bowman: interestingly in the falls, -- polls donald trump and hillary clinton are the two candidates who have the highest negative numbers on honesty and integrity. virtually tied. norman ornstein: for bernie

sanders he has chances in iowa and new hampshire. once you get past that his support just craters. look at numbers in south carolina where he is losing by almost 70 points. in iowa, theonder caucuses require people nauseous to go into a virtually tied. polling lace and site you have to go to a and stay there for several hours. it is a complicated process. in 2008, hillary clinton's campaign did not do the to get theirquired people understanding how the caucuses work and the obama people cleaned them there. this time she has a much better team. hassanders, who support tilted very young you have a lot of who likely have never been to a caucus and probably are not going to have as much staying power. if hillary wins iowa, it is pretty much over at that point. if she does not, if she loses iowa and new hampshire, then i think there is still for anybody else. we are likely to see a democratic contest that is effectively over very early on.

the republican contest, even if you get a few more candidates dropping out, that is going to have more candidates and we usually see and extending beyond what we usually have. whether it works out the way that karl rove suggested the other day, and i wrote a piece on why this time might be different, that this goes on perhaps to the convention, or at least much more into april or may remains to be seen. but if the training process, and you can see right now that candidates are looking for traction and they go after each other. my guess is that as sanders declines a little bit more he will turn away from the attacks a clinton and moved back into substantive role, trying to pull her towards the populist left. karlyn bowman: thanks, norm. one of the things obama did in 2008, considerably expand size of iowa caucus electorate and bringing in many, many young

people, and that was a key to victory. it was all done sub rosa. it is not clear to me that we will see that same thing for bernie sanders in this campaign. the primaryo calendar. henry we will start with you. who doesn't advantage? let's talk about the byzantine delegation roles. henry olsen: republican nomination is significantly influenced by rules. republicans decided that any contest between march 1st and march 15th must award their their delegates in some manner of proportionality. republicans being republicans, they have a looser definition the democrats were there visit national standard that applies to all the contest. what that means is that if your republican voter in a state that votes during that time your vote a state thathan

votes afterwards he just because your vote to delegate ratio is going to be lower. reason, ther some very conservative states of the south and the midwest have all the -- decided to lockstep vote in the proportionality. when you read the polls about ted cruz gaming, and ted cruz telling you how he was going to unite all aspects of the movement, the simple facts means he is going to walk out of all of his key states assuming that carson drops and crews and is a beneficiary, with a much smaller delegate lead and as in the states that are more heavily and list moderates, particularly those in the midwest and the northeast votes later and are very likely and have much more winner take all approaches. somebody who wins new jersey will get 51 delegates. you will have to win four deep

southern states by a large margin to get 51 delegate lead. aat that means is if there is candidate who is favored by the establishment and moderates who is not fatally wounded by march 15. the person is highly likely to win the nomination. but they will have to wait until april to be able to show that by winning an of states to the other candidates of the other candidate will drop out. karlyn bowman: one thing we should point out in those march 1 to 15 contests, eight of those states have threshold of 20%. so the delegates could be awarded only after that i percent -- 15% overall. >> let me just add to that. couple interesting things to keep in mind, more moderate, they're not moderate, some of these establishment candidates may do very poorly in the first 4, 5, 6 contest. this --bio is likely to

finished fifth in iowa. he is third in new hampshire now. it is hard to imagine him doing well now. he is not doing well in south carolina. nevada may be, but i'm not sure how many hispanic republican voters that will be. americans notcan cuban-americans. then you moved to super tuesday trunk,ou may find crews, carson doing particularly well. if you go through the first month and a half of all of these winning and you are not much, it may be very difficult for you to build any traction. there is aates where 20% threshold you can imagine that the candidates at that point will have the core 20% not leaving them start with donald trump who could win some of these winner take all states just by getting 22%. >> one if no candidate gets more than 19%? john fortier: let me build on

this. i think henry's analysis is broadly right. there is a question of which part of the electorate consolidates first? i think a lot of people are thinking that ben carson might and ted cruz may take that vote. as henry indicated, and a lot of the earlier states will be favorable to him. if that happens early that gives him and a lot of momentum. he other candidates, as mentioned on the establishment side may be more divided. the big question is donald trump. that what point do we say is he doingervative, or is he well in polling. does he become the alternative to those who can last through? >> just very quickly, i'm assuming that ben carson is going to fade. that ben carson's polling right now if you were to sustain that through, it would be quite clue

that ben carson would be the nominee because ben carson is running first among all the ideological factions, project and the evangelicals who dominate in the early voting states on march 1 and march 15. he is running first or second among the establishment conservatives. if that were to continue, it he will be the nominee. i do not think it will last. ,he question is who drops off prior to his rise. he tended to be a more evangelical candidate than in establishment candidate. at the last comers on to his bones are the first ones off, where do they look? if they're going to be for trial, they would already be for trump. if there were going to be for crews, everything we know about ted cruz suggests that there is one question that is very telling. what would you prefer in a candidate, most conservative, or somebody who can win. little under 40% say the most conservative, and he is running third they are right now. over a majority

choose the win. he gets 2%. are goingthose people to carson. when they drop off they will not look to cruise. else getson is, who that vote. i think you're going to see a very late rise by rubio. i think is finish second or third in iowa. will finish second or third or win in new hampshire because this carson goes down, those people will switch to somebody who looks more like the candidate they are backing now than the other alternatives. and right now, because of jeb bush's implosion, that looks like marco rubio. >> i am cautious about predicting who's going to come second, third or fourth inning of these primaries. just ask president romney for advice on that when making predictions. there are a couple of numbers that make me cautious. those are 24 million and 23 million. but as the number of people were viewers of the first two republican debate. the third was held on a world

series night. it got 14 million views. previous record for a republican debate with 8 million. 24 million. triple. you also had a rising democratic debate viewership but less so. the one definitive had so far, 13 million views. the previous record was 10 million. that is a 30% drop. not insignificant, but nothing like we have seen on the republican side. the republican caucus and primary electorate could be vastly expanded. norman mentioned that the 2008rats turn out in iowa about 240,000 old democrat at it the democratic caucuses. primaries and caucuses overall, 37 million voted verses 21 million and the republican caucuses and primaries. iowa, the republicans have been

getting 120,000 in their caucus. they tend to tell the a fully, they are the most evangelical republican electorate outside of the south. those numbers could change. are 600, 700 8000 people that were -- vote in the general elections in iowa. the democrats are getting twice the caucus turnout. obviously some of the increase in the debate performance, most of it was celebrity value of donald trump. the staticok at political alignment that i talk about, and then i look at the possibilities of large numbers people participating at stages when they have not before, i'm pretty cautious about predictions. karlyn bowman: thank you. let's change the focus a little bed. how big of a factor do you think obama will be? one of the interesting things

elizabeth wilner at "the cook political report t" wrote recently was that was the only one taking on obama and his. >> and in a quiet car on amtrak as well. i think incumbent president is always essential on the ballot even in an open race. if you want to throw away the details and look at political say how isels and the president doing for them and how is the economy doing in various measures, that you sense of the playing field for the race. how it will be. the president now is kind of in the middle. as numbers are up from the midterm, but they are not great. they are the 47% range. and so the economy is kind of in the middle. at this point it points to a neutral playing field for the general election. but that could change. we are still early enough that

things could get much better. we could be looking back and say these were bad economic times much so in the summer of 2016. the president's numbers will matter for hillary clinton, even though she is a different candidate. karlyn bowman: how valid you think the obama and rubio comparison is? this is one area where you should keep a close eye on paul ryan. the dissatisfaction and anger, so much focused boehner, will now be focused on mcconnell, was in large part a sense that the republican establishment leaders were letting obama just kill him over and over again. and of course it is part of the reality that if you look at lame-duck presidents, two-term presidents in their final two years, the results are usually pretty pathetic compared to earlier times. for a whole host of reasons. your attempt tapped out with ideas, you have many fewer

members of your own party in congress great you start to lose your people in your own administration and you cannot replace the very easily. your party is usually divided over the successor. people do not do want to do big things because the next person may well move in a different direction. mold at abroken that part of it is because in a polarized world, instead of having a united congress taking on a president who uses executive authority, you have democrats in congress siding with the president of the republicans. that has frustrated republicans. now will paul ryan be able to change that and reduce that frustration level? if not then obama becomes a bigger factor. but a factor because he looms over and all and it adds to the traction for outsiders. look at what these insiders are doing to my nothing. part of the problem that brian

is going to have which is the same problem that boehner had as he may well be able to mobilize the house republicans to pass some things that conservatives will like. they're going nowhere in the senate where mitch mcconnell has to try to protect kelly ayotte, mark kirk and pat toomey and others running in blue states from votes over and over again that are too extreme for those states. salt brine can navigate through that it will make it much easier for the establishment republican party. it reduces the role that obama place. otherwise obama plays a role just because he is presiding over an economy. what happens with that economy, where are we when we get close to the election. it is still going to come down to, as it always does and in open contests, do you want more of the same, or do you want change. 's successor has a difficult time saying i am real

change. without alienating members of his or her own party. karlyn bowman: anyone else? i sort of agree with both john and norms recent remarks. i would just add that the policies which obama has done, the most important policies domestic and foreign, both fall under 50%. they are not popular. we have not heard the democratic candidates in so far as we have heard them trumpeting those policies at all. to listen to the rhetoric and the democratic debates you might suppose we've been having a reactionary republican president to the last seven years obama is a factor. karlyn bowman: we want to turn to your questions and we will ask you to identify yourself. if you could wait for the mic that will be very important . while you're think about your questions i want to ask the

panel if they see a clear emerging theme or if this will be a mishmash of the economy and other things. >> i feel much more confident in predicting possible moves in the electorate 60 days from now, then i do a year from now. michael is right, american muchics has been pretty electorally divided in the same patterns at the same distributions since the 1994 gingrich revolution. going back to the presidential levels from the 1992 race, there's very little right now that suggest to me that issues will do anything else but mobilize existing consistencies and move on the margins the few remaining swing voters that we have. >> first question right here. if you could identify yourself and wait for the mic. >> i am tom with the foreign policy discussion group. i wonder if the panel would talk

about what foreign policy issues are likely to be featured in the presidential race? >> republicans have been making the argument and will continue to make the argument that across that he does not want to leave americans behind. marco rubio would make it front and center, ben carson with soft-pedal it more. that is what republican activists leave. that is what intellectual republicans generally believed rate i think you will see that sort of attack across the board. ann would be mentioned as example of a shrinking military. syria would be an example of the red line. but they are all examples. the only way that would come up

as an issue if there were a negative developments in the world that would force people to debate to that. other than that i think republicans will make the argument we are weaker than they were seven years ago and elect hillary or bernie and will be more of the same. >> the foreign policy numbers, the overall numbers of the president job approval moved up and down a little bit. but foreign policy numbers of trained -- have changed dramatically. it has not really affected his overall numbers dramatically. the one thing i would add 200 is of course republicans of the debate will focus on the malaise or weak leadership problems in the one thing they did seem to move the numbers and could be more specifically moving things is of terrorism very directly comes up. we saw the beheadings of isis, that is when number started to move and people woke up more rather than just saying this is

a weak leader. this is something you might change her vote on. >> it will be event driven, but i've been amused. there are two main lines of attack by republicans against obama. the one is he is feckless and we s pushedpolicy and get around. the other is he is like sherman racing through georgia back home while rome lookup lukens get rolled over repeatedly -- while republicans get rolled over repeatedly. it is hard to reconcile those things. there is substantial fatigue even among conservatives over boots on the ground and more wars. we may see an interesting contrast here. it may well be there is a desire stronger leadership, and i think the notion of trump that you test me on the wrist i will cut your legs off and i will not to isis and to pull in and here is not taking note of the debate

negotiations as well, that may play as a general matter. we may end up with a republican nominee who is eager to move into more aggressive military action and not create some thesions or ways inside nominating process. michael barone: i think the key moment in this second obama term in terms of public opinion of foreign policy was the execution of the american journalist james foley i believe in august 2014. before that rand paul seem to be a real threat in the race. he has not seen that sense. before that republicans were willing to accept the sequestration cuts in defense or hold down in defense spending. after that they were not. if americans think the world is spinning out of control, as they thought in 1979, as they thought is a07 to 2008, that

problem for a candidate who was formerly secretary of state. karlyn bowman: question from this side of the room. anyone here? have answered all your questions? can you wait for the mic? it's coming from back there. >> the mic is leading from behind. [laughter] >> my name is joshua. i wanted to ask mr. olson's theory where the republican's will decide the nomination. what about those who wins the general election? it seems like the panels operating under the assumption that donald trump will be around it will be a factor for a while. it seems like a lot of the other candidates are operating under the assumption he will fade and collapse altogether and will cease to be a factor. do you think they do feel that way it is that correct?

>> taking the first question. ted cruz's problem is that it's like he's working in common core math. he thinks a lot to produce the wrong answers. [laughter] not a majority of people who agree with him in the republican party much less the country as a whole. the problem why did you know when it not because they do not nominate people who are not conservative enough. it is because they do not appeal to the few training swing voters they have. conservative voters who have not voted in 2008 and 2012 because the candidate was not conservative enough that is simply not true. there is no argument that has any degree of statistical validity or have any sort of some or two that says that somebody like ted cruz is the

portion who can summon people from the deep end: how to vote. the repeat -- the reason republicans do not win is because they do not understand the moderate electorate. they do not understand what the swing voters want. holden ton to the those who do not move people the way they did in 1981 the republican party stopped running the 1980 campaign which was effectively what romney did just without charisma or detail. they start to run a campaign that reflects real issues today. candidateu will see a that comes out of the conservative wing and win a general election. until that happens it does not happen. wrong it isso flat really shocking that he continues to get seriously played about.

>> i can make an argument in the other direction. i'm not sure i agree with you but i can make an argument. [laughter] we are in a time of declining turnout. the image a lot of people in this is there a huge surge of people who voted for obama. way of a fairly accurate looking at it but it has not been true sense. turnout is been down in 2012. it was down in 2014. it is declining turnout. 2015 elections, and we see record lows in the governor races. admittedly, republican states. work if you get your voters out and the democrats do not get theirs out as they have been having increasingly difficulty in doing. 2012 numbers. down from 08.as

reverse those numbers, and the republicans win. that would be my defense of the cruise argument. john fortier: i want to take on the second question about top rump and whether he will fade. most people look at trump would have thought, a number of the things he has said would call use him to implode. andcarson halves not figured out, and i think a lot of that support starts to fall away. i would not be shocked if donald trump would implode, but he does have a record greater love people do not like him but he has a lot of people who like and after being known at having these gas. that is likely to stick around at some level for a while rate -- for a while. >> just quickly on the trump thing. trump draws very much like blue-collar protest candidates do in europe. which is to say he has gets lots

of people in high education backgrounds who strongly dislike him but he is very passionate some board. i do not think he is going to collapse. i could easily see him be like the you cap party and britain were they were pulling 16% in the time before, but when it became a serious vote, and number of those people decided to hold their nose and vote for the tory. i can see trump pulling 23%, going down to 15% and a little bit less in iowa. he will not implode, but he could very well draw. >> remember trump is putting money into organization in early states. he has a campaign now. seen, aon, as we have lot of the money is going to carson allies who are making a fortune out of this campaign. that is not seem to be much infrastructure.

make changes but it is getting late to the let infrastructure. there is no infrastructure there. trump is building. i believe the anger level out there at the establishment is high enough rate my guess is it is worth digging into the conservatives a little more as well. people are reading the same things and hearing the same things from their neighbors that support for outsiders may be a little more persistent than we have seen before. karlyn bowman: speaking of organization the post reported that cruz at 77,000 volunteers and 6000 in the first four states the organization could be important. >> bryan harvey, i'm uninformed american political science association congressional fellow. as you are looking at the press coverage on all sides, do you think a different lens is being used when they look at the candidates? side, donaldican

trump, dr. carson are not seen a serious candidates and on the democratic side bernie sanders has been billed as a progressive alternative to hillary clinton. people who know bernie sanders from his days as the socialist mayor of early to know how andomically depressed burlington did not thrive under his leadership. do you think there is a disconnect or a different standard being used? the second part is why do you think people are so quick to who for many bush, people really is the most thoughtful candidate and is really the most presidential? when will the silly season be er and many have the bush and clinton race many are looking forward to? >> on the first question bernie sanders was a mayor and has been a senator, and a member of the house that before that. and has had some legislation in

the veterans area go through in a bipartisan way. donald trump and ben carson have never served in any office there going to look at them in a different way. when you're looking at one side where there are two main candidates, and the other where there are a bunch about theirs, you will get different lens that are used. i would say for donald trump, you could change the name of cnn to tnn. it is the trump news network. all of the others -- they have given him billions of dollars of free publicity. it is a different standard. i'm sure other candidates would say lee's judge me by that standard. as for bush, i do think we are going to see, this is all driven by press narratives. a lot of the narratives are the deathwatch. they love the deathwatch narrative. and then they love the resurrection narrative. we are into the resurrection narrative now. this becomes ritual because if bush can stay alive through early contests, we are going to

get to a super tuesday where we know that john kasich him if he is there is going to win ohio and all of those delegates. these western in states, if bush and revealed on each other out in florida, is completely alters context of is nowce for rubio who facing scrutiny that comes when you begin to move to an upper tier. that is a danger. it is a little early. he did not want this happening. it becomes a very different matter if you have several establishment candidates hitting at each other. mitt romney got a way with having nobody in that category. think jeff has been running a four campaign but is not a technical thing. michael dukakis had the fish rots from the head down, and this is the guy who basically

has been retired from politics for a decade. the american political scene has changed dramatically in tone and substance since the last time jeb bush was involved. he has not adapted to it. abby is trying to adapt to it and he can see -- he needs compassion so you shouting into microphones. this is a guy who is more likely john this cycle's connally, spending tons of money, and getting very few delegates despite having a lot of media and establishment. you look at polls and they are very consistently showing that a third of the republican party loan jeb bush. debt when you start with a third of the parties will vote for anybody but you. h that is a problem. only candidate who

regularly gets pasted no matter ask.state u.s. -- you maybe you can go a little further with bush because he has not only thelf candidate who might have a foot part of theal republican party and the establishment conservatives, he really has only feet in the literal and most far left of the party. if you look at polling, marco rubio has some support in that more left-wing. it is hard to get out of that. he was a conservative governor and anyways, but he does not emphasize those things. how to back oneself out of being seen not just as conservative, to the mostfeeling left voters in republican primaries are hard thing to get out of. karlyn bowman: are there any

questions back in this part of the room? and then unfortunately are going to have to shut this down. this gentleman right here. make it brief. we only have a few minutes. >> fulbright scholar, johns hopkins. last week i attended book launch talking about the american political dynasties from adams to clinton. i have a question about the candidates who have capacity to experience. one is from a nonfamily, the other is from a family that is a political dynasty. which one would americans agree with? >> it's very large countries

that are electoral democracies have had dynastic leaders, elected in. we see japan, you have the current prime minister that has pictures with his fan death grandfather the prime minister. taiwan, philippines, indonesia, india, and so forth. my interpretation of that is that people in a large country do not know the candidates first. they do not know anybody that does. if you are trying to assess if you know helps the family. on the other hand, back in the 80's when bush was running for the house isent by that the bush had lived in. the nicest of them was a little modest ranch house. the idea that three of the future presidency were living there in the 1950's strikes me

as really weird. i think that is a problem. obviously the republicans were to nominate jeb bush, they forfeit the idea that you can campaign against hillary clinton as old stuff, a remembrance of the past or the future. i used to say jeb bush was the best republican conservative government in america and the last 10 years. now i have to extend it to 20 years, which suggests this problem. karlyn bowman: thank you. we will be back in february at a nd i want to thank the team. it's been a great session. thank you. [applause] >> next, and look at the october job numbers. after that the president announcement concerning the keystone pipeline. then the affair secretary robert mcdonald talking about challenges facing his department.

>> c-span has the best access to congress. watch live coverage on c-span and on c-span2. watches on your phone or online. get best access from a behind the scenes by following c-span and our capital hill reporter on twitter. say with c-span, c-span radio, and c-span.org for your best actress to congress -- access to congress. >> the labor department reports the jobless rate dropped to 5%, a seven-year low. employers added 271,000 jobs and hiring boosted wages by an average of nine cents an hour. jobsnow on the october numbers from washington journal. this is about half an hour.

>> washington journal continues. >> here are the employment numbers for october for the united states. in october the unemployment rate is 5%. 271,000.d this is the commissioner of the bureau of labor statistics. how are these numbers put together and what do they mean? numbers come from two separate surveys. and then a very separate survey of almost 590,000 worksites across the country who voluntarily report to us whether payrolls are so we can keep track of what employment is.

often when these numbers bye out they are preceded predictions are ask and ask. do you make this predictions? >> we do not. anyone is entitled to make predictions and many people do. host: what do these numbers it to you? showese numbers seem to the labor market moving in the right direction. i think this latest number will give us some comfort to some policymakers. so the number of jobs added that was positive? >> we survey economists to find our they think they'll be. certainly no one did number

about 200,000. it might say that we got a little bit of bounce back for the retirement. >> when you look at the past the pastthey fit into year? was it then link the past year? it's deftly a strong number and at the pays more like we were seeing in what we've been seeing so far in 2015. this one is very healthy in a number of ways. it is the highest number that we have so far. so it particularly is strong that we haveows the sectors. we were seeing a lot of job growth in the past.

it's very service center. do you cover government employment as well? guest: yes it's in here. .e can turn to a chart were going to throw a lot of numbers at you. we will put the phone numbers on the screen because we want your participation. you will see a lot of words and a lot of numbers on the screen. we have broken the phone lines down a little bit differently because it's an effective way of getting different voices on. select the phone numbers up. let me read through those. 2202 is very good for all of them. if you are unemployed and want to hear you from you at 202-748-8000 if you've recently

been hired 202-748-8001. for those of002 you. looking for work and then finally all others 202-748-8003. let's go through chart number one employment in total. guest: it's difficult to count employment on farms because they're scattered around and they have so many household the national agricultural statistical service tracks that. we do not track that. host: so this is employment october 2015.

31,000 jobs were added in construction. write the blue bar show you the jobs added in the gray bar next to them shows you the 12 month average prior to that to give you an idea of how typical this is. host: so this is where the gray bar ends in construction but will guest: that's right. we got a real verse host: this is just october. is just october. and this is concentrated in nonresidential, specialty trades. commercial hvac office buildings and things like that. there was a big burst of 31,000 jobs in construction. 78,000 jobs added.

guest: this again is a big burst. these are people like architectural and engineering services computing systems. also temporary halt. all of these have significant increases. host: education and health. healthdriven mostly by which is given us a lot of growth in the past years. the one is more similar to pattern we have been seeing. a growth in both ambulatory health care services in the hospitals. these are in hospitality also growing. guest: very strongly. general merchandise stores at a real bump up.

in hospitality this was almost all food services and drinking places. numbers, wasthese your analysis? >> a few different things. i think the construction number jumps out to me as a very strong positive. it suggests that there might be some more energy or momentum behind it. mining and logging is pretty easy to explain. that incorporates the energy industry. he see gas prices down in oil prices down this lesson videos and in that area. leisure hospitality and retail is a mixed bag. , atne hand it's positive the same time this tend to be lower wage jobs. this people are not -- better

we have to got back to reinventing the economy. health care certainly continues to be a real driver employment in this country. i will show you these charts. civilian unemployment rate. here we are in the recession 2008 at nine workers out. if you look at this chart and looks like really good news. guest: it is. 5.0% isone this month half the unemployment rate that we saw in october 2000 and nine which was the peak right after the end of the session. is the official recession. set by the bureau of economic research. host: if we take that money so.ared to this one 6% or

laborlook at civilian participation. if you notice this participation rate for october 2015 was 62 point 4%. was this number? isst: the participation rate the working age population. they're either working or looking for work. this is a very different pattern unemployment rate. it has a pattern all its own and that's largely because very strongly influenced by demographic trends. trends inong downward the participation rate ever hase we baby boomers

started to retire. we see less of an influence from the business cycle and more of an influence from demographics. host: this is the lowest participation rate in the labor septembere guest: 1977. >> i think they'll be part of the story. but i also suggest that it shows the number of folks outside the labor force for different reasons. one might be of their students. some people may retire early. i am also -- if you look at the number one reason folks are not in the labor force, one of the top reasons disability. that may suggest that they are receiving social security disability benefits. it may be an impediment. they may say i will set aside those benefits and go back to the workforce.

but for minimum-wage job it may not make sense. when you see that 5% unemployment figure as a reporter for the wall street journal, what do you also see. >> 5% is a very solid figure. to zero.r never gets i think when you look at things like registration rate. employers at 5%'s with seen wages increasing and worker shortages. that's not happening across all industry.

guest: this one is marginally attached. [applause] -- [laughter] host: people not in the labor force -- the indicator. marginally attached is jargon for a group of people who have looked for work within the past 12 months and say they want to job but have not looked within the past month. who were the people think will be most likely to be pulled back into the labor market conditions were better.

these are people who are not in the 5%. they are not employed. webe counted as unemployed want some evidence that they are really serious about looking for they must have done something actively in the past month. if they haven't done anything --ively then they are in the they are not in the labor force category we still want to know if anybody job. when you can see is that there was a big increase in fees marginally attached folks during the recession. since 2011 and it has really been trending down. the source of gotten for back into the labor force. they have not gotten all the way to where they were before the recession. discouraged? guest: they are a subset of

marginally attached and they say the reason they're not looking for work is that they are discouraged. they don't think there is a job out there for them. host: and these numbers around six or 700,000. guest: both of these were unchanged over the month but they've been trending down. is thing to realize there that any decline in labor force participation can be driven by an increase of these numbers. they're coming down. >> when i would look at is how the marginally attached number to the recession before this light blue bar. you see a half-million people in this category do this especially

thinking of some of you might be in retail or restaurant saint unemployment is 5% do i need to -- there's a half-million people up there that say they want to job but maybe have looked maybe i can tap into that the new be willing to take the $10 and our job as opposed to me having to go to $11 i can get the worker from the restaurant next door. steve is calling from texas. i steve. i started working in 72. i worked for over 20 years before i ever had to file for unemployment. that was a nearly 90's. i will work probably another 10 years after that before i had to get into unemployment again.

why calling in and out or anything but when these -- construction on the boilermaker. the union boilermaker that. is a war on ial think the war on anyone that does work for a living and these numbers i think they need out of four of five and that five. so many people are so discouraged. hearing crockett there's a pipeline. the come in in great jobs. that's 600 employees of their own. it's a small town there's no industry oil pipelines. they're bringing workers from out of state from around the

state and i will say this, most of them i will say are illegal immigrants. host: we will leave it there steve. his point that there should be up for a five in front of 5% number. are there ways of measuring employment that come up with different statistics? absolutely. when we put out the employment situation every month we have the full press release with thousands of numbers and it. we find it helpful to have my number and that seems to show unemployment rate which is the most common. however, for different questions you might prefer different measures. we publish six of them every month and the most inclusive is the one we call you six. it includes all of the discouraged workers and everybody who has a part-time job would prefer to have a is measured in the

unemployed or underutilized category. that number is higher and this month it came down to 9.8%. if that's the number you would prefer to follow you can do that in the statistics we provide. has about the same pattern over time as the official unemployment rate but because it's mark loses it is higher. it's another way of measuring distress and labor market. beinghe talks about unemployed and taking unemployment. the traffic came out with. guest: every month when we people --ple, with determined by their prescriptions to unemployed we asked them how long they've been searching for work so we can divide up our pool of unemployed

people by the duration of unemployment. this chart shows you those buckets. recession caused a tremendous spike in long-term unemployment shown in bowls. biket's on the mend this has down. it's not back down to where was the more that it has come down hugely. there is still a disproportionate number of long-term unemployed but we made a tremendous amount of progress. it has been declining for four years. caller: 5% when i was in college back in the late 60's was almost unemployment but i would hardly consider today's economy to be anywhere near -- the second

the part-time employees? when you spoke earlier about them like restaurants and retail are rising that's probably because beginning of the christmas and all that. is that part-time in 5% or so different chart as well? you first. another centhere's number that includes part-time that would like to have full-time work. 5% -- if you have a part-time job you are employed. i hear you saying from some of the other thegs were talking about lower level of labor force suggests that you have a 5% number today. look to the number of links that have been long-term there been a lot of

folks that run employed for more than 27 weeks. some of them left the labor force and taken different have. that's the amount of people that could potentially be workers. your answer? guest: he's absolutely right that people who are working part-time but would prefer time jobs are considered to be employed but when we go to the other number i was talking about then they are counted as underutilized. we do have measures of -- host: i'm going to take this chart will show in voluntary part-time workers. 500 -- 5,000,700 67000 and is the figure you have listed here.

this is the total number of people a part-time jobs who would prefer to have a full-time job. this number spiked dramatically during a recession and has been coming down ever since. it is still elevated everywhere was before, only have here is two kinds of ways you may be involuntarily part-time employed. one is that it's normally a full-time job at your employer is cut your hours. the other is all you found was a part-time job. and you could have full-time one. right someone who are he has a job is going to be considered a better worker than someone who has been out of work for six months or more.

all of these numbers i think -- retailtant business early spike around the holidays. these numbers are comparable from month-to-month. in voluntary, you added an actual figure. unemployment, only people does that translate into? guest: i do have that figure. host: we will take a call from texas. mark twain said there lies dam lies and statistics. your program is underscoring. ways i couldn't even explain

to someone who doesn't understand statistics. host: the question? caller: first of all the way statistics are measured, sometimes gives you the result that you want and the 5% unemployment rate is a false positive. as the civilian labor he goes down and employment rates go marginally you will have a lower unemployment rate. rate is a narrow section of what is really going on in this country. eric? >> the civilian labor force expanded so that wasn't the case. i will say in general that the statistic bureau is considered the gold standard across the -- certainly people use the numbers i will dispute that.

inill say you can have a that these monitors are what they say they are. it's been measured that way for decades. are you a political point to your civilian? i am a presidential appointee, but i can -- i have a term appointment. i don't service pleasure of the president. the number. how many people in a 5%'s are -- what does that translate to? guest: 7.9 million unemployed.

7.9 unemployed 5.8 or so who are part-time or underemployed. these are the headlines in here once more as the chart from this month. 207 1000 jobs. >> a growing trend of stepping schools with police officer by thewe will be joined

author of unequal scarcity, race, schools, and perception of injustice washington journal, live on c-span. >> i have learned that you can do anything you want to. please just leave i thought the first lady of to. if i got paid i would have to do that -- with first ladies were supposed to be did doing. it is such a great soapbox. such a great opportunity. i would advise any first lady to do what she wanted to do. and another thing i learned is you're going to be criticized the matter what you do. i could have stayed at the white house and the and had receptions command i would have been criticized. as much was criticized outside for what i did. to live with it, as i said

earlier. you respected and you live with it. you never let it influence you. >> as first lady she attended the cabinet meetings. rightsmpioned women's and mental health issues and even testifying before congress. their partnership on health of peacekeeping issues have through decade since leaving the white house. rosalynn carter with the sunday night 8 p.m. eastern at c-span's original series first ladies can influence an image. examining the public and private life of those who fill the position of first lady and their influence on the presidency. from martha washington to michelle obama, an american history tv c-span3. next, the president's announcement concerning the keystone and so pipeline -- xl pipeline.

discussion about the candidates and campaigns in the 20 16th election. session the 2016 election. president obama has administration's rejection of the keystone proposal. >> good morning everybody. several years ago the state department began a review process for a proposed pipeline that would carry canadian crude oil from the pipelines of the gulf of mexico to the market. this morning, senator kerry informed me that after extensive public outreach and consultation with other cabinet agencies, the state department has decided that the keystone xl pipeline

would not serve the national interest of the united states. i agree with that decision. this morning, i also had the opportunity to speak with prime minister trudeau of canada. while he expressed his disappointment, given canada's position on this issue, we both agreed that our close friendship on a whole range of issues, including energy and climate change, should provide the basis for even closer correlation between our countries going forward. in the coming weeks, members of my team will be engaging with theirs in order to help deepen that cooperation. now for years, the keystone pipeline has occupied what i frankly consider an overinflated role in our political discourse. it became a symbol to often used module rather than

a serious policy matter. all this obscured the fact that this pipeline would neither be a silver bullet for the economy, as was promised by some, nor the express lane to climate disaster proclaimed by others. to illustrate this, let me briefly comment on some of the reasons why the state department rejected this pipeline. first, the pipeline would not make a meaningful long-term contribution to our economy. so if congress is serious about wanting to create jobs, this was not the way to do it. they want to do it, but what we should be doing is passed bipartisan infrastructure planned that in the short term to create more than 30 times jobs per year than the pipeline would and create a better economy for workers for years to come. our business has created 262,000

new jobs last month. they created 13.5 million new jobs over the past 68 straight month, the longest streak on record. the unemployment rate fell to 5%. this congress should pass a serious infrastructure plan and keep those jobs coming. that would make a difference. the pipeline would not have made a serious impact on those numbers and on the american people's prospects for the future. second, the pipeline would not lower gas prices for american consumers. in fact, gas prices have already been falling steadily. the national average gas price is down about $.77 over a year ago. it is down one dollar over two years ago. it is down $1.27 over three years ago. today in 41 states drivers can find a gas station selling gas for less than two dollars a gallon.

while our politics has been consumed over a debate on whether this pipeline would create jobs and lower gas prices, we have gone ahead and created jobs and lower gas prices. third, shipping dirtier cre oil into our country would not increase america's energy security. what has increased america's energy security is our strategy over the past several years to reduce our reliance on dirty fossil fuels from unstable parts of the world. three years ago, i set a goal to cut our oil imports in half by 2020. between producing more oil here and home and using less oil throughout our economy, we met that goal last year. five years early. and fact, for the first time in two decades, the united states of america now produces more oil than we buy from other countries. the truth is the united states

will continue to rely on oil and gas as we transition, as we must transition to a clean energy economy. that transition will take some time. but it is also going more quickly than many anticipated. think about it. since i took office, we have doubled the distance our cars will go on a gallon of gas by 2025. tripled the power we generate from the wind, multiplied the power we generate from the sun 20 times over. our biggest and most successful businesses are going all in on clean energy. thanks in part to the investments we have made, there are already parts of america were clean power from the wind or sun is cheaper than dirtier conventional power. the point is the old rule set -- said we cannot promote economic growth and protect our

environment at the same time. the old rule set that we cannot transition to clean energy without squeezing businesses and consumers, but this is america. we have come up with new ways and new technologies to break down the old rules so today, homegrown energy is booming and energy prices are falling over the past decade, even as our economy has continued to grow, norman ornstein america has cutl carbon pollution more than any other country on earth. today, the united states of america is leading on climate change with our investments in clean energy and energy efficiency. america is leading on climate change with new rules on power plants that will protect our air so that our kids can breathe. america is leading on climate change with other big emitters like china to announce new regulations to reduce greenhouse gas omissions. in part because of that

american leadership, more than 150 nations representing global emissions have put forward plans to cut global pollution. america is now a global leader when it comes to taking serious action when it comes to fighting climate change. frankly, approving this project would have undercut that global leadership and that is the biggest risk that we face. not acting. today, we are continuing to lead by example because ultimately if we are going to prevent large parts of this earth from becoming not only inhospitable but uninhabitable in our lifetime, we have to keep some fossil fuel in the ground rather than burn them and release more dangerous pollution into the sky. as long as i'm president of the united states, america will hold ourselves to the same high standards to which we hold the rest of the world. three weeks from now, i look

forward to joining my fellow world leaders in paris where we have to come together around in them vicious framework to -- around an ambitious framework to protect the one planet that we have got while we still can. if we want to prevent the worst forward to joining my fellow world leaders in paris where wee it is too late, the time to act is now. not later, not someday, but right here, right now. i am optimistic about what we can encompass together. -- can accomplish together. i'm optimistic because our own country proves every day, one step at a time, that not only do we have the power to combat this threat, but we can do it while creating new jobs, while growing our economy, while saving money, while helping consumers, and most of all, leaving our kids a cleaner, safer planet at the same time. that is what our own ingenuity and actions can do. that is what we can accomplish. america is prepared to show the rest of the world a way forward. thank you very much.

tonext republican reaction the president's decision. all right wrote in part, he is rejecting our largest trading partner and his supplier. he is rejecting the will of the american people and a majority of the congress. republican senator from his action denies tens of thousands of americans knew well-paying jobs into the streets in violence toward american energy independence. every weekend the c-span programs onmote politics and books. this week in american -- c-span

will be live from the world war ii museum. we will to her the museum exhibits and take your calls and tweets. our new program, road to the white house rewinds takes a look at past presidential campaigns through archival footage greater the sunday we will feature ronald reagan's 1979 presidential campaign announcement. conferenceat freedom and the effect of legalizing or one in colorado and other states around the country. and a road to the white house coverage continues with martin o'malley, who will speak at a town hall meeting at the university of new hampshire in durham. saturday afternoon on c-span 2's book tv, it is the boston book festival, featuring jessica stern on the terrorist group isis, joe klein and his book "charlie might," about to iraq

and afghanistan war veterans who use their military discipline and values to help others, and d and his book "the nearest thing to life," on the connections between fictional writing and life. and sunday night at 11:00, a book discussion with former first lady of massachusetts, ann romney, on her book "in this together," on her journey with multiple school sclerosis. get the full schedule at c-span.org. secretaryffairs ronald mcdonald spoke to the national press club about improvements at the v.a. and including more challenges. >> welcome to the national press club. bloombergitor for

first word, our breaking news desk here in washington. i am president of the national health club. our speaker today is robert mcdonald. he is the eighth u.s. secretary of veterans affairs. he will update us on the status of federal programs for people who have served in the military. but first, i want to introduce our distinguished head table. this table includes both national press club members and guests of the speakers. from the audience right, john aka sergeant shaft. from the marine corps, a wounded vietnam veteran, and a veteran affairs responded. navy vietnam veteran and commander of the national press club's american legion post. advocate, a veteran

and host of the next word on ms 16.channel paul, past national resident of the benevolent and protective order of elks of the u.s. john donnelly, a senior defense writer at cq roll call, and chairman of the national press club's freedom committee. patty andrews, and military veteran and deputy director of the v.a. veterans health administration office of client relations. chief washington bureau of the buffalo news, chairman of the national press club speaker committee and a former press club president. skipping over our speaker for a moment. kevin, a captain of the u.s. navy retired, and the press club

speaker committee who arranged the luncheon. thank you, kevin. neil denton, senior vice president and chief government affairs officer at ymca of the usa. veteran andy publisher of stars & stripes. agngel, president of d.c. media connection and emcee of the veterans women rock rally at george washington university this coming veterans day. a navy veteran from vietnam and former publisher of the washington examiner. [applause] in addition to our audience in

the packed ballroom of the national press club, i want to welcome our c-span audience, as well as our audience listening on public radio. you can also follow the action on twitter. pclive. #n mcdonald was confirmed as secretary of veterans affairs in july of last year. but he did not have time to ease into the job. he came aboard to fix problems 312,00department with employees. the agency was facing middle investigations, congressional outrage, and construction cost overruns. you can remember the media reports from that time. as well as an internal audit.

it was discovered that more than 120,000 veterans were waiting for care or have not yet received or never received it. schedulers were pressured to use unofficial lists or to engage in other practices to make waiting times appear more favorable. missionnald made it his to restore trust with the nation's nearly 9 million veterans and their families. he drew upon his past experience to try to set things right. as the former ceo of procter and gamble, he was no stranger to overseeing large, complex operations. understanding of military service. he served five years in the u.s. army with the 82nd airborne division. he graduated from the u.s. military academy at west point. he finished in the top 2% of his

class. been sinceow, it has he took the job. so how are things going at the vienna? .a.? commerce has provided team billion dollars in additional funding to pay for veterans to get treatment from other doctors and hospitals. and to increase the number of the a staff -- v.a. staff. lawmakers also gave him more latitude to fire managers. mcdonald sees much to be positive about the department. he was quoted telling a house committee recently, "maybe you can hold a hearing on its progress. i would welcome that." please join me in giving a warm national press club welcome to leader, robert

mcdonald. [applause] robert: thank you. that you so much. war, and theil ymca education scholarships were the forerunner of the g.i. bill. so today, i'm pleased to announce that the the a and the ymca -- v.a. and the ymca are expanding. this enhanced agreement makes it easier to collaborate on helping transitioning service members and veterans connect to resources and opportunities that they need. neil, thank you. thanks to you and the entire organization for your enduring devotion to veterans. the benevolent protective order of elks have been friends of

veterans for a long time, too. the reconstruction hospitals they built in boston in 1918 to the government, it was a forerunner of our centers. last month, the committed $4 million over a four-year period to help and veteran homelessness. they're deploying 800,000 members across the country to help and homelessness in their communities. paul, thank you and the elks across the country for your generosity and loyalty to our nations heroes. [applause] the ymca, the elks -- these are strategic partnerships we are starting as part of my transition, which are making profound differences.

let me also welcome a great employee, patty andrews. 100,000esents more than employees who are veterans themselves. ask her why she works there, here is what she will tell you. veterans helping veterans is nothing short of a dream job. thank you for your example and your continued service to the nation and to the v.a. [applause] like john, i would like to recognize all the veterans here happyand wish you all veterans day. thank you for your services and veterans. i was in kansas city, i had lunch with a vietnam veteran named larry parrish. he agreed to let me share his experiences with you.

he is an active man. but over the last two years, his health deteriorated over a have problem -- a hip problem. pounds, and i 278 was only 61. i was suicidal because of the pain, and nobody seemed to care. on the advice of a trusted friend, he turned to the the v.a. they gave me my life back. they turned around and 24 hours. they were the most comprehensive, efficient, and most cordial of any therapist i have worked with -- public or private. when his doctor recommended a hip replacement, he chose the v.a. his private health insurance deductible was about $5,000 more than he can afford. but more important to him was

this, i wanted to go to the same place because they were so damn good. every time someone saw me, they hugged me or patted me on the back and said thank you for your service, welcome home brother. doing it exactly right, world-class experience veterans earn and they deserve. 's the values of integrity, commitment, advocacy, respect, and excellence. those stories are out there in abundance. they are too rarely reported. i want to begin by telling you how we are improving access to health care and meeting increasing demand with expanded capacity. how we double the capacity required to meet last year's demand by focusing on four pillars. productivity,e,

and community care. we have more people serving over 15,000. we've activated 1.7 million square feet and increase the number of exam rooms in fiscal year 2014 so providers can care for more veterans every single day. we have added 2.2 million square feet in fiscal year 2015. in the wake of the crisis, the aggressively increased access to care. in the 12 months following the to 2015, june of 2014 we completed 7 million more appointments than during the same. e period the previous year. 4.5 million of these were in the community. this fiscal year, we completed 61.5 million appointments, 3.1 million more than the last fiscal year. more than 2 million more at v.a.

facilities, one million more in the community. altogether this year, 2.6 million veterans were authorized care in the community. that is a 9% increase over authorizations the year before. right now, 97% of avoidance are within 30 days. withinwithin 14, 87 are seven, at 23 are the same day. average wait time is six days. primary care is four days. mental health care is three days. those averages are excellent for most. but if you are the one in the tail of the curve, like a veteran living in a city seeing dramatic population growth, they are not acceptable. so we are to take advantage of the scale of the affiliates and partners to have a one day axis

standdown to make sure every veteran gets the appropriate care. we are making progress addressing homelessness. over 230,000 veterans and family members have been permanently housed, rapidly re-house, or prevented from falling into homelessness. altogether across the country, there has been a 33% decline in homeless veterans. toklog claims are down 76,000. from an historic peak of 611,000 in march of 2013. claimsleted 1.4 million in 2015, the highest in our history emma and 67,000 more since last year. today's veterans wait 93 days for decisions. that is six months fewer than in march of 2013. and the lowest in this century.

met one are noticing, i last week at the washington, d.c. medical center. father served in vietnam with the first infantry division and the 101st airborne division and his grandfather fought in world war ii. he bought a great point. my personal experience as the people are but some not experienced the same quality of work i got. he advised what we need to work on is consistency across the board. he pinpointed the reason that my transformation is shaping a seamless, unified, high quality customer experience across the entire enterprise and across the entire country. . will modernize

culture, processes, and keep abilities to put the needs and interest of veterans and their beneficiaries first. it is focused on five main objective. we have to improve the experience. second, we have to glue the employee -- improve the employee experience. we need to establish a culture of continuous improvement and fifth, we need to enhance strategic partnerships. two of them great examples here. i've suggested, as john pointed out, that the chairman and ranking members of our ranking committee that we hold a hearing on the reformation, rather than continuing the garage of of hearingsbarrage to years ago. here are some updates on our progress transforming v.a.

realigning to facilitate internal coordination and collaboration among business lines from nine disjointed, disparate structures to a single framework. this means that downsizing from 21 service networks to 18 that are aligned in five districts that are defined by state boundaries, with the exception of california. the realignment means local level integration and it promotes the consistently customer service that keith described. veterans from syracuse to seattle will see one v.a. our office is fielding a staff of customer service experts who will help us get to keith's vision. every veteran everywhere getting the same world-class service. we will be securely focused on quality and the highest

qualities of professionalism and integrity. the north atlantic office opens at the end of this year, we follow-up with the southeast in february, midwest in april, and working details on the continental and pacific offices. this is about making it easier to meet customers. we launched the my v.a. community model across the country. everything other service providers, advocates, and others to improve outcomes for veterans and their families in that community. my communities are not run by v.a. there chaired by local leaders. i was in connecticut when we established the first board in august, 37 others across the country and adopted the model. in 25 cities last may, we kicked off veteran economic unity v.a., theys, like my

promote local collaboration and partnership amongst organizations servicing veterans and their families. we have seen the success, and we're doubling down on 25 more committees next year. we are investing in employees. and the last federal employee viewpoint survey results show that employee experiences are improving, trending slightly higher than last year. the best customer experience organization in the world, not surprisingly, are also the best choices to work. ,o we are training leaders great customer service companies use human-centered design to understand what customers want and need. and the design customer experiences to meet those needs. they make these effective, efficient, and repeatable.

we started training leaders on lean 6 sigma last month. we intend to have 10% trained. we are using a combined top-down and bottom-up approach to train a cadre of leaders. we started in october and are looking to train 5000 employees over the next year. improving employee experience is inexorably linked to improving veteran experience. there is not a good customer service company in the world that has unhappy or untrained employees. we kicked off our leaders developing leaders model with 300 senior leaders last month. i was told it was the first time the top leaders of the v.a. had got together on that scale. we are equipping leaders to dramatically improve services to veterans and to create a better work environment for our employees.

this month, we will complete initial training for all senior leaders. so employees are better informed on the broadest spectrum of benefits and services, so they understand all of the thv.a. we are giving them training we call v.a. 101. over 60 sites have received the training so far. we have 170,000 trained by next december. it also helps employees better appreciate the value they bring. some notable progress on health care delivery, the claims backlog, veteran homelessness, and our my v.a. transformation. we have made undeniable and tangible progress. every health care system has challenges, and v.a. has its fair share. but some of them are unique. you may have read the independent assessment of the

health care delivery systems. you read about the stark differences from facility to facility. about the bureaucratic leadership and staffing challenges and failures and access in quality. about cultural challenges employees and leaders experience. as i testified to the house committee on veterans affairs in october, the assessment has given us new ideas and a great deal of information on some known problems. it also confirms our own analysis, indicating we are headed in the right direction for some time now. but as long as one veteran does not have the larry parrish experience, we have more work to do. so let me address some challenges for we open things up or questions. access to care has improved. but here is the inevitability. improved access means more demand. and remember, we completed 7 million more appointments in the year following the crisis and we did the year before.

that should have satisfied the pent up demand twice over. for the number of employments not completed in 30 days has grown from 300,000 to nearly 500,000. why>? because more veterans come for care. and the more that come, the harder it is to balance supply and demand without additional resources. that kind of imbalance predicts failure in any business, public or private. the health care industry is no different. the 2014 access crisis. it was a significant mismatch of supply and demand. it was exacerbated by greater number of veterans receiving services. more veterans like larry parrish choose v.a. for good reason. it is more convenient, ever others like larry, is about quality and cost.

the average medicare reimbursement for a knee replacement is $25,000. with a co-pay of 20%. the v.a. saves veterans $5,000 per knee replacement. we cover all hearing loss, not just service-connected. something in the neighborhood of $4000 for hearing aids, and veterans know this. challenges will persist. private sector turnover is about 30%. our turnover rate is about 9% -- pretty favorable. but we need more than 4300 positions and 10,000 more nurses. and we need to fill 41 senior-level vacancies in the field. that growing shortage of candidates is a national problem. for our own problem: we are working with the dean's of medical schools.

working with congress and asking for more residencies, asking for scholarships and loans reimbursements from congress. working with universities and state governments to create new medical schools. one of our more pressing challenges is the appeals process, delivering timely decisions in a manner veterans deserve. the process is too complex to confusing, and too lengthy. the board of veterans appeals served over 55,000 veterans, more than we have in recent memory. over 12,700 over 12,000 hearings. that is not enough. , they have notws evolved since world war i, and it cannot serve veterans with a modern system. we work with organizations to reengineer the process, and now

we're working with congress to pass the laws necessary to bring the process into the 21st century/ . we still have challenges in veteran experiences. last month, i received an urgent e-mail from a vietnam veteran named mike hughes. he submitted a fully developed compensation claim that was incorrectly rejected. calls to his regional office were unproductive and frustrating. the office could not access the information necessary to answer his questions and correct the problem on the spot. even though that is one veteran and one account, it is not the kind of customer service we aim to provide read we more. we are employees who serve veterans more. they deserve the tools and trading that empower them to get every veteran and world-class experience. for benefit call centers, we are

strengthening our model so that it is more that are in-centric. we are empowering certain claims at the point of the call and to take action while a veteran is on the phone with them. and as of this september, we are processing claims at the point of call so agents can, for instance, at a minor child or spouse reclaim. as we strengthen the model, call center agents would take more and more action while the veterans are on the phone. other initiatives i have will over overtime, help us achieve the customer service goals. we own these challenges. we are working hard to do our part, aggressively tackling issues in our control. in a relatively short period for enterprise of this time and complex become a we have

mistreated meaningful change -- demonstrated meaningful change. achieving a place amongst the highest performing health care systems in the world, and we will. but we know we cannot accomplish all we need to do for veterans without the help of congress. veteran service organizations and many other stakeholders, the elks, they are more than hundreds of thousands of partners working with the v.a. from businesses to other federal agencies. but let me be clear, while these partnerships are important, our most essential one is with congress. they hold the keys to many of these doors. congress legislates the benefits. we provide a veterans.and is congress , it has to affirm the benefits it legislates.

from 25 of the independent requirents, they congressional action. not without the right support, we cannot do it alone. here are five specific requirements that will make a significant different to veterans. and i have repeated them during testimony and it every other opportunity. i do not mind reciting them again. first, we need congress to fully fund the president's budget request. we need congress to give us the possibility to align resources. third, we need congress to act on the proposal we submitted may 1 to end the uncertainty about aspects of purchase care. that are outside the veterans choice program and accommodate provider participation in other care in the community programs. fourth, we need congress to address the many statutory issues burdening v.a. with red

tape and bureaucracy -- like the appeals process. five, we need congress to streamline and consolidate all care in the community programs into one. we reiterated this for veterans. for year, a variety of different programs have provided care in the community for veterans. it is all very difficult to understand. veterans do not get it, employees do not get it, medical providers do not get it. so we sent our plan, veteran choice program, the new one, to the hill last friday. it is our long-term vision were delivering timely and high-quality care. veterans need to see congress act on it quickly. this week, i had breakfast with the chairman and ranking members of our senate and house committees. there is tremendous unanimity to press these measures. to work together to transform the v.a. and provide more

consistent and delightful experiences for veterans. remember mike hughes? that veteran who cannot get answers about his claim? a week after he wrote me, he wrote again. "one one day after my e-mail to you, i received a call from a regional office, assuring me my complaint had been heard. and that my claim was indeed one that would be handled probably." that is response might have gotten to begin with. we will get there, and we are well on our way. i look forward to your questions. thank you. [applause] >> you mention the progress that you have made. looking back to the problems of two years ago, have you now held everyone accountable that needs to be, and if not, do you need any additional authorities so

that you can hold them accountable? >> let us talk about accountability. my good friend, jim collins, wrote a book that talks about the need to get the right people on the bus, in the right seats. 16direct reports, 10 of the are new since i was confirmed. 10 of 16. also, over 90% of our medical centers have new directors or new leadership teams. 14, 1100 people were terminated from the v.a. in 2015, 1500 people were terminated from the v.a. since july 29, since i was confirmed last year, 280 people have been terminated from the v a proposed to us but very action from the plating --

disciplinary action for manipulating schedules. in augusta,l and goin georgia was indicted. the charges bring a $250,000 fine and potential for five years in jail. we are working with the ig and the office of special counsel, the fbi on other investigations that are ongoing. over the last year, we have had a total of 62 criminal convictions that have been discovered by our inspector general. now i have to say that account ability is a lot more than firing people. it is about giving people the responsibility, giving them the training, and in working with them and training them to perform at a high level. one of the things we have done over the last year, building into people performance review

plan, all of the things i've talked about. improving customer service, the my v.a. transformation, the call centers. it is now being built into performance plans. we have a lot more to do, lots of investigations currently underway. and as time goes on, you will see the results of these investigations. >> a question about cost control. what mechanisms and you put in place to control costs? how are you ensuring payments are proper and in line with fair market values? >> cost control is important. one of the things i one of the things that i believed in in the procter & gamble company, there were two things i believed would drive it. one was innovation. the v.a. is a great innovator for this country. we spend on innovation, $1.68 billion research. that research is not only critical to american medicine,