jacqueline london: "paying pennsylvania's bills and managing its money," it's a job that has a direct impact on your wallet. today, pennsylvania treasurer joe torsella discusses everything from the state's financial woes to his plan for helping families afford college. "outrage over north korea," us officials struggle to deal with the totalitarian country after the death of an american student. today, a local expert explains what choices the us has, given north korea's nuclear capabilities. "ice arrest," a local couple fights to stay together as he faces deportation. today, lillie williams tells us why she believes her husband deserves to stay in the us. male announcer: nbc10 "@issue" starts now. jacqueline: good morning, i'm jacqueline london for nbc10 "@issue." today, we begin with money, lots of money, pennsylvania's financial assets overseen by the department of treasury.

in addition to paying the state's bills and its workers, other duties of the pennsylvania treasury include investing state funds to earn extra income, overseeing the 529 college savings and unclaimed property programs. before torsella, the last elected pennsylvania treasurer, rob mccord resigned during an investigation into his campaign finances in 2015. mccord pleaded guilty to two counts of attempted extortion. treasurer joe torsella now manages the state's cash after winning the job in november's election, and he is promising big changes in the office. joe torsella joining me now. thank you so much for being here. the republicans are now revealing details of the new health care reform bill. i want to start with that. i know you have some serious concerns. joe torsella: sure, i think it's a terrible bill, and it spells, at the human level, trouble for many pennsylvania families, for the dad who's between jobs with a preexisting condition, or the mom who's trying to figure out how to deal with an

addiction issue in the family. there are 675,000 pennsylvanians who've benefited the medicaid expansion, which this bill will roll back. the auditor general and i, a couple of months ago, outlined our concerns with this, and of course, it is fundamentally a human issue that'll have real consequences for families here in the southeast. but the fiscal issues are also important, and they've gotten lost. what washington is doing here is giving the very wealthiest among us a tax cut at the expense of everybody else, and it's going to be the states that are left holding the bag. we estimate this'll increase, and as you know, our budget in harrisburg is not in a good situation, this'll increase our structural deficit by more than $300 million. it'll remove billions of dollars of economic activity from the pennsylvania budget, and we will be dealing, if this passes, we'll be dealing with the consequences for years to come. so, i hope that this is stopped dead in its tracks.

i hope it doesn't get out of the senate. it is not good news for the southeast, or for, indeed, for all of pennsylvania if it does. jacqueline: i do wanna talk about pension reform. i know you support the new bill signed by governor wolf. basically, it is a two-tiered system, and for those who aren't familiar, teachers and state employees would move from a traditional pension to a 401k. how will that save money in the end? joe: so, it moves, in the future, moves employees to a variety of hybrid systems, where there is a defined benefit plan, a conventional pension plan, with an element of a defined contribution plan. and it takes effect, you know, many, many years from now. and that's been one of the criticisms of the bill, which no one is happy with all of it, and people can find things to pick at. and when we're talking about pensions, you have to sort of stop and move from the kinda mass to the personal. this is personal for me. i've got a mom who depends on her state pension. i'm sure many of your viewers know someone who does.

and all of us our taxpayers, so we help fund these pensions. what's important for us to realize about it is that in the future, this will move us to a system that is fair to employees and fair to taxpayers. between now and the future, though, there are some work we have to do, principally around the unfunded liability that this bill doesn't have much impact on, and that's now about $60 billion. it is vital that we address that, both for the security of those retirees and also for all of us taxpayers, and for the state's ability to do things like invest in our common future. now, one part of this bill that almost no one has noticed, that i think is really worthy of attention, is it shines a spotlight on something i've tried to shine a spotlight on, and that's the amount of fees that we're paying in both pension systems. the bill sets up two fee commissions, one for each pension system, and asks them to reduce their fees,

which is precisely what governor wolf and i did a few weeks ago when we put a very specific proposal on the table. jacqueline, the two pensions together, we are spending approximately $600 million in wall street fees every year. that's a large portion of the contributions that teachers and state workers are making every year, and when those fees go to wall street and not stay here in pennsylvania, that's a lost opportunity to make the system more secure for people and to relieve the burden on taxpayers, and to invest in our future. jacqueline: given what happened to the stock market in '06, a lot of people saying, "this is risky though." joe: well, so, any investment is risky. there is no, you know, there is no safety, but invest we must because this is a long-term proposition. but i agree that many of the, kind of, esoteric, very-high-fee investments that we have been in are, in fact, too risky, and i would like to see us pursue a much simpler, lower-cost approach,

which we've done in treasury, to keep more of those dollars. we can't be sure of investment returns, but we can be sure of the costs we're paying. and again, it's, when you think about what those dollars can do if we keep 'em here in pennsylvania and think about the impact that can have on retirees and taxpayers, that, to me, argues that we should do it. now, i will tell you, in treasury, we said, and you know, you alluded to it, there have been scandals over the years around the amount of money that's being managed. we said, "we're going to fire the money managers because we don't think we can, quote, 'beat the market.'" this is not a casino game we're playing with the taxpayers' money. we said, "we're just gonna try and get the market return and do it at dramatically lower fees." well, we saved, just by that 1 step, $5 million a year, about $195 million over 20 years. now, that's $195 million that we can invest in the schools, that we can invest in the quality of our air and water, that we can devote to our infrastructure, or higher education, or the things that'll really build a

better future for pennsylvania. jacqueline: in talking about those retirees, some of the concerns, the way that final average salary is calculated is different, that number in 3 years versus 5 years, and the average age now to 67. a lot of people concerned about that. joe: sure, and as i said, i have a--as someone who has a parent who's a state pensioner, i hear about those concerns. but what they should all know is that none of these changes will relate to them. this is only for employees who are hired after 2019. jacqueline: let's talk about pennsylvania's budget. the deadline is coming up june 30. what is the plan from your office if there is an impasse? joe: if there is an impasse, we're going to hold payments to a very rigorous standard of only payments that are federally required and that are necessary to maintain public health, safety, and welfare. as you know, there was an impasse a few years ago,

and treasury was in the middle of it. we've learned from that experience, and we've set forth some clear rules of the road that outline how we're gonna handle these payments so that there won't be any surprises. backing up, though, let's start with the fact that there is no good reason that we should get to july without a budget. it is the constitutional responsibility of the legislature and the governor to provide a budget on time. it is a responsibility that is the very minimum that we're owed by all of our elected officials. and if we end up in another impasse, or if we end up with a budget that is built on gimmicks and one-time fixes, it is pennsylvania families who pay the price for that. jacqueline: and if an agreement isn't reached, the state government could have to potentially borrow $3 billion for operating expenses? joe: well, unfortunately, it's bleaker than that. if an agreement is--so, treasury has,

over the past few years, lent the state money to make it through the year through its normal operations. the amount that we've had to lend and the time that we've had to lend it, both of those things, the time has gotten longer, and the amount has gotten higher, and we are projecting next year that the state will require a borrowing of approximately $3 billion just to get through the year. that's even if they do have a budget. what that tells us, and what that should tell everyone, is there is a structural deficit which is a, you know, multisyllabic word for our elected representatives are not facing up to the realities of pennsylvania finances, and that has an impact. it has an impact on your ability to send your kid to college. it has an ability on the level of maintenance we have for our roads. it means every taxpayer is paying more for the things that we shouldn't have to. so we have sent a letter, and i've beaten the drum, trying to get people's attention, that borrowing $3 billion

for 8 months, which is what we're projecting, is the equivalent for a family of living off your credit card for about 8 months of the year. what that should tell you is that something you're doing is not working out, that there is a fundamental mismatch between revenues and expenses, and it's time for us to address that. jacqueline: and with that education crisis, so many parents are struggling and trying to figure out how they're going to pay for college for their children. joe: and as a--my wife and i have four kids, and the last of them, or the youngest of them is on her way to school this year. higher education, the bills in higher education these days are eye popping. and sadly, they're more eye popping here in pennsylvania. and i hear it all the time from moms and dads who are faced with this issue. we have in--two facts about pennsylvania: we have the second-highest level of student debt in the country. now, there are lots of lists when you're a state that you want to be on, highest level of student debt is not one of 'em.

and the other is that the mismatch between families' incomes, and you know, families have been struggling for many decades and really treading water, but meanwhile, higher education prices have gone up more than 274%. so there's this big mismatch. that would be, you know, we could look at that and say, "it's really unfortunate." but the trouble is, achieving higher education is vital for those kids to succeed in the economy, and for all of us to have a state worth living in. the number of jobs created since the end of the great recession has been about 11.6 million. eleven-point-five of them required a degree after high school. so if we don't equip our kids with some form of post-secondary training, we are all going to pay the price. it's not just--and this is sad enough that they'll be so burdened by debt, they can't buy a house or start a business. but we will all suffer the economic consequences.

so, i think we really need to take a look at how we're approaching higher education, and see it for what it is, which is a necessity. jacqueline: all right, it is budget crunch time. we will be watching closely with that deadline looming on the 30th. pennsylvania treasurer joe torsella, thank you so much for being here, we appreciate your time. joe: thank you. jacqueline: next, on nbc10 "@issue," between its nuclear missiles and the death of an american student, the us grapples with how to respond to north korea. we'll discuss why the options are more limited than you may realize.

jacqueline: to most americans, north korea represents brutality to its own people and to anyone who gets in the way of its unpredictable leader, kim jong-un. north korea called president trump a quote, "psychopath," just last week. that, in response to the president slamming its leaders

as a brutal regime after the death of 22-year-old american student otto warmbier. warmbier died after returning to the us in a coma. he had been in a north korea prison for more than a year. now, many are wondering how this war of words will play out. and with me now is benjamin katzeff silberstein. silberstein is an associate scholar with the foreign policy research institute in center city. his focus is on north korea. thank you so much for being here. benjamin katzeff silberstein: my pleasure. jacqueline: first of all, help us understand why our options dealing with north korea are so limited. benjamin: well, i think there are several reasons why there really aren't a lot of great options for dealing with north korea. one of them is the limited range of diplomatic contacts that the united states has with north korea. so, in the case of another country where there were diplomatic channels of some sort established, you could imagine that you could downgrade diplomatic contacts as a show of force or as a signal, but just because contacts

are already so dismal, there's not really much to do in that range. second of all, the unpredictable nature of north korean strategy makes it very hard to deal with north korea in terms of, like, i think that even if there are military options that could achieve certain us objectives when it comes to north korea, we just don't know how north korea would respond against some sort of armed action by the united states. so that's--the unpredictable of the regime makes it very challenging. jacqueline: you've said you were surprised by the death of otto warmbier, tell me why. benjamin: yeah, well, so, with previous cases of us prisoners in north korea, they've generally been treated relatively well. and i say, "relatively well," not to diminish the trials that previous prisoners have gone through, but just, north korean prisons for north koreans are terrible places, obviously, and they have labor camps where living conditions are really subhuman, so--

but when it comes to foreign prisoners, and especially to american prisoners, they've wanted to potentially use them in negotiations with the united states. so they've really been assets to north korea. so that's why i was surprised. jacqueline: we know that north korea has missiles that can reach hawaii. how realistic is it that they would strike? benjamin: i think it's relatively unlikely that they would strike the united states, or south korea, for that matter. but the problem is, the very existence of a potential that they might as a response to, say, us action, or a south korean action, we just don't know exactly to what--for what purposes north korea would use their nuclear weapons because thus far they haven't, so that makes it very hard to calculate, from a us perspective, to calculate the

us's own actions because we just don't know what actions north korea would respond to with a show of force like using nuclear weapons. but it would be a suicide for the north korean regime, so presumably, they're very reluctant to. jacqueline: there's still so many questions surrounding north korea, thank you for coming in and providing us your insight. benjamin katzeff silberstein with the foreign policy research institute, thank you for being here. benjamin: thanks. jacqueline: rallies and protests for a local couple fighting to stay together. next on nbc10 "@issue," well explain why the community believes it's a matter of justice and fairness.

jacqueline: a haverford couple is in the center of an immigration battle right now. lillie williams and her husband, jonatan palacios fear he will be sent back to his native honduras, but they believe he deserves to stay here, where he's lived since he was 16 years old. lillie williams joining me now.

thank you so much for being here. so many families have been ripped apart now that authorities have really stepped up the deportation and detention of some undocumented immigrants. what makes your case so different? lillie williams: well, one big thing is that jonatan hasn't committed any crimes. he has a good record. he's a good student. the only thing that he's done is that he came here when he was 16 and he was undocumented. and, you know, i think the thing that makes it special, besides all of that, is the fact that he is married to a united states citizen, and we were already in the process of adjusting his status and working through those motions that we needed to do to legalize him. jacqueline: and we're looking at some pictures of the two of you together there. restaurant worker, honors student, the reason they say they took him was because he missed a hearing when he had just arrived here 10 years ago at 16 years old? lillie: right, yes, so, yeah, the hearing resulted in an

automatic deportation order while he wasn't there. and he wasn't completely aware of that. it took us actually looking through all of our marital stuff and working through the immigration case before we even realized that that was in place. so, it's pretty crazy that just one little mistake can result in something so big. jacqueline: we're looking at pictures right now, a picture that you took from inside your house. you were upstairs when ice came and took him away. take me through that moment and your emotions. lillie: it's a little bit hard to go through that. you know, it just didn't feel real. they didn't care about the fact that we were in the process. they knew we were in the process of making changes, and-- jacqueline: i can't imagine how that made you feel, to see him taken away. lillie: i don't know if i can describe it. i'll never forget it. but it, you know, i had got that last--i did get a hug and kiss

in when he opened the door right before they took him. and they handcuffed him, and that was completely unnecessary. jacqueline: and he had a difficult childhood in honduras, an abusive father. he slept with a machete by his side. he was desperate to come here to the united states. and he thought he was safe, i'm sure. lillie: right, he definitely, you know, he has a pending asylum case, and he definitely had some--i can't fathom the kind of childhood he had. and yes, he, i mean, he's been here for 10 years, and he has felt safe, up until recently. jacqueline: he has been released on bail. where is he now? lillie: he's at home, he's in our apartment in haverford. jacqueline: what is next for him, court date? lillie: yes, we have a court date in august. while he was detained, we were finally able to get his case

reopened from when he was a teenager. so now it's just--so he no longer has that order, and we'll be working through the case. and hopefully, the judge sees his merits, sees his married to a us citizen, and we get to go further with the process. jacqueline: and while there are many cases like this, this particular case has received so much support from the community. lillie: yes, and i think it's really great that there has been so much support. but at the same time, there are a lot of other people with--married to us citizens with children, even, us citizen children, that are detained right now in york, and jonatan's told me about a lot of them. and he keeps asking, "well, why me, when there are so many people who have maybe harder stories that they're dealing with?" it shouldn't just be us getting that attention, 'cause there's so many families that are affected by this. and i think a lot of people don't realize that when you

get married, you can't just fix your status. jacqueline: well, we will be watching your case closely, and others. thank you for coming in and sharing your story, we appreciate it. lillie williams, and we can tell you that we did reach out to the department of justice about jonatan's case. they had no comment. we did hear back from immigration and customs enforcement. in an email, they wrote: "jonatan palacios was ordered removed from the us by an immigration judge in 2008. prior to his may 11 arrest, he was considered an ice fugitive."

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jacqueline: that's it for this edition of nbc10 "@issue." i'm jacqueline london. thank you for watching. don't forget, wawa welcome america's celebration begins on thursday, ending on the 4th of july with fireworks on the parkway. can't be there? don't worry, you can watch them live on nbc10. have a great sunday. ♪

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