you get benefits. what happens is when you get the benefits, they will take a piece. they can do this because very often, if in fact you when benefits, they will say, you have been disabled for. of time -- let's say one year, or whatever it is, and then you get back benefits. you might get a lump sum at the beginning. a lot of these firms, as part of their fee, because they do not work for free, they will take a piece of that sum. host: from new jersey, charlie is next with our guest, stephen ohlemacher of the associate press. caller: good morning. thank you c-span. my understanding is that funds between disability pot and the retirement have been transferred back and forth. over the last 30 years, moneys have gone from the disability fund to the retirement fund. i'm seeing now that this is turning into a political issue. now, it is turning into a real political issue. i was wondering whether the reporter would speak to that. guest: he's right. money has been transferred back and forth between funds 11

and retirement benefits. as we do, and courage the members of this committee and my colleagues in the house and senate to keep an open mind. we are also eager to hear from any military or other organizations that have constructive ideas to improve the current system. no one has a monopoly on good ideas and we all come to this debate as patriots who love our nation's armed forces and went to improve the lives of all those who serve and their families. we pledge to keep their well-being foremost in our thoughts as we deliberate the commission's recommendations. but upholding our sacred obligation to them does not mean resisting change at every turn. we must not strength from an opportunity to create a modern system of retirement benefits that would provide greater value and toys for those it serves. congress established the commission to conduct a review of the military compensation and retirement system and to make recognitions for modernization. we asked them to develop recommendations to ensure the long-term

benefit.bution to this. and to make sure that we can do the retention or provide for the retention that the services told us that they wanted us to. i'm going to have commissioner higgins to talk to the specifics of that recommendation mr. chairman. >> thank you. >> commissioner higgins. >> thank you very much mr. chairman. and chairman mccain. sir, the system we've devised includes the incentives the flexibility and the choice that people want in force -- when we look forward at how the system will operate overtime, our belief is, and supported by our analysis. and in this case it was iran model which was the dynamic retention model used. we believe that this will -- our proposal will exactly model the current force profiles. it will have the tools within it including a continuation pay thrift savings plan, with matching, which is currently not offered today. it will include the tools that will draw people through the 20-year career much like the defined benefit does today. and to some large

the candidates and also perhaps link it in with what we're going to be taking in item 4 the public benefits that the person is doing the bundling is someone that might be interested in a pro so we don't burn the good government person that decides to bag a mr. smith they want to send to wosh. >> second to that motion. >> all in favor, say i. >> opposed the motion is carried let's turn to 3 enhanced private right of action. >> commissioners by way of clarification at the end of our discussion we can tube sort of the when and - >> okay. thank you the next item has to do with enhancing the counter private right of action found in c section that allows a voter to sue a candidate or city person to sue the c from as long as the city attorney decides not to sue so this was made and the san francisco grand jury over the past year the general rational is it will better insensitive the relations and folks have pointed to the san francisco and california so the folks can be recovery up to electro50 percent a row there's no current section that explicit contemplate that the plaintiff will get penalties

that's because the benefits were cut. you went out and took what you could get. >> we can compare various counties with other counties because unemployment benefits very often are local as well. >> that's right. princeton did a study with stockholm university and they found when the benefits went up, the job searches went down. long term jobs benefits we all want to help people, it's not a long term economic policy. look at l.a. they had a 17% jobless lessless rate. they lost two major companies since 2011. you look at fdr, the unemployment rate was still around 17% with his policies. >> getting back to my question, i'm woerndsndering if the american public gets it. they have gone with this fool's gold. stuff that glitters very right. nancy pea nancy pelosi suggests it helps the economy to hand out unemployment benefits. >> all you have to do is look at the 2014 elections and you see the american people have moved decisively to the right on economic matters. i think they have lost the argument with the american people. >>

reforms like, say, getting rid of or heavily taxing benefits such as the ones my wife and i took benefitsome people consider loopholes. >> well you could view it as a loophole. on the other hand you paid a lot of tax and there are other loopholes in our sthe mortgage interest deconduction for example, would it be fair for some of us to take it and not others because we know about it? i don't see any reason why people shouldn't take what they're legally entitled to. >> this is economic correspondent paul solman reporting for the pbs newshour. >> ifill: now, as black history month draws to a close, we talk to the author of a new book about a black woman journalist who was nearly alone in her field. >> ifill: she is the the most influential journalist and activist most have never heard of. ethel payne began her career at a strd black newspaper that specialized in telling stories. payne traveled the world covered every president from eisenhower to reagan, traveled to vietnam, and repeatedly to africa. she was front and center at the montgomery bus boycott at the deseg exwaigz of little rock c

long-term jobless benefits we all want to help people it's not a long-term economic policy.ook at l.a. they had a 17% jobless rate, they lost two dozen major companies since 2011. you look at fdr with six years of fdr the unemployment rate was still around 17% with his policies. >> rich, getting back to my question, i'm wondering if the american public -- i mean, the american public has gone with this tools gold, stuff that gliters very bright, we can make people happy even if they don't have jobs. nance wree pelosi even suggested that it helps the economy to hand out unemployment benefits. >> david, all you have to do is look at the 2014 elections and you see that the american people have moved dee sighs ifl to the right on economic matters. i think the president and nancy pelosi have lost the argument with the american people. >> hold on a second. rick, did i hear you say that it does help the economy to hand out unemployment benefits. >> the very study that you're citing said so in the final part of that study. >> no. no. no. >> wait. >> make your case. make your case. >>

the stores, the walmarts, and the others, the benefits they would offer if they were to offer a benefit. at the end of the day, no one was willing to stand behind their comments they made or had about providing savings to the service member. our intention here is that we could protect the service members and they believe this is a big savings to them and that they also believe it was a retention tool. that's the way we went about making and moving forward with our recommendation on the commissaries. >> several of the chains talked about issues a card to the military, when we ask the representatives point-blank would you do it? never got a straight answer. at the same time we did hear that some people will order their food online, they know that. people want that. they want it because it is convenient for a start, it is near them, it is military, it is responsive to their needs, and we looked at that and made our recommendations on what feed back -- different folks have different requirements. overwhelmingly this is not something they wanted to go away. >> proclivity is based on a whole

the main vice we're talking about the play to play in regards to someone that is getting a public benefit for being able to give to the person who was making that decision sort of goes to the heart of something that may well be corrupt or certainly appears to be corrupt and the subject of a grateful of controversy in the city 0 over the last few years i'll ask we go forward on this one as well and have the staff come back to us with some suggested language for a good a regulation that has teeth not allowing the kind of pay to play that is suggested by someone getting a public benefit in being able to contribute to the person who is going to make the decision they're going to get the benefit. >> other comments from any of the commissioners. >> commissioner hayon. >> under prop b the contractor ban no public benefit. >> that's correct under city law. >> why did it supercede prop j. >> that's the expressed pregs progression of the property e we're going to take away everything this of the prop j and replace that with this narrow focused limits i wasn't there there were probably folks here th

or benefit to the public benefit versus cost. what about you, miss hunter? what's your thought? >> i would add to mr. bland's comment that the challenges, its easy to measure the costs because they fall to specific stiegs. it's much harder to measure the benefits because they really accrue to a broad population, just things like safety and soundness of the banking system or confidence in the payment system. so that's really the challenge in assessing cost and benefits. i do think that it is worth doing that analysis and i know when we propose rules we look first at what was the benefit that the statute was incontinuing to try to achieve. what was that goal? and then try to fashion rules that minimize the cost of achieving that goal as best we can and, you know, obviously it takes time to understand exactly how it gets implemented in the industry. >> but that's part of the process, is it not, to weigh the cost versus the benefits, that's part of the -- job as a regulator, is it not. >> it is and it is part of the process we go thr

our goal is to improve the quality of the of paying benefits for our military. that was the primary objective of the commission. and we've set a group of holistic recommendations to you that we do think accomplish that objective. >> senator, we really, honest to god, tried to keep the faith. >> senator let me just say that i think in just summarizing what my colleagues have said here is that everything that we did was totally done to protect the benefits, protect the interests of the service members. i wouldn't want anyone to get the impression that we're implying that we were actually cutting benefits of the service members. it was quite the contrary. even though we yield savings as a result of the approach that we took in reforming the structure of those programs, there is there is absolutely no interest on our part to, to reduce the benefits of the service members. in fact it was to support those and improve those benefits, and i'd just like to make that point. >> senator mccain? >> thank you, mr. chairman, and thank you for your service. this is an incredibl

they basically stacked one benefit over the other. we have a good indication of what is important to them. >> i want to thank you for that. i want to move my next centered -- my next question to the center. i appreciate your comments about the culture of service that exists in our native american communities. that is one of the reasons why new mexico has had such an enormous overall rate of volunteerism, military volunteerism, over the years. i wonder if you have looked at the recommendations in terms of having the sort of tsp model and a contribution portion, that if you serve as an enlisted person for four years at the beginning of your lifetime career and you build that early nest egg through this process, what that looks like at age 65 plus, whenever you actually retire. and what impact that would have on travel communities as well as rural communities, where there are hybrids of volunteerism. >> excuse me. i have an allergy, not a cold, so you will not catch it. we do have a problem in the sense of our native americans -- i just

she says these savings don't include the benefits, no deductible checkups and preventive drug benefits which have already saved us $1,800 this year. our health care broker and his partner are signing up for obamacare options themselves. i'd like to know what all those republican grandstanders who have been blocked action at every turn are now wringing their hands have done for me lately. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from pennsylvania. mr. pitts: may i inquire of the time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from pennsylvania has 1/2 minutes remaining. the gentleman from new jersey has nine minutes remaining. mr. pitts: mr. speaker, at this time i yield two minutes to the gentleman from alabama, mr. palmer. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. palmer: thank you, mr. speaker. i rise in strong support of h.r. 596, a bill that would fully repeal the affordable care act offered by mr. byrne of alabama. right now americans are being forced to buy a government product or pay a penalty. the constitution mandates freedom, not the p

-- conferal of benefits? if the constitutional powers include anything it's not just naturalization but it's the power of the purse and these instances have -- the states have standing to sue him. >> the time of the gentleman has expired. the chair recognizes the gentlewoman from california, ms. lofgren, for for five minutes. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i'd ask unanimous consent to enter into the record five statements from the following organizations explaining the legal authority for the president's actions. from the constitutional accountability center, the asian american advancing >> american immigration council, national council of la raza and the national council of asian pacific americans. >> without objection, they will be made part of the record. >> thank you. professor legomsky, i want to say publicly, i've been in congress for 20 years, i've read a lot of testimony at many hearings over the years. your testimony is the singular best most concise logical testimony i have ever read in my 20

the stores, the walmarts, and the others the benefits they would offer if they were to offer a benefit. at the end of the day, no one was willing to stand behind their comments they made or had about providing savings to the service member. our intention here is that we could protect the service members and they believe this is a big savings to them and that they also believe it was a retention tool. that's the way we went about making and moving forward with our recommendation on the commissaries. >> several of the chains talked about issues a card to the military, when we ask the representatives point-blank would you do it? never got a straight answer. at the same time we did hear that some people will order their food online, they know that. people want that. they want it because it is convenient for a start, it is near them it is military, it is responsive to their needs and we looked at that and made our recommendations on what feed back -- different folks have different requirements. overwhelmingly this is not something they wanted to go away. >> proclivity is based on a whole bu

bottom we show the praekd of that same contribution rate between the normal costs of additional benefits accruing every year and that payment is breakdown both the interest versus the amount our paying if principle this is a great breakdown many systems the payment on principle is at or no more zero and some cases zero our contributing 8 percent towards paying down the principle of the unfunded money. >> this slide shows would you we estimate the cost sharing have enough time under prop c and specific to an employer contribution rate of 22 psi points 8 percent that's the contribution rate for 2016 adjustment is made based in members when they were hired their pay waiting rate and whether or not the members are in a safety group or miscellaneous group the percentages you're seeing the base before the adjustments and then the adjusted rates that are adjusted for the cost-share on the right-hand side of the vied an aggregate about 3.56 percent of a cost adjustment based on the 22 p.s. .8 percent actual determined rate this slide summarizes the new policy kicked out in august of 2014 and bas

and we ought to take that step and make sure that those who have earned these benefits get those benefits. >> well, let's, and i don't mean to interrupt you because i don't have a lot of time. so, what you're doing is basically ignoreing the fact that it's exhausted and transferring the money. let's be honest. when you say a small allocation, that's transferring the money yet it's a system that's going insolvent, so we're transferring the money from one pot to another. we're not solving the problem. >> let me finish, please. the combined funds remain solvent until 2033, but we are taking steps on the disability side specifically. we have a number of steps in the budget that will ensure those who are due the benefits get those and a number of pilots and other efforts that will ensure that anyone who can work is able to. and so, we take steps there and in the longer run on social security, the demographic challenges, comprehensive immigration reform is one of the most important steps we can take to make sure that social security is is insolvent going forward. >> as i look at this budget, i

habitat we should think about the benefits in the city and making the benefits aware through signage to the public and other means we put the goal for the street trees population if one hundred 5 hundred to we have a modest goal to add 50 thousand street trees over the next 20 years in order to do this kind of thing the plan recommendation the city should a citywide maintenance program by the department of public works and to do this to identify some sort stable programming for this and finally the plan proposes to manage trees throughout their cycle from leases to a newer in san francisco so grow our own trees locally and reusing the wood from your trees after they've died we're here to ask the supervisors to consider forwarding for approval the draft ordinances that will amend the open space ordinance policy 3.6 that will incorporate the urban forest in the general plans recreation and just to be stated this commission found that the plan itself was supportive of many of the general plan other elements as well as the prop 101 findings and that concludes my presentation. i'm happy t

and present on a whole for right of social benefits that will benefit working people that have been taken away or whittled away. to make this case that they are undemocratic in either means or ends, the primary standard for your book is about markets and about the way markets work. in many ways, what does about is interesting to neoliberal projects of privatizing government, privatizing pension plans, privatizing prisons, and much of the contracting out of government, which is i would say not something i would necessarily equate with democracy. that is not a project contributes to equity. if he did to the increasing inequality between concentrated wealth and corporate capital. ross reynolds: i would like to open it up to those of you who have questions. step up close to the microphone so they can pick you up well on c-span. say your name into the microphone and give us your question. >> my name is stephen miller and i am a teacher. [laughter] i will get to the question, but i want to participate in the debate. i appreciate the fact that the leading was able to hold the state of washington

the city is there is an $80 million reduction in employer tricked for the budget part of this we've benefit signaling to the mayors budget office they expected it but there is roughly based on payroll it is - well on page 6 and well, that's for the system as a whole not only the city but the employer reduction is $83 million with the kaurgsz. >> so for budget are purposes this is good news the fwe 22.8 percent rate didn't provide relief for the actively employees the point of relief is 22.5 but if we go forwarded the 19.2 will provide the relief in the fiscal year for the actual employees but the trigger point for relief is 22 that is 5 so we're very close to it but not achieving it this year but projected to reach that point if not more relieve for the fiscal year and so the current chart with the zero percent of the fiscal year 2015 the employee rate doctors from 10 point to two points lower and questions and commissioner driscoll. >> not a trigger but the appendix for this report will be based on barnes this plan and two it was talked about they have extra cash for the budget unexcelling

any pay raise is factored into the defined benefit pension formula. so the connection there, and there's often at least anecdotally we need to introduce you discover this, that public managers will often say look, we can't do anything for you unions, on pay right now because that's factored into the budget, what we can do something on the pensions longer-term, and that will be pushed off late and she can get that compensation in return down the line. so that they question is very much connected with the pension question is any pay raise is going to be factored into how the pensions articulate and what people's final average salary is. >> we can go to another question unless you would like -- >> two quick responses but on the last point, that's precisely what you just explained is politicians say we can't really give you a wage raise now but we can keep the pension other or vice versa. that's what you mean by mismanagement. that's and discipline. there's an incentive for politicians not to worry about down the road to say we'll give you this down the r

and it brings benefits. social and cognitive and educational skill sets that are introduced into the lives of those children, that makes them all the more ready for that pre-k to elementary setting and it has great benefits. when you think the average cost out there is $10,000 per year for child care and when toddlers can be as high as $16,000 and a five-year-old as high as $12,000. that's immense. the president triples that benefit to some $3,000 per child under five per family. and families making as much as $120,000 they can get the full benefit and there is a scaled down benefit for families making as high as $210,000. there are efforts to grow the economy. the middle class has taken it on the chin for far too long. we have seen the growth of this economy post-recession and since the upward movement, has gone to a relative few. and now it's time to share the wealth with the great numbers of us in the middle class. and that's the engine that runs america. if you give more purchasing power to the middle-in

we already have a defined benefit. we added a defined contribution to this and to make sure that we can do the retention or provide for the retention that the services told us that they wanted us to. i'm going to have commissioner higgins to talk to the specifics of that recommendation. commissioner higgins. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman and chairman mccane. system includes the incentives and the choice that people want to enforce. we feel it's going to be a very powerful retention tool. when we look forward at how the system will operate over time our belief is and supported by our analysis and in this case it was a ran model that was the dynamic retention model used. we believe that this will, our proposal will exactly model the current force profiles. it will have the tools within it including a continuation pay through a savings plan which is currently with matching which is currently not offered today. it will include the tools that will draw people through the 20-year career much like the defined benefit d

or benefit to the public benefit versus cost. what about you, miss hunter? what's your thought? >> i would add to mr. bland's comment that the challenges, its easy to measure the costs because they fall to specifics. it's much harder to measure the benefits because they really accrue to a broad population, just things like safety and soundness of the banking system or confidence in the payment system. so that's really the challenge in assessing cost and benefits. i do think that it is worth doing that analysis and i know when we propose rules, we look first at what was the benefit that the statute was intending to try to achieve. what was that goal? and then try to fashion rules that minimize the cost of achieving that goal as best we can and, you know, obviously it takes time to understand exactly how it gets implemented in the industry. >> but that's part of the process, is it not, to weigh the cost versus the benefits, that's part of the -- job as a regulator, is it not? >> it is and it is part of the process we go through whe

now, we've all heard about the benefits of a daily dose of fish oil.e that omega xl takes a giant leap forward towards maintaining good health. now we're also going to speak to doctor sharon mcquillan, a board certified in family practice specializing in anti-aging and preventative medicines. doctor mcquillan, why should i take it? >> it is the most potent natural anti-inflammatory that exists. it actually is very effective in treating the pain and the symptoms of inflammation. so pain, swelling, like arthritic joints, back pain, swollen joints, things that cause disability-- omega xl is in my medical opinion, the best anti-inflammatory product for your health. >> are you saying that this is better than fish oil? >> much better than fish oil no question about it. i'll tell you why. fish oil, you have no idea where the fish came from, and when you're swallowing something, you should care what you're putting in your body. a great deal of the fish oil comes from some of the dirtiest waters in the world from around the world. and when they bring these fish

medical records to even apply for benefits. mr. sec., what i would like to ask you is the va budget submission has identified an expected increase in claims receipts for fy 2015 at 1.3 million in fy 2016 at 1.4 million. .4 million. these figures represent an increase of 17 and 20 percent respectively over the 1.1 4 million claims received in fy 2014. can you please explain what factors and information you considered in determining the anticipated volumes of claims receipts for these two years? >> absolutely. let me tell you that the large portion of that is not going to be the brand-new veteran who is now leaving service transition to us but the fact that we have done so many veterans claims and heavy veteran is entitled to come back which is about 67 percent of our workload meeting is the majority of our workload, not the original claim. so as a result you can come back and get another. largely attributed to the increased expectation for supplemental claims. and so that is where the majority of it is. >> thank you. >> if we can i

and the benefit package as well. and i'm for that. i don't regard -- general crowley talked about it earlier. i came into this commission believing that we have a real problem with pay and benefits, i don't believe we do. the problem has a lot more to do with retirement issues and i think it would be grossly unfair to address military retirement without taking on the big ones which is social security and medicare. >> let me follow up, please with a question by having commissioner higgins talk. we did quite a bit of analysis and review around that, and i want him to talk specifically to what mr. maulding told us. >> i believe in a general sense retention today is probably as good as the military has ever seen it. having said that, there are select skills that have always been historically very difficult to maintain. some of the stories that you hear often are, let's say, nuclear-skilled individuals in the navy are always difficult to retain because once they acquire those skills they are very lucrative opportunities on the outside. in

but ultimately i do think that this will benefit nordstrom, i'm sorry, walmart. and come back to them. >> if some of the entry level workers have a few more dollars in their pocket they'll be able to spend a little more. maybe some more at walmart. >> absolutely. i think it will come back to walmart in terms of their sales. also in impacting customer service. employees feeling a little bit better about working at walmart and passing that on in terms of providing better customer service to customers which should show up in the register. >> that was certainly mr. mcmillan's thought there. one more second on walmart. what did you make of the sales today? very favorable. >> this is the second time in a row, the second quarter in a row, we see better results out of walmart. i think it's notable, the fact it's coming from traffic. much has been said about whether or not gas prices are actually benefitting the consumer. i think this is a strong sign that they are. so numbers were good. obviously, the outlook a little bit disappointing. currency is one factor there. and

so not only are you taking a dozen mussels, you may be getting no benefit. so the certain way of getting the benefit is to take a capsule, and that's so convenient. it's a tiny, little capsule, it's dead easy to take, and you can be sure about what the outcome will be. so there's no doubt at all, in my mind, that taking omega-3 every day is a very good way of ensuring that, for well people that they stay well, and for people who aren't well, that they get better. there's so much evidence that that's the case. and if you're gonna do that, why not take the best? omega xl is the best. >> announcer: omega xl is a one-of-a-kind, powerful omega-3 oil that helps to reduce inflammation associated with joint pain, arthritis, bronchial tightness, and more. omega xl is the ultimate natural solution in great health and well-being. >> omega xl not only helped my hand, it helped my whole body. i can walk around. i can move around. my hand -- i can make fists. i can stretch my fingers. i can turn my hands around without extreme pain. it all has come together because of ome

for people who receive disability benefits, laying the groundwork for either cuts in disability benefits, or, in fact, the social security for older people. your budget did not do that. you did what has been done 11 times in the past what we call readjust. social security has enough money to pay all benefits for the next 18 years. you simply took money from one account and into the other. why did you do that? >> well, as you said, senator, this small reallocation of social security taxes is the simplest, most direct way to ensure that on a combined basis, both social security trust funds have reserves available through 2033. and this is a step that's been taken on a bipartisan basis under democrats and republicans, it's actually been done both ways, from disability to the other trust fund and back to social security, and so, we think this is the most simple and critical way. and remember, these are benefits that have been earned by folks paying in over time. we should not put them at risk of getting a 19% cut in their benefits after they paid in to this system over their working years. >

of the new contracts is requiring employees to contribute an additional amount for their pension benefits and the retirement system a system with what go city employees must pay so this contribution which will total 3.5 percent over the term of the contract will be provided by employees on a graduated basis over time that means that when the first salary increase is made an increase contribution by employees of 1 percent when the second salary increase was given in october of 2015 an additional 1.225 percent will be contributed by the employees for recommended program and finally in july of 2016 at 1.25 percent will be required to be contributed by the employee parties with the unions and the agency intended that the contribution of employees to this should be on a pretax basis and we will need to amend our cal percent contract to chief that we hope to bring that contract amendment to you as quickly as possible so we can effective i cannot that pretax reduction for the contribution new proposed labor arrangements with the ocii bargaining units will match the city similar city contracts fo

bestowing benefits such as work authorization and immigration benefits is another. the president himself recognizes his own inability to do this mr. chairman. more than 20 separate times he said he lacked the power to do what he ultimately did. in 2011 he said this, and i quote, the notion that i could just suspend deportation through executive order, that's just not the case. he told us time and time again mr. chairman, that he was not a king. his position may have changed. but the constitution has not. and that document is clear and it is time tested and it is true and it says the congress passes laws and it is the responsibility of the chief executive to take care that those laws are faithfully enforced. the prosecutorial -- is that better, mr. court reporter? let me see where i was. his position may have changed. but the constitution has not. prosecutorial discretion is real and actually valid, mr. chairman, but it is not a synonym for anarchy. as u.s. district court judge andrew hanon wrote, d.h.s. does have the discretion in the manner it chooses to express th

has been benefiting from this. if we didn't have this natural gas revolution, if he didn't have the production the prices where they are, you wouldn't have manufactured in minnesota that would be able to take advantage of it spent so we should be thanking the taxpayers of minnesota. we don't reward them by raising -- >> your contention about d.o.e.'s role in helping get to -- >> i don't have all a bit of time sir. the point is is that there's no benefit at all for the people of minnesota in sending this abroad. this is what will happen, is that this will benefit, the steelworkers are against this, meant hack in minnesota where they mined iron ore and make ballots called aconite the heat those ballots up to 2500 degrees fahrenheit with natural gas. this is going to drive up the cost of natural gas. this is going to hurt minnesota. this is why the steelworkers are against it the united steelworkers. manufacturing creates a times as much jobs. yes, if you export a natural resource, the people who produce that natural

if a couple is married in a given state we will give them benefits. we need a new interpretation in the law. there is an exception to that great in the national cemetery if we are able because of the legal authority i have two be able to bury partners together when they so choose and in every case we have done that we have looked at the relationship and we have granted that. >> if i may interject i appreciate that but in state cemeteries it still remains a problem as i understand it. >> yes maam, i don't control those. >> but they get funding from the va. >> some of them. on the medical marijuana and let me ask dr. clancy to comment. >> a fair number of our clinicians have veterans who use marijuana medically in boats. they live in areas where this is legally possible. very early days for us to have medical policies but their active discussions going on now and we are trying to learn from what we know about treating differing conditions which by the way are not necessarily identical with those conditions for which veterans believe they are helpful. i

working with the va to get gi bill benefits and health care benefits and getting the resume ready, andng out to job fairs, you know, it can be overwhelming. >> waj and i were talking about this yesterday, we both feel like we have been seeing more commercials and hearing more radio spots with this corporate backing of veterans. focusing on their vast array of ability in the work force. are you noticing more of that as well? and is it making any sort of a difference? >> yeah i think a lot of companies are recognizing the value of hiring veterans and the same is true of military spouses. there is also a movement to hire military spouses. and when service members are in the military they learn leadership skills. they learn how to make decisions without all of the information that they need. they learn team work. these are all skills that are assets in the business environment, and so i think a companies are starting to see that and starting to see the value of hiring veterans, and at the same time military spouses bring some of those things to the workplace as well. usaa is a great exampl

everything we do benefits the community we're just doing it in a way in which it benefits the community you know to the maximum so so and then a lot of the policy is, you know, across the whole organization and so i think each one we will probably have to figure out what's the best way to explain how what we're doing, how far we are in reaching that aspirational goal, and just like, you know, for example, the watershed one, you know, we would like to do more but we just don't have enough resources and so we had to prioritize how much effort we're putting towards that so we'll come and talk about each one and how we're doing and if the desire is to do more then we need to think about how to maybe ask maybe not this budget cycle, but the next one, we need to think about savings that we're doing in one area we need to reprioritize it or we need to bite the bullet and look at you know, what we can do. >> and you mentioned the community benefits policy we had at the last meeting a lot of time on community benefits and economic justice which served one set of purposes and this is different. a

if you own stock, if you're on one side of the financial benefits, economic benefits in the country you're doing pretty , well. if you're on the other side we -- you are not. we have focused on this throughout the time that i've been involved in elected politics. the second one is the issue of our national security policy. how we articulate our national security policies around the world. when do you use military force when do you not. and other issues include social justice issues. we led the movement toward fixing our criminal justice system from the time i was running actually when i was running for the senate i had political advisers telling me it was political suicide to start talking about the breakdown in the different components of our criminal justice system not simply mass incarceration but how these people are able up up -- able to reenter society in a productive way. when i first at a talking about this, we did not get much attention. after two and a half years of hearings, we've brought the issue to the forefront in terms of political discussion. it's a republican issue in man

is that for america's benefit or cuba's benefit? as we look at changes toward cuba we want to help americans to travel? is that the goal that we are moving towarder or are we looking toward what's best for the cubans? >> our goal is to do what's in our national interest and help the uh cuban people to be able to do what they wish to be able to make their own decisions. >> it's both. >> yeah. >> the first priority is to do what's inner our national interest which includes our core values of democracy and university rer sal human rights. would our policy have anything to do with helping trade iran, iraq. you can see that hadn't worked out so well. they want to trade long grain rice to cuba. the cubans want the to buy long grain rice as opposed to california short grain rice. they doment set aside all the other issues. would that not be in the best interest of the united states and american exporters that with we would facilitate trade with cuba? >> you're going to get me into trouble. i'm not sure i can set aside the other issues. if

majority of the retail center and artist and community facilities and $83 million millions in community benefits and the alice griffith upgrades to the transportation network as well as new bus rapid transit and the transit lines additional context in january of 2014 the commission approved the first phase of candle stick point the first major phase excludes the 5 sub phases built out including 6 blocks of new development and 15 hundred new homes the revitalization of alice griffith in c p one at the top the map 1.1 million feet on the map and but neighborhood retail will be located in c po two and three and 50 thousand square feet of community facility and 92 point for parks and $6 million contribution to the candle stick point state recreation area at this point, i'd like to introduce my colleague for the center. >> thank you commissioners for the opportunity to come before you today i'm the executive vice president with lane arrest when the 49ers mentioned their departure we xashgd to find a retail partner to partner with us we focused on developers with urban in fill with mixed use experienc