we found him, david emerson joins us tonight from california. mr. emerson, thank you very much for being with us tonight, i appreciate you taking the time to be here. >> good evening. >> so that tape of you speaking with your congressman had -- had national residents that ended up getting picked up all over the company. how did you feel when you heard about this vote today? >> a wide range of feelings. one was anger, the other was depression. we demonstrate at the office every tuesday because the vote was so significant today, we were there again today. we had over 100 demonstrators on tuesday, but because of the time differential we had probably half that many today. they had already heard that the vote had been taken and the result was made public. >> was it a surprise for to he voted to repeal or did you know that's what he was going to do? >> we have signs that say tom mctrump because we feel like he's simply a rubber stamp for the new administration. so, no, it was not a surprise. >> take me back to that first town hall -- can you tell me about

joining us is david farr chairman and ceo of emerson electric and the chairman of the board at the national of manufacturers and jay timmons, president and ceo of the national association of manufacturers. our guest host has been richard lefrak of lefrak organization. thank you all for being here. let me start with you. >> okay. >> and it's a question i asked richard. when you talk about -- when people talk about the path to tax reform, or the path to infrastructure, what is the path as you see it, given the commotion and the headlines that we talk about daily? >> yeah. i think from a business perspective, i think the path is one that we must make. and we're going to have to figure out how to make some compromises around the various issues we need to get done. we do need to get the tax reform done from a standpoint of the competitiveness. at the same time, infrastructure is very, very important relative to the needs that we've fallen apart as a country from the infrastructure. from our perspective i think there's going to have to be some tradeoffs and going after some more revenue. broaden

david farr is ceo of emerson leg, douglas peterson is president and ceo of s&p global and steven rat ner is chairman of will advisers llc. the committees have received your written statements and they'll be made part of the formal hearing record. we've reserved five minutes to deliver your oral remarks. mr. stephens, we'll begin welcome. thank you for being here. >> thank you for members of the committee. i appreciate the opportunity to be in front of you today. i'm the chief financial officer of at&t and i sincerely appreciate this opportunity to discuss the importance of enacting comprehensive corporate tax reform with you today. at&t is a company with a 140-year heritage of research and innovation that includes 8 nobel prizes and more than 15,000 patents and pending pat tens worldwide. we employ more than 200,000 people here in the united states and over the past five years we've invested more in the u.s. economy than any other public company, right at $135 billion. one of the biggest issues facing this country is how to unleash economic growth, which has under performed for the l