elmendorf. thank you very much for being here and your good work. in today's hearing we will focus on the economy and steps that can be taken to strengthen the recovery. and create jobs. last year at my request congressional budget office completed an analysis of the so-called bang for the buck achieved by a different fiscal policy proposals. cbo has updated that work so we thought it would be useful to have director elmendorf here today to report on his agency's latest conclusions. i am hopeful congress will consider cbo's analysis in developing any near-term economic growth measures that might be passed before the end of the year. i would like to begin by briefly reviewing the economic situation now confronting the nation. it is clear that economic recovery, we are now experiencing, is not what it should be or what we would like it to be. here are some of the factors that i believe are holding back the economy. unemployment remains stubbornly high. the housing crisis that helped spark the down

elmendorf. >> we will turn to our witness for today. dr. douglas elmendorf is the eighth director of the congressional budget office. his term began on january 22nd, 2009. before he came to cbo, dr. elmendorf was a senior fellow in the economic studies program at brookings institution as the edward m. bernstein scholar, he wrote papers on the economic activity and the director on the hamilton project in an effort to promote shared economic growth. he was an assistant professor at harvard university, a principal analyst at the congressional budget office, a senior economist at the white house counsel of economic advisors, a deputy secretary -- assistant secretary for economic policy at the treasury department and an assistant director of the division of research and statistics at the federal reserve board. in those positions, dr. elmendorf has gained a wide range of expertise on budget policy, social security, medicare, national health care reform, financial markets, macroeconomic analysis and fo

elmendorf. thank you very much for being here. thank you for your good work. in today's hearing we'll again focus on the economy and steps that can be taken to strengthen the recovery and create jobs. last year at my request the congressional budget office completed analysis of the so-called bang for the buck achieved by different fiscal policy proposals. cbo has now updated that work so we thought it would be useful to have director elmendorf here today to report on his agency's latest conclusions. i'm hopeful that congress will consider cbo's analysis in developing any near-term economic growth measures that might be passed before the end of the year. i'd like to begin by briefly reviewing the economic situation now confronting the nation. it's clear that economic recovery that we are now experiencing is not what it should be or what we would like it to be. here are some of the factors i believe that are holding back the economy. unemployment remains stubbornly high. the housing crisis that he

elmendorf. thank you very much for being here. thank you for your good work. today's hearing we will again focus on the economy in steps that can be taken to strengthen the recovery and create jobs. last year at my request, the congressional budget office completed an analysis of the so- called bang for the buck achieved by different fiscal policy proposals. cbo is now -- has now updated at work, so we thought it would be useful to have director elmendorf here to report on his agency's latest conclusions. i am hopeful that congress will consider cto's analysis in developing any near-term economic growth measures that might be passed before the end of the year. i would like to begin by briefly reviewing the economic situation now confronting the nation. here are some of the factors i believe that are holding back the economy. unemployment remains stubbornly high. the housing crisis that sparked the downturn is continuing. we have weak consumer confidence and weak consumer demand. personal debt is

elmendorf. thank you for being here. thank you for your good work. we will focus again on the economy and steps that can be taken to focus on the recovery and create jobs here last year, at my request, the congressional budget office completed an analysis of the so-called bang for the buck achieved by different fiscal policies proposals. cbo has not updated that work, so we thought it would be useful to have director elmendorf here today to report on his agency's latest conclusions. i am hopeful that congress will .onsider ceo's analysis i would like to begin by briefly reviewing the economic situation now confronting the nation. it is clear that economic recovery we are now experiencing is not what it should be or what we would like it to be. here are some of the factors i believe that are holding back the economy. unemployment remains stubbornly high. the housing crisis that helped spark the downturn is continuing. we have weak consumer confidence and weak consumer demand. personal debts is st

elmendorf. to be clear, there is nothing contradictory about pursuing near-term economic growth measures at the same time we pursue long-term debt reduction. we can then we must do both. we need to give a near-term boost to the recovery while simultaneously -- simultaneously putting into place policies that will bring down deficit and debt over the long term. the debt as a reduction can be phased in after the recovery, but it should be enacted into law now. a lot to be very clear about this. from every group i have served on the fiscal commission, the group of six, we adopted that basic strategy. it is clear that we must put into law now long-term deficit reduction plan. i believe that would provide a significant boost in confidence and the markets as people see the government finally putting its fiscal house into order. with that, we now turn to senator sessions for his opening remarks. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, director elmendorf. we respect the work that you do. and we rely on it

elmendorf. i appreciate the work here to analyze strategies for increasing economic growth and unemployment. i was looking through to see if there was any specific analysis of addressing energy-saving retrofits. i don't believe that it is there. i have a memory of a previous cbo product which looked at various strategies for creating jobs. and my name is that energy-saving retrofits was at the top of the list, and if i recall by the analysis of what like this. there isn't a long time lag that you have for major infrastructure, that the construction industry is flat on its back and ready to be put back to work, that the labor cannot be outsourced so the dollars that occur here in the united states, that virtually all the materials that are necessary for energy-saving retrofits are manufactured in the u.s. so there's extraordinarily low leakage. i thought all this was analysis that was behind cbo's analysis of this, this piece of the puzzle. i didn't see that in here. maybe i'm misremembering that

too much but we are part of the equation is the c b o last week there was the conversation that elmendorf who's the head of the c b o actually spoke on the floor gave a senate testimony and talked about how after a ten year time period there will be a negative net effect the net g.d.p. negative net g.d.p. after this eight hundred billion dollars stimulus it's going to enter wears off yes absolutely this isn't it is why we need another one but it was the only one when i would have to listen to it i mean to act as we have we had to wrap it up but it was a free market will create well and with a little help from where. thank you very much both of you.

. >>> alaska is also dealing with a big investigation, where a 22-year-old soldier at joint base elmendorfcted of being a spy. specialist william mall lay from kentucky was arrested for suspicious of espionage and likely face military charges. the army isn't revealing b probe but the fbi and army counterintelligence agents have been investigating mall lay. >>> lawmakers in washington are also hunting for some answers from the justice department about how illegal guns were allowed to walk into the hands of mexican drug cartels. assistant attorney lanny brewer admitted to a senate panel he made a mistake. brewer said he learned about the controversial tactic during a previous operation known as wide receiver. >> now i wish that at that time that i said clearly to the deputy attorney general and the attorney general that in this case, wide receiver, we had determined that in 2006, in 2007, gun also walked. i did not do that and i regret not doing that. >> bruerer failed to recognize that the same tactics used four years earlier were being used again in fast and furious. >>> whatever your beli

captioning institute] >> next -- a set a budget hearing on the state of the economy with douglas elmendorfthen florida senator marco rubio talks about his legislation to create jobs. then, maryland governor martin then, maryland governor martin o. rally talks about

elmendorf was before this committee. it shows the widening wealth gap that is existent in our country today. and it covers basically the last 30 years. now, we have 3143 counties in the united states. of those 3143 counties, 474 of them, 15% of those counties has more than 24% of fair citizens have been living beneath the poverty level for the last 30 years. and it is kind of interesting because i didn't think about this to the weekend because about several months ago, i joined with the congresswoman amherst and i'm trying to direct resources. back when we did the american recovery and reinvestment act, the stimulus bill, and the rule development section of the bill, we were successful in getting that bill to focus on the discounted by direct expenditure of 10% of those funds into those counties that were third of a percent or more beneath the poverty level for the last 30 years. so when this report came out from the cbo a couple weeks ago, it focused my attention once again to those communities. now when i first came on

elmendorf was before this committee. it shows a widening that is existing in our country today. and it covers the last 30 years. now, we have 31,043 counties in the united states. of those 3,143 counties, 474 of them, 15% of those counties, have been more than 20% of their citizens have been living beneath the poverty level for the last 30 years. it is kind of interesting because i did not think about this through the weekend, because about several months ago, i joined with congresswoman