elmendorf is -- mr. president, i'm having a little trouble concentrating with the roar going on in my background. the presiding officer: the senate will be in order. mr. sessions: like to keep it down a little bit. so mr. elmendorf told us at the budget committee that we are on an unsustainable path. okay. this is after the budget control act, after we reduced the growth of spending $2.1 trillion, and that includes the sequester, after we did all that, this year he told us we are on an unsustainable debt course. that this is a danger to america and you have to get off it and we need to make further changes to get on the right course. so we've looked at this budget, and we thought that the committee, who called him, listened to him, and we wanted to see if that budget that's on the floor actually helps us get toward a sound financial future. and i have to say it does not. it does not change the course we are on. it raises taxes dramatically, but it raises spending, and eats up all the new taxes, not alter

that said fifty four thousand jobs were created because of the recovery dollars and then i asked dr elmendorf the head of the congressional budget office nonpartisan agency how many jobs were created because recovery and they said up to three point three million dollars million jobs were created because of those recovery yet the same day the president gave the state of the union speaker boehner put out pressure saying no jobs are created by that so they're trying to change the facts and by changing those facts they think they can sell us on all these austerity policies to deal with the big bad deficit when in reality the best way to deal with the deficit is to get people back to working and we've had a number of proposals out there for a long time now we just have to act and get the rest of america you know going along with it and that's that's that's the honest. by step just just a few seconds left and very quickly. do you see the rest of the democratic party coming along with. most of the democrats who are going to put out our other of the democratic budget as well are going to be the same

elmendorf this. even though we had a trillion-dollar deficit last year, 1,000-plus billion -dollar deficit last year, unbelievable debt, almost 35% of the money we spent last year was borrowed, and we will pay interest on that for decades to come because there is no plan to pay it down in any significant way. so i asked mr. elmendorf if we raise taxes instead of $650 billion as we did in january, we raised them enough to balance the budget, would we stay in balance? and he acknowledged that if the economy continues to grow at 2% and growth of spending is at 5%, we will immediately be back into a problem area. and so in one sense, this is the very definition of unsustainability. this is the very definition of the problem we have. that spending is growing faster than the economy, and it cannot maintain itself at that rate. now, we can spend and we can say we have got a balanced plan, a balanced program, a balanced approach, as my colleagues have, but they know this budget never balances, not in one yea

elmendorf said we're on. so we've got to get off of it. i wanted to share a few things to drive home the danger that we're in. we have a strong economy. we have a great entrepreneurial spirit. we have a tremendous infrastructure compared to most places. we have a rule of law that really helps us tremendously in terms of managerial efficiency and contracts and complex documents can be entered into. and if there's a dispute over it, you can go to a federal or state court and have a pretty good chance of a fair decision being reached, even in the most complex matters involving high finance. but that's not true in most places in the world. so it gives us an advantage. we've got an educated work force. we've got a lot of people who are really willing to work and hustle. we've some advantages. we have a history of -- of trade and freedom. but i want to show this chart because we may not be doing as well as we think we are. and the debt that we're facing may be more serious than a lot of people will acknowledge. this is a chart that shows the deb

it is a pleasure to be participating in the conversation today with our next eager doug elmendorf, the director of the budget congressional office. i am also joined the nrf chief hearin. thank you for all of your great work and thank you for being here. the national retail federation represents businesses of all shapes and sizes. all of those retailers are impacted often first and quite acutely by the kinds of decisions that policymakers in washington make and often don't make about the things that we care most about, like tax policy and spending policy. in an economy that is driven largely by consumption, retailers to play outside rules and job creation economic output. nearly 42 million jobs in this economy. the jobs are going from the entry-level jobs to jobs that reflect the high technology that is being applied. that is because of the relationship retailers have with their customers. when we talk about tax increases in commodity prices and energy prices, retailers feel that often first and acutely. here we are on the first full business day in the post- sequester era. i do not kno

steve elmendorf, a strategist who worked for dick gephardt, john kerry and hillary clinton. them actually won in the end. i'm just kidding. you're a very well respected consultant here and leader. let me ask you this. how do you think these issues, democrats are going to use these issues? can they bash a republican for being against same-sex? >> yeah. if you look at the numbers, chris, it's not just young people at 81%. it's young evangelicals are for gay marriage. catholics are for gay marriage. >> conservatives. >> young conservatives are for gay marriage. it's just moving and in the right districts, in a lot of places, it's going to be a big problem. >> how's your party react to that at the convention? do you fudge the issue? i can't see a candidate saying, and we're not going to have any of this damn same-sex marriage either. you're not going to address it, are you? >> that would make your day if they did. no. you're not going to have that. i was amused by karl rove's musing on the weekend that he could see the 2016 republican nominee, you know, expressing openly his sup

. -- elmendorf.n monday, the three people to serve as homeland security secretary marked the 10th anniversary of the agency. immigration and the impact of sequestration were the main topics at this event with tom ridge, michael chertoff, and current secretary janet napolitano. there were interviewed by mike allan from politico. this is an hour. -- mike allen from politico. this is an hour. [applause] >> governor ridge, welcome. instead of our three tenors, we had three secretaries. i appreciate you all coming together for this. secretary in the pala tunnel, -- napolitano, we will start with you, make some news this morning. everybody in washington is very concerned about the sequester. it has landed. you said you're already seeing defects at psa. -- at tsa. >> as i shared with the congress, now that we are having to reduce or eliminate overtime, both for tsa and customs, now that we have institutionalized a hiring freeze, we cannot fill vacancies, and we will begin today sending out for loan notices

elmendorf, who is the director of c.b.o., the congressiona congressional e and a very smart man and a decent individual -- and so we were talking about the growth in spending in taxes and the tax increases have just owe cud and that sort of thing. and this is the story: if you're -- if you -- if your tax -- if you raise -- i asked him this: if we raise enough taxes to balance the budget today and if the economy is growing at 2% and -- would the taxes grow at about 2% a year? and he said, yes. they worked hard to figure out what kind of tax reform growth it is, but taxes basically grow with the economy. as more people are working, the economy grows, they pay more taxes. if they grow at 4%, the government takes in more money than in it grows at 2%. but the question was, what if the economy is growing at 5% -- i mean, spending is growing at 5%? even if we raise enough money today to close $1,200,000,000,000 deficit we had last year to zero and the economy is growing at 2% and spending is growing at 5%, we will immediately start off on an unsustainable debt course. well, that's the defini

elmendorf said is one of the most cost-saving provisions of the bill, and i wanted to get an update on the progress. i actually have three questions. the progress of the value index relate to go physicians and why we don't put out a global rate and if you fall below that, you're rewarded. i if you fall above that your penalized. that might be --s' some progress on the rebalancing from nursing home care to community-based care do you've see that as a big cost save center if you could start with those two. >> thank you for the questions. i believe the value motor vehicler physician payment change authorized in the affordable care act has the potential to be one of the most significant changes to the fee-for-service medicare program. it's also one of the hardest, the hardest policy we're working to implement from a couple different perspectives. the challenge is, medicare beneficiaries who have many chronic conditions, see many physicians. they can see 12, 15 different decisions in the course of a year. how you can assign the accountability for the patient's total care is very challenging

elmendorf, the director of c.b.o., testified just a couple of weeks ago before the budget committee, and i asked him: under the current law that we're operating under, including the full cuts in the sequester, including the tax increases in january, where we're still on an unsustainable course? he said we were. so what i want my colleagues to know, with every fiber in my being, colleagues, please know that if you take the sequester, you don't have one out because you increase that spending. do you not have $1.9 trillion in deficit reduction. you have only $700 billion. and then if you add other gimmicks in the budget, including not scoring the doc fix, misscoring war costs and misscoring the stimulus spending, you end up with no deficit reduction at all. you raise taxes in this budget almost $1 trillion. you have no deficit reduction because you increase spending as much as you increase taxes. so apparently my colleagues should know and think about this, a balanced plan has been mentioned 165 times. a balanced plan means we raise taxes $1 trillion and we increase spending $1 trillion

elmendorf that same question. i said is it true, and he set up to 3.3 million jobs were saved or created because of those recovery dollars. i can tell you in wisconsin, we saw the benefit. it came from the private sector. we saw the benefit for small businesses -- the infrastructure that needed that repair. we saw people immediately working thanks to those dollars. this is exactly what we need to be doing right now in the economy, not squeezing jobs by investing in infrastructure, getting the benefit of those investments in terms of jobs right now and the infrastructure in the future. >> i thank the gentleman for yielding. this amendment really is about rebuilding america. we do report card every year on america's infrastructure. in every category, roads, bridges, ports, are grades for failing. it was not republican or democratic issue. we need to invest in rebuilding our country. there are three reasons we should do it now. number one, it is cost- efficient. the longer we wait, the more expensive it becomes, like

captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] >> earlier today at the same event, douglas elmendorf discussed the federal debt and the current decisions that congress is now facing as they consider how to reduce it. here is a look. >> i think it is very difficult to see how we can alternately put the that on a sustainable path without cutting services or raising taxes for people who consider themselves to be in the middle class. that does not mean that one cannot take actions to reduce the deficit that do not affect the middle class. one can cut benefits for low income people. but a pretty wide cross-section of americans consider themselves to be in the middle class. the magnitude that is needed, not this minute, not even necessarily this decade, but ultimately as one looks out, the magnitude that is needed is very difficult to see how that can be achieved without making changes in those benefits and services or those taxes. i will go back again to the earlier slide about the distribution of government spending. government spending is higher today than it has been on average in the

elmendorf, the c.b.o. director, told us in committee is an unsustainable path that we're on. even after this budget control act was passed in august of 2011. so wend to wor we need to work m prepared to have solutions. the house of representatives has twice passed legislation that would alter this budget control act so that the cuts don't fall so hard on defense. in fact, they eliminated the additional defense cuts, the second phase of defense cuts, and found cuts elsewhere in the budget, and smoothed it out fairly. that's what should happen. that's where we need to be. so i would encourage all our citizens, all our members of congress, all our military leaders, you want to fix the sequester? address your request at 1600 pennsylvania amendment of address your request to the commander in chief of the united states military, who has an absolute duty, a responsibility to ensure that these reductions are done in a fair way. we have voted and fought for on this side of the aisle more flexibility, and we believe and will vote for other reductions in spending to not have this happen