i'm quite familiar with that gao study. and i wouldn't call it cherry picking.i just picked out the one cost comparison that involved moving security. the other ones are involving static security. and i'm not making an argument about static security. i would certainly like to see more research on the moving versus static security because everything that i know suggests that moving security will always be more expensive. >> but in the case where, do you think that static security, then can always be outsourced? >> i started out believing that arm security contractors in the war zone will be the problem. as my thinking has evolved i've come to believe the distinction between moving and static is an important one. it will allow us to transition to where we can outsource some government functions and have a force that we could deploy beyond iraq and afghanistan. there's an argument that the problem with in sourcing is that these security contractors are providing a surge capacity. once we're done with iraq and afghanistan what will we use them for? that kind of a co

and we have a gao report. we have three panels of witnesses. and we look forward to an instructive hearing this morning. obviously, there is a lot of questions and concerns that have been raised as a result of this accident. before we begin, i would like to ask unanimous consent to allow members to participate to are not a member of the subcommittee but a member of the full committee to be allowed to sit in and participate in this subcommittee hearing. without objection, so ordered. so i suspect there are several different hearings going on concurrently, but we welcome those members of from a full committee who are not part of the subcommittee from participating. and we look forward to your contributions. you are recognized. >> thank you. i would ask unanimous consent that as they are able to, that three other members who are not on the full committee but do represent states on the gulf coast be able to sit in as well. mr. scalise of louisiana, mr. gow of louisiana, and -- fro m florida. >> these are states that have been directly impacted. we

i'm quite familiar with that gao study. and i wouldn't call it cherry picking. i just picked out the one cost comparison that involved moving security. the other ones are involving static security. and i'm not making an argument about static security. i would certain like to see more research on the moving versus static security because everything that i know suggests that moving security will always be more expensive. >> but in the case where, do you think that static security, then can always be outsourced? >> i started out believing that arm security contractors in the war zone will be the problem. as my thinking has evolved i've come toelieve the distinction between moving and static is an importt one. it will allow us to transition to where we can outsource some government functions and have a force that we could deploy beyond iraq and afghanistan. there's an argument that the problem wh in sourcing is that these security contractors are providing a surge capacity. once we're done with iraq and afghanistan what will we use them for? that kind of a conclusio

i am also disappointed that gao was disinvited from today's hearing. they published a report this morning to coincide with their expected testimony at this hearing. their perspective would have been valuable for this committee to hear. we have a joint responsibility to the american people to hold this administration accountable, regardless of political affiliations. the servicers we hear from today have worked to comply with eight hundred hamp rules issued, and over 1500 different sets of guidelines. not surprisingly, they've offered more modifications privately held side of hamp tahn han within it. the best mortgage modification is a job. the implications are filled by former homeowners across this country. thank you, mr. chairman. i yield back. >> thank you. we did have treasury, gao, and six talks. we can only have so many today. the gentleman from maryland. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i am concerned about the claims -- first, thank you for holding the hearing. i am concerned about the claims published in "the washington post" that a growing number

. >> [inaudible] >my question goes along the line [inaudible] the work we have reported, the gao has reported [inaudible] in spite of the donor nations. give the variety of things the strategy is seeking to achieve, how to prioritize what needs to be done and how to you address the shortfall going forward? there is an economic global crisis that impacts the donor nations contributions. what should be done going forward? >> when the afghan national strategy was being prepared and it came to me, to the parliament and when i looked at it, there were so many priorities. we'll have to many priorities, there is no priority, in -- when you have too many priorities, there is no priority. it was a nicc wish list, a dream list and some were achievable. some are not actical. when you draft a plan of that sort, you have to base it on reality and capabilities you have and the achievements and capacities you have built. otherwise, we all want to build 15 highways in five years and we have -- what factories and our agriculture production. is it practical? it was not a practical wis. we have to revi

appears to it's been the subje of at least two successful protests and a third is pending with the gao. during the course of those protests, the ga found there wererregities inhe acquisition process in adon, due the lengthf time that has passed since the ppol for i.t.ervices was first issued, it's mynderstanding that the scope of work sought by tsa may not accurately reflect its rrent needs. so there's been a long tail on th thing. it's beenn theworks, as i said, for a coupl of years. and i wld hope that -- it ems to me at least that giv the excess cost for the current contract award and the flawsn the solitation process that tsa ought to undertake a fresh, independent review of this procurement and report back to congress on plans to address ncns about theprocurement and plans timprove that acquisition process. so i hope th we can count on you. as i mentioned earlier, these are hard me fiscally for the country. we're dealing with unprecedented vels of deficit speing and debt. and you hear stories like this, i doesn't do anythingo bolster the public's cfidence their government, and its

the gao agreed with you. it looks to me that it was being set up for blackwater, again, because the have existing facilities and country. having been kicked out of iraq by the iraqis, blackwater is creating a new empire for itself based on the fact that it has existing facilities in afghanistan. >> if i could give you another minute, can i expand the discussion with mr. ryder? talk a little bit about it, mr. ryder, about the challenges you would have to have met the 60 days and the kind of action she would have taken so that you could have met the 60 days. >> i think we were prepared -- as we put the proposal together, we understood that timeline. we understood the requirement for living conditions and mission supportt we have worked our way through that. we provided an additional solution to the government of how to do instead of building dams, not knowing the way that they would have the contracts, so i think that we were there. as the commissioner knows, there are always challenges in standing up a contrac

we are already working with gao to do that. the concern i had about the house version of the bill is that it also included an audit of monetary policies, which involves congress asking the gao to a valid the fed prostate -- the fed's monetary decisions and would be subject to confidence.+ i would strongly -- to retain the 1978 exemption forrmonetary poliiy -- i would strongly urge you to retain the 1978 exemption for monetary policy. >> thank you, mr. chairman. three -- may i have chart 3? can you tell us, year-over- year, for the gray area, which was the deficit going at that timee up or down? >> understand, there was a jump tremendously in 2009. >> from 2004 to 2005 to 2006 to 2007, was it up or down? " i can see from the figure that it was down. -- >> i can see from the figure3 >> what we saw during the time that president bush was in office and the republicans were in charge, the deficit was going down. what is the trend, speaking as an economist, where is it going after that? >> when we are talking about the recession -- >

med pack is a non-partisan waif riffers, the process for apointing the members is run by gao. for the commission that produced the june report had six physicians and one registered nurse on the commission. in addition, we had five commissioners that had executive level experience in running health care deliverry organizations. another five that had experience in running private health plans. and some commissioners have more than one of these credentials in their background. as chairman of med pack, i believe we can best serve the interest of congress by wherever possible finding a con tense view among these perspectives included on med pack. usually we succeed in doing that and just to illustrate that point, we published two reports to congress this year in march and june. total there were 26 recommendations in those two reports, which represents roughly 400 individual votes by med pack commissioners. on those 400 individual votes were zero no-votes and extensions so we're able to take a diverse group of people and experiences in health care and find common ground on how to im

i look forward to hearing from gao and the accountability office about the risk and vulnerabilities of the fund that they have found in the past, and how all this spill encompasses a perfect storm of factors that could easily make it the most expensive ever. in addition to this enormous financial burden is placed on citizens in the gulf, there are other costs. to date, over $20 million has been spent on ships and personnel to respond to this incident, and much of that had been billed to bp and the other responsible party. this past friday, understand that bp wired a payment of $69 million to the federal government. i understand that the coast guard will be sending their third bill for $50 million to bp and to the other responsible parties, perhaps even today. i am sure the american taxpayers appreciate the prompt payment and i hope we continue to see similar responses as those costs mount. what we've seen several checks from bp and others, i hope to find out today how the other responsible party do themselves and one another when it comes to paying for this disaster. we're pleased to s

i am disappointed that gao was not invited. they published a report this morning focused on the performance of mortgage services to coincide with their testimony. their perspective would have been liable for this committee. i respectfully urge you to invite the treasury department to answer in the near future. we have a responsibility to the american people to hold the gestation accountable. what we hear from today have worked to comply a 800 rules issued in over 15 different set of guidelines. they have been able to offer far more mortgage modifications privately then in it. this congress administration has stifled private sector job creation the their anti- economic growth agenda. the policy mistakes of the felt by homeowners across the state. thank you. >> thank you. we did have a treasury. we did have jao you cannot do so much in one day. >> i am concerned about the clans for the claims. growing number of borrowers are failing to move from the initial stage into a permanent loan modification. more than 100 our -- 100,000 bo

the first one that comes to mind is the postal service, especially since the gao, their own accountants, issued a report, i think earlier last year saying jal is projecting they will lose billions of dollars in the next few years unless something drastic about. why not let somebody like fedex, who already successfully runs liberty services, and whether they want to approach the postal service. host: from a congressional and goal, "the post" piece says that house leaders are discussing the budget plan -- madison, nebraska. steve, republican. caller: i think 5% is a nice start but we really need to do is go in and start cutting some of these programs -- i mean, some of the wasteful useless programs. i would put a plug in for that youcut website which actually gives people the opportunity to actually see what some of these programs are. host: how about your own viewpoint? you said cut several programs. any particular ones in mind? inler: i've got hundreds mind. i mean, there's no bill -- limit. three or four of them -- host: which ones? caller: department of defense, i mean, i would cut th

i look forward to hearing from gao about the risks and vulnerabilities of the trust fund they have found in the past and how this bill -- this spill encompasses the purpose storm of factors that would easily make it the most expensive ever. over $120 million dollars has been spent on ships and personnel to respond to the incident and much has been billed to bp and the other responsible parties. this past friday, bp wired their second payment of $69 million to the federal government. the coast guard will be sending their third bill, for roughly $50 million to bp, perhaps even today. i'm sure american taxpayers appreciate bp's prompt notice and payment. i hope will continue to see these responses as those costs mount. while we have seen several checks from bp and others, i hope to find out how the other responsible parties view themselves and one another when it comes to paying for this disaster. we are pleased to see mr. newman of transocean here today. i look forward to hearing how he views their role in his ongoing efforts. darko o invited anar petroleum which owns a 25% stake in the gu

canadian prime minister harper holds a closing news conference at the gao summit in canada a. on"america and the courts," justice john paul stevens and elena kagan have a discussion. >> the lottery is described by law that if demand it out places supply, you have to have a lottery. >> this is the central issue of today and it is not just about race. it is about class. >> madeleine sackler on the anti charter school sentiment. that is at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span "to end the." >> next, canaddan prime minister steven harper holds a news conference at the g-sheet summit in canada. he was the host of the summit. the meeting focused on international security, economic stability and funding for child care in the developing world. this is 20 minutes. >> good afternoon, everyone. [speaking french] -span. >> the g-8 has committed $5 billion over the next five years of new money. we have commitments from all of the partners that raised this to $7.3 billion. the partners that raised this to $7.3 billion. we insisted on the need to be accountable for our actions, and we have discussed m

we are already working with gao and aig and we will make sure that disinformation is made available to the public. the concern i had about the house version of the bill is that it included an audit of monetary policy, which essentially involves congress to monitorgoao policy. i would strongly urge you to retain the 1978 exemption for monetary policy from the audits. it is not a financial audit, but a policy review. we are fine with making our books available to the congress to make sure that we are using the taxpayers' money appropriately. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. look at chart 3 root weight. it the look at the great, the president at that time would have been george bush. for the first three years at that, the republicans were in charge of the house. you are an economist. for the gray area there, which way was the deficit going at that. in time? up or down? >> i am not quite sure i understand. >> i just need to know the period of time from 2000 word, 2005, 2006, 2007 -- the trend was up or down? what we sell during the time that president bush was in office, the proje

. >> [inaudible] >my question goes along the line [inaudible] the work we have reported, the gao has reported [inaudible] in spite of the donor nations. give the variety of things the strategy is seeking to achieve, how to prioritize what needs to be done and how to you address the shortfall going forward? there is an economic global crisis that impacts the donor nations contributions. what should be done going forward? >> when the afghan national strategy was being prepared and it came to me, to the parliament and when i looked at it, there were so many priorities. we'll have to many priorities, there is no priority, in -- when you have too many priorities, there is no priority. it was a nice wish list, a dream list and some were achievable. some are not practical. when you draft a plan of that sort, you have to base it on reality and capabilities you have and the achievements and capacities you have built. otherwise, we all want to build 15 highways in five years and we have -- what factories and our agriculture production. is it practical? it was not a practical wis. we have to re

costs comparisons between contractors and government personnel carrying out the same function and our gao colleague may be able to say more on this it's proved to be exceedingly difficult for a variety of reasons. one of the last year reports required data from the department of defense in orde to make this comparison, department of defense was unable to provide the data. there seems to be a difference in cost as you sort of move up the skills chain. if you're going to hire local or third party nationals to do conruction, laundry or mail service, you're much more likely to save money than to do things sort of at the top of the skills, private security, more engineering function. if you hire americans you may pay on a per day basis more than an american official to do the same things. the benefits seem to be lesson the cost side often and more on quick deployability of contractors into a war zone. on the inherently governmental sid, there is certainly reason to revisit is whole issue. our recommendation has been to try to move away from trying to divide every single activity into interntly

institute and executive vice preside of the export-iort bank as well as being a managing director at the gao, which was the government account team office at that point when it had an older and more honest name. our fourth speaker will be mark zandi, the chief economist of moody'analytics where he directs research and conlting. marks research interest include macroeconomics, financial markets and public policy. he has recently focused on the determinants of mortgage foreclosure and personal bankruptcy, analyzed economic impact of tax and government spendi policies and asess e appropriate policy responses to bubbles. he is ten quoted in national and global publications and is the author of financial shock, and exposÉ of the financial crisis as well as the forthcoming book, paying the price, which provides a roadmap for addressing our dating fiscal challenges. mark has advised both sator mccain's presidential campaign and the obama adnistration on these kinds of issues. our final speaker wll be john makin home we have strategically placed in the middle of the panel. john is a visiting scholar

i am disappointed that gao was not invited. they published a report this morning focused on the performance of mortgage services to coincide with their testimony. their perspective would have been liable for this committee. i respectfully urge you to invite the treasury department to answer in the near future. we have a responsibility to the american people to hold the gestation accountable. what we hear from today have worked to comply a 800 rules issued in over 15 different set of guidelines. they have been able to offer far more mortgage modifications privately then in it. this congress administration has stifled private sector job creation the their anti-economic growth agenda. the policy mistakes of the felt by homeowners across the state. thank you. >> thank you. we did have a treasury. we did have jao you cannot do so much in one day. >> i am concerned about the clans for the oclaims for their. growing number of borrowers are failing to move from the initial stage into a permanent loan modification. more than 100 our --

the first one that comes to mind is the postal service, especially since the gao, their own accountants, issued a report, i think earlier last year saying jal is projecting they will lose billions of dollars in the next few years unless something drastic about. why not let somebody like fedex, who already successfully runs liberty services, and whether they want to approach the postal service. host: from a congressional and goal, "the post" piece says that house leaders are discussing the budget plan -- madison, nebraska. steve, republican. caller: i think 5is a nice start but w really need to do is go in and start cutting some of these programs -- i mean, some of the wasteful useless programs. i would put a plug in for that youcut website which actually gives people the opportunity to actually see what some of these programs are. host: how about your own viewpoint? you said cut several programs. any particular ones in mind? inler: i've got hundreds mi. i mean, there's no bill -- limit. three or four of them -- host: which ones? caller: department of defense, i mean, i would cut the edu

. >> [inaudible] >my question goes along the line [inaudible] the work we have reported, the gao hasreported [inaudible] in spite of the donor nations. give the variety of things the strategy is seeking to achieve, how to prioritize what needs to be done and how to you address the shortfall going forward? there is an economic global crisis that impacts the donor nations contributions. what should be done going forward? >> when the afghan national strategy was being prepared and it came to me, to the parliament and when i looked at it, there were so many priorities. we'll have to many priorities, there is no priority, in -- when you have too many priorities, there is no priority. it was a nice wish list, a dream list and some were achievable. some are not practical. when you draft a plan of that sort, you have to base it on reality and capabilities you have and the achievements and capacities you have built. otherwise, we all want to build 15 highways in five years and we have -- what factories and our agriculture production. is it practical? it was not a practical wis. we have to rev