jason fichtner is a senior research fellow at the center. he works on those issues. thanks for coming up to assist. please welcome them and will have a 30 minute conversation here and then a break. [applause] >> i've asked both jason and romina to give a brief opening remarks, and then we'll open it up for questions. romina, could you begin? >> thank you for the introduction, tend to thank you all for being here today. i want to focus my remarks on how the new congress can control government spending and reduce waste. and so i'm so pleased to follow representative price with those remarks. the first thing the house and senate have an opportunity do now is agree on a budget resolution. and that budget resolution needs to address growing, spending and debt at its root. the current half a trillion dollars deficit of this year has been hailed as a great improvement but the extent that it is an improvement, it is a very fleeting one in deed because he for the end of the decade, the deficit is projected to exceed trillion dollar levels again. so when order to rein in this