mr. berg is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. obviously, the goal in this whole thing, how do you make it simple and easy to pick the right plan for each individual? and i -- obviously, someone's understanding of the financial markets and what's best for them and trying to make a -- lifelong decision rather than, you know, a shortterm decision. so i was kind of intrigued by the automatic i.r.a.s. and you know, part of their testimony, mr. john, you talked about simplifying things, but also having an automatic i.r.a. so kind of my question to you, does the simplification come first, or do you do the automatic i.r.a.s and then simplification after that? >> i anticipate that given the direction of things, that the auto i.r.a. comes first. the auto i.r.a. is crucial, because if people don't save, if they don't get started early on, it doesn't matter if you simplify or not. >> okay. thank you. i just had one kind of out of the box question. and it seems like, you know, so many people are going through a lot of different jobs today. an

mr. berg's sentiment, one of the issues i see is the need. we talk about employers and the government and here in washington be in the ones to choose best with the individual should do at their future, special and it comes to retirement and i have this attitude appear sometimes that i try to fight every day of washington knows best, trust us we will take care of it. and i want to get to the ways to try to enhance accountability and responsibility to control their own destiny. for the things we could be doing to encourage literacy when it comes to financial planning? any ideas or thoughts or callous as to where we can really change the mindset of individuals as they go into the work place but being aware that 20, 30 or so common we need to have some been in the bank to take care of by us. is there any proposal and i can share with that and take a real close look at quite >> i have to look at electronic delivery and getting people engaged. there's amazing things going on out there in people having their own individual information setup on their

mr. berg: i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. berg: thank you, mr. speaker. in north dakota we know jobs come from small business. not from big government. small business is the backbone of our economy and it's the engine to get america back to work. unfortunately all too often instead of helping small business, washington serves as a roadblock to its growth by piling on excessive regulations, imposing burdensome complex tax code on the job creators. the legislation i'm introducing today, it's known as the small business tax simplification act. it will simplify our tax code for small businesses. instead of being bogged down with complex tax reporting requirements, this bipartisan legislation will allow businesses to use a simplified form of accounting that more closely matches the way small business owners run their businesses. this bill represents commonsense change that would ease the burden of tax complexity for many small businesses as

mr. farrell was awarded the book prize for biography. live coverage begins now. [inaudible conversations] >> good afternoon. can i have your attention please? my name is scott berg. this panel is called biography, the american century. before we get into it. one or two minor housekeeping issues. immediately after this panel all the arturs will go and i hope you will follow to a signing area. lots of people directing you there. you can continue any conversations you might want to start over there. the second thing, i know i have been doing these panels since the festival of books began 15 years ago and i started each one saying the same thing which becomes truer and truer which is i can think of no greater gift then a newspaper has bestowed upon its community then this festival of books. [applause] we want our festival of books. now just to introduce our panelists and we will hop right in. to my immediate left is richard reeves, senior lecturer on this campus at the school for communication and journalism. he is here in some ways under false pretenses in that this -- his latest book which is a real thriller actually is called daring young men, the heroism and tri