we have twoam of america's leading mayors, michael nutter is the mayor ofd philadelphia,mi a democrat and nick cornett, mayor of s oklahoma city. wsmake." also joining us is our press panel. lisa mascaro is a reporter with the "los angeles times." if the i could start with a general question. kind of building on what you were saying in the -- we had a taped press conference, mayor nutter, right fore we came onto this live program. how dependent are u.s. cities on congress and the federal government at this point? and we'll start with you, mayor nutter, and then -- >> the federal government plays a significant rolend affects cities and states all across america. the federal budget obviously is huge. many departments and agencies directly fund programs and services to states and in some instances directly to cities and so when the federal government makes cuts, or when they invest, you can see the difference right on the ground in cities and states all across america. >> well, we're at the bottom of the funding stream. cities operate within the enabling legislation set up by the federal

conference of mayors, mayor michael nutter of philadelphia. [applause] >> thank you very much. i really wasn't keeping that close a track. [laughter] >> you don't have to when you're at 76%. >> thank you very much and of course our host, mayor rollins blake. i'm in the shadows of of course this great ballpark across the street. i'm in the cleanup spot and i'm going to make it pretty brief. to all of our mayors, this will be a great, great conference, one we know that mayor rollins blake has spent a lot of time planning this conference and i know baltimore a little bit and i know they're going to roll out the red carpets for us. this is an important time, let me kind of be pretty straightforward about it. 2011 ends up really being about 2012. and in the aftermath of the worst recession since the great depression, what we're now experiencing, many of us, is the great retreat by the federal government and our congress, taking dollars away from the cities of america and for us it really doesn't matter whether you're a democrat or a republican, there's no democrat or republican way

met with president obama at the white house about that issue including philadelphia mayor michael nutterors and joins us this morning. good to have you with us. >> thank you, erica. good to see you. >> we talk about some of the numbers there. one in seven metro areas saying that it will take until 2020 for these jobs to come back. at the conference one of the proposals from the mayors was channeling defense spending back into domestic interests. how was that received? >> well, there was a lot of discussion about it, as you can imagine, but i think the bottom line is that we should be a country that cannot only protect ourselves all around the world, but also invest domestically. so i think that proposal really came more from an economic standpoint than anything else. the need for continued advancement in our cities and metro areas as you talked about the report, we're still trying to get philadelphians and americans back to work all across the country. so we want to make sure that the congress, the federal government fully understands the impact of their decisionmaking when the cut back

. ♪ >> this morning on c-span, newsmakers is live with philadelphia mayor michael nutter, a democratlahoma city governor on the conference of governors meeting this week. after that, a house hearing on a gun smuggling sting operation that later, defense secretary gates at a senate hearing on the president's 2012 budget request. >> the c-span coverage of the national cable telecommunications association's 2011 cable show continues today at 5:15 p.m. eastern. the fcc chairman julia's jan schakowsky is interviewed by the former sec chairman michael palle who has thencta. at 6:30, a look ahead to next year's presidential election with a former obama presidential adviser and a former republican chairman ed gillespie her >> the times ordered the world when i was growing up. >> page one producer and director andrew ross it looks of the changing newspaper industry and looks at " the new york times"through the eyes of the staff. >> i came into it without a grand sense of what the solutions are for traditional. media i came in with a desire really to just observe. >> he will talk about his new