we ought to do rather than this scatter gun approach. so we're not trying to tell people what they can and can't do by saban r. glen to make it easier to be healthy and get more incentives up front. whether employer based community-based a lot of things we can do and a lot of committees have argued then that. >> senator i also point to his what they have done in oregon. there may be others i don't know about that have set up the structures so that people is easier to be healthy to walk or bike and do different things like that in those cities. one of the reasons we have set up the public counsel that goes across all the departments is so that and all of the legislation we passed on all the rules and regulations promulgated by these departments they will start thinking about this. i mention on transportation that some have suggested when a book of the taxpayers' money into building highways and roads and bridges and things like that that people put in their bypass and walking paths. they don't now and i always mention in virginia we reache

i'm going to do with the washington bureaucrats. washington bureaucrats are not going to decide anything. they are going to published reports. let's talk about who we are talking about when we talk about who does research. those washington bureaucrats are called nih. they are called fda. those washington bureaucrats are called the institute's of medicine. i do not happen to think they are washington bureaucrats. i happen to think they are very capable research people who devote their life to try to come up with evidence that would support initiatives that could save lives and improve lives. could we get off of this washington bureaucrat stuff? i am beginning to find it offensive. i have represented people who work at the national institutes of health. i represent people who work at at the. they are doing their best -- at fda. they are doing their best to save and extend the lives. he gave the example above virtual colonoscopy. where do you think that came from? that came out of government sponsored research so that the private sector

what i am trying to do -- [applause] what i am trying to do and what a public option will help do is put affordable health care within reach for millions of americans and to help ensure that everyone can afford the cost of a health care option in our exchange, we need to provide a system to families who need it. there will be no reason at all for anyone to remain uninsured. [applause] it is because i am confident in our ability to give people the ability to get insurance at an affordable rate that i am hoping that we will have a system where every american bears responsibility for owning health insurance so long as we provide for that. the same is true for employers. every business has a responsibility to provide health insurance for its workers. small businesses who cannot afford it should receive a small exemption. small-business workers and their families will be able to seek coverage in the exchange if their employer is not able to provide for it. here is some good news. insurance companies have expressed support for covering the uninsured. they are in favor of a mandate. i welcom

in order to do that, we're going to need the help of the a.m.a. [applause] today, we are spending other $2 trillion a year on health care, almost 50% more a person than the next most costly nation. and yet, as i think many of you are aware, for all of this spending, more of our citizens are uninsured, the quality of our care is often lower, and we aren't any healthier. in fact, citizens in some countries that spend substantially less than we do are actually living longer than we do. make no mistake. the cost of our health care is a threat to our economy. it's an escalating burden on our families and businesses. it's a ticking time bomb for  the federal budget. and it is unsustainable for the united states of america. it's unsustainable for americans like lauren kliss -- klitska, a young mother i met in wisconsin last week who learned the breast cancer she thought she'd beaten has spread to her bone bus who is now being forced to spend time worrying about how to cover the $50,000 in medical debt she's already accumulated, worried about future deb

there is the opportunity to do that and a lot of reason not to have to do the congestion at the checkpoint and as that has become very manageable is a matter of screen those people the same as ordinary passengers and, yes, i think that is possible. as some point to get that changed and i don't see any reason why not -- there will get screen is the semi. >> host: former tsa administrator kip hawley joining us from mountain view, california. thank you for being with us. >> guest: a pleasure. >> host: you're calls and thoughts, the support a tax on your health care benefits. the morning to florida. >> caller: i am surprised i am the first. i think that we need to relieve the pressure on the employer's to hire more people. we have the serious unemployment problem in this country and just adding more burden to the employer and nightmare for him in cost. this is going to have him and to his role. >> host: do get health care through your employer? >> caller: my wife and i did until about two months ago, we have coverage and they offered a renewal at 103% interest. we're paying $800 a month and th

what we all need to do is to be able to scale rapidly to address jubilations that could be much more severe than what we do on a day to day basis. on cases where there really is an up tech, maybe that is a case where it is kind and not like. we need to exercise to plan for that. we have done a series of exercises over time. there is a whole series of exercises and both government and industry to make sure we are getting ready for future of events. we need to continue to do the things and make sure they are not too burdensome. we need to make sure that we do them and do them the right way and get the private sector involved where appropriate. we are bringing in all of the people that need to play. we need to make sure there is a cadence around those exercises so that we are using them with our policy development and testing things that we actually want to use. as we go forward on exercises, we want to make sure those of land with the processes that we are developing. exercise and inform plants, we exercise plans. we included in our future planning. what capabilities do we need in three

we need to do our part too. don't think government is going to pick up in a big siper incident either. we need to have organic processes and come together april really respond. can i ask a silly question? >> absolutely. >> d.o.d. is a planning outfit. we work out relationships. all those details appear in that practice. what do you think about what we are going to work out. how should we really work that out? what is not in war normally. you want to train and practice to what you are going to do. we need to scale rapidly even if we didn't want to, we need to exercise to plan for that. there is a whole series of the industry to make sure they are getting ready for future events. we need to make sure there's a cade answer around those skices to use those and test the things we want to use. as we go forward, we want to make sure those align with the incident, planning and response problems developing. and then have a cycle and what do we need? >> i'd like to ask members in the audience to start lining up for questi

i want to read a few of the things that we do. let's start with the three big programs that the dream foundation is involved with. first is the urban academy. it has been slow but we have not yet been able to secure the land we have identified. we have been working with chairman gray. we will be very proud to have the third baseball academy. that is the first big project. the second is the juvenile diabetes wing. this is something that is terribly important to us. the centerpiece is that right there. the third big thing is our relationship with the boys and girls clubs of greater washington,. this is a charity of major league baseball. again, the three anchor programs are all for kids and for the sea. that is what we are spending all our time and fund-raising efforts to achieve the benefit. they also do so many little things. let me give you a small list. it facilitates leadership in youth. we rebuild together. thurgood marshall academy and the partnership project for the that is just a partial list in addition to that, the stuff t

we start with what we are trying to do on health care reform on this. but we want to talk about tonight some of the very important work we want to do as we really meet the president's goals. he's laid out to us the goals for health care reform and they are really three hold. they are to make sure that we contain costs. the fact that our businesses have said to us that the high cost of health coverage, providing health benefits for their employees, is -- has gone up almost double digits every year. what that means is that we have doubled the number of -- the cost of health care benefits to our companies in the last 10 years. . that's unsustainable for businesses, whether they're small businesses trying to be economically competitive in their community or large businesses functions -- functioning in the global marketplace and are competing with countries where health care is not an employer's responsibility and costs are more controlled. we know it's an economic competitive issue, no question about that. we also know it is an issue for government, that i s

>> i think we can do better with respect to the question exactly how many, i cannot tell you that now. >> i will submit your letter asking you these questions. >> i was warned you would do that. >> i asked the record remain open for my letter and the response of the administrator. >> so orders. >> would you support an increase frequency requirement? >> we clearly need to do more frequent inspections also smarter inspections and we'd need not to rely simply on inspections as a tool for a safer food supply. >> we agree on that. i am keenly aware there is substantial with conducting foreign and domestic facility inspections, how much do you need to do this properly? >> in terms of personnel and money? if you cannot eat given know i will ask the record me kept open. >> it is a complicated answer we need a lot more money. >> we have the record remain open so it can be inserted that at a proper time. >> the record will remain open. you don't need to keep asking. >> also the fda will the new additional resources to meet that requirement? >> absolutely true. >> the present has us additional r

-- did she influence him in some way to do this? >> if i recall, the secretary stated her support for this initiative in her first town hall with state farm employees. it obviously had to be worked through the government, not only the state department, but other federal agencies. >> was there already a process under way within which the state department was working? or did secretary clinton initiate that this become a government-wide policy? >> i think this is an issue that the secretary feels very strongly about. obviously, that when into the president tonight is only for the state department. >> i wonder whether she feels that the memorandum signed yesterday did not quite go far enough. the proposals were very serious. >> as the president said yesterday, he is able to take this action based on existing authority. those include authorities for foreign service officers. those are details that the experts can get into. >> in view -- is the u.s. going to take any more steps to pressure israel? >> as we said yesterday, george mitchell w

to try to get it done but i do want to keep working at it. if we could just hear on your amendment so we can move along. >> i will, but let me just express my concern. if we pass the wrong bill, if we're not thoughtful and think about all the contingencies we're going to do, we neert going to help health care, we're going to hurt it. the presumption on this bill is we're going to spend according to president obama $1.3 trillion over the next ten years, add 8% to the cost of health care, add 8% to the cost of health care every year to, in fact, fix health care that doesn't fix it. i know you've got things -- we haven't seen it yet and i know the goals is to get the numbers to where it doesn't cost anything, but the fact is we're only going to get one shot. and then people are going to make decisions that are going to have tremendous ramifications and the worst ramification is to not do what president obama said he wanted them to do. if you got what you've got to do and you like it, you get to keep it. and we haven't even begun to consider the

we will all be protected, and yet you're going to do it anyway that allows responsible companies to make good products and sell those products. and i get so excited about your nomination, and extremely pleased at the bipartisan support you have received thus far. i hope mr. chairman we can do this very quickly. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you. senator warner. >> thank you, mr. warner. i know this is kind of a course we are hearing from both sides, but i want to add my strong support of inez. i have had the opportunity to work with her in politics that i've had the opportunity to work with her when she did such a great job in education in south carolina. she was a great partner we found in virginia on a series of education initiatives, and i think you are absolutely the right person at the right time for an agency that has truly been troubled. and while i know you introduced your husband, they are looking around this room. there are a series of other distinguished south carolinians who are here to show support for you. some of them it's tough to get them in the same room in the s

if you want for us to do more work through hearings, and if you want us to be able to have more officials in front of us, bankers appearing in front of us, we cannot do this without subpoena power. i should say, there is plenty that we can do without this. we will be able to write a report to expose misrepresentation about the value of transactions, this has been valuable. and we have been able to deal with the other parts of the program. the treasury is not operating in the same way that it was operating before. let me turn your question, i want to say something about this. glass-stegel was about rest manipulation. they understood after the depression, that we have gone through these cycles every 15 years, and the banks were part of this, the banks were the risk takers and they would roll the dice and as long as they made money, the investors got rich, and then they took down everyone with them, taking down a lot of local communities. the basic understanding was that we cannot keep doing that, that is not going to work for us. you are not just hurting yourself, the one little business, t

we do need to have accountability, however. we do need to have and measure progress with our kids. maybe it is just one standardized tests plus portfolios of work that kids are doing, plus observing the classroom. there can be a whole range of assessments, but we do have to assess accountability. number two, we do have to upgrade the professional development for our teachers. we still have a lot of teachers who are well meaning, with their teaching science and they did not major in science and they do not know signs that well. they certainly do not know how to make signs interesting. -- and they do not know science that well. have to give them the chance to become better teachers, recruit more teachers, train them better, retain them better, matched a glove with master teachers who are doing excellent work so they are upgrading their skills. after all that training the teacher is not still very good, we have to ask the teacher to try another profession because there are a lot out there. i am just being blunt. [applause] we're going to have to pick up the pace. now, the key point to

and about how it was more important to do it right than to do it fast. now, if that a standard, i would suggest to our colleagues just a few years ago, why would it not be a go standard today? if that was the standard when the republicans were in the majority in the senate why would it not be a standard weapon thee democrats are in the majority. we're talking about the same supreme court, we're talking about the same lifetime appointments that senator sessions was referring to. the chairman of the judiciary committee today said back then we need to consider this nop nation anomination as thoroughld carefully as the american people deserve. it's going to take time. that was senator leahy then. he also said it makes sense that we take time to do it right. i think the american people deserve nothing less. and he also said we want to do it right and we don't want to do it fast of thit fast. if that was the standard who years ago when the republicans in the majority i don't know why it isn't the standard today. i don't know what our friends on the majority ar

that is a decision that has to be made. i do believe that we ought to cover the children treate. i also believe that if you do not cover children, you end up with a much sicker adults. should we cover undocumenteds? no for adults and yes for children. why do we have this problem in the first place? that gets to the entire immigration problem, which is probably more than we want to talk about on the show. it is not as high as 20% or 30%. it may be in some areas. there are some places where that could be true. as a national figure, it is not so. host: the discussions about providing health care, where do prescription drugs fall into this, and especially how they will be paid for? guest: prescription drugs will continue to be paid for as they are, as a combination of insurance and out-of-pocket cost. one ththing that will happen is there will be more focus on trying to get the best drug for your money. there's something called comparative effectiveness research. for some reason, the republicans do not like this. it is the facts. host: is that a generic versus brand name? guest: yes,

had nothing to do with supply and demand. 2 had to do with speculators breaking -- my it had to do with speculators breaking that oil futures market. so the cftc knew nothing about it. right now the supply of oil is up and demand is down and the price is going up once again. there's something wrong. so the senator from vermont wanted to offer an amendment, so i included it on the amendments that we would offer to the republicans last thursday and friday, saying, on, you want to offer five amendments have that have nothing to do with the bill. that's fine. you can do that. here are the three amendments we propose to start with. they said no, no, no, you cannot offer the sanders amendment. well, wait a second? the minority is going to decide what the majority can offer? we've just said to the minority, you can offer your five tarp amendments having nothing to do with this bill, that's fine. so now we have somebody coming to the floor this afternoon saying he has to vote against cloture because the majority says we're going to obstruct your right to amend? nothing could be further from the

have to watch out for people who do try to the system, -- try to game the system, which people will do, and that means you have to build more and better systems for that. >> the bad people. you were dealing with somebody who was doing something abusive, on the newsgroup or something. you have a recovery program of disreputable characters who frequent the side and do business in various ways. how many bad people does it take to ruin the experience for good people? >> again, the whole -- again, there are bad guys out there. some are just twirls -- trolls. these are just people who disapprove of stuff. there are people who work on the site to draw that to your attention, and you have to build mechanisms which removed automatically or manually. in advertisements, it is mostly automatic. in our discussion boards, is largely manual, and i have the pleasure of removing a lot of that as recently as maybe 20 or 30 minutes ago. you are going to see a lot of ugly stuff. you will see people bickering sometimes regarding animals and pets. you will see it as predictable in politics. you will

of what we have to do on the road. you don't want to rip and run on the road. you want get your rest, stay off your feet. here least you're in the confines of your own home. one thing about basketball if you can play, you can play. if you can't, you can't. and this league is full of guys who can play. >> back left. >> the first two games how shocking was it you didn't shoot well and was it just a matter of time it broke through for the team? >> it was shocking. we have a team that does shoot well. they were doubling dwight in the staples center both nights and he was making good passes, turkoglu was making good passes, rashard found his rhythm and we still needed the rest of us here tonight. they were giving us the same shots, making the same plays, and this league is a make and miss league. first two games i'm missing, i look horrible. tonight i'm making them and look good. that's what the league is bat, make and miss. >> skip, the distribution of minutes looked a lot like people thought they would, how much did the co

you have to do anything. if you don't have health insurance, then you have an option available to you. how this debate is evolving in washington, unfortunately, sometimes falls into the usual politics. what you have heard is some folks on the other side saying i am opposed to a public auction because that will lead to government running your healthcare system. i do not know how clearly i can say this, but let me try to repeated. if you have health insurance you are happy with through the private sector, then we are not going to force you to do anything. all we are saying is, for the 46 million people who did not have health insurance, or for people who have health insurance like you who are self-employed, but the premiums and deductibles are so high that you almost never get prevention services, it put off going to a doctor until you are billy sick because of the out-of-pocket expenses, let's change some of those incentives so you get more people being prevention, more people getting healthcare to keep them he

i am glad that washington has finally learned to do what rahm wants, and i consider myself lucky to have been doing it the longest. it is a pleasure to introduce a man of ideas and one of the greatest champions. of the new democratic cause, chief of staff to the president of the united states, rahm emanuel. [applause] >> nothing like getting through an introduction by burress without some stories of the past i prefer nobody else knows. i appreciate that, bruce. speaking of being busy, i have to be back at the white house because we start our briefings in the morning with intelligence and economics. that was a joke. you can laugh. this crowd is serious. i want to do one point of overview, and then kind of and thentwo subjects, both education and health care -- and then kind of talk about two objects, education and health care. one topic is in the news dominant late and in people's lives. the other one is not dominant, but there is a quiet revolution going on around the country, education reform, led by the administration and our need duncan, top to bottom. -- and arnie duncan, top to bott

right now you're unable to do that. if you're a federal employee and you ever the federal employee's health benefits plan, it's a little bit easier. that's a plan where you are able to look at some of the paperwork and get on the computer and do some comparison shopping. we want everyone to have that same ability that federal employees have today. i would say to the gentleman when we talk about this idea of the employers being required in some way to either offer health insurance to their employees or to pay into the system so that those employees will have the ability to make that choice, we don't want to do that in a way -- i want to be very clear about this. we don't want to do that in a way that's going to incentivize employers to say, well, you know what, i'll just stop offering health care coverage and all my employees can go into the plan. that is not what this is about. and we don't want to add one more financial burden to half of the small businesses in the country, the ones i'm talking about that are already un

i think he will accept if the committee needs the time to do it, should be able to have the time to do it. this is a full report on which we want to learn lessons for the future. that's the issue. what lessons can learn for the military, our diplomacy, and for country's reputation abroad for the future. that is that the essence of what we're doing. >> this inquiry is part of a process of holding the executive to count. this house is -- this house has mechanisms of holding executives to count. any members of the foreign affairs committee will experience the limitations of select committees holding the account. i find it extremely difficult to accept as a member of parliament why we're giving privileges to people outside this house under the guise of independence when we could have an inquiry of giving members of this house and select committee to get access to the kind of documents we are going to give access to these people. and if you're in public and private but that kind of access and come to a view. >> i understand she feels strongly about this, but she has another has been a forei

not know if that is going to happen. i do think that journalism has a value and eventually that value will restore itself. it is bigger cannot make it through the transition, we're going to see new start-ups. they're going to pay for with online subscriptions for these new start-ups. here's the thing we also missed. in my time as a journalist, we lost a lot of subscriptions. the gas, the trucks, the wood pulp, the lost money there. it made it harder is forced to see the future -- it made it harder for us to see the future. it is $20 per month to get "the baltimore sun." if you paid $8 a month to get that on my, there are no trucks, no gas. that is a revenue structure. you can generate $300,000 a month if you get 10% of their subscriptions online to commit to you. with that, you can handle 30 reporters. the scary part of that is a lot of our citizens are not going to get it because they are not online. the delivery model is not as a democratic. that is something to contend with going forward. i do think there is a future but i

i want to talk about it about why we are trying to eradicate polio and did what we are doing to put that in context. there are really three reasons for doing this. this picture for me always captures the key one, and that's because this is an absolutely devastating disease that affects the most marginalized communities in the world. over 350,000 children were being paralyzed by this disease every single day. i'm sorry everything that year when the initiative was launched just 20 years ago. and it's a disease widespread not only in asia when we started the eradication initiative, but also in africa, of course. by the time we got started, thanks to the work of the real hero of polio, the disease had largely been eradicated from the americas. so a devastating disease, but also one which in contrast to hiv, malaria and other diseases we actually have the tools to eliminate forever. the other key reason for the second reason that eradication is i believe so important is i think that's put in the work here of doctor bill of the cdc is that eradication attack in equities and provides the ultima

we continue to do what we can to help people get together. that is a country that's gone through six years of very, very painful violence, where everybody has lost a loved one. and one never wants to predict when people are sick of this sort of thing. but since arriving there in the last couple of months, i do believe that people are trying to work their way through political process. >> but you don't see, i mean, the violence is down but the last couple of years violence seems to be more from the insurgency and from al qaeda type. you don't see a renewed level of sectarian tensions that gives you pause that there might be a -- dr no, we don't. actually, what we do see are in antigstisspation of parliamentry elections which are expected to be in january, we do see a lot of lockying for political position. we see shiite party reaching out to have a sunni partner and kurdish partner. these sorts of things are actually healthy. so what we see is a tendency to want to work welcome back the political system. but i don't want to sound poly anish ab

to do, they will see that having dialogue is in their interest, how do we drive negotiations forward in a way that is appealing to gone yea without waiting for the north koreans to rejoin the talks when they might be continuing to produce nuclear weapons? >> our best hope of making progress is to work jointly with the major countries of the region and our principal allies in the region, this is not a unilateral american effort. through the frequent consultation with other parties, we have made multilateral action this centerpiece of what we are trying to do with the north koreans. as for how one makes progress over time, i would counsel patience and perseverance and i think we have to remain steady, we have to continue to indicate that some of the things they're doing a dangerous and unacceptable to us, and we have to be prepared to respond as we are now responding to the un security council resolution, through bilateral sanctions and consultations with our partners in the region. we have to be prepared to continue to indicate that for us, engagement, dialogue and diplomacy remained

more to prepare people for the trades, more plumbers? more carp enters? do we need to change our thinking about this? they're working at restaurants, working at bars. >> i will be honest. i think part of what we need to do is when we retool, we're retooling for good jobs that are going to pay well. so i would think that for example we certainly need more people in math and science, we need more people in engineering. we need people to get into these new renewable energy industry that is i think are really going to pay off. so many other countries are so far advanced than we are in this area that i would hope that we could continue on that path. but also keep opportunities open for those dislocated workers, many who don't have a high school education who won't be able to get into community college but may be able to get into a short-term program, an apprenticeship program. we have the electrical workers unions that has partnerships and they help train people, turn them around from typically electricians to those now installing solar panels and a new grid syst

and also to do the work of the people of minnesota. as far as the 60 is concerned, 60 is a magic number, but it isn't. we know that we have senators and republicans you're going to vote -- democrats are going to vote with the majority republicans and others. it is not quite as magical number as people may say. i hope that we do get president obama's agenda through. >> norm, and stopped short of saying who got the most votes. is it a concern of yours? >> i think what you had was 12 judges look at this through the canvassing process, three counts, through the election contests, through the decision in the supreme court. they're all -- i won more votes than anybody else in the election. i think that is conclusive. it is as transparent and conclusive at this painstaking as possible. they've agreed every step of the way except on some very small things, some procedural things during the recount. >> [unintelligible] what would you want them to know that your the senator? -- to know now that you're the senator? >> one thing i really take away

so for 50 and 60 years we've been struggling with how to do it. we are not going to go the u.k. way. we are the usa. we do believe in capitalism. we do believe in the government, but let's be able to come together now and be able to find that way. if you don't like this, then don't try to judge, let's come in with it and let's say goodbye to the invasion of the body snatchers. thank you. >> senator burr. >> awesome. [laughter] thank you, mr. chairman. >> chris, listen to this, i'm about to compliment you. chris? >> yes, sir, i'm sorry. >> i'm about to compliment you. [laughter] >> take your time. [laughter] use as much time as you would like. [laughter] >> you know i have deep respect for you, and for all the colleagues on this committee. and i personally feel that you have been stuck with something that if you had control over we wouldn't be here right now. we would probably still be in the process of exchanging ideas to come up with a consensus bill. we are not doing that. and there's not a consensus approach. there have been no input from this side on this which is part of the

second, we're going to do a lot of cost. we need to -- we need to stop the huge increase in premiums, co-pace, deductibles, we have to do a better job to constrain costs in the health care plan than this government or the private sector has been able to do for decades. third, we need to give people full choice. that means that they can stay in their plan, as i mentioned earlier, number one, but they also will have a choice of private insurance plans and a public plan, a public option, so they can choose a private plan with aetna or a private plan with united health or a private plan with blue cross blue shield or they can decide to join a public plan, a public plan that might look like medicare, which they can decide, perhaps they would save money or better preventive care or a plan with lower co-pays or deduct ibles, they can -- deductibles. they can make the choice. a great majority of the democratic caucus, and i hope republicans will join us. an overwhelming sector wants that option a public plan and private plan that the

that's what we're here to do. >> let me turn, if i can to senator murkowski and let's take time on so we can reach an agreement on. do you have the minutes? by the way, we have a quorum of 12 here and we have nominees. so our committee -- let us go into executive session if i can for a few moments with my colleagues here to return to the affordable health choices act in a moment. kathy martinez is the nominee for the assistant secretary for disability employment, pol southeast department of labor. kathy greenlee is the nominee for assistant secretary of the department of aging. i want to thank chairman kennedy and ranking member mike enzi for their work on the nominations. i recognize mr. enzi. >> i have comments and it's been cleared on our side. >> all those in favor of the nominee say ayes. the nominees are confirmed by the committee and we report it accordingly. let me go back to senator murkowski until the amendments have been cleared. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to just say to the committee we had a good day yesterday. we accepted 17 amendments, and very few from their si

you know, anything in the stock market having to do with banks, that's gambling. since when do we start to guarantee other people's gambling? host: mr. stiglitz, guy ahead. guest: those are good questions, the fact that banks are too big to fail or too big to be financially resolved is a real problem. it's a real problem because if the bank is too big to fail or be financially resolved it means it has a one-way bet. if it makes a lot of money and it walks off with it. if it fails it knows the taxpayers are going to give it money so that gives it an snove gamble. we predicted this would happen unless you had good regulation but deregulators didn't understand that. didn't understand this. it confirms economic theory but unfortunately at a huge cost to our society and economies all over the world. i was at a hearing in congress with tom from the kansas federal reserve simon johnson, the former head chief economist at the imf. we span the political specktrum from throift right. one thing we all agreed on was banks being too fwoig fail was a real problem, and i can tell

what to do about guantanamo. the unanimous in view of my colleagues is that we're here to do the people's business. >> is it getting in the way of what you are trying to put forward? has two scandals, two weeks in a row which have dominated the headlines, interfere? >> it is what i have just said. we don't intend to be distracted by any other shoeissues that mit be out there. we are trying to decide what to do about the finest health care system in the world which we already have. it definitely needs fixing. i can speak for all republicans to say that we do not need the status quo is adequate. but we intend to oppose things like a government-run plan, things like most of my members who are not in favor of the so- called pay or play proposal. we will grapple with health care. >> do you expect an agreement on homeland security this week? >> yes, i believe we will reach a consent agreement. i think the majority will probably go to homeland next intra to get some appropriation bills behind us here in the next recess.

i believe that we just need to do it. we need to step up, fund it, find the funding mechanisms that are needed and make the necessary investment. >> ok. >> i think it's just that simple. >> ok. so my last question. you said predictable, reliable and you had another word. >> dependable. >> you didn't say safe. of course, it's obvious. >> yes, obviously. >> safe, it's got to be safe. my last question deals with the tragedy that happened on the metro line here. we just wrote a letter -- senator rockefeller and i -- to talk about the need to move forward with positive train control and other life-saving measures because we really are going to have to address this. this was awful, and we've seen these things happen in my state. so my question to you, and my last question is, do you intend to move forward with positive train control and do it quickly so we can let people know we're moving forward on the safety question? >> yes, absolutely. first off, we have a congressional mandate to ensure that positive train control is implem

that is what i want to know. i do not think any system will work until we have medical professionals who will accept the fact that they need to earn less. host: barbara, thank you for the call. ceci connolly was joining us. we had to let her go because of the. we're getting from across town. we are at capitol hill. she is downtown. you can read more from ceci connolly the "washington post." tomorrow, we will spend part of the program looking at the anniversary of the d-day anniversary in june of 1944. the war came to an end about one year later. president obama will be there with those who served along with our allies from france. representatives from germany will also be in attendance. we will have live coverage tomorrow. on sunday, we will look at the 2008 presidential campaign. we will also look closely at the situation in california with deep financial situation and budget. up next, angela merkel and president obama were in a dr dresden. the news conference focused on the speech in cairo yesterday. here is that ne

and so we've got a lot of work to do. and my job is to keep our members focused on the work in front of us. and we're going to continue to do that. >> that's consumed the news oxygen in the past 24 hours. how can you stay focused on that if that's what people are talking about? >> if you noticed in my press conference this morning, i'm not talking about it. [laughter] >> i'm talking about the stuff that its at hand, the things that i've got to work on. >> mr. leader, i'm interested -- i haven't had a chance to hear your thoughts on the c.b.o. estimate. -- [indiscernible] focussing on that $3,000 per household estimate from boston university. c.b.o. announced it was $174 per household in terms of higher energy bills. -- [indiscernible] actually -- >> if you look at the c.b.o. score and you read it, it's only one title of the bill. but what is clear in the c.b.o. score is that every american household is going to pay more. listen. when you create this giant bureaucracy to impose this tax it's going to cost a lot of money. an

to improve it? yes. but where do you learn to become a professional? learn it from the men and women that you respect, you break the chain and keep moving around, where do you get that experience? all of a sudden a new first officer is flying with somebody who has only been flying for 3 years -- three years. that would not have a the airlines hadn't kept pushing fly around the system. it took me 12 years to make captain, that is to be the norm. we went through 12 years or 28 years or five years of operations, now is much quicker. >> you object to random reviews of cockpit recordings to verify sterile cockpit? >> if you want to use it to monitor, you will actually create a cockpit that may not be as safe. let's not mistake that sterile cockpit means we are focused upon flying the airplane at critical points. that is standard. that is what goes on. we are assuming too much. it is protected at used as safety data, we should be able to find a way to make the system safer and that is our shared goal. >> just about every service company i call on the telephon

the majority of the dealers signed an agreement allowing us to do that. small number of dealers have not. they're preserving their effort through a legal effort to stop this process. we went ahead and got commitments for their inventory anyway. as soon as they sign the agreement, they will be notified of how the status of their inventory is. and if you'd like, i'd be more than happy today to discuss that directly with mr. lopez. i think it is important that this transparency be known. >> well, you know, you said earlier that you appealed to the dealers and because mr. wattly took everything you asked him to take, every time you asked, you're not -- you didn't go into bankruptcy earlier this year. you are now. but here's mr. wattly. i hear what you're saying. i hear what they're saying. and it is not the same thing. so do you want -- >> i just don't understand the 97%. i don't doubt mr. press at all. i think they may have identified 97% of the vehicles. but i have talked to -- i talked to 10 to 15 dealers a day from east texas to west texas, no one has hea

that is opposed to market speculation. i do not think that republicans would be adverse to having that kind of challenge again for the consumer's benefit. i hope that we do not see a repeat of that. people in alaska are still bleeding from what they ended up paying last year. in some of five villages back home, we have people who are paying $7 or $9 a gallon for fuel. it -- when the prices go down here, they do not go down up north. when you get your fuel barged in once in the fall and once in the spring, you are paying a lot in price. those alaskans were paying the price till just about a month ago. we do not want a repeat of $140 oil. >> any more questions? >> even though you are not enthusiastic about this bill, it sounds like it will get your support at the moment. >> if we keep out the ugly amendment, yes, it would get my support. >> would you consider to keep major changes from happening on the floor? >> we will certainly try. as you all know, you can say, i will work hard to keep it as is or to take this out, but it is a

can expect to do. and our retention rate is high and recruiting rate is healthy. so if the demand didn't increase, we are probably pretty ok. but we see an increasing demand for operational forces, and we have a growth plan in place. >> good to have you here. >> thank you, mr. elsworth. >> thank you mr. chairman. i apologize being late, i had hoosiers in the office that didn't want to let me go. and if this question is discussed, if you can talk about the interoperationability of the agencies and what challenges you may have faced and what are best practices and what are you facing? >> we did address that to some level, and what i said quickly, it's better than it's been and it will get better. we are at a point where the structures have evolved to provide the venues for the interactions . and now it's the people to get the languages to optimize the efficiency. the trends are ahead of where we thought we would be. >> and if you would, an area of particular interest to me, discuss what you can about our

you want to do this? tom, you said you had something. >> i have a meeting at 5:30. >> help you out. >> coburn 16. >> as noted, senator harkin has created the proper emphasis of trying to change the paradigm from going to sick care to prevention. and keeping people healthy, preventing disease, and then managing wellness. many of the ideas in this legislation, section 301, the public health council, they have merit. but the way this bill is drafted, they only create more government and more bureaucracy, rather than help us to focus on what works. so the idea behind this amendment is to replace the public health council in this bill, which is troubling both in its lack of focus and its unprecedented scope with a more targeted interagency working group to more effectively focus federal programs. the way this is written, we've got 18 federal agencies, most of them not related to health care in the public health council. i won't spend the time to go through that. however, what this amendment does is creates an

why do we go to saudi arabia? it is a shame what we do to the muslims. host: let me jump in on two points. did the president not address that issue of nuclear weapons and also trying to solve -- to develop long-term peace? caller: absolutely not. president obama went there and was speaking to these people like children. who is the united states -- where we -- where did we get the audacity to go to other countries and dictate who can defend themselves, who can do this? we do not have that right. who put us in charge? regular americans shake their heads and say, who are we? we do not have the right to dictate these answers. if israel has military capabilities, who are we to say other countries do not? it is hypocrisy. if the middle east did not have any valuable oil, do you think we would really care? i would like him to answer that. thank you. guest: the issue of oil is obviously very important. it is very important -- is a very important factor behind the involvement of the united states and other western powers in that part of the world. there is one ph

at the end of the day if you want to make the system work, you do that. you make it work to get insurance reforms to work, to do prevention well, to make sure people don't get in and out of the system, people go in and out of coverage states, it doesn't happen. let's put coverage aside and make it work. we have to change how we deliver health care and tax credits to make it affordable for people to purchase health care. you do all those things, they come together but the idea that you can do this piece and this peace and this piece separate and apart, it won't work. this is the most important thing for us to recognize -- having it done is an infrastructure, then we get to the implementation. some of the implementation, 90% of the implementation will be happening post enactment. we won't have legislation in 2009 and see it implemented in 2010. this will be a multi-year implementation which provides the opportunity for all of us in this room to work collaborative with the state, the federal government, the health plans, with others, to get this done right. a

but it is the right thing to do. i am hopeful that not only are we going to see these companies to stabilize, but also that they will emerge even stronger and more competitive. chancellor merkel and i discussed security challenges. germany has been a strong nato partner, as all of you now. we had great challenges in afghanistan. and increasingly in pakistan, but our collective commitment to making sure that we are not seeing the kinds of terrorist bases that could pose harm to all of our people. that we maintain that commitment. we also discussed the issue of iran. and not in isolation, but in a broader context of avoiding a nuclear arms race in the middle east that could be dangerous. i have said publicly i am committed to engaging in serious dialogue and negotiations with iran. that cannot be done in isolation, it has to be done in conjunction with the p5 plus one or the e3 plus 3 process. germany will be a critical partner in that process. later in this summer i will be traveling to russia to discuss how we can red

so, what they are trying to do is they are trying to say that u.s. and foreign influences are driving this conflict. when that happens, it becomes seditious. they will be hanging from the rafters as they have been. guest: the lady caller epitomizes what the great debates that has been going on in american politics, since the beginning. which is that they get involved in the world or stay home. they have had this debate for hundreds of years. john abbott -- john adams, woodrow wilson. george bush has been closer to wilson. the lady caller is closer to john adams. the fact is that nations and people and nations play critical roles. lafayette of the french held, without them the american revolution might have failed. there is no doubt that what reagan did in the 1980's helped to bring down the fall of the soviet union. ultimately, the people have to fight their own battles. the iranians are going have to fight their own regime. that does that mean that the rest of the world has no interest. when the greeks fought for their freedom in the 18 twenties, ro

but we've got to look at ways other ways of doing things. i thought about something specific but that runs into trouble, so i thai thought having the experimental situation of the states being able to develop possibility, put it into grant form, they've got to meet the requirements of their constituents in their states and i'm sure some of these objection raised would be taken care of in their proposals, they would have to be or they wouldn't be able to do them. this has been an ongoing discussion but it is something that senator bachus and i have work and 0 for a long time and gotten to a point where we could agree on the principles and this is mechanism to see if we couldn't save some someone in area and get patients awarded quicker. >> mr. chairman, this will be an ongoing discussion about how to control health care costs but also to make sure that we're not injuring in the process the right it a jury trial, the right to fair compensation in instance where you have negligent or intentional conduct. if the objective here is to control healt

chairman, i don't want to interrupt the flow here, but i do want to respond to senator enzi's arguments, if we can do that. >> can i say to my colleague, i apologize. i'm in the middle of the mark-up of the defense authorization bill down below and i want to apologize to all members, but we are trying to wrap this up, obviously today, as the chairman is trying to wrap it up. i appreciate your indulgence and thank you. i thank the chairman for your courtesy. this is a simple amendment. it's one issue that's been banging around for years. no matter what happens today, we will win sooner or later because it's in the interest of the american people. if the amendment could be handed out, i would appreciate it. >> i assume this is the one -- >> mccain number iv. >> it is on direct importation? >> yes. one of my favorites. >> normally when this comes up we either have senator cochran or roberts who deals with the safety section which i assume you do not have in that amendment. >> this amendment requires the secretary of health and human services to verify the safety and importance of prescript