classes. >> one tiny bit of important housekeeping, the county is now under a level to snow emergency. drive home carefully. you have a lot to talk about but drive carefully. this debate will be archived at debatelive.org. it will be at that site for several days. you can encourage friends and family to watch. nye ando much to mr. mr. ham. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> the debate continues on our facebook page. one comment the rights another says you can join the conversation too at facebook.com/cspan. >> the beauty of america is that in this country, we have the ability to write the script of our own life. we are in a sense in the driving seat of our own future. our biggest decisions in life are made by us. creates the sense of possibility. out of that, you can become an activist, a community organizer. what are you doing? you are living off the great capitalist explosion of wealth that you didn't even create. >> so many strongmen, it is hard to know when to begin. nobody said america is the most terrible place. there are a couple of assertions that you have to take on faith that are astonishing. one is the idea that america's great invention was wealth creation. what about the entire continent? that doesn't mean -- [applause] was a part of it too. >> debating what is so great about america, friday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span. >> at the end of a daylong summit of north american leaders in toluca, mexico, president obama, canadian prime minister stephen harper and mexican president enrique pena nieto spoke to reporters at eight closing news conference. dataquest -- they discussed the regional economy. this is one hour. [speaking spanish] >> ladies and gentlemen, now with us, the president of the united mexican states, mr. enrique pena nieto, the president of the united states of america, his excellency enrique pena nieto -- his excellency mr. barack obama, and the prime minister of canada, his excellency mr. stephen harper. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, good evening. excellency, president of the united states of america, barack obama, prime minister of canada, stephen harper, once again -- i would like to welcome you to our country. it is a great honor to have hosted you for the north american leaders summit here in the state of mexico, toluca in the capital city. a state i had the great honor of being a governor of before i took office with the greatest honor in the world of politics, that is to lead the course of my country. that is why i am very glad we have had the opportunity of having this meeting. i would like to congratulate myself for creating a space where we have had dialogues, where we have outreach to our countries and where we have strengthened our friendships. met,ne space where we have it is very different. what the teams of men and women representing mexico in sochi are having in russia. a are in very cold weather and fighting hard to win a medal. to present to you a summary -- i would like to summarize for the media and for scope of ourn the meeting. i would like to share with you -- we have two highlights in our meeting. with president barack obama and his delegation and their counterparts from mexico, to address the following. i would like to share this with you. first of all, we assess the breakthroughs related to the agreements made during president obama's past visit in may to our country. now, i must note that mexico runs top of the list of the most visited countries by president obama. we were able to make progress on the agreements. how much we have advanced the exchange between high-level boostals, to precisely the trade and commercial relationship that mexico and the u.s. have. we have also analyzed the possibility of setting forward mechanisms to build and fund strategic projects. we have agreed to work on a proposal that would help us find different mechanisms to fund projects so that we can give to our infrastructure life, and to have safer commercial transactions between our countries. we talked about education and we have to have more academic exchanges. studentsore mexican can study in the united states and reciprocally, students from the united states can come to mexico to study. is number of students so far somehow low considering a potential that we have. out of the 14,000 students, we have set a goal. that is to increase year by year this figure, and reach 100,000 students a year that visit the united states and 50,000 students from the u.s. coming to mexico. our securityed agenda and we have agreed to maintain a strategic dialogue to coordinate efforts so we can face a common issue, security in both of our countries and specifically, security at the border. on the other hand, i would like to refer to the outcome of the north american leaders' summit. i would like to share with you the highlights in terms of the agreements reached. we have worked on four main topics. the first one is to foster shared and inclusive prosperity. we have agreed to work on a plan to boost competitiveness. we also have agreed to work on a north america transport plan. us better give infrastructure in our three make the commerce that happens between our countries thrived. to standardize and expedite all the procedures that take place at our customs house. enable also agreed to the movement of individuals. by this, trusted travelers a program ofe have this nature with a purpose in mind that all the travelers that are part of the trusted travelers in our countries, is considered a vetted traveler in north america. additionally, in terms of the topics we addressed, i must insist in terms of our national agenda with the united states, canada to work on a program to train professionals by increasing our academic exchanges and ensuring mobility of students between our three countries. to fosterso agreed , workingle development towards the mitigation of the effects of climate change. in the area of sustainability, we have also agreed to work on the preservation of the monarch butterfly. this is a landmark species in north america. species that we have force to work a task preserve the monarch butterfly. is citizener topic security and regional topics. have agreed to give privilege to the exchange of information and we have also privilege to coordinate efforts between law enforcement authorities. we will reinforce the measures aimed to fight money laundering and illicit financial flows area for that purpose, we need to integrate our financial systems further. we have also restated our commitment to support and cooperate with the central america as well as the caribbean because they are partners in this hemisphere. we have committed to foster development, economic growth and citizen security as well. basically, i have summarized the commitments made during this summit. we have committed, the three of all theive follow-up to agreements made. come a besides making agreements, we have committed to give follow-up to each one of these agreements and we have committed to make them happen. i would like to share with you that in order to reach our goal, we need to identify that north america is quite valuable. the free trade agreement theuted 20 years ago and intense dialogue that we have between our three countries in the north american region is -- every exchanges based on trust. we share a very good relationship. all of us will lead our countries. this north american leaders summit has been a very good opportunity to specify what our commitments will be and what are the tasks for the future? it has also served as a space to restate our friendship, good , andionship that we have the respect that we pay to each other. hardve committed to work to make significant contribution, to make north america a more competitive region. i would dare to say the most competitive region in the world. this is a region with a true calling for prosperity. we will work to provide better well-being to the citizens of our country. we have made great strides. due tote plenty of jobs the economic relationship we have managed to achieve. we want more development. we are aware of the potential that we find in north america. that thepledge so seventh summit of leaders of north america serves its purpose . once again, we welcome -- i would like to say that i hope you have had a very doesn't stay in toluca. i hope this visit has been very fruitful. i hope we are able to build an even stronger relationship. thank you. [applause] >> buenos noches. to the people of toluca and the people of mexico, thank you so much for your instrument rate -- extraordinary hospitality. thank you for welcoming us to your hometown and home state, which like the beautiful surmounting's tonight, reflect mexico's proud history as well as the economic dynamism of today's mexico. penat to thank president's nieto and prime minister harper. for the united states, canada and mexico, two of our largest rating partners support millions of american jobs. thanks in part to our efforts to boost american exports to canada and mexico, they are continuing to grow faster than exports to the rest of the world. strengthsies have that give north america a tremendous competitive advantage. the skills of our workers, manufacturing is growing, and new sources of energy. we have to take advantage of these competitive advantages and we need to do it together. be af this positions us to powerhouse of the global economy. that is why we are here, to make sure that we are doing everything we can to the more competitive and create more jobs. in canada, and mexico and in the united states. we are focused on making it easier to trade. earlier today i signed a new executive order to make it easier for companies that want to export and import. instead of dealing with dozens of different federal agencies, we are going to create a one-stop shop. companies can submit all their information in one place and save themselves time and money. we are going to keep investing in infrastructure like roads, bridges, border crossings, so our goods are getting to market faster. we have agreed to keep working to make it easier for our business people and tourists to trade and travel. we are going to step up our efforts to streamline and a limited regulations, the red tape that can sometimes stifle trade and job creation. we have agreed to keep working to complete negotiations on the partnership including strong protections for our workers and the environment so that we can compete in the fast-growing market of the asia-pacific. because it will prove the u.s. economy and make the united states more attractive to investors. and because we have to do right i our families and our values. immigration reform remains one of my highest priorities. wem also very pleased that have agreed to keep expanding educational partnerships. will developple the skills they need to succeed in the global economy. this builds on my initiative that we call 100,000 strong in the americas. we want more students from the united states studying throughout the hemisphere. we one more students from places like canada and mexico studying in the united states. that will serve them and serve our country as well for decades to come. deepen our clean energy partnerships with creech -- which create jobs and battle climate change. the united states will develop new fuel economy standards for heavy-duty trucks, standards that reduce carbon pollution. all three of our nations have agreed to work together to meet high fuel standards for these heavy-duty trucks. to joinadly, we agreed with our central american and caribbean partners on a regional energy strategy that builds on the command and -- the commitment i made in central america last year. on a global level, we agree to keep standing together as we push forth to phase down the production and consumption of dangerous hydrofluorocarbons. we know that realizing our full potential as individual countries and as a region means confronting the criminal traffickers who unleash so much violence on our citizens. here in mexico, the security sacrifices enormous and our three nations are united against this threat. in the united states, we continue to be committed to reduce the demand for illegal drugs and we will continue our unprecedented efforts to combat the southbound flow of illegal guns and cash. finally, given our shared commitment to democratic values, i want to take this opportunity to address the situation in and thea and ukraine unacceptable violence in those countries which the united states strongly condemns. in venezuela, the president is trying to distract from failings by making up acquisitions -- accusations against the united states. with the organization of american states, we call on the venezuelan government to release protesters that are detainment and engage in real dialogue. all parties have an obligation to work together to restrain violence and restore calm. , alonggard to ukraine with our european partners, we will continue to engage all sides. we continue to stress to president yanukovych and the ukrainian government that they have a primary responsibility to protect the kind of terrible violence we have seen, to withdraw a riot police, to work with the opposition, to restore security and human dignity and move the country forward. this includes progress toward a multiparty government that can work with the international community on a support package and adopt reforms necessary for free and fair elections next year. ukrainians are a proud and resilient people who overcome extraordinary challenges. that is a pride and strength i hope they draw on now. i urge the military and ukraine to show restraint and let civilians pursue the dialogue necessary for progress. we have seen reports of a truce between the government and the opposition. if the truce is implemented, it could provide states with a way to resolve their disagreements peacefully. we will continue to do whatever we can to support ukrainians as they seek a feasible solution in response to the aspirations of the ukrainian people for a strong, unified democracy. thank enrique and the people of mexico for their wonderful hospitality. if we stay focused on our shared , then progress in each of our countries will me more prosperity and opportunity for everyone. thank you very much. [applause] >> allow me to start out by nietoing president pena for his generous hospitality. we have had a wonderful stay in this wonderful country in mexico. we are eager to come back soon. today i had fruitful meetings and dialogues with my commercial partners from mexico. in regard to services, information and also shared and fundamental values, and of course our democratic and peaceful world, today we celebrate the 20th anniversary of nafta. as time can tell us, this treaty was successful and it started guaranteeing prosperity from one extreme to the other of the hemisphere. the volume of exchanges is fourfold now. over $30 billion. we have now seen exponential growth and can hope for exponential growth in years to come. we are in agreement to say that we can still grow the success of nafta to implement new ways. to thetance, in regard transpacific alliance. peace negotiations should be for the best. we need to create employment. this is the key to revitalize the economy and foster prosperity, not only for the canadian populations but for the -- our populations at large. our government will keep working in expanding the free trade and partners in north america as well as the asia-pacific region and worldwide. since we want to have access on the other side of the atlantic, since we have the free exchange agreement with europe. today, president obama, president pena nieto and myself -- have delvedo into many topics. especially the world economy at a local regional level and competitiveness, north american competitiveness. we are trick or treat trulyiastic -- we are enthusiastic with this idea of collaborating together. we shall keep on working make and to take a profit of all the occasions for the well-being of our populations. the forthcoming of the summit in canada. i would like to add a word in regard to the situation in ukraine. there has been a truce, but it is essential that we take action. at the end of the day, the ukrainian government has to be held responsible for settling this situation. the ukrainian government took actions, actions that were not only unpopular but actions that and theisk nature aspirations of ukraine becoming an independent nation. had a wonderful time here in beautiful mexico and i look forward to returning again soon. today we had productive meetings with canada's closest friends and trading partners, partners with whom we share goods, services and information and also fundamental values and a vision for a democratic and peaceful world. we mark the 20th anniversary of the north american free trade agreement. as only time can reveal, the agreement has been an overwhelmingly successful and is responsible for creating prosperity from the bottom to the top of the continent. there has been a fourfold growth in bilateral trade over the last 20 years that now exceeds $1 trillion. it is estimated that the marketplace will continue to expand exponentially in the decades to come. we agree that there is enormous potential to build on the success of nafta a new ways. most notably, through the transpacific partnership. focused on bringing those negotiations to a successful conclusion. developing trade is one of the keys to job creation. it is the key to economic vitality and it is the key to long-term prosperity, not just for the canadian people, but for all of our people. that is why our government will continue to work to expand trade with our partners in north america, the asia-pacific region , and around the world. just as we did last year when we expanded our access across the atlantic through the conclusion of the canada-european union comprehensive economic trade agreement. in our meetings today, residents ina nieto, obama and discussed a range of topics already discussed by my colleagues including the state of the global economy, international security and north american competitiveness. we share a genuine enthusiasm for closer collaboration. the presidents's and i will continue to work together to address the challenges of the 21st century. and i look forward to hosting the next american leaders summit in canada and would like to conclude with a word on the situation in ukraine. we're encouraged to hear the news of a truce. while this is good news, this kind of news, these kinds of words are only meaningful if they are put into action and ultimately, it is the regime that is responsible for resolving the situation. it is the regime that created the situation, not by taking decisions that were merely unpopular, but by undertaking decisions that went against the very nature and aspirations of ukraine as independent state. for that reason, we hold the government responsible and urge them to take all of the steps necessary to resolve the situation and to put ukraine and euro e democratic atlantic path that the ukrainian people desire. [applause] >> another round of question, jason mcdonald will interduse the journalist asking the question. >> omar from ctv news. >> mr. president, good evening to you. canada offered to work with the united states and joint rules to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the oil and gas sector. you have said the keystone xl pipeline won't be approved if it's significantly worsens climate change. the state department reported keystone will not have a significant effect on climate change. so my question to you is what more needs to be done on both sides of the border for this project to go ahead? prime minister, i would love for you to weigh in on this as well. >> i stated previously, there is a process that has been gone through, and i know it's been extensive and at times i'm sure steven feels a little too laborious but these are how we make these decisions about something that could potentially have significant impact on america's national economy and our national interest. the state dent has gone through its review. there's a comment period in which other agencies weigh in. that will be evaluated by secretary of state kerry and we will make a decision at that point. in the meantime, steven and i after lunch discussed working together around dealing with greenhouse gas emissions. this is something that we have to deal with. keystone iously how impacted greenhouse gas emissions would effect our decision. but frankly, it doesn't affect all of our decisions at this age because the science is irrefutable. we're already seeing severe weather patterns increase. it has consequences for our businesses, for our jobs, for our families, for safety and security. it has the potential of displacing people in ways that we cannot currently fully anticipate. and we will be extraordinarily costly. i welcome the work we can do together with canada. one of the wonderful things about north america is we had this amazing bounty of traditional fossil fuels and we also have extraordinary businesses that are able to extract them in various ways. and that's something that we should welcome because it helps to promote economic growth. but we only have one planet. so i believe that ultimately we an both promote economic development and growth, recognizing that we're not going to immediately transition off of fossil fuels but that we do have to point to the future and show leadership so that other countries who will be the main emitters fairly soon, china, india, other emerging markets, so that they can look at what we're doing and we have leverage over them in terms of them improving their practices as well. this will be a joint effort. i'm very excited to work with steven around those issues and keystone will proceed along the path it's been set forth on. >> let me just say a couple of things. first of all, obviously, president obama and i had an exchange on this. views to favor the project are very well known. his views on the process are also equally well known and we had that discussion and will continue on that discussion. i would say two things about the process. first, on the issue of climate change, which is a shared concern. can the united states have a similar target at the international level. we already cooperate in several sectors in terms of emission reductions. but in terms of climate change i think the state department report already was definitive on that particular issue. the other thing i just want to draw attention to just because i think it's useful to point out the benefits to canada is the eform that we have done in environmental review and assessment of projects in canada. as you know, a couple years ago we moved to reform our system so we have a single review wherever possible, single review, multidimensional review, that happens over a fixed time line. that's that is a process tremendously useful in giving investors greater certainty in terms of kind of plans they may ave in the canadian economy. translator: and now i shall epeat my comments in french. we, president obama have put the echo stone and i can only process erican president obama already proposed on. would like to comment in regard to process n regard to climate change, we do share these concerns not only the united states but worldwide. we are already collaborating in many sectors to abate the green gas effect emissions and at the -- we me we have understand that the state department conclusions are quite correct that we wish to forward investments throughout another america so we have established a review of systems for our period in determined and precise time line and these get much better results for our investors. >> next question from the traveling u.s. press gos to jim kunin of the associated press. >> prime minister harper, mr. president, i would like to ask you about trade. do you worry that longstanding opposition to trade deals in the u.s. put the president's party and some republicans pose a threat to the transpacific partnership and do you n. your minds, is it essential congress approve it or at least give the president fast track authority is year or can it wait until after the u.s. elections in november? mr. president, if you would like to chime in on that as well. you mentioned parochial interest today. i would be interested in knowing how you plan to bring your democrats along. but i had a question -- >> how many questions you have, jim? >> just one, sir. >> you know i have to answer that one too, right. that was a slick move. >> the common denominator in the strife in ukraine and syria is the support that those two governments get from russia. i'm wondering, sir, if you believe that president putin bears some responsibility for the intransigents of those two regimes and to some degree has this gone beyond just those two countries and has it become a tug of war between two world powers? >> let me answer this briefly on the trade issue. it's not accurate to say my party opposes opposes this trade. there are elements in my party that oppose this trade deal but elements in my party that oppose the south korea free trade agreement, colombia free trade agreement, panama free trade agreement, all of which we passed with democratic votes. so what i said to president nieto and prime minister harper is we will get this passed if it's a good agreement. and the key at this point is to make sure our countries, which hold ourselves up as champions our ee trade, result legitimate, national interests in knees negotiations so we can present a united front against a number of the other parents in the negotiations that don't have as much of a tradition as free trade. and that is to our advantage precisely because north america has this amazing comparative advantage and we're already relatively open markets. part of our goal here 0 to make sure the asia pacific region, growing pastor than any play in the world, has larger population than any place else in the world. that they have a model of trade that is free and fair and open and allows our businesses to compete and allows our workers to make goods and deliver services that those markets are purchasing. we can only do that if we raise the bar in terms of what our trade models look like. my own his to some of constituents opposed trade. those are who concerned about losing jobs or out-sourcing need to understand some of the old agreements put us at a disadvantage and that's exactly why we need stronger agreements that open up markets to our agriculture products, that make sure that when it comes to government procurement or sovereign funds in these other countries that they're not taking advantage of our businesses and preventing us from competing there. that's exactly why we've got to get this done and i'm very appreciative of the shared vision and commitment that prime minister harper and president nrique de nieto have on this issue. now, with respect for syria and ukraine. worth noting is you have one country that's been a client state of russia. and another whose government is currently been supported by russia, where the people obviously have a very different view and vision for their country. and we have now seen a great deal of turmoil there. that arose organically from within those countries. i don't think there's a competition between the united states and russia. i think this is an expression of the hopes and aspirations of people inside of syria and people inside of the ukraine who recognize that basic freedoms, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, fair and free elections, ability to run a business without paying a bribe, not be discriminated against because of your religion or your beliefs, that those are undamental rights. that everybody wants to enjoy. mr. putin has a view on many of those issues and don't think there's any secret on that. and our approach in the united states is not to see these as some cold war chess board in which we are in competition with russia. our goal is make sure people of ukraine are able to make decisions for themselves about their future, the people of syria are able to make decisions without having moms going off and killing women and children or chemical weapons or towns a despite ed because wants to cling to power. we will continue to express those national interests. there are times i hope where russia will recognize that over the long term, they should be on board with those values and interests as well. right now there are times where we had strong disagreements and i speak to mr. putin, i'm very candid about those disagreements. even as we will continue to pursue cooperation with russia on areas where we had shared concerns. but i want to emphasize this, the situation that happened in ukraine has to do with whether or not the people of ukraine can determine their own destiny. and you know, my government and vice president biden and i rsonally have expressed to president janakovich the need for him to recognize the spirit of the ukrainian people and work with that. as opposed to trying to repress it. so we will continue to stand on the side of the people. my hope is at this point that a truce may hold but steven is exactly right. ultimately the government is spom for making sure that -- responsible for making sure we shift towards some sort of unity government, even if it's temporary, that allows us to move to fair and free elections so that the will of the ukrainian people can be rightly expressed without the kinds of chaos we have seen on the streets, without the bloodshed that all of us i think strongly condemn. >> on the issue of transpacific partnership, we are wanting to see and committed to seeing a good, comprehensive, transpacific partnership trade agreement. i think it's in all of our interests for the reasons that ave already been laid out. with that said the government of canada's position is always clear in these matter that's we will only come to an agreement when we are convinced the agreement has been in the best interest of canada. we will stay at the table as that s it takes to get to particular situation. and i think we have the track record to prove it. our government, current government, canada, is trying more trade agreements than all previous canadian governments combined. what i will say is this -- i'm not going to comment on the process in congress. what i will say is this -- the reason i said what i said about working until we get an agreement that is in the interest of canada is we will have to an agreement that can be sold to the canadian parliament and ultimately to the canadian people. and that's what we're aiming for. [speaking french] translator: i repeat in regard to the transpacific agreement, alliance, the -- and in regard to our relations with the asia pacific region, we have our own perspective and we will negotiate up to the point where we will have an agreement on the table. and we need -- we need to show that our administration has subscribed more agreements than any other previous administrations -- administrations. o for the canadian government, it is essential to note that we can submit these proposals to the canadian parliament. i have always stated we have been part of the negotiation rounds to eventually reach an agreement of this important opportunity that the t.p.p. offers. we can expand the potential of north america into the asia pacific region. to be ould do its best on the side of the solution. overcome this agreement and eventual vote the negotiations rounds present. we hope if -- in this spirit that we reach agreement mexico has made a commitment and has shown political will to be part of the transpacific partnership. i hope that the deal happens. that is the mexican extent and we will work to the best of our ability to reach this goal. now on behalf of mexico, miguel from the mexican editorial ransition will ask a question. >> good evening, everyone. in light of the fact we celebrate the 23rd anniversary of the efforts made my mexico, united states and canada, we have nafta for 20 years, i would like to ask the president of my country, what is is the outlook of the northern part of this development? and what are the challenges for the development that we have hoped for, that we are expecting and i would like to ask the president of the united states of america, mr. obama, and mr. harper, prime minister of canada , what is the engagement we should expect? what is your commitment to make that gion north america we have 13 1/2 months of your administration, mr. enrique nieto and you partner, neighboring countries, what is your take on this 13 months and a half of the mexican president? thank you very much for your reply. translator: i believe we have been very candid in terms of the huge strength we see in north america after 20 years of the free trade agreement. our trade has been able to thrive. we have more commercial exchanges. we have more investments in the region and to date we have integrated, that is changed, between 0 our three countries that is that we are adding value this products that are offered in this great market. we are fully aware of the economic growth since so far we are fully aware of the creation of jobs in north america. that is why we have committed in his summit to take on action that would help us strengthen our economic ties further. to coveted to enable trade to have better infrastructure to have safer exchanges and to make our trade be easier. these are agreement we have made today and we have also acknowledged the enormous potential and future we see on the horizon it would be based on the strength we have built upon over the last of the course of the last 20 years and let us acknowledge we are three countries that we are three democratic countries, three countries who believe in free have foundur country a space to create jobs and have more developments in our nations. >> as we said throughout our meetings today, america's success, mexico's success, canadian success, are all bound together. i think if you just look at the facts mexico has made enormous strides over the last several decades and in part that is because we have seen a greater integration of mexico in the world economy. i think the united states and anada have played constructive roles in that. our ability to trade with mexico created jobs and opportunities in our country as well. so it's been a mutually beneficial partnership. based on self-interest but also, as enrique said, based on common values. and we have seen a consolidation of democracy here in mexico and i think the kinds of reforms that enrique initiated over the last 13 months are ones that will put mexico in the stronger competitive footing in the world economy, in the years to come. i recognize they're still implimentation issues that will be involved and healthy debate here in mexico. i'm confident given the talent of the mexican people, that the resources of the mexican people, given the growing capacity of mexican businesses and given the fact that we as a north america entity constitutes a huge trading block and economic powerhouse around the world, that we should anticipate mexico's growth to continue, standards of living to continue, jobs and opportunities to continue. and that's what we hope for all of our countries. i'm confident that the partnership we developed is good for the united states, creates jobs in the united states, helps businesses in the united states and if we continue to cooperate and try to reduce some of the barriers that have been in the past slowed down our commercial exchanges as well as educational exchanges, we will be uccessful. >> allow me this is our perspective canada has seen great success but the development of mexico throughout this time period that is 20 ears has been unbelievable socially, economically, politically, and mexico is becoming a world of power and we raising profits with the support of president nieto. we have made comments on the challenges to meet. i think the greatest one is the need to keep on increasing the flow of goods and services and information across our borders at a time where risks and threats to security are also increased across the borders. and that will be the greatest challenge to meet. >> look, i think the national relationship as i is have said before has been tremendously successful to all of us but i think looking back 20 years, the development of mexico and all of that and economical, social, political over the period has been incredible. it's a process that's accelerating under president pena nieto's very bold vision for the future and mexico is increasingly becoming a global economic player. you asked about challenges. i think the biggest single challenge is in an era where we are seeing a need to see, even greater movement of goods services, people, investments, information flow across our border that at the same time risks and threats and security across the borders continue to rise. so the big challenge will be how we continue to grow that human and trade flow while at the same time minimizing the risks. >> prime minister, would you like to take the floor so you can officially close this meeting? >> yes, i will, thank you very much. once again, i would like to myself for this summit we had built a climate based on trust and respect and we had worked towards a relationship that it's very clear in terms of the responsibilities of each one of the heads of state. and i am certain that this relationship will result in a greater intergation, stronger friendship and whatever we do for the sake of north america will benefit our people. i would like to bear testimony of how grateful i am towards the authorities of the state, governor of the state of mexico. we would like to thank you for enabling the summit to take place here. i would like to thank the chief , stice of the state of mexico employed us with their facilities and i would like to think they have also thank the capital city of toluca for their hospitality. i thank them. and i would like to thank all of them for the conveniences and all of the preparation work and all of the security operations needed for the summit. i'm very grateful towards them d i'm very grateful tors the hospitality given to the president of the united states and prime minister of canada barack obama and prime minister of canada, stephen harper. thank you very much. and have a safe trip home. thank you very much. >> on the next00 "walk journal" we will discuss the anti-government protests in ukraine with former u.s. ambassador john hirt. baron l reporter laura lopez on president obama's environmental policies and look at hillary clinton's political career with johnathan allen and amy -- with jonathan allen and amey - and amie parnes. "washington journal" begins at 7:00 a.m. eastern live on c-span. >> the all new c-span.org website is mobile friendly. you can access our comprehensive coverage of politics, nonfiction books, and american history where you want, when you want, an how you want. our new site's responsive design scales to fit any of your screens, from the monitor of your desk top computer, to your laptop, tablet, or smart phone. whether you're at home, at the office, or on the go, you can watch c-span's live coverage of washington. check our program schedule or our ex-tense i library whenever and wherever you want. the new c-span.org website makes it easy for you to keep an eye on what's happening in washington. that eport was released there would be a loss of jobs. this is just over an hour. >> he has a fasters and doctorate in economics from harr var he taught at harr var and was on the staff of the council economic advisors an served as deputy assistant secretary. just before heading the c.b.o. he was senior fellow in the economic studies at brookings. we're on the record here, no live blogging or tweeting while the session is under way. there's no embargo when the session ends except our friends at c-span agrowed not to air the proceedings until one hour after the breakfast is over. if you want to ask a question, send me a subtle, nonthreatening signal and i'll recognize you. we'll turn to our guests for pening comments. >> i want to talk about some reports released a few weeks ago. , for millions of americans the most destructive aspect of the economy. in our view the slow recovery labor market stems primarily from slow growth in the demand for goods and services and to a smaller extent from various structural factors. our analysis shows that considerable slack remains in the labor market. we estimate that the economy is about six million jobs short of where it would be. unemployment was down back to its prerecession level and the work force participation level was back up to where it would be without the current cyclical weakness. looking ahead to curn federal laws, we expected the unemployment rate to decline to 5.% by the end of the 2017 and o 5 1/2% by 2024, reflecting both a strengthening economy and strengthening demand for workers but also the waning of some of the structural factors pushing the unemployment rate today. we think the labor force participation rate, shown in the middle panel, will move down, despite some upward pressure from a strengthening labor market and from drawing workers back in the labor force. there will be continued downward pressure on the participation rate from demographic changes particularly the retirement of the baby boom generation. on balance, we think the participation rate will decline or the coming quarter. the bottom panel shows the same pressures. there will be some pressure upward on that rate as firms feel the need to hire more workers but there will be ongoing downward pressure from demographic factors and some aspects of fiscal policy. on balance, we think the employment and population ratio will rise a little bit but decline further after that. i hope that after some of the attention to other aspects of our recent work, you'll have a chance to go back and take a look at this report, it covers some very, very important issues for the u.s. economy. i'll stop there and try to answer your questions. >> thanks for doing that. n a profile of you in "the washingtonian," one of your predecessor was quoted as saying if the folks who brought you to the dance want to drive you home at the end of it, you haven't done your job. based on the reaction to the c.b.o. studies of the affordable care act and the effect on the minimum wage act you seem to be doing your job. yesterday on a phone call with reporters, betsy stevenson of the down soifl economic advisors said that c.b.o. is, quote, not fully appreciating how much the literature has moved, unquote, on spillover effects of raising the minimum wage. what made you and your team take the approach you did, estimating a loss of about 500,000 jobs and benefiting about 16.5 million workers when according to the c.e.a. the bulk of economic studies have concluded that the effects on employment of minimum wage increases in the range new under consideration are likely to be, quote, small to nonexistent. >> i don't want to respond directly to what they have said, we try to talk about our analysis and let others talk about theirs but i want to be clear that our analysis of the effects of the min wum wage -- minimum wage is consistent with the latest thinking in the economics profession. we did an exhaustive review of the literature in this area, up through reports released last month. very large number of studies, as you know, reach a range of conclusions and the studies all have strengths and weaknesses. in the long method logical appendix to our report, we talk about the characteristics of studies that made them more or less compelling in our view. but a balanced reading of the set of research studies in this area led us to conclude that an increase in the minimum wage was probably -- would probably have a small negative effect on employment but there was substantial uncertainty around the estimate as we reported. naturally, some economists focused more on studies that show smaller employment effects. other economists focused on studies that showed larger employment effects. our responsibility for the sconk to report the noifled distribution of possible outcomes and the possible range of possible outcomes. that's what we've done in this report. if you try to compare our analysis to other economists -- to what other economists have said, it's hard because most other economists don't have to put numbers behind the words of their evaluations. but we have looked at some of these other statements by economists, one place one might look is a survey conducted by economists a at the university of chicago, they ask a panel of leading economists from across the country questions on economic policy on a regular basis. when they asked that panel about the effects of raising the minimum wage to $9 an hour a year ago, about half of economists who had some answer to that question said that that increase to $9 would make it, quote, noticeably harder, unquote, for low-skilled workers to find employment. about the other half of the economists responding to that survey said that it would not make it noticeably harder for low-wage workers to find employment. in ourage sthoifs effects of raising the minimum wage to $9 we give a range from reduction in employment of .5% to a slight increase in employment. we don't know exactly what the response to that survey meant by noticeably harder. but if noticeably harder means a 2.5% reduction in employment then our range of to.5% to a slight increase seems to map quite nicely into half of those economists thinking it would be noticeably harder and half thinking it wouldn't be. another place one might look is to the letter signed by several hundred economists advocating an increase in the minimum wage. of course that's not a random sample of economists, that's a set of economists who support raising the minimum wage and they are presumably disproportionately those who think the effect on employment would be smaller. but i'm not sure we would disagree with their statement of the evidence. what they said is that -- if i can find my copy of it. what they said is that there would be increases in the minimum wage have had little or no negative effect on the employment of minimum wage workers, unquote. again, they don't say what they mean by little in that statement. the increase in the minimum wage we looked at that is most analogous to the increases studied in the research literalture is a $9 increase. so we estimate from a 2.5% reduction to a slight increase. without knowing what little means that range we have looks to me like a little reduction to essentially no change. the last thing i'll say on this is that we also look, as you know, at the effect of raising the minimum wage to $10.10. in addition to looking at the effect of raising it to $9. and we estimate that raising the minimum wage to $10.10 would have a much larger effect on employment but still i think a small effect but larger than the effect of raising the minimum wage to $9 and that difference is for good reasons. the first point to recognize is that raising the minimum wage to $10.10 would affect a lot more people than raising it to $9. so we stim the number of people whose wages would go up would be much larger for the $10.10 raise. 16.5 million as posed to .5 million. there's many more people -- as opposed to 7.5 million. but we think there would be a larger reduction in employment for that larger pool. we offer a number of reasons for that, let me highlight two of them. one is the increase to $10.10 we talked about, after some legislation being considered by the congress, is the index for inflation at that point. that's different from the past experience with the federal minimum wage and many raises at state levels where we have raised in nominal terms and then fixed it at a higher nominal level that eroded in real terms over time. the $10.10 model would be adjusted for inflation. it would be higher not just to start with but on an ongoing basis. secondly, the increase to $10.10 cuts much more deeply into the distribution of wages than an increase to $9. you can see this on the cover of the report. the increase to $9 puts the minimum wage back up near the 10th percentile of workers' wages. an increase to $10.o10 puts it much higher than that, higher to relative distribution of wages than any point in the 40 years we cover here. cutting further into the wage distribution, both because it's a large increase and because it's starting from minimum wage the level it's at, that means that employers will face a larger shock in their costs and have more incentive to incur the adjustment costs that would be needed to make larger changes in their work forces. we think there are very good economic reasons for why the $1.10 index increase would have a bigger effect on employment than the increase at $9 and the $9 increase we analyzed which is the increase that's most comparable to what analysts have found in the past, we think our estimates are consistent with the balance of the evidence. let me just say one thing myself. you've got about a year left in your term, a little less. do you feel that you are the c.b.o. director who has worked in the most extreme political conditions? and if so, has it changed the reaction either to this or the reaction to the affordable care act study or any others, has it changed how you and your colleagues do your work? >> when i became director i was taken out to lunch by my predecessors as a group. and they all told stories of their experiences and it was the sort of lunch where afterwards you wonder whether i did the right thing by signing up for the gig. i think my predecessors all have stories to tell. i cannot compare my experience to them. but i will say that we worked quite hard and very carefully on all sorts of issues that don't see -- a lot of public attention. and we worked very hard and carefully on issues that do receive public attention. that method of working doesn't differ we're focused on trying to find the best possible estimate so that congress has the best information to work with. we do that across the board in all sorts of estimates that are -- that matter a lot to one committee or a small set of people and estimates that matter a lot to a large crowd. and we don't take them -- face them any differently based on the attention they get or whether we think there will be more or less adverse reaction from different people. that's not what we do. >> two-part question. obviously you were at brookings, you worked in the clinton treasury department, a lot of democrats figured you'd give them the benefit of the doubt on issues like minimum wage. how do you see keeping politics out of your analysis? and the second question, what are you guys working on next that we can be ready for? >> on the first question, my personal views about economic policy are completely irrelevant to the work we do. the personal views of my colleague's economic policy are completely irrelevant to the work we do. congress does not care what we would do personally about policy and they should not kear about that. they've hired us to do objectiveage sess and that's what we do. that what hundreds, maybe thousands of people have done at c.b.o. that's what a string of directors has done at c.b.o. for 39 years. second question, we're working on lots of things. i don't have anything -- any particular scoops to give you. >> feel free to blurt something out if it comes to you. paul. >> in your budget and economic outlook, you estimated that as a result of the affordable care act there would be reduced demand for jobs to the tune of about 2 1/2 million by the end of 10 years. and then in this minimum wage report, you're talking about a reduced demand by employers if the minimum wage is raised. is there any kind of interaction or overlap between, on the one hand, people demanding less work and on the other hand, employers having less demand for workers up? e wage gos >> ourage sthoifs affordable care act on the labor market under current law and the analysis of the potential effects of the minimum wage are more or less independent. labor market is affected by a number of factors. r the affordable care act we estimated a reduction in the supply of labor because the affordable care act reduces the incentive to work by a little bit, through a variety of channels, and i think you think -- you should think of it as a separate question from what the effect of the minimum wage increase would be. the minimum wage increase educes the demand for workers. if it was passed into law, our future projections would take onboard that, as well as the affordable care act as well as other things in the economy. but there's no particular nteraction between them. >> on the same two issues, the affordable care act and the minimum wage, are those first order? for the affordable care act does that take into account what happens after the 2 ppt 5 million people leave and more people want those jobs and that has an effect on wages and hiring, and separately with the minimum wage, you'll have to arrange -- you'll have a reaning of employment effects but you say people will have higher wages. is there a multiplier you factor in to have an a second order effect of what happens in the job market as a result of those? >> in ourage sthofse affordable care act we focused on the labor markets in the second half of the coming decades. we expect it to be back closer to its traditional balance between the supply of workers and demands of workers. we talked a bit in that appendix about what would happen between now and then but the quantify case we offered was for the second half of the decade so that's the point at which we think those looking for work can find work. so that the people who withdraw from the labor force at that point would not be -- would work fewer hours while still working, would not be replaced by other people stepping up. in our analysis of the effects of raising the minimum wage, we have focused on the period in 2016 because this is e-- because that's the point at which they'd be phased in, would be fully phased in and the employment effects, the estimates do corporate the effects of redistribution of income toward people more likely to to spend the money and thus the boost in demand for goods and services and boost in employment that would come from that. >> the 2.5 million is a small increase are both able to -- >> an equilibrium of some sort. >> steven back in the cheap seats. >> it seems like over the last 10 years, these are my words, it seems like members of congress have found ways to game the 10-year budget window and we see doc fix payments, 10 years of pay-fors pushed into one year of spend chg is a structural thing that they'll have to come back again and again and again. i'm wondering if new have any -- if you have any constructive criticism for members of congress about process or how to approach c.b.o. with this and i ess second of all if there's -- i don't know if you guys do, when you do your scores, for example, if you borrow over 10 years to pay for -- if you spend now and then you end up paying for it over 10 years, presumably, especially with the current deficit, there's a debt cost that builds up. i don't know if you include that 10-year debt cost in the early debt service in your estimate, can you do that? should you do that? >> we don't include that in our normal estimate we offer year by year costs and provide a straight sumation for those 10 years. i think members of congress understand that policies incur additional debt service. it's hard to know how particular policy will affect debt service. we now have the -- the government is financing existing debt, we can make projections of hat will happen overall. i don't think our not including that extra, whatever it would be, 10%, 15%, 20%, charge, would really affect the fiscal policy. i think it's understood across the congress that there are debt ervice implications. >> a 10-year look back, it wound necessarily be included in a situation like where you had an immediate deficit increase either in the last three years or over 10 years, correct? >> one of my predecessors said a number of years ago, different context, process isn't the problem, the problem is the problem. so i'd like to use that line ere. where we think there are important differences beyond the 10-year window, we try to look beyond the 10-year window and our analysis of health care reform legislation, our analysis of immigration legislation, our analysis of climate legislation that was discussed a number of years ago and a few other cases, we look out beyond the 10-year window. those are situations where we think the policy being contemplated would have markedly different effects that we should bring to the attention of the congress and congress can be interested in looking beyond the 10-year window. but i don't think in general the cutoff of 10 years changes much rom if we cut off at 15 or 20. >> you mentioned immigration. you did a sort of die nam exscoring, figuring out how the labor would effect. -- affect. do you expect c.b.o. will be doing dynamic score manager broadly for taxes and spending? >> no, i do not. we do -- we did 500 formal cost estimates last year. maybe 10 times as many informal stifments for committees developing proposals. for 99% of the proposals, there would be no noticeable macroeconomic effects. the time required to do macroeconomic estimates would be immense and would basically paralyze the workings of congress on so many issues. i want to draw a real distinction between that set of estimates that's most of our work and the work we do on a few pieces of legislation that would have macroeconomic effects. immigration is a case where the goal of the legislation in the minds of many people and the reason to be opposed to it in the minds of other people is the significant change in the size of the u.s. labor force. people felt -- c.b.o. people felt a number of years ago that given that this was so integral to the legislation, pretending there would be no chame to the labor force would be so much at variance with the issues congress was confronting that we needed to reach beyond our normal approach. so c.b.o. did a number of years ago and did again last year, separate analysis beyond the normal cost estimate that looked at some of those macroeconomic effects. i said that congress would be contributing an overhaul of the u.s. tax code that would have significant effect, we would be happy to do am sis of those effects as well. but i think those situations are correctly viewed as rare exceptions. exceptions in the cases where it really matters. where the congress is -- congress' object i haves or the issues at stake are around the labor force or the size of the economy. that's not true for so much of hat we do. >> [inaudible] >> the economic effects of tax reforms, c.b.o. has doneage sthoifs changes in tax policy. we do an analysis almost every year of the effects of the president's budget. to remind you how this works, we normally release an estimate of the president's proposal, conditioned on our baseline economic projection, analogous to how we would do a cost estimate and then follow that up, maybe a month later, with an economic analysis of the president's proposals. ose economic analysis take into account the effective changes through tax rules and other things. those are separate pieces of work. it's a good example of a case where economic analysis takes about a month after the basic budget analysis is finished. i said this, starting with the joint select committee on deficit reduction in which some members were considering tax reform if they put forward a tax reform proposal, we'd do an analysis of its economic effects. that would be separate from the basic estimates. it would come mostly from the staff they have joint committee on taxation, probably. these are separate pieces of work that we've offered, that we did for immigration and we've offered to do in the case of tax reform. >> the score of the tax reform bill not have that die nam exscoring? >> it would not have those effects. >> what is -- can you talk a little bit about what the experiences of states that had expanded coverage, how that informed your analysis of labor force participation in the most recent report? and secondly, just very quickly, i think it's been a couple of years since you guys have done an analysis of changing the tax treatment of health insurance and fwiven the apparently renewed interest among some on the hill in that particular subject, any plans to revisit that? >> so the first question, we looked at what happened in some states that expanded health insurance coverage but there are some -- but there aren't very many of them that have done something that's particularly analogous to the affordable care act. so our estimates were based mostly on evidence from other circumstances. i mentioned two sorts of evidence, one is the phasing out of subsidies in insurance exchanges. as your income rises under the affordable care act. creates an implicit tax. to estimate the effect of that, we used literature on how changes in explicit tax rates have affected labor supply and did a review of that literature a year or two ago, wrote a set of three papers explaining how we read the literature and the estimates we drew from it system of we used that literature to estimate the effects of the changes and the exchange subsidies. for the >> for the effects of medicare, we look at states that had contracted medicare in the past. some of the states that have done and affordable care act type of reform had done that. and morea much larger robust literature. the second question, actually one of the approaches to deficit reduction we analyze in our report last fall were changed in the tax treatment of health insurance. i refer you to our reports on the. mind, can yout talk a little bit -- there is massachusetts and there are other states that have more limited medicaid expansion. how does that evidence a job or not jibe with the tax analysis of subsidies in terms of measuring? o estimate the effects of the affordable care act on labor markets we had to keep track of a lot of different channels. that providing health insurance subsidies to low income people would reduce the incentive to work is not something that is a novel idea on our part. we wrote about it in the summer, 2009 before there were any proposals. we estimated in terms of the basic factors, but to do the quantitative ex-pats, we had to follow a lot of different channels. we chew on the test evidence we could. and i think the effects of the medicaid expansion we estimated separately from the effects of the changes in subsidies. these two literatures that we drew on were distinct literatures. and which are the lessons from each of them to apply here so you have to go back to the affordable care act. update for me some statements you made at a hearing about the role of uncertainty in the marketplace and its effect on the economy? is it waxing or waning from 2011? >> we and a lot of other analyst think uncertainty about federal policies as wade on the recovery, but neither we nor other analysts have been successful in quantifying them. we have expressed concern about uncertainty over fiscal policy, regulatory policy, health care, the financial system, and energy regulation. uncertainty about federal fiscal policy is a little smaller today than it was in 2011. the expiring tax cuts from 2003 have been mostly extended and partly allowed to expired. so, there is no cliff or deadline right around the corner. the uncertainty about appropriations seems to have been settled, at least at the overall level for this fiscal year to the next fiscal year. not to say that the congress could come back to that issue, but there is at least some specific plan that has been agreed to. we think that those developments have reduce uncertainty about fiscal policy. panelists can read in our studies and elsewhere the fact that the federal budget is on an unsustainable fact. -- path. clearly future adjustments of some sort will need -- be needed, whether taxes or spending or both. we can't really quantify it now. >> [indiscernible] >> there is less uncertainty than there was? >> yes. and we think that is a positive factor for the economy. >> david? >> there was a lot of relief the budget deal went for two years, we get two years of spending numbers as opposed to one year. there are proposals out there to go to a two-year budget. what does the president have on those? -- what are the pros and cons of those? >> i think as the manager of a very small part of the federal government, it certainly would be helpful for us to know what our funding will be sometime in the future. presumably that is much more important for people running large and complicated parts of government. i think for the managers of government operation to have a better sense of where their funding is going would be very useful. on the other hand, congress takes advantage of the appropriations process to recalibrate where it thinks federal funds, taxpayer funds are best spent. if you try to put that on autopilot at the individual agency function level, congress loses that flexibility. it is not for us to say how congress should balance those appropriations. >> we have gone for four years without going through the process, hopefully trying to get back to it -- >> that brings up another good point though, which is the question is not so much what the official processes. the question is, how does the process work? if we look well inside in the fiscal year what the amounts would be, the budget would not make that much difference. i think it is the official process that matters and the way the process unfolds. >> danielle? >> [indiscernible] i'm curious, is it possible in the proposals out there, there is a happy medium? that the minimum wage hike would have less of an impact on unemployment, but still increase paychecks? >> i do not want to speculate too much. i would say there is no particular trick in the analysis we are doing here and what economists have found for passing minimum wage increases. we estimate that if the minimum wage were raised to the vast majority of people affected by an increase would keep their jobs and receive higher wages. the middle of the two estimates -- somewhere like 97% or 99% would receive higher wages and the family incomes would be higher as a result. at the same time, one percent, three percent of people would not be able to find employment. i think as you lose larger increases in minimum wage, you are likely to find progressively larger numbers of people who benefit from raising wages and larger numbers who face reduction in employment. >> [indiscernible] pelosi's said your report conclusions contradict the consensus among hundreds of america's top economist. you disagree with that assertion. do you think that letter sent by the economist said that increases in minimum wage have little to no effect on the income of minimum wage workers -- you seem to think that your report lined up with that assessment by "the economist." do you think that that loss would have little to no impact on unemployment? >> i will not speak directly to what leader pelosi has said. i can only speak about our analysis. as i said before, our analysis is quite consistent with the latest thinking by economists. i know about this letter and the survey i referred to is those economists do not put numbers to their words. it is hard to know what they meant by "little to no effect." it is hard to know what people meant in the survey by "noticeably harder to find a job." the nine dollar increase is most consistent with what economists studied in the past in terms of the relative increase. our analysis of the proposal suggests the decline in employment would be between 2.5% and a slight increase, and i think a 2.5% decline would be a small decline or little decline and a slight increase would be consistent with no effect, roughly. so, i don't think one can sell from the statement in this -- i don't think one can tell from the statement in this letter. we are not sure how that economist would take this report. i do not think you can tell anything from that particular wording. nor can you tell, nor does that wording prove that those economists would agree with the finding. what we have done ourselves is to do a reading of literature and we have put weights on a wide range of results. some economists will undoubtedly find our estimates of the effects to be larger than they would put themselves and others would find our estimates to be smaller than they would pick themselves. our job is to provide economists with a balanced reading, and we have done that. >> i'm sorry. >> [indiscernible] i'm wondering if you could put a percentage to what are the chances that the impact could be far lower? say 100,000? >> the range that we provided for in minimum wage increase to $10.10 is a very slight increase. we constructed this range to capture, as best we can judge, two thirds of the distribution. that means in our judgment, there is a 16 chance that the effects of the minimum ways -- minimum wage raised to $10.10 would reduce implement and a two thirds chance that there would be a slight decrease in an increase of about one million workers. >> does this reaction from democrats apprise you at all, or is this something you expected? >> we take great pains in doing analysis, to consult with people doing a wide range of views. if you take a look at the people we list in our documents, you will see from knowing their own work that they are taking this restaurant with very different -- came to this question with very different sets of views on what would happen. we understand there will be differences between policymakers and compensators outside of cbo and the cbo. that does not surprise us, nor does it have any affect on the work that we do. >> [indiscernible] when you scored the aca, you score the legislation language, implementation, etc. is there anything we should be talking about as the executive branch changes the deadlines for the individual market or the employer that would make us reconsider or reevaluate the fiscal impact of the affordable care act in the short-term or long-term, especially since the administration has been so interested in saying it is already bending the cost curve in health care? >> part of our regular updates to our budget projections, we update the effects of the coverage provisions of the affordable care act. we do not update the effects of medicare changes or the revenue changes, because those parts of the affordable care act may change it to a large body of existing law, and it is not possible at this point she really entangle the effects of -- to really entangle the effects of the affordable care act with the pre-existing law and medicare. the affordable care act is not really separable from those parts of medicare law. insurance is separable because they are essentially building a new superstructure on the rest of the federal law. just the nature of arguing the baseline projection -- we get estimates regularly on the process of the insurance coverage provisions. the effects of those provisions on the budget have not changed substantially since 2010. we have incorporated a slew of new analysis, a slew of changes from what we expected and the way the laws being implemented. but on balance the effect of the budgetary changes of the provision year-over-year is not much different than what we said for years ago. the 10-year totals, which you will hear about, has changed because the 10-year budget window is a number of years further in the future and it was four years ago. but on a year to year basis, the various changes made by the administration in implementation and the -- as the result of the supreme court decision, development and the health-care system, an analysis by us and others, all those things on balance of not changed the budgetary estimates very much. it will be part of the spring line estimates, once again updating those projections. i do not know when that will come out. you all will get to know about that at the same time together in a few months. as for the affordable care act impact on cost, we have said before, we do not know what effect those provisions are having. there is a growing literature of economists analyzing the slowdown in health care costs over the last dozen years or so. we did a report last summer on medicare spending growth. we look that affects actually before the affordable care act. we look at the effects of the business cycle which will not be detectable. over time, economists will study the question, and then we will know. we do not know now. there are a few specific channels where the affordable care act brought down payments to medicare providers. that reduces federal health care spending, national health care spending. but the effects on the way medical care is being practiced in the private sector, that is not something we have any analysis of in the moment. >> [indiscernible] economists are still thrashing around a bit over issues related to the great depression in the 1930's. economist's look at things over time. i think the challenge would be affordable care act is some of the channels that may affect health care spending a rather indirect. one can tote up the effect on medicare payments to providers, but the extent to which the spread of accountable care organizations or medicare readmissions to hospitals, the extent to which those changes and law will hold over to how medicare -- health care is delivered outside of medicare are subtle connections and i think they will be hard to detect. i suspect in a few years certainly you will see clever research that will be trying to get at that. >> mark? >> thanks. [indiscernible] the forecast but you have, which interests me -- do you see that happening mainly as a result of demographic aging, or a long-term diminishing of all age groups or younger workers? and what are the implications of that? it seems to me, that talks about thinking well, 6.5% unemployment is a threshold where they say it is likely we will keep interest rates low for a lot longer than that, maybe because of precipitation -- participation coming back. is your message to the feds, maybe we should start thinking about raising rates sooner? >> i will step back just a bit. [laughter] if you think about the last decade, part of the decline is the aging of the population and part of the decline is the diminishing participation within me age groups. we think that there will be some decline within age groups, but not very much. those effects are mostly waning. if you look ahead at what is going on over the next decade, it is the aging of the population. we are moving from an age where most people work to an age when most people do not work. that is resulting in a rise in medicare participation. but the labor participation rate has been pushed down by the economy. if the demand for workers was stronger, if the demand for products were so strong that they would hire workers, we think that the participation rate would be a percentage point higher than it is today. we think that there are nearly 3 million people who are out of the labor force who would come back in if the demand for workers was stronger. that's about 3 million people who are in the labor force, but unemployed, they would go back to work if the economy is stronger. the economy as about 6 million jobs short of where it would be. the participation rate, we will be back to where we we were without the weakness. looking at that, there is a great deal of slack left in the economy. how that influences the fed's policymaking is an issue for someone else. >> so your forecast is predicting that that slack might not be absorbed? >> no, i think the slack will diminish, mostly between now and 2017. we think the economy is strengthening. not every week or every month, but we think on balance the economy is strengthening and that will push up the demand for workers and bring down the unemployment rate and that factor will tend to push up the participation rate. you do not see, because that is being upset by the downward pressure by the demographic. >> kevin? >> aca is going to take 2000 jobs -- but we are going to -- [indiscernible] a question about the aca, following up my colleague's question, the participation rate suggests you did not waive the massachusetts experience, and i wonder how that would fit in? how do you manage that? in a perfect world if you could do it all over again, would you feel the aca part of the outlook -- we don't know, we won't know for a while. is that helpful or has it muddy the waters a bit? >> our responsibility is to give congress are projections of what will happen to the economy under current law. one aspect of current law that impinges the labor market is the affordable care act. we have no choice but to produce analysis of how the affordable care act and other features of the tax system and transfer system will affect the labor market and other parts of the economy. it is the responsibility to them and the responsibility to explain our analysis as clearly as we can. when we thought there was sufficient misunderstanding in what we had done, we decide -- we wanted to think further in this process. we thought there it been a misunderstanding. as for the massachusetts experience, that is an example of something that is something somewhat like the affordable care act, but it's not exactly like the affordable care act in a whole collection of ways. and it is just one state and not a randomly selected state out of the 50 states. we have looked at the experience there. but we don't think that is more compelling than the evidence from many, many analyses of the effect of high tax rates on labor supply and the number of analyses on the expansion on many aspects of labor supply. so, we put our emphasis on that broader literature, based on out broader set of experiments. >> the massachusetts experience did not result in net job losses? you did not see that behavior? >> it is hard to know what the effects of the massachusetts health reform was on labor markets in massachusetts. i do not know enough myself to speak rarely do it. labor markets are affected by a lot of different things. extracting any particular factor is difficult. we estimated a few years ago, and still, i think very strongly, that the american recovery act spurred employment and output relative to what otherwise would have happened in this country. at the same time, a lot of other factors were affecting employment. >> [indiscernible] >> we don't use words like that. [laughter] >> i won't. >> but you can't just look up a time series and determine what influence the economy? >> we've got about 10 minutes left. let's go to boston and chris moody before we do a second round. >> how do you compare projections that you and others thought compared to what actually happened, both with jobs and deficits? again with health care -- would you be willing to serve another term when this one is up? >> on the first question, there have been a number of analyses of the effects of the recovery act on the economy. they have reached a set of different conclusions. we still think in that case the more powerful evidence comes from a long history of research on the effects of federal changes in spending and taxes. we get some weight to the research that focuses specifically on the recovery act, but we give weight to studies that looked over time to all-time the changes in taxes. we have drawn on this case and a working paper a year or so ago. our assessment is essentially what it was five years ago, which is the recovery act by raising federal spending and cutting taxes spurred the demand for services in the economy at a time when demand was a factor. by doing that the recovery act raised employment substantially compared to what would have been otherwise. on the second question, i love my job and i'm focused on doing it this year. >> ok. chris? >> the media landscape has changed, particularly with the rise of social media. a lot of hot political issues get amplified on twitter when someone writes a headline that is not particularly accurate. we saw that in the health care study. that just if amplified on -- gets amplified on twitter. all of a sudden the message is gone. it is just the narrative. can you explain when there is a paper that you have worked on that is thousands of pages long and is -- gets reduced to a tweet? >> we tried to write as clearly as we can about our analyses. in this case, the effect of the affordable care act on the him labor markets -- on the labor market, i think we were quite clear. the changes would come almost entirely from decisions by workers on where and how much to work. at the same time, we recognize in this case and many others, the work that we do is technically complicated and people who read it will misunderstand it sometimes. and it is a regular part of our process to look at what people have written about our work and give them a call if we think they have misunderstood it. we reach out to you if we read something that we think shows that not everything was clear. we do the same thing, of course, with the people on the hill for whom we work. if we see misunderstandings in our work, basically we try to clarify them. it seems to me there are a growing number of people who are interested in serious quantitative analysis of public policy. i think that is a great thing for folks like myself who do serious quantitative analysis of public policy. but you are right, there is a faster feedback loop in the commons and there has been before -- in the comments that there has been before. >> is there someone in the cbo that watches twitter and sees the narrative shaping up? >> almost every journalist who is here, who you know, is watching what is happening. we are not a very large place. probably any given area you can name, there are fewer people doing that then you might expect. we rely on a few really good people to watch our territory. that is true in our communication strategy. that is also true and how we do our i.t. and all of the areas analyzed by the congress. we try to get the most out of the funds we receive. our job is mostly to speak to the congress. we think it is important that the reporting of our work be accurate, because we recognize many members and staffers in the congress won't go to our website necessarily. they will learn about our work through something else they read. it's very important to have that the right. but our job is basically do the analysis and give to congress, to be -- give it to congress, not to be the hall monitor in the twitterverse. >> i think that is the quote for the morning. paul, all come to you. >> are you taking a more in-depth look at the proposals on the labor market than you did in the past, and if so is that because you have more sophisticated models? >> one of the areas we have focused on in the last five years at cbo is to strengthen our modeling of the affect on the labor market in the economy. that is a crucial issue for congress. a lot of proposals to deal with the growing budget deficits and debt have involved significant changes in policy that would affect the economy and potentially important ways, and we think as we look at changes in immigration policy that are being considered, changes in tax policy that might be considered, we need to be able to give congress estimates, analysis that is at the cutting edge of what the economics profession can do. we have spent time building up models in that area. we have looked in other areas as well, obviously. we have strengthened our modeling of the health insurance system for people under age 65. we have strengthened our modeling of the health insurance system for people over age 65. part of what we need to do at cbo all the time is to do the analytic work to be ready for the policy proposals when they come. i think we mostly had that target and i'm glad when we do. when we don't, we regret it.

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