Transcripts For CSPAN Washington This Week 20120915

both chambers of congress return to session next week, but not until wednesday due to the observation of russia sean on monday. the house gavels in a 2:00 p.m. for legislative work with votes after 6:30. on the agenda next week -- resolution of disapproval aimed at blocking the obama administration's recent changes to the welfare law. also expected -- a package of five energy and environmental bills aimed at boosting energy production and job creation. follow the house live here on c- span. and the senate gavels in to continue work on a veterans' jobs bill. also next week, a 2013 -- also next week, a 2013 federal spending. the house considers a resolution that would fund the government for six months, starting october 1. live senate coverage as always on c-span2. >> we can keep investing in wind and solar and clean coal and farmers and scientists can harness new biofuels. our construction workers can build homes and factories that waste less energy and retrofit old buildings. put them back to work. >> i will take advantage of our oil, our coal, our gas, our nuclear, our renewable. north america will be energy independent within eight years. >> what to engage with c-span as the presidential campaigns move towards the october debate -- watch and engage. energy policy is likely one of the topics in the first 90- minute debate wednesday the third period audience questions take stage in a town hall format tuesday the 16th. and foreign policy, the focus of the final debate, the 22nd. also watch the vice-presidential candidates' debate on thursday the 11th. coverage of key house and senate races, looking at the control of congress. follow our coverage on c-span, c-span radio, and online at c- span.org. >> next, the senate science committee holds a hearing on the future of nasa's mars rover. it landed on the red planet august 5, and we will hear testimony from scientists leading the mission. it is a little more than two hours. >> i was waiting to see the arrival time of senator hutchinson. what we will do is go ahead and get some of the introductions done so that when she arrives, we will be able to get right into the meat i want to thank everyone for being here in what will be an extraordinary hearing. it is interesting that today is the fifth and it -- 50th anniversary of president kennedy's speech, where he said, "we choose to go to the moon." that bold challenge would be met within seven years. when niel -- neil stepped down that lunar lander latter, it was one of the country's proudest and most vivid in moments -- ridding -- riveting moments, a reminder of how triumph can unite our nation. i happened to be a lieutenant at the time of broad, and i saw that unification of the people of planet earth at that time. we reflected on such a triumph earlier this summer when curiosity landed on mars, and we reflected on the ingenuity and talent that is required for those extraordinary achievements a few weeks ago when, sadly, we heard of neil armstrong's passing. so tomorrow morning, at the national cathedral, the country will bid farewell to one of our most cherished heroes. it is with his spirit in our hearts and president kennedy's vision in our minds that we look today at nasa's overall exploration program. the whole world was captivated by the harrowing landing of the rover. i have seen it. it is as big as a volkswagen. we continue to be fascinated by the amazing high-definition images that we are getting back from the rover's landing site. we are fortunate today to have members of curiosity's team here to kick off our hearing with a mission update. we will hear from the associated ministry to for nasa's science mission director, the director for the mars exploration directorate, dr. john grotzinger, a professor of technology at caltech, and the scientists for the mission. after that update, we will move on to our witness panel, where we will examine the progress of nasa's exploration program under the nasa authorization bill that was passed in 2010, particularly as it relates to a future human mission to mars. our witnesses include dr. steven squires, chairman of the nasa advisory council, dr. charles kennel, chair of the national academy space studies board, and director and distinguished professor emeritus at scripps institute of oceanography, and mr. jim maser, president of pratt and whitney, a company that does a lot of things, but also specializes in rocket technologies. i want to welcome all of you here today. would you like to introduce your team? >> certainly. i will introduce to my left, dr. li, and work from there. first of all, thank you very much, senator nelson, for inviting us here. this is spectacular results. my hopes and dreams for this mission were that even just the seven minutes of terror leading up to a successful landing would be as significant for kids today as neil armstrong's landing on the moon -- as america's landing on the moon was for me. it led me into science and studying math and eventually to become an astronaut and now an associate administrator. those famous words of president kennedy said we do these things not because they are easy but because they are hard. in the cause of science, we challenged our teams to do things that are not only a little bit hard, but things that many would say are impossibly hard. i think that is what brings out the best in scientists, engineers, technicians, and people who are excited about exploration. i think there is no more qualified team and no team that is more excited about exploration right now than the team that is driving the rover on the surface of mars. with that, i would like to introduce dr. fuk li, the manager of mars exploration at the jet propulsion lab. >> before i turn to senator hutchison, why don't you introduce some of your team that is here in the audience? >> thank you. there are two additional members of the rover team who are with us besides john and i. the chief engineer for the project, who was responsible for resolving a lot of technical problems we have on the spacecraft and also, the lead of our telecom uplink, when we try to talk to the rover and ask it to do what it is going to do. >> so she is the driver? >> right. [laughter] >> thank you. let me turn to my colleague. before i do, let me say that this may well be the last science and space hearing for senator hutchinson. unfortunately, she has chosen to retire after a very long and distinguished public service record. i can tell you that i mourn the fact that she is retiring because kay and i have demonstrated how you pass demonstration when it should not be partisan, and where there was no daylight between the two of us. thus, in the mist -- midst of what was tool back in 2010, we were able to pass the nasa authorization bill unanimously out of the senate -- in the midst of what was tumult. first unanimously out of this committee, and then with a 3/4 book, out of the house of representatives and 11:00 at night on the last night of the session. i cannot say enough good things about kay and her leadership and her passion for america's space program. with that, let me turn to you, senator hutchison. >> thank you. i look forward to hearing from you. i had hoped we might have one more hearing because i do want to look toward the future, and i think one of the things we have been missing here is the protection of the future. not just always going as far as we have to go right now, but making sure that we look to the future. when the curiosity landed, i saw for the first time in a long time that enthusiasm of america, just seeing the precision of that long, long trip and the landing. it showed that we really can conquer so much more. so i wanted to have this hearing. the chairman wanted to have this hearing to highlight what is the future, and maybe we can eke out one more hearing. we really have a wonderful partnership in assuring that nasa is not undercut so severely that we cannot keep our pre- eminence. if you would give me one moment, i want to say that kennedy's speech at rice university where he laid out that wonderful vision -- i would like to take one quotation from there. "but why, some say, the moon? why choose this as our goal? they may well ask -- why climb the highest mountain? why 35 years ago fly the atlantic? why does rice playtex is in football -- play texas in football? we choose to go to the moon and do these other things not because they are easy but because they are hard." that inspiration that president kennedy gave us must be continued. it has been my goal. as we are looking toward that next step, beyond low earth orbit, on to other parts of our space including mars, that you will help us fashion that vision. thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for all you do in this regard. i will end by saying that tomorrow, we are going to honor the first man who stepped on the moon. i know we both plan to be ther because neil armstrong set up last year when he, too, was worried that we might be sacrificing the future for the present. as shy as he was about publicity, he took a stand, and that, i think, made a huge difference. in the course that we have been able to take. with that, i want to hear from our witnesses. thank you. >> thank you for giving us this chance to talk to you and give you a short update on where we are with curiosity. before we do that, i would like to say my gratitude for your support that has allowed us to develop, to fly, and to land this rover a little more than a month ago. the support we have gone in the past decade and are getting now has created three significant capabilities in the nation. the first is the set of strong morris scientists. many of the scientists working in universities across the nation and many are working with john in the day-to-day operation of the curiosity rover, telling it where to go and what to do. the second is it puts us in a preeminent position for the technological know-how, how to land on a different planet. looking back to the sojourn a rover that landed in 1997, it was about 20 pounds. today's curiosity is about 2000, the size of a small car. this increasing capability is really unique to america. finally, it also put us at the forefront of advanced robotic technology to allow us to operate a rover millions of miles away from earth in a martian environment that is cold -- sometimes, we do not know what it is, and sometimes, it is on friendly to us. with that, i would like to show a video that is about to be will minutes long and show you the landing. we are clearly very excited and wanted to share that one more time. when curiosity went to the martian atmosphere, it was enclosed in a capsule to protect it. it moved at about 13 miles an hour. the kinetic energy of that capsule is roughly equal to several hundred formula racecars going around at 200 miles an hour. the protected issue -- the protective tissue slow the capsule down. i am going to start the video. >> the parachute is deployed. [applause] >> this is a picture [inaudible] >> we're down to 90 meters per second at an altitude of 6 kilometers and descending. we are in power flight. [applause] we are altitude of 1500 and descending. >> you remain strong. then a touchdown confirmed. -- >> touchdown confirmed. [applause] >> today, right now, the wheels of curiosity have begun to blaze the trail for human footprints on mars. this is an amazing achievement. >> today on mars, history was made on earth. the successful landing of curiosity marks what is really an unprecedented technological tour de force. it will stand as an american point of pride far into the future. [applause] >> with that, i would like to turn the time over to the project scientist that leads the science team for this mission, prof. of technology at caltech. it showed a lot of promise for future discoveries, second only to when we are on the surface of mars interacting with material on mars. >> thank you very much for this chance to present some initial science and some fund pictures. i guess i just press this one. here is our landing site. you see it out in space. you see a lot of big craters out there, but the one we chose to go to has a mountain in the middle. if you go in closer, you can see the area represented by the crater is a little bit larger than the area of the state of connecticut and a little bit smaller than the state of new jersey. it is an enormous area we have potentially for exploration, but our goal -- you can see the landing eclipse just right there. that is the spot we landed on. our goal is to do some exploration in this area for the next month or two and begin the long trek that will eventually take us into the foothills and of the flanks of mount charlotte where we believe there is evidence for water -- the flanks of -- up the flanks of mount sharp. to give you a sense of how old this goal is, you can see mount rainier there. you can see it is a tad lower than the highest mountain in the u.s., mt. mckinley their -- there. this is one of our first color images that gives a sense of how dramatic the landscapists. we love this photo because those of us who teach geology out in the west often take students to death valley area. you look out across the mountains. you see a little l.a. smog, and it just looks like a very comfortable place for us. we love this landing site. here is a fund outreach instrument -- fun outreach instrument. we have a laser on board. public has really enjoyed this a lot. it reaches out and zaps a rock and it tells you whether or not it is the right route to go up and spend some more time doing work. the dot you see here is less than a millimeter. if you actually felt it, it might take a little bit, so that is what actually happens, but what the rest of the world thinks is happening is this. [laughter] they are just having a great time. the people, on the internet, they just love this mission, and they are really enjoying it. this, to me, is one of our great moments. you look back to the upper right, this is where the rover landed. these are the remarks made by the thrusters as they impinge on the surface and blew the soil away. wheree we'll tread marks they began, and it tells us about our future on this mission and where we landed successfully -- you see wheel tread marks. it might be the last time we see this place that well, but we will never forget that image. you can see the same blast marks, and the elevation change is on the order of 3.5 miles high. it is a tremendous goal we are trying to strive towards in exploring at least the base of the mountain. when you get up close, this is another of the images. it is my favorite. if you look at the foothills, which are about 6 miles away, there is a little black rock right here, which is blown up in this box. that rock is essentially the size of the rover. we see it now, and we imagine our future. what will happen as we blaze a trail going up these valleys and look around the corner? it is just filled with wonder, and the people following the mission are filled with wonder as we look towards the spectacular area. finally, i want to finish with an image that is just two days old. we have 17 cameras on this mission, and one of them reaches out from the end of the arm and can look back towards the rover. the principal investigator put a penny on the rover because geologists' do this all the time on earth. we need a scale. we pull it out of our pocket, rest it gently on the rock and take a picture of it. this emblem, the image for us, have so much depth to it. it is the great thing this country has achieved through your support to be able to have this mission succeed and even be able to see this image, so i, on behalf of the 406 scientists and all of the engineers, probably 1000 people currently working on this project, want to thank you for the support. the last thing i want to point out is something that history will take notice. the penny was imbedded with the anticipation that we will launch in 2009, and we were not able to. we had a lot of obstacles along the way, and we needed support. it came from you and nasa, and we were so grateful for that because we got where we wanted to be, so thank you. >> tell us about when you put the packages together and you send it up there, how many minutes do you say it takes to transmit to mars? >> right now, it takes about 15 minutes to go from earth, mars, and mars back. >> tell us how you go about planning what that package of instructions is going to tell the rover to do. >> maybe john can describe one day in the life of a rover. >> it starts with us working on mars time. because mars has a slightly different orbit, and he's 24 hours and 39 minutes. we have to adjust every day, so the science team gets its jet lagged every day by another 40 minutes. we see data that arrives from the spacecraft back down to earth. we quickly assess what it is that is there, and then we see if that matches our plans from the previous day about what we would like to do next. we go ahead, and it results in about two hours of tactical decision making where we come up with a list of observations that we would like the rover to be commanded to do. then we go through another meeting were those observations are confirmed to actually fit within the block of time, energy, and data that is available as the three resources that restrict our behavior. then we go through a process where those activities are all vetted amongst another group of engineers to come on a second shift, and another six hours later or so, these are all confirmed, vetted, cleared, and someone pushes the button that radiates the command sequence up to the rover. >> in your determination, if there was water there, what is the process by which you do that? are you looking for chemical composition of the soil and rocks? >> it is a mixture of analytical chemistry and also the observations with the cameras. through this, we are able to merge these observations together. now, when we find something that looks like it was in a rock or soil that formed in and out we is environment, we can dig deeper into it to determine whether or not that aqueous environment might also have been an environment that could have supported life, have life ever existed on the planet. >> just a follow-up -- we always hear that the most important thing that we could find is that there might be evidence of water, which then might lead to some thought that there was some kind of life. my question is sort of on the same line as senator nelson. if you found something that appeared it might have been formed with a water or aqueous atmosphere -- what all can you tell? can you tell how long ago it was? can you tell -- is there anything in that that would also indicate life or not or where the water would have come from? what else can you learn if you think there is a water component? >> what we would be able to do with our increased capability is we really get a sense for how -- what kind of environment it was specifically that the water was present in. was it there for a long time? we will be able to do that a little bit better than we have in the past, but mostly, we get a really good chemical assessment of how not only the water was present, but whether or not the environment could preserve organic compounds, which is very important for us as a science community. when you stopped short and ask the question about whether you can hope to someday find evidence of life on mars, you first have to look for the calling cards. these traces, if you will. little bits of chemical evidence that suggest this is the kind of place that you should go chemical evidence, it will be a rich record. this will be the kind of place you want to go back to and do simple returns. you will want to go to higher levels of analysis. this is the way we do it on earth. lots of different rocks to look at. it is not a process until you bring something back to the lab and know you have found something significant. >> will you be able to tell how long ago it became extinct or when it went away? >> yes. we have the benefit of the apollo astronauts who brought rocks back to the earth from the moon. it calibrated the crater rate. we have a rough sense of how old these rocks are. it is probably in excess of 3 billion years. the harder question is to really ask if we see evidence of water. how long was that water around 4. for? we might actually be able to date the rock. that is a sense of how long the water was there. >> you are talking about an area bigger than connecticut. how fast can be curiosity moves so that it can cover the amount of land you are trying to cover in? >> this is a great opportunity for me. it is a process. we have orbiters that make maps of where we think the good stuff is. we think landing sites. we move being ellipse to a site that looked really good. i am conservative by nature as a scientist. i think we are a few hundred meters away from a place we feel comfortable we are going to be able to show the road was formed in water. we are going to take that long drive. it could take six months or a year to get to the base of mount and sharp. we have an excellent portfolio with many different options. we had a little bit of serendipity. it was not total luck that we landed in this special place. >> last question. is there a time limits in which the rover will be effective and the computers will work or do you have a fairly unlimited amount of time? >> we have a spacecraft to deliver a two your mission. we are going on a and a half years. -- 8 and a half years. we are looking forward to a long mission after that. >> it could be years if you keep running around and poking. >> we hope so. >> curiosity can agree to the human crew when they land. [laughter] do you have any opinion as we try to develop the technologies and life support systems that would take us to march in the 2030's? do we need a sample return mission first? your opinion. >> the architecture was laid out in a survey that we embraced. it will get us on the way. you must have this capability to land something on the surface of mars and get it off again. the technology demonstration toward that women step is to bring back some rocks. we will be all -- for that human step is to bring back some rocks. we will be all the richer for it. >> congratulation for making the country proud. seeing you all jump up and down was a delightful site. thank you on behalf of a grateful nation. out the second panel. >> we have the professor of astronomy from cornell, the chair of the space studies board at the national academy, and the president of rocketdyne. dr. squires, will start with you. >> thank you for the opportunity to appear here today. i am be professor of astronomy as cornell university. i am chairman of the national advisory council. there was the development of two crucial exploration systems. development of these is well under bank. what will these vehicles be used for? present obama has said we should send a gimmick to mars by 2025. these are great goals and consistent with the goals of the 2010 authorization act. a pay-as-you-go approach can be inadequate. with such a low flat rate, it could be challenging to keep flight teams sharp and mission ready and maintain momentum. the company she was never meant to carry out missions beyond lower orbit by itself. an asteroid mission requires could support in deep space for many months. it requires a lunar lander. there is no funding. today is but insufficient to carry out the administration's planned on schedule. -- nasa's budget today is not adequate to carry out the administration's plan on the schedule. i agree with the 2010 authorization at that a long- term objective should be international exploration of mars. there should be two long-term goals for exploration of space. it should serve as a precursor to human exploration and critically laid the foundation on which exploration will be built. the highest priority that ship was the mars rover that would initiate the return of samples from the surface of mars. we have been unable to follow this recommendation because of the proposed cuts. it would have been carried out in partnership with the european space agency. that partnership has not come to fruition because of these cuts. the future exploration by humans is in jeopardy. the agency was provided with a clear set of goals and priorities. the administration has articulate its own vision. they called for more the agency can do with the budget it has. a crucial piece is missing from the development of a robust capabilities of human exploration in space. we have seen deep cuts in a program to explore the solar system to which we hope humans will be sent. a new and more narrowly focused national census is required. more attractively, the agency's budget should be increased. that may be difficult in a constrained budget in climate. what approach would be to forge strong international partnerships, which has been done successfully with the international space station. there is no plan for international participation beyond the earth orbit. o full collaboration has been set aside temporarily. the-hopeful collaboration has been set aside temporarily -- hopeful collaboration has been set aside temporarily. thank you. >> thank you for the invitation to testify. i have some remarks i would like to submit for the record. my topic today is leadership. let me start with who i am. i am professor and director emeritus of the school of oceanography. i am proud to say that my predecessor as director was on the platform at rice university when president kennedy made his inspiring speech. we cannot accept the incredible challenge of playing rise in football. -- rice in football. when you set a goal that is extremely difficult to achieve, that is when you beat the pirates. i will talk about goal setting, clarity of goals, and leadership in space. i will spend most of my time reviewing with the space studies board has done. i will base my personal remarks on my experience on 12 years on the nasa board. the international space station guarantees our leadership for a decade. we asked for a program for space science utilization in our most recent survey. i promised -- i am pleased to report some promising developments nasa has created. there is an office for physics and biology in space. they are beginning to work hard to reconstitute a discipline that was destroyed by earlier budget cuts. they are making progress on a non-governmental organization, a user interface organization. we can see good progress in that area. the question before us now is what will constitute human spaceflight leadership beyond the coming decade? there are many factors bear. he has reported on the important direction -- there are many factors there. you asked the national research council to undertake a study of core capabilities and future directions of space flight beyond a decade. this is a complicated steady. scientific and technological, national security, national relations, even philosophical issues come into what should the goals of human spaceflight be? what kind of goals can we set as a country that will keep nasa and the country coming back to making and attending to the achievements it intends to make even though there are budget fluctuations, policy and administration changes? what are the long-lasting goals to conserve the program through midcentury? a distinguished committee is about to be announced. we worked hard to develop stakeholder and public consultation plans. this is the most potentially innovative setting i have been involved in. it is so many factors besides science and technology that we are going to draw on the full resources of the national research council in many districts beyond those of space studies and aeronautics and the space engineering board. we will be principles and porters for that. -- and supporters of that. i will end with some remarks on mars. just this year, we completed a round of surveys that look over -- looked over all of the issues nasa deals with. these are going to be the best picture of the contemporary state of american space science you will get in the near future. there are many things that were discussed in careful detail. the community was consulted. dozens of white papers came in. from all of that, i will extract the leadership elements, the ones who inspired people to work beyond their capabilities and beat the odds. here are some of the things we need to do for leadership in astrophysics. stay the course. despite all the difficulties, his it is still a leadership in cement in astronomy and astrophysics. the scientific rationale for it has developed considerably since 2000 when it was first proposed. it can now do extrasolar planets with good capability. if we abandon this now, we risk abandoning world leadership in the entire subject just as the event with the superconducting supercollider. it was unfortunate for american high energy physics. we have to capitalize on american leadership in the energy area. we need to find a way to get the science done that was proposed by the first priority new mission in our most recent surveys. the implementation is less important that achieving the goals of maintaining a leadership in energy science, where we started and that continues the work in plants that it was able to do. in the next two areas, they have been different, but they have something in common. one is solar terrestrial physics and the other is science. there are many issues that they have separate. but they have one in common. that is that the goal that they have set for themselves the pan in serious ways on interagency coordination, -- the paint in serious ways on interagency court -- depend in serious ways on interagency cooperation. it is on the verge of becoming an operationally useful subject. our most recent report suggests that earth science is on the verge of defaulting on the science and applications obligation it has successfully carried. the number of spacecraft devoted to this area looks like it is going to diminished dramatically. in both cases, there needs to be collaboration between nasa and the u.s. theological survey and other agencies to set the goals for these programs. congressional and administrative leadership is required for several of these missions. you have heard this many times. you have coordination fatigue. how many times have you heard it? there may be one area where the science community can help you out as you try to figure out the roles and missions of agencies are essential to the success of this project. perhaps we scientists and technology users can identify key variables and standards of measuring those variables that need to be sustained over the long term as part of a national commitment. at that point, maybe the agency will see more clearly what their role is. they need to look at this not only from their manager met in space, but what requirements we have placed on the ground systems to analyze data, what standards we would use for exchanging data, and how we will preserve the data in long-term archives? i promised i would come back to planetary science. there is much more in planetary science than mars. i will focus my remarks on that. it is leadership science in its essence. even landing on a planet is something that most countries cannot do. as the senator mentioned, we believe with good luck, our energy sources will last. curiosity will return in a decade. science will continue to be very busy. the future direction for mars beyond bad, which we want -- w beyond that used to be clear. there was a strategy for research that was put into place 15 years ago, of which curiosity is the most recent and most spectacular project. they worked with one another and reinforced so that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. you can see it with that landing because they had to lock one of the orbiting spacecraft to take a picture of the landing, which became so spectacular on the net. from my point of view, those missions were canceled without a clear explanation that is based in science. the cato study that steve chaired for us provided a similar guiding principle for the next decades just as the strategy that followed the water led to a sequence of missions that are landing in curiosity. the guiding principle for the next missions are sample return -- is simple return. it is a guiding principle. you are going to spend big money on mars, do not spend it on things that diffuse our focus. spent it on our goal, sample return. why is sample return important symbol because when you bring it back, you can bring back the potential of thousands of laboratories around the world to understand the place with the astronauts are going to land. what are the characteristics of it. we also see from the lunar scientists to that 50 years from now, those samples will still be used by new scientists. i would like to make a point. sample return is no more a call on present resources as the goal of marchand landings. both are long-term goals. we have a goal that will be mentally add up. to my way of thought -- this is part of the space studies course? the suspension of a clear goal that was guiding our thinking and making all our efforts synergistic is the most serious outcome. it can be repaired. perhaps the most serious outcome is underway right now. there is a serious study of how the human space flight enterprise in the science community can collaborate. what is really important from all of this, from my point of view, is that there will be a clear set of goals for collaboration. the leadership of both areas, not just identify a few that are nice to have hit it is essential to harmonize two essential goals. sample return, understanding the in climate on mars and the possibility of life. and landing on mars. they both share the commitment to leadership, but are only partially synergistic in implementation. it is important to get the alignment of these goals right. in the past, the relationship between him and pass the best human science and space programs has been frought m with of clear goals. unclear goals. we should look at the nasa report with the point of view of long-range science. at the end of the day, i think my whole clock has been devoted to the need for consistency of addition and goals as essential to achieving leadership in space. the science and technology community has had its budgetary of stand-downs' following changes. wholesale changes in direction by another matter altogether. i hope we have time to repair the situation. those are my remarks. thank you very much. >> thank you. thank you for the opportunity to testify on this important topic. i would like to start by recognizing senator had to send for her dedication to public service. -- hutchison for her dedication to public service. you have been a true leader for the state of texas and for the nation. i wish to thank you for your dedication to public service and wish you well on your retirement. i want to highlight these major themes and concerns. first, to create an enduring vision. the need for consistency and a clearly articulated budget that allows the execution of the enduring budget. it is a massive job to find out how to execute the enduring vision. finally, three and four, congress and the administration has decided sls is behind the vehicle's choice. an exploration of vision that will push the boundaries of exploration. the nasa authorization act was to move forward on space launch vehicles. since the end of the space shuttle program, nasa has suffered from a lack of an over acting -- over arcing vision. the administration set new priorities and directions such as funding commercial states capabilities and assisting on multiple providers without identifying or supporting marketer demand. this was done with what appears to be limited coordination and consent from congress. because of this lack of coordination, congress has been propelled to be consistent with in this legislative language. they want to preserve unique and critical skills. in order for any of the discourse we are talking about today to be relevant, we must have an enduring and stable vision for nasa. it should enable execution over time frames that should not be attached to a single administration or the election cycle. the expectation was that we would incrementally and continuously expand our scope and reach over time. both robotic plea and with humans. as was recently written, -- both robotically and with humans. we need to identify the capabilities that already exist or need to be created to create these missions. there is no one right solution. someone must choose. we have a nation to do just that. as such, nasa has determined it needs a heavy launch station capability. the following statement was made -- made about the nasa program. it requires a super heavy lift launch vehicle. regardless of the exact mission architecture that[captioning pey national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> and must be pursued with the utmost priority. the entire architecture is dependent upon its capabilities as an enabler. now that an architecture has been established, it is imperative that receives adequate funding. what nasa cannot afford to do is continue the trend of cancelled programs, and seemingly random directional changes of priorities. -- with a tremendous disruption, loss of critical skills and little return or progress. it leverages and builds upon past experience and technology. this is the time to insure we get beyond earth orbit as fast as possible, as cost effectively as possible and safely as possible. once we do that we can resume and push the boundaries and explore and live on other bodies. in order to push the boundaries, but robotic and human exploration missions have their place within an overall exploration program. there has been a lot of talk about returning to the moon. a continual in criminal approach to exploration should be the norm. well humans explore the moon's, robots should be exploring mars and its moons. when humans explore the marcion's, they should be exploring the depths of -- the enormously successful landing of the curiosities a perfect illustration of another step in incremental development. i want to stress that the nasa exploration programs are not just intended to return scientific data, the lead to technologies that can be built here on earth. and most notably, they inspire our nation and future generations to come. finally, like many other people today i am the 50th anniversary of the rights speech. i quote from john f. kennedy. it is a little bit longer of the version than you used. we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do other things not because they are easy but because they are hard. because that will serve to organize and measure the best of our energy and skills. and i say that, i say that because i am not --but because kennedy said during a hard thing is the best use of our energy and skills. it is going to expand our boundaries. the job of nasa is to do the hard stuff, constantly pushing for technological advancement. we grow as a nation because it takes the best of our people and capabilities to push the limits of creativity and abilities leading to true innovation and true inspiration. as such, innovation and inspiration cannot be the goals of what nasa does and strives for, but rather the result. missioncuriosity's spawned innovation which inspires us all, the same human mission will inspire. but nothing will keep the senate leadership position, not only in space, but here on earth. tickets for the opportunity. i look forward to any questions you have. -- thank you for the opportunity. i look forward to any questions you may have. >> we are developing a rocket called the space launch system. we are developing a human capsule called [unintelligible] all of this is happening while the average american thinks that the space program is over. because they have attached the visible evidences of the space program, naturally, to the space shuttle over the course of three decades. and win the space shuttle was shot down, that naturally leads people to the conclusion that it is over. and now we are ramping up this new system to get us out of low birth orbit. -- low earth orbit. when apollo was developed, other than the goal of getting to the moon and back, it was also being utilized for other things. in the cold war, and in the docking of a soviet spacecraft and an american spacecraft. which was the forerunner to bringing all of this cooperation that we now share with russia on the international space station. my question to you all is, as we develop the sls, and if o'rien -- what do you see as the full potential of that system? jim masar, us start with you. what would be examples of the types of missions that the sls would make possible? >> getting back beyond lower earth orbit. we have not been there and a long time. that will allow us to do that first and foremost. and allow us to try out and test all of the new technologies that had developed and evolved since the blast been there. and to leverage, and you could speak to it better than i could, some of the human science that has been going on at the space station as we get out beyond for extended periods of time in the radiation environments. i think initially that is what it first unable. there are a number of missions. we have not identified one yet. looks like it will be a hard one to get to. we need some fall back plans. i know there are discussions going on about other interesting point. where there is gravitational equilibrium between the various bodies where we can spend extended durations of times in space. blogger than this. before. and learn more about how the human body reacts. i personally believe, to get to full fruition, is eventually we will need a lander. and we need a series of missions better incrementally more difficult. can just see that the general pattern here, that i think makes a lot of sense, you of robotic missions, and you learn to live off of the planet, whether it is in space for a period of time. or on the moon a free. of time. once you learn to live on a planet not too far away, you can move further away. but it never ends. and i think that is the point i am trying to make in my comments. your comments about -- would not need any more flak plant emissions. it is not about one of the giant mission and you do not know what is next. you always know what is next. you are always working on it. >> just like we did in apollo, which was an incremental mission starting with mercury, gemini i, apollo an environment that we did not know anything about. >> exactly. >> but me ask charles kennel, give us examples of science missions that would be enabled by either crude or unmanned launches of the space launch system. >> beyond lower orbit? >> yes. >> there are several. we have already had some precursor missions for example. robotics returns from asteroids. which will give you some idea of the chemistry. there is a distant, but important security goal that can be achieved by approaching an asteroid with a system of significant mass. it is known, for example, that from time to time, astrid's have hit the earth. 165 million years ago destroyed the environment for the dinosaurs. and if we are going to live for long time as a civilization, we have to worry about earth crossing asteroids. you can predict maybe 10 or 20 passages before they actually hit the earth when they are going to a send a spacecraft there. eager not enough to nudge it. gravity will move it out of orbit. and the proof of principle would be very useful. can get that done while you are doing science. i think the main argument for human beings has always been a very good geologist -- they can take a look at what they see and tell you, and a peak in ways -- and automated laboratory cannot -- and and in ways that an automated laboratory cannot. you-will set a tough goal. that tests all of the technologies for landing and takeoff. you might even have a couple of them with -- >> congratulations to the curiosity crew. you are part of the forerunner of the first number of steps. and steven squyres, tell us what kinds of missions does the unique capability of the space launch system, this new big rocket that has -- that is evil bubble in size, what does that provide -- that is evolvable in size. >> i am excited about what we can do. was recently part of a four member nasa crew that conducted a two week long mission in florida. simulating the kinds of tools and equipment that one would use for exploration of an asteroid. it got me very excited about what a human crew, a crew of human scientist explorers could do on a mission that would be enabled by sls. i think most importantly, this is essential for sunday sending humans to mars. i am a big fan of robotic exploration. but what our curiosity rover can do in a day, you can do in about 45 seconds. what our magnificent opportunity roper has done in 8.5 years you could do in a weak, weak and a half. so what humans can do in the way of science on the surface of mars far surpasses what can ever be done, in my view, by these wonderful rovers but i, and so many of us here have devoted our careers to building and operating. i see sls and the ability to get humans beyond lower orbit as one of the most important things we have ahead of us. >> and i might say that senator hutchison was key as we worked through the nasa authorization bill to make the system evolv able. it can grow to whatever the needs of the mission are. >> thank you. that was certainly a joint effort. and the purpose was to have the technology and the shuttle that is going to go to and from the space station that would be transferable to the heavy launch vehicle . we maximize efficiency with our taxpayer dollars. and that is what we have worked very hard to assure that nasa will do. when we talk about the importance of the robots, curiosity cannot come back with the samples. is that only going to be able to be done when we can put humans there that can return? or are we looking at another technology feet that would be an interim of trying to get the robot down and bring samples back? >> sample return can be conducted robotic lee. and indeed, the mission that was recommended in the recent survey as the highest party would have been -- not returning samples from mars is in no way a substitute for the magnificent science done by sending humans there. it lies the scientific ground work. it enables us to design a program of future human exploration on mars that is driven and motivated and informed by the scientific results that come from those return samples and gives the taxpayer the maximum return on the substantial investment that would be returned from mars. we can bring it back robotic lee. and humans can play a role in that period can measure many scenarios. can envision scenarios in which samples are launched into orbit are around mars and retrieved by a human emotion that goes into commercial orbit and comes back. there are many ways to play this game. but it is quite possible to do a return samples from mars completely robotic clean. >> and is that a worthy goal should be looking at? i think all of you, and we have talked about -- i think your message is a clear mission in stages. so that to accomplish a mission and that leads to the next mission. and we know what that is. so would we be looking at something that would go to mars while the curiosity still might be working? yet another one that might have the return capability that would be in next goal to achieve -- again looking toward the human going to mars as a goal down the road? >> the mars return campaign that was recommended by the survey would have kicked off with a launch in 2018. it is still possible to do that. different opportunities to launch a spacecraft to mars are different from one another. some more energetically more favorable. turns out -- 2018 is one of the best opportunities in the next few decades to actually planned it substantial payload on the surface of mars. it would be possible, given the funding, to do a mission in 2018 when curiosity we hope will still be going. to put the rover on the surface that would select a cache that would be brought back to earth by robotic missions further downstream. that was the primary recommendation of the most recent survey. >> looking at it from the congressional standpoint where we also have to look at our financial situation and put money that is available toward the best priority. is that the best priority use our exploration funds to do that? or would it be better to not put the money that returnable vehicle and keep going toward the human vehicle as the next goal? >> i would sincerely hope that it is not an either or proposition. certainly, as you compare mars sample returned to other missions that could be conducted in the field of planetary science. the single highest priority, as i said, it was identified and brought two year consensus effort in the science community, was to begin this campaign to return samples from mars. attempt not an to compare that to human return or anything else. that was not the study that was conducted. my sincere hope is that robotics-based exploration and human exploration can go forward in tandem with one informing the other, motivating the other, providing a basis that drives us to send humans to these places. i sincerely hope that we can go forward with this sample return mission without it adversely affecting what i think is the critical development of sls, orion, and other things. >> do we know from what we have up there, whether it is something orbiting mars, or the rover -- that the atmosphere will not be dangerous for a human in obviously a space suit? do we know for sure from what we have evidence of that it will be safe for a person to actually land there and stay for a while? >> we are in the process of obtaining that information. there is a radiation detector specifically there to detect radiation on the surface as it would affect future human explorers. there's the ability to measure the composition of the martian atmosphere. we have an instrument that will tell us what minerals are present in the martian soil. that will affect breathing -- you will be breathing it in. this is a great example of how these robotic missions in forma the process of sending humans. just as how back in the early days, prior to apollo, the remissions to orbit the moon, land on the moon. we answered the questions with robotic precursors. we are doing the same thing on mars right now. >> i want to ask you, you said that we should prioritize the dollars that we have toward the best achievable goal in space exploration. and i think all of you have stated your four -- your for robotics and your for human, and you do not think there mutually exclusive. here is my question -- is nasa's mission too broad to be able to fully fund the priorities? and should we in the next nasa authorization look at splitting nasa so that -- national aeronautics and space and ministration -- should we look at space exploration and put aeronautics somewhere else? that is one example. or are there other examples. should we look at splitting are stronger -- they are stronger and more appropriate to gather even though we are spreading dollars now pretty thinly along with the science missionfunded n level, it gives us a shot at leadership in each of the fields that we are pursuing. and i think that is the criteria -- we have several that are -- it gives us a shot at leadership in each that we are pursuing. there is one area that i think is underfunded, the utilization of the space station. and that actually is going to be critical in two ways. it will prove to people but we are still doing things in space. secondly, there are in aa number of things that need to be learned. fluids, palms and other things like that -- fluids, pumps and other things like that -- and how they behave in space. that is just one example. i think that the science program would suffer tremendously if it were cut off and made separate from the human space flight enterprise. >> any different views? >> these are my views. >> are you basically saying, and i would like any other view, that we are better off with nasa as a unit as it is. and there is not any part of sa that to jettison to get more money for the issues we all agree are also very important. >> i think you could look of the programs and say what should we not do in order to do something new debt to the future. at this level, the basic levels of nasa, i do not see any value in separating them. >> that was going to be my comments. with the limited budget we have, we are asking nasa to be all things to all people. what are real priorities? at some point, and business we do this all the time, i get requests for my research and development efforts every year, the requests come in at twice my budget. so we go through and decide, these are the priorities for us. and recall that the water line, everything below that does not get funded -- we call that the water line, everything below that does not get funded. what then falls below it from a party standpoint -- the question then comes, should we split it off and have them not to do it? if the objective is to work with a limited budget, and not sure splitting it off and asking someone else to do it will save it that. >> the suggested we have some choices. and i agree. maybe one of them is a 22 take some priorities. -- make some priorities. so it reduces the burden on one agency one. and the third -- those are the two that jumped out at me. a third one have not talked much about is giving more results for less dollars. and so we have spoken as an organization on how we become as efficient as possible, and for every dollar, taxpayer dollar we spend for our customers, and not justn, we work for the air force also, how could we provide more? are we organized properly? do we have the right square footage for what we need and who we need to be a dented the future going forward? i think that is a legitimate question to ask. >> before we go, the reason i open the question of should we take some part of nasa that is considered not part of what we believe nasa -- could it go to another place where it could be done more efficiently so that matches a better question marks the department of energy made before some of the energy, a science that we are using the space station for? i do not know. but that is one way of at least looking at it. if you are getting down to the priorities then, make suggestions on what you would put in a lower category from a scientific standpoint without the political overview. are their programs within a nasa that would get enough money over to space exploration or science to make its worth looking at lowering the priority? i know you mentioned you have to prioritize. is there a scientific view of what should be lower priority is where you could add to the space exploration side? >> i would like to make two remarks in response to your question. but me say a quick word about aeronautics. in my time as chairman of the nasa advisory council, the aeronautics program is one of nasa's shining tools. it is a small part of the agency, financially. but if you look at nasa's budget and ask yourself, what are the things the agency does that most directly benefit the taxpayers in their daily lives? it is hard to find anything better than their aeronautics program. i feel that disrupting that program, taking it and trying to rip it out of the place it has found such a good home would be detrimental to one of the best things that i think nasa does. the surveys that are run by the national research center are all about prioritizing. we looked at dozens of mission concepts. we prioritized and prioritized, and we draw on input from the community to go on literally for a couple of years. and what we bring forward are the few highest priority missions that have survived, that really pretty brutal down a select process. what you see are the ones that result from a very, very intensive and rigorous prioritization process. >> if i can add to that, one of the new things at tweeted in this round of surveys was try to -- one of the things that we did it in this round of surveys was -- we got independent cost estimates so that we looked at practical realities as well as the ideal, scientific goals. and our recommendations were a result of those two type of considerations. what happened was, we recommended many fewer missions than we had in the past. in our physics' survey for the entire decade, there were a number of smaller missions in theogra but only one leading candidate. when you look oppose leadership recommendations, looked through them, it is still important to stick to the goals they laid forth. >> let me ask you this, you mentioned better utilizing the one of theon as things we should do, there's a term limit on that, 2020. one of the things that we put in our authorization bill was to make be u.s. part of the space station. so outside interests, other ations couldrporate relatio buy them and use it. my question is -- what other ways would you have to further utilize and better utilize the space station that we certainly invest in a heavily in producing and it has now been extended, which is great. extended even though we cannot get to it on our own. with our own gps. but we will in the next few years. what would you suggest that we ought to be doing to better utilize it? >> let me just state that the augustine commission recommended that we extend the life time of the station to 2020. we suggest an indefinite extension. and it is that indefinite time horizon that is the important one that will enable people from the non-nasa community to have enough sense and knowledge that resources will be there that they can begin to plan long- term utilization programs. i think being open about the date that we close the station is terribly important. secondly, if you really look at it, the europeans are doing a better job of utilizing the station then we are at the scientific level. they are not burdened with the financial difficulty of a building it. they plan for the launch and have developed scientific communities that look at the issue, all of the things it you can do in low gravity that you cannot do on earth where there's biological behavior. and they have a basic science research as well as engineering going forward. program changes affected our community and into that field. that happened 2005 or 2006. our report suggests we rebuild that community. we are pleased nasa has made a good-faith effort to do so. they created an office. and with limited resources, they are trying to rebuild the committee that has lost faith, to be frank, that the station will be there for them. that is why the ngo is needed to make it easy for them to participate. off and quite frankly, the finding that the office has is far less than the funding we used to have. and so i think a requirement for the united states is to begin to use it. by 2020, you start to see results coming out at the same international all that we are used to in all of the other fields of science, i think people will no longer say that the space program is dead because we do not have the shuttle. they will say, america is doing a lot of debt to its space station. right now. the europeans are getting more sides of the space station that we built and then we are. >> i have a specific suggestion regarding the space station. if you are a university researcher interested in doing research in the microgravity environment. there are substantial barriers to trying to get an experiment on board the space station. there is a level of review, oversight. what some might view as excessive attention to minute details of experiments that are daunting. too many university investigators. it is too hard to get to the process and get your hardware on the space station. anecdotally, there are researchers who choose not to try it because they do not want to jump over the hurdle. the reasons for the existence of the hurdles are absolutely sound. and that must not be compromised. now that we have years of experience in operating the space station, we think it might make sense to look, carefully, at whether or not there is a gap that could be widened. between what is really necessary to safely fly something on the station, and what the current set of roles, requirements, and oversight demand. and if that gap could be widened a little bit, reducing the es,rier to getting universit other organizations to fly on the space station, making it easier to do business in the national laboratory, there could be advantages. >> thank you. >> this is the one that we thought, the independent ngo urbanization could overcome -- which indeed is i and work through all of the issues and not make scientists try to deal with it will never work in space. you need professional opportunity organization, and that is why we thought -- there's an example of this from the science institute that has guided my thinking. something like that is needed to actually translate opportunity in reality in station operations. at the end of the day, the provision of access to the zero low gravity will be an attraction to many scientists, it they can actually get at it. >> ok. i have a couple other questions. one, on the -- you said we should have more, not just participation, but use with our international partners in both the space station, but in space exploration. do you have any specifics on what more we should be asking and realistically expect from our international partners? >> sure. let me give you two examples. in the area of robotics, space exploration, and sample return, there are several necessary elements. one is a the rover that can land on the surface and collect samples. when that will do pretty well. maybe we do not need any help with about one. you also need a vehicle that will get the samples off of the circus and into orbit around mars. and you need a pickle but cannot find the spacecraft you have launched. it can rendezvous with it and bring the samples back to earth. these are things that potential international partners know how to do and know how to do well. i think are significant potential, and that was the intention of the surveys -- the campaign. why aren't we doing that? >> the cuts that were projected to be fy 13 plan and carry budget made it impossible -- the fy 13 planetary budget made it impossible. my hope is that that can be corrected in the future. with respect to human exploration, i made the point in my opening remarks that we have two magnificent pieces of what you need for truly enabling these space explorations. the orion and sls. but they will not get to the surface of the moon. for the time it takes to get to an asteroid propulsion capabilities, that sort of thing. i think those are all potentially components of a true deep space exploration system to which international partners could be invited to contribute. so, in my opening remarks, i stressed there's a big piece of the puzzle missing. we certainly want to go to mars. but right now, we have got the ability to launch a lot of mass off of the service of the earth. the capabilities to do a lot with orion. those are magnificent to debilities and necessary if not efficient. so, i think looking to capable, committed international partners as we have done so spectacularly well with the international space station. what a triumph that has been? it is something which should be looking at? >> i would just like to add, and the international space station partnership is a miracle of international relationships. it is survived budget up and downs. there is a default on the part of other partners. yet it continues to stay in many nations working together. if you think, for example, that someday we will go to mars led by united states, you will need something like the space station partnership and the building that has already taken place to also participate in that mission. there is a policy that you may wish to consider. and that is that as people renegotiate the international space station partnership, you could add to i sawt moghuls of a related to the development and technologies -- you can add to its related to the development and technologies -- that will face all of us as we try to get through mars. and we began to enlist them in the effort. i do not know whether that would serve as a precursor for the partnerships we would build. but it certainly would build -- it would be a confidence builder. and i think it would help start the process in a way that is useful to the united states. >> one other comment i would add is that we are all aware that the space station was nearly canceled. within one vote. and a lot of people have said one of the main reasons it went through is because of our international commitment. i would argue, a big part of my argument has been about an enduring stable vision of incrementally increasing challenges. and if we have committed to that and committed to a collaboration internationally set over the long run, perhaps that is a model in which national commitment to each other creates some stability. and can get us out of this cycle. that goes beyond any one administration. or anyone a congressional. -- congressional. . i think what you are all doing is actually putting forth the long term clear goal that you discussed as the first policy directive. because it would take, certainly, to get our international partners to re-up into this bigger coordination, the assurance that [unintelligible] one of the things in my time here, i have worked with the administrations that are democrat and republican and have tried to say you cannot just say we are going to stop doing something that we have international partners already investing in to a great degree from their own budgets. their percentage of the budget there putting in is as big as a percentage of their budgets. we have got to be a reliable partner in order to keep a reliance like that going. if we are talking about the kind of commitment that you suggest, which is pushing different vehicles capabilities to the other so it does not all fall upon us, nevertheless, we are going to have to be reliable and show that we are not going to get cold feet midway through this. and all of a sudden stop our part. i think that is a worthy goal for the clear stated visionary goal for the future. and i think you sort of put together a nugget that really could be the basis for the next authorization bill. last question and i will turn it back over to the chairman, and that is, we have seen an emergence of a commercial capabilities, but of our united states tax dollars has gone into helping the commercial operators began to get the capability to at first do this taxi to and from the space station. are you at all concerned about the money that goes into the commercial operation that, taking from the future heavy launch, with the discussion that we have just had? or do you think that we can do both efficiently, having the taxi to the space station and allowing it to be extended as charles kennel suggested . you have the taxicab ability is going forward beyond 2020. and maybe it could not pay for itself exactly, but certainly offset much of the expense of holding on to the space station. while we at the same time to focus our efforts at nasa on the next generation to the beyond low orbit exploration. >> let me give an example. we were just talking about the importance, potentially, of international partners bringing pieces to the puzzle to create a more robust space capability. but the resources to do that, wherever they have to come from somewhere. if you look at some of the international partners commitments, some of them have to do with resupply, some of them have to do with providing -- getting stuck up to the space station. if as a result of investment in commercial capabilities, recent dragon mission to the station being an example and more to come i hope, if we develop a robust capability here in this country come to do that resupply. to get that upmass the space station. they could take the resources and they could put it into something else that would take us deeper out into space. i think if we are smart about how we play this game, things could come from commercial taxis to the international space station that could provide benefits that could be felt a dented the deep space part of what nasa does. >> thank you. >> there is no longer term future, unless you provide about you in the short term. the trips to the station are providing value in the short term. and the commercial enterprise, if it proves to be successful, will broaden the social base and technology base for the larger enterprise to,. i think that is a useful thing. recently, with the cancellation of the delta rocket system, the community has become concerned about the lack of availability of mid scale rocket systems for scientific spacecraft. on a focusedan on faul hope. peake-- unfocused hope. i think it is delicate and the commercial level to do it. but there is a possibility that a successful industry will help. >> i guess my comment is, first and foremost, i think we all agree we need access to the station from the united states. given that, we want to do it as affordable as possible. and lower orbit is where hundreds have gone before. and i think the point behind that is we have been doing that long enough. we should be able to do it very cost-effective way and potentially by the services in a different manner than we traditionally preferred them as a nasa owned and operated vehicle. i am on board with that. and certainly, cargo, as a separate launch vehicle and a separate system, we can take more risk. i think that is good. the real question is, as we shift to commercial, we will not be as risk-tolerant. you have the lives of people on board. you have the space station that you absolutely -- from that standpoint also. when i stand back and look at it, my question and comment would be, are we absolutely certain that the approach we are taking is the quickest, most cost-effective and safest way to take things too station at? especially people. when i look at -- especially commercial crew, when i stand back and look at it, if the station were to end in 2020, the commercial crew people would end up watching each wants a year for three or four years or something. maybe it will be extended, but for the most effective use of dollars, how many commercial kreuk providers to need in the long run? -- how many commercial crew providers to we need in the long run? >> i think we agreed that was more than we could take away from sls and orion. now they are at 2.5. >> that was positive movement. i think to get to the next point, we clearly need to look at how many real missions are there out there, and how many suppliers are appropriate. court's the goal is to have won. -- >> the goal is to have one. we are making sure we are not paying just as much if we would have kept it all in nasa. and i think the down select is a step in the right direction hopefully there is one more down select, based on the merit, whoever wins will be the one. this has been very, very helpful. i think it really will inform us as we go forward into the next authorization period. fortunately, even though i am leaving, there will be others who are staying and the staff will hopefully stay. and we will use this very helpful information to look at the importance of a goal that cannot be achieved with international cooperation. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> thank you, senator hutchison. thank you for your leadership over the years on of this topic that you are very, very passionate about. i just want to say jim masar, the value of competition is that instead of your rocket company being the only one in town, you get sharper, your prices get sharper. if there is a competitor there, and that is the whole idea of this competition, for the way to get to and from the international space station. over time, the bringing of the cost per pound to get to orbit, is dramatically down. i want to ask you all on our topic of exploration beyond orbit, orbit -- earth's doesn't it appear right now that we could not do, assuming that we could build a lander and all of that, and that we know what we are landing on. and we have returned a sample so we know what to expect. but right now it will take us eight to 10 months to get there. and once you are there, the planets are out of alignment. up to wait a long time before you can bring the crew back to get the planets closer in alignment. arch we really talking about going to mars in the 2030s for the first mission. what you think about that? >> personally, i think it is possible to do a human mission to mars using advanced but chemical propulsion systems. i do not think we need a dramatically new technology. there are technologies that could be beneficial, one could imagine some deceleration technologies that could be used on mars. certainly, for some of the transfer stages that we might want to use to get crews to mars -- propellant's would be a good thing. but i think if you were to conduct a poll, who would be willing to sign up for a mission of that aberration? you would get a lot of takers. i personally believe that the biomedical issues that are associated with long-term exposure to microgravity and the effects on the crew on the way to mars and back are being addressed pretty impressively on the international space station. and i think that is a great way they are contributing to future exploration. i do not think that you need a totally different approach to in space propulsion to get cumins safely on the surface of mars and get them back -- to get humans safely on the surface of mars and get them back. >> charles kennel? >> -- i will not challenge the statement. i agree. but the commitment to the goal will stimulate all sorts of technological innovations. people will try things to try to shorten the flight time. there will try various biomedical remedies and so forth, because they know it will still be there. and as soon as you make it clear that we are going to eventually go beyond lower orbit, i think you will find people willing to, just like the contras entrepreneurial group, i think people will be willing to take risks. and that may accelerate the time that we go from lower orbit and make the first mission. i think setting the goal is terribly important for this potential innovation. >> i want to wrap up the hearing with a couple of questions about the funding. and the certainty of the funding. we are living in uncertain times with the budgetary situation as it is. if you look at nasa as a federal agency, compared to other federal agencies, it has fared quite well. and yet, what isthe sequestratit cleaver that is hanging over the federal budget at the end of the year was never intended to take effect because it was the meat cleaver to force the house and senate joined super committee to do with it. it did not happen and we are facing the consequences. but i think we can get through this and avoid sequestration. but, still, the uncertainty of the funding of the future -- and, mr. mazer, we are getting ready, probably tomorrow to enact a continuing resolution taking the existing funding from this past fiscal year and applying it probably for the next six months. that creates uncertainty for nasa programs and contractors. how in the past have the continuing resolutions affected nasa projects and contractors? >> this year might be a good thing. i don't know relative to what we're looking at potentially. but generally, what we look for is a view to what funding is going in and out-years. as a budget is not approved, going to continuing resolution, activities and scope and funding for things you had planned on, staff for an organized for don't materialize and you're forced to move people around and shift priorities. in some cases, you cannot ship your cost us enough and you have to pass it on to the customer. it has been even more discontinuous then the transition from the end of the apollo program to the shuttle program because there is actually quite a few years of overlap in development activity. even though apollo was ending, shuttle had started a few years before its first launch and continued to keep going. even though it is much reduced in terms of what it was during the apollo era, you for much knew where it was and it was not discontinuous. in the past four years, we have seen the end of the shuttle, cancellation of consolation, no decision at all about what we would do next year and finally, a year ago, a decision was made. >> two years ago. >> it was two years ago? the authorization was two years ago, but the actual decision on the sos was a year ago. >> no, sir, the authorization in 2010, that was the course, the blueprint for the sos, the parameters. you took over the funding for it. there, again, i thank senator hutchison. the funding started to implement the authorization bill for the development of the sls and orion. in the appropriations process, you have these pulls and tugs and you have the overall attempts to slashing federal spending on everything that has complicated it. go ahead and make your point. i just wanted to correct that. >> thank you. the ultimate comment i would make is that, every year, 2010 come 2011, 2012, we have made reductions down to the size we felt would be appropriate for our business going forward. starting in 2010. as we get to the end of the year and we look to forward in the year and allocating funding, etc., we had to make additional reductions. this is my third years up -- third year reductions. once i get down to that level, i'll have a stable employment level of which i can manage fluctuations over time with basically temporary workers. that is the intent we're doing this year. we're continuing to reduce staff. we're down about 3% in staff in the past three years -- we're down about 30% in staff in the past three years. the instability creates a tremendous amount of nervousness in the organization, among our people, for what the future holds for them. it hinders traction in motivation going forward to and we can organize and sides -- in size for any future, but we would like to see what that future looks like and have stability for the long run. competition is fine. we are happy to compete. if we love, we can make adjustments been we love to go compete. but to have them not funded and be able to compete and win and then have them canceled is difficult for our organizations. >> i would suggest coming your position, with the nrc's space studies board, you might want to have them look at this topic. the impact to the space program, of the different funding some areas, including sequestration. even though the senator does not think sequestration will go into effect or, if it did go into effect because of lack of agreement by december 31, it will quickly be overturned in the new congress. so i would suggest that you will take up the topic fairly soon. >> we have given this thought and it is quite clear that, given the decision makers sense of what is at risk at different levels of reduction, i think it would be very useful. it will be difficult, i think, for us to do or the next three months. but over the longer term, we can look at levels of cuts or changes in budget in how we might respond and we might do so in reference to the goals thus far that we have set forth in our surveys unless we're directed to look at it differently. knowing our goals, we could say what we would do under different scenarios. >> it will also be helpful if you could report from the nrc to us on the committee on an evaluation of the administration's plan under the nasa authorization bill for the exploration program with regard to mars. that would be very helpful. >> yes, i would be delighted to consider that. we would have to work at very carefully. but we very much want to see what the new nasa committee is saying. we very much want to evaluate it. >> great. this has been most illuminating, thank you all. the meeting is adjourned. [gavel] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> in just under three weeks, the first of the presidential debates live on c-span, c-span radio, and c-span.org. watch and engage. up next, former government officials and members of conference -- of congress hold a conversation about the u.s. debt and fiscal outlook. and then they'll look at defense policy. then, the house debate on the defense sequestration bill. it would require the president to provide congress with cuts. later, on "the communicators," joe barton discusses technology and privacy issues. >> we do on the order of the billion queries a day already and we basically are not even trying. today, search is -- the vast majority of it is people trying to find people. but there is a meaningful portion of query's were people trying to find pages, brand pages, and business pages. a bunch of it links to commercial behavior. i think there's a big opportunity at some point and we just need to go do that. searches interesting. it is going in an interesting direction. you get search engines like an google and being and what yahoo! was doing before that. you type in key words and it tells you what it thinks the answer is that mentions your keyword but i think it is evolving toward giving you answers. it is not tied been something and show me relevance of. it is answer a question for me. from the perspective, facebook is uniquely positioned to answer a lot of the questions the people have. so what sushi restaurants have my friends gone to a new york in the past six months? which of my friends or friends of friends were at a company that i am interested in working yet because i want to talk with them about what it is like to work their? these are query's that you can potentially do with facebook the wycombe buildup in the system that could not do anywhere else. i think we will do it. >> monsoor on the internet to not really know they're doing in terms of sharing. i have a 14-year-old and he does not understand which of his data is being used and perhaps being exploited. one of the challenges we have in silicon valley -- you introduce me as a sort of outsider, but i really an insider. one of the challenges we all have is being more transparent and accountable in the way in which the data on the internet is being used and perhaps, in some ways, exploded. silicon valley is very good at bridging the orthodox as of transparency -- at preaching the orthodoxes of transparency. but about everybody else. some are the worst that being transparent about data and playing cat and mouse with consumers. it is troubling if you just dismiss them by assuming that teenagers on the internet or people who have just gone on line are very much aware of the way in which the data is being used. >> there is more from author andrew keen tonight on c-span. all starting at 8:00 p.m. eastern. we are asking a question about social give companies like facebook and google this weekend. how much do you trust these companies with your personal data? log on to c-span's facebook page and let us know what you think. we will read some of your answers on the air. >> former government officials and members of congress will the discussion on the nation's long- term fiscal challenges. speakers include james baker, pete domenici, and byron dorgan this is hosted by the concord organization and two others. this is two hours. >> good morning, everybody. can you all here? thank you very much for coming. we welcome you. we're delighted to have you here for the start of the series. this is a series intended to look at what i consider to be america's greatest national- security risk. that is our fiscal imbalance. we cannot remain a global superpower if we have such a fragile feet of play. this is one of the reasons why we wanted to be involved with this. the other reason is that my boss said we would do this. [laughter] my mama did not raise a dummy. ritchie said that when your boss tells you do something, you do it. we will have quite an important set of -- why are we doing this and why are these gentlemen, former members of the house, former members of the senate, why are they doing it? because america is not having a debate on what really matters. what really matters is this fiscal future and finding a common-sense solution that meets the basic test of fairness and efficacy. both parties have the same strategy for this election, which is to anger their own base so much that they will give up the vote against the other guy. they're both doing the same thing. that is not a foundation for solving the fundamental problems that we have in this country. this country is, in a perilous way -- this country is in a careless with financially. the only way to address this in a way that is fair and that makes sense is to do it on a bipartisan basis. ec leaders in their careers coming congress, have the strongest commitment to finding solutions, not having debating points. and they work to find solutions. that is what this will be about. i'm so pleased that we're able to bring them together and it would not be possible without my boss taking the lead to action. i want to thank all of you. i will also say that everyone in this room, i think you take it seriously, which is why you're here. you have just as much irresponsibility has they do to try to get this as an agenda for the country. senator, i will turn it to you. >> thank you very much. i appreciate your welcome, john. i appreciate you making them available could they have been invaluable. i can be completely unbiased as chairman of the board and thank you for making csis the premier for policy think tank in the country and perhaps in the world. we thank you for all of that. over-t to label this the zer the-hill gang. [laughter] we get to call one more time to see if we can to get together and help the country. i want to start by thanking my longstanding partner, pete domenici, and the by privacy -- and the bipartisan center, including steve bell and allison rivlin who is not here this morning, but will be here for the forms. is special thanks to my co- chair. warren could not be here today. evan could not be it today. they have been full partners in planning and cheering this form with the de medici and with myself. bob ricks bay and the concord coalition team, we thank you very much. we will be hearing from you during the course of these forms could this is the first of four forms that has been organized by several organizations, who, from a variety of perspectives, believe that america is currently fiscal course is by -- is irresponsible and unsustainable. leaders in this arena for a long time -- the james a. baker iii institute of public policy at rice university. you'll hear from jim baker later. the bill for a center -- the bill for center -- the belford center. the former cbo director rudy who has been invaluable in his advice. we are working in full cooperation with the campaign to by ede debt cheeaired rendell and my mcginnis. i'm not sure she has made here today but she is doing an outstanding job in working on this fiscal arena. we're working closely in his quest for fiscal sanity with the peter g. peterson foundation. indelible efforts to -- incredible efforts to pay attention to the fiscal situation. we're honored today to have with us on this panel former senators bill brock, byron dorgan, and bennett johnson and former representatives dan glickman, tim roemer and john tanner. you will hear from them in just a few minutes. some of you may logically as what brings former members from both political parties together in the heat of the election. my answer is our growing concern that our nation is in a perilous fiscal position plus the seeming inability of our political parties to work together. but we're not here to preach doom and gloom and hopelessness because we believe that there are feasible and possible solutions that we can pursue to protect our children's future if we work together. to succeed, our elected leaders will have to summon more political courage and be willing to engage the public in an honest dialogue about the magnitude of the challenge and the trade-offs involved in various solutions. we will hear a lot about numbers in these forums, but this is not a complicated calculus or physics problem. it is about simple arithmetic, addition, multiplication, and far too seldom subtraction. the hard part is making local truces that involve compromise and shared sacrifice. -- the hard part is making choices that involve compromise and shared sacrifice. in this day, in my view, it is not far away. " millet, this is a moral issue. each of us should think about the net -- ultimately, this is a moral issue. each of us should think about the nation that we inherited from our mothers and fathers and what we will lead to the future generation. unless we act now to bend current trend lines, we will pass on toward children and grandchildren a nation weighed down by unmanageable debt and unsustainable deficits. let's not pretend it will be easy. not only are we facing the looming burden of debt, the u.s. and global economy are fragile. america faces two big challenges if we are to restore prosperity. our economy must grow, which requires private and public investment and a pro-growth tax system which we certainly do not have now. the other challenges that we must put our federal budget i sustainable path so that debt is no longer rising faster than the economy can grow. these two challenges must be addressed simultaneously. we cannot have growth without fiscal stability for fiscal stability without growth. failure to address the looming debt will weaken the confidence of the consumers and savers and inhibit job growth. but sharp and immediate cuts in spending and large increases in taxes, such as those that are on automatic pilot for jennifer's unless action is taken, will likely push us back into -- on automatic pilot for january 1 unless action is taken, will likely pushes back into recession. it also offers an opportunity to create a virtual cycle, greater fiscal stability that would promote economic growth and economic growth would promote fiscal stability. they don't get support from their leadership in the congress nor do they get support from the white house. as we saw at the conventions of the last two weeks, democrats and republicans have very different ideas about the role of government and what it should cost. my concern is not so much the difference itself. that is why we have different political parties. always have and always will. different perspectives. but my concern is that these is compromised, as we have often seen coming is to pay for the democrat vision of a larger government with the republican vision of lower taxes. that is a compromise can no longer afford as a nation. there is an old country saying that when the auxin is in the ditch, you have to focus on how to get it out. both political parties are putting most of the attention on who put the oxen in the ditch and very little on how to get it out. even those who believe that their party is 100% right and the others 100% wrong, they have to admit that there's no chance that one will be able to overrun the other and impose its "perfect solution" in time to prevent severe damage to our nation. we can no longer afford to act at winston churchill's prediction that america will always do right thing after we explore every other alternative. common sense america must rally in support people were willing to listen to the other side and find ways of working together. our elected officials will build bridges if the american people demand it. that is what this is all about, the american people have to get involved it is encouraging that some thoughtful individuals and bipartisan groups have developed a reasonable set of policy options that could stabilize the national debt, incurred economic growth and ensure the sustainability critical government programs, like social security and medicare, long into the future by making modest changes now. two groups produced reports that require close attention. but because of the individuals involved and the comprehensive nature of their recommendations. the national commission on responsibility and reform and the bipartisan policy center task force -- we will hear from these leaders and our forum next week. and we have our friend pete with us today and at all the forms. both groups were able to reach agreement on plans that call for shared sacrifice with substantial changes throughout the federal budget rather than merely some selected parts. both groups took our fragile economy and short-term economic concerns into account while laying out a credible long-term structural reforms. they put everything on the table. they did not pretend that we can leave social security and medicare untouched and get the box out of the ditch. they did not pretend that we can increase the defense budget and decrease revenue and gets th eox out of the ditch. in both -- and get the ox out of the ditch. both require high praise for the recommendations. our concord coalition will honor 38 of these house leaders at our annual dinner on thursday september 20. last year, we were pleased to water senator mark warner and senator jim saxton on this crucial issue. to raise awareness about our national fiscal crisis, our strengthening of america group plans to hold for forms over the next 20 days, including before the first presidential debate. today's session will focus on the global economic and foreign- policy implications of america's debt if i cannot think of any two leaders were credible to discuss this than former treasury secretary robin rügen and former treasury secretary and secretary state james a. baker iii. pete will introduce both bob and jim when they join us at precisely 10:30 a.m. jim baker is coming in by satellite. our next forum will take place monday afternoon september 70 here at csis and -- september 17 here at csis. we will be joined by former secretary of defense bob gates and former chairman of the joint chiefs admiral mike mullen. the secretary gates will join us by satellite from washington state could the second panel next monday will look at bipartisan solutions. we will be joined by former senator alan simpson and by erskine bowles. the third forum will be on thursday september 27 in new york city. we will focus on pro-growth and tax reform. we will have a couple panels next week. the fourth and final forum, we will return to washington monday afternoon october 4. it will be on entitlement care and cost control. this will be the most important and most difficult challenge. but it has to be faced. that is what we have scheduled. very briefly, what we hope to accomplish? simply put, we want many more people in gauge in understanding the nation's fiscal crisis inside and outside of washington. we want the average american, especially young people, to better understand what is at stake for them if we don't get this right. these are not table stakes. this, what we do or don't do, will affect this country for a long time in the future. you want the media to hold candidates accountable and ask them the tough questions and follow-up questions. we want to support, strengthen and add to groups and members of the house in both parties that put the country's future before their political party. and we want candidates in federal office to explain how they will work with others to solve this crisis rather than playing let's pretend. our leaders in washington can no longer answer the question of what is to + 2 with another question -- of 2 + 2 with another question. all of this is essential if we are to succeed in strengthening america and protecting our children's future. over to you, pete. >> thank you very much. i believe all of the members here at the podium can join me in thanking you for what you have done to bring this forum to this point. as we listen to you, we feel certain that we will get to where we want to go. i am pleased to be sam's cochairperson here when we talked this over, he asked me if i would do this. i have been working in budgets so long that many people are wondering which will get solved first, the budget or will senator de medici finally leave us? i really don't know which one will be first. but until i leave you, will continue to work on this and see what we can do. so thank you, sam. literally, millions of words have been spent on this topic during the past two years. when you and i, senator nunn, were still in the senate, we heard our colleagues and millions of words on the need for fiscal wisdom appeared uni and our then-colleagues worked together to forge budgets to try to balance government spending with revenues. we had colleagues on the left and right who expect -- who, except for a handful of their extreme comes were partners in our work. even after -- who, except for a handful of their extremes, were partners in our work. between president clinton and the congress, we were able to present four consecutive years of balanced budget. many forget the drama and the tension surrounding these negotiations. we had our ideologues then, just like now. however, we put together a coalition -- i call it a coalition of the courageous. what we face now is more dangerous than what we faced 10, 20, 30 years ago. but we see policy makers refuse to cooperate. and so america had all the time in the world to solve this fiscal problem. if we do not address the debt starting now, we risked suffering an economic emergency. we risk turning our great land into a poor country. although i was not old enough to appreciate the danger is that america faced in world war ii, i know that our very existence was the state. i believe that our existence as a powerful nation, able to uphold the values that we hold dear, is threatened today. it is not some foreign power that threatens us, but our own unwillingness to take actions necessary, to curb our debt, that all observers and analysts worth listening to and policymakers are unsustainable. debt is not something that we see on a daily basis. we don't think about it as we watch a football game or the nfl or take your children to school or go support the nationals in a new wonderful team here in town. it is a silent killer, slowly eating away at our society. it is easy to ignore. to many people are fooled by today's historically low interest rates. those rates are low to analysts because america is the least rundown house in a terrible neighborhood. will investors put safety and preservation of capital first -- global investors but said the in preservation of capital first in this dangerous world. with the federal reserve as the buyer of last resort, the global economy weak low-interest, ises on our debt inevitable. at some point, markets will demand that americans pay a competitive rate for its debt. indeed, if the historical rates and the 10-year rate were the situation now, our debt would exceed every dollar we spend on national security -- every dollar. the debt is not a republican get good it is not a democrat debt. and there is no use in one party blaming the other for the debt. it is an american death as it approaches this particular time in this country's life. the only solution to it is an american solution. one where leaders of both parties band together for a better future in defiance of polarized ideologies that dominate today. let me quickly stressed three things. first, the time to act prudently has come. indeed, it has been here for some time. second, delay merely means that measures that are long term that can be phased in with only a little pain will become short- term and caused great destruction and pain. for example, our health care spending continues to dominate out of control spending. perhaps we can show that on the graph. you see it? you see how health care spending is going, the blue line? it is going up, up, and away. that is what we know. we can reform these systems now and phase in reasonable changes or we can be faced with a crisis like greece, where benefits need to be slashed overnight did they third, policy makers have to admit that they have made promises that they cannot keep. made with good intentions, yes. but given america's demographics, they cannot be kept. we can i keep health care promises we have made in exactly this form we have made them. we can i keep a tax system that we have promised -- we cannot keep health care promises we have made in exactly this form we have made them. we cannot keep a tax system that we have promised. policymakers have fumbled around this issue again and again for years. and because none of them want to admit that they have made promises that they cannot keep coming it is easier to be ideologically arrogant then it is to be realistically humble. our leaders still have the opportunity to write the fiscal ship. it will take cooperation and decisiveness. but the excuse that politics are tougher and tougher today than in our time simply will not wash. every generation has had that excuse -- vietnam, watergate, riots in the street, wars. we're here today to challenge our policy makers to face up to this challenge and restore the economic strength of this nation. there is no way out. in closing, it can be done. thank you. [applause] >> thank you very much, pete. we will do this in alphabetical order given the various seniority's involved. and always-presence of the city's between the upper house and the lower house. [laughter] bill brock. >> much of my time since leaving government has been in education form. in 1993, some really good folks published a report called "a nation at risk." it was on the year urgency of reforming our educational system. it has been 30 years since we have that report on our desk. and precious little has been done. in many cases, we are just as bad off as we were. we are now a physical world where this is a nation at risk. -- we are now in a fiscal world where this is a nation at risk. we don't have the luxury of waiting another 30 years. it is stunning to me to see movies in the last couple of days say that they are interested in downgrading the u.s. credit. it is unbelievable that u.s. that could be at risk. but there you have it. it is a big deal and there is no particular magic want. the truth is that we have elected leaders who have been unwilling to tell us we have to pay for what we ask for. so we have not done it. the debt is now burgeoning -- burdening our economy, our growth, our job creation and frankly even our attitudes. it creates the coloration of a whole climate that says "don't take risks. you already own to much." when you slow down in that regard, you slow down the ability to attack the problem. and that is where we are today. a couple of rolls as we -- a couple rules as we begin this conversation, as we shift from a problem approach to a solution approach. first, let's try to get our leaders to say there are no quick fixes and there are no absolutes. let's stop the exercise of saying i will never -- i will never support a tax increase, i will never support something on social security or medicare. we have to do what we have to do to fix the problem that we created. and that is the bottom line. where i would like to end up -- if the american people have not been told the truth, there can no -- there can be no higher responsibility for us as leaders or those where candidates to inform them as to the degree of risk that they and their children face. that simply means that we have to have in the campaigns, when we are asking for people's boat, the willingness to say i cannot do it without the other side. you cannot keep saying i will not talk about this until they talk about that could you have to be in the same room at the same table, both of you saying that the country has a problem and, until we do, we will be tragically a nation at risk. >> thank you, bill. >> let me thank, sam, you and pete for your leadership as well. i am here to support this effort because i think we are lost in a long dark tunnel of fiscal policy trouble and i think it is a danger to the future of this country. we know that we have a crushing debt that is growing and is unsustainable. we know that that exists at the same time that we have a weak economy struggling to find its footing. there is an urgency to summon the will and the wisdom to try to deal with those of these circumstances at the same time. the dilemma is that some will tell us that the solution for a weak economy is completely and inevitably at odds with the solutions to put our fiscal policy back on track. i am understand the teaching of economics -- i taught some myself in college -- but i believe we can do both and must do both for the future of the country. the solutions are obviously not painless. they are painful. but it seems to me that a plan that asks americans to be part of something than themselves, a plan that would give them some confidence about the future for themselves and their kids, is a plan they will embrace. it is also the case that come in an era of rancid partisanship, perhaps more than any of us who have served for while in congress have ever seen, some would say it is just not possible to reach compromise and set the country on the right course to political compromise. i don't agree with that either. i think the history, a couple hundred years of history in this country is sprinkled with examples of leadership and compromise and courage and character that has sprouted throughout our country at exactly the right moment by people who put the country's future ahead of their own future. and i believe that will and can be the case today. but it needs to be nudged. and that is -- probably pushed is a better example. and that is with this effort is all about. i very much appreciate the group -- the work being done by this group. >> thank you, byron. >> thank you, senator. i am delighted to be here as part of senators nunn and domenici program, particularly glad to be with folks of my own age for a change. [laughter] >> some of us left. >> i do want to say that the problem as it has been laid out israel. -- as it has been laid out is real. i only know that we are in an election contest now. none of the parties nor the candidates at any level are probably going to engage in the discourse that we think is necessary to lead to a solution until after the election. however, after the election, we have to have some progress in a lame-duck session before the cliff at the end of december. the american public has not grasped the regency of the situation. congress to understand -- grasped the urgency of the situation. congress is content to wait until it comes. there is a time and the american people are not wanting to stand up and be the first in line to make sacrifices. that's normal. but normally they are willing to follow good leadership and is now time for our elected leaders and those who will be elected to stand up and leave. that will require compromise. it will require give on entitlement, taxes, defense, all of the elements in the budget have to be involved. we all know the general framework, but somebody has to negotiate it and that is up to our elected leaders. we will try to nag them until they do. thank you. >> thank you very much, bill. rep and secretary dan glickman. >> thank you, sampan thank you to you and my colleagues at the bipartisan policy center, pete domenici, for your leadership. it is tough for this country to make decisions. it has a separation of powers. the founding fathers wanted 1 foot on the brakes and 1 foot on the accelerator at the same time. in an environment, coupled with this campaign environment, money in the political system, a 24- hour meeting cycle, the incentives for leadership is really difficult. but it is not all bleak. it always struck me that, when you look at great institutions that work well, from grade companies to academic institutions, there is a symbol of a high performance team. kmart is part of making those institutions work. you look at a fortune 500 companies, entrepreneur rules, the ones that work are based on team work from the top down appear they are part of a team. they work together. we have great trouble in our country now being 18, a high performance team. i think that makes it difficult for us to address these serious problems with deeply controversial political solutions. i think we can make them. it does not take rocket science to know what we're doing. but hopefully, after the election, we will go back to a system of team work. we did that in the second world war. we did that in the depression. we have always done that when we had great compromises. that team has to be led by the president. he is the ceo of teamwork, of the team, so to speak. although there are no absolute parallels to a corporate environment. but the president sets the agenda and it requires people to follow along and to work together. i honestly do believe that these concepts of team work and the principles of social institution is just as applicable to government as their to the private sector and the non-profit sector. we just have not seen them working very well because of the impediments that i talked about before. as byron dorgan talked about the need for character in compromise. in order to get that, you need to make sure the believe we are all in this boat together. and there has to be the leadership at all levels and it really has to start with the ceo of the country, the president. and it is not easy because the political environment we are in, where someone was to defeat the ceo under any circumstances, but if the ceo is successful in bringing people closer together and working with them, we can tackle these problems which are not insurmountable at all. so i am hopeful, in the post- election environment, with the nagging that bill was talking about, we can look at this as a problem where we are all in this together, were the country sinks or swims because we're all working together and we can work more as a high performance team. thank you very much. >> at next speaker is j. bennett johnston, democrat from louisiana. i don't know if we were telling your buddy were these members are from. but i thought i must tell them where you're from because you look so different from when you're here and i want to make sure they remember you. [laughter] >> thank you, pete. unless the congress acts in the lame duck, as we all know, we go off the fiscal cliff and probably into recession. so there is broad agreement among us and i think officially among both parties that we need a grand bargain. my concern is that, in the lame duck, by trying to do too much, by trying to get a grand bargain, which is virtually impossible in the lame duck, that we go into gridlock and that we go off the fiscal cliff. what can we do? there is a lot of sentiment for what they call a credible down payment. that is a reduction in the deficit, not all the way to the grand bargain, but partially. i think that is a fool's errand. it will be just as hard to get a credible down payment as to get a grand bargain. all of these things are interrelated, taxes, deficit reduction, entitlement reduction, and each party says we won't give you that unless you give us this. and they are all interrelated and there is not time for, in my judgment, a credible down payment. what we can do, with the congress can do in a lame duck, in my judgment, is two things. first, agree on the size of the deficit reduction. in my judgment, simpson-bowles had it right in $3 trillion over 10 years with two dollars to win in cuts, $1 trillion in taxes, and $1 trillion in savings. they need to provide for some kind of matrix with time horizons, milestones, so that, for example, you can say, by march 1, you must have reconciliation instructions to the committee's telling them how much they have to save in each category and that must be passed by march 1. failing to meet that, then you go back to some kind of sequestration. and have milestones throughout the rest of the year because the grand bargain will take the greater part of a year. let's face it. you cannot reform the tax code. you cannot do these things rapidly in a lame duck. in my judgment, we could be very useful in al lining and trying to get agreement on those two goals. that is the size of the reduction and the mechanism by which the congress goes into next year's and an enforcement mechanism. remember, congress will insist on some sort of fail-safe so that, if the congress does not act, something will happen like the sequestration. i hope we can get together on that kind of program. >> thank you, bennett. ambassador to india, tim pearce >> thank you, senator. thank you for the leadership from all of the representatives on the panel. thank you to the think tanks that helped organize the seabed. i would like to point out a couple of things that have happened in the last 24 hours. there are two or three trends. and then talk about why, with what america faces globally in the world today, it is essential for us to have our fiscal house in order so that america projects its power efficiently and effectively and powerfully in the next century. first of all, in the last 24 hours, we have tragically lost in the united -- we have tragically lost a united states ambassador in libya. and, in the front page of "the financial times" this morning, the headline rains that now moody's -- the headline reads that now moody's might join the s&p in downgrading the united states excellent credit rating. both of those project serious threats to the united states. one, how do we continue our diplomatic efforts, her military and economic efforts abroad, to export, to engage the world, to explain american values and to make sure that people are safe overseas. number two, how do we protect that great credit rating of "made in usa." i am an optimist. i believe that we can achieve these outcomes. the caro book that many people are reading this summer talks about great leadership. but it also quotes walter lippmann and james preston u talking about the worst congress we have ever seen in terms of a gridlock. and we overcame that. just as i am optimistic that we will overcome the gridlock on capitol hill today. two ways around that are great leadership, bipartisan leadership, democrats and republicans working together as they did 15 years ago for a balanced budget in 1997. and secondly, the tweeds, the blogs, the social media, the american people have to weigh in. they have to come forward and say, when you take deficit- reduction action, good things happen in america, not only for our children, for businesses to project forward and project what they can do, for exports going overseas, for the tax code. good things happen to get our economy moving forward. let me just conclude by saying, in terms of the optimism that i talk about, harry truman once said this, "no government is perfect. one of the chief virtues of a democracy, however, is that its defects are always visible and, under a democratic process, can be pointed out and corrected." we can point out these defects and we can, with optimism and by promises them, correct these and move forward -- and bipartisanism, correct them and move forward. i am sure that america's best years are ahead of us. >> thank you, tim. our final member today's john tanner. we will have a few questions from the audience. if we have some time, beginning at 10:30 a.m., we will go straight to jim baker and to bob rubin appeared john -- and to bob rubin. john is a democrat from tennessee. >> thank you. i believe that, with my accent, this may take a while. [laughter] i have been on a lot of panels and i do not think that i have been on one where i have agreed with every word i have heard so far. i hope you do, too. i believe these people have devoted a lot of thought and effort to what we're doing here today and i hope that everyone takes it as seriously as we possibly can. i want to talk a little different. 50 years ago this year, there was a case in united states supreme court from mild congressional district called baker vs. carr. in that case, for the first time in modern political history, the judiciary said that they did -- that the apportionment of seats based on population was a justifiable issue. it involve people protection and all the rest of it. and from that came the system that we have today. that system today is where the state legislatures, politicians, drawing districts for state house, state senate and state representative seats. i don't know about this last census, but for the last 10 years, we have been talking about it and we had a bill in congress go nowhere. but what has happened to us over this time is that we have imposed inadvertently and i think and intentionally a parliamentary system on a representative form of government. it doesn't work. in parliament, you don't have two branches -- you have two branches and you have the opposition. they suffer, has one of my friends in the u.k. parliament says, up to five years at a time under the tyranny of the majority. our forefathers intentionally did not want that system and set up a three-branch system. not only does our system and encourage compromise, it forces it if our government is to work. our problem with the debt and deficit is not so much mathematics, although it is certainly part of it, but the political will to do something about it. and the way members come here, after the 2000 census, there were only 91 seats left in the united states house of representatives that were even within the hypothetical margin of error of aover 300 members ag elected in primaries where the most partisan elements of our society reside. that is why we wonder we have this polarization's that is killing our ability in the congress to really reach conclusions that are sensible, mostly centrist oriented so everybody can at least live with it if not embrace and endorse it. we only talk about this every 10 years but it affects us every day. i would just conclude by saying either we fix our problem or our children's future is bleak. the good news is we can if we have the political will to do so. they've cut me off. >> thank you. i understood every word you said. [laughter] i agree. i think we have a little time here now between now and 10:30. by an going to ask our folks to make sure we cut off a minute or two to make sure we get the satellite hook up the. does anyone have any questions from the audience? ok. >> thank you all for being here. i am a graduate student at george washington university. the question i have is about the approach we should be taking about bipartisanship. should we be looking at the ideas put forth by the democrats and republicans in trying to find compromise? or should we be trying to find new ideas that we have not even talked about yet? how do we get those ideas circulated? >> we have had two sterling blue ribbon groups of people who have worked on this exact problem. our group is not here to reinvent the wheel. those, to me, on the best frameworks to work from. i do not think anyone has an exact answer to how you deal with the escalating health care costs them back this is a government the problem of first magnitude but is also a problem beyond the government. it affects patients around the country. ideas in health care and entitlement area about how we tried to bend the trajectory is all-important. i do not think anyone has perfect solutions to the tax side. i think most people would agree we would be better off if we could throw out the whole code. the ideas along that lien are enormously important. i think most people would like to see young people and citizens getting involved in trying to encourage people who are in office and running for office to listen and entertain the possibility they may not be completely correct on everything. if we do not start listening to one another, it is going to be very hard to reach an agreement. other people may have answers. tim? >> i will give it a try. let me just say to you in the two proposals that have been alluded to, if you shake it -- outcome is a very simple proposition. this is one of the solutions. you have to reform entitlements. not to affect the current recipients because it remember entitlements do not need to be worked on 48, 10, 12 years. -- on for eight, 10, 12 years. you can go a long way forward before anyone is impacted. you have to decide to go into a room and talk about that. this group said you cannot get enough out of that and other cuts to solve this problem so take a look at the revenue side. in both cases, these two groups said totally reformed the tax code and direct your attention at the hundreds of tax expenditures worth trillions of dollars and decide which or all of which could be changed, removed, repealed, and what you get from that apply both to the debt and to the budget. it turns out, we have never yet had a bipartisan group with authority looking at those two in a package to see what they could tell the american people the negatives are. we just generalize the negatives. if you look at them in detail and got them out, i believe with leadership you have the beginnings of a solution. you do not need to find new solutions. they are real. they are there. everybody knows them. >> tim roemer. >> [inaudible] -- a plethora of ways to balance the budget. commissions, the president has put out a proposal, a lot of ideas. i would argue two. to build support for the deficit. i have been working with a next generation group of young people at college campuses that have been trying to put a forum together for the presidential candidates. you look pretty young, a lot younger than all of us up here on this panel. the two biggest issues to college graduates right now are college costs, tuition, and that, and the deficit, the national deficit. they need to weigh in on this. secondly, reading this book, lyndon baines johnson put a coalition on civil rights together that was not just african americans and religious groups. the work with business leaders, with labor leaders. the form coalitions and congress worked together to get civil rights and voting rights bills done. so i think a lot of this has to come from america. leadership comes from people in washington and it comes from you. >> sam, i would like to see us sponsor a grover norquist-type pledge. i would like to see our pledge say "i pledge to work on a bipartisan basis to seek a grand bargain with everything on the table." put it out there and see who refuses to sign that. >> thank you very much. is that the way you would do it in louisiana? >> thank you very much. >> it is wonderful how many people up here do not have an accent. two or three things. tim says we have a plethora of ways. the first commitment we have to make is go big. go small, you have the same components and the same problem. if you are going to do it, do it in a way that receives the kind of support you need and get to the problems. new ideas? there are some new ideas out on the table. a consumption tax is not being discussed in this country. size, composition, and enforcement are the three essentials to make because if you do not have adequate size or the right composition, and if you do not have an enforcement process, you do not have for all of us the insurance that we are going to have to have that we are going to deal with this problem. if you keep using quick fixes, you are dead. you can now get from here to there. it is a long-term problem with a long-term solution and it will take some time to work through it. >> just to underscore the need that bipartisanship exists to achieve things. i was on a ways and means committee in 1986. it was proposed by republican president, ronald reagan, introduction of legislation by bill bradley. in the markup we occasionally had active participation from the treasury secretary and others. it truly was a bipartisan effort and it worked. reforming the tax code is very, very difficult even under circumstances where there is substantial bipartisanship. i think it is urgent that we do that now. i do not even know if it can be done in a year but i know they cannot be done without very substantial bipartisanship. if there is bipartisanship, it is doable. >> thank you. >> it strikes me over the last 20 or 30 years, the american people have been beaten down by the fact that government is bad and filled with corruption, wasteful -- [inaudible] -- through a security force, through the best military and the world. i go back to this point about we are all in this together. we have come out of this world that we are all in this together. save social security but the hell with everything else. we have to go back to trying to instill confidence with the american people. our political system is good, what our government does is a positive experience, and then i think it will build support with the american people that a grand compromise is a positive thing to do. >> could i comment for a minute? to go into the next session. there is one thing that has to happen as we put together as a nation a solution, and that is we have to remember that we are now growing. of our gross domestic product is now growing sufficiently to take care of the expected needs of our people. if the gdp is up high, it grows a certain amount this year which permits more things to be done by more people that costs money. ours is not growing enough. whatever we put together must be as best humans can do a growth-oriented budget or we will not have the tools to solve the problem. getting richer annually rather than poorer. that is a must in whatever package we put together. thank you. >> i agree. we are going to have people from the american business conference testify later about that. i think our time is just right to turn to robert rubin who is coming forward to the podium. bob, we hate to isolate you. your buddy jim baker is coming in on satellite. bob rubin and jim baker. [applause] jim, we are glad to have you. we'll start with jim for whatever thoughts are on your mind. then we will turn to bob rubin. >> jim, this is exactly why i agreed to work with sam because i knew i would get the one opportunity to introduce my great friend. we look forward to hearing from you. this gentleman who is before us is one of the most distinguished americans that has ever lived. we are fortunate that he and his associate have both agreed to help us in our mission to make america strong again and to make our economy strong again. this man has received more honors including the distinguished medal of honor than any living human being could fit in their major room where they put up the awards. i served with him and i know firsthand what a wonderful leader he is, how fair he is and how tough he is. he was an executive branch member. i told him that he was a softie but he insisted i should tell no one how i made so many pieces of legislation work when i worked with him. the important thing is he knows plenty about america and america's problems and the world and america's problems in the world. he will be our first speaker. join me in welcoming james a. baker. [applause] >> thank you for that over the top introduction. >> we can't hear. >> you cannot hear me? >> not yet. hold it just a second, jim. we have to get the volume up. >> i am hearing you ok but i am getting a feedback. ok. it is still feeding back in my earpiece. you guys want them to go with the other speaker? > can you hear now? all right. >> go ahead, jim. now it's loud and clear. >> bouquet, great. i am still getting the feedback, but let me say that i appreciate that over the top introduction that pete gave me. i am delighted to be here with you and sam and with the others with whom i have worked with through the years. particularly delighted to associate myself with the efforts you have here in order to bring some sanity to our fiscal problems. let me say at the outset, i remain proud of the economic policies of the reagan administration which i think laid the groundwork for a record 24 out of 25 years for real gdp growth beginning in 1983. i heard -- i guess it was comments about tax reform. i think what we were able to do in 1986 with tax reform with a republican president was significant because that proposal was passed with democratic votes. there was a lot of cooperation from both sides of the aisle. the same thing happened of course in 1983 when we fixed social security's financial problems for a while by taking it out of the political debate. taking it out of the political debate by getting the leader of the democratic party and the republican party together to agree that they were going to try to fix this problem. tip o'neill and ronald reagan. we fixed that problem. we need something like that today. i of course come to you with a bit of bias in terms of how we might fix the problem because i was ronald reagan's treasury secretary for four years. my strongly-held view is not that americans pay too few tqaxes, but that our government spends too much. i think that view is incorporated pretty well both in simpson-bowles and in the domenici proposal. one thing i do know is a broad bipartisan agreement is going to be necessary if we are going to be able to stabilize our debt. we cannot continue to move forward with a debt to gdp of over 100% for as far as the eye can see. a grand bargain is going to has re some thingthing that become a dirty word up there in disneyland on the potomac and that is compromise. i will not go into the domestic consequences that i think would be associated if we just continue on our current path except to say i think they would be catastrophic. as a former treasury secretary, let me focus on the international aspects of this debt problem before mentioning a few of the elements i think should be part of any grand bargain in. right now, we are enjoying a period of low interest rates so therefore we have manageable debt service. this will not continue indefinitely. in a real sense, this debt problem of ours is a ticking time bomb because as the world economy recovers and the u.s. economy recovers, interest rates are going to rise and many foreign lenders are going to begin exacting a premium for lending to a government with debt over 100% of gdp as far as the eye can see. what is happening to europe today i think is a cautionary example. when a sovereign debt crisis hits, it can strike overnight. when it hits the united states, the fed will probably respond by either raising interest rates and/or monetizing the debt. that is going to create the groundwork for a period of low growth and a plunging dollar. if that happens and it is not just possible in my view if we do not make policy changes, it is probable, such a state of affairs could peril the u.s. dollar as the world's reserve currency. that will increase instability in international markets, dampen global growth, and constrain the ability of our government to pursue an independent monetary and fiscal policy. more generally, i think our fiscal debt crisis runs the risk of undermining our leadership abroad. there will be increasing and understandable calls for us to reduce our expenditures on defense and diplomacy which will constrain our ability to be able to respond to a world where threats and opportunities abound. as we can see from the tragic events in egypt and libya. our strength abroad depends on our economic health at home. you can not be strong diplomatically and militarily if you are not strong economically. this big ticking debt bomb threatens both. you say to yourself, ok, what should a grand bargain look like? let me suggest to you if i might based on my experience with tax reform and with social security compromise a couple of broad principles. number one, we ought to start by recognizing that any plan should be realistic. the idea that we are going to solve our huge debt problem by simply raising taxes on the rich is of course a total fantasy. the so-called warren buffett tax is expected to raise less than $50 billion in 10 years. secondly, someone said this earlier. any plan should strike a pro- growth balance between revenue increases and spending. the simpson-bowles plan with a ratio of cuts of roughly 3 to 1 would be a great starting point as far as i am concerned. that is a matter to be negotiated and to be compromised. third, any plan should include as far as i am concerned upfront expenditure cuts. there really should not be tax increases agreed to or accomplished until the spending cuts have already been made or at least legislated. i am cognizant of the importance of avoiding further fiscal contraction during a time of weak economic performance, but i think if you are going to get into negotiations for a grand bargain, there needs to be a down payment in terms of spending cuts. if you do not have that, we will once again run the risk of raising taxes while deferring the tough decisions on spending and we will never see the agreed upon spending cuts. fourth, any plan should have a spending cap that establishes strict spending target. our current spending to gdp ratio of 24% admitted they is at least in part to the economic downturn but still we need a spending cap to bring this number down to a sustainable level as the economy recovers. simpson-bowles suggest 21%. fine. that is a good starting point for discussion. i would prefer a lower number but it is a good place to start. number five, any plan should include an enforcement mechanism. i think it may have been bill brock who guaranteed the spending cap be met and maintained. if you do not have that, a future congress can and will simply disregard of the provisions of any bargain. this is particularly true when it comes to spending because there are always good reasons if not economically but darn good political reasons to spend more money. as the most effective enforcement mechanism, i have long supported a balanced budget amendment in the constitution but the limitation on the ratio of taxes to gdp. my view it is probably we are going to have to be satisfied if we can get it with a legislative approach, something approaching along the lines of a beefed up provision that would mandate automatic sequestration should we exceed our target spending cap and that would mandate sunset provisions terminating tax increases is included as a part of the grand bargain for total federal spending exceed the target percentage of gdp. that way it seems to me you are taking care of both sides of the equation. furthermore, i think such an enforcement mechanism might feature super majority on both sides of congress to repeal or change elements of the grand bargain. lastly, any effort to raise revenue as a part of the grand bargain to focus on broadening the tax base rather than raising marginal rate. somebody mentioned the large number of expenditure provisions, deductions, loopholes, and so forth in the tax code. comprehensive tax reform may be a bridge too far in today's current political environment. because as someone earlier said, i remember the difficulties we faced in achieving bipartisan support for even a revenue- neutral tax reform exercise in 1986. if our objective is to reduce our ratio of debt to gdp and i think it has to be one of our objectives, and if our objective is to restore growth, and the revenue we raise would best be raised by closing loopholes rather than increase in marginal rates. am i sure such an approach like that would work? let me be very frank with you. given today's polarization of our politics, i am really far from confident that a grand bargain will even be struck. i hope very much that a well because it is the only way i see out of this trap. i am not sure it will be and this is particularly true if we continue to experience divided government which is a very possible outcome from the november elections. all that said, i think it is critical as many of the panel have already said this morning, really critical that americans of good will come out republicans, democrats, independentss alike do everything we can to press our elected officials to make the compromises however painful that are necessary if we are to set our country on a sustainable, fiscal path. the alternative which is gridlock come at a lower standard of living for our citizens, and a much diminished place for the united states in the international arena is simply unacceptable. i like what i just heard a minute ago from bennett johnston who said maybe it would be good if we could get our elected officials to take pledge to try to achieve a grand bargain so we get out of this trap. whenever we do, we have to make an heroic effort because it is about the future of this country and the future of our children and grandchildren. we are going to have to keep our eyes on the prize, and that prize is a future in which our country prosperous, our citizens can flores, and we can protect our interests abroad. thank you very much. >> thank you, jim. [applause] if you will wait, we will go next to mr. rubin. thank you. we have another very distinguished american citizen who has come to join us and share his wisdom with us. robert rubin it is a chairman on the council of foreign relations, former secretary of the united states treasury. he served in the white house as an assistant to the president for economic policy and the first director of the national economic council. he served as our nation's 70th secretary of the treasury from 1995 to 1999, and then he served as a member of the board of directors and a senior adviser to a company. he has served in various community organizations and has lent his time to those who need his talent. to have a distinguished american share with us on this it to which we believe it is so important to our country and its future. thank you for joining us and thank you for testifying before us. >> i think the last time we were trying to figure out with these surpluses -- is that correct? >> we decided the surpluses were too big so we would do something to get rid of them. >> we are glad to have you. >> he knows something about budget. he has led an executive branch into four consecutive balanced budget. >> thank you. i do have a set of comments i would like to make. let me make one comment i had not planned to make. i think all of us agree we should have a pro-growth economic policy but i think there may be some real differences in what that policy should be. that needs to be resolved with compromise. i would remind all of us that in 1993 we put in place a deficit reduction program that raised rates on the most affluent, 50% spending cuts and 50% revenue increases which created the largest economic expansion in american history. it is worth keeping all of these important historical moment in mind. i have believed in a long time that our country is at an historical crossroads. we have enormous strengths. vast natural resources. i believe that even in a transforming global economy, we should succeed over the longer run. i think we have to meet three great challenges. first, we have to address an unsustainable fiscal trajectory. secondly, we need robust public investment in areas that are critical to economic growth than they education, infrastructure, research been big third, we need reform in areas that are very important thing tha. i believe that the most fundamental challenge and i believe it will be ultimately ruinous if on that is our fiscal trajectory because it poses multiple risks. first, crowding out public investment and creating an interest rate structure that is inconsistent with growth. secondly, severe the stabilization. this is the most dangerous. distabilization of our markets and our economy. 3, undermining our financial assistance to deal with economic difficulties, or as jim said geopolitical difficulties. dampening political confidence about future economic conditions, and heightening concern about whether or not our political system can work. fifth, containing our capacity for public investment and national security. it can take many forms. including a long period of low interest rates and low growth and probably increased six locality. number two, high and spiralling inflation if we try to monetize our way out of debt. number three, a severe crisis in our bond markets that will inevitably lead to a deep recession. number four, some sequential combination of these consequences. the longer we wait to act preventive the, the deeper the whole becomes and the harder to regain confidence and the more protracted responding measures will have to be. if we do not act prevent the league and are forced to act in response to crisis, the measures required will be far more extreme. to allow more time for recovery, it would surely make sense to enact a program now but defer the implementation with a limited period. i also believe fiscal reform should be done in one comprehensive program. someone mentioned that before. otherwise we lose trade-off opportunities. i think there is a real risk that the ec measures will be done first. elected officials and journalists often will say privately they think our system is incapable of acting on these issues without a crisis. but i believe that you vastly underestimates how severe such a crisis might be and how harsh the responding measures may be required. the substantive issues and resolving our fiscal situation are obviously difficult. able. believe it is resolv an economist said to me long ago that a pragmatic liberal economist got together and put together the pieces of an effective fiscal program in a day. democratic government is often messy. but at the end of the day, and i think this is absolutely critical, there must be a commitment to govern and to do what is necessary and that means basing decisions on facts and analysis. that means making politically tough choices. it means working across party lines and different opinions to reach a common ground. our nation's founding fathers strongly disagreed on many fundamental issues but they work together through a sweltering summer in philadelphia with delegates often using substantially on matters they cared deeply about to form our constitution. the process of reform inevitably will involve a similarly passionate debate. the process must wind up with a principled and effect of compromise based on political realities and substantive trade offs. let me expand on two issues, both of which have already been commented on at some length. tax expenditures and spending cuts. many proposals either to eliminate or limit tax expenditures substantially. sometimes without specifying the particulars and in any event without the discussion and the recognition of substantive effects and political realities that i believe should be done in an area that is newly focused on with great intesity. i also believe that the effects of tax expenditure cuts or limitations are almost surely not well understood by those affected and probably not well understood by most non-expert advocates then they tax proposals may seem like an attractive political alternative to the longstanding debate about spending cuts, rate increases, other tax measures and the like. in my view, the tough choices in many ways have just been postponed. these measures may be politically undoable or abandoned unless the substantive effects and the political realities are fully laid out and fully understood. that tax expenditure reductions are used in many plants as they pass to both reducing tax rates and contributed revenue to deficit-reduction. that is an appealing prospect but it is truly a tall order. tax reductions can contribute to a fiscal plan and i think was a very useful approach. but they are not a silver bullet. realistic savings may be far less than what many plans anticipate. in this regard, the non-partisan congressional research service said "given the barriers to eliminating or reducing most tax expenditures, it may prove difficult to get more than 100 to $150 billion in additional tax revenues. this is far less than what is required in many of the proposals that have been put forward." tax expenditure advocates argue and i think absolutely correctly that all courses are politically difficult and then go on to say that substantially more may be doable relative to other possibilities than the congressional research numbers suggest. i think that judgment can only be made when all tax expenditures are set out with great specificity with respect to which they will be, how much they will cost, and then provide a clear basis for understanding the substantive effects and political realities. as the spending cut plans generally tend to be broad and not specific, either a large measure or at least with respect to some areas, and most have spending production numbers that at least some analysts say would be hugely injuries in the substantive effects and may well be politically unrealistic. as with tax expenditures, only analysis of the specifics can provide the basis for an informed judgment and informed decision making although i would say spending because the numbers of pieces in the budget on the spending side are so large we probably need are representative examples. my next point is controversial but i believe the numbers clearly show and i think most mainstream analysts would agree that it is impossible to meet our fiscal objectives and to provide the governmental services expected by the predominance of americans across the philosophical spectrum unless we act on all fronts. these affronts are serious cost containment and the so-called non-defense discretionary budgets, and had a mere reform to put health care programs and social security on a sound financial footing, reductions in defense, and a significant increase in revenues than they those who reject the need for revenue increases are in tide of reform seems to me take on the obligation to show the false the subjects of an alternative, substantive effects fully understood, and is politically doable. every budget reflects views as to the fundamental objectives of public policy. mind would be growth, competitiveness, increased living standards, and a financially sustainable social safety net. my preferred fiscal program would be roughly 10 years of deficit reduction which as others have said leads to stabilizing the debt to gdp ratio. i would enact that now but differ implementation probably for two years but with an enforcement mechanism that was real. back about 30go abou seconds and repeat what you just said? >> i would be delighted but with peace? >> [inaudible] >> probably those who denied you need more revenue or entitlement cuts -- >> [inaudible] >> absolutely. i would be delighted. yes, as we all know, there are many in one party who think we should not increase revenues and those who think we should not reform entitlements. i think both are absolutely necessary. i believe those who reject the need for revenue increases and the need for intimate reform have the obligation to show the full specifics of an alternative whose substantive effects are fully understood and politically doable. >> we are going to have a couple of charts. >> i think it lies at the heart in many ways of resolving the difficulties between the two parties. i think we need room for critical public investment. i would have what we had in 1993 which was a split between revenue increases and spending cuts. i would go back to the top rate of the 1990's which were predicted to be ruinous of the economy and instead we had the longest economic expansion in american history painting obviously many would disagree with my view but it seems to make individual views are not the point. the imperative is for elected officials and for all of us to work together to move to a sound fiscal regime. for later decade as we all know, health care entitlements are increasingly central to our fiscal position and their growth primarily come from the rising cost in our overall health care system. i believe everyone agrees more must be done to address those costs. a sound fiscal regime, and this is my last point, is also highly germane to reducing the current economic press which is creating such hardship for many americans. there is an ongoing debate about whether the immediate emphasis should be on jobs and growth or deficit reduction. i believe that is a false choice. our fiscal outlook undermined business confidence and economic confidence, both because it creates heightened uncertainty about future decisions and considerable concerns about whether our political system can work. i do not think we will have a healthy recovery until our fiscal underpinnings are in order and i believe the stimulus would be far more effective if combined with a serious deficit reduction program and the confidence that it would bring. the so-called fiscal cliff with its expiring tax cut, sequestered, and its distance from the next election create a set of conditions for producing compromise across party lines to meet america's comparative. this is an opportunity i believe all of us in government and out of government must do everything in our power not to lose. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you, bob, and thank you, jim. if we could put jim back up. jim, i hope you were able to hear bob and so forth. i am going to ask one question. i went to make sure everyone has a chance for questions. america is a dog with the less fleas but the world isn't economically fragile place now. before ourg that very eyes. is this an urgent matter or do we have a lot of time before america start being a place that people do not want to lend to? we will have a chart later that i think shows 20% of our foreign debt is held by china now, 20% for japan. do either one of you want to comment on the global implications given the fragile global economy? >> i don't know how much time we have, sam, and i don't know anybody who would know how much time we have been been all i can say is a sovereign debt crisis can hit pretty quickly. a fiscal crisis can come along fairly quickly. look at what happened in 2008 in this country and the world economy for that matter. the longer we go on like this, the greater risk we take that something truly adverse will happen which is why i agree with what bob said. we are approaching a time of opportunity to maybe sit down in the aftermath of our presidential election with another four years before the next one came back i am not suggesting we can get this done in a lame duck session of congress but it is an appropriate time for us to wake ap to the fact that this crisis that we are in could easily morph into a sovereign debt crisis or a crisis not unlike what happened in 2008. so, at the time to act is now. i agree also with what bob had to say about everything ought to be on the table. absolutely everything. the only way we are going to get there is? leadership and faith and the ability to negotiate the problem between the party's. >> thanks, jim. bob, do you want to comment on that? >> listening to him i wish he was leading the efforts. the bond market i used to run for a long time -- the bond markets have been very much affected by the european crisis. we still have time. look at what happened in europe. greek bonds were trading almost at no spread to german bonds. all the sudden, things blew up. things can happen dramatically, suddenly, and with enormous magnitude. there is no way to predict it. it can change very, very quickly. we have time now to do this. we have time now to do this in a careful kind of away but we are giving up that time the longer we wait. when that will have been i do not know. those odds get greater and greater as time goes on but i think it is inconceivable that we will not have a far harsher crisis than what anybody imagines unless we fix that problem. conversely, by doing it now it gives us more time to do it with thoughtful decisions. this really would be a tragedy if we gave up this opportunity. >> pete? >> let me ask both of you. do you have any advice for us on how we can better make the american people aware of what we've got on our hands and what we should do about it? it appears to me that americans what they see some things that they are worried about -- unemployment seems to be something that is sticking, and they are worried about something going wrong. wait until we fall off the cliff to solve the problem. that is why we are doing this. we could have big meetings to put it together, but you are telling us put this together now. could you use some additional words to tell the american people how bad it could be? they do not seem to appreciate how bad it could be. do you think you could share something with us? >> why don't we start with jim as our senior eminence. not by age but by wisdom. >> generating attention to the problem and point out the importance of it and the direness of it, that is what we have to do. i made a comment that was a little pessimistic when i was talking with you when i said i think that if we continue with a divided government, it is going to be damn hard to get to a grand bargain. that is what i happen to believe that someone who has had a fair amount of political experience. if it does happen, i think we need to everything we can to focus the attention of the american people on the importance fo whoever does not want to come to the table, focus attention on the importance of encouraging, prodding, promoting, controlling that group to come to the table. that's all i know to say to answer your question. but this is an extraordinarily serious problem. if i was advising the president of the united states, the new president of the united states, i would say you've got three huge problems in this country that you need to address. the economy, the economy, and the economy. and our kickinticking debt time problem. we have to deal with it. those of us who have access to the people who will be the decision makers in the next government can do whatever we can to try to promote that idea with them. >> bob, do you want to add to that? >> the only thing i would add is i think after this election, i think you all can play a role in it, to put in place a very large effort to try to persuade those in public office to come to gather and compromise, i think after this election every one of us who has some ability to relate to the political system ought to make -- they really ought to have two priorities. compromise and work with one another. two, solve this fiscal problem. i think you got it exactly right. the american public needs to be better educated about this issue and i think the people who can best do it is our elected officials. i think all of us should try to persuade our elected officials that that is what they should use their bully pulpits for. >> ok. alphabetically, we will start with bill brock. bill is a republican from tennessee. an outstanding member of the senate who i served with. he was one of the leaders and creating the budget committee. back then, we did not even have a budget. >> when we got one it got worse. i am not sure anyone in this room would argue the points that we need to get this grand bargain. i think the component parts are the challenges. i do have one specific question in that regard. you talked about the difficulty in dealing with what i call subsidies in the tax system -- loopholes, tax expenditures, what ever you want to call them. what ever you want to call them.

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