Experimentation candidly happening at the local level across the country. So, you know, we have m. I. T. Media lab working with the Boston Public School district on all sorts of Different Technology programs that theyre doing, longitudinal tracking study of, whether its working with certain clusters of schools to have everything be moved to tablets and then kids having the right to take those tablets home and those being kind of wifi accessible and so they can also learn, explore on their own while still doing their home work to iowa, building kind of networks of teachers who are really interested in helping to ensure that girls engage in the sciences and stay engaged in the sciences. Kind of aggregating together middle school and High School Teachers to support the same girls as they transition from middle school to high school who have shown and expressed interest and kind of aptitude in the maths and sciences. So, we have so much innovation happening. Some which is built around technology and some around pedagogy pedagogy, but i think in a decade and hopefully even sooner were going to know a lot more than we do now and hopefully those of us as citizens can put positive pressure on our local School Districts because this really is something thats denominated and determined at the local level, not the national level. To hopefully take the best out of what were learning from across the country. But i just dont think we know enough yet. But theres some really amazing and very different programs looking to solve these exact questions. Oh, gosh. I think we have time for one more question. Maam, over there in the white. Yes, maam. Thank you for the opportunity to ask my final question. My name is lillian ajai, i am the founder and executive director of global connection for women. Its abbreviated gc4w. I want to say the organization is three years old and we just won best 2015 best Charity Organization manhattan which is a big deal because three years ago when we started i was very unsure. Its a social enterprise. Our mission is to connect, educate and empower women and youth and weve had the opportunity to work with the Clinton Foundation on a few projects. My question is now that were kind of becoming more popular, right, theres a lot of organizations both here in the u. S. And abroad thats wanting to partner with us, right . So, were at a different growth level. Not that weve hit all of our goals in terms of what we want to achieve as an organization, but we do want to be able to help other organizations especially younger ones. So, my question to you two is when do you choose . How do you make a decision on who do you want to partner with next, right . Because you dont have enough bandwidth to help everybody. And i recently did an interview on television in nigeria and i have 200 emails that i have to respond to on a daily basis because people want to partner with us and i feel bad that i dont have enough staff to help everyone. So, when do you know when to partner and how do you make that selection . Rachel, alexa, kia. This is the continuous question that i think you will have, you know, forever. You know, i think im right in the midst of this this past year has been incredible for us, weve seen incredible growth, we went from a californiabased program to a program thats redistributed almost 5 million of medicine enough for 80,000 people. Thats awesome, but i spend pretty much all of my time trying to grow that business. And i think to some extent you have to really this is where it gets difficult. You have to learn when to trim and to really maintain focus. We get inquiries from other countries who want to use our software and weve had to make some Strategic Decisions and say, hey, we dont were a fiveperson team. We dont have the bandwidth right now to work in europe or work in south america. Thats just not where were at. I think you can carve out some time in your own personal schedule to, you know, really carve out maybe a couple hours a week or setting up a time, a dedicated time, for you to work on kind of these out of the box ideas and the partnerships which maybe will go nowhere but maybe could be fantastic. I think as a social enterprise, i totally feel you. The challenge is always youre up against, well, my funder wants me to do these metrics, a, b, and c but we have all the other potential crazy opportunities that could be amazing for the business. I think the best that you could do is really carve out and be intentional about how much time and resources youre going to put into that, but i dont think you can ignore them, but you also cannot lose sight of it seems like youre at a great opportunity for growth right now, you cant lose sight of kind of your core mission and know cuss. Because the businesses that oftentimes fail at that juncture when they start Getting Started because theyre too all over the place. Were now 200 people and, you know, going from 5 to 200 it is the most important question. You need to make sure that you pick one partner, two partners max and then focus, you know, almost obsessively, we call it maniacal focus and actually make a really big impact because trying to have ten partnerships that are running you all over the place that get you nowhere, your actual core business cant possibly run much less youre not taking a step forward with the partnership, so i would say its a great question. Its a really hard one. It doesnt go away which i think is her point but maniacal focus is probably the best thing and the last thing ill add for everybody out there who are entrepreneurs and people in tech and trying to do really hard things, sometimes i think one of the best things that also helps to sort of move this conversation forward is getting one or two people that just theyre going to tell you the tough stuff that you have to do to get better. I found that was probably the best thing that happened to me a few years ago is actually saying give it to me straight, tell me the hard news and dont tell me everything thats great and being less defensive about taking really good feedback has helped me move myself forward as a leader and my business forward but surrounding yourself with people who are much smarter and much more talented and can help you pick the partnerships but help evolve your thinking and help evolve all of us trying to do tough things being an entrepreneur as i think you said pretty beautifully back there you need tough skin and you need resill zeience and you need to fight every day. Good question. I want to ask our panelists about brief closing thoughts about the conversation or what they want to leave us with food for thought. Rachel, you can also feel free to use your minute to respond to the last conversation. All i was going to say is decision fatigue is real. Its something that ive really noticed in my life since every single decision i have to make about my daughter seems so weighty and huge so if you can outsource your Decision Making or just take some of it off your plate, you dont have to review every single one of the 3 ,000 emails in your inbox. I know you want to. But in order to move forward we do have to just allow ourselves to unenmesh from the feeling we have to make all the decisions all the time, so that would be my answer to this that. But more generally were talking about how to you know, how to lift up Women Leaders in technology and its so, i think its not about only about taking this advice, how can i make myself more of a leader, what can i do for myself. If i leave you with one thing, i really, realreally want to leave you with the notion that the rising tide really does lift all boats. And so if your mission is not only to lift yourself up but if its to lift the community up and the community of women up and so, you know, amplify the women around you. Support them. You know, like, and Start Twitter fights with conferences that only have lineups of all white dudes, like, all of that. Thats important. It makes a difference. It is making a difference. And i really wanted to just leave you guys with that. You ladies with that. Kia . I think we all know that we dont live in a colorless, genderless society. I think that each of us have a role to play in leveling in creating more equality and more equity and more opportunity for women, for people of color, for women of color, and i think you have to be a little bit intentional about creating carving out a space for what is your own personal impact going to be, not everyone can create a fabulous network of women thats going to rise the tide for all of us, but all of us have a role to play even in our own daily lives. I think the other thing i would just add really focus it might just be you bringing one or two more people into this conversation. Having a conversation with a male colleague. Having a conversation with an investor or with your boss or with an employee, you know. I think the conversation has to get bigger. It has to include not just people who look like us. It has to include people who dont even know that this is an issue and i think that at a very minimum each of us knows someone who probably has no idea that, you know, that this is all going on and that this is a struggle. So, i would say that at the very least we each have a role to play in our daily lives in bringing more people to the table. Alexa . So, having been one of the people in the audience on so many different occasions listening to a panel like this, one thing that has been tremendous to helping me in my own career was that the big gap isnt knowledge. Its actually belief in guts. Its having the belief in yourself and actually having the guts to take the jump so ill share with you one thing that has actually completely changed my life. When i was an undergrad i worked in the happy lab. It was an interesting experience for me. We took people who were 90 and had them look back at their life. They never regretted something that they did. They didnt regret the people they dated or the x, y, and z but they always regretted the one thing they didnt do. I really wish i had the guts to do this one thing. What ive imparted on myself is little 90yearold alexa on my shurld, when you are 90 and you look back are you going to really regret this and if the answer is crystal clear, yes, to andrews oint, this is the most amazing time for innovation, it truly is, i dont think weve seen a decade like this, its incredible, but if you have a Business Plan or an idea, put your 90yearold self on your shoulder. Do write the plan because you cant just jump off the cliff with no parachute. Write the plan and have the knowledge and have belief and guts. Andrew . My advice is to never let a guy have the last word. And so im going to follow my own advice and yield the remainder of my time to our esteemed moderator. Turn off his mike. Thank you, andrew. Yes. Thank you. Your daughters are very lucky to have you. I want to thank all of you for joining us today. I want to thank joyce fat self for hosting us this afternoon and talking our panelists for being so remarkably candid and clear in their advice. We know this conversation is nested in a larger conversation about gender in this country and around the world. About race in this country and around the world. We know that certainly not in the United States or in any country do girls and women have the same rights and opportunities that boys and men do. And while it is important that we continue to celebrate success and to share what has worked for each of us, its also important that we continue to recognize the magnitude and the contours of the challenges we face. And there is so much else that we could have talked about today. We could have talked about the fact that the United States is only one of Nine Countries in the world to not have paid off for mothers with infants. We could have talked about our wage gap or actually any countrys wage gap. Because even in the celebrated scandinavian countries women do not earn the same as men. Because we at the Clinton Foundation care so intensely that each of us is armed with whatever information we need, we lawn. The no ceilings full participation report that andrew was kind enough to reference as was joyce where we brought together the largest aggregation of data ever for rights of women and girls here in the u. S. And around the world. We hope you go to noceilings. Org you can search on your own country if youre not american and find out what is really true or not yet true for women and girls in your country. You can search by issue area and we brought some of the visuals to share with you during cocktail hour. We hope it further whets your curiosity and keeps you engaged in this conversation and hope it brings others into this conversation. Until this is something we are all talking about we wont be able to stop asking questions like the ones kia and alexa unfortunately received, so helping us move forward is something we all have a vested interest in and were so grateful that all of you could join all of us here today. Thank you very much. Coming up in less than 30 minutes, senator marco rubio holds a town hall in chapin, South Carolina. Well take viewer calls after the event and talk to some of the attendees. Thats live on cspan at 6 00 p. M. Eastern time. South carolina holds its president ial primary on saturday. Cspans coverage of the president ial candidates continues this week with Campaign Events in South Carolina and nevada. Leading up to the South Carolina gop primary and the Nevada Democratic caucuses. On saturday, february 20th. Our live coverage of the results starts on saturday at 7 30 p. M. Eastern with the candidate speeches and your reaction to the results on cspan, cspan radio, and cspan. Org. Tonight at 8 00 eastern on cspan, former National Security counterterrorism director Daniel Rosenthal who was in charge of closing the Guantanamo Bay prison joins a discussion about that facility. The panel also includes two attorneys who represented detainees held there. One of the lawyers, Thomas Wilner talks about why the prison should be closed. Guantanamo is terribly important to this country, and im worried im worried about the people there, and i want them treated well, and i want them home. But more than that, im worried about what it means for the country. Guantanamo was established to avoid the law. The whole purpose of guantanamo, the Bush Administration considered the law an impediment that it would have to avoid and said if we put foreigners in a place thats technically outside our sovereign territory, we can avoid review by the courts and we can deprive them of legal rights. And unfortunately, although we won the case saying they had a right to habeas corpus and we won the case saying they have a constitutional right, the d. C. Circuit has said that they still dont have the rights of due process. If the government can put them over there, theyre beyond the reach of the constitution in other ways. And thats a horrible thing for this country. Its a horrible loophole. I find it reprehensible. I not only want the people home, i want the law corrected so the United States can stand by its principles and be proud of them and not try to avoid them. The panel also features Rolling Stone contributor editor janet reitman, the last reporter allowed inside the prison and miami herald military Affairs Reporter carol rosenberg. Tornado fordham was the host of the event and you can see it tonight at 8 00 eastern on cspan. Tonight on American History tv, oral histories and explorations of black leadership. Starting at 8 00 p. M. Eastern Phyllis Leffler talks with us about tonights oral histories. At 8 15 radio talk show host Armstrong Williams is featured. And just past 10 00 p. M. , former National EducationAssociation President mayor futrell. All on American History tv on cspan3. Cspans coverage of the president ial candidates continues this week with Campaign Events in South Carolina and nevada. Leading up to the South Carolina gop primary and the Nevada Democratic caucuses, on saturday february 20th. Our live coverage of the results starts on saturday at 7 30 p. M. Eastern with the cand daidate speeches and your comments. On cspan radio and cspan. Org. Treasury secretary jack lew appears before the Senate Finance committee to discuss the revenue proposals and the president s 2017 budget request. He testifies about the administrations ideas for addressing puerto ricos financial crisis, tax code reform, infrastructure investment, and a new tax on oil. If the committee will come to order. Todays hearing on is on president obamas budget for year 2017. I want to thank secretary liu for providing his time for us. While there hints about the details in advance, congress received the Budget Proposal yesterday and as has been the case under this administration, what we received was not a practical vision for the future. We will have to have order here. And its too often been the case, what we received was not a practical vision for the future, but a document to advance and seer policy proposals. Obama looks to raise taxes on hardworking americans and new regressive taxes that are being packaged as fees. With all the revenue going fuelexpanded government and spending what is being sold as investment. No matter what terms people want to use, they tax and spend too much and never witnesses. It was a vision as far as the eye can see and never growing national debt. That stands at an astronomical 19 trillion as of last week i believe it was. Close to 80 larger than when the president took office at a relative level not seen since the year surrounding world war ii. I will note that the budget contains provisions relating to puerto rico. The challenges have received a lot of attention in recent months. Unfortunately much has been overly politicized and calls for 6. 6 billion intended to provide an earned income tax credit and roughly 30 billion for medicaid funds, some are which are intended to offset and are now being told is inequity written into the Affordable Care act. The authors wrote a cliff into the law. We are being told by some of those same authors that this funding is unfair and must be undone. With any of the members of wng who draft and supported the health law to explain why that was done in the first place. I have been working hard to put together a package to help the people of puerto rico who should be our real focus in this. I have a bill that offers assistance with 7 billion of fiscal reto the island without adding a penny to the fef sit or debt. I have been asking Administration Officials and some of my colleagues oech additional funding they would like to see for puerto rico. In every case details have been with held and they have been admonished to fix this problem. Yesterday with the release of the budget, they saw proposed numbers from the administration. Why it took until now for them to emerge is beyond me. I do not believe they have been straight forward about the nature of the Debt Restructuring Authority they have seen for the territory. While we hear from our friends on the other side that republicans are denying puerto rico protections prided, that is not what is being sought. The administration is advocating with debt restructuring to puerto rico with a preference over debt issued by the puerto rican government even though the territorys constitution gives preference to some of those latter debts. We need to be clear about what is being debate and proposed and secretary lew, i hope to learn more about your thoughts Going Forward. I hope to learn more about puerto ricos pension exposures. Just this morning i wrote to the governor asking for details. Puerto ricos debt and unfunded liabilities amount to 120 billion. Lurking behind the increases nationwide is a growing crisis of under funded public tensions and the under funding of puerto ricos public tensions is striking. Another issue that i look forward to discussing today is a provision of the enacted fast act with the Debt Collection program. As we will likely hear from senator glassily if not others, they made clear the intend of interesting was for treasure skpet irs to expeditiously approve private contractsors and Debt Collection centers. The law requires that contracts be signed and the deadline is march 4th, over three weeks away. I look forward to the everydays to get the Certificate Signed and the cases released and to make sure they are made aware of and how it is going to be implemented. The treasury is supposed to manage and i want to make note of contingency plans. As you know, i asked them for details about how the agencies had to handle debt default or limit impasse. I asked for these in writing in public hearings and private conversations. You and your predecessor and get chair and former chairman opted to cloak any contingencies with market discussions. All failed to provide answers to direct questions and choosing to get over the issue. The highest levels have refused to share them with the American People. Now, i find this unacceptable. Because we received no voluntary cooperation on the issue, legislation to require that and provide accountability is probably necessary so the American People can know as much about the Debt Management of those working at trashy and the fed and in financial markets. As you can see we have quite a bit to discuss today and i look forward to a robust discussion to these and other important issues. With that i will turn to the Ranking Member for his opening statements. Thank you very much. Thank you for holding this hearing and secretary lew, we appreciate your being here for i believe one final time on this item of business. I would like to start, mr. Secretary. You and i have talked about trying to put taxes and your principal in what i think is the right context. Right now in america, there two different tax systems. The that most working people deal with is mandatory. Their taxes come directly out of their paycheck. And then there is another system for the well connected and under that system it seems that you can often pay what you want when you want to. The fact is that most working americans earn one or two paychecks a month and they have a mortgage. A few kids. And they interact with a small portion of the american portion of the tax code. Far too many shadowy cobweb filled corners of the tax code and the typical americans never have to venture into. Those corners are loaded with byzantine rules. The accountants and lawyers from the white shoe firms can use to pry open loopholes. As a result of all this complexity, you have increasingly slippery definitions of Capital Gains income and array of taxdodging strategies with names like wash sales and swap contracts. It is a mindnumbing system and it is no wonder that people would believe that the tax code is stacked against them. I dont think anybody would make a bet on a complete rewrite of the tax coat this year so as to address the entirety in terms of how the tax system plays out for the working families. I see a major opportunity for democrats and the republicans in the Congress Working with the treasury and the irs to Work Together right now. And that major opportunity is to crack down on the tax avoid and schemes that resulted in the Corporate Tax gap. I will have more to say when they come for the committee. Two thirds of a trillion dollars owed in Corporate Taxes goes unpaid every decade. Every tell us maker ought to be doing more to figure out why and how you are going to fix this. I see it as an opportunity to take on a number of big economic challenges and a number of proposals in the budget that are clearly going to be of significance for workers. The auto irs proposal saves for the first time. A number offous this committee have proposed the credit and we are all interested in helping those walking on an economic tight rope and the Community College proposals will be helpful to students pushing to find that first job and you have a number of investments in childrens health. There a number of smart proposals that could be a huge help. I look forward to working on a bipartisan basis. I want to wrap up by thanking you. Its worth noting here in the finance committee. They scheduled three hearings to come on a bipartisan basis to examine the Budget Proposal. That is a major responsibility that we have and also a practical need to communicate with the administration. Thats true no matter which Party Controls the white house. In fact these debates that we are starting control much of the debate over the course of the year. Apparently other committees are not exercising the same and i want to say that i hope that does not become a precedent. Thank you very much. Before we go any further, i would like to give an introduction to the president. The secretary served as the white house chief of staff and the position secretary lew held during clintons administration. Before joining obama in the administration, the secretary served as executive Vice President in New York University and was caught and did teach us a clinical professor at nyus Wagner School of Public Service until june 2006 when it was named chief operating office of citigroups alternative investments unit. The secretary had a degree from Harvard College and a law degree from georgetown law center. They would likely take the rest of this meeting and let me say it has been a long and productive time. I want to thank you for all you have done and in your current job we continue to do. We will just take your statement at this time. Welcome to the committee. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman and Ranking Member and members of the committee. As senator widen noted, this is the last time i will be presenting the budget. There is a nostalgic element to it and as we entered the year with a great deal of energy because there is so much we need to get done for the American People. In his state of the union address, this is a time of extraordinary change. To make this change work for the American People, we need to foster Economic Opportunities for all. Leverage new technologies to solve urgent problem such as climate change. We need to pursue a policy that protects the National Security. We need to improve political discourse. What we do is crucial to the future as a nation. Today i will discuss the major aspects of the president s budget and how it lays out a vision for what we need to do as a country. Both now and over the next five or years and beyond to create growth and make sure opportunity is shared. In the seven years since president Obama Took Office since the great depression, we have seen recovery and decline in deficits. The recent volatility we are seeing, Growth Continues at a solid pace. Our economy continued job creation that reached six consecutive years. Over two years, we experienced the strongest job creation since the 1990s. At 4 hadnt 9 , thats half of the peak. Real gdp exceeds many trading partners. From 2009 to 2015, its a theyre that fell to address the challeng challenges. The president s budget puts forward a Building Block creating the continues for sustained Economic Growth while upholding the belief that everyone who works hard should get success. It shows that investments are consistent with and contribute to putting finances on a strong path. They have more balanced reduction and in addressing the fiscal challenges. I would like to focus on three key areas including the proposals to reform the tax coat and invest and support working families. Fixings americas business pax system is the budget that includes tax reform to make it more strong and fair including the taxes to close the loophole. Its wrong to take advantage of the research and avoid paying their fair share. I look forward to closing the door to inversions. We need to meet the needs in the longterm. They will ensure the need to provide longterm for the highway struft fund. They fund an Infrastructure Program and stake small steps for investment in projects through the financing of infrastructure are you newall. We must support working families. They seek to respond to the changing relationship between workers and employers. It produces a new wage to help families stay on their feed when under. Side part of a job transition. They propose to Savings Opportunities for what they did to help those to begin to save for the future. They will also maintain fisk at responsibility. I thank the chairman for working with us in december and since to try to think through an approach to dealing with this program. Puerto rico faces and experiences an unsustainable debt crisis. They exposed the Common Wealths financial challenges and i encourage them to act with the speed this crisis requires. This must begin a legislation along with new oversight neither of which cost any taxpayer dollars. This budget does not address a challenge that we face. As the president said, progress is not inevitable, but the product of choices we make as a nation. We face a number of big choices in the coming years. We still must take actions to strengthen Social Security to keep true to the commitment to previous and future generations of workers. The decade of fiscal responsibility laid out gives us the time we need to address these longterm challenges. The recent agreement on the debt limit and budget not only demonstrates we have the capacity to find common ground, but it lays the foundation to address the immediate challenges we face. I look forward to working with the committee to make more progress together over the coming year and i look forward to answering your questions. Thank you, secretary lew. I am demoting you. Puerto ricos general obligation debt. They have a specific priority according to the constitution and your proposal at least in my opinion would grow through the protection while you argue that puerto ricos a conme must be respected. As i understand t your proposal would give treatment with unsecured claimants to obligations of the Public Pensions and would in effect give those claimants preferential treatment with the general Obligation Bond holders. The issues are complicated. With the bond holders and retirees in my home state would be subject to less rev reshl treatment. I wonder if you can provide reverence where some of the others are retirees in all of the states and places like my state. The financial picture that puerto rico faces 18 different series of bond issues and they are complicated and Different Levels of priority and different constitutional protections, but the math is clear. With foo billion of bonds, they dont have the capacity to support the service on that and there is a need for a restructuring that needs too include all of the bonds to be effective. If you do it on too small of a base, it didnt work. So certainly there is the space to reflect the differences and even the voluntary offer that they put for the reflects that. With regard to pensions, if you look at what has been happening, pensions are being shifted. Pension contributions are being moved. The money is coming out to pay bond holders. The relates are clear. You are seeing thousands of people a month. The people who are capable of building the economic future. We know about this. There is a crisis that needs to be addressed. How do we do it in a way thats fair. The first steps have to restructure and combine with overside. Thats where the time urgency is. That meets the stand art of fairness that we can defend. I hear questions about whying single will not grant retro activity. The same chapter nine tools that many can access. The chapter nine authority is the proposal in the house involves. Your proposal is far different. The representative has indicated lack of support for the proposal. No one in single found the support. They have the you in nis palities that could result from your proposal. The broad restructuring has not received broad support when the details are known. I wonder if you feel support for the proposal and if so, if you have thoughts on why no one introduced the proposal as a bill in congress. Mr. Chairman, i talked to all of the Office Holders in puerto rico, the governor and legislative leaders are in the house. I think there is a broad understanding and shared view that they need to have restructuring authority that will work and encompass enough of the debt. There concerns with how it is structured. Those are details with we can move through. As we have gone through this both with your team and others, we aired issues where there is room to find ways to work through this. What doesnt work is to say that puerto rico should soft the dilemma without some very brought restructuring. That is the thing that is drawing down the ability to stay col vend. The debt is beyond what what it can support. They will go through protracted litigation where they will be suing the Common Wealth in court. I dont know if it can recover. There is an urgent need. We will work with you in congress. There is a brought understanding that something needs to be done. When we academy, we have to act in a way that works. It will be coming back at us. I dont think that will serve anyones interest. We chair the concern and it will be something perceived and fair. Its a path that is sustainable and i will look forward to finding a quick solution to get there. Thank you, my time is up. Secretary, as i kindicated, we talked about when it comes to finding issues, the democrats and republicans ought to be able to working to o this tax gap. 2 3 of 1 trillion owed goes unpaid over a decade. I recently sent a letter concerning the agencys apparent lack of tracking of the issues and i know we cant get into all the details that i think would be very helpful to get on the record. I think there questions whether they know the sources of this tax gap. What are the major sources contributing to this vast sum of money that goes unwade . I think the challenge is not just or two causes. Many aspects are not on the books. Businesses are organized to avoid taxes. If they do it legally, thats different nan they do it illegally. One of the basic challenges is we lack things we should have more visibility into. At the end of the year, we saw some restoration of a recognition that in order to have a tax service, you need to fund it so you can do enforcement and get the data you need to answer the resources you are asking. If there enforcement thats people. You dont enforce by turning on a computer. You enforce by having teams and it wasnt for the purposes. The increases was for important things. Being able to answer the phones and we have gaps in the budget that dont give us the resources we need to enforce as we should. Does the irs have a modern database to track the major sources of the Corporate Tax gap . Based on the letter and the communication we had, thats not clear. You look at that sump money as i do and say not only is that not right, its not fair to taxpayers who just have the taxes pulled out directly. It also would be an opportunity to show that we can make tough choices and raise money certainly by collecting tax owed and make judgments about future priorities. Is there a database to track the sources of Corporate Tax avoidance . We do have databases at the irs. As you know, they are old systems and systems that i think the team at the irs does a good job making look more modern than they are by making it look more accessible and others who are looking for information. Behind it is an old Computer System. One of the things that we will be doing mostly with the focus of Cyber Security and Identity Theft is upgrading the Computer System with the additional funds we have. This has been an ongoing issue at the irs. It is an old security system. I dont want to say its a system that cant give us the ability to do the analysis, but i would defer to the commissioner on the details of what needs there would be in terms of the Data Processing capacities. Overall it is a system that needs investment. One last question. There is a big difference between the tax on wages and the tax on investment income. The gap of course has increased and particularly it ought to be put in the context of the last major tax reform. Ronald reagan decided with a lot of democrats and a host of people that he was going to have equal treatment in terms of taxes for somebody who makes a wage and somebody who has investments. In your view, what does the president s budget do to begin the effort to close the gap between a tax on a wage and investment income. The budget does a number of things. Some are repeats from the past and things like changing the Capital Gains and dealing with stepped up basis. And some are new to get all forms of income no matter how it is structured. You cant avoid the taxes put in place to pay for health care by categorizing your income a certain way. I think its a real problem in terms of the concentration of what we see at the top and it comes in a form that is taxed very differently. The system doesnt look fair to working people who just pay tax on every dollar that comes in. That doesnt mean we should have a punitive standard towards income, but you can convert earned income to get a lower tax rate and it creates a real problem. My time is up and its worth noting in the last effort, democrats and republicans said there was an opportunity for everybody in america to get ahead. One of the ways they did it was to treat earned income and income the same. Thank you very much for holding the hearing and become back. I want to register off the bad my strong opposition to place a tax on oil. I know thats popular. Certainly with the president ial race. The industry is hurting. I heard about them placing a tax on carbon to address failures a these costs will be passed through to consumers and can be implemented to manage the lower income taxpayers. With the price of oil so low, now is the best time to implement a tax with fewer people that notice this tax. They may not see it, but they will feel it. Just because the tax hit would be visible does not mean the impact would be less severe. I want to take a look at how it will impact my state of kansas where we endeavor to produce oil and gas despite the war against oil and gas by the administration. The oil and gas stree is a component and we invest over 7 hadnt hadnt million. 10 of the workforce is directly or downstream industries. Thats 118,000 workers that would be affected. That amounts to about 12 of payrolls and over 15 of the states tax revenue. This is about 3 billion in Family Income and its no secret the both oil prices and supply and demand hit the oil and gas industry hard as well as many other states. Some of the states oil and Gas Companies laid off as much as 50 and some producers have seen layoffs of 20 to 25 of their workforce. It dropped about 5. 5 in revenue from the industry that dropped by over 50 . These are real impacts. They are impacts happening right now. This is just directly within the industry think about the related manufacturing and series industries and its a massive new tax and make no mistake it would burden the economy and smiling over to Everything Else produced within our economy. It is already hurting and it would only make things worse. I find that not acceptable and hope we do not approve this. My question as the general, 15 of the revenue would be dedicated for households to heavy industry costs. Sort of like a new national program. I do not view this as an extraordinary student. They are considered by any standards Small Businesses. My question is does your department propose to set aside the revenue to assist oil and gas industry workers or workers who otherwise harm by the new oil tax. Over the last year or days. We have seen movements with the fee over five years. We all know that we watch with oil prices by many bigger amounts than that. I dont think we should exaggerate with the size of the fee. We think its important when oil prices are low to put in place a mechanism that will both help to capture the benefit of making the price signal that contributes to better usage, but also to put in place a mek noichl inve nichl to invest. That would put the trust fund in a and sound place and give us the Renewable Technologies and new technologies of the future. It would apply to imported oil as well as to u. S. Developed oil. It doesnt have a differential impact. You going to set aside part of this with regards to Small Businesses that would be hurt by this tax . We have set aside resources to deal with those who are low income who have no alternative but to face higher prices and no income. I am happy to take a look at the proposal you would have on those lines. I think you ought to take a look at the harm that this tax will have on the oil and gas industry and those folks as well. First we dont know what the exact amount will be. My time expired. I really appreciate your response. The first questions on tax reform. Over the last year, to summarize i think we need it for two reasons. The first Multinational Companies should pay what they oh. They are paying profits and keep that stashed. We have to protect the jobs in the future of the economy. As you are aware more than anybody else, more and more of the Nations Companies are leaving the shores all together. Partnering up to move headquarters and jobs overseas. You, secretary lew and the president put forward a serious proposal and tax reform that transition to a new form of taxation. House republicans have proposed similar solutions. I have been pleased to work with the Bipartisan Group including we are trying to bridge over the divide between the proposals. There is common ground. I remain ready to work. I assume thats the case for you as well. In a way where we use the revenues to pay for infrastructure and support and not build the tax system that is unsustainable in terms of cost. It was disappointing that at the end of the year there seemed to be pulling away from that. Our budget puts that in place. Whats interesting is the same proposal and the number of revenues increasing from 205 to 350. Thats how much we are being kept overseas and what would come when they were put in place. That are increase manies lost jobs here. It should be a warning signal shot across to us. One final point and this is for republican colleagues and i have worked with portman and others on this proposal. That is i know the administration feels strongly as do many of us on this side. The International Reform must be coupled with investments in this country. Thats the way to take not all of the money, but some of the money we gain from getting these revenues. Without it, its going to be hard to pass something. Is your view the same that we wont get a deal on International Tax reform . For several years, we have been you cant cut readies or you would be losing revenue. That solves the problem of how you deal with the onetime revenue. We have this need that there is broad support for. If we get a tax reform bill that has bipartisan support, it has to include the investments. We are very much of that view. I agree a they understood that completely. I hope they dont pull away from that. To under score the urgency of dealing with inversions. We are seeing more and more Companies Going overseas. I dont want to be leaving in a year. Can you answer this, yrp. My time is running out. Essential to getting puerto rico back on track, it is injury and may not be everything. It is a chapter nine bankruptcy provision. That is a brought bank. Not a chapter nine. That is the view of many of us here. It could be drafted in terms of legislation that applies. The effect would have to be brought restructuring. Thank you very much. Ranking members, welcome. Always wonderful to have you before the committee. I top the thank you for working with me and leaders in the state to help us in a number of different areas. We appreciate it a we were at the verge of losing the Major Foundation of manufacturing in the country. Not everyone is feeling the recovery. When people lost the equity of their home the primgary way that families save or lost their job or even in the Auto Industry took major cuts to save the industry. Those who have been threatened on all sides, its difficult even though the numbers are incredibly positive. I want to speak about the areas and ask your comments regarding one area of insecurity for people. Thats around pensions. I know that colleagues of mine as well have and they are talking about the multireform plans which as you know gave administrators a plan and the ability to apply cuts to earned pension benefits for the First Time Since 1974. It was unfortunately part of a must pass appropriations bill to avoid a shut down that didnt give us or and a pension is a key cornerstone and the dignity and respect and i am deeply concerned about what we now face. That would be direction low affected. More than 500 people show up and 50 to 70 of proposed tension. They gave up increases in pay. And i would like to address this serious issue and really broken promises for folks who worked hard all of their lives and trying to figure out there is no easy or good result cosponsored and congressman kline and miller. That responsibility now falls to the review the plans for working through the plans that are not able to make their payments. The challenges, they all go to and the question is do you drain the fund and have nothing for anyone . We are in the process of appointing ken feinberg to administer for us. He is going around listening to heart breaking stories and we will have to review the proposals that come for the to r from the plans. And the first one will come up for review i believe in may. They make the plans last longer. They can continue as you are. That would hurt more people. These are difficult decisions and him taking the task to report to me on that and i will stay close working with all of them. One is the accounts changes and the laws that were changed in the last several decades that parks loued them for changes that had nothing to do with workers that have created a large part of this to how pensions got to this particular point. I think we have got a lot of decisions of working people. Thank you. 3. 4 million at new taxes and 20 that only happened once in the last 50 years. The average is 17. 4 and revenue to gdp and spending goes up to 22. 6 of gdp and that only happened five times in the last half century. The 50year average is 22. 6 . Spending is up and taxes are up. So the budget really is more spending and more taxes and more debt. It seems to me that you are on your way out and i see it as another missed opportunity to do something that matters about what we know the fiscal crisis facing the country is. That is mandatory accounts and the spending. The budget shifts more spending into the mandatory account. I am expressing this for a moment. With how they are treated under the trade agreements, my understanding is that they a pose the idea with respect to ensuring the data flows with most other companies that will benefit under the tpp agreement. If you might be able to clarify on the issue. Do you believe that on where they can transfer. This is a provision that we have been working on and talking with the Financial Services and community on with their own regulators. Most is the requirement of our own regulators in terms of how they view what they need to have their reviews of financial institutions. Regulators would need. We are working here as we go through this. We are sensitive to the concerns. It is certainly not something that is designed to put a burden on u. S. Financial institutions. We bargained hard in tpp to get terms that are favorable to u. S. Financial institutions on a global basis. This is a case where what we in the United States, we meaning not the treasury, but the regulators require in terms of data availability. The agreements i thought were what we prioritize. This was a different standard. You me that that is something that you are working with the industry and the regulators . In other aspects of tpp we have been very aggressive to make sure that a local data requirement is not put in place to reinstruct the ability of a global system like a credit card system to work effectively because we have big industries. This is a subissue because of the requirements here in the United States. We are working through it. We are sensitive to the concerns. If i might go back to your observation and i dont mean to take your time, but but you will. If i can take 30 seconds of it. It is true that the budget would trend back up to the end to a 20 revenue when you look at the growth of spending, medicare and medicate will grow and as a unit, we will have to look at are we doing what was need to do. Between 2000 and 2009 made it harder. Our budget puts it in the right place and we dont spend any money that we dont offset. These are important conversations that we have Going Forward this year and beyond. I would say that the tough choices with regard to those parts of the budget that we know are growing dramatically, its going to be entitlements and interest on the debt that eats up our revenue that comes in. Everything that we spent for defense and discretionary will be borrowed money. Part is we have to figure out how to in and reform the programs to fit the demographics and get growth up to a higher level. That am cans back to the issues that i am out of time and i wont have a chance to get into, but tax reform goes squarely at. When you are growing at 1 percent to 2 , 2. 3 or 2. 6 over the course of the next decade, it doesnt get us there fast enough. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I guess a little bit of what im going to do is vent, also. Senator laid the president for being able to do that. When you said this is your last presentation here before the committee of a budget. Youre welcome to have i think last year, it got one voechlt not sure who it was. Previous years, it got zero vote. So, you must think to some point, what waste of time and effort. Goes in to coming up here and presenting a budget and not having support from either party. Thats just an observation of mine. You state on your first page here that this is a vision for the future and i look at this as something that is totally disconnected with the reality of where we are. Senator talked about the big gorilla in the room we havent been able to deal with, that is mandatory spending and as you know, over the last five or six years, the congress together, the president tried to come to some solution to put some longterm reforms in that would keep us from becoming involve and so debt layden that our children and grandchildren simply are not going to begin to have the opportunities that my generation has had. Thats a failure on all of our part. Its a failure and its going to continue to put us in a very, very difficult situation. Why do we go through this charade . Speaking from my constituents who i think as being reflected in these primaries, simply say, you guys are spending stuff that we tho longer accept and whether its the Democratic Party or republican party, there are messages being sent out there that say you know, we caught on to this shell they sit there and talk about game that goes on in washington. How to fix the future and the future looks more dim so why cant we sit down here and talk about the problems we face and simply saying and you said because everything we are going to spend in the future is offset. Its offset by 3 trillion of more taxes. And i dont know of an economist that says the way to prosperity and receiving invasion and supporting middle class families and lower class is not to raise taxes 3 trillion over the next ten years. I gus, using most of my time to vent but i would like responses because i just think based on what we watched last night, the public is saying this is a bunch of gibberish going on here in washington and we want Something Different and radically different from both sides. Both candidates got shellacked and if we dont perk up and say theyre frustrated with d. C. Im not talking ds or rs or independents ch these people have failed and why cant we get on to something more related to reality. Senator, i recognize that we have different views of how we should address the future but i think this budget is a very clear picture of how we believe we should address the future. I think weve also shown over the last couple years that when we sit down and engage on difficult issues, we find pathways to Work Together and make Real Progress. We made Real Progress last year on a number of important issues. I actually think its quite relevant. It is part of system there are different approaches to what the answer of the future is and if we could get back to the place where you take those differences and figure out where to Work Together, we ought to be able to do business tax reform. There is a lot of over lap between the two sides of the isle here and administration and republicans and congress on how to think about it. We should just sit down and do it. People would feel better if we had a tax system where we didnt have inversions anymore. A lot in the budget we might be better able to do it if you bring forward a budget that gets at least majority of support on a bipartisan basis when you bring forth budget year after year after year and gets zero votes from democrats or republicans, does it ever give you pause maybe your vision for the future is not selling with the American People . Ive been working on budgets for most of the last 40 years and i havent known a year when there hasnt been that difference between parties beginning of the year and then you go to work on the things where you can get work meaningfully done. Regarding the major issue we all face both sides, mandatory spending, over the last 40 years, we have not addressed that. We actually have over the last 40 years done a lot of things on mandatory spending that made a difference. I was part of the security form in 1983 that made a real difference. Thats legitimate and 1983. I think the you look at the Affordable Care act while we may not agree on the policy, its clear it helped reduce spending on health care and medicare and extended the life of the trust fund and the most important turning of a corner on spending in health care in decades. That doesnt mean we dont have more work to do but i actually think when we have an environment where we can Work Together and the thing where is there is room to make progress, we can give the American People something they should be proud of. When its shut downs and fighting and crisis, its not hard to understand how people get fed up with that. Chairman has been very generous with my time. I yield back. But thank you. Secretary. Senator menendez. Thank you for your good work. I want to talk about puerto rico. 3. 5 million american citizens and i under line that, american citizens that fought in our armed forces in just about every conflict this country has had for the last century. If you walk to the vietnam wall, you will see name ounce that wall. The citizens are in dire straights and threatens to explode into a full force human tar yin calamity. I hear it from Puerto Ricans living in the state of new jersey that have loved ones there that tell me about their challenges of their families on the island. Now some say puerto rico shouldnt be able to restructure the debt even though they had the right in the law one time and stripped out and no one knows why, but they had that right and instead that they should simply raise taxes and cut spending to a degree to get their books in order. The problem is the debt payments in puerto rico are 36 of puerto ricos annual revenue. Six times the u. S. Average. So it seems any solution that doesnt include restructuring will be willfully inadequate and, you know, i know some people say this is being poll lit sized with the hedge funds, bottom feeders that bought cheap and want to maximize profits. That has nothing to do with those american citizens in puerto rico and were seeing Puerto Ricans coming to the mainland where they will enjoy the rights and responsibilities of any other u. S. Citizen, which by the way, will be far more costly. I want to get from administration on the record to make this clear and in fact, if puerto rico didnt have to make the debt payment, it would run a billiondollar surplus so do you agree that providing puerto rico with the tools to restructure the debt is a necessary component of any successful recovery package . Senator, i totally agree. There are things that need to be part of the comprehensive plan in the long run but there is an immediate crisis in puerto rico. I met with business leaders. I met with working people. I met with all the public officials. Its not a future crisis. Its a current crisis. They talk about hospital wards being shut down, schools being closed and pensions being drained of many people paying into Pension Funds that are being emptied out to pay for bond payments. This is not sustainable. People are leaving the island and the economy cant recover if the economy shrinks because people leave. When youre insolvent, your bond payments cannot be supported any longer and you have to restructure. Thats what happens in the private sector. It happens when cities become insolvent. Puerto rico is complicated. There is 18 different series of debt. They could be in court from five to ten years with litigation. I dont think the economy could recover. There wont be an economy to talk about. If it was good enough crisis if it was good enough for trump, its good enough for the people of puerto rico. Ill leave the comparisons for others. 3. 5 million americans in chaos. Let me ask you very briefly, chapter nine authority opened to municipalities, that doesnt it doesnt really work. It addresses about a third of the debt. With large debt payments due in may and july, isnt there going to be a point where we will face the consequences if we continue to delay an act