Transcripts For CSPAN3 Politics Public Policy Today 20150106

Indian country but also an issue for all of rural america. Its why i included in my opening remarks the fact that we in 2014 established nearly 10 million of contribution toward expanded Broadband Access. We have completed the rule making process to institute and implement the new farm bill provisions you referred to. Thats now putting us in a position to begin making decisions about where resources go. We announced today the project in mexico which is the first project under the substantially Underserved Trust Area provisions of a previous farm bill. Thats 5. 5 million that will be committed to expanded Broadband Access in new mexico. We are very much committed to this. I would say that there are two specific ways that you can address the issue. One is through our normal program, Distance Learning telemedicine program. Now with the new farm bill rules well certainly be prioritizing areas that are most in need. Working with the fcc to make sure that they put pressure on Telecommunications Companies to understand their responsibility not just to put broadband in highly Populated Areas but also not to leave anyone behind in terms of the 21st century infrastructure. Secondly, i made reference to the cobank Infrastructure Program which we announced in july. Thats 10 10 billion. Theyre working with projects working with capital Peak Asset Management company to identify projects that they can invest in and partner in. I would urge folks to take a look at that 10 billion Infrastructure Fund which is apart from usda and alsoous try to buy down the costs of those programs. Thank you. Our next question, please. Good morning. I am with the prairie band of potawatami nation out of kansas. I think it is clear to everybody here that the future of our tribal nations lies with our youth. We also know that tribal children are disproportionately and negatively affected by teen suicide, drug use, Domestic Violence and High School Dropout rates. At the prairie band potawatami, our boys and girls clubs work hard to reach out to tribal youth and give them opportunities that will help them succeed in school and in life but we need more. Kids today are the innovators for tomorrows business. We hear that Millennials Want to be entrepreneurs and develop innovative startups. The talent is there but it needs to be nurtured and skills need to be cultivated. The desire to succeed is there in our youth but we need to make sure they see a path to success. We need dedicated funds and solid programs to help train encourage and empower our tribal youth to be the steve jobs of tomorrow. And i believe that the next steve jobs can be a native youth given the right foundation. This will not only benefit our youth, but it will also boost reservation and local economies and strengthen our nations as well. I would ask, how do you envision your agency increasing outreach and funding to help tribal youth be competitive and successful players in an increasingly global marketplace . I would probably start with you miss contrerassweet. Im delighted to take that question. I can share with you first wed be delighted to expand on the program which we have which we call Small Business and innovation research, it is designated just to promulgating and promoting innovation. What ive done is ive launched a program just for our youth and i was just recently at Prince Georges Community College where i was able to announce this program thats dedicated just to our underserved youth. We have a little lever over Financial Institutions in that we designate them as preferred lenders. So i thought well whats the point of having that if theyre not engaged in the things that we need them to do. So we reached out to them and asked them to help us develop a toolkit just for our young people so they can learn more about entrepreneurship. So were launching that very very soon. I think that youll be hearing about it. So thats one initiative. The second thing that i wanted to share with you is that what we do across the country is we incubate the incubaters. Which is that we give out grants to incube baitaters that are there to help people think about their innovation, their idea, help them go from startup to scale up. Wed be delighted to host a special session if you wanted us to or we can do something across the country to help young people understand what were doing in this regard. Because were seeing great success. I mean the youth really are the future and they think about innovation in very new and different ways. So im delighted to sit down with you and work on that further. Thank you madam chair. Next tribal leader. Good morning. Welcome to the Economic Development panel. My question is, the tribes need to be able to explore and expand Economic Development and opportunities outside of gaming. In order to do that, we need the support of the federal agencies to enable us to do this instead of hampering our efforts. One example is right now we have a hydroproject that weve gotten grants through department of interior, but at the same time were having to deal with bor, okay ses access to the site just getting soil samples. Were having a hard time with bureau of rek. Right now the hydroproject which i hear is a priority of this administration, but at the same time its being pushed back by federal agencies. So Economic Development. Another one is drilling of oil and gas on indian land. It costs 6,000 per well on indian well. And in states it costs us 50 to drill. 6,000 on indian land. Were saying indian lands arent public lands. Thats the way bln has viewed it. For example, ten wells on a reservation would cost 60,000, whereas in a state it would cost 500. Im just asking that federal agencies instead of hampering our efforts, think of ways to support our efforts in Economic Development and maybe an initiative that you have available. I think a lot of tribes in here, probably first time weve heard some of your initiatives. So a task force on Economic Development where all tribes understand your initiatives, whether it be the Small Business administration, usda, housing transportation, or any other agency to sit together with Indian Tribes and to discuss all of your opportunities youre sharing with us. Because right now a lot of tribes depend on gaming but we need to look at ways to expand our opportunities in Economic Development. Thats one of the reasons why we announced 2 million in our 2501 program to encourage organizations to do a better job of working with tribal leaders to get the word out about the various programs. For example, sba mentioned a program of waiving fees on smaller loans. What weve decided to do is create a small loan program, a microloan program, for agricultural producers. Up to 50,000. Very low interest rate. Long term. Very little security required. It is a Great Program that we obviously need to get the word out to make sure that folks are aware of it. So the 2501 program is one way of getting that. We had a made in native america conference recently which was another opportunity for us to get the word out but thats a very good comment, the need for us to get more outreach. Well, thank you very much. Our time is up. Like i said in my opening comments, there was never a Marshall Plan for Indian Country. These leaders out here in front of you they represent individuals that still have some of the highest unemployment rates of any group in the nation. They have the lowest annual income producers of any group in the nation. So i like what chairman old coyote said, to create a task force to come up with what i called the obama plan for Economic Development in Indian Country where that could be part of his legacy Going Forward. So once again, lets give our panel here a hand for joining us today. Thank you very much. In anticipation of the 114th Congress Meeting for the first time today heres a brief tour of the house chamber. This was part of a 2006 documentary that cspan aired titled the capitol which gave viewers an indepth look at the building and its history. There is the cornucopia next to the clock a traditional american symbol of abundance of course, one of the fruits of liberty. Theres stars. Of course, the new star in the firmament of the United States. Of course were familiar with the stars and stripes. We always think of stars in america. There are lots of other things. There these little rods were bound together in ancient rome, little rods that individually could snap. Sort of like a reid. But put them together and they are awfully strong. They are a symbol of the republic of government in which the people ruled. So those are there, too. Youre in the chamber and raise your eyes up. You see this wonderful silhouette almost of an eagle with its wings spread. Its up there in the sky and its rather like a sky light, although it is covered from behind. Its not open to the heavens. But it is a wonderful eagle. The thing that i love most about it is the sense that spreading its wings over the day to day work of the congress are great aspirations as seen in our great symbols of the nation, foremost among them is of course the american bald eagle. When congress is in session, the mace is also there. I love seeing the mace. Its been there since 1841. It too is a bundle of ebony rods topped by a terrific silver globe with an eagle standing on top of it. I think traditions are important because when you forget about the traditions you forget about the flavor of this place. Every time i see the speaker of the british house of commons, i accuse him because in 1814 when the british burnt the capitol down, they also stole our mace. You read the stories of former speakers, when this place really got rowdy or people got out of hand or there was a fight on the floor, you had to present the mace. So it is a symbol of what this country has vested in the congress, the power of congress, the power of the people coming together and getting things done. The Funeral Service for former new york governor mario cuomo takes place today at st. Ignatius Loyola Church in new york city. He was new yorks 52nd governor winning election in 1982 then going on to serve three consecutive terms. He died last week at the age of 82. Well have live coverage when that funeral gets under way here on cspan3 starting at 11 00 eastern. You can watch as Congress Begins its new session today at noon eastern with the house live on cspan and the senate live on cspan2. Well also have live coverage here on cspan3 with the ceremonial swearing in of members. That begins at 1 00 p. M. Eastern in the Old Senate Chamber with Vice President biden and incoming senators. Thats followed at 3 00 by the ceremonial swearing in of house members. One of the members well see today is republican congressman dave brat of virginia. He defeated House Majority leader eric cantor in the 2014 republican primary. He recently talked about his Campaign Strategy and the republican agenda in congress at an event hosted by the clear boothe luce policy institute. This is 40 minutes. Good afternoon, everyone. Im Michelle Easton from the Claire Boothe luce policy institute. I want to first give a special thanks to our cohost for this monthly event. Heritage today is represented by laura truman, whos the director of strategic operations for heritage. And i want to thank each of you for joining us today. Those of you watching on cspan all over america and all over the world. I want to welcome you to the special december edition of the conservative womens network. As most of you know, cwn usually features top women speakers in the conservative movement. But every december, it is our tradition to feature a special gentleman speaker and this year were so pleased to have david brat, the new United States congressman from virginia. As many of you know, congressman brat defeated former majority leader eric cantor in the primary last summer for virginias 7th congressional district. He was sworn in last month and hell be bringing some much needed economic expertise to the National Policy discussions. Congressman brat is a product of the rural midwest and has long believed in the values of faith, family and a strong work ethic. He obtained a masters in divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary and then earned a ph. D in economics from american university. In 1996, he began teaching economics and ethics at virginias Randolph Macon college where he clard the chaired the economics and Business Department for years. He served the commonwealth of virginia in a number of capacities also. Department for years. He served the commonwealth of virginia in a number of capacities also. He served two governors on the joint advisories panel. His peers elected him as president of the Virginia Association economist and the governor also appointed him to the virginia board of accountant accountancy. A man of deep faith, david attends Catholic Church with his wife, laura, and his two children. Please join me in welcoming congressman david brat. Thank you all for having me, that was a nice introduction, saving my throat a little bit. We have had an exciting week. You all have been following the news. Ill get to that after i frame some of my biography and the background as to how i got to where i am. Ill kind of break it up into a few pieces my biography, then kind of my run for office. Then where we are at today with republicans and the votes that are coming up that just occurred yesterday and in the week prior, but thank you all very much for having me, its an honor to be here at heritage, i have been a long time follower of heritage and its great to be with you all today. First of all, my biography is well captured there, and over the last ten months of campaigning ive started my stump speeches try that. Ten months of campaigning. Ten months stump speeches i basically opened it up and said how would you like to spend someone to congress to bring both economics and ethics up to d. C. And that combination of economics and ethics hits a nerve in the country right now because people do get a sense that were on the wrong track. When we knock doors thats about all we had to say, are we on the right track or are we on the wrong track. Every household in the seventh district were off track. I combined those two themes over a lifetime. I went to hope college in holland, michigan. Then went to work at ar then andersen in detroit in chicago for a little bit in business. Then felt the call went to seminary. I was going to teach systematic theology. A large part of that is ethics fits in there philosophically. That was my goal. And while i was in seminary, i came down here to wesley seminary for a political semester and there was a guy writing on economics and ethics in one book. I got very interested in that and sometimes that happens on the left and that term justice is a tricky one, its got a long pedigree, but its been shaped to end up kind of in the leftist tradition, or the leftist moral descriptions lately and i think it has a longer pedigree that fits in the judeochristian tradition. So i pursued those themes in seminary and then went on from wesley, right up to american university, i said hey i want to pursue these even further through a ph. D in economics. American was a great fit. You can go to interesting talks by world class people across the board every night. And so pursued that through my ph. D. Then i was lucky enough to apply and find a great job down in Richmond Virginia in ashland. We call itle center of the universe actually. Its very small little town in hanover which is a county very friendly to me. This would have been my 19th year teaching economics and ethics. I was the chair of the econ and Business Department but i also chaired the ethics minor for a new years. John allen over at cato helped mean build a program in the moral foundations of capitalism. So that kind of puts the two together in the same way. Then i got a chance to work in the General Assembly for about the last eight or nine years in virginia politics, got to know a lot of how the political system works and then just wasnt happy with some of the things that were going down in my area, in the 7th district. So i put my hand in and the people thought it was good to send an economist up to d. C. So that, in short, is kind of the biography and who i am and why i ran. But ill get a little bit more specific now, when i ran in virginia, i ran on the Virginia Republican creed. How many virginians in here . Oh really. Very good. How many of you know the Virginia Republican creed. Its not perfect but its good. Ill go over with it you. [ inaudible ] very good, okay, good, thats what im going to get at today, very good. Let me go over that creed with you a little bit. Starts off, the first is most important to me, adherence to the free market system, because that one really draws a red line, right . And people in business or whatever even students of economics sometimes dont understand what that means, adherence to the free market system. All of human history, up until 1800, made how many dollars a year per person . 500. About. Right . Basically subsistence level, for the entire world, for all of human history. Something changed at about 1800. And what was that . Good, very good, adam smith if you want to put a name to it. Adam smith, 1776, that was in the works right, the history of ideas for 100, 200 years prior. But societys finally had to choose the free market system. Theres always been markets, go back to the ancient greeks and romans where they were trading chickens and cows and whatever. So weve always had markets, spice trade, this trade and the other trade. So its a very different thing, doing business, right, or economics or whatever is very different from choosing socially, and running your society by a free market system. Thats the big deal. That kind of came hand in hand with other fundamental shifts that had to be in place ahead of time. You had to choose the rule of law, private property rights, the liberty tradition. Coming out of john lock and all the way through. In my district, i forgot to mention, i am fortunate enough to come from a district that is framed by patrick henry, down in the richmond area going all the way up to the northwest james madison. In my district. Those are some names that go along with that liberty tradition. All of this fits more broadly into that Judeo Christian tradition. That long swath i have a lot of libertarian friends. We always get into fun exchanges. I say well its nice of you all to come around about 1900 with this liberty idea. For the past centuries weavers been fighting off the huns. You guys come along lately. Right, so i appreciate everything theyre doing. I have a lot of good libertarian friends, but there was some heavy lifting for many years to set that up and i think the Heritage Foundation is aware of that long tradition. All of that kind of goes together into a narrative thats hard to describe in a sound bite. When youre running for office, im just on point one by the way. You can see how long this talk is going to go. This is point one in the virginia creed, adherence to the free market system. But im trying to show you what goes into that buy graphically and theoretically, et cetera, to show you how complex it is. So then when the president asks you a question about a simple bill thats familiar with the free market its hard to put that into an answer. So thats the hard part, but i gave 15 to 20 minute economic homilies, was my stump speech that i gave night after night for ten months. Ill close that little part by saying this is the good news. Right . The republicans, the conservatives, have the strongest, best moral message to deliver to the entire country right now. Whats happened in the last 20 years since i started teaching at Randolph Macon. When i started teaching 20 years ago the chinese and indians were making roughly 500 to 1,000 per capita. 20 years ago. Whats happened . What radical choice has been made in the last 20 years thats made all the difference for global Poverty Reduction and improvement in peoples lives and what is it . The chindzese and indians have frozen the free market system. And the irony of ironies is while theyre choosing the free market system, the United States of america is choosing to backtrack, right . Were clogging the arteries at every turn, obama care, regulatory overreaches of 1. 5 trillion, et cetera. We can go over and over and over and over. Thats good news right . The Public Policy choice of choosing the free market system. The Human Welfare games. You have these efficiency harbingers. That choice to choose the free market system dwarfs all the Public Policy decisions globally by ten times over. The welfare gates. Our side has a hard time explaining this to the average voter, to the average american, to the average Global Citizen that this system is good for humanity, period. And i went to seminary, so i believe that 7 billion to 8 billion people on this planet are all children of god. I try to make that very clear, especially when you get into the immigration arguments. Right . Those can get a little testy. But the basic framework and the basic logic is there from the beginning. I want this for the whole world. All of gods children, christmas is coming up. Merry christmas to all of you in advance. Theres number one, im going to go through the rest of the creed real quick. Second is equal treatment under the law. Everyones equal under the law. Third principle is fiscal responsibility at all levels of government federal, state, local. Fourth, adherence to the constitution. I just had a tough few days trying to stay true and vote on that, adherence to the constitution. The president ial overreach on amnesty, executive amnesty, that wasnt just a simple Public Policy choice at the margin about dollars and cents and policy differences. The reason that was such a big deal to me is because of this fourth point in the republican creed. Right . Adherence to the constitution and to constitutional principles. I think that end run violated constitutional principles and thats why i stuck very firm to the votes on that issue over the last couple of days. Fifth, peace is best preserved through a Strong National defense. Ronald reagans on the walls out here. So i know you all get that one. And sixth, finally a lot of times not mentioned in Public Policy circles, faith in god is recognized by our founders absolutely essential to a strong moral fiber. Thats a big deal. All the president s i have been reading since everyones sending me carts of books on prayers of the president s. You go back and you read the w basic books, the basic speeches of the founding generation, the great people we all revere in this room. And they were not ashamed or bashful about it. They didnt wear it on their sleeve also, though. They werent pushing it on people. Theres a separation of church and state, no establishing the church. But part b of that is absolute Free Expression of your faith as part of the freedoms baked into our constitution and the first amendment. So a lot of people were very much attracted to that. That kind of frames the economics and the ethics. Just in a nutshell, some of the biggest problems we have in the country under bullet point 3 fiscal responsibility the debt on the debt clock is 18 trillion. The bottom of the debt clock is a bigger number. Unfunded liabilities are 127 trillion. Right . Those are the big four programs medicare Social Security et cetera, are all insolvent by 2032 or so. To preserve those programs for seniors, much less the next generation i see a bunch of you sitting out here right we better get on it. I dont know if it is really that technically a difficult solve or its more ethical its the political will to engage in those very tough problems in those entitlement programs. Those are the principles i ran on. I made a few pledges as well to meet with my constituents once a month and people from every county to term limit myself to 12 years, and i pledged to put in a fair or flat tax. And so a few specific pledges as well. Thats the basic framework that i ran on. And so over the past month i have tried to vote, along with those principles, the press always has they dont quite believe me. They say how are you going to vote on this . I said well i laid it out very clearly. I believe in these six principles in the republican creed and i made a few pledges. Im going to vote on those principles. Thats really what im going to try to do. The people back home will keep my honest, i think, and help me to do that. How am i doing on time . Are you with me for a few more minutes . So thats who i am and theres the race, those are the principles i ran on. And this week voting and being up here, ive only been here for a month. I got sworn in. Once you get that thing, you know youre in. I was up here with 50 of the rookies, the congressmen and women in my entering class. We got to know each other and that was a great experience. The press says whats the most unexpected part of being up here. I think its just been the warmth and graciousness of the other members the freshmen group, democrats, republicans, were together. So the first two weeks we all had events every night and on some of the issues constitutional issues, Public Policy, how does Congress Work and everything, that was great. And the senior members of congress also, where you have to go up im just like you. Im a regular citizen. A picture going up to the podium that you see looking out at the entire congress. And you have to give a speech right after they swear you in. Put yourself in those shoes. So the entire virginia delegation came behind me and was very gracious to me and the rest of the senior members made me feel very welcome. That truly was unexpected. And how i was received. So im very thankful and ill just kind of leave it at that. And then while i was orienting, my predecessor stepped down early and that was a gracious move on his part. So i got to start off not only going through freshman orientation but also serving as a member of congress. So that was a lot to learn quick. Setting up offices, staffing up, all that kind of thing. You go from the campaign side to the general side. And so we had to do all of that and then i had to talk votes, so the tax extender vote came up, that was a tough one. Youre faced with a choice. I wasnt in on the framing of the whole piece so you got a tough choice put yourself in a members shoes. If you dont vote for it, taxes go up on all my constituents. If you do vote for it, 20 of it was wind. Conservatives tonight like picking winners and losers and a lot of people back in my district dont like it. I dont like it. So that was a tough vote. So i voted for that package because overall the net i thought was positive. Then the Defense Authorization bill came in. That had a bunch of land grant on that. Other pork and politics pieces in that. Too much in my judgment. And the greater issue there was, i dont want our Defense Authorization bill cluttered with other pieces. Because eventually if you follow that principle that you can clutter it with this, that and the other thing, thats eventually going to hold our defense funding hostage in some way, shape or form. Right . You know its coming. So on principle i tried to separate that one. And on the omnibus, we all were pushing for a shortterm cr, so that our senate on the republican side could be in a better bargaining position coming up in january or february. And that didnt happen, the omni went through and we, a group of 75 members, tried to put an amendment on that omnibus bill to restrict the president s recovery overreach on the executive amnesty. And so we went to rules and rules had made already kind of a stated position that they werent going to accept any amendments and so i was disappointed in that process, when your new member, not having the chance at all, right, a 1,600 page bill comes up. You have to read it in a day or two. You find out it didnt deal with fundamental things you ran on so you try to do an amendment. Then the amendment piece is closed off because everything is so shortened in the time frame. We got one day left and were going to vote on it. So that amendment went down. The next day i voted flo on the rule for the bill as well as voting no for the bill itself. Primarily on that constitution noon the rule for the bill as well as voting no for the bill itself. Primarily on that constitution on the rule for the bill as well as voting no for the bill itself. Primarily on that constitution issue, there were plenty of other policy issues i differed there, but the overriding logic was linked to the unconstitutional part of the executive overreach. And so from there, and ill close it out and be happy to take questions from all of you. But if youre interested in following me, obviously and the people in my district, go to davebrat. Com and share some ideas with us. Im going to try to put out economic papers, white papers weekly that summarize my voting position, maybe daily if we can do that. My chief is over here so i offer them work by the wheelbarrow full by the day. We would obviously love to do that and share our economic logic because thats kind of the important part where your voters understand how are you voting whats the logic behind your vote. And then i am to the only economist in the house, and so i would love to be able to start doing some economic education, my stump speech for ten months, i would ask audience after audience 50 to 100 people every night, have you ever heard the number 127 trillion. And the answer was no. No idea. So if thats the countrys biggest issue, which i think it is numerically clearly it is. There is no bigger i taught Public Finance and thats in the book. I dont want to tell you the name of the professor that wrote that book. Any guesses . See if youre educated . Gruber. Whoops. So 127 trillion. Right . And no one knows that number. Thats a problem. And whats the problem . Its an education problem. Right . Our country does not know that that number is coming due and thats just the unfunded piece of the liability. Thats not the cost of the program. Thats just the unfunded liabilities that we promised in law, thats twothirds of the budget, the nondiscretionary part that you cant touch unless you change the law. And that twothirds is growing. So you are left with onethird that includes the military and the military is being pinched and everythings being pinched. And i think you all know the state level governments are being pinched. That trickles down to the local levels are being pinched. And thats the context. And in that context, Everybody Knows the bottom line is there is no money thats going to be falling from the clouds any time soon. Its game over. Right . Now we are going to be in an era of scarsty tyscarcity for the next 10 20 years. Whats the gdp growth rate for the United States . 2 subpar. Wall street journal just has last five years of productivity is also way subpar. Your economy is roughly your education level times your number of people you have. Right . This is your productivity. How is that looking . How are we doing in education compared with the chinese and the indians on engineers and s. T. E. M. Fields and all that kind of thing . Not so hot. So our Economic Forecast for the next 10, 20 years is not bright either. We need to turn that all around. I think we can do that. Im an optimist. You got reagan on the wall out there. I always like him. And he had tough Economic Times when he came in so it can be done. I think i better end there while im on a positive note. It can be done, i didnt say how, but thats the next talk. Have me back and well get at it. Thank you very much for having me today, its an honor to be here. Thank you so much. We have time for a few questions. We have Laurel Conrad here who just graduated from cornell. Oh, congratulations. Shes the new lecture director at Claire Boothe luce policy institute. Wait for the mike. Yes, maam. Well get you a mike. Im Barbara Bouie whitman. As an economist who is a republican because i believe in individual liberty and free market principles, im glad youre youre here. Now i have a couple of questions really and im going to cheat and sneak them in. The first one is procedure Going Forward, but the other part is left over from last night. The procedure Going Forward has to do with can we get a good, solid economist who believes in the right things to head the cbo and do dynamic scoring . Second question is from last night. I got an email from ken kuchinelli that stated that you were the only republican from virginia who had voted right. And it stated that there was no way we could fix what happened last night because of this rule because it would allow the president the president Going Forward to do exactly what he wanted already with the amnesty provisions. Theres got to be a way to fix it even though it sounds horrible. And in politics we always, when were trying to get people excited, say that the worst has already happened. How do we get out of what happened last night . Ill start with number one. Yes, is the short answer on getting a good economist going with some dynamic scoring and all that. That will help a little bit but that doesnt get you to the 127 trillion so i wont get too optimistic on that. So, yeah well do better on that. Im trying to get on the joint Economic Committee as well so that we can work in tandem on some of those issues. Then on kens email, i saw that. And i will put the whole omnibus piece in a broader context so you can understand. I just came up here, i wasnt involved in the process going through. So for sitting members it is harder because theyre on certain committees and they have certain pieces in that omnibus that theyre shepherding through and they believe in. Right . I came through in some ways on easier ground that way. I ran on constitutional principles, stood my ground on them and thats that. So the other members, for example, chairman goodlatte has the overreach to take on his jurisdiction in the judiciary. Thats taking place. Other members i know have strong concerns on that. But the broader context was, the omnibus was not our chosen method on the republican side. Failure and we discussed this at length in the rules committee. We were in there for four hours in a row on wednesday evening. The failure came on the senate side in the democrat chamber. They would not take up any appropriation bills. They just wouldnt take them up. So that failure of working through the normal process, regular order failed not due to us. Paul ryan over the past year says always put in a budget, the Democratic Senate has not. Everyone says, david are you going to go up there and work across the aisle and compromise and all this kind of thing. Well im not against compromise. Im all for compromise. Right . We have compromise 127 trillion down. We have to compromise on how you reduce the debt 18 trillion down. So im not making executions for anyone but we were put in a very hard spot on how those Appropriations Bills were going to be put together so we were forced into this omnibus package. There is a lot of moving pieces. I dont pretend as the rookie up here to know all of that. And so, i know the members from virginia, theyre all of fine character and i think were going to do the right thing in the rules committee and the speaker did promise that they will address the issue early in january and that the mulvaney amendment would be attached to the defense piece Going Forward. Right . So it was a matter of a lot of moving pieces. I said no just on the constitutional piece. That if you know something is illegal, i dont want to move forward at all. Explain the mulvaney amendment for those who dont know. The mulvaney amendment was 75 of us on the republican side put an amendment in that would stop specifically all the president ial pieces in the military bill on homeland security. So we stripped all of his the executive overreach had 10 or 12 pieces to it so we defunded all 12 of those pieces specifically. The amnesty part where does the defunding come from on amnesty . Thats in there. Thats what it was defunding. The amnesty. Any of the administrative pieces in he of the Social Security card funding, any of the administration underneath there we defunded. Who else . Yes, maam. My name is gabby. Im intern with the Heritage Foundation. I just wanted to know what your thoughts are on including something against obamas executive action on immigration in the current lawsuit that the house filed against president obama. Well, im not an expert. Im an economist so im not a lawyer. So thats my preremark. So thats where our other members in the virginia delegation will come in on that piece. But im in favor of moving across on all fronts. The legislative piece, the funding piece, the judicial piece, the judiciary piece. So i dont have too much in the way of specifics to offer you on that other than to say i want to do all of the above. Because you dont know the timing on it which piece is going to be most effective. But already you know in virginia, i think there is 1,000 federal positions already funded and in place. Theyre already getting the green cards going and all right the Social Security cards are already getting processed. Thats the downside to the omnibus funding. The government, even through end of february, i think the obama executive action had a 50day limit on and we go beyond that. At the end of that 50 days, everything can be executed and thats why im concerned and thats why i voted no. I wanted some solution prior to that 50day cutoff. And the piece you are talking about, the lawsuit, will probably take longer than that. By the time it works its way through. In the new congress coming up do you see the republicans working with president obama, president obama working with the republicans . I dont know if i want to pick a direction, but i will say i hope we do Work Together on the big pieces. I think its important, in economics. How many of you had an economics class. Youre supposed to rank your preferences in order. The goal is happiness, maximization, whatever. Ill just say, if youre thinking economically, you need to put the biggest pieces the most important pieces in rank order and go down those in order. So president obama on the republican side, i dont think theres any way to deny the 127 trillion number. Everybody knows thats number one. Right . Then debt piece. The former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff said, when i asked whats the greatest threat to our military, he said the u. S. Debt. So people of good will on both sides, there are ways to solve these problems and we have to do it. And the third issue i would put in there that i think the democrats and republicans can clearly work on jointly is education. Right . Im hoping to be on the education committee. Thats a bipartisan issue. It is clear we are not succeeding. The u. S. Now on test scores, International Test scores is underneath the median score. Were toward the bottom. In the industrialized world were toward the bottom on math and science test scores. Theres no way our kids can compete in this Global Economy with that type of score. Were kind of in the medieval postworld war ii manufacturing kind of world war instead of being in this dynamic Global Economy world view. Things have to change radically. Not just a little bit. Right . We have a monopoly in k to 12 education still. Kids are not being trained they dont know what a business is. They dont know what an entrepreneur is. Theyre learning all the math and science and this kind of thing. But if youre not taught what business is, we have a major problem on our harndznds. So businesses are complaining about the Workforce Skills development. We can do something about that. We have projects where business folks come in to the schools at seventh and eighth grade level and help to shape the curriculum to skill the kids in to work for those companies. I think thats a model we have to look at. I think that it will work. It doesnt cost any money, believe it or not. Thats a nice model. You skill up kids to work for the company in your own area. 40 of college kids i think today cant find a job in their own area that they majored in. 40 . So thats a big deal. And i didnt get into the amnesty issue, but thats one of the reasons im pretty tough on that issue. I dont want anymore shortrun bandaid solutions. So when you have a laborforce problem and our economy is not back to normal steadystate growth by any means, and the worst part of the economy is the labor plashth. How do you solve that . We need to skill up our own kids. We dont need to import people from abroad. Thats not an answer for any country. Right . We clearly cannot hold 8 billion people. So people always want to talk about this 5 million or 10 million like thats the problem. Thats not the problem. Right . The problem is we need free markets for 8 billion people on the planet to get the whole world growing. Thats what we did after the war, right, with the japanese and the germans, our arch enemies. Right . We propped them up with the Marshall Plan. We learned from world war i how not to do it. And now theyre our friends, right . So we turned arch enemies into our friends, thats our goal, thats what we have to do. So immigration in my mind kind of stands for that short run bandaid approach, where business just looks for shortterm earnings, and that logic is putting our country in a terrible hole right now. That shortrun mentality. We need to get back to longrun planning. I used to put in my stump speech the ceos in the country right after world war ii was kind of as General Motors goes, so the nation goes. Right. That was the logic. The ceos knew they were at least implicitly involved in charting gdp growth for the nation and they had a social and ethical responsibility to do that. These days the language is changing. We can make earnings, profits within any environment. Right . We can go global, we can make money over there, we can make money over here. So individually, corporately they do okay, but its not tied back to the u. S. Gdp growth rate and the welfare of the country as a whole. We have to all get back to thinking about that. Thats a longwinded. Maybe ill ask the last question and we can talk informally at lunch. In most of colleges and universities, that we have students here that could attest, most of the professors are liberal and left wing with some wonderful exceptions, of course. Yeah. I was curious the reaction of your fellow professors at your college, when a freedom oriented liberty talking professor like you was elected to congress. What did they all say . I cant say that on live tv. That, ill just put it that way, theyre collegial right . At lunch we used to debate all the time and so we had fun. And then the left gets more mad at you the more effective you get. So when i got this effective they werent happy with it. And i challenge my liberals, if you all want to have fun with liberals someday, its a fun to do. I enjoy them. I get along. Go to the lunch table and ask where the word liberal comes from. Any guesses from any scholars . Liberty, right . So the liberal tradition of which theyre a part and then if you want to go deeper, right, get into the what ethics will you name, right . What ethics are you teaching to the kids . Right, theres no such thing as ethics, everybody with me on that . Theres jewish ethics, buddhist ethics confucius ethics christian ethics, utilitarian ethics, right . Ethics, there has to be an ethical system, a frame of thought. And its almost criminal right, that kids coming out of k12 system have no idea what ethics is. At all. No awareness of the Judeo Christian tradition. And im not particular in pushing one tradition on others but thats what a liberal education is. Is being openminded to all the various systems of thought right . I teach a justice course at the school where starts with socrates, and then plato and aristotle, et cetera and goes up through john rolls and milt be friedman and all sorts of folks in the modern period. Thats the liberal arts education. Most kids coming out of school are not familiar at all with that tradition. I graduated from college. And so, ill just kind of leave it there on that one. Right . So we need to we need to reinvigorate our universities. Some of the best universities by the way, have no curriculum whatsoever. Kids at 18 years old, i guess are so wise they can choose their life plans ahead of time. Right . So im a conservative. I dont really buy that theory of education. We want to give you a couple of gifts to thank you for coming by. Were sure glad youre up there on capitol hill talking about liberty and representing all of us. At the institute what we do is we promote conservative women who believe as you do. This is our 2015 calendar, with some of the great women who have spoken for us in the past year. And we also have a mug, youre going to appreciate this. This is a famous saying from clare boothe luce. Read it. No good deed goes unpunished. Thank you. And then go ahead. We also from the Heritage Foundation, youll love this gift, it should be right on your desk. Good. As opposed to way over on the bookshelf. Its the heritage guide to the constitution. Oh, very good. There you go. Let me show everybody that one. Uhoh, its heavy. More Light Reading this evening. Thank you all very much for having me. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Put all this stuff in here. Am i still on tv . I forgot to thank my wife. Please give her a round of applause. Hey, laura [ applause ] the Funeral Service for former new york governor mario cuomo takes place today at st. Ignatius loyal la church in new york city. He was new yorks 52nd governor winning election in 1982 and then going on to serve three consecutive terms. He died last week at the age of 82. Well have live coverage when that funeral gets under way here on cspan3. Starting at 11 00 eastern. This sunday on q a, author dick lehr talks about the groundbreaking 1915 film the birth of a nation. Its depiction of former slaves after the civil war and the efforts by africanamerican civil rights advocate and newspaper publisher William Monroe trotter to prevent the movies release. Part two of the movie which is after the war, reconstruction, is really the heart of the protest in the sense that this is where the blacks were just appalled by the portrayal of freed slaves. This is a scene showing what happens when you give former slaves you know, the right to vote, the right to be elected, the right to govern. Its a scene in the South Carolina legislature where their first and primary order of business is to pass a bill allowing for interracial marriage. Because, again in griffiths hands black men are solely interested in pursuing and having white women. Author dick lehr on the controversial story behind the birth of a nation sunday night at 8 00 eastern and pacific on cspans q a. Next, a discussion on military readiness and defense spending. Speakers include former georgia congressman jim marshall, and eric edelman, who served as defense undersecretary for the george w. Bush administration. This was part of a forum hosted by the Foreign Policy initiative. Its an hour. Ladies and gentlemen as we move into our next panel one of the highlights of the last discussion that was brought up was that no matter what, the president and congress are going to have a deep agenda on National Security, defense, intelligence policymaking as we look forward to the next congress, and one of the items that we hope will shape that debate are the recommendations of the National Defense panel. On which both ambassador eric edelman who is also a member of fbis board of directors and former congressman jim marshall served before issuing their july 2014 report. Its a pleasure to welcome Vago Muradian who will be moderating this conversation. Vago is the editor of defense news. And specially want to highlight sunday mornings on abc at 11 00 a. M. Is the host of inside defense news. This week no we dropped the this week. When we shifted from cbs to abc, you cant have this week and this week, so instead of stephanopoulos complaining about why we shamelessly plagiarized him we changed it to defense news. Its defense news with Vago Muradian. Defense news with Vago Muradian, 11 00 a. M. On abc. Thank you so much, vago. And thank you so much ambassador and congressman for joining us. Thanks very much, chris. I appreciate it. Chris was one of our first guests, so i owe chris a lot. Thank you very much. Youre doing a great job with the organization. Im honored to be here. Im particularly honored to be on a panel with both ambassador edelman and congressman marshall. Because common defense is one of those things the government is supposed to provide for under the constitution unsurprisingly. And its it can be argued that its having an exception ap difficult time doing that at a very, very complicated time in National Security. The defense game is fundamentally changing, technology is leveling. You know, can improve our capabilities but also advantage a lot of our adversaries, including a lot of nonstate actors as you saw the head of gchq, the version of the nsa, sort of said that twitter and facebook are being used by isis as, you know, not only command and control but recruitment and propaganda tools. So that is a different universe in which youre living and thats one of the reasons why secretary warrick and secretary hagel, deputy secretary warrick and secretary hagel are working on the offset strategy, obviously. But the fundamental reality of National Security Decision Making is the necessity to make choices. And you know americas always faced crisis. There have always been throughout history, if you look at histories, you see how many sec defs have dealt with a cavalcade of problems while struggling with resources. And the in this effort to try to make better choices we sort of adopted, with the cold war, the quadrennial defense review as a way to help us do this bottom up review, respond to quadrennial defense review and no sooner did we have a quadrennial defense review as somebody who covered all of them there were criticisms that it wasnt good enough and so bill cohen convened the National Defense panel in 1997 to review the qdr and then it was about a dozen years later it was mandated there be an official real look at american strategy on an independently on a regular basis and hence the National Defense panel appointed both by congress and the administration to try to achieve this goal of an actual bipartisan independent review of u. S. Strategy. The most recent ndp issued its report in july. Of which fortunately our panelists have copies here. I have a printed out copy in my bag. And several months after the pentagon put out its qdr and some of the fundamentals of it was to end budget cuts and return to sort of normal financial order and as secretary gates, under the 2012, fy2012 budget that secretary gates had originally proposed retain a force right size and construct that ambassador edelman describes as the ability to walk and chew gum at the same time which i think is an important thing for us to be able to do. Immediately reverse readiness cuts that are gravely damaging warfighting capabilities. Especially once you get through all of the tricks that have been used so far to actually try to minimize those impacts and the 2014 qdr force sizes were too small. Im not going to get into everybody i think already has our biographies here of our distinguished panelists. But what i wanted to do is just start off the discussion were going to have a half hour discussion and then ill open it up to the floor for questions. But ambassador edelman, you know you and Michele Flournoy testified before the House Armed Services committee. You were both ndp members. What are the biggest problems that you guys saw and see continued with the qdr . I think our concern as a panel with the qdr this years panel under the legislation and the ndaa that chartered us, was able to begin its work i was on the panel four years ago, by the way, as well. Four years ago we got the qdr, kwrd. Considered it as panel, issued our report. This time around the Congress Actually chartered us to begin our work in parallel with the development of the qdr. So we actually convened in the summer of 2013, as a panel, and began our work then. We were briefed during the process of the qdr. Went through the terms of reference, met with secretary hagel at the outset. Met with him again when the qdr was about to be released. So we did that in part because i think the congress wanted us to be able to should we have chosen to do it to play a role, having some input into the qdr and i think our decision as a panel was not to try and formally provide inpit, because it seemed a little awkward to us to then be criticizing something that we had had hand in drafting, but rather i think through our process of asking questions of the briefers, may have had some influence on the qdr. That being said, i think all of us had the same reaction, i believe, which was that under the budget circumstances of the time, which was with sequester being implemented as a possibility that be implemented again in 2014, before the deal that halted sequester, that the uncertainties the department faced were so great, not knowing what their top line was going to be, whether it was going to be the bca number with sequester, or whether it was going to be the president s budget, or something in between, that it was impossible for them to do a document that would be as secretary panetta said two weeks ago, a strategy driven budget rather than a budget driven strategy. So i think our sense was that the folks in dod were working very hard to try and do the right thing for the nation. But that the constraints they operated under made it impossible to produce a strategic document that could be considered in those terms. So i think what we decided to do as a panel jim will correct me if i have it wrong is basically put the qdr to one side. Its not that we werent informed by it. But we didnt think that the congress would be wellserved, or the public by spending a lot of time kind of grading the pentagons homework. But rather tried to set out what we thought were the major issues confronting the nation with regard to defense, and really it boils down to i think, a question of whether or not the United States is going to continue to play the role weve played since 1945, of providing Global Public goods and a framework for International Order and a rulebased International System. The backbone for the worlds security architecture. Exactly. And essentially were at a turning point, a reflection point, if you will. If we dont get rid of sequester, and the bca cast on the Defense Budget, it seemed clear to us as a panel that the United States will not be able in the future to continue to play that role. Thats why we as a panel, think, suggested as you noted vago, that we get rid of the bca cast, that sequester be repealed, that we returned to the fy12 proposed gates Defense Budget, which was the last Defense Budget that was based on any kind of serious analysis of the threats and problems facing the nation, that we embrace some of the reforms that have been suggested, and some other things that im sure congressman marshall will want to talk about, as well. Sir . I agree with everything that eric just said. And would add that the reason we picked the gates fy12 proposed budget was in part because secretary gates quite clearly was very Cost Containment conscious. He had already directed massive cuts to the budget for the Defense Department. So we thought that the gates budget would have a lot of credibility. It was the last time that the department was tree to plan based on strategy rather than planning based on budget availability. We thought that you could hardly argue that that budget was too generous, because gate was very aggressive about cost cutting within the department. So we picked that as the top line that realistically we ought to have as a minimum. I would add to that top line, what we need in order to deal with modernization of our strategic forces, and i think we all agreed that needed to be done as well. There have been estimates that thats going to cost as much as 35 billion a year over a 30year period of time. Others say no it wont cost nearly that much. But if it does cost 35 billion a year over a 30year period of time, and we cannot afford that as a nation, weve got huge problems. Thats no money given the size of our economy, and both the economic and security interests that are at stake. When you think about modernizing that. So i would say gates top line, plus what is required to modernize our strategic forces. Thats one observation. We thought that in addition to the qdr being more budgetdriven than strategydriven, that the qdr selected the wrong force size and construct. Since the bottomup review the force size and construct has been were going to fight two major wars on two fronts. We need to be prepared to do that. We dont want to do that but we need to be prepared to do that so we need to size the force in order to have that capability. A number of us observed that thats a nice objective but we have never been able to size the force to have that capability. In the way that we had in mind, which is basically were going to fight major wars that lead to regime change, occupation, that sort of thing. And we thought, given the way the globe is right now and as we think the globe is going to evolve, better force size and construct would be to be able to fight one major war that doesnt necessarily, hopefully doesnt lead to occupation, and regime change, but a major war. At the same time that were in a position to deter aggressive behavior in a number of different areas. So, what you see in the world today as you look at different pockets across the globe is Different Countries that are developing significant Strategic Military capabilities, and that are interested in actually being pretty aggressive, and theyre discouraged from being pretty aggressive in part because of the alliances and the assurances that the United States has given to a whole host of allies across the globe. If the United States is bogged down in one major conflict, you can see opportunists and opportunistic behavior around the globe by people who would like to be aggressive with their neighbors. And as a result, we thought a more realistic force size and construct would be one in which we could, as a matter of fact i wont name names here but somebody came up with the idea, beat the hell out of. So, if somebody is going to act inappropriately aggressive, we need to have the capability of beating the hell out of them so that they know that they shouldnt act like that. If theyre going to act like that were going to deal with the situation weve got here and once weve finished with this situation, were going to come deal with you. But in the mean time, if youre going to act like that, were really going to punish you. Its the force size and construct that we thought isnt that roughly what the administration concluded, which was, fight one, hold another one off, while being able to do a couple of other smaller thing we think its hold more than one. Win, hold win which was we thought that that force size and construct is more realistic given the world environment that were in right now. I think part of the difference, vago is what we were talking about is the ability to do one highend conflict with a kind of near peer competitor. Which would be quite intense, and have heavy draw on the force. While at the same time retaining the capability to deal with, as congressman marshall was just saying multiple potential opportunistic aggressors in overlapping time frames. And i think that made it a little bit more stressful would make it more stressful on the force than the force size and construct that was actually in the qdr. And one of the things we suggested in the panel report was that the department actually go back and look at what it would take to actually economic cute this more stressful force plan and construct. Because it i think gets to the question of what should the size of the army, the navy, the marine corps, air force, et cetera, be. We also referred to the budget control act sequestration agreement entered into in 2011 as selfdefeating. A huge strategic misstep on the part of the United States. Of course, in defense of those who entered into that agreement, it was they expected that they would never have permitted that to continue because they recognized that this was really a big problem if in fact it continued. And so they thought this would be a forcing mechanism to get them to come to the table and deal with other issues. And it just havent been able to do that. Wasnt they were ignorant at the time that this was a big deal. But with hindsight, not only just a big deal its a serious strategic error by the United States. We did that because we got to the debt precipice and wanted to avoid a default for the first time in our history. We exactly right. And neither caucus went for it. The republicans thought it was reduce government spending, the democrat side it was try to avoid entitlement reform. So weve had months of pressing this case, years of pressing this case. You were on the hill. Do you see any motion for members to come to the table and actually resolve this . So one way of putting it, rather than use the sword of damocles analogy which a lot of people have used my colleague Todd Harrison that you know well has basically said that the problem here is that both the executive and legislative branches have taken the Defense Budget hostage, with slightly different theories of the case. The executive branch case was if we hold the Defense Budget hostage well get republicans to agree to raise taxes, and in the legislative branch the theory was that if we hold the Defense Budget hostage, we can get the president to reduce discretionary domestic spending. Both propositions have been definitively exposed as wrong, but when two sides are at an impasse and have taken the same hostage, it doesnt usually work out well for the hostage. And they dont care about the wellbeing of the hostage. Right . So, ultimately, then, what is the resolution here . You sat in there. You were a member of congress. Is there a political solution here . I think congress will sort of congress and the president will sort of muddle along and come up with appropriate solution because i think theres a growing recognition that this is pretty disastrous from the perspective of the United States and not just securitywise. Its also economically and few people understand that. The world economically is so intertwined and we have largely midwifed that. We have been very responsible for not only architecture of security you see globally but an awful lot of the economic progress thats been made globally. And as a result the United States economy is inextricably intertwined with the Global Economy and you hear these voices weve always had folks who were isolationists. And we werent exactly isolationists but as a country we were sort of that way for most of our history. And then we made a sharp right turn after world war ii. Facing the threat of communism, nuclear war, after two global wars in the first half of the 20th century, we made a decision that we were going to aggressively attempt to shape the world. And the result of that the united nations, the world bank, the imf, all kinds of pacts and treaties that we have globally that create this architecture that is one that guarantees some modicum of stability. Then also all these agreements globally that enhance global trade. To the extent there have been lots of economic studies to back this up. And theyre more modern because the information is the ability to crank it out with computers and have information that is reasonably accurate is only been available to us in the last sort of 40 or 50 years, but lots of recent studies show that as instability rises, Global Wealth decreases. Global wealth decreases and the United States our wealth disease creases, which means tax returns decrease, and they decrease more than what you have saved as a result of cutting the Defense Budget. So, its as we describe its selfdefeating for two reasons. One, it increases the likelihood we will experience defeat on the battlefields. You know, live, limbs lost unnecessarily. And it also increases the likelihood that well be poorer and less able to meet other federal priorities. How do you respond to the criticism made even by people within the department that, if you just look at the Fourth Estate alone you look at the number of civilian billet gains since 9 11 those increased military billets increased military billets are expected to be reduced and yet the civil understructure of the department, its contractor based. I know that secretary gates declared war, if you will, on contractors to a degree. But you know, theres still this enormous overhead structure that goes with the department, and there are those of who say that is actually what is sapping the life blood out of the department for each dollar that goes into it. Isnt it equally important for people like gordon adams, and others argue that you know look, the only way youre going to force the reform of that organization is to actually cut its funding, and then that is what will actually drive at the end of the day the reforms that i think are absolutely necessary. What do you think . Well, i think that proposition has already been tested and has proven wrong. I mean, weve had six years of trillion dollar plus cuts. I dont see any evidence that the Fourth Estate has shrunk very much, if at all. And we agree by the way in our report that the Fourth Estate needs to be cut. One of the things we argue for is that the sec def needs the kind of authority that bill perry had and bill was our cochairman and felt strongly about this that the authorities he had for instance to riff civilian employees in order to be able to cut back some of the administrative overhead and bloat that youre talking about. So its not something that we ignored in the report. On the contrary we want to arm the department to be able to go forth and do battle with the Fourth Estate. I dont know whether in our final document we went as far as a number of us wanted to go on this particular point, but inefficiency and waste within the Defense Department becomes a strategic problem for the Defense Department to the extent that inefficiency and waste can be cited as a reason for not increasing the top line. We know that increasing the top line is critically important to getting to where we need to be in order to have the appropriate Global Presence to meet our commitments, to assure our allies et cetera to discourage potential aggressors to maintain the stability that i was describing previously. And thats a strategic goal thats critically important, and we are at great risk of not being able to accomplish that goal if the top line isnt increased. And then you look at the inefficiencies within the department, and you worry, good gosh, if we dont clean this up, how is the American Public how are politicians, going to be able to support increasing the top line . And so within the department its critically important that you address issues like this, and Michael Berry has been on a tear about this, as you know, former head of the defense business board. And his presentation is pretty compelling. Its extraordinary. And but one of the other challenges is every year the department thinks it can hold its breath survive the wave, not have to make some choices because theres going to be money at the other end of it. I mean strategy is you were going to Say Something . You finish and then ill well ill launch off on congress. Please in that case, yes. One of to the reasons why everybody is tuned in. No. Its look a reformed smoker. Theyre the ones who are really going to take off on it. But theres a sense that the department can always hold its breath. This wave is going to end up passing. We can then get back to normal. Republicans get elected and theyll give us more money, and at the end strategy is always about balancing ends and means, and so ultimately do we need to have a fundamentally different approach to the way that were doing this moving away from the qdr structure and ndp structure if theres some other way of sort of devising sort of more lasting security architecture, wes clark argues for that that our strategy ought to be something that lasts across administrations and is aimed at the strategic best interests of the country. And puts the political inush yeah of this which is, i will not allow a squadron to leave my state because that means ive just evaporated that base. Well, add this. One of our hopes we intentionally kept the National Defense panels report fairly short, very top line, and we put a lot of emphasis on the introduction and the interests and objectives sections, which explain why we need to be doing this. Doesnt have to be done exactly as either eric or i or anybody else wants it done, but as a country we need to be doing this, and one thing we observed in the report is that it has not mattered until recently whether its a republican administration, democratic administration, or republican controlled house, senate, democratic controlled house, senate, we have been very consistent as a country on the policies that have led to this global architecture that is very good for everybody securitywise and economically. Very consistent. We worry that could ebb. We hear voices on both sides that seem to be attacking that. Isolationist voices that i think are very immature and inappropriate. So we hope that the panels report can maybe serve as a touchstone for all president ial candidates in the next campaign. So that it doesnt matter to us whether its a democratic or a republican controlled white house, theyre headed in the direction we suggest we need to be headed in, in this report, and then back to congress. I was a member of the Armed Services committee when i became a member of congress. It would have been more natural for me to be on Financial Services because throughout my professional career i thats what id done, basically. And its what i knew most of. I had been in the military. Id grown up in a military family. But id been away from that for a long time. Why was i on the Armed Services . Well the main economic driver in my district was Warner Robbins air base. Great facility. Great work. Supported the country. But theyre also critically important to the economy of that area. So im im a representative. Im going to represent the folks that put me in there. Why did they put me in there . The main reason was not to have some esoteric arguments about morality or et cetera, et cetera. They wanted that base protected. And grown. And so you think about how the Armed Services committee gets populated. Its populated by people like me and were trying to argue for keeping our bases, our troops, et cetera, and it means the Armed Services committee, while its excellent you know it really knows its stuff and from a sort of more global perspective can carry the message that the top line needs to be increased et cetera. But the Armed Services committee itself can get too much in the weeds of management and not give appropriate Management Discretion to the department to deal with some of these inefficiencies that are a strategic threat at this point. Let me just add two things. Your question had to unpack it a little bit had a couple of different pieces. So on the reform agenda, which is you know, goes beyond kind of cutting the headquarters bloat, and encapsulates things like Compensation Reform retirement, health care, et cetera, the problem of the entitlements inside the Defense Budget that are microcome of the National Entitlements problems, but which because of cost growth threaten to, at some point eat the whole budget, and my colleague Todd Harrison has a chart that shows you know at current growth rates, although theyve gone down a little bit, you know at some point 30 years from now the whole Defense Budget goes to this. So we have to get a handle on that. We address that in the report but the reality is and i think everyone on the panel agrees with this, point two, on the question of strategy and strategy you know surviving different president ial administrations, you know at one level i absolutely agree with that. And in reality, i think we would argue the panel really implicitly argues that that has been the case since 1945. That we have had a National Strategy, and that you can see it, sometimes its not articulated but you can see it at work in how successfully administrations have dealt with certain problems. So for instance president carter announced the Carter Doctrine saying that the United States would not allow an outside power to dominate the persian gulf. The reality is after the collapse of the soviet union that was directed at them but he was before the soviet union collapsed the United States had made it clear through its behavior across multiple administrations that it wasnt going to tolerate an internal power in the persian gulf dominating the persian gulf either. You can see the continuity through time. I have not presided over qdr and it should be said that qdr is not on a National Strategy and not a grand strategy. The document itself and the way of reform, this is something our panel didnt take on this time, although the Previous Panel did suggest that maybe we should think about whether the qdr has had its, you know its time of day. A process which basically allows the military department of the department of defense to spend one year preparing for and throwing thousands of bodies at and then produces and i presided over one of these, so this is in the category of criticism, selfcriticism, produces a document that says the program of record looks pretty good but we need to make a few tweaks here and there, and if you look bat at every qdr thats the conclusion that it comes to. But the result is almost guaranteed by the process that creates the document. Problem, i think, that exists we were asked about this yesterday by several members of the house is how i mean there has to be some kind of National Strategy that gets articulated. I think the qdr in fact came about because of the bottomup review as you suggested. Congress thought that was actually a pretty good exercise, therefore lets institutionalize it. Its time to kind of sunset that exercise, but you have to have some kind of forcing function that creates a strategy. My argument would be if you think back at some of the great strategic documents that guided the evolution of u. S. Strategy after 1945, nsd68, nsd162, those were not created by a committee of thousands of people working on studies. They were very small groups that were purposedriven, and free from a lot of the normal bureaucratic constraints. We need to look back to that kind of model to get at this rather than what we have adopted with the qdr. With that i want to open the floor to questions. Yes, sir. And please do identify yourselves when youre picked. George mikelson, a policy consultant for special operations and counterterrorism. You talk about a strategy. Remember after world war ii, president eisenhower was concerned about a future strategy and he commissioned what was called the solarium concept, three separate panel in the white house. I think george tenet orchestrates that. Out of that came a strategy of containment. You think theres time now to have another solarium group . You know, ive actually looked at the solarium project and i actually teach a course on american grand strategy where we spend some time on that and we actually ask the students to create their own little solarium. Weve got teams going off to figure out a grand strategy and brief it. Theres a lot that is attractive about that process and the process itself i think actually stands as one of the great exemplars how to do this right as opposed to the way we have done the qdrs. I would have to say i think its a little harder to imagine that kind of exercise going on today. First of all, the principles of government were involved in that. In other words, president eisenhower devoted several full day sessions to all that. In fact canon records in his memoirs that eisenhower was the towering intellect among all these people whod been gathered together to do this. But you also had the secretary of the treasury. You had secretary dulles there. You had a lot of high level government time devoted to that. You had a lot of people across party lines. I mean george tenet was actually doing this exercise because he had actually been pngd from the soviet union and had not been renewed as an ambassador by secretary dulles, and therefore forced into retirement. But somehow or other he was still able to you know play in this process, play a pretty big pretty big role. And its also very hard for me to damage this going on. People didnt know about solarium until about 40 50 years after it had happened. In any detail. I mean people knew kind of the outlines of it. But you know no one talked in those days. No one had bob woodward you know. No one was telling bob woodward what they saw during the solarium process when president eisenhower recapitulating the three alternative strategies. So yes i think its the potential model, but i worry a little bit about how we would actually execute it in todays kind of environment. I would just add that congress wouldnt go along with it so thats pretty much it. Yeah. Well, there you have it. Yes, sir over there in the second row. Then well take you, and then well take im a member of the george mason chapter of the Alexander Hamilton society. Theres definitely been a lot of talk of in the coming century of what the military will look like, especially with the type of conflicts well be facing and theres a lot of talk between a smaller, lighter force depending on the naval power air power, and special operations, or continue having a large force to face larger aggressors like china. What is the in your opinion what do you think would be the best solution especially since in my mind, like, we have so many different commitments internationally. We have bases all over the world. That causes us to be spread too thin and then if theres another powerful country they could easily take advantage of the fact we are spread too thin. Well, ill take a whack at that and then jim may want to chime in. Secretary gates used to say all the time, and i think he is right, that when we try and predict the future of conflict we have a perfect record in the United States government. We have always gotten it wrong. And so the problem i think we face a little bit is because we have this unique role and its not even really the role of being the sole superpower. Even before we emerged the as the sole superpower after the collapse of the soviet union, now its more complicated. Weve got rising powers in asia. We still were the framework nation after 1945 in the bipolar era of the cold war. We provided the framework, at least for the free world of the rulebased International System of free trade free passage of the maritime domain. We guaranteed International Civil aviation. We set up all these institutions and created this entire apparatus that has led to the you know, largest period of global prosperity in history. As congressman marshall was saying. And theres nobody else in the late 19th century, beginning of the 20th century, britain had been playing that role as it entered its period of decline it became the weary titan as aaron freebergs book title refers to it. They have someone to pass off that responsibility to. The United States of america. And the problem we have is theres nobody for us to pass this off to. And so we kind of are trapped in that regard. Weve got, as you say these commitments that we have to maintain. One of the things that i think was most challenging to us as a panel was to hear the cno tell us and from previously panels the previous cno tell us that at the current rate of build for shipbuilding in the u. S. Navy, were not going to have a large enough navy to maintain our basic presence mission in the western pacific. Which is now coming under pretty serious challenge because of the rise of Chinese Military power, and double digit Defense Budget increases every year. I commend to everybody the most recent report of the Congressional China Commission that has enormous amount of detail about this buildup and why everyone should really be concerned about it. It does explain a little bit about chinas more aggressive posture towards its neighbors over the last three or four years. We have no choice i think but to both maintain the quality, the qualitative edge that secretary hagel talked about as being so important. But we also have to recognize that the qualitative edge is not sufficient. Its also quantity. Quantity has a quality all of it own. If you dont have enough ships, you cant be present. You cant maintain your alliances. You cant get your allies to contribute what they need to contribute. So we have to have both, i think. So weve got sort of a hobsons choice here. I was giving a talk about the National Defense panel report, and put some slides together, and so i said, came up with this slide. U. S. Global leadership. Certainly not a blessing. Perhaps a curse. But also a fact. Kind of where we are right now. And if we fail to continue to provide the Global Leadership we have been providing no question, global instability rises, we get poorer, Tax Collections are a lot lower, and so in a sense, we ought to be funding appropriately defense. Now, how do you do it . What do you anticipate . What is involved, as gates said were pretty bad at predicting exactly what threats will evolve in the future. And this world right now, pretty clear people dont want to go up against the United States where the United States is strong. Nobody wants to do that you. Always pick your enemys weakest spot. So its very clear that our military, our Security Forces generally, need to be agile and they need to be as current as possible. We need to be ahead of the curve as far as technology is concerned. So that somebody doesnt develop the capability that we cant defeat. We want to be we want to have capabilities that they cant defeat, and always have the ability to defeat their capabilities. Which requires a great deal of investment in r d that were not doing right now because were worried about readiness. Were worried about carrying personnel because were sort of forced to carry personnel not knowing exactly what the budget is going to look like in the future. And thats unfortunate. Are we able to could the Defense Panel itself predict what the future is going to look like and how we ought to structure our force . We concluded, no, we didnt have the analytic ability, didnt have the staff et cetera. So a better planning process than the qdr perhaps, not necessarily solarium, that you suggest, we revert to because i dont think you can get there but some planning process that tends that guides us in the organization of our force. At the hearing yesterday by the house we had a few members ask us why we didnt talk about Garden Reserve in part it was because early on we talked about guard and reserve in the appropriate mix and concluded we just didnt have we werent going to be able to come together as a panel with a recommendation about that subject. So we decided, okay, we wont touch that subject but we could agree on a few things, and in the document as i said before, we said, we think if you went through another qdr that was not budget informed but was strategy informed, youd conclude that as far as capacity is concerned you need more ships, you need more people, et cetera. So its capacity, capability and being way ahead of the curve and being very agile. Isnt there if you look at china, during the cold war, investment on our part worked because the soviet union was isolated. China is part of the Global Economy. Chinese students are the best students at american universities. Some of the top engineering science professors will tell you that the best american is sort of number 25 in his program, so theyre not his immediate t. A. S, or not the people who are benefiting from that wisdom. They then return to china where they work for honeywell or airbus or a boeing facility or Something Else and then ultimately get good enough where the Chinese Technology now is maturing and accelerating you know, and were still spending more on r d than anybody else is including our pentagon even though its reduced it. But do we sort of fundamentally need to rethink this model because the global flow of technology is a leveller and chinese products are no longer seen as sort of the, wow, i play with that train once, and the wheels are going to fall off. This iphone in my pocket is made in china. And its pretty good, and doesnt explode into flames. It is collecting on me incessantly but thats another issue. Did you hear that . Thats why i turned off my iphone. Thats right. Theyre using mine. I would just we talk about this actually in the panel report, because the qdr itself puts a lot of emphasis on innovation, and that we have to be more innovative, and now, of course, secretary hagel at the Reagan Defense forum announced the socalled third offense strategy. The Defense Innovation initiative initiative. Yeah. And youre absolutely right, of course. This is not the cold war, not the u. S. Soviet confrontation, this is something much more complex, and much more difficult to manage in part because the speed of technological innovation is so rapid now that the effort to keep pace and keep ahead of the competition is very is a great concern. Should be a great concern for everybody. Secretary hagel by the way, raised that concern with us early in the imagine. He openly said, im not 100 convinced were investing in all the right things. You hope you guys will look at what do you think we ought to be investing for and have capability 20 years out that we need . He was very mindful of the fact that we have been consuming the seed corn of the Reagan Defense buildup in the 80s. And so he raised that with us. We tried to address that in the panel. In part because i think we were concerned that theres a danger that innovation becomes a buzz word. We dont have enough money. We cant do everything. We need to do. Dont worry. Were going to innovate our way out of this problem. This talent and hard work will somehow solve a budget issue. Right. Talent and hardworking people never existed in the Defense Department before the current crowd. So we wanted to make sure that that didnt become just a kind of like transformation . Yeah. Everything is an offset now. The toilet is an offset. Right. So we suggested actually some sectors for future investment. Places where we think the department hasnt been placing enough emphasis and money. I can go through them pretty quickly but it includes things like undersea warfare where we still have a comparative advantage against the chinese. More unmanned autonomous undersea capabilities, smart mines, et cetera. Longrange strike we said was something we should look at. A more armed, unmanned aviation, directed energy. More effort in space. I mean there are a whole series of places where we said this is where we ought to be concentrating our future investments to deal with that capability. I think we still have a comparative strategic advantage over china for the moment, which is that china really does have a problem with innovation. They can do a great job of buying Russian Military Technology Reverse Engineering it and then producing it on their own. They have shown some ability to you know to do things that we didnt think they could do or at least didnt think they could do as fast as theyve done. But they still have some barriers and we still are a country that remains open to innovation. Its a little bit beyond the scope of either the report or this panel. But i think one of the things we ought to be thinking about in terms of National Grand strategy is thinking about issues like energy, and immigration, as part of our National Grand strategy. Immigration policy, when considered not in the domestic political context that we normally consider it in, ought to be seen as part of the comparative strategic advantage but our current immigration policies are crazy from that point of view. If we have a kid from bangalore who comes to the United States goes to m. I. T. , develops some really you know, neat gee whiz bang process in metallurgy that we could apply in the Defense Industry we say thank you very much for spending time in our country, please go back. You know. And theres not a really good path for you to become a citizen. But if you have no skills, you know, and want to come here and do gardening or child care for us, yall come. So, weve got to change that. And weve got to think about it as a strategic Natural Advantage of the United States. You know, one opportunity for the United States globally is to sort of in a sense and theres no real reason why we cant do that. But we have to change our immigration policyies and be more open to the possibilities that you just described. We spent a lot of time talking about russia china, you know, other places, and concluded that it was a mistake for us to lionize or demonize any of those places, any of those countries. And that certainly applies to china. There is a terrific opportunity for us to work in partnership with china that would advantage china tremendously and the United States as well. And so we yes, do need to be prepared in the event theres conflict but if history is demonstrates anything its that countries that start lionizing and demonizing one another, and the building up militarily, you know worry that there might be conflict, and then we get its like ferguson, and the press coverage of ferguson. Well, there might be a problem when the grand jury report comes out. Oh, i think theres probably going to be a problem. Oh, no i think theres certainly going to be a problem. It was selffulfilling prophesy so you worry that by demonizing lionizing and then preparing for conflict on both sides you eventually get to the point where somebody pulls a bitten and there is a conflict and thats a big problem for both sides. China is in a real difficult part of the world. Its got huge problems that face it structurally across a broad number of issues. Its going to have great needs and its going to fare much better in a Good Partnership with the United States than if it is at odds with the United States. Its benefited from americana from the very beginning. Yes . [ inaudible ] im teresa from the george mason chapter of the Alexander Hamilton society. You guys are all sitting to the . Just us two in theres just the two of you . Yes. Just seeing whether or not we should keep moving the mic down the road. Thats great. Theres a whole handful of people from the Hamilton Society here i think, actually. I had a question about back on the defense spending issues with european and nato dependence on the United States. Whats your opinion on whether or not europe should become more militarily independent or whether or not we should continue providing threefourths of their military capabilities . We i at one point talking to a bunch of european commissioners, suggested that this is early on in the iraq conflict, and i suggested that the United States has the military capabilities to do this sort of thing in spades, at least the conventional part of it. Your guys can get shot on street corners just like our guys can so the nonconventional part we need as much help as we can get. But on the conventional side, maybe dont worry about developing those capabilities, in a sense, unless were coordinated very well. If we go do joint operations its very difficult for us to do it. Were worried that the coordination is difficult because we dont have the same capabilities communications protocols, et cetera. So i suggested well do the hard stuff, and why dont you think about the soft stuff, you know, coming in and rebuilding, et cetera. And one of these guys said, oh, so youre going to be perpetually the bad guys and were going to be the good guys. Well good point. Maybe that wasnt such a good suggestion by me. We had a partnership for a long time. We always want them to contribute more than they have. It would be nice if that happens but it should be supplementing what we do. And we should not expect that its going to happen because if anything the trends there are in the opposite direction. This falls into the general category of be careful what you wish for because you might get it. And the germans down. And it worked. And so we created essentially what was a defense protectorate. It wasnt an alliance, and it was not like the warsaw pact. But it basically was a protectorate where we provided the everywhelming alowed europe to rebuild after a devastating war and allowed europe to become prosperous and it allowed europe to become relatively irresponsible with a few exceptions when it comes to security. And all those trends since the end of the cold war have gotten worse essentially in the cold war we used to have the 3 solution. We wanted all the allies to spend 3 of gdp on defense while we were spending six and seven. Now after the cold war we wanted them to spend 2 . Now we got a lot of nato members, including founding members of the alliance, who are sliding below one percent of gdp. And i said for a lot of demographic reasons as well as cultural reasons as congressman marshall has suggested i dont think its likely that these trends are going to reverse any time soon. I dont think that that means that we withdraw from nato or we say the hell with nato or any of that. I think what it means is we have to think about how we operate in nato differently. I think the good news is that there are a couple of countries that remain serious about defense, and who are investing in defense. Poland, for instance, month the new nato members comes to mind. Never thought i would say this on a public stage but the french have been a, you know, incredible valuable ally over the last six or seven years. The french are very serious about defense and we should welcome that. I worry, frankly, about our colleagues in the United Kingdom and i dont know what will happen after the next election there. But i think that the special relationship between the United States and the uk is at best on life support and may already be clinically dead. We just dont know it yet. That to me remains to be determined. That would be in my view a development to be mourned, not celebrated, but i think we have to also maybe face the facts about it. Secretary gates used to say during when i was his undersecretary when we were working on afghanistan that we had to try to 23ig your out whether nato was going to be a twotier alliance in which some nato members fought and others didnt. Unfortunately i think weve run that experiment and we know what the answer is now. So now we just have to live with the reality and work our way through it. The only thing worse than not fighting with your allies, fighting with your allies is fighting without them. Yes, sir. Always happy to quote churchill. Exactly. I am with the National Council for iran. I guess we cant talk about defense without talking about stopping iran reside Nuclear Weapons program, and i know theres been a lot of talk about the number of centrifuges, and how many they should be allowed and the administration has been boasting that they have degraded some of the 20 enriched uranium and other steps but i want you to talk about the things that hasnt been really addressed, and both the weaponization and the verification. The longlasting outstanding questions like the possible military dimensions, dating back to 2003, theyre still hanging there for 11 years, ten years, how is that going to be resolved in seven months or even afterwards if they didnt comply before with all the sanctions and everything. Second in terms of verification, access to military sites, to experts to documents, if that has not been accomplished in the past 11, 12 years, how is that going to be accomplished . You take the example where the opposition just recently said that they have two high explosive chambers built for that. None of that has been and the sites and others. I would really be interested to hear your thoughts on that. If i could go first and simply say that you obviously have expertise far beyond mine on this particular question. I hope that talks that are going on will be productive and my general hope is that iran winds up being an ally, not an enemy for the United States. Its a natural partner for the United States. If we were asked a question like that would simply defer. Its we were much more high level in what we were looking at and we didnt get into the granularity. I will say this. Well beyond the scope of our panels report. I would say that you have raised and did mention one other issue that needs addressing which is the state of irans Ballistic Missile program which would be the main mechanism of delivery. To me it is incomprehensiveble how any successful agreement could be reached without dealing with past military dimensions and Ballistic Missile program. In the first instance you asked about the verification without getting into the details or weeds on this. In my view as someone who had to worry about this as the designated chief adviser on war plans to the secretary of defense is how you have a verification regime for such an agreement if you havent understood exactly what they were doing on the military side in the past. How would you even know where to look if you havent got resolution on all of those questions . Your question answers itself. The reports suggest that it has almost been totally cleansed at this point. We are pretty much at the point where even if iea was given total access there would be nothing left to find. I think this is an area where the Congress Needs to be very vigilant and active. I have no doubt that senators kirk and menendez and others who have devoted time and attention to this issue, congressman engel, congressman deutsche, i have no doubt that they will try and senator corker if he becomes chairman of Foreign Relations committee they are all committed to congress having some ability to review what is agreed. I think they have an enormous role to play in regard to the view and sanctions. Unfortunately, that is all the time we have. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thanks very much for having us. [ applause ] and thanks also to rachael and kate and everybody for making this happen. Thank you. With live coverage of the u. S. House on cspan and senate on cspan 2. Here we compliment that coverage. On weekends cspan 3 is the home to American History tv with programs that tell our nations story. The civil wars 150th anniversary visiting battlefields and key events. American artifacts to discover what artifacts reveal. History book shelf the presidency, looking at the policies and legacies of our nations commanders and chief. Lectures in history. And our new series real america featuring archival government and educational films. Created by the cable tv industry. Watch us in hd, like us on facebook and follow us on twitter. We take you to manhattan as mourners gather. Vice President Joe Biden was