Colburn i said, who among your former colleagues should we go about trying to get involved . And he gave us three names and two of those three names are earnest and john ronson. We are grateful but also when you certainly on honor the legacy of doctor colbert by your participation today. What senator ernst, lets start with you. Some opening comments, senator johnson we will then go to you and open up for questions if we have time remaining. Thanks for joining us. I am so thankful to be with senator johnson as well. Its just a great champion and a wonderful colleague to all these issues. Im just starting, of course, im so glad that you mentioned senator colburn the cause he really did leave the way when it came to counting efforts with our federal. It was a great supporter of the commission so, you know, we do want to honor him for that infinite inspiration for so many of us to follow here in the senate as well as folks in the house. I know some of you will remember when i first ran for office, i was and thats truly what i intend to do. Its not easy and ron can attest to this here in the swamp. For example, i have a bill to cut wasteful advertising sending, which would include a lot of the swag and government mascots that are out there and you would think this is an easy lift but i have gotten so much pushback on that particular bill and immediately, democrats started hammering me on oh my goodness you are going to poke the bear. We backed off on smoky the bear, but there are a lot of other public mascots who that exists out there. We spend a quarter of 1 Million Dollars on the mascot and nobody knows who they are. So thats the pushback from the democrats, but then we also get pushback from our republican members as well and so many of them will come to me and the look at the efforts that i have, the bills that i have, and theyre like, joni, thats just a drop in the bucket. Why are you even bothering . Folks that drop in the bucket when and if we cant come together and eliminate those small areas of waste, how can we be expected then to cut significantly across the board when it comes to waste and within our federal government . We have got to find a path forward on that. We know that there is, you know, the drip, drip, drip a little bit here in a little bit there but we barely have a position now where we have record breaking deficits, which continues to add to our overall debt and we are very concerned about that. When folks like senator johnson and others and i try to come to gather to make a difference, the namecalling just starts and weve got to do something to fix that. During covid19, this has been a heavy lift i think for all of us trying to work through the pandemic and the right way to support from the federal government level. We are trying to reopen america safe line and i think thats very important. I do support the large package and i think all of us did support the cares act. We knew that we had to get it out the door immediately, but we certainly have been able to identify areas that if we had known, we couldve done things differently. Those are the things that we are trying to correct and im sure ronald will talk about a number of those efforts. We do have a moral obligation to get our house in order. Folks, i truly believe that. I was on the budget reform, budget appropriations process reform committee, the joint select committee, that has been established several years ago and i really appreciated the opportunity to be on that committee and working in a bipartisan way towards solutions, real, meaningful solutions. At the end of the day, we couldnt come together on legislation, we could not do anything more than just simple window dressing, which didnt take care of our problems at all. There are so many people stuck in the way that we have always done thing, its the way we are going to continue to do things and we have to look beyond that. Im trying to see if theres anything else that we should touch on. I think all leave it there because i think ronald has a lot of really good information to share with anyone, or everyone, but i do want to make sure that we are taking great ideas away from your commission and being able to put that into meaningful legislation. I really want to see us move forward as a federal government and embracing ideas of fiscal responsibility, we just need support and getting that done so, weston, ill stop there and welcome johnson to the platform. Senator, thank you. Senator johnson, you have in common with everybody on the call that you got your start in business and frankly you are one of the only very successful Business People in the u. S. Senate. Give us your thoughts on this subject and then we will open the floor for a couple of questions. Im assuming this is weston on the call, right . It is. Yes sir. Nice to meet you over the phone. I need to first provide a caution, im not the most uplifting character because im going to tell you the truth about the things. My background is manufacturing, my educational background is an accountant. I actually stepped up and ran the tea party, to be an ally in their efforts to try and limit the growth of government. I remember those that i paid in 2010 of that campaign, but i would be screaming at the top of my lungs, we are committing intergenerational theft, its wrong, its a mortal, its got to stop. And i won. At that point, time seemed to resonate. We had a big fight in 2011, it actually produced a budget control act. I voted against that because i didnt think it would work, im also big on National Defense but we did find a hard spending caps work. They are hard for congress to weasel out of, although we finally did. They contained actually reduced discretionary splendid by so thats about the only physical control that weve seen actually work. It was a structural issue. I have to quickly say, whoever was speaking before joni, i have to agree from the standpoint of chair limits. You want to make sure that elect electric has you have the inmates around the asylum and you give so much power to unelected bureaucrats. Joni, this is a good article from the wall street journal as a broken windows syndrome as a result of having to fight crime in cleaning up a city like new york. The same thing is true here, if you dont just let the little stuff, you are not going to see what the big stuff and so just real quick concern about what we need to do to do something structural. First and foremost, i think everything should be on budget. I think every dollar of spending should be voted on every year. The fact that we have more than 70 of our budget now in complete automatic pilot, is one of the big problems. Im not saying thats going to be the cure all but members actually had to vote on over 14 trillion dollars in spending every year, it just might make an impact. Im a big supporter of a twoyear budget cycle, the massive government, you really do it would be nice to have a twoyear budget cycle which you could have passed half the appropriation bills in one year while you were doing oversight then you would pass over the previous year. I think that would be a good structural change. I guess my last point we are 25 trillion dollars in debt. We are in this grand experiment now because of covid and i agree with joni, we have to do something fast, we have to do something massive, we knew it was going to be far from perfect but we actually have some time now. I mean its incredibly encouraging that we actually added two and a half million jobs in may, rather than lose five, six, seven or 8 million as many as people were predicting. The American Economy wants to take off, thats good news. We passed about 2. 9 trillion. Its actually hard to spend 2. 9 trillion dollars and as a result, we spent probably know more than half. Its kind of hard to give an exact number so my first suggestion, if you are concerned about deficit, lets not automatically go into a phase four where people are talking about spending one, two, three trillion dollars, which obviously we dont have. That is going to be added to that interracial generation theft to our kids future. One we look about the 1. 4, 1. 5 trillion or the 2. 9 that weve already passed . Lets find out what works, what didnt work, whats being used, how can we direct that towards encouraging employees to get back in the workforce . I mean part of the damage we did is you have a 600,000 dollar unemployment are actually making more on unemployment than they are making at their job. Thats a huge incentive and most employees that im talking to that are opening up, the biggest problem is finding people to work. Lets not appropriate or authorize more spending, lets take a look at the 1. 4, 1. 5 trillion dollars that is not spent to the cares act. Lets redirect, lets repurpose and where we can, lets repeal what we really dont need. Again, weston, i just want to thank all of you, everybody involved in this. I mean, you are that generation and your kids, your grandkids that we are merging a future and the price youll pay is probably less opportunity. The number one exclusion for fixing all this problem is Economic Growth, and that is what we ought to be focusing on to come out of the covid crisis. What can we do to unshackle the economy . Let the animal spirits set those free, read entrepreneurial is, im restore capital, i think everything we have to do has to be focused towards reigniting our economy of Economic Growth. Its our only chance of being ourselves out of this 25 trillion itll soon been 26, 27 trillion dollar whole. Thank you senator. Jane who from charlotte north carolina. Jane, you have a question . We can see you but we cant hear you. We will straighten that out. Quick followup, there are members of this commission, senator ernst and senator johnson from wisconsin in iowa, kimberley from des moines. The commission is nonpartisan. If you study these issues, you realize pretty quickly that the country has a spending problem first and foremost. I dont think anybody doubts if we are going to make significant headway there needs to be some bipartisan consensus bill. Just speak to a moment for colleagues who ive worked in a productive manner across the aisle, who do you think in the u. S. Senate, in the Democratic Party, both of you are members of the republican party, both of you who you think might have a real interest in engaging in meaningful deficit reduction conversations . Let me first start off by saying i love the word, non partisan, its what i use all the time. Its the chairman Homeland Security of government affairs, its a very nonpartisan, bipartisan committee. We Work Together because we focus on areas of agreement. Theres plenty of things in these partisan times that you can disagree on, but theres also plenty of areas of agreement and so thats where we start. Its one thing i noticed from politics, in the Business World and hopefully this will all resonate with you, the only way you succeed is to pursue an agreement. Ive got a product, you want to buy it, okay, we agree on that now we just haggle over the price. Focusing on those areas in agreement are key and i think there are a number of members. I mean, people like angus king, derek peters, we work well together. I think more often than not, the people be come to serve whether its in the health or the senate are coming in for the right reasons. Theyre ideological differences but they really do want to solve problems. The debt deficit is just a very intractable one and thats where i think some of these outside groups like you are forming here, particularly young people, can hopefully and still an awful lot of guilt in the older generations saying, would you guys stop doing this to us, we would help you clean up this mess but lets all first start with the agreement we admit we have a problem here, lets focus on a route call. General problem solving process, where i think there are plenty of members with the proper leadership would be willing to lend a hand. And im going to agree. I think you find certain passions and you just do a deep dive with those. It doesnt matter who they are, what party they represent, if they have similar thought train, we absolutely need to ride it together. Ill give an example, so maggie from new hampshire, so there is a bill, my president ial perks bill, and, you know, she just stated, hey, joni expenses are former president s who are making millions and millions of dollars on speeches and book deals and you name it, we shouldnt have to pay those expenses and she said, i know iowans dont want to do that. My folks back home dont want to do that either. She was willing to work with me on a bill and its finding those Common Sense Solutions to start somewhere and develop those relationships with others in our body that want to achieve the same goals. We just have to find those with shared passions, it doesnt matter who they are. I have worked bills with people on the exact opposite and the ideological spectrum, but if, again, if there is a shared passion, you know, weve got to get over the labels and focus on doing the right thing for future generations. So we have been blessed to find a number of those numbers both in the republican and Democratic Party and our independents to. We have to have that common goal. Jane, i think your audio is on so we will go back to jane and try again if she can get her question in. Well, we thought we had it. I think what would be really instructive as we go to ramp up this panel, senators, is for you to give the members of the commission from all across the country some insight, both of you represent competitive states, republican and democrats win races in iowa and wisconsin. To give members of commission an insight into what it means to you as federal legislators when Business Leaders do organize behind a cause, because i said in opening this call, virtually every significant policy change in our companys history has started with citizen action and elective officials have responded. Ron, go ahead. One thing i always talk to when lobbyists come here, i dont think thats a pejorative term by the way, its a First Amendment right to your government. I always tell people, dont be yourself as a lobbyist, view yourself as a teacher, an educator. What you really need to do when you come to washington, d. C. And you talk to your member of congress or their staff is you are here educating them. You need to understand, again, the smart and hardworking and a congressional staff, many members of congress, they dont have experience in the private sector. They really have low mile itch of it, no experience in it and unfortunately, not a whole lot before it. Its incredible for Business People to get engaged in that effort to educate, to inform members of congress and their staff in terms of the challenges you face with overregulation, with overtaxation. They understand that what government places on them, trying to operate their business is taking your tax rate from our service or improving the quality or reducing cost so that the price consumer are going to be that much more reasonable and add to our economic progress. It really is a huge blind spot here in d. C. And you just have, again, smart, well mentioned people but there is just not enough and fully understand and fully sympathize with it so thats my primary piece of advice. For bringing that to washington d. C. To the staff in the members and make sure you convey that knowledge, get them to understand what her challenges are so as they craft legislation, they can take that into effect so that they do no harm with the legislation, hopefully do a lot of help in terms of your ability to employ and produce products and services we all value. I agree wholeheartedly with what ron just said and that education process. Its so important and ill add on to that as well. I started my position as an elective official many years ago and the county government level, i was a county auditor and i managed our counties budget. Understanding the budget was really important to me and it was a really small, thorough county that i worked in and our farmers, our Business Owners would come in and they would lay on the counter on the out of his office and they say, hey joey, tell me about this line item. It may impact how im doing business, i want to know what the, you know, but county spending on this stuff. They would give me their stories and that was really helpful for me to communicate to our a county supervisor why or why not this was a right thing to do. Then taking that example at local government level and listening to those constituents and their stories, now in the federal government, i always ask the iowans that i meet with, tell me your story. What is a federal government regulation or what is this activity by the federal government doing to your business, positively or negatively . Share that story with me because all of our states are so very different. If i go to say for kristen hill a brand in new york and say, hey kristen, did you know that 93 of iowans, ex, why, is he, hes going to say why do i care about 95 of iowans. If i share a story thats passed along from a Small Business owner in iowa, he can see that same Small Business owner in new york and the challenges that they have. I think that part of that education process is just not the x and y details of the legislation or the impacts are statistically to businesses out there, but also the impact of those families to those businesses in a way that we can explain to others why its the right or the wrong thing to do. That would be my plea to all of you as well, its just simply put it into a story so that we can better understand whats going on in your own communities. Senator ernst, senator johnson, thank you for your time. We got 11 20. We have a few minutes of your time. When the world is more normal we hope this group is able to convene in washington, possibly next spring and see both of you in person but we are grateful for your time and your input here. Thank you for your efforts and keep up the good work. Dont get discouraged, this is way too important. Thank you senator. Absolutely. Thanks so much for your concern and your efforts on this level and i look forward to working with all of you very much. Thank you. Thank you senator. Hey guys, actually it looks like senator rubio has just hopped in here so we are going to transition to the second half of this senate panel and then well take a five minute break between this and the millennial house panel. Senator rubio, really needs no introduction. Hes a chairman now for the Center Intelligence committee for some time. To my knowledge, hes the only he and his colleague was, the only u. S. Legislators who have ever crafted 650 billion dollar bill on their own as the architect of