Transcripts For CSPAN Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20141001

Signs theen promising next government will be more inclusive. We have to use diplomacy. We have to ally with other countries in the region to create a political system more sustainable. Again, this is a situation where politicians of both sides of the aisle are trying to sugarcoat it. To have a more focused view on the National Security interest and a more limited use of force that reflects our National Interests. Clearly defined missions are important. Not clearlys it is defined. As catherine pointed out, i think the concern that many have is we wake up one day and find what was sold to us by the politicians is not actually the case and we have seen mission creep. We saw that in afghanistan and iraq and members of Congress Need to be willing to take on their own party and administration to make sure we have clarity and limitations and focus on whenever we put peoples lives on the line. Moving onto issues that are still international in scope. You were a member of you are a member of congress right now. I have heard it said Immigration Reform is a lot like the weather. Everybody talks about a but nobody does anything about it. Any specific policy ideas or initiatives that would break the gridlock . The senate voted last summer on a compromise. I do not love everything in it. I would like to see the speaker put the compromise on the house floor . It would pass with a tremendous economic benefit for economic growth, 5. 4 to almost 1 trillion in deficit reduction and stabilize social security, increase border security, allow workers to in earn a path to citizenship by paying a fine. Biotechnology we are sending people home who we educate. Right now the firm workers we are letting some crops rot in the field. Is this is why washington is broken. You get special interest that load up a big bill, thousands of pages long and crowd out the issues people actually agree on. E need to secure the border we need to secure the border first and put the resources and attention and accountability behind securing our nations border. Not only so that we can prevent an immigration system where people get to run to the front of the line but National Security issues. Who knows who is able to cross into the border in terms of terrorist groups that may want the American People. Instead of focusing on something that democrats and independents nd look aticans a the polling. Independents and republicans but members of congress constantly want to put poison pills in the pills in the bills that become thousands of pages long. I think we need to focus on securing the border and should be a single subject bill. I think it would get bipartisan support if we focused on the area of agreement. This is the mac check magic of mr. Dimaio confusing the issue. We have a bipartisan approach. Art of it is securing the border. Republicans and democrats agreed on the compromise. We cannot get a boat because the will notf the house even put it up for a vote. This is something i wish everyone agrees. The u. S. Chamber of commerce and labor community, Faith Community and the Tech Community all agree. Analystsnow this next say this is one of the most important things we can do to get job creation going, get the economy going. All we need is the speaker to put this before the house and we would have Immigration Reform the next day. Me surprised scott peters because you had an opportunity when the bill came before the house, a very targeted bill on funding security, and much of that would have ended up here in time san diego to deal with our challenges, and you voted no on a scaledback version. When you sit there and say if we could just have a vote, when you had a chance to be part of the solution and modest step forward to provide the resources necessary to secure the border, you voted no. Nancy pelosi and the democrat leadership twisted arms to say we want to make sure no democrat votes are part of the compromise package. You voted no. That did go to the house floor. Emigrants the only Immigration Reform that we need. I think the councilman knows i was raided last year at the fourth most independent democrat because i am willing to take votes against my party, and i do rank my Country First and party third. I would not have gotten that ranking if i was voted if i voted lockstep with my party. That is how i got my parties endorsement. Tea partyt want extremists, the kind of people who shut the country down and threaten the patients credit rating. Lets just stop right there. You want to come 10 you to apply labels to meet because you cannot defend your own record. You can call me names all you want. I have not sat there and called you names. I have issues i disagree with you on. There are differences in the record in which the way we are pros approach it. Divisive and it is what is wrong with politics today. Lets talk about voting the party line. Obviously we knew this was going to come up. You cannot turn on the tv without hearing and at. Lets bring up the quote that has been attributed to you. Actually, no. Took a video and spliced it. I gave a speech across san diego too many groups including labor union to do not support me. There is not awful lot we have in common that or any group that could listen to the plan on pension reform. In this speech i was not talking about social issues. I disagree on the rightwing approach to social issues. Before them and said lets focus on a positive agenda. Positive and san diego . Reformed outofcontrol tension system at city hall. Put a system in place of a sustainable and allows us to save money and restore services. I will reach out to groups that this up disagree with me. I will owe you and our collective group everything. His is what they are saying the question was, who is backing your opponent . I said in the mayors race, the downtown insiders and governors union, i am not their candidate come and i am proud of that. Because who do i owe . I owe you the people everything. That is how i am always approached every issue. For mr. Mr. Peters to try to deceive voters is an act of desperation. First of all, i am more than happy to defend my record and am proud of my record in congress. How do you take this out of context . The whole video is on my website. Is the conscious of the Accountable Government movement. You and ourwill owe collective movement and everything. Ater you see him sneer people. Lets sit down around the table and work out things. The second is the supporters. There were three republicans in the primary running in the race. Every Tea Party Pack chose mr. Dimaio as the candidate because they know when he gets there, he can join up with them. Third, his own record at the city where 102 times he was the one no vote on the city council. Invoted against mr. Sanders the council bipartisan budget because they were not extreme enough. He voted yes to a 700 Million Health care form of a workout at the table with a labor unions. When he lost the mayors race, editorialized he would leave a legacy device in this. And when he wanted to be mayor, they had a big meeting of the Republican Leadership in la la, and the upshot says upshot was they wanted you are too divisive and belong in congress. That is exactly what is wrong with congress. We have enough of that. Sending a Tea Party Extremists to fix the problem with Tea Party Extremism is not the way forward. First and foremost, the tea party did not support me in the primary. Rightwing a candidate and the fact that candidate. Why . Because i have a history and record of taking on my own Political Party and challenging them to change. I am taking on the right wing on social issues. I do not believe it should be part of the agenda. I believe we should allow people to make decisions in the counsel of their own faith and personal beliefs. When you talk about the accomplishments at city hall, everyone in san diego saw that when mr. Peters left the city council in 2008, the city was on the brink of bankruptcy. Aliens of dollars in debt. Hundreds of million in shortfall in the budget. The city was paying out lavished pensions we could not afford. Mr. Peters talks about an extreme budget. Programsto eliminate for needy families for day care and undermined police and fire services. My budget plan has always in, how do we make government work again, restore services . Fact that in four years time i cleaned up the mess you created over eight years and we did that but bringing people together. I partisan folks after bipartisan vote on the city council and the ultimate bipartisan vote, the Pension Reform Initiative in 2012 that wrought democrats, independents and republicans together from around the city and carried every Single Council district, socioeconomic group. Why . Because weve built a solutionoriented agenda. Opposed those every step of the way. This the city of san diego had a couple decades of that financial practices before i got there. I was on the city council that ended it. We work for many years on reforms before he got there. They are sanders called me his partner in meaningful pension reform. At the end of the work, the sec said same day ago model for other cities to follow. Dimaio that within the city 22 million per year in pension immense, he came to the press conference to congratulate us on the work. To say nothing was done while he was there is really disingenuous. I would also say, we had a lot of issues with the bubble bursting in the internet. With a lot ofk tough budget issues. We did it as a bipartisan group. Mayorsed with republican and democrats in council. I was proud to be part of a Construction Solution oriented group. What he was doing is voting against every single budgets and then claiming credit for what was in there. Mr. Peters standard off handed off all the media accounts of the time. Roads wereand falling apart. City services were at historically low levels in terms of library hours. Esther peters, after Cutting Services gay politicians of 42 salary hike in the middle of one of the worst budget crises. He took 69,000 dollars in auto allowances for his new bmw. This is the leadership he gave us on city council. On four years time what did we do yucca we balance the budget. We did it without accounting gimmicks. Figurean end to the six payout budgets. We were able to make san diego a model around the country. Or importantly than anything else, we started restoring the services mr. Peters cut. I bury hours and road repairs. Getting the city moving again in ways we have not seen in a decade. I am proud of that. No amount of distortions can change that reality. Just Getting Started here. All done so far. As we head to the break so far we wanted to pass along an item in the nature of full disclosure. While doing research we learned that comcast has a Political Action committee that has donated to the congressional candidates around the country, including 2000 to mr. Peters amid the incumbent democrat. That Political Action committee donated 8,000 to the predecessor during the last election cycle. That committees action have no bearing of what we do at nbc seven or any other questions tonight but wanted to be as open as possible. We will continue the conversation right after this. Ill come back to a special edition. Were hosting a conversation with the candidate of the seat. Ct 52 congressional facing off in the Congressional Election are scott peters and carl dimaio. Before we get back to questions, we thought we would give viewers background about the candidates. Scott peters earned his undergraduate degree from duke nyuersity and is attended school of law. He served on the San Diego City Council from 20002000 eight and became the First Council president after a switch to a strong layer firm up government. He lost his bid to the City Attorney office in 2008 and was termed out of office as a councilman the same year. In 2012 he successfully challenged brian build a bilbray. He lives with his wife in la jolla and have a son and daughter. Carl dimaio attended georgetown university. The four running for office he started the performance institute. Carl demaio. Later founded the American Strategic Management Institute which offered financial and management training. Both companies he later sold for millions. He moved to san diego in 2002 where he began to speak publicly. In 2008 he ran and won a seat on the San Diego City Council, representing the strip ive as an openly gay man and the self is right government watchdog. This put before voters of plan aimed at drastically retooling city retirement off city retirement plans. He ran for mayor. Advancing to the runoff before losing to bob filner. His pot partner is jonathan hale. Can both both candidates have in common is a think we left off with a couple of loose ends. We want to give 20 seconds to wrap up that. On the car allowance, which i guess is his idea of talking about issues. Everyone got the same car alliance. It was part of the compensation package. I was the First Council member to turn it back. The only person now taking a car allowance is lori beth, who tvported mr. Demaio in his commercials. I did not understand that he has ever asked her to stop taking it were any effort to get her out of the conversation compensation package. He made millions of dollars himself off of government contracts. He was a man of means who drove a bmw. About 20 seconds. Nothing to do with creating a job, educating kids. Cutting congress perks, politician perks is never ridiculous. Need by example. You ought to be ashamed your you ought to be ashamed that you took 60,000 dollars worth of auto allowance payments from taxpayers and years of Cutting Services for kids. About thelse attack tea party. You saw the package from nbc. A kissinglly moderate on government reform, speaking truth to power including taking on my own Political Party. Aching government work. That is not a tea party agenda. That is an agenda of trying to fix broken government and standing up to extremist and my own party and saying cut out the social issues and focus on job creation and fiscal reform. That has been my lifes work. No amount of distortion can change that. Let me ask you this. Onas struck by your remarks the day you announced for Congress Last september. You had very harsh statements about the Republican Party, one of them was tarnished brand. Now it seems they are touting you as someone who can remake the image of the party. You at one point have touted your self as the mold of ted cruz. How will that shakeout here . That is also not true. What i have said is people can make a difference even if there is one difference. Destructive a difference. That was the context of the speech that he once again took context. Y out of destructive difference would be individuals that will stand out there and not move the ball forward, i do not see how that moves the needle and solves problems. I am willing to take on the Establishment Republicans who think there is nothing wrong with waste all spending, nothing wrong with corporate welfare and certainly nothing wrong with giving politicians, including themselves, perks. I am going to take on Tea Party Republican to have a social agenda i do not think that the future of the country. Who also would rather stand there and say we have to get everything done overnight or everyone else is somehow suspect. I think we need to have a focus on what i talked about the entire campaign. My lifes work is offering positive solutions and trying to build consensus. If you are so busy taking on everybody in speaking truth to power, i think a lot of constituents and voters want to know whether you will go to washington and fight with everybody or if you really can get things done. I would point to the four years on the city council where we took on the idea of a sales tax and some members of the Republican Party. Ans stood with me. We took on the pension system. Unions and several republicans said we do not need pension reform. I am pointing to a record of saving the city from bankruptcy, and that means you need members of congress in city council that are not worried about pleasing the spiritual interest to working to provide Quality Services to taxpayers. Your question hit the nail on the head. The fact is the tea party, the frustrated establishment of republicans are frustrated. Says shut down the government. Do not pay the debt. Have anyot seem to duty to come together and reach an agreement. Own words and who support him and also in the history of the city he fought with everybody. The problem is we have too much of that in washington. What we need is people who are willing to have the courage to go to the center of the room and shake hands. I was proud to be elected as the city Council President who has a signed trust in me. He is the only member of the trustedncil who was not by his colleagues with even a Committee Chairmanship because they did not see him as someone who could work with other people. That is what we have to avoid in congress. Take a look at the problems in san diego. Balance the budget, restored services mr. Peters had cut. We eliminated the politician pensions and perks they were getting themselves. We stopped downtown redevelopment shell game where they were taking money and put against in the pockets of developers. The a look at accomplishments we were able to get done in four years. That is a positive record. Benefiting from the fact that we fixed the financial crisis. I would respectfully cut you off there. Willwant to know what you do for us in congress. One of the things you have said quite often is that you think we should leave social issues out of politics. That being said, you will have to deal with the social issues if you are elected to congress. You are both telling us you are moderate on a lot of these issues. Where do you disagree . Or can we just write that off that we both agree . I think that gets back to the question, what i announced for congress. I said we ought to trust individuals to make decisions for themselves. That means going to washington and standing up to the more rightwing members of the party and saying i respect your faith beliefs even if i do not necessarily agree with them but this is not the place. Government and congress will not be the place to impose your moral views on the rest of us. That is why i will oppose attempts to put the social agenda at the forefront of congress priorities. Lex i i am proud to be. Ndorsed by prochoice america i have a long track record of standing up for women, reproductive freedom and their security. You did not get any answer to your question. He will not fill out the form the planned parenthood put out to sea where he is on this issue. Gary sanders, greg cox who filled out this questionnaire. They make it public and you are welcome to see mine. I have a wondered 100 record of standing up on womens reproductive freedoms. We did not hear him take any womens any of those Workplace Equity issues until a press conference two weeks ago. Again, he can ask Esther Boehner who is raising money for him to let us have a boat on that but we do not know he has done that. We do not even know whether he would support a paycheck fairness act. I like him saying he is a moderate but more than labels. You have to say what you would be willing to do for people. Would you be willing to say whether you support it . Absolutely. I said that months ago. Socialts want to keep issues and keep them alive. Republicans want to keep them alive to constantly battle on issues that have nothing to do with what happens in congress. We should allow individuals to decide these issues and air on of criticism. I absolutely believe our civil rights laws ought to defend full equality for all individuals. We should treat everyone with respect. We are getting a lot of attention in my candidacy as someone who can break the mold quoteold, and this is to the editorial, his someone who can change the intolerable inflexible views of the Republican Party to say this is the 21st century. If were willing to trust the free market to solve problem faster than government mandates, can we trust people to love who they want to love . Trust people to make decisions to love who they want to love. I will be a voice in the Republican Party to change the issues nationally and have a great impact. Unfortunately when he up the choice to be chance to read not. Gh a voice, he was i support marriage equality. Was elected in june because he won the primary. The next thing up was proposition eight. They asked him. Which was to ban a rigid quality. They asked him wont you please be a change agent in the standup and say does the wrong thing to do so he told his own community he will not do it. That is why at the pride parade bood andim get will not go anymore. The Community Feels he turned his back on them. I think what we see is someone running for office instead of what is now popular but has no history of really being the change agent that he purports to be today. Are you being ambiguous . Have always been clear about my orientation. I have always been a believer in personal freedom. I have not reserved any sort of is of support for those issues. I am i have a 100 and lgbt voting record. It is the same as issues on city council. I led the charge to get the city on record in dont ask dont tell. It allows gave members to serve openly and with dignity and with dignity. I also supported the equal that says wenance, should be treated with dignity, whether marriage or with partners. He wants to divide us and that is what is wrong with washington. A look at these social issues as issues to excite the big the base. It distracts us from getting people back to work and creating middleclass jobs, balancing the holding ho ching governments accountable. We have to get off divisive social issues. But willing to do my part you are willing to deceive san diego ins and distort my record. That is a shame. There is no distortion in the record. It has been quite clear. We said that we should probably address this. With national healthcare, with socalled obamacare, the same question for both of you all. Repeal it, replace it, or fix it . But i am a fixit guy. Congress when they passed the Affordable Care act. People getting their health care from emergency rooms, which cost money. People not being able to pay their medical bills. Costs spiraling out of control. Insurance companies being able to deny you coverage. This has been progress. Leftld say there is a lot to do. One of the areas i distinguished , i had been willing to take votes frankly with another toty to fix the law, i voted keep the plan if you like it. I think when we saw the rollout and how that was watched, that that was a good vote. I showed again again i was willing to work on it to make it better. Repealing it. Rt we cannot go back. We have to go forward. Was in a crisis state before obamacare. Obamacare is not in the right direction. I think it adds to the problem. Neither party has offered a solution to provide accessible and Quality Health care where individuals get to make decisions with their doctors, not some government bureaucrat getting in the way and telling us what is good for us. I support a different approach to the Health Care Reform debate. I hope we can get past the labels of obamacare, republican canemocrat, and just say, we support commonsense healthcare reforms that bend cost curve to make health care more affordable. I would keep the elimination of penalty. Xisting ive never understood why that is in place. I think it is a punitive policy that Health Insurance Companies Use to limit access to care. I would allow children in college to continue on their parents insurance if they so chose. I would also keep healthcare exchanges, but not have government manage a website. I would go even further and allow people to redeem their employer plan to get a better plan or a plan that allows them to keep their doctor. I would allow competition across state lines. I would also reverse the 700 billion in cuts that mr. Peters supported as part of obamacare to medicare. Hat threatens the Health Care Just to lead by example, i would strip members of congress from the special Health Care Subsidies they put in the obamacare law. If a law is good enough for you and i to comply with, why in the world shouldnt members be expected to live under the same law. The invocation is that he would vote to repeal it, but i did not repeal that. An attack the last campaign had on me. I was not even here when the obamacare Affordable Care act was adopted. I think the attack is missed placed misplaced. I have turned down Congressional Health care. When the tea party sequester went into effect and there were acrosstheboard cuts, i lead by example and cut my own pay 8 and donated to the charity. When the tea party shut down the government because they wanted to repeal the Affordable Care act, i turned my whole salary over to charities here in san diego for veterans and seniors affected by those cuts. What i do not want to hear is that i am not attuned to what he was how you i take a city pension for 20,000 a year. What he will not tell you is i have given it every every penny back to libraries. Will our elected officials put themselves in the same boat as us . Let me ask you about an overarching issue. It is actually pretty crucial in the western states, especially california. We have a drought going on. What specific land, ideas, legislative initiatives do you for dealing with especially since there are concerns with whether san diego get more from the clean water act, to the extent it is and to the extent we have done it for a number of years, what about the Pure Water Program . Is there anything you have that you think you can get through congress and the white house . And to the extent we have done this is important bec. Peters just sat here. Congratulations. He is the eighth richest member of congress. He voted to increase his own salary and took a big allowance. He took his tension early. He voted in congress to protect the perks of members in congress. He allowed them to to get paid. I need to correct the record as it relates to water. This is also a lead by ample issue. Quickly please. The water issue in san diego is about investing in infrastructure and making sure we have a water structure in san diego that allows us to make money. Mr. Peters had a federal law and he voted to not follow the clean water act so he did subsidize businesses. We will not save water we are on the clock. I want to address one of the that theal issues localities have to be on. We are fortunate in taking care of our own water supply. With farmers and the Imperial County to bring water in. On the only dependent north. We invested in storage at a local level. A very controversial thing. We have to diversify our water supply. The other thing we supported locally was a pure water thing. We need to recycle our water. Miles was a consistent opponent of that. We have to take care of the resource right here. From behind, always asking for permission to discharge waste not treated at the level of other places. We always made a scientific justification for it. But today, using this tour water system, water recycling, we could be the leader in the nation and we can show how to recycle and take care of our own resource and do it right here. That needs the permission of the federal government and the federal government also needs to be a partner on building infrastructure. I want to ask you a question that i think speaks to more of a big picture of how you look at having this job in congress. Representative jackie speer has asked to hold a hearing on the Domestic Abuse incident and basically into how the nfl handled it. Three Democratic Senators introduced a bill to eliminate if it supports the washington skin the Washington Redskins team name. A congressman in congress, would you support that sort of legislation . Think the rice kays is deplorable. Women should not be treated that way. We have role models and should hold them to a higher standard is the nfl can clean up its mess. Would you hold hearings . Hearings are important. It is part of raising consciousness and raising the issue. If we are not satisfied that we have dealt with the issues, congress has a hearings are i. Number they could use to push the issues along, if you will. At this point, i want to see with the nfl does. I think the message has been sent loud and clear as it relates to the redskins name. Name. Ot support that it is offensive to many native americans. We have 19 tribes. Is that the Team Ownership will see this is not a good economic decision for them. I think congress can take action on this. I would just say, we should recognize that Domestic Violence is a problem that extends far beyond the nfl. The Interest Congress has in it is beyond whether it is in the football league. We have been doing with this and jackie spears has been a leader in the military. We play an Important Role in congress facilitating National Interest on these things. Hearings, ihaving do not want you to think we are so much about regulating the nfl. We have to have a discussion about Domestic Violence in this country. It is important for congress to participate in that and play a role. We are just about out of time. We would love to give both of you a minute to give final thoughts. 30 seconds. Were that short on time. In this campaign, you will see a lot of nasty attack ads. I think san diego and deserve better. We were able to save the city from the brink of bankruptcy. The measurement i always use was not just balancing a budget. Restoring Important Services to our community. In washington, we have to get middleclass jobs back in the country so the American Dream is restored. We have to hold government accountable to get results in key areas. I am an a proven reformer. 2012, ii was elected in promised to bring a problemsolving approach to congress to get beyond the tea party divisiveness. We have made tremendous strides. We have the first budget in congress in three years. Says wel delegation have a group of five people who finally like each other and will work together. We need to continually extend that throughout congress. If voters are willing to do so, i would be happy to go back and continue the fight to make it better. It looks like a good place to end it. A special thanks to the candidates for sharing their views. The 52nd district is an important district not only to us but to the entire country and the entire nation watching to see which one of these two men will represent you in congress. We hope you got a better sense of who they are and what they stand for and how they would work for our community. Do not forget the new election is november 4. A lot of people will be voting by mail before then. We hope you are able to get some information and make a choice. Thank you for watching. We will see you again tonight at 11 00 for the news. This is the Briefing Room at the pentagon. Hagel inecretary chuck a few minutes will be out there to discuss the findings of a new thattment and a gun report details the military passes Health System, focusing on quality and access to care. That briefing is set for just a couple of minutes away. Also, to tell you more about our live coverage today, the congressional spanish caucus is meeting today in washington. This afternoon, a discussion of immigration. That is at 3 15 eastern. 290s coverage, mark dayton is seeking a second term and will be dating jeff nicollet. Nd hannah tomorrow night, two more live heredebate area on cspan at 8 00 eastern. Meanwhile, over on his than three cspan2, rather, a debate from the nebraska governors race. Democrat chuck hassel broke and facelican Peter Ricketts off. Here on cspan, were waiting to take you live to have live coverage of the defense secretary talking about the military Health System and it should get underway shortly. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] the governorsd debate. Here is a look at some of the advertisements in that governors race. Ago, things in minnesota were not going well. So we got a new coach. It was a tough decision. Now, things are looking up. E have added over 150,000 jobs we have one of the fastestgrowing economies in the nation. Cut taxes while increasing our rainy day fund, and investing in education. A darn good record. A darn good coach. I am just johnson. As governor, i will audit every state program. I am pretty thorough. Done with your homework question mark yes. Let me double check that. Did you eat this . Politiciansey for prove he is out of touch with minnesotans. It is time for a governor who gets it and gets us. Bipartisan dysfunction and special interest. A team of candidates has stepped forward to restore the Government Back to the people. Together, they are, the independents. Coming november 4 to a state capital near you. The minnesota governors debate is coming up tonight at 8 00 eastern on cspan. We are waiting at the pentagon to hear from the defense secretary chuck hagel and we will be talking about the findings of a new Department Report detailing the military passes Health System. We will have it live once it gets underway. The minnesota governors debate isyou will find all of ts we cover on our website, covering over 100 debates in the campaign season. The texas, covering the day. Heres is a look at some of that debate. It is incredibly important him whenever we talk to a woman who is a victim of rape or, we start with compassion and support that they deserve. That is what i have done as attorney general, by providing a record amount of Financial Support to victims and victims organizations, supporting women who have been victims of rape and. That is what i have done as attorney general by arresting more sexual predators than all attorney generals in the history of the state of texas. But you bring up the issue and you know i am prolife. I am catholic. I want to promote a culture of life. Healthpports both the and safety of both the mother and the child before and after birth. In texas, lets be clear about the law. That is, the woman has five months to make a very difficult decision. Thank you very much. Senator davis . You catapulted into the withight on this issue your filibuster against abortion restrictions. You recently told the Editorial Board that you might not have legislation if the only banned abortions after 20 weeks with allowances for rates. Nd incense rape and woman guided by her faith and her doctor to make these decisions for themselves. I do not believe the government should intrude in that most personal and private of decisionmaking. Greg, on the other hand, believes it is his right to intrude, even when a woman has been the brutal victim of a rape , or has been the victim of. This should come as no surprise to us given that mr. Abbotts attitudes toward women have revealed themselves in other ways. He pays his women in his office less than males. That texas debate is available on our website. At the pentagon Briefing Room waiting to hear about from secretary chuck hagel, talking about a new report from the militarys Health System. We just saw the pentagon spokesman talking to reporters. That should mean they will get underway soon. Seen several hearings yesterday with the secret service director. Senior republican lawmakers resign. To the senior democrat says he is comfortable not comfortable with her leading it. That two senior members of the Oversight Committee are seeking further information in the hours after a congressional hearing on tuesday. Jason told fox news it is time resigned. Ed or elijah cummings, the oversight Ranking Member told msnbc that he did not feel comfortable with her in that position. We covered that here yesterday and you can find it on our website. Issuelikely also that will be brought up in todays white house briefing, coming up today at 3 00 p. M. Eastern. Look for coverage of that on our companion network, cspan2. Waiting to hear from defense secretary chuck hagel. Reporters here the set at the pentagon, he will talk about a new report on the military Health System. We will use the moment to talk about our candidate 2014 coverage. Coming up tonight, we will bring you the debate in the minnesota governors race. Incumbent democrat is seeking a second term and will be debating jeff johnson and the independents are the party candidate. Two more debates, first to oklahoma. Governor mary fallin debate joe dorman live here on cspan at 8 00 over on cspan twos tomorrow night. It is the nebraska governors race. The debate there with a democrat and republican. Live. Bate in lincoln here is a look at some of the advertisements in that nebraska governors race. On second thought, we will take you live to the pentagon. Here comes defense. Chuck hagel. A lot of guests today. Ago, i ordered a of dods military Health System. To care,n access quality of care, and safety. This review was led by our deputy secretary of defense, who is to my left and i want to thank bob and his team and all those here today and their teams for their leadership, their efforts, and the work they have put in to this review. Strongly thatry there is nothing more important for our people than health and wellbeing of our people. And their families. Our military Health System is system, with more than 50 hospitals and 600 clinics in america and around the world. Ranging fromvices battlefield medevac to pediatrics and then thestreet. Through direct purchase care, it serves 9. 6 Million People, including service members, retirees, and their families. Be at carriers must always central focus for the military Health Care System. It helps save and rehabilitate the lives of house and said thousands of americans who have worn our nations uniform. Health systemry has responsibilities beyond the battlefield. Our review focused on noncombat care. Review found pockets of excellence, significant effort excellence, which we are very proud of. Extraordinary doctors, nurses, and staff who are deeply dedicated to the patients they serve. Our threeeflected by surgeons generals, who you will hear from in a few minutes. It also found gaps, however. Improve. S it must the bottom line is that the military Health Care System provides health care that is comparable in access, quality, and safety to average privatesector health care. But we cannot accept average. We cannot accept average when it comes to caring for our men and women in uniform and their families. We can do better. We all agree we can do better. The surgeons general and their staffs and men and women who care for our people know that more than any of us. They are dedicated to doing better. Can small lapses in care lead to devastating heartbreaks and losses. We must hold the entire military Health System to the same exacting vendors we demand of our combat missions. Am directing the department of defense to take steps to ensure the entire military Health Care System is not merely an averageism, but a leading system. That is what americas troops and their families deserve. These are first steps, but they will help our hospitals and clinics foster a stronger culture of safety, equality, and accountability, a culture that must become Second Nature to all who execute dods critical Health Care System, and our mission. Today, i am directing all Health Care Facilities identifying outliers in categories of access quality and safety to provide action plans for improvement to work within 45 days. I am directing the head of the Defense Health agency who is here with us today, and all our surgeons general to ensure we have unified standards for purchased as well as direct care, and establish a mechanism for patients to provide ongoing input. The also directing Departments Health care leadership to establish a systemwide Performance Management system that will help scrutinize lapses in debt and monitor progress, and to enhance transparency, i am requiring that all currently available data on our Health Care System be made publicly available. Dod willd of the year, have a detailed Implementation Plan to ensure the military Health Care System becomes the Top Performing system we all expect it to be and want it to be. These steps are the beginning, not the end, of an effort to improve our military Health Care System. I will receive regular progress updates from dods leaders. We have the finest military in the world. And familiesomen deserve the finest health care in the world. We all agree on that. I know our Health Care Providers agree on this and every part of it. I think them for what they do and what they continue to do every day. They, more than anyone else, are committed to offering the best care for our people. I know the admirable was the here the admiral was out and laid out a format we would like to proceed with. That is to have our three Service Surgeons general and the head of our health care along with the doctor and our deputy secretary of defense, bob, take questions as theow we will implement recommendations that came out of the review, what are the next steps, and some of the other questions you may have in regard to this review. Thank you all very much. Good afternoon. It is great to be here with you this afternoon. I just want to echo what our secretary has just said. The department of defense really does not have any higher priority than our men and women. Weapone the true secret that the United States has. Just unbelievable. They deserve the finest health care we could possibly provide. It is a critical part of the sacred combat compact we have made. All the Service Chiefs not here today, when the secretary asked me to do this, i was quite excited. I was born into a marine family. I was at the end of the military Health Care System, both in the continental United States and overseas. Marine, i saw it from the side of someone going through a recession program. I was a single marine. Once i was married, i was taking we had my wife unless a child, she was taken care of. It just so happens my wife was a former army nurse. I feel i have a lot of experience firsthand of what the system provides. I know it pretty well. I share the secretarys commitment on getting it right. I believe this was an extremely honest assessment. We are happy to say here that our Health Care System is all of thewith National Civilian Health Care Systems. But as the secretary said, he does not expect us to be average. A leading, to be learning organization. To do so. There are areas where we believe our organizations our organization performs as well as any. All of those, we will take care of. Our leaderships throughout the department and the American American public have a High Standard for us. We will try to achieve that standard. We do not want a good Health Care System, but a leading Health Care System, among the best in the United States. The good news is, because of assessment, which was extremely detailed, when you see the 700 pages on all the data we have, we have a good idea on what the best practices are and what are the areas we need to improve upon. Recommendations contained in the hagel, the secretary directed today, is for us really to take those steps that will make us better. This report is not the end. This will be the start of a process which we all commit ourselves to becoming a leaning a leading and learning organization. Very strongly this should be a transparent process. We met with Veterans Service organizations in military Service Organizations. Andequested their feedback they have become forthcoming in giving us that feedback and helping us understand data, which they can help us interpret. We have six outside experts completely divorced from the military Health Care System that we had actually come in. Three of them with that, how did we set up the process. They all agreed the way we were and veryut it was fair detailed. We had three who looked at our large,ions and by and they agreed with all of the findings and recommendations, with some specific caveats. To thein committed transparency. I told a veteran Service Organization and the military Service Organization that i will seek their feedback routinely. I want to complement them all. They have been critical to the effort and i think they will remain critical as we go forward. I want to commend the hard work of the teams, not only all of those in the health agency. This is the first Year Anniversary of the health agency. Is wehis review told us need to be better at having performance metrics across, but the performance is comparable, as i said, to the national Health Care System right now. On the0 people worked report. I would like to complement the surgeons general and as the secretary said, there is nobody in the room who wants to improve threestem better than the individuals here and the doctor who leads our health agency. We have a lot of work to do. This is a very, i think, fair report. We have to do things to get better and we are committed to doing so. I will personally remain on top of this and i will be working with the surgeons general to provide routine reports to the secretary and from theive input Veterans Service organizations, and our beneficiaries, all of them men and women and their dependents who serve in the greatest armed forces in the world. I would like to turn this over to laura and then we will get right into questions. Candid look atry our military Health Care System. In fact, the review we published today was unprecedented both in terms of its scope and approach. We looked at 37 metrics sets in that cover the entire enterprise of our military Health System. Visits did several site that not only serve as a check of our collective data, but also ensure we have collective ability to talk to the military Health Care System and with beneficiaries. We also collected data on three Top Performing civilian health and we didl centers this to provide a benchmark for what great performance was like. That is what provided us context. I want to reiterate the point and both by the secretary the deputy secretary, and that is that we found no hospital systematically underperformed in any case, in any of the three dimensions of access quality or safety. We continue to provide safe and Reliable Health care. But we can do better. We found the observations at the median and lower and the fact that we had trouble getting information across the board is not acceptable. We can do better and we have to. The highestelves at level of performance we could possibly achieve. Toward that end, the secretary as he described did set our paths for us on how we would do better. Beginning in the category of for ourwe know that beneficiaries, getting appointments when they need them is a very important thing. Our data are telling us we are meeting the standards we set for ourselves. When we spoke throughout surveys and we spoke to our beneficiaries, they were telling us a slightly different story, that there were access challenges. We do not understand the descriptive tea the discrepancy but we are going to find out what describes those differences and especially take a look at access as it pertains to the civilian Health Care Providers. When it comes to safety and quality, we found the performance was comparable to the civilian sector. Again, we saw more average and low observations than we are comfortable with. We hold ourselves to a higher standard and we will do better. Going forward, we will adopt the principles of a highly organization. In those types of organizations, every member of the organization understands, intuitively, that it is their responsibility to report safety problems. In that respect, supporting safety problems is not a burden on the system, but the gift of a crisis averted. Investigategoing to the outliers, observations below what we consider a satisfactory. We will find out why they were below and develop lands to get them higher. Finally, we will implement a Performance Management system. That means we will identify a core set of metrics and standards and we will monitor performance as they pertain to those standards. We will also set up a central capability to make sure we understand the secret of high performers and how to bring up low performers. Emphasis onho the transparency and engagement. We will make our agency more available to the public and continue to solicit both patient and beneficiary feedback going forward. Finally, i want to talk little bit about men and women who constitute our military Health Care System. They are extraordinary and i am humbled and honored to work with generals who showcase this extraordinary workforce. We sent people to the ends of , wererth quite literally there treat they treat injuries on any day that is greater than what the civilian provider would encounter in their entire career. They work in the frontline with little regard to safety. The reason i want to bring that up to you is even though the there were things to do better, they started the journey with an important agreement. I am honored to work with them. Figure it out together. Thank you. Will moderate the q a and give 15 or 20 minutes. Please identify who you are and who your with. Were the issues you uncovered here in any way comparable to what was being seen at the v. A. Act when it was started three or four months ago . I do not want to compare our department with their department because you have two fundamentally different missions. The department of the a has a body, ofay veterans. Toreas this enterprise has have a medically ready for us. We have to train the doctors to go forward on crises. We have to have a Ready Medical force, which means they are ready to go, and a medical ready force, which means, do they have the right dental care and are they ready to go forward . Missions. Fferent we have a much Higher Turnover rate than the department of veterans affairs. We have stable people like one of their clinics only 2 tone of her turnover. There are two different systems then i would not want compare us with the v. A. We were satisfied with the finding that we are comparable with the Health Care System and we have no crisis. As everyone has said, we want to do better, we have to do better, we can do better. Access to health care seems to be ok. One of the things we learn through this important study secretary hagel ordered, sometimes, your own perceptions do not match that of your beneficiaries. This is why we will invite stakeholders to ensure we are framing the questions in analytics appropriately to get at their perceptions of access and quality. You thinking was that they were not getting seen as quickly as they should have been in the waiting rooms . Let me see if i can answer this with an example. If you take our special operations communities, and they are deploying all the time, and are access standard for routine but becausen days, of their very progressive schedules, they may want to get care in one day or two days. This is what i mean about difference of perception. The seven day rule may not matter to someone constantly deploying and needs to take care of routine matters and we need to tap into those stakeholders just in our perceptions and our rules so they get the care they want when they need it. Classes it would help, i could give you our average relative our standards for specialty hair appointments, our average in data,of our dinner, just under 30 days. About a week, our averages 16 days, better than our standard. About 24 hours. I would like to say that access is one of the issues we have heard back that our data is not actually reflecting what our beneficiaries receive. The Veterans Service organizations and military Service Organizations will work with us as we work over the next four or five days. We will die in dive into this. Theyre saying, why is the data different . Even though we are meeting our standards, there is variation and we have to dig down deep into this. There is also a difference between purchase care, where people go off from a military treatment facility, and the care we provide. We will dive into that and make sure we have it here on the access side, we are cautious right now. Is the data telling us what is happening . I was interested. He said several visits. Can you tell us which places were visited . I do not have the list but we can get those for you. I can tell you the schema we chose. We chose hospitals large and small, to include one international hospital. Representatives from the dha component, and one from each of the three military departments. Can you check on any in combat zones . That has been a big criticisms since 2012. There have been reports that set up to 25 of americans in comba. Could have been saved had preventable measures and weeding out and such. Was there a next step . Our military on health facilities. We would be happy to follow up with you on that issue. Question. Take that i will jump right there. Every go. When they look at the data in article, that looks at the data from 2012 and earlier, one of the things that was not put in there is that they looked at it through a clinical lens area they did not take into account firefighting or whether or not aircraft could land. They do not take into account the response to injuries at the time. It was very much on a clinical lintz clinical lens. It allowed researchers to really look and say, where can we make advances and where should we focus for the future here that is why we have got to make sure we are looking at it in total and not drawing the wrong conclusions. Im glad you brought that up. We have provided outstanding care on the battlefield. Of the issue that data came from was the fact that, can we put more advanced care further . Articleforward to provide diree the brits have been doing this. In the air force, we are putting tactical evacuation schemes, which includes a little the more care further forward. These are severely wounded from troops who mayed not be survivable if they were that injured in these countries. Were always trying to get better and that was the gist of be a learning organization. We learn from data. You saw part of that data. Advanced care for the battlefield as well. One last question. You mentioned unified standards. Are we going to see those standards just like we were going to relate the access standards . Are we going to release the standards agreed upon . , certainly,forward as we mature the Defense Health agency, which is the responsibility of producing common business ross aziz and standards, we will roll those out and they will be transparent and unequivocal. Some of them have been established already. The issue is it will be published. Click yes. I wanted to drill down into the outliers. We do not have that much time to read the report ahead. I did not see them identified. To who theyk at all were and what kinds of things you saw and what is being done to address that . When you have an opportunity to receive the report, each facility will be identified. You will have an opportunity to examine all of the metrics used to identify high outliers, low outliers. There are literally 700 pages of glorious detail, a lot of data. Every metric. Is important to understand were talking about 37 metrics that. For each onealues of those metric sets. Let me add the reviews have gone to show some of the outliers we have known or a while and ive already been addressing, as well as looking at areas of data that we are trying to make sure it has fidelity. We arty charged these facilities with looking at any area where they are an outlier and telling us, is the data correct and are you measuring it correctly and are u. S. Good or as out of standards, as they say, and if you are, what is your action when, working together as a region or an enterprise to address these . When you go through the data, you will never find a hospital that is uniformly below standards in every single one. What you will find is hospitals are very good in one area and not so good in another area. Within 45 days, the Surgeon Generals have to go in on all of the different ones that are what can we do to bring them up and also identify best actress is across the enterprise so that we raise the average of the entire enterprise. Whether dr. Said is very important. No hospital was found to be unsafe. Might be, a hospital low in infection control, but might be very high in prenatal care. When you take a look at the enormous amount of data we were able to take care of, this gives us a fingertip feel of where the Surgeon Generals have to put their approach. It is all about organization. On the blind spots the report talks about, what is a plan to get after that . It is a broad search providers and you are blocked into contracts. That is a very good question and it poses a challenge to us. Everyone needs to understand essentially, we were on a direct care system. All of the facilities Surgeon Generals oversee and then we purchase care on the economy and the american Health Care System. We have to remove the american Health Care System along to move to define the quality of care we deliver it. This will be an effort to produce contracts that would require the delivery of information that allows us to give to information of the quality of care. Just to followup, we have got one year to figure this out. That is aggressive. We chose to be so aggressive to make sure we made improvements and we do not give ourselves any room to rest. We are moving forward. The contest provide care from the civilian sector and it is lawful in intent or it will be a challenge but we are dedicated to figure that out. Been able to analyze data, how much does it solve that or do you need to do something separate . That will enhance our ability to attract data. There looking forward to implementation of the hr. Having said that, it is also so you can mind your data sets and derive the producing the actions so you can work on it. Thef it shifts slightly for the militaryt now, and army right now, youre deploying about 3000 troops to west africa, one of the largest Public Health crisis is the world has seen right now. If i could start with you at the podium, can you talk a little , can i talk to you about what the armys Public Health , not protecting the troops once they get there, but how will you know they are medically safe to return to their families and return and if they did get troops return with people over there, where do you get the evacuation capacity back . Ome especially, our troops going to be quarantines before they go back . Your question is well taken. There is nothing more important ofus than taking care military forces before and after any engagement. This is first and foremost on our mind area we do not have any news on this for you today but we will keep you uptodate. What we wanted was improvements we will make our military Health Care System. I was told i could ask the question, which is why i am receding with my question again. Im just wondering, if you do not have the answers, military personnel and their families are concerned and it is newsworthy. Can you tell us at least what the questions are that you are looking at . What are the issues on the table that you have got to get some answers to . Want to, we really focus on the military Health Care System. There are several questions. To ae actually been Principals Committee on this. Its being worked across the government. We are getting input and taking a look at a lot of different things. I do not want to put the surgeons general on the spot. E do not have a plan i expect to have a separate engagement when we look at that. You talk yesterday about a variety of budget pressures. Can you say a word . Every single thing in the department right now i do not really want to go into all of these things. There are probably two areas that are at the very top of the secretarys you and this is one of them, that we would not skimp in what we need to do to make this system as good as we can. Luckily, we do not believe that will require a lot more resources. What this will require is a sticking into the data and Getting Better and really instituting a culture, which we think is quite healthy right now, but to get to this whole idea of a culture where safety is paramount. This is very high. There are certain other ones area high on the secretarys list them up with this, as he is not going to allow us to come in and say, lets cut the Health System by 20 . A new effort that it presents you from getting into, or can you get crunching on the data . We are jumping in right now. The secretary gave us extremely aggressive timelines. You should all have a copy of the memo. If you do not, we will provide you one. There are a lot of very important and aggressive timelines. The secretary does not want the grass growing under our feet. We are running right now. The surgeons general have been part of this from the very beginning. The Defense Health agency has been part of it. They know were we have to go. We will not wait until the end of the fall review. You know, were in the race right now. Thank you. For the surgeons general, we are used to the rhetoric of Excellent Health care for the military Health Care System. Now, we have a report that says average health care. I wonder if i could get your reaction to that. Also, is it is not the medical personnel who are the problem, if they are still excellent, what basically are the problems and challenges you have to get over to elevate yourself . Thank you for the question. Number one is in this review, we did not just focused and compare ourselves to any organization. We picked several that are already looked at as marquis and benchmark organizations and benchmark organizations. And the review, when you see us falling behind, some of those are in comparison to marquee organizations. When the secretary says we are average, i think that is in the context of we consider ourselves to be above average if not top shelf in the kind of care you can expect if you are wounded in the battlefield. Now you come to one of our homes centers, and we want to be able to look you in the eye and say if i ask all of you to think of a center in america by name, some would come to you that you think are where you would like to be or love to get your care because they are worldclass. We want to strive to be that on the tip of your tongue. We want to take efforts to take what we think is a good system now and make it great and make it greater. That is what our people want. That is all our people are asking for. They are asking for the materials and effort and training to do it. The good news is theyve got the spirit, the heart, and the desire, so weve got those key ingredients. You said earlier that performance in general met national averages, but you also said there were areas where it fell short. Can you describe or list those areas . I wish i could. You have to actually go into the data. As i said, we chose so many how many different measures did we look through . We took about 78 measures 178. We applied all of those two ,very single one of our mtfs so no single hospital came out as having a problem. What happened were some were good in some areas and some were not. I do not want to judge the data because we want to be transparent and allow everyone to take a look at the data, come tell us what they are thinking about. There was no single area that i know of that stood out as saying, oh, my goodness, we have really got to get into this particular area. I think one of the external reviewers said it best when you take a look at the military Health Care System, it is broadly comparable to the civilian Health Care System. Theres pockets of excellence and pockets of the low average standards, and theres a wide variety of kind of average behavior. As everyone has said up to this point, we want everyone to look at us and say this is a leading edge military Health Care System. Theres no particular area that that we really need to jump on. Let me just add to that comment, which i think is right on the mark. As you will see in the report, there are a number of metrics used in civilian systems. These national lets a Surgical Quality insurance surgical lets say Quality Insurance programs. If you look at who involves themselves in reporting these, you will find they are toptier institutions. In the National Surgical information, only about 400 out thehe 5000 hospitals in country participate. For the National Perinatal information symptom center, only 84 or 85 participate. We have chosen to participate with that cohort to measure ourselves. What brought that about . I will let the Army Surgeon General ill be glad to take that question. Specifically, neither of those individuals let me make a correction general cho has not been released. He has been suspended pending the results of an investigation. That was for complaints of toxic leadership, and that is ongoing. Colonel brewster was relieved and his was from failure of leadership. It had nothing to do with clinical care. It had to do with failed leadership. Very different cases. His was after an investigation was done, and there were substantiated findings that led to his release. It ist because i think relevant, it was a great question, i think if anything, we all our staffs at all of our facilities probably more clarity in policy, probably a clearer set of expectations. A unified set of standards which everybody should be held accountable to, and then a system which provides really good feedback to them all the time. Each of us have been doing this for some years, and we do that now, and its always constant improvement. Thats what we do in health care as with other Health Care Systems, but i think what we owed to everybody who serves in this military is a system, which means despite the fact that we provide different support to our very various services for important reasons, as a health with staff flowing between services, i think we need a more standardized approach, and i think the report helps us do that. Thank you, everybody. Appreciate your time. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] the military Health System serves some 9. 6 million active and retired service members. Some of our live coverage coming up later today includes the congressional hispanic caucus. They are talking about immigration this afternoon. Thats live at 3 15 eastern on cspan. Tonight, more campaign 2014 coverage. The minnesota governors race and a debate between the incumbent democrat seeking a second term debating republican challenger jeff johnson and Independence Party candidate hannah nicollet. Tomorrow night, two more governors debate the oklahoma governor debating her democratic challenger at Oklahoma State university. Thats here on cspan at 8 00 eastern. Tomorrow at 8 00 on cspan3, a debate from the nebraska governors race. The democrat is debating governor pete ricketts. Inlet can, nebraska, heres a look at some of the ads in that ,overnors race in lincoln nebraska. All across our state, i see people facing the same tough challenges. A brascans just want a fair shot, and thats why im running for governor. I stood up for farmers and ranchers. Governor, i will invest by training nebraska workers for goodpaying jobs. Im running for governor because when nebraskans work together, we succeed. Typical politicians are at it again they are losing, so they are falsely attacking pete ricketts, but heat is staying positive. Nebraska businessman, endorsed by sarah palin with a plan to cut property taxes. Typical politicians do not get it. Im heat ricketts. When i started with a family business, we had 150 people working in omaha, and now this more than 2000. I know how to create jobs, set priorities, and produce results, and thats what i will do as governor. Pete ricketts is making false attacks, but he tried to avoid paying his own taxes, but his organization proposed a plan that would raise taxes for 80 offarmers and nebraskans. Ricketts would lower taxes for corporations like the one owned by him and his family. Ricketts wants higher taxes for us but lower taxes for rich people like him. Nebraska needs a governor who fights for the middle class, and thats just not pete ricketts. The nebraska i grew up in expects people to take responsibility, to treasure faith and family. Those are nebraska values. Pete ricketts my faith guides me from raising my family to running our business. I believe god avas fundamental rights, and our constitution protects them, that we have to be a culture that protects life and inspires responsibility. Im pete ricketts. As your governor, i will work to make you proud and lead to brass go with our shared values. Again, that nebraska governors debate coming up tomorrow night, it 00 eastern over on cspan2 8 00 eastern. Nancy pelosi would Like Congress to vote on military authorization for actions against the Islamic Militant group isis. She spoke about that at her briefing today and also called for an independent investigation into failures of the secret service. This is about 35 minutes. Good morning. Good morning. Today, october 1, 2014, marks one year since the government shutdown. On that day, the republicans to do great damage to the economy. For 16 days, they kept the government shutdown. Even before october 1, i had said to the speaker, we will give you the vote to keep government open even though we do not like your figure. Recall, it was a drop of 80 from the figure we had all agreed to, and the house 988not one dollar over billion. The senate agreed. The president agreed. House democrats agreed. The only people who did not agree were the House Republican members, and they shut down government. With glee. For 16 days, they kept government shutdown, damaging to the tune of 25 billion. Aroundey finally came after public pressure was too , overwhelmingly, the republicans voted to keep government shutdown, and the democratic votes for their number, which we did not like but we accepted, to open up government. Just stunning, the frivolity with which the republicans treat the economy. That was five years from the time when they had on september a solution tost the financial meltdown. President bush was president. Back six years, and six years ago was leading up to the election of president barack obama, when he took office in that year, the Unemployment Rate was over 9 . Its now 6. 1 . The deficit was 1. 4 trillion dollars in that year. Billion, aound 504 60 drop in the deficit. Around 7000. En was its now around 17,000. We have had 50 or straight months up private sector job tune of 10 million jobs. Much more could have been done if republicans had supported some of the job initiatives that the president had put forth. We are not in a good place yet for more most working families because they are scarred by what the president , the greatest financial meltdown and economic crisis for us since the great depression. But the president has much to be proud of in terms of his turning around the economy, but more needs to be done, and thats why its hard to understand how republicans could leave for a break the earliest to parch or for a break before an election. Instead, we should be building of americaructure with build america bonds, paid for by closing tax breaks for companies that send their jobs , supporting initiatives that enable families and students to renegotiate their loans at a lower price, at a lower interest rate, so that they can be entrepreneurial a fort courage in the first place and the entree aerial, not straddled and chained i that oppressive debt. The jewel in the crown when women succeed, america succeeds. Over 60 of people making minimum wage are when in. Allowing women to have a balance and families. Between work and paid sick leave. The evolution of women in the workplace and in our economy, affordable quality child care, children learning, parents and earning. It rejected the president s proposal for universal prek. We have important work to do to meet the needs of the American People. The best thing we can do for our economy is to empower and unleash the power of women in our economy. So that is part of the debate will be having as we go forward. I look forward to the president s speech on thursday, tomorrow, on that subject. Me aboutou have asked isis and a vote in congress on. He subject we are the first branch of government, article one, the legislative branch, congress has how ourn defining country degrades and defeats isis, one of the challenges that we face to our National Security. Theres a conversation among members informally about what form an authorization should take that would secure our National Security. In fact as well as could pass both houses of congress. These conversations should be moved from the informal to the official. When this Congress Comes back in session in november, its important that we are ready to debate and vote on such an. Uthorization between then and now, we should be preparing. News, have seen in the the Peaceful Demonstrations in hong kong, some of you who have been around for a while note issue of prodemocracy and freedom and human rights in china and tibet has been an important issue to me since even before tiananmen square. These demonstrations are , they are young, and, hopefully, they will produce a result. At the time of the u. K. Yielding back hong kong to china, a basic law was established, and article or thehe basic law constitution states that permanent residents of hong kong s special Administrative Region shall have the right to vote and the right to stand for election. N accordance with the law what china is doing now is counter to that because they are saying the people they put forward are the people who have a right to stand for office. So we are all watching very happening see what is. The chief executive has said we need to amend the methods of executive,g a chief which is, of course, counter to the agreement that took lays in the 1990s. Peoplen, i think throughout the world should speak up on what is happening in hong kong. Its amazing to see how young some of them and secondary school, some High School Students they have their demonstrations. They do not run from tear gas. They clean up behind themselves, and they show up the next day because they want to have what was promised to hong kong. On the subject of ebola, i just want to make a comment because Global Health has been an issue of concern to the congress for a long time. We have committed substantial resources to it, whether it is hiv aids, whatever it happens to be. Malaria, tuberculosis, and the rest. On the subject of ebola, i salute to president for what he announced recently. It was well received by one president that i had been speaking to on war than one occasion, the president of liberia, saying it gives them , and my hospital beds conversations with the president of the world bank see this as having an impact on not only the people, which is first and foremost the issue, but the. Conomy of these countries the sources will make a. Ifference people have quarantine and care, they can recover, and when they recover, it gives other people hope to come in to seek care. Challenge, butd really in our interest from a humanitarian standpoint, but to ourr what it means own country. With that, i would be pleased to take any questions. Do you share the belief that the director of the secret . Rvice should resign i have great confidence in mr. Cummings. I did not see the entirety of the hearing yesterday because i an event for the Prime Minister of india, which was wonderful, but heres what i would say. In terms of the secret service and the protection of the president of the United States, an independent investigation as to what is going on at the secret service. The protection of the president has to be precise. It has to be flawless, and there has to be accountability, and when that is not the case, it is an excusable that someone would jump over the fence and into the white house. Inexcusable that someone would then the elevator with president of the United States with or without a weapon. I think independent investigation is what is needed, not just to hold people accountable, but to see how we should go forward in a way that, again, has precision, accountability, and is flawless. The protection of the president is really important to our , the reputation of the secret service, and mr. Cummings keeps making that point, and i agree with him. It is about reputation. The the expectation president and his family will be protected. Senior democrat on the Government Reform Committee says he is not comfortable [inaudible] do you agree with him . I have confidence in what he has to say. I do think the challenge may mean more than one person. I would like to see an investigation of the culture and the procedure and the accountability and the secret service because while i have confidence in mr. Cummings, complete confidence, i do think that the challenge maker beyond her because some problems existed before she was there. I think we should have an investigation. We will learn more about what they have been learning and who has come forth, but i think i the topnd that she is person. The buck stops here, and there are those who are calling for her to step aside. Whether she does or not, i think we need an independent investigation. Her leaving does not end the need for us to know a lot more about what is happening. But again, i would accept the recommendation of my Ranking Member on the committee. The same point around the secret service, when we had the scandals of a couple of years , prior to her coming in as the director, you called the culture and some of the things going on their disgusting. It was very disgusting. Do you think that the culture changed . Maybe they fixed one type of problem . The idea to bring her in verses some of these other issues . I have no idea. What was happening there was a weakening ofd the security that we need to protect the president. Its not on related to protecting the president. That shemmings things should go, i subscribe to his recommendation. However, i do not think and i do not say that he is saying this that thats all they should be done. Independent be an investigation. Has to be accountability. The president of the United States and his family, the reputation of the secret service as ironclad in terms of protecting our president , any ,resident, president s to come has to be one that the American People have that confidence, and havene would serve that confidence. Whether it is some of the disgusting behavior of some of the members, which is in my view inexcusable, but that is minor compared to letting a person on the elevator with the president with a gun or without a gun, or letting someone jumped the fence and have several lines of defense not work, but again, this is important and has to be dealt with. To deal withhave the protection of the president , his security, is of the utmost importance to us. Again, this president , any president. But we also have to be mindful of what is happening in americas homes. Right now, people have insecurity about their stability, their Financial Stability, about their job, their pension, the education of their children, their ability to because for all of the progress that was made in reducing the deficit and lowering unemployment and the success of the growth of the by almost 10,000 points in the job growth in the private sector, still too many people are left out of the loop. Security, their Financial Stability is something that we have a responsibility to be dealing with, too, and we can. O more than one thing at time what type of independent investigation did you put forth . Is this something that will be done here by Congressional Committee or i think Congressional Committees believe me, im a big supporter of the prerogatives of congress to investigate, but i do think that there could be an investigation of people who have experienced directly in protecting family,ts and the first visiting dignitaries and the rest, and that that expertise might be useful in a nononsense this is what this is an what we recommend is what we want to see happen. This is not a conversation. This is more than a recommendation. It is a requirement that if people decide that they are going to pull back the curtain on the secret service, that theres going to be acceptance of some of the may be very difficult suggestions that they may have to make. Itis interesting because started off and customs, and california was one of the big places. The coast guard collected customs, secret service, part of the treasury department. Now it has evolved and is part of the Homeland Security when we established that committee. We have to do much better than this, much better than this. Again, to take it to a level of professionalism where theres no of politics or anything else, just what we need to do to protect the president. What does it mean when you decide to join the secret service . What is the level of professionalism when i say professional, i mean take responsibility. You take responsibility. But again, we have to take responsibility for meeting the needs of the American People and their financial security. Behink the president should has proud of what he accomplished and his administration, much of it because of what we did in the two years when we had the democratic majority with the Recovery Initiative and the rest. About 15 Million People now have quality Affordable Health care, which is helping to reduce the our Health Care Cost in country, helping to reduce the deficit. A minute ago, you said you subscribe to cummings recommendation. Does that mean you think she should leave . I said i agree with his analysis, yes. Is whatng that if that he is suggesting, i support his suggestion, but if you follow up she should i think leave, i do not have the knowledge that he has, so i am subscribing to his superior judgment and knowledge on the subject, but i am also saying that this is more than one person. Because there were problems. Efore she went there there were problems before she went there. We must see what challenges the secret Service Still faces in keeping their professionalism and being accountable for the protection of the president. You are privy, obviously, to a lot of intelligence briefings. President obama said the United States Intelligence Community underestimated their threat. Do you share that opinion . What the president said in august, which is what i think he reiterated i think theres no doubt that the isis advance has been more rapid than intelligence estimates and the ectation of policymakers more rapid than the expectations of hollis he makers both inside and outside of iraq the expectations of policymakers. Actions were taken after falluja , the dam, the mountain. Degradewere taken to them. Is it fair to put that much blame on the Intelligence Community . Its not a question of blame. Ts a question of fact fact is what mr. Clapper said in his statement