Identifying areas for improvement, identifying areas for managerial improvement. The problem is that those improvements rarely get made. And to the extent that congressional action is necessary to make some of these changes, theres so much else to do. Theres very little glory in eliminating a program especially if people face layoffs. Theres even less glory in that. So to some extent its not that we dont know where to cut that we dont know which programs work and which ones dont. We do have some Good Government reports that help guide those decisions, but its that from recognizing the problem the next step is missing. Where is the action to actually get rid of some of these programs . I think thats exactly right. It comes in the action. When you were talking what popped in my mind was Ronald Reagans famous quote about politics and Foreign Relations which is trust but verify. And that seems to work for a lot of issues we deal with in our life. But when it comes to government spending, you can have the internal igs. They do a good job. They, for the most part, do a good job and theyre independent. But there should be some verification or spot checking where gao or an outside Consulting Group is asked by congress to pick a few random study them and report back to congress whether or not these studies were done properly and fairly. We know where a lot of the waste and abuse is coming from, the problem is the action in trying to solve them and thats one thing where, again, i think a 1 percent type solution works. Now weve got the benchmark, and its not i cant do it here, i cant do it here. I dont care where you do it, youve got 1 , you find it. I think thats a framework, sort of like a brad pitt position that could work. I think also congressional oversight so hard to do these days because the federal government has grown so big. There are over 2200 federal domestic assistance programs. Its very difficult to do proper oversight when government is just too big to do it. Theres also, and this goes back to congressman price talking about looking at the 74 budget act. Right now we budget every year. Congress budgets and theyre supposed to do oversight. Budgets taking up so much of their time every year, wheres the time for oversight . We might want to look at going to a twoyear budget process where the budgets set after the election and oversights done during the Election Year for congress to look at the report, deliberate and talk about where spendings going. If only they used it for that. [laughter] right there. And tim, that guy had a question. Okay. Hi. Thanks for your remarks. One of the comments congressman price said was the budget is not just numbers, but its a vision. I guess if i could take up that mantle for a second, my question is about messaging and how much you think our cause may be hurt by focusing too much on sort of the numbers and on, well, we just need to balance the budget rather than on what i think most people in this room would agree is the core problem, we should be reducing because government spends inefficiently, and these resources would be better spent in the private sector. So do either of you think we sort of sometimes miss the forest for thes by focusing forest for the trees by focusing on budgetary matters . I think youve got to do both. Too often someone says lets focus on balancing the budget, and thats your primary focus. Youre missing the forest for the trees. What are you going to get rid of, what are you going to raise money on where do you want to cut, where do you want to balance, where do you want slow growth . Talking about just the programs it deficits and debt do matter. Again, congressman price mentioned were 18 trillion in debt. If everyone here in this entire country worked for a year, didnt spend of it paid it all in taxes, we could just barely pay off our debt. That just gets worse. With each increasing deficit, were talking about adding to the debt. Were just talking about balancing the budget which means no more additional debt. At some point, weve got to start paying it off. The u. K. s still paying off debt from 200 years ago. Seriously. Theyre trying to figure out whether they should pay off the debt from 1812. Theyre still rolling it over. I think we have to have a real discussion about what the drivers of our fiscal position are, both the deficit and the interest, and how we actually reform those programs. And, again, the idea is not just to reduce the size of government, but to spend what we do spend wisely. If you go out and talk to the American People about wanting the cut government they also want the dollars we do spend to be spent wisely and were not doing that either, so we have to have a holistic conversation about what were talking about when it comes to the bum process budget process. The budget is often the starting point, and thats where the policies originate, tend to be in the budge committee. And there are numbers associated with it. But i think when it comes the vision, fundamentally we have a vision where individuals have more control over their own lives, and theyre less dependent on goth. And in health care on government. And in health care that means controlling their own Health Care Dollars and introducing more genuine Market Competition to control costs rather than the government deciding what treatments and tests get covered and which dont. Those are things that should be between doctors and patients and insurance companies. And on retirement too, i mean, these are biggest programs that are driving the growth in spending, and think when we do reforms, we dont only make the fiscal condition better and help to control the debt and reduce the debt over time, but were giving people more control over their own lives but greater ability to spend their own health care and their own retirement dollars and make those decisions as to when to retire and how long to work instead of being numbinged and often nudged and often times pushed even more strongly by government to make a certain discussion because of the way that the rules of the game are written. So i think thats the vision, is give individuals more control theyll be better off, well have more Market Competition and itll make us Better Office cally and, hopefully, stave off higher taxes in the future which will reduce growth and make everyone worse off. And keep in mind the budget when it comes to priorities, it literally is a institutions or person statement what they think is the priority. Its where Campaign Rhetoric meets reality. This is whats on paper. This is what we said were going to do, this is it, this is the blue print. So youve got to lay out your vision in the budget because thats where youre specifying these are our priorities. No more Campaign Rhetoric, this is the reality. Here it is on paper. I appreciate the question because its exactly what were trying to do here over these two days. I mean our theme here of opportunity for all and favoritism to none fits very well boo this. Theres an inverse relationship between how big the federal government gets in peoples personal freedom. And we are making the argument here as an organization that Big Government breeds favoritism and it breeds cronyism because when theres all this money at the trough, thats when youre going to get that kind of deal making that happens. And we want to pare that back for peoples individual freedom for their opportunity. So putting that in that context putting these reforms in that context, i think, is important because, yeah, i think the subtext of your question is that we can be a little bit, like, too focused on spread sheets and too into our numbers. And i think thats right. Youve got to be youve got to know the numbers, got to get it right. Thats important. Weve got to balance. Weve got to do all those thing, but youve got to tell people why. I think we have time for one more question over here. Yes. Good to hear your interest in the idea of a Waste CommissionSomething Like that. Could you comment on the political prospects for Something Like that happening . Are there model bills out there . Are there potential sponsors . Who do you think and is there bipartisan interest for Something Like that . What can you tell us . I think there is interest but the momentum is slowly building. Theres one bill in the house right now by representative collins that would go through the process two Appropriations Bills at the time. There weres in the past there were bills in the past, and i know theres more interest. And representative kevin mccarthy, he did mention to mitt coe that he, too had an interest in pursuing this with the new congress so im hopeful and optimistic that if not this year then next year there will be more movement on that. And Jeff Sessions was pushing this idea, and were working now with the new team over there in budget to see if senator enzi will take it up to too. Its out there, its percolating. Okay. Lets thank you to the panelists and [applause] we appreciate everyone being here. Again, lets take about a 25minute brach. We have senator cruz break. We have senator cruz coming up, jim jordan many others, so we have a full afternoon. Feel free to take 25 minutes or so if you need to run out of the building theres plenty of sandwich shops around here. Otherwise, make yourselves at home on this floor, and well start back up in 25 minutes. [inaudible conversations] today on cspan2, u. S. Chamber of commerce president tom donohue on the state of u. S. Business and the economy. Then from the joint gop retreat a news briefing with House Speaker john boehner and Senate Majority leader mitch mcconnell. Live at 9 30 a. M. Eastern the u. S. Senate returns for debate on amendments for the keystone xl pipeline bill. Fighting terrorist organizations is the topic today at the center for security policy. Former military and Defense DepartmentOfficials JoinSecurity Experts to discuss strategies for combating the global jihad movement. See it live at noon eastern on cspan3. Today a discussion on federal spending caps and ways to manage budgets that keep defense and social programs effective. Were live from the Brookings Institution at 10 30 a. M. Eastern on cspan2. Dr. Anthony fauci, our quest this sunday on q a, is on the front line battling Infectious Diseases. We have drugs right now that when given to people who are hiv infected if someone comes in and i could show you the dichotomy in the early 80s if someone came into my clinic with aids, their median survival would be 68 months which means they would be half of them would be dead in eight months. Now, if tomorrow when i go back to rounds on friday and someone comes into our clinic whos 20 plus years old, whos relatively recently infected and i put them on the combination of three drugs, the cocktail of antiviral therapy, i could look them in the eye and say we could do Mathematical Modeling to say if you take your medicine regularly, you could live an additional 50, 50, years. So to go from knowing that 50 of the people are going to die within eight months to knowing that if you take your medicines you could live essentially a normal life span, just a little bit, a few yearses less than a normal life span, thats a huge advance. Director of the National Institute of allergy and Infectious Diseases dr. Anthony fauci, sunday night at 8 eastern and pacific on cspans q a. Wednesday u. S. Chamber of commerce president tom donohue gave his annual state of the American Business and economy speech calling on congress to pass cybersecurity and immigration bills. Heres the News Conference following his remarks. This is about an hour. All right well, thank you very much for your patience and for coming today. As you know, im tom donohue president of the chamber, ask and just a few minutes ago i delivered our annual look at the economy and business and what we might expect from others and what you could expect from us this year. If you missed it, theres a copy of the speech theyre giving you as is always the case but not last year because he was in the hospital scared the hell out of us, is bruce josten whos our executive Vice President of all things we do with government and related matters. A number of our senior advisers are here that handle many of these subjects, and so theyre over there and theyre over there. You can catch them all at the end of your questions and pursue some of your issues in more depth. And as i said in the speech, the chamber believes the state of American Business is improving and that the economy is gaining momentum. We expect growth to be in the 33. 5 range at least through the middle of the year but when we look beyond that, when we look beyond the near term, the outlook is less certain. Business faces a host of challenges and uncertainties including economic weakness abroad which is very significant, by the way and unprecedented regulatory onslaught here at home and new cybersecurity threats among many others. And while things are improving the current policies of tax, spend and regulate arent cutting it. In fact, we have eroded our economys longterm potential the growth of the economy because of some of these factors. So instead of taking a victory lap, the administration the congress and all of us have got to heed the lesson of the last election, wok Work Together to advance jobs and growth and raise americas takehome pay. Divided government is not an excuse to do nothing its an opportunity to Work Together. Its to everyones benefit. We know it wont be easy, but with new people in congress with a president who hopefully will be tending to his longterm legacy we think we can get some important things done for business, for workers and for the American People. Now, our agenda is simple. What were asking leaders to do in 2015 is to rally around the common bipartisan cause stronger and deeper Economic Growth in order to create jobs and expand opportunities for all americans. The chamber will be pursuing three very quickly ill say things to help achieve that. First, were going to aggressively advance our jobs growth and opportunity agenda can that capitalizes on the extraordinary potential we have in trade energy, technology and infrastructure. Second, were going to build support for a government reform agenda. This is not an individual regulation or something. Its reforming the agenda. How we make willinglations. Regulations. That eases uncertainty and supports growth by improving immigration, the regulatory process, the tax code entitlement programs, the legal system and, very importantly our public schools. And third, the chambers going to vigorously defend a set of fundamental American Values that define who we are as a people and what made us the most free, most prosperous and the most compassionate country on earth. Im talking about the right to speak, the right to due process under or the law, the right to participate in a Free Enterprise system where you can take a risk, you can work hard and achieve your dreams. And we should all be concerned by the steady erosion of these rights and freedoms on a federal and state level. Most of all well fight to preserve the spirit of interprize in america. Enterprise in america. This is the real economic populism. Were all talking about it well, we have a set we really believe in. Its reflected in the more than 28 million businesses of all sizes in every community in this country. Americans americas enterprise system is not perfect. We want to say that right up front. But its built on the most successful economy in the history of the world, and its built, its been built from the bottom up, and this is the populism that really works. Last two thoughts. A populism based on trickledown can government with an ever growing power accruing to washington cannot work because with it our economy cannot grow. Instead, we need policies that support, expand and celebrate the entrepreneurial spirit and make sure that it thrives not just in business but in everything we do in this country. And with that, well take all your questions. Wait a second, ive got to tell you the rules of engagement. [laughter] you have to tell us who you are and know that if its a really tough question, im going to let bruce answer it. [laughter] were going to start right over here. Okay. Hi. Thanks so much for having me. Im Lydia Wheeler with the hill. You mentioned in 015 that the chambers going to have this renewed push on Regulatory Reform. Can you describe or talk about that strategy . Well, as you know in the last session of the congress we passed a threepart we didnt pass it, the Congress Passed it with our encouragement a threepart reform of the regulatory process. And it dealt with the questions of sue and settle, it dealt with the questions of permits, it dealt with the fundamental issues of how the process of regulation was going to go forward. And by the way, it was voted on in a bipartisan basis and i think there will be growing sentiment to move this forward and weve had a lot of indication in the senate of interest for this reform process. Remember, i said in the speech that the last time we reformed our regulatory process harry truman was the president. I remember him, but most of you dont. And we think there is a sentiment for doing. Im not worried about the president s suggestion that hes going to veto it. I mean, thats part of the negotiation process. And, you know, the white house always comes up with the things they may veto.