Not about threatening russia. They argue the shield is no longer necessary. Theyve also according to u. S. Officials been helpful in the talks. Does russia have a point in bringing this up in light of emerging deal . So i think everybody heard the question. First of all, if you look at the capacity of the system that were installing in europe and this is the analog of the fact that our National BallisticMissile Defense system is not alined to russia. We just dont have the capacity. They are with a large reasonably powerful country like russia could overwhelm that Defense System quickly. Its not about that. So they should not worry about that. They should be encourage that we are helping our allies there, potentially defending iranian or other threats in the region and as regards to the discussions, the agreement is not cop collusive yet, and once concluded, it you know, we still have to make sure that iran sticks to it and a Ballistic MissileDefense System is not something that you turn on overnight in fact, it take longer to establish a Missile Defense system if iran decides to break out and build a nuclear weapon. The discussion does not address Ballistic Missile threat at all so i think theres every reason for us to continue what were doing in western europe with the nato allies. It does not threaten russia. It maintains a hedge against an iranian or other threat in the nation in that region or outside the region that could threaten our partners, and its really, to me, a no brainer to keep this going. Real quick question before you go. Right here. Yes. Real quick. Two short questions. What is the effective defense mechanism if the threat is arising in a couple years burks if former cop sulation between two countries begins, what would be the goal of the negotiation . The career or do you just have one career that u. S. Deployed that to the usfk . Thank you. Not sure i understood the first question. What would the responses be . All right. The sobm threat the north threat. Theres a ways, including taking out the submarine that is carrying, and it goes without saying, i mean, put together a hypothetical scenario if tensions are high with north korea, submarine gets underway, and appears it might have a hostile event, everyones interest that not be allowed to happen. If the missile successfully launches, one of the things north korea does is they do not test missiles. They do not have confidence in Something Like this. If they launch and did does not work, they are in trouble because we will have seen the intent, but if it was launched theoretically, we would have our regional defenses aligned to be able to defend against that threat. In terms of the future, i dont want to speculate on what the configuration would be against a Missile Defense system, but, obviously, its in our interest that our partner nations contribute to defending their own soil in this kind of attack but were also interested in that particularly since we have so many troops on the ground. Ill leave it to the negotiators, but i have to say, we have not open up any kind of discussion formally with south korea on this particular topic. When its ripe im sure that well get into that, but were approaching this cautiously because we have such Great Respect for our partners. Well thank you, admiral. This has been a water front, offense, defense regional cruise missile. Thank you for the time. I know you have to run, but i want to say its an ongoing project. National Security Program here youll see more of this stuff, and i want to thank the Program Sponsors for putting this event on today, so, thank you, please join me in thanks him. Thank you for hosting it. [ applause ] coming up live tomorrow on cspan3, a hearing on the future of the u. S. Cuba relations before the Foreign Relations committee at 10 00 eastern. At 2 00 tomorrow afternoon, u. S. Capital police chief kim dine testifies about issues facing the police force. Some 1775 sworn officers protect the capital. Live coverage on cspan3. Plus, cspan. Org covers a hearing looking to the response of the nepal earthquakes, again, cspan. Org has that at 2 15 eastern tomorrow. Heres a few of the book festivals covered this spring. Well close out may at book expo america in new york city where the industry showcases upcoming books. On the first week of june live for the Chicago Tribune printers row lit fest. We have our live indepth program, and your phone calls this spring on cspan2s booktv. At the brookings institution, senator joe mansion talked about bipartisanship in efforts as a democrat to work with republican colleagues in the senate. He also discusses some of the proposals to make government more efficient. This is just under an hour. Good afternoon, everyone. Im the fellow in the center for effective Public Management and management editor of the block. I want to welcome you all to the brook igs institution today and to todays event, governing from the middle, a common sense approach to making government work for the American People. Id like to thank cspap for being here and id like to invite everyone watching on the webcast to follow along and use the senmansion. Its no secret that the American Government is in a period of dysfunction. Our trust in government plummeted, and the publicments mentwants solutions, but it just get s more and more problems. Too often, our elected officials adapt to a dysfunctional system rather than trying to work in a way to reform it. Thats a serious problem. The result is the system that perpetuates ills rather than trying to find cures. Here at brookings through the political realism project, we are engaging a lot of scholars, in house and out of house to look at the types of reforms that help rejuvenate the system get it back to work get Public Policy moving in the right direction. Its a robust debate here at brookings, a devicive debate in house, but its one we feel is vital to american democracy and to what the public expects from their government. Today, were joined by a member of the United States senate who is often engaged in similar types of debates with his own colleagues in his own institution. Were pleased to welcome an additional voice in the discussion. Joe mansions in the United States senate and comes to congress with a unique perspective. Hes one of ten sitting United States senators who formally served as governor. They bring a critical perspective. They are problem solvers charged by their state to govern. Their residents expected action. They oversaw state agencies. They oversaw crisis. They oversaw a public that demanded a lot out of them. M the expectation was for them to deliver. Together the ten members formed the former governors caucus a group committed to bringing their governing experience to bear in ways that not only form Public Policy, but the new institution that they serve in, the United States congress. Before i turn the podium over to the senator id like to offer a bit of a brief introduction. Joe mansion is now the senior senator from wefsz, having been a senator since 2010 previously, as i said, he served as governor from 2005 to 2010. Over the course of a more than 30 year career in Public Service, senator mansion served in the West Virginia house of delegates, the state senate, and West Virginia secretary of state. Its my pleasure to welcome senator mansion to brookings. [ applause ] first of all, i thank brookings for the event today and helping tackle this important issue of how to make government work better. I want to thank you, john, for the hard work on this, and all the people at brookings, i know its not sexy, and i know its not grabbing headlines like devicive issues do and operate from the fringes of the right and left gets people fired up. Working for the American People is critical to getting the country back on track. In 2010 when senator byrd passed away in june of that summer, hi to make one of the most difficult decisions of my political career. I had to decide should i try to go to washington and lead the office that i love being governor of the great state. I was two years in my second term. In West Virginia, youre termed out. You have to set out and come back maybe if people want you, but two consecutive terms, so i made the decision, and it was the toughest decision i made, but i made it on this premise. I felt we contributed so much brought people together. We had a super majority of democrats in the state senate and legislature and i never would have let the democrats beat up the republicans. I said guys, by the grace of god, it could be us. We need everybody working together. Wed work together. We identified problems that we have for the state of West Virginia. We did not make them political. It was not a political victory if we did something, we did our job, and we took that premise, and we did everything in state that needed to be done, very critical, and when i made the decision that i said if i can take the experience that i had and the skeess we have been able to enjoy in West Virginia and bring that experience level to washington, maybe i could be of help. I could contribute something. So i made the decision. I felt good about what i left in the state and in the job we had done. I kept remembering senator byrd all the time about the way the senate work, and, of course, he was the master of the senate and wrote the book. He truly loved this place, and he had the utmost respect for the u. S. Institution and tradition and procedure of the senate, and we still abide by a lot of that. We broke a few of his rules, which im sure would not favor well with him. He served in a time when it worked. When relationships were built to forge bonds of trust, not political payback. When members sit down for a meal together and knew each others families and childrens and what they liked and dislike and fortunately today in washington, we live by the concept youre no longer guilty by negotiation. Youre guilty by conversation today. If someone sees you talking to the opposite side or somebody that might not have your same thought process or philosophical belief, its like youve gone to the dark side, and i said my goodness how can we learn our differences if we cannot talk to someone or communicate to find commontialalityies commonalities. Gone are the days of breaking bread in the dining room. I heard about that. We had 4 a dining room on the left. Senators would have meetings in there. When i first came here i said, my goodness i dont know why they are not doing that anymore. Its something we should do. Tomorrow, tuesday, every tuesday we have a caucus lunch. Tomorrow, both the democrats and the republicans will go their separate ways for lunches in two different parts of the capital. Very seldom do we get together for a bipartisan meal. So when you see on cspan on the floor, thats about the most time we spend with each other is when you see us during a vote on the floor working back and fort and talking or going back and forth to committees. Sometimes you only serve with one member on one committee or another, and you do not have all of them at one time. Ive tried to break that. We started the Bipartisan Center when we got here started the bipartisan lunch, and its worked being fairly successful at it. You can understand that most of the former governors are the ones that show up quite a bit because they understand that, basically, we have the same problems, no matter the state education problem, medicaid problem, we want to find out who did something that worked and how can we do the same . It was something we exchanged back and forth. I would call. I had no problem calling mitt romeny in massachusetts, calling rick perry in texas. No problem whatsoever. We had great relationships. We are fortunate to have ten former governors. We have five democrats, one independent, and four republicans. We have senator warner, senator caine, senator carper, senator alexander, senator shaheen, and we bring a common sense approach to government, and while we do not meet as a group as much as wed like, we naturally gravitate to make deals and work on common sense legislation. When we ran our states basically, most of us had 46 states, i believe had a budget balance amounts, balance budget amendments. First thing you want to know as governor, youre elected, sworn in that day, they take you immediately and show you and what you have to work with. You have cowork with on the budget, and you work on the coming yeerks and you basically i said whats the revenue . Every tuesday afternoon, i would have the budget analysis and they meet with me and tell me what our forecasts were and how collections were going and how much we had to work with or areas we had to change and make adjustments. That was cognizant on our mind. Can we pay for what we promised or would like to do. You pick priorities based on values. Whats the value of the people, my constituents in West Virginia . I knew where we were. It was about our children getting a good start in life. It was about education, obtaining an educational degree that give you the skill sets to compete, caring for the veterans and seniors. So many other things to do, i said no more than i said yes. I 4 to pick things. Everybody wanted all these things to be done. I said, fine, heres what i got to work with. Tell me which group of people you want to tell that we cant do that anymore. If i picked one thats wasteful show it to me. Well pick one thats more resourceful. We had to make decisions on revenue and balancing budgets, and were trying to bring that same approach to the senate and find common sense ways to accomplish the goal of making government work. Its a challenge here. I will share this with you, the first day i was in the senate i said, whats the revenue . I was told immediately we spend 3. 5 trillion. I said, okay. How much money will we have . Well, we looked at it every way possible. We cant cut much. You want to spend 3. 7 trillion . I got that. How much do you think we have to pay . Well, we have. 2. I said you know, were not high in mathematicians back home but we add and sub stragt. Youre 1. 5 trillion short. I have not figured out the math in washington. Im trying. I know everyones confused about the new math. Im not im having a hard time myself. You know, and wlse had taxpayer dollar, and another example of what we did, done through property funding. The Revenue Office is one we had that basically would do budget reviews, general accounting offices, things of this set you did this this, and this, and you saved 100 billion. You save this and this, redundancy in government that these things happened. Every present like every governor comes in with a platform, and every legislature wants the first honeymoon session wants to give the new president or that new governor basically a honeymoon if you will, and what we had was a layer on top of layer adding up over the year and every now and again, you have to have a correction, and you have to change and you have to consolidate and rid of those not working. No ones looking at that making governing hard rer and hurting our country when we dont do this. They identify waste, fraud, and abuse inside and outside agencies. Perfect example. When we cut back, and they said revenues short in the state of West Virginia, i said fine, show me where i make money. I said, what . Show me where i have an agency thats returning more than we invest in the agency. Perfect example, department of revenue. For all my outside auditors, i had inside outside inside the state, outside the state. For every dollar spent, i got 100 return. If i wuld just go go and audit this is a gray line, stopping it right there. If they say something, its an honest mistake because we interpreted it differently. You have to have them, and when we had to flat line them, there was a budget its common sense. No different how you run the household or business. Spending in these offices are positive investments and when we cut funding its a net loss which we do every day here. When the cuts, the federal government loses money, and because we lose out on the ability to save money from other programs. Thats why ill introduce legislation to require the generaling thing office to designate federal offices that have saved more money than they have spent. I think that would be an eye opener if we knew that. Thats common sense. Governors we also looked at the bottom line. We needed to know if the taxes we impose actually helped our hurt. We needed to know if we reduced taxes, and accelerated reduction if the revenue would catch up to it. We would watch it. We put triggers in. We would put triggers to stop and take a pause and see where we were. I always said theres certain things that people would do. First of all, if youre running out of money, the first thing that will happen, they rob the piggy bank, sweep all the accounts and agencies and basically so its not noticeable to the average public. When it runs out, they make cuts within government. Theyll cut back and lay people off. And the last thing they want to do, oh mied go, they dont want to do this, raise taxes. Because then somebodys messed up. Thats what they believe. So what you do is look at the holistic approach to how you run the place and then you said well, this, we can afford this we cannot afford that, eliminate this, and this we will not. This we increase or everybodys afraid to talk about taxes. You wouldnt we cant even agree on the definition of revenue. Thats hard to believe. If your revenue, reducing to 33 we cut the taxes rate . Get rid of the junk in the box, the give aways the programs, basically every lobbyist in the town has been able to get a tax provision put in offset, any one of them for the special interest groups. With all that said thats a tremendous draw on the revenue. No one basically ever says, okay, how much did that cost . You introduce something, how much does that cost . Thats what we need to know. Thats what