fraudulent account scandal. we have received numerous records from both wells fargo and the occ and others that --icate that the cfp be was wheel.s asleep at the >> members of the house freedom caucus on their tax policy proposals, and the legislative agenda in the weeks ahead. from the heritage foundation, this runs one hour. >> good morning. we are fine, we are fine. >> good morning, welcome to the heritage foundation. we welcome those who join us on our website, those who are joining us on c-span tv as well. for those in house, we would ask

to please check that your cell phones or other mobile devices have been silenced. for those watching online, you are welcome to send questions or comments to us at any time, simply emailing sp eaker@heritage.org. heritagesr overseas research on a wide range of domestic, economic, and trade issues. keep recently -- he recently -- previously served spearheading energy, investing, and environment, and he specialized here in nuclear energy issues, both in the domestic and global arenas. please join me in welcoming jack spencer. [applause] john.nk you, good morning, everyone. and welcome to the principles of

chapter four, conversation with the house freedom caucus. what a great day to be in washington. shining, believe is the oppressive washington humidity has yet to set in, and i am not sure, but i think i even heard a bird or two chirping this morning. it is a great day to be in washington, and a great time to be in washington. we have a president to is not just threatening to shake things up, and i do not think i am stretching out on a limb here, but he is actually shaking some things up. we have a congress who is talking about shaking things up -- think god they are working to repeal the obamacare monstrosity . and yesterday, the house of representatives passed the truth acts, a bill that would start reversing the economically destructive and i would argue morally bankrupt. frank regulation -- dodd frank regulation. and paris, we cannot forget

paris. getting out of that liberty sucking quagmire was a victory .or assault -- us all liberty sucking quagmire. [laughter] that could also go for dodd frank, by the way. and these efforts cannot come quick enough. if our goals to establish a new america our freedom, opportunity, prosperity, and civil society flourish. in part and parcel to that america is when america gets to keep more of its hard-earned money. but washington takes less. not only does that leave the politicians and bureaucrats with fewer resources with which to meddle in our lives, but it gives us more resources to get our economy humming again. and that is why tax reform is every bit as important as the repeal of obamacare, wrote forming -- reforming dodd frank, and getting out of paris.

you know what we want? we want lower tax rates. we want to remove the tax bias against business and investors. we do not want to burden america's business with such heavy taxation of the 80, uncompetitive. we want transparency and simplicity. a lot of folks have ideas on how to achieve these common goals. unfortunately, these differences too often become barriers to success. ourhink we cannot allow issues to derail us from our much larger common objective. we need to find a common ground on this issue. that is what the heritage foundation wants to help us do. we have chairman brady speaking here a few months ago, laying out his plan, plan that provides a strong foundation for moving forward. and we are excited to host the secretary of the treasury street -- steve mnuchin to give us his

words on tax reform. and today, i am very excited to host members of the house freedom caucus to give us their thoughts on tax reform. so let me please introduced our guests. this is jim jordan from the great state of ohio, and his colleagues, also from the great state of ohio, he honorable warren davidson. we also have the honorable dave brat representing the seven sisters of the commonwealth of , a district where, i might add, spare a friend amount oftime -- spend a fair a bit time. honorable mark meadows, representing the 11th district of north carolina and the chairman of the house freedom caucus. [applause] good morning. it is great to be here. it is always great to join so many of you that are here. i see some very familiar faces.

it is always good to share a panel with three people who are a lot smarter than i am. when the difficult questions come in, we will refer them to some of my other colleagues. i would like to set the framework of where we think we need to be so that that way you can ask the good questions and when we started to get more into wee of the details, what envision with tax reform. i want to complement really chairman brady and his foresight to really get the discussion going. as we looked at that -- any time you put out a blueprint, it is a bold move because the minute you do that, everyone is going to find reasons why it will not work, not why it will work. likewise, to have this administration to put forth an idea on what they want to do for to applaud-- we have

it. the minute you do that though, there are people saying why their plan will not work? we have tried to be good listeners over the last several whereand months to find there is consensus. some of you are here today as tax reporters, and you probably know more about the leverage that can be turned up or down based on that. here are a few fundamental facts. one is that there is not consensus for the border adjustment tax. the sooner we ignore knowledge that and get on with a plan that actually works and can build consensus, the better off we will be. it is not anything where we take an informal decision best position against the border adjustment, even though i have one of my colleagues on the panel, we are divided in the freedom caucus. we believe it is not a great

idea, but the political facts are there is not consensus to bordersupport for the adjustment tax. so what we hope to line out today is truly a few principles that we believe the majority of the freedom caucus, in fact, the majority of the gop caucus and the majority of the house can get behind to not only lower have true reform and tax reform. the second part of that is that time is critical. as i fondly, referred to him, my good friend from ohio, he introduced a bill this week that looked at real reform in terms of health care reform. that reform has the potential of creating some $400 billion in revenue that we can allocate and move across.

i look forward to hearing more from him on that. here is where we have. we believe that time is of the essence. by that, we need to get tax reform done sooner than later, and by that, we should have a real proposal that we start debating before we leave at the end of july. but if not, we have taken a formal position, we need to believe we need to stay in through august until we get it done to put the priorities to the american people first on the legislative agenda. i speak for a lot of the heads that are nodding, you believe that we ought to stay here and , and i'mne as well encouraged and believe that there is a foundation of coming together. we will layout four principles to bring some consensus and have vigorous and rigorous debate

among some of the house in terms of what may or may not work. this is a great crowd today. i look forward to having a good discussion. [applause] you, mr. chairman. my first question is you started saying there were three people who were not smart. if i look at that, that would leave one of us who is the dumbest amongst the crowd. i was wondering if you could point out which one in this room. i am clearly the dumbest. was talking about my colleagues. i do not consider you a colleague. i will put you way up there in terms of your ability. [laughter] >> we will let determine the audience it -- the audience determine if that is legitimate not if we go forward. >> doing of our other panelists

have anything to add or any initial remarks? all right, let's get to it. the brady plan is something we are all interested in, and as you mentioned, there is a lot of good stuff there. you also mentioned the border adjustment tax. taxnt the border adjustment , is that something the freedom caucus generally likes, or something you can get behind generally? i think to answer that, the 20% cut in terms of a corporate tax rate cut, as long as it applies also to those who are the small businesses -- when we start to look at those who have an escort, llp, still -- soleorship, proprietorship, were just a cut for the big guys, it leaves a whole lot of main street off. to help outline that, a 20% rate for that -- look at repatriation

. my vice would be to do a repatriation over the next 20 that rayhere we allow petri asian of foreign earnings to come back at a main percent rate. we look at not only cutting the rate, but what is actually in chairman brady's plan. the real problem gets to be if you take up the bigger adjustment, how do you do the full and immediate expensing? for me, as a business guy, typically i have not made those .ecisions a lot of the big corporations do not make those decisions that way. a lot of small businesses do not make it that way, but having accelerated depreciation, making -- bonus the ball miss depreciation in place now would be prudent, so doing that on the expensing side and still allowing the interest expense to be the duck did -- to be to doed, and you have

something for moms and dads, and and send uncles, and kids and grandkids on main street. that is the brady three point structure, and for many of us we believe leveling the standard deduction puts money back in the wallets of people on main street. all of those principles we could come to an agreement on some way, shape, form, or fashion in the next three-or weeks and start having -- 3-4 weeks and start having debate on legislative tax in the weeks to follow. >> some of the rough numbers politics -- big-city if you intervene -- intervened sometimes, and we are still working through welfare and the senate. as far as two weeks ago, mitch said we do not know if we have the votes, and that has changed in the past couple of days. there is $1 trillion there that will go toward tax reform, and

the border adjustable piece is another $1 trillion that we need, right? all of this place together. we have a budget piece going on right now, and that is $50 billion. that seems like a big number, to numbers i just gave you, 50 billion and one trillion -- $50 billion and $1 trillion? dollars.000 billion all of this plays in to the piece we are talking about without blowing a hole in the deficit. if we get rid of the border adjustable, we have to get $1 trillion on that side so you do not break the deficit wide-open. all of us have some flexibility when it comes to taxes because we know for the next generation, centurya once in a opportunity to get this economy humming again. for a decade, and we are progrowth people. i want to lay out a couple of the big, big numbers.

all of that intertwined right now. we need to keep data mountain moving across the board on the health care, tax, regulatory. >> i would say one of the big -- alluded to to is that we cannot bankrupt our country. this is something we cannot lose to match. frank reform we just passed in the house to take action swiftly, we get our tax code and i know the politics of it and why it is important to the average household, for pay who has been very stagnant, but the doubling of the standard induction, perhaps some change in the payroll withholding for workers -- because what we have to do is get the workforce engaged. the big challenge in this is getting labor. in monetary policy, they have bridged it as far as they can, but we are in a time where monetary policy is going to work

at odds with the fiscal stimulus we will be doing. morekes it that much urgent that we get our fiscal policy stimulates -- stimulus underway swiftly. theeed to get it done by end of 23, not the end of the year. and people in our economy are going to have an impact that we need to drive and counter with strong fiscal growth. when you talk about corporate running 738 out , and9 developed economies that gets us into that, 1, 2, 3. that is the right direction. taxo not need another reform act of what every year, we need to not treat around the edges and go big. the blueprint does that, but we need to be at risk about what it does. >> i can look at the border adjustable tax -- i can live

with the border adjustable tax, but there is not yet a plan communicated on how yet you actually implement it. so i like the in-state, but how will you put it off -- pull it off? we are you losing a lot of momentum, and unless there is a big reversal, and you totally love it, which i know is a standalone thing, but if you look at the other things in the package that this enables, i do not see how you pull it off politically. seeingen to learning and how that works. >> to principles guide tax families one, keep having more money, and one of those pretzels is not a whole new tax on the american economy. what is not in those principles are these concepts of revenue neutral neutrality. you should round who pays what in that scenario. it always worked out that the connecting class is a good deal,

and the middle-class families get the shaft. it always works out that way. so we're looking at a revenue neutral tax policy and that makes absolutely no sense. keep moreg families of their money is not a cost of the government and is called .reedom tax policy to let families keep their money is conducive to producing growth, and one other cuts spending. another fundamental point that day was pointing to in his comments -- dave was pointing to in his comments, if you do not pass the budget right now, the budget cannot pass in the house of representatives. it can't. what we are talking about putting forward as this. maybe we as the freedom caucus can look at a higher budget number if, in fact, we do real, welfare reform on the tax bill. requirements, all of that

as part of that package. you have to write the reconciliation constructions in such a way -- i look at it like reverse engineering -- the dollar amount you get from welfare reform, write the instructions to make the committees get that dollar amount. thethe actual savings in long run, plus it is just good policy. it is good policy to encourage work and those families who are stuck in the system, and treating families and taxpayers with respect they deserve by requiring able-bodied people to work and not be able to live off the taxpayers dollars forever. that is the key to unlocking this roadblock we are in, the spot that we are in. i do not see any other way out of it to get the budget agreement. that is it. if you do not get the budget agreement, you cannot get reconciliation, if you cannot get that, you cannot get tax reform. >> thank you.

does anyone want to applaud the comments on revenue neutral in i think thatality? would be appropriate. >> notwithstanding the good -- the remarks from my good friend from ohio. >> we have talked about the importance of corporate tax reduction and the importance of building momentum in the middle class for this importance that they also feel like they are winners. one of the things of this whole issue is that a corporate tax reduction would benefit the middle class, but [indiscernible] a,question to the panel is are there ways that we can do that, because that is the essence of this, and the second part of that question is how do we build momentum for tax reform, because we're talking about big changes, swinging big, and without a support from your

constituents, it can be difficult to do that. >> a lot of young people i see out in his audience. how many of you have had economics? supply and demand like this, right? jim just said tax reform on a personal side can put money back in your wallets. that is good, right? but what is the major problem in this country -- no productivity growth. you can put money in people's pockets on the demand side, and get a blip up and it goes back to normal. but on the supply side, fixed the supply side. that is is this. -- that is business. and to show what a wide gap we have in this city, when we are talking, the left will mock and written cool and make fun of the supply-side. who is the supply-side, so we are clear? it is everyone in business. so the left is mocking the supply side when you want to

incentivize, permanently incentivizing boost the supplied her up so all of our income go up. hopefully president trump can use this to do that. he is the business guy, but you young people need to help us out on the supply side. how many of you have ever heard mccloskey? it is ament is that moral phenomenon. it is when the moral language change. cited revolution, whatever -- scientific revolution, whatever. in the economy are a morally good thing, and we have lost that. you all need to help -- it is reversible. if we start saying business is bad, what a downer for you young people, right? what you will do for the rest of your life is morally bad. that is an up lifting message? we need to have you here with us so that you can say the

supply-side is good, and business rolling so you young people can have good lives. >> one or two questions left and . will come to you guys it is important to help me carry us through the end of this presentation. we can put a little bit of fodder on the fire -- you talked , chairman, that may be staying through august would be something that is worth doing to get this done. that there are a lot of legislative priorities. can you talk a little bit about what your broader priorities are and how tax reform fits into that? budget thathat the my good friend from ohio, mr. jordan, talked about, the budget and everything coming together. i believe that we, on tax reform, need to agree to these four principles in the next four weeks. that is really easy, four and

four. with this in the next four weeks. have budgetet, we reconciliation, numbers that we have to assign in order to do appropriations, and that comes as a perfect opportunity to bring all of that together so that it forces us to make critical decisions that i think our incumbent on one another. if you cannot, up with a number -- if you cannot come up with a number for budget reconciliation, that should influence your decisions on tax reform and all of that. we are at a critical time in order to make decisions, not to talk about making decisions, and if you hear me talking about it, it is four principles next four weeks. >> this next question i will ask pains me to ask. the senate is talking about delaying some of the obama care maybe not atnd

all. if we do not get rid of those, that may make tax reform even more difficult. what will that do to this whole effort if we do not get that done? >> it does not help it. [laughter] can doe is nothing we about that right now. that is the united states senate. we will wait and see what comes. but i say this all the time, we make this all to complicated. our job is really straightforward. do what you told the voters you were going to do. we told the voters who would repeal and replace obamacare, and we did not accomplish that fully but it was a good step in the right direction. we will try to get this done as soon as possible, not because it is good for tax reform of that is because we told the voters that is what we would do. we need to see what happens there. >> all right. let's open it up. if you could give us your name and your affiliation, and

keep the questions precise and short. >> make sure there is a question in their commentary, right? [laughter] >> we have these gentlemen appear to provide the commentary and answer your questions. >> thank you for your time today. i was wondering we could get some clarity on this. it sounds like maybe with the elimination of that, you would favor some full expensing, if you could clarify>> great quest. i want to clarify that as a have not taken any official position. we had a good hour and half, to our debate about the budget and how it plays together. it's one of the best debates you will find on capitol hill.

if we are doing full and immediate expensing, you are assuming a cash scenario. those that have large amounts of cash sitting around. for the average small business, many times they don't have that, so they have to go out and borrow money. when we look at immediate expensing, how do we do that? along with what do we do with the $18 trillion in real estate that is out there? china it a reverse problem. they are building these the buildings that sits empty.

and immediate expensing, almost immediately, you can create a problem in your commercial real estate market by making a long depreciation for the commercial and immediate expensing for the new. to adjust that, so my preferences to accelerate those depreciation schedules and make bonus depreciation's there. looking at doing in either or type of program -- i'm a numbers guy and i can make arguments both ways, but that is why we are here to hopefully hear some good things and policy going forth. youhis is an example where look at real differences in the sense of is it good? the status quo is you get to deduct interest and then you jump throughnd you this hoop.

the beauty of 100% expensing is there is no booths. unless you have a horrible interest rate, if i can depreciate the investment or i can 100% expense the interest, i will take the investment. i would rather write off the whole building and machine. bootstrapped something from $20,000 in savings to a good scale company and did a lot of it with leverage. but i will tell you that i will take that over expensing the interest all day. >> i agree with that. i do not disagree expensing the capital asset quicker or immediately will not -- it is good juice for the economy. >> thank you.

i'm bob and i've had the pleasure of working in the reagan omb and built a couple of businesses. messagingment on the -- reminding your colleagues that the government is overhead on the economy and the government taxes and regulations are taxes and as stewards of the a message i, it is think people need to understand. i know democrats believe the opposite -- that the government permits you to make money. i had a big argument with the carter administration people about that and said they have the right to take it and that is reflective of all the things that come out of the left. i think reminding your colleagues that what you do is overhead, providing the necessary services that the public needs but the economy is

what enables that and the free enterprise system is the core of our country. >> i want to say thank you for your service to our country in your previous session and at go that. atht now, we are looking anemic gdp growth. are growing the government at 4.8%. is what cbo has suggested. we are growing the governmental expenditures at that, but yet cpi is growing at a little over 2%. one of the things we had talked about and i would love to take full credit for but it's a conversation i had with larry and steve, so if they were not watching, i would take full credit.

look at a cap at 2.5%, and overall cap of 2.5%. if you did that and had an end up cap at 2.5%, you with gdp growth at 3%. you have a $3 trillion tax cut -- what a novel idea is that. and about fiscal restraint it's a good point. , cap andl that cut balance where you limit the size of the government relative to the size of your gdp and it makes so much sense. becausen welfare reform inside the house republican conference, it's a way we can move forward. but it is also necessary. the assumption is 3% growth. to get that, we have to reform the tax code and deal with jobacare and deal with

creators. even with all of that, you cannot get to it if you don't have a labor force. i've heard it for three years --oss the fourth district conversation will typically go something like this -- in spite of all of the stupid things going on in washington, we are still creating jobs. we cannot find people to work. this is where welfare reform is critical. i don't think you achieve 3% of sustained growth if you don't have labor force to get you to the productivity number. that is why we as a group are saying this seems to be the solution to get us to the edge in the agreement that we need to get to and get to the growth rate that we need in this country. i will just add that i agree with everything jim just said but i don't want to get anyone's expectations up. i think this room is educated on

the basic numbers. $20 trillion in debt and $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities. cbo, this is the front page -- all federal revenues will go only to those mandatory and entitlement programs. all federal revenues. that means there's nothing left for military, transportation, etc.. deficit deficit is $1.2 trillion. the average deficit, what is that? the entire discretionary budget. we are talking about spending -- we need to reconceptualize everything big-time and get it through politically, so that will happen tomorrow. it is pretty cynical. you young people better help us inc. this through because your futures are on the line for real

and it is a pretty dismal picture. are facing some tough decisions. >> this seems like an appropriate time to talk about one of our publications, our blueprint for balance, which is a federal budget that will give you more than enough cuts and we would argue that they are probably not deep enough. lots of cuts out there to do if we just had more folks to carry them out. >> you know it is and i got you question when the guy gets out of his seat and is waving his hand. scott phelps, abstinence and education partner. all the numbers are great, but underlying all of this are significant death spirals and trends that are negative for the economy.

right now at an all time low and a declining birth rate. if we don't address these major macro trends, we cannot grow the economy. i'm here to say how can we ensure budget policy addresses these macro trends that have significant implications for our country? this is a little bit of tax policy. we are talking about linking it impart to labor participation. i've introduced a bill that tries to get welfare reform. yearend $850 million a across 92 programs. with the concept that i'm throwing out there, it is based on brookings institute data. heritage and brookings don't agree on many things, but this is one where we would say probably good data.

80% of poverty is eliminated if you do these things -- graduate from high school, work a full-time job at any wage and have no children outside marriage. set three criteria, of those 92 programs, some are more effective than others at providing the dignity of work for able body adults. some are more effective than others at promoting healthy families and some are more effective at actual education attainment that leads to employment. the create -- to create a commission, it is called welfare brak. republicans and democrats pick their own share, they get a year to work and if we kick this off, come next summer, we could be talking about a reform that would take us from 92 means tested programs. get to 40 or 50

programs and the reason is reagan's old quote -- the closest thing we will see to eternal life is a government program. can --e all lyrically politically sensitive, particularly for middle-aged white guys, which there are a few of us up there. >> thank you for saying i am middle-aged. i didn't know life expectancy was 114 years. >> even some democrats like the ideas because they recognize the duplication. i've talked to people who are on board and no one wants to be the first to support it but you look at the reforms and how can you with fiscal policy, public policy influence the culture? to eithers not going solution to many of the things that go on. but we have to be leaders rather than having these binary conflicts where it good or bad.

take evil out -- that's the one highpoint. we see moral relativism is dead as an idea. i would probably be the skunk at the party even though i believe in the very benefits of the family and what happens, but anytime you try to take tax policy to create a social can be outcome, it problematic. should there be a penalty? absolutely not. i would be one to say you cannot make a penalty and we know those facts to be accurate in terms of what gets you ahead. just like picking winners and losers, we need to be careful that tax policy does not create aredverse issue when we looking at this. i would be against any marriage penalty out there but at the same time, you can put in tax policy that promotes something and have adverse consequence.

married and have more kids, don't get a job and have more money. that's the welfare system and it makes no sense. we have two incentivize work. we went to italy to see our grandkids, went to see our son-in-law and daughter, but mostly would see our grandkids. we were there last spring and i'm just a country boy from ohio and we are there at 5:00 in the afternoon. dinnere will go out to and go for italian food. she says we can't. i've said what do you mean, i'm paying. she said the restaurants are not open. i said it's 5:00, what do you mean? she said that something way it works here. there open from noon until 2:30, then they do their nap and then come back and i'm like who ever heard of that.

in america, we work. that's one of the hallmarks of this great country. when you have policies that this incentivize that fundamental principle, that is ridiculous. good for our culture. on why we think for a host of reasons this concept ties into where we are and can help us do good policy for the american people. >> a quick follow-up to say this -- he >> it can be a disincentive. i got you. >> there are two there. we will get them both. >> if you are familiar with me

-- to points of clarification. as part of jordan that, i understand the labor participation but the reconciliation measure, deficit neutral without having to do it since you don't believe the tax bill needs to be revenue neutral? >> i'm not saying it needs to be deficit neutral, it's just a way to get past the logjam right now. inthe 11 years i've been congress, this is the latest we have ever done a budget and we don't have an agreement. we've never done a budget in june except one other year and that was last year when we didn't do a budget. there's not an agreement on a spending number. there just isn't. we are saying we think there's a way forward with this land

because we know it will achieve real savings and we know it helps with labor economics. a win/win/win across the board and it's a way to get password we are in the congress. >> don't you need deficit neutral rules in the senate? so you of them could be don't get sold deficit neutral, but we're hoping to get closer to that. >> now we are getting wonky here. reform the welfare postal which is an increase in revenue if you look at that. if you look at the four points that we lay out and the back of analysis, it should get us there. but if it doesn't, you look at

the tax cuts and have them expire in year nine as the bush tax cuts did. up beingose ended permanent. as a fallback edition, you write the instructions to be there but we need to be specific and include jim jordan's idea and as we do that, it will help to define the debate and work toward the real decision we need to make over the next four weeks. >> my other question was repatriation over the next 20 months. are you talking about the next 20 months from the enactment of a tax bill or a separate repatriation that would come -- >> i think you make it part of that. thank you for clarifying. i think you make the tax cuts that we have retroactive so you the the actually affecting

country as quickly as possible. i don't see doing repatriation as a standalone. i think it has to be part of a comprehensive four-point plan. >> are you talking about mandatory or a tax holiday that is optional? >> i don't think you make anything mandatory. , if it's not enough to bring things back, then they won't ring it back. opinion, back of the envelope, another 400 billion in terms of revenue coming back. >> your colleague, a former colleague, mick mulvaney when he released trump's ajit and

testified before the budget there were $300 billion of unauthorized spending programs that had expired. are 48 programs and i'm curious as the budget program goes through, what's the getlihood those programs not funded in the 2018 budget? >> slender enough. that.can agree with >> zombie programs are hard to kill and one of the most important reforms toward that is gary palmer's has a -- gary palmer has a bill. spend $600ies billion year and you put the strings attached and use the power of the purse and say none of these funds shall be used for whatever and they say this is not appropriated money, this is our money. these fines and lawsuits, they spend over half $1 trillion year

unaccountably and it should be deposited in the treasury and a ask for its bad -- they ask for back and it is appropriated. a lot of these zombie agencies would go away if these things are not appropriated in a given year. >> we have time for one last question. and i'm going to ask it. [laughter] we have talked a lot about reconciliation and deficit neutrality and budget neutrality or revenue neutrality. the you not about expanding budget window so you get more of the dynamic impact of the taxes? would it help ease some of those procedural barriers that we have? somethink there have in real discussion looking at maybe a 15 year budget window to look at some of that.

this is the only place i know of that puts these artificial time frames on the way that you calculate this. i'm not going to bash omb even though i might like to do it but i will give you a prime example. we have natural gas and oil reserves on federal lands right now. when you tap those natural gas and oil reserves, it is a net cost, not a revenue producer. the way they score it say that it is costing us something. they make the assumption that it is already being tapped. it defies logic. either you are pulling it out or goting it in, but we've some very interesting rules is the way i would put it. looking at a budget window that goes to 15 years certainly -- we would be willing to look at some

of those revised models. >> i'm open to any structural process change that makes sense. you don't do an appropriations process -- you can't have a spending bill unless you have a budget. you can't have tax reform -- you have to get a budget. says now, the trump budget we are going to puff of defense of lower nondefense discretionary. we have appropriators say you can't lower this number and armed services guys saying you can't just take it up and then the numbers the trump budget puts forward. you have three basic groups that agreement and we know that's a fact because it just happened last year. the structural process changes we want but nothing moves forward.

if someone could come up with a better idea than the one we are putting forward which is do this kind of welfare reform which saves money and helps american people, if someone can come up with a better idea, we are all ears but no one can. that is the key thing in the short term to do all these things we promised the american people we would do. >> jim is absolutely right and there's the political angle, the right wing versus left wing debate and we all hate each other. bernie sanders and the bernie phenomenon with the trump phenomena and train the swamp. i saw bernie at the white house -- i just see both sides of leadership doling out for trillion dollars to their buddies. what do you think is going on here? in process put stuff, this room is all full of process geniuses and article one

people. we put in a balanced budget adding and it gets 50 votes. has twoip on both sides a-ok these things and that is what jim is getting at. leadership has to say yes, but the swamp is addicted partly because 75% of the budget you cannot touch. the rest of it is a lot of good stuff. war and was saying there's all this money to be had and you think it's sitting there and we pay so much billions to dead people and we have colleagues that found that money and it turns out it's going to somebody , it's just in some other pot, so it is fungible. we need to get leadership on both sides of the aisle to the sides that take discipline over the long run. lining all of these things up

so we can move forward and get to the process that exists, the structure that exists today is a status quo structure. one year today. [applause] in the past year, you look at the structure. we had a rubric doing mergers and acquisitions. the strategy, we have laid it out. i've got a party platform and i've talked about incentivizing work. strategy. the structure is designed to preserve the status quo and we have to look at the structure and say is this structure a holdover from when democrats ran this place? we need to build a structure that's going to actually change the status quo. is talking about one of

those important paradigms. we have to do the labor market but we have to get this artificial dividing line from defense discretionary and nondefense discretionary and move it to mandatory. mandatory growth rate in spending is off the charts. write or wrongly under the sequester, we've had more mandatory iscause growing at such a rate. many of the means tested programs are in that mandatory piece. there's no cap on the amount of money. of the most important structural reforms that we have to do. don't get to mandatory spending, it will bankrupt the country. everyone talks about intellectually but they today, it preserves ace trucks are on a collision course with bankruptcy.

jim's plan on welfare reform is something we need to do, not only for the budget numbers but america where i've got hundreds of jobs in my district that if thee filled tomorrow person would may 2 basic criteria -- pass a drug test and show up to work. thatis a pretty low bar they could fill good paying -- i'm talking about substantially good paying jobs. we need to do that for the workforce, but the other thing we must do is we have to make some decisions. it is time to make some decisions. fouris why i say principles in four weeks, let's get to it. there's a budget deal that could happen if you adopt jim's plan. we will work on the numbers, but only if we make the decision to

do it now. >> thank you very much. what a great way to end the program. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

>> monday night on "the communicators" -- >> i decided there was a column in championing average people who did not want to be techies

and challenging the company's, the industries to serve this people. >> the first of a two-part conversation with one of the best-known technology washers -- watchers. he will talk about the gadgets and issues he's seen and protections of tech development. >> i believe we are going to see a big burst of new stuff in the next five to 10 years, virtual reality, augmented reality, artificial intelligence. i think all kinds of new ways of driving cars. we have a little taste of it but we are going to see a lot more. communicators on c-span two. >> c-span, where history unfolds daily. in