ROUGHLY EDITED COPY





NORTHEAST INDIANA DISABILITY ADVOCACY COALITION

A POLITICAL FORUM WITH REP. MARK SOUDER, REPUBLICAN



FRIDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2008, 6:30 7:30 p.m.



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This is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in Order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.



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>> Tom O'Neill: We do have a Congressman. He's caught in traffic. He will be another 10 minutes. There are refreshments over on the table over here.

Is this on? Thank you. Good evening. My name is Tom O'Neill. On behalf of the Northwest Indiana Disability Advocacy Coalition, I want to welcome you to this political forum. In putting this together, nine disability organizations representing service and advocacy have come together to bring public policy and legislative issues to light and to learn where two Congressional candidates stand on issues that are so important to the disability community. The nine disability organizations that are part of this coalition include ACT, which is Autism Community Together, AWS, Easter Seals, ARC, The League for the Blind, Masonic Center for Learning, Northeast Indiana Autism Support Group and Turnstone.

Over the course of the past five months, representatives from these nine organizations have met regularly to work on this forum and to capture the essence of the issues that are relevant and germane to us. Our objective is to be inclusive of those who are part of the disability community.

Regardless of the disability, what is common to all of us who are part of this community are public policy and legislative initiatives that come from both Washington, D.C. and Indianapolis. The focus this evening is Washington and the impact of the disability community on public policy and legislation that comes from Washington, D.C.

Tonight is the second of our two forums. This evening, we have with us Congressman Mark Souder. Congressman Souder is the incumbent and he has held his seat since 1994.

Our moderator for this evening is Mr. Vince Robinson. I will introduce Vince in a moment and then turn the mic over to him. Mr. Robinson, as part of his opening remarks, will explain the process that we will be following this evening.

On your way in, you should have been handed 3x5 cards. If you need more cards, please raise your hand and let one of the moderators know. The 3X5 cards are to be used to write out questions that you want presented to Congressman Souder this evening. The opportunity for the questions from the floor will follow Congressman Souder's introduction and his response to the questions that were presented to him by the coalition prior to the event this evening.

Congressman Souder's opponent, Mike Montagano, was provided with and asked the exact same questions when he was with us on October 10th.

If there is anyone in our audience who would like assistance in forming their question for Congressman Souder, again, please quietly raise your hand during his presentation, and one of our moderators will come and assist you.

The moderators will also be around to pick up questions during the presentation by Congressman Souder.

From the questions that are collected from the floor, and in an effort to be fair and representative of our community, these questions will then be reviewed and a select number will be asked of Congressman Souder by Mr. Robinson. Only those questions written on the 3X5 cards will be presented to the Congressman.

As I mentioned a moment ago, our moderator this evening is Vince Robinson. Vince worked in radio television and print and is an award winning journalist. He is cofounder and editor of Ink Newspaper, a weekly publication focusing on news for and about Northeast Indiana's black community. Over the last seven years, Ink has become one of the premier independent publications in the state of Indiana earning awards from the U.S. Small Business Administration, the Greater Fort Wayne Chamber of Commerce, the Three Rivers Literacy Alliance and the NAACP.

Vince's professional experiences include news reporting and anchoring for WFIE TV in Evansville, WANE TV in Fort Wayne, WEWS TV in Cleveland, Ohio and WRTV TV in Indianapolis. Vince's experience also includes having served as news director of WANE TV and managing editor and interim news director of WRTV. He is also currently host of Comcast Newsmakers and a host of WFWA TV Healthline program.

I told Vince he's with us every Sunday morning in the family room as we're eating a late breakfast. I'm a news junky and that's my time to watch TV.

Vince served as Director of Public Information and Government Relations for Mayor Graham Richard, this during his first term as mayor of Fort Wayne. He is also responsible for overseeing and in that position, Vince was responsible for overseeing all communications for the Mayor's office, this including news conferences, writing speeches, maintaining the city's website and producing and hosting programs for the city's cable access channel.

Vince also served as liaison between the City of Fort Wayne and other units of local and state government. Vince is an active member of the community. He is Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Fort Wayne Allen County Convention and Visitors' Bureau, and he also serves on the boards of Indiana Tech, Imagine Master Academy, the African American/American Historical Society, Museum Junior League of Northwest Indiana and the Urban Coalition.

This evening we are being recorded thanks to Norm Compton from the library. And to find out when this will be shown on Access Television, if you want to write down this number, I will give it to you. You can call 421 1250. Once again it's 421 1250.

Vince, thanks for being with us tonight. And welcome.

[Applause.]

>> VINCE ROBINSON: Thank you, everyone. My job this evening is really to keep things moving. So I'll be timekeeper as well as introducing Congressman Souder and posing the questions to him. Let me give you just a quick overview of how this will work.

This forum is divided, really, into four sections. We will first have an opportunity for Congressman Souder to make an opening statement. Then I will present to Congressman Souder the 10 questions that he was presented with ahead of time, and we will get his answers to those questions.

After that portion of the event, we will take questions from you in the audience, the handwritten questions on the 3X5 cards. And hopefully we'll have a half an hour to 45 minutes for that segment of the program.

And then after that, we'll have a little time for networking and kind of just a reception. We have refreshments here, as well. Those will be the four segments of the program.

Let me start by introducing Congressman Souder. And again he will give some opening remarks before we start with the questions.

U.S. Representative Mark Souder was first elected to Congress in 1994 after working for U.S. Senator Dan Coats for 10 years during Coats' tenure in the House and Senate. A senior member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, Congressman Souder is the lead Republican on the Subcommittee on Border Maritime and Global Counter Terrorism. He's also a senior member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and the House Committee on Education and Labor. Through his committee and floor work, Congressman Souder has been a champion of legislation to make faith based organizations eligible to receive federal grants, to help address cultural problems such as drug addiction, teen pregnancy and gang activity.

The cofounder and cochairman of the National Parks Caucus, Congressman Souder is one of Congress's strongest supporters of our nation's national parks, monuments and historical sites.

On a personal note, having served in city government with Mayor Richard during his first term, I had a chance to personally work with Congressman Souder and found him to be very responsive to this community's needs.

So with that, I'd like to introduce Congressman Souder for a brief opening statement.

[Applause.]

>> MARK SOUDER: Can you hear me okay? Thank you for having me here tonight. My voice is scratchy. In addition to allergies and fighting an infection, a sinus infection, we haven't been able to lick, obviously this time of year with the cold going in and out and constantly being on the campaign trail, I'm really wrestling with my voice. That cookie was my dinner because I didn't get to eat all my lunch. So pardon me for that.

Let me just mention two things here at the beginning. One is that most of you know who I am. You know that I am blunt, that this is a time when we're in the middle of an election. I have an opponent who answers yes to every question and every single questionnaire no matter if the groups are contradictory. You may not like my answers as much because they are nuanced. Obviously funding questions are difficult. Under a Democrat Congress with a Democrat President, you didn't get all your things funded. Under a Republican Congress and Republican President you didn't get all your things funded. Any time someone comes up here and answers all the questions yes, you know right away they don't know the issue. That's the plain truth. I could answer yes to each of these on funding. There are tough tradeoffs. IDEA and others are tough questions are tough questions. And in looking this through, you have to look at somebody's record, how they handle it, how they're straightforward, where the battle grounds are and not just take "oh somebody said they're going to give us all this money" because that isn't the way the system works.

Second, the second part of it is that I don't believe there was a question on what was actually the most controversial thing that we moved through this year that I cosponsored over the objections of our leadership that managed to move through, and that's the ADA Amendments that Congressman Sensenbrenner who was the sponsor, his wife pounded on me to get on and I was one of the original lead Republicans on that bill. There are nuances on that. We could talk about it later. But this was very critical. I have a Bill on religious discrimination in the workplace, and this is very similar.

Where in the fine definitions of if you have diabetes, does that mean you're disabled if you can take something to treat it? And what is the total job limitation? In court cases, we're tilting that if you could take a treatment or if you had really bad eyesight but had glasses with it, it wasn't necessarily job limiting.

How you define a disability was gradually getting defined narrower and narrower. And so the general feeling was these amendments needed to rebroaden the definition in the courts. That, needless to say, was opposed by the business community, much like even though it says it can't be extra hardship, as a practical matter, it does change the balance of power to where the company has to prove that somebody who has a disability can perform, that the work can't be performed, that they don't have another job, that the person having a disability having to prove to the company that they can't do the job. And that kind of balance of power is very important as to how things are accommodated and was a historic piece of legislation that's moving through and that I worked with that. But I wanted to point that out because it wasn't in the list of questions partly because it's done. But what I'm telling you is that through from the time I first ran for Congress, that, when possible, I work and advocate your positions more so than somebody who necessarily would be a conservative Republican has done so.

At the same time, I'm likely to not agree on some of the spending bills at the end of the day and we'll work through the questions individually because you don't usually get a clean vote of "here's the spending like this." It's usually tradeoff votes. I'll work through those in the questions.

But I wanted to be up front in the beginning that one way you tell whether somebody really knows what they're talking about is whether they just tell you yes every time you get a question, because it's easy to say yes. And then what's hard is to explain the tradeoffs that you have.

And when the government is going into a potentially trillion dollar debt this year, where do we put priorities? And how do you fight for edges in prioritizing inside that? And what's most important? And what tradeoffs you are and which parts of policy and which parts of money. Thank you.

>> VINCE ROBINSON: Let's get started with the questions on what I think will probably be a very lively discussion if your opening remarks are any indication.

Again, these questions were given to Congressman Souder ahead of time, which I think is a great idea. It allows for some very thoughtful answers.

Let me start with the first question. According to the most current U.S. Census Bureau data, more than 21% of the nation's population has one or more disabling conditions, conditions which interfere with accomplishing the routine activities of daily life. Given this 21% figure, it is likely that everyone in America is or will be close to someone with a disability over the course of their lifetime.

Two questions here: What is your personal experience with people with disabilities? The second question. The Northeast Indiana Disability Advocacy Coalition is comprised of nine disability organizations representative of various disabilities. What is the most effective means for us to provide you with accurate and up to date information on disability issues?

So the first question, what's your experience with people with disabilities?

And then how can this coalition provide you with accurate information?

>> MARK SOUDER: My first and most personal exposure to disabilities is with my dad's brother, Oren Grabel. They were partners with my grandma and grandpa. Our lots were all shared. My uncle had a daughter born substantially younger than me, Calissa, who was born basically with only partial one leg. And her internal organs meant that soon she would die by age 10 and she died I believe at age 12. She had excellent mental capacity right up until she died. She knew in her opinion she was going to go to Heaven. She tried to comfort the people around her as they realized she was fading. She was the Easter Seals poster person, I believe, multiple times in Fort Wayne and was an astounding individual.

But I watched my uncle's minimal faith be shaken, why this could happen, how could this happen to Colissa? Why is this kind of burden there? Even when she was I think 11 years old, you could hold her in your arm. It was something you don't forget. It's your house's back door and you're immediate first cousins.

My wife is here. Do you want to stand up for a second? No? We grew up in the same denomination. We had known each other. But when we were in grad school at Notre Dame, we got to know each other better and eventually got married. She is an occupational therapist by training. Her job was to do the outpatient kids at the Logan school up in South Bend. Kids who could be rehabbed.

After we got married and lived in Minneapolis, she did some there. We came back out at Fort Wayne and at the state hospital and training center, her job was to set up the feeding program. Let's say she has more patience than me. The process of doing a feeding program there was kin after maybe a year or two, somebody moved the spoon. It was a totally different challenge.

There are other things with that, but that, while it wasn't an immediate personal family thing, certainly I would be exposed to what she was doing with that and so on.

The third, without getting into too much detail, my sister and her brother adopted two kids from Romania who basically in Indianapolis they believe they may be two, if not the most severe problems they've seen in Indiana, they're certainly right behind. It has been just let me say they love the kids. They're committed to the kids, but it's been hell on earth. It has been a challenge of the daughter is right now in a children's facility because of threatened violence that they were so abused in every way and had multiple disabilities.

You hope that you can reach I knew when they adopted from Romania they were taking a high risk. I don't believe that was disclosed how high risk. But it is something every time we get together as a family that we work through and we see it. And that you just hope that somehow you can reach each one of them and somehow there will be a breakthrough.

On the other hand, you look at this and go, boy, what happens as they get older? They adopted them at four or five, you start to see, since they both have gypsy background in them, the other kids at school start to stereotype them as they start to fall behind, start to make comments about their skin color. They become more sensitive to that. They live down in Kokomo. These are tough questions.

Now depending on what kind of challenges you're facing, they are more or less severe, more or less mainstream, but they are about as serious a case as you can find.

So, yes, I've been exposed to it. I've heard it in different ways. And I see it not only from a policy standpoint but from a personal.

The second part was

>> VINCE ROBINSON: How can the coalition keep you abreast on some of these issues?

>> MARK SOUDER: What I find is that what I told some people about tonight's meeting. I'm meeting the most passionate people that there are, because if you have what happens is just like my brother and sister, everything in your life starts to spin around the challenge that you have if you have kids like that or a family member or you're worried. And it's nothing that any person or government can ever satisfy. Because the demands are so overwhelming. So that what I know is I'll never satisfy parents of special needs kids no matter how much I do, no matter how much I support, it will never be satisfied because it's all consuming. It just changes your life. And that's your focus.

But that in this, I don't find that the groups have been particularly shy, that when there's something, regardless what subgroup it is, they'll tell us.

But part of what was very important, I believe when I first ran, there was a meeting like this down at the former state hospital where the groups basically came in and we started to go through this. As we worked through IDEA, different groups. I worked with Tom with the Down's Syndrome.

One of the things and the reason I was early on and basically under Republicans pushing the IDEA was Dave Hoppy who was then close Chief of Staff and had a child who had Down's Syndrome. Basically the two of us were working with the underbrush of some of the Republican opposition with this and in the process tried to look at what are the different challenges?

As we go into how we fund this in the schools, how we fund the different specifics of doing this, that what you find when you actually work with it is that different subgroups inside the disabilities community don't always agree, either. In other words, what the process should be in a classroom, what the process should be in independent living, what the process should be with should there be should ARC or Neederman have problems like the old Johnny Appleseed Center immediately come to my mind where there are work programs that are there. Should they be mainstreamed into the work community or should they be independent?

Look, the key thing is that the groups find me. And then if I have questions, I know who their groups are, I go to them to find if there is a nuance.

>> VINCE ROBINSON: How do they best interface with you?

>> MARK SOUDER: There isn't a best way to interface. First off let me say that first off you should express yourself, which I don't find is a problem.

Then the next thing is that all the groups, there is no disability group that does not come to Washington when there's a disability issue. Lack of information coming in from disability groups is not short. In other words, there is no shortage in disability groups getting into our office and getting in information.

But we need to know who the local groups are, the staff. Look, I was a staff so I'm not ashamed to say this. A member is going 100 miles I don't think you could find a Democrat in Congress that wouldn't say Souder is one of the most he's like a staffer who is a member. So I'm going to be more informed than most members.

But you don't expect the head of GM to know every little nuance. You hire staff to do that. So in my case it's Brett who works these issues on the Education Committee. They come in, they meet with him. They do it. He tells me on an as needed basis. Or he makes sure I have the information. I always ask has anybody contacted us from Fort Wayne? Do we have any mail or email? Has anybody called? Have any of the groups come in? It's helpful.

Because if there's something that's a nuance, because what I'm looking for is: Is there a difference in my district than national? The national groups will be coming in. Is there something that we're not getting in the basic information that needs to go through? But we do not have a shortage of information. We just need to know so if we have a question that comes through I had Tom and asked him to speak because we were doing a series of educational forums on No Child Left Behind. Look, this is a huge question whether in changing the standards, the fight is over, those of you who have kids in the school, you're the fight in No Child Left Behind, that and language. They can talk about everything else and the test scores and everything else, but it's a fight over your kids and whether they have to be mainstreamed or not and counted in the scores. If we take them out of the scores, they're not going to have the same kind of programming, it's that simple. And we need to make sure it's in we will relax this some and try to accommodate the schools, what are the tradeoffs? So I wanted to make sure that the disability community is there. The more I know the different variations of it, we can include it as we go into the No Child Left Behind debate.

>> VINCE ROBINSON: Very helpful to know. Let's go to the second question. The Individuals with Disabilities Act will come up for re authorization in 2010. Going back to 1975 when originally passed, the Act has never been fully funded by the Federal Government. For the first 20 years it was funded by the Federal Government at 8%. It is currently funded at 16%. Over the years, there have been a number of proposals put forth in both the House and the Senate to address the funding issue.

Now there are two questions here, but let me read another statement here first.

One of the key elements of the Act is funding for the state system for early intervention services. These services are designed to help infants and toddlers with disabilities and their families. The number of children served by this program has increased 70% since 1993, yet funding has not kept pace with either the need or inflation.

The question is: In light of the current economic challenges facing all of us, what can what will you do to ensure that our nation's schools have the resources they need to meet the needs of students with disabilities?

>> MARK SOUDER: This is the first point where I'm going to just give you this right there. I say and other Republicans will often say, when the Democrats propose a new program, why are you doing this if you haven't fully funded IDEA?

Let's be honest here. The fundamental premise is dishonest. IDEA has not been unfunded. You said it's going to be re authorized. Authorizing bills have nothing to do with funding. That's an appropriations question. Totally different committee. Authorizing committee sets the maximum cap that can be funded. It's a goal. So therefore to say it's not fully funded is not true. What it is is we haven't reached the goal that we set, which is true. We have not reached it.

In that there were statements made that we were going to do a better job of reaching that goal, and we have not done a good enough job of reaching that goal. But to say it wasn't funded is to show that you don't know the difference between an appropriations and an authorizations committee. What the authorizations committee said is: Here is our goal of covering. The appropriators then on an annual basis decide how much to put in.

The debate is: There is X amount of dollars that's going to be spent in education. How is it going to be subdivided? Every time there's a new program, it comes out of a pie that might increase slightly, but you're taking it from other sections. So we as Republicans, because we tend to not believe the Federal Government should be the dominant place in education I'm going to digress a second.

How would I as a conservative Republican who doesn't feel that the Federal that the Constitution is silent on education, which means it's specifically left to the power of the state. So how did I get in a position of favoring Federal intervention? Here's the philosophical logic.

The first category we got in is Title 1 in minority coverage, basically. Because I visited, for example, a school, this was in the '80s in southern I believe Virginia or northern North Carolina where the white population had pulled out of the public schools, left the minority children there, they didn't have running waters in the bath rooms in the school.

What do you do?

Or I visited a school in suburban Chicago with Jesse Jackson where less than 8% of the people had a job. They had no fundamental tax base. They changed their name to Ford City because it was so pathetic that they wanted to take the name of the adjacent Ford plant, hoping they would help out the town. They had no property taxes in their local schools.

So we had a program that interjects money, and we've done this, to places that have basically the inability to meet basic education goals.

I was convinced in the course of meeting with the disability community that IDEA was a similar type of challenge, that individual parents with kids who had disabilities were getting isolated and individually were not very influential inside the system and that the only way to deal with IDEA was to cluster the parent who had kids with disabilities and deal with it at the Federal level in a consolidated way as much as possible.

That said, once the Federal Government says "we're going to do this", before we start adding a bunch of other programs, you cannot come up to me and say "we need to do more math, science, we need to do this over here and here and we need to do IDEA." It's a zero sum game. The more that come in for education, the less funding there will be for IDEA.

The plain truth of the matter is this underfunding issue was there when you had the Democratic Congress and President. It is with the Republican Congress and President. It will be there again because there isn't enough money. So you either have to trim programs down or do the best you can.

We have increased the funding three times when we had a Republican Congress under Clinton, then it continued under Bush. Congress has increased IDEA three times more than either a Democrat President or Republican President did. It's not 5 of 5, but what we hear at the school level is that in their costs, the special needs accommodation in the IDEA is often 4/5 of their new spending. So clearly to have them if we're going to put requirements on them, this is part of what came up under No Child Left Behind, if we don't address the funding question, they want to change the requirement question.

So that we're keeping the pressure on in the requirement question, which is in my opinion more important than the funding question, but we need to increase the funding. We've steadily increased the funding. But anybody who tells you that it's suddenly going to be gap closed quite frankly isn't honest. It's a little like the notch babies and senior citizens. 380 members of Congress are on it. There are 85 Senators. I said we're not going to fix it. It's not a notch. It's a change in certain years. There isn't the money to it.

So for 20 years, they see 85% of the people claiming they're going to do it and it doesn't happen. So you have to look at the undergirding. "How do we increase the funding for IDEA?" is a legitimate question.

Now, this question of early intervention, which you want us to get IDEA more fully funded or do you want us to move some of the funding that was going to fully fund IDEA to this?

My opinion is that probably we'll put a little more into this and slow down the full funding of IDEA. Maybe a slight increase overall. But you're working within the same pool.

>> VINCE ROBINSON: Next question. According to the 2006 Disability Status Report by Cornell University, the poverty rate for non-institutionalized working people, this is ages 21 to 64, with a disability is 25.3%. This is almost three times the rate compared to those without a disability living in poverty in the United States. This is the poorest minority in our country, the country that is the world's wealthiest nation.

According to the GAO, there are 190 programs across 20 departments of Federal Government that are mandated to provide services and support for people with disabilities, including those directed to address employment issues, which impacts the issues of poverty.

With that, the unemployment rate for people with disabilities still remains extremely high and has done so for several decades. For people with an intellectual disability, the unemployment rate is 90%.

Two questions here: What will you, as the Third District Congressional Representative of Indiana, do to address both the poverty and employment unemployment situation for people with a disabilities?

And, two, what can be done and what can the Federal Government do and what will you do to eliminate the issues and confusion that comes from the 190 programs across 20 departments that are federally mandated to provide services and supports for people with disabilities?

>> MARK SOUDER: First off, I don't believe it's the obligation of the government to provide jobs. I believe it's the obligation of the government to assist people to provide as much assistance to prepare for the workplace and to provide some support system.

I understand that if somebody who has a disability has a job, they're theoretically, if you want to pursue this later, theoretically it's going to cost the government less than doing it directly. They'll also feel better about themselves. Also, it's a more humane thing to do.

Part of the challenge here is we used to basically institutionalize people. They weren't unemployed then. They were institutionalized. Technically they were unemployed but they weren't in the unemployment rate. So when you set a goal of deinstitutionalizing, by definition, you're making it more difficult. And everybody else doesn't necessarily have the obligation, then, to suddenly say "this person is going to have a job." We have an obligation to make sure they don't starve, that they're taken care of, that they have certain healthcare, which I'm sure we'll touch on, too; but there is no guarantee of a job in America. That's not the criteria.

However, we should make sure that we have training funds. That I, for example, have already said I favor sheltered workshops. That's controversial in the community. I believe in some cases every time we change the minimum wage, kids with disabilities are the first ones at the margin. The question is: Are we better off having some kind of specially targeted jobs where people can at least work part time as a supplement to this? Or just say "look, no, you got to pay them the same, put them in the same job or don't hire them." And then it's don't hire them.

This attempt on changing the ADA, these amendments are more significant, quite frankly, for job employment than a bill that hires people. What we're trying to do is change the nature of the balance to tell companies: Unless you can come up with a compelling reason that you can't find a job here, you have to accommodate the job. That is the most significant thing that we've done in the job training.

As Chairman of the Narcotics Committee, we have an additional problem. For example, I've worked with Vancouver a lot. They give out free heroine needles, free heroine shots, in the areas of low income tends to be where you will cluster many people with disabilities. Charlie Curry was a specialist in this as he became head of AMA, the health institutes and the government programs on this. About one third right now of people with disabilities are also developing drug addictions because they end up in the zones where we have the heroine needles, where we have the drug distribution and some of the different challenges. And they get caught in the low income neighborhoods. And we have what we call co occurring dependencies occurring at a frequent rate. That we have to understand from a government standpoint that we've got to treat that question.

It's partly a housing question. It's partly where people are located question. Because if you get a drug and alcohol dependency on top of having a disability, which by the way I don't believe that it's the same kind of disability, although there are elements of it that are, that in that co occurring dependency, you have an incredible problem trying to mainstream somebody into a job.

So I believe the government focus should be provide training, how to work into the workforce, how to provide supplementary assistance, how to work out part time questions, how to make sure that government agencies are sensitive.

Our federal building right now is contracted with ARC for the cleaning program. It has been honestly a mixed bag. But overall, it's been going overall well in that it's an example of how the government can lead by example.

So there are things that you can do in this, but there is no easy answer to this.

As far as the coordination, I don't know the answer to that question. You're not only dealing with all the different agencies and all the different mandates, you're dealing with different goals out of different groups. I don't know that you want a one size fits all. To some degree, the different groups wanted different sensitivities and to be treated differently. If we start we need to be more efficient, I agree with that. But to some degree, you don't want a cookie cutter because somebody who is quadriplegic has a different challenge than somebody who is blind, who is different than if it's a mental challenge, that is different than if it's you have a deteriorating as opposed to a non-deteriorating condition. We have different guidelines and different programs. I'm not sure we want a cookie cutter. We want to make it more efficient but not necessarily all streamlined.

>> VINCE ROBINSON: Next question

>> MARK SOUDER: Let me touch on this. Because even though they it is not a federal issue we wind up talking about it. In the Welfare department, when Governor Daniels contracted out and privatized, it made it more efficient, but it missed its human side. And the question is: Do you have to have something that in effect becomes fairly inefficient in bureaucracy, which is what we had? Or is it something so inefficient that it doesn't know somebody's name? How can we have enough flexible and yet there's enough flexibility and humanity in it that you don't put everybody in a cookie cutter.

>> VINCE ROBINSON: Our next question. You mentioned healthcare would come up and here it is. There's a great deal of discussion this election cycle about healthcare reform. For people and families with a disability, this can be a particularly daunting issue, an issue that too often causes both financial and basic healthcare stress for individuals with a disability and their family. Community living assistance services and support act, or the class act, has been introduced in Congress. This piece of legislation will create a nationwide voluntary insurance program to help people with disabilities receive coverage for long term care expenses that would not be covered by public or private insurance. It would be financed through voluntary payroll deductions of $30 per month. This legislation would help remove barriers to independence that can be overwhelmingly costly, providing $50 to $100 per day cash benefits to those individuals unable to perform normal daily living activities.

There are three questions here: What are you prepared to do to ensure that people with a disability have access to quality, affordable healthcare that is responsive to their needs? And do you support the community living assistance services and support act, or the class act, and if not, why not?

>> MARK SOUDER: I actually looked ahead at the next question. I did this earlier today but I need to regear.

The question is to me what are we currently providing? What's the mix of how this is running through other housing programs, other healthcare programs? Are individuals in this tapping into community health centers? Does this mean they're not eligible for that? Are they tapping into Section 8 housing? Does it mean they're not eligible for that? Like you mentioned in the last question, there are all these different agencies. And I'd want to look at this.

Obviously we have broad challenges in healthcare. I think one of the most cynical statement I have heard in the debate is for Senator Obama is to say his healthcare doesn't cost anything. I don't know how anybody could think healthcare doesn't cost anything. We can disagree how we're going to pay for it but there is no such thing as free healthcare.

We have a very broad debate going on right now about how we're going to pay for healthcare. My tiered position, so you kind of understand the fundamental, is I believe the Federal Government's responsibility are for those who least can take care of themselves and the least responsibility is for those who most can take care of themselves. And that you have gradations in this.

I have long supported programs that are targeted more tightly to poverty than targeted to category. Years ago when I worked for Dan Coats in the children family committee, there was an article about George Miller, who now heads the education committee and then was head of the children and family committee in coats' ranking. There was an irony here. Coats was trying to target to the poor and Miller was trying to broaden it to the middle and upper class. Miller's philosophy was that programs would be more supported if you get a broader base. Our position was as the Federal Government isn't responsible for everybody, that there has to be some kind of shared.

Now, I believe that probably Senator Obama will win. Probably the Democrats are going to increase in the Senate and the house. And what we're going to be debating about is how much the priorities will be and what are the priorities inside the healthcare? I believe we need some sort of catastrophic, but as I was told, it really isn't catastrophic. Catastrophic is part of it. It is those who need a continuum of care. In other words, if you take the 20% that are taking 80% of the costs, that what we have to do if we're going to have any kind of private pay in our system, is the government is going to have to rift share the most important cluster and then see if we have any private part left that pays for the innovation of it. Rather than I don't favor a total sweeping.

My guess is that most of what you're talking about here would be in the longer term, more constant care, particularly as people age out of their homes, if they're going to be in independent living. That would be one of the priorities in it. That doesn't mean I will back a particular bill. I'm a Republican with a democratic majority. That doesn't mean I'm not in agreement with the basic goals. It might mean I don't sign on a particular bill. Yes, I believe both sides will address this question. I believe there will be some progress. It won't be enough. But it'll be addressed inside the basic healthcare debate because this population is a high risk population inside of a very difficult, complex issue.

>> VINCE ROBINSON: Next question. The financial savings account for people with disabilities act is introduced in the house by Congressman Krenshaw and Meeks and in the Senate by senators Casey and hatch. This would create a tax advantaged savings account, much like an IRA, that would allow families and individuals with a disability to save money for education, healthcare needs, housing, employment and transportation. Three questions here.

Are you familiar with the financial savings account for people with disabilities act? And do you support it? If not, is there something else that you would propose to address this issue? And then what are your thoughts on the concept of families and individuals using a vehicle like this to address these issues?

>> MARK SOUDER: This, if I can digress just a second. One of the challenges you face as a member of Congress is to your community, you'll see all sorts of bills come up. You write letters on it and so on. Every category of government, every organization that has something often, partly to justify the purpose of their organization, but partly because the purpose of their organization is to advocate their group, it's hard to tell which is which. They will have a bill introduced. People are writing letters. There will never be a hearing on it. It's all mostly for people to get fired up about.

But it does still advance the cause some.

So we'll have thousands of bills that we don't necessarily know about because they've never reached the threshold. Then when they reach the threshold, the question is are you on that committee or did anybody in particular do it?

Part of the things about this is this has forced me to look at some things that weren't really in anybody's agenda that are moving, but when we looked at this, I said why wouldn't I be for this? It's basically a Republican concept.

Now, to put it in, that's why Krenshaw came up with it, a Republican friend of mine. But let's be realistic. Having a savings account like this, as good as it is, does not fundamentally address the biggest problems in society because as you can see, it goes up and down in value. It's more of something, it's more for middle class, upper middle class.

But I as a Republican would tend to favor things like direct intervention for those who can't afford it. Then you would have a transition like this for those who can put some money in. Then the question is at some parts of this, do we do a credit or a match if that is not sufficient? There are variations that you do here. And I believe the more you've been given, the more you have some obligation to try to do this. That the less you've been given, the more the government takes responsibility. I view this as a good idea. I would never pretend, which some people do, that this is a solution to the problem, because it's a partial solution to an immense problem.

>> VINCE ROBINSON: Next question. It has been documented that it's cheaper to maintain a person with long term healthcare needs in their own home rather than place them in a nursing home or institution. However, the majority of the nation's long term healthcare dollars for people with a disability are still earmarked for placement in nursing homes. It is the coalition's belief that most of us, given the opportunity, would rather remain in our own home.

In the two previous administrations, presidents George H. W. bush and President Clinton, there was momentum to redirect federal funds from institutional and nursing home care to community based care. Central to the proposals to redirect the federal funds is offering individuals with a disability greater individual controls and resources. The Community Choice Act of 2007 was introduced in the Congress to address this issue. Four questions here.

Do you believe that at least the majority of people with disabilities are better off, assuming it is their choice, served in their own home? And if you agree with that, what steps can you offer? Or what will you do to ensure that people with a disability who choose to remain, who can remain in their own home with healthcare supports needed to be independent, safe and well cared for, what steps would you do to ensure that?

Do you support the Community Choice Act? And if not, why not? Is there something else that you think would be better?

>> MARK SOUDER: Of course it would be best if each individual could be in their own home. It would be best if each senior could be in their own home. It would be best if we could do that. But I'm going to go into finances a minute. I'm going to lose some people with this because it sounds very accounting like in an emotional area.

When I worked for Dan Coats with the children family, as a program that was pioneered in Maine, Indiana and other states copied, it was an intervention program that said "when kids hit the system, whether it's juvenile system or which center or that type of thing" they cost more. And if we could do an aggressive intervention, we could save those costs and do an intensive intervention at home would save us money.

The original program saved a lot of money. They were court assigned kids. That when you intervened, you could save the money.

As this played through, what happened was as courts then started to assign more kids to the program, knowing they would intervene, then they decided to start intervening before the courts assigned them. And that now it has become a money sink hole and it's costing us far more for this intervention than putting them in.

One of the things that happens is if you do it as a last resort, so to speak, at the end, that in many cases, families, rather than having somebody be institutionalized, will take care of them themselves. Or a church will take care of them themselves. And they never hit the government. But if they think the government's going to do it, it will all go to the government. Then there's a question of who did it save money? That the proposal is that the Federal Government layout the cash, but the bulk of this falls to state and local.

But the answer is that the state isn't putting up the money, the Federal Government's putting up the money. It is not factually true to say that it's cheaper for the Federal Government or any kind of financial question for intervention to have the Federal Government take the cost unless it's split between private, state, local and everybody else who does it. It's just not been borne out. That groups come in and tell me that, it's not factual. They've never split the different branches of government. They've never talked about how private intervenes to avoid that.

Now, the question is: That becomes a philosophical question. Well, do you believe that that's the right thing to do to kind of put pressure on other groups or that the Federal Government has an obligation? That's a fundamental philosophical question. I don't believe the Federal Government bears sole responsibility for this.

The second part of this is: Do you believe that it is best? Yes. But do we always get to choose our choice if we don't have the resources, if we haven't put it together, do you always get your first choice?

It's a zero sum game. The social issue spending, let's take the state of Indiana, it doesn't matter whether we have Republican or Democrats, money for juvenile justice hasn't gone up, the money for mental health goes up about the same. Because you're going to have basic functions of government that get in different sections.

So when you prioritize this, the question is: Inside the health in this field, are we better off spending it so people can live in their own home as opposed to going into institution? Are we better in spending it in better healthcare? Are we better at spending it in job training? Are we better spending it in immunization? In drug and co dependency?

You have a whole series of different forms of questions of how you want to subdivide that dollar. In that I believe that this should be one of the factors in it. We have had a huge problem with home healthcare because it is the fastest growing portion of the budget in healthcare. It was a great idea. Everybody would prefer to do that. But it's not clear at the margin whether that's the best, efficient way to use dollars. It's certainly the preferred way and something that if we can do it and balance it, I'd like to see that done. But it isn't necessarily.

So, no, I do not say I will back a particular bill on how to do this. What I want to know, and this is the type of thing that we'll try to listen to the disability community is: Which one of these are your priority? And all of the above is not one of the choices.

>> VINCE ROBINSON: We have three more of the prepared questions. We will try to get through these fairly quickly so we can get through the questions from the audience.

Senators Dominici and Enzi, in a spirit of bipartisanship, have introduced the Mental Health Parity Act. The Senate Finance Committee has agreed to introduce this which would require offsets in its tax extenders legislation. It would address the unfair standards that are applied to mental health insurance coverage.

Two questions: Would you support a House version of the Mental Health Parity Act? And if not, why not? If not, is there something else that you would support to address the issue of mental health parity insurance coverage?

>> MARK SOUDER: I'm going to use to make a couple of side points. I worked on this issue for drug and alcohol parity with Jim ram stead. Paul well stone had a mental health parity. Eventually these two bills were merged together. I was worried that it would be too much and the unintended consequences, companies would drop health insurance. But nevertheless, because we have a rider in that bill that said it could only go up by a certain amount, the fact is that it's not clear that you can actually provide the mental health coverage and the drug and alcohol coverage by the percent we say it can go up. But that objection was a bogus objection by the drug and insurance groups. By I digress.

There has been incredible misrepresentation in talk radio and elsewhere about what happened with the financial rescue bill in that the general impression is that things were added to the rescue bill as sweeteners to get votes. And this is one of them.

That what happened was on Monday, the rescue bill was defeated. I had voted for the tax bill, quite frankly, with the Democrats several times. The Senate was prepared to move the tax bill with even the arrows portion in it, it was done. That was just a tax extender for Boy Scouts, ironically, for arrows. The mental health parity bill was moving separately. But there was a question whether the President might veto the mental health parity bill. It wasn't as a sweetener, let's be honest. It was for a cover as the financial economy was crashing behind the scenes, to come back and switch their votes. So the tax bill that was going to become law and the mental health parity that was hanging out there got attached to it. Probably it would have become law, anyway. And then members could say "oh before I didn't get to vote on the tax bill or the mental health parity." We had already passed it through the house. All the Senate had to do with zip it over to the president. So it's law. It was part of the rescue package.

>> VINCE ROBINSON: One of the most challenging aspects for people living with a disability those otherwise impacted by a disability is understanding and accessing the social service programs and supports that are set up to assist people with a disability. Elected officials, community leaders and the systems designed to help too often pass the buck with us. The state officials tell us that it is the responsibility of the Federal Government. And the federal officials tell us that it is the responsibility of the state. The government accounting office restate that there is poor coordination between state and federal programs. The question: What do you perceive as the respective roles for the state and Federal Government regarding services and supports for people with disabilities?

>> MARK SOUDER: I'm not a Libertarian. I believe that if the Federal Government, if you're asking me to raise the taxes, I can put guidelines on the state. I get tired of some of my conservative friends at the state who say that oh you're supposed to be a Republican. You don't put guidelines on the state. Well then the state can raise their taxes.

If you want to get the money, he who pays the piper picks the tune.

Now, to a degree, I believe that having flexibility and differences in the different states are important. Therefore, I don't want to micromanage how states necessarily get to a point. But if we say "you're going to cover X group. You're going to cover X group and then figure out how to do it". Now we have these whole questions of Interstate Commerce clause might as well be an interstate world clause right now. Things are moving across, nurses across state lines, the programs cross state lines, who runs these different centers cross state lines?

So the Federal Government's getting more involved. Clearly we're going to have to communicate better. Just like you talked about all these different programs, some of this is beyond just different programs. There's not enough communication.

But let me just tell you what the fundamental problem is. I agree with the fundamental problem. I told you look I will not vote for every spending bill. A lot of times the minority believes it should be 3% less. We will get into SCHIP in a minute. 3% but we'll have differences of spending so I'll wind up voting no on a bill when it looks like I'm against the bill when actually what I wanted to do was vote 5% less. We will have a motion to recommit. We will lose the motion to recommit where we want 5% less in it. But that's how it goes. The key thing in here is the number one problem in the differences between the state and federal and whether they're bouncing you around is they don't have enough money. So when you don't have enough money in the system, you start running into questions at the state level of how do I cover this? At the federal level, how do I cover this? In that fundamentally underneath it is there's not enough money to cover special needs kids in childcare, housing, respite care, how you're going to do job training. If you don't have enough money, then you wind up arguing who's responsible because both sides want to blame the other. There needs to be more money in the system. Won't get as much money as this. We will constantly push. I have constantly pushed to get more money into this system. Magically if there was enough money, you would have a little less arguing over who is responsible for what. We need a little bit better coordination. But the number one thing is we need more money in it quite frankly.

>> VINCE ROBINSON: The last questions before we get to the questions from the audience. We'll try to get through this quickly. All too often people with a disability access to daily life is blocked by stairs, metal doorways, other obstacles. Public businesses, healthcare and recreational facilities and polling places are frequently inaccessible, this despite the mandates of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Question: Given the lack of a gatekeeper for enforcing these codes and laws, what do you propose be done to ensure site access for all of our citizens?

>> MARK SOUDER: I believe that while it's frustrating, the process is there how to resolve it. The clarifications in the ADA will help some. Sometimes quite frankly it takes a lawsuit. I'm not big on trial attorneys. I'm not big on lawsuits. But sometimes those define, or the threat of that defines it.

Other times it's just a matter of going in, making people aware.

Other times you have to push a little harder. Then we need a reporting place. I believe we have it. The question is if it's not being worked at the state and federal level, do we need more? But the bottom line is that I believe a lot of this is that the legal interpretations were splitting hairs, to some degree, on what you have to accommodate.

>> VINCE ROBINSON: In 2007, Congress unsuccessfully tried to update the SCHIP program. This helps provide health insurance for the children of working parents with a low income. Congress must do something on this law by March 2009. Currently SCHIP covers only 4 million children and another 4 million are eligible but not covered due to funding shortages.

Two questions: Will you support a comprehensive SCHIP bill that includes sufficient resources to cover all eligible children? If not, is there something else that you would support to address this insurance coverage need for eligible children?

>> MARK SOUDER: The two operative words in there, if you let me define the words and then answer the questions. What's sufficient and what's eligible? I want you to define sufficient and eligible, once you do that, you can answer the question any way you want.

Let me tell you what my position is on SCHIP. I believe that there has seldom been an issue where I've seen so much talk and misinformation about what was going on and so little willingness to accommodate. The Administration, for whatever reason in the budget, basically was showing no willingness to move whatsoever. The Democrats were showing no willingness to move beyond expanding four times past poverty. That the President at one point was willing to move to two, but two wasn't going to cover it.

John Baynor, on a bill that I support, basically takes SCHIP to twice poverty then phases up to three with credits as you move but doesn't cover to four. I believe it's New Jersey was the top that would cover up to $83,000 a family with several kids. That at three you're in the 10 range. In Indiana the top 60 with doubling poverty and then going to three you would be in the 40s.

We don't have enough money to do SCHIP for everybody. Eligibility, in my opinion, in a healthcare program should be concentrated with it's just like Pell Grants. If you give everybody a Pell grant then they don't get as much. It should be concentrated most to those who need it. Therefore to the degree you keep it down, that in the proposed funding of SCHIP, yes, if you will put a bunch more money, but if you're covering the same dollars, covering a bigger number of eligibility, then the question of how many dollars there are is less.

I believe that we need to expand the eligibility but not as far as the bill that I voted against, but more than where the President was proposing. And I believe there ought to be a transition. And I believe that we can probably meet the dollars for.

When you go higher, then you start to do other things and get into tax debates, tradeoff and spending debates.

And the other questions you asked me here, is SCHIP more important than some of the others? The higher you go with that, the more dollars you take out of the system that can be done with other things. I believe it should be concentrated greatest on the first two levels of poverty and a phase in going up to three times poverty or what in Indiana would be about 45 or 50,000. In New Jersey and the eastern states and California would be in the 65 range. I do not believe SCHIP should go to families who are in the $80,000 range. I do not believe that's poverty.

>> VINCE ROBINSON: That concludes the questions that we have provided to Congressman Souder earlier. Now I have some questions from the audience. We're going to probably take about 15 minutes or so? So I'm not sure if we'll get through all of them but we will certainly try.

This question: Our 42 year old disabled son is on nine or ten daily medications. East he's eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid of the his prescriptions are more expensive with full pays under the Medicare part D than prior to 2006. Would you support an amendment to make part D prescriptions negotiable by the Federal Government with the insurance companies?

>> MARK SOUDER: No. But I'm willing to certainly keep listening because there clearly needs to be some mechanisms to try to figure out how to negotiate this. But direct negotiation in the long haul doesn't give you very realistic floor is.

Now, there are some questions in there. Can I ask a question of the person who asked this question? Is this because you hit the donut hole? Why did it cost more under the change? Is this a change in the Medicare bill? What caused this to go up?

>> The same medications. But Medicaid prior to 2006 covered his prescriptions in full. And now there is a copayment due our son. And I might just quickly say that he works in a work shop. Easter Seals workshop. And he is so ill and disabled that he earned $172 gross dollars in the last calendar year. So he's very disabled. But he gets a higher copay now from the Medicare part D that has to be paid.

>> MARK SOUDER: So my answer to that question is that while I wouldn't necessarily say that I believe that we should do pharmaceutical negotiation. He should not have had an increase in his cost. And if he's what I refer to as catastrophic or long term care, I believe like when we were doing our Medicare meetings, that the average person was coming up with different numbers. And then we had one person that was taking $200,000. One was 40,000 a month. What we have to do is figure out some kind of a mix of where are the most expensive? And those are going to have to be risk pooled across the system.

And then where are the ones that are chronic and really expensive? How do you factor it in? How do you take those who are highest risk who are least able to take care of themselves? And it's ridiculous that they can't be covered as much.

Now if the families have some assets, I'd like to see the families try to help out. But quite frankly, there is something fundamentally wrong with the system where its costs went up. Now whether pharmaceutical direct negotiations are the way to do that or whether there's another way to do it, we have to figure out how to alleviate the pressure on the cost of prescription drugs. Some of this may be some government negotiation with this.

When the government negotiates, for a business person, we take everything at variable costs and never cover any of the fix and mix. If somebody doesn't cover the fix and mix, we will never have new drugs to worry about. It's a very easy business proposition. Eli Lilly for most of their patents for most of their products are just about up. If they don't make enough profit, Eli Lilly will essentially disappear. They have to get the pay back for most of what we do. If we want to have breakthroughs in Alzheimer's, if we want to have breakthroughs, then you have to have the dollars in the system. If we squeeze the dollars in the system, we pay variable cost, we won't have the inventions. And it will look fine for a while but long term it won't be better.

But there shouldn't be there are inequities in the system right now that are huge problems and we should address those kind of questions. That's why I wanted to know particularly what happened here. It is frustrating to me that the amount of money that we're spending that he would have been caught in that kind of system. It does not strike me as fair at all.



>> VINCE ROBINSON: Next question. Given the long wait times to receive public benefits and given the administrative waste of private healthcare, how can you justify your opposition to a well regulated public healthcare system that reduces wait times and waste?

>> MARK SOUDER: If I believe the first two, it would be hard. I don't believe that there is I believe that the efficiencies and the innovation that you get out of a private system for example, I was in the furniture business. Theoretically I have one furniture store with multiple locations, you could eliminate the waste of advertising. The wee question is: Fundamentally do you believe that innovation create more than the duplication of services do?

The problem here is we're not in a pure competition. As we move to a more oligopolic system, it is a legitimate debate we're having. I had believe that "Hillary care" in its overly simplified system come, we would have had one hospital system in this area. But by the way we had a government blended system, there wasn't going to be the rise, it wasn't pure competition. You couldn't start up a hospital system out of the blue right now and think you could compete with Lutheran. You could find niches you could do. But ultimately whether it's Du Pont or physicians plans and so on, you basically Bob and weave around the existing system. St. Joe kind of stacked hospitals. So you can have subparts with it. But basically what's happened in our area with the exception of Cameron in De Kalb, we've seen a more logical system with some semblance of competition. And we have two heart centers. Don't we have two heart centers in our area? In going through the Lutheran heart center and trying to decide where transplants are, I argued that it's good to have one in Fort Wayne, but it's a question of it's not efficient to have them multiple places where they do heart transplant surgery. We should have it all in Indianapolis. If you look at it broader, what's for the Wayne doing with these things? Are you better off having multiple things?

I believe having at least some flexibility in the system is better net in an insurance system is better net than the government. But the government's going to become increasingly involved. I see that that's the direction. And now how do we manage that so there's still some private play in it?

>> VINCE ROBINSON: Trying to get two more questions in. Some of them are similar, so maybe we will combine a couple of these questions.

As Americans, we can manage our healthcare system more effectively by putting our tax dollars into healthcare and not into the pockets of big business. Both of these questions address the same issue.

Why do you oppose a universal healthcare plan where all Americans would receive high quality care that we, healthcare providers, the question comes from a nurse, can supply? The other question also related, why is American healthcare the most expensive in the world yet the health conditions of U.S. citizens is lower than in many other industrialized nations?

>> MARK SOUDER: I don't agree with the premises. You've defined your solution. Like when I did case work, if I could define the facts, then you can define the solution.

Comparing us to Canada or Sweden statistically in the mix of challenges we have is statistically absurd. If you take the mix of challenges we have, the population we have, the legacies and the subgroups, it's statistically absurd.

Now, are there inefficiencies in our system that we need to improve? Yes. Do I personally think we have the best health system in the world, which is why the innovation in pharmaceuticals comes here. Which is why the innovation in medical devices comes from here. Why people come here because the waiting lists are too long in other places. That for the bulk of the world, there are a few examples, such as Canada, whose system is on the verge of breakup, where the government there is trying to change it. England, where both the current government of England and the opposition are saying their healthcare system has failed and they're trying to fix it. Sweden, where they changed their government. And Denmark where they have a conservative government because the healthcare system was becoming less efficient and less.

If you look at the facts, healthcare is an incredibly difficult issue because it strikes at fundamental fairness. And everybody wants it as cheap as possible, the most recent innovation for everybody. And that we have, in my opinion, a system that needs improvement. And we're going to move towards I think it's 58% of people are now currently covered federal in health programs. In the military, veterans system, those in Medicaid, community health centers, Medicare. You start to go through the system, people in prisons. You start to look at the healthcare system, what we don't have is a very organized way to even acknowledge that we have a system that actually is almost as far along as others. We just have a private pay subsection that is actually funding most of the innovation. I believe that's critical.

I believe we need changes in the healthcare system. I believe you can argue whether you should do this through insurance. I'm suggesting, and I've said several different times tonight, that we need to get the highest cost part out of that to share. And some of that is if you give 5,000 to an individual rather than to the insurance company, let me just say that I don't want to pick on my two sons, but they would be examples. They may or may not feel that they need health insurance right now. You have to have risk pooling to be able to share this cost. And the question is: What's the best way to force the risk pooling? Should it be direct government, or would it be the Republicans are developing towards is a Romney plan, which is not dramatically the areas that we're debating are not as dramatically different as they were even two to four years ago. Because you can't go buy car insurance after you've had a wreck. We have to figure out how to get everybody in the risk pool. Everybody paying some more. And the Republicans will say we're not going to have any of this. I believe we're now negotiating whether there's going to be some private pay in it. Whether everybody will be in it exactly, directly, as part of government aid or whether there's going to be some private part to it.

>> VINCE ROBINSON: We have a few more questions, but I would not be doing my job as moderator if I didn't start to get us wrapped up here. So I'm going to give you these questions. You have to give us some brief answers here. And I know I'm asking a lot because these are not easy questions.

>> MARK SOUDER: The other day on channel 15 we were live. They wanted me to describe the financial bailout. They said we're going to have 90 seconds. We'd like to get four questions in. And the first one was: Is the American economy in fundamental trouble and how do you propose to fix it? What are the other three?

[Laughter]

>> VINCE ROBINSON: I didn't do that to you.

First, your opponent, who was here a couple Fridays ago, made a commitment to form a local advisory group for disability related issues. If elected, will you make that same commitment?

>> MARK SOUDER: No. I am open to meeting with the groups that meet here whenever they would like to meet. I am open to answering any questions from some individuals. The proof is in the pudding. Those kind of things are window dressing. You get to pick who you want on it. It makes people feel good but it isn't the same as regular response. I don't think I've ever turned down anybody who's ever asked to meet with me. I've met with the groups every time they came in. I work with this with coats. I know how you do it. It's a typical after you've been in a little bit, you realize you don't structure a system that way.

I mean it sounds good and it looks good and you have the names there. But any politician who doesn't figure out that he puts half of his supporters in the group so the group doesn't recommend things he doesn't want, look, I'm blunt. It's manipulate. I can't manipulate your group. If you want to meet with me, say you want to meet with me and my staff.

>> VINCE ROBINSON: What is your position on stem cell research? Science is showing promise when addressing some of these issues.

>> MARK SOUDER: Absolutely favor stem cell research. It's probably the question more is embryonic question. There is no animal that shows any promise whatsoever. They have been researching this for 12 years. It's mythological. The challenge here is: Can we get through embryonic fluid, through blood cells and others, because I actually had a hearing, we had one person with different types of stem cells cured of lupus and others. We would concentrate on using the actual stem cells and quit chasing the abortion debate, we could actually be curing people.

The challenge and what the hope by some, which I believe is quite frankly scientifically false, is that we're having trouble with other types of cells with brain. It is the most difficult. And in the brain research, they have some things that they're picking up in embryonic fluid that may help us try to tackle basically Alzheimer's and some brain diseases. But stem cell research is amazing. And breakthroughs are occurring. But they have not had one even animal that's been able to survive even minutes with embryonic stem cell research. And it appears to be philosophically incompatible because you can't split the stem cells to get it down to that. It's in the abortion debate masquerading as a de that if the conservatives would back a immediately the pro choice groups objected. We lost the break through funding. This is so politicalized, it's really an abortion debate masquerade when in fact we have these incredible scientific breakthroughs. And by the way embryonic stem cell research is only banned it's only whether governments should do it.

>> VINCE ROBINSON: We'll have one more and closing remarks by Tom. Local transportation service must rely on funding from local systems in order to operate. Local systems are experiencing serious funding shortfalls. for example, city link in Fort Wayne recently announced major service cuts because of fuel costs and the loss of $300,000 in local property tax revenue. Public transportation helps the environment, reduces traffic congestion and is the only available option for many of your constituents, including seniors and people with disabilities.

The question is: What can be done on the federal level to improve public transportation in local communities?

>> MARK SOUDER: The evil earmarks that the media talks about, we've earmarked for PTSC. It was an odd thing that happened and a fight the fight over the funding debate I've been upset because what I he marked, the state has to make it up. I believe that the public transit system is extremely critical when you represent an urban area like Fort Wayne, you have to have public transit because you have a mismatch between where some of the people live and the employment. If you don't have public transit, at the entry level and lower income groups in particular will not be able to get to where the jobs are.

Now the fact is that the buzzword related to it is that more and more people are going to be starting to use the public transit beyond the high risk. But the reason for the Federal Government to get involved is partly because low income people have I believe that the government has certain obligations to make sure everybody has a chance. That's there. Middle class people can figure out whether they want to ride the bus or not ride the bus and they don't necessarily, because they want to ride a bus, need to be subsidized by somebody else. That's my philosophical part of that. I voted for every time there has been a mass transit, even though the danger here is most of mass transit is going for subway systems that work with bigger cities, are broken any time there is a mass transit, the two things three things that are spending things that I've broken with my party on a steady basis are there are other types. One is mass transit. One is unemployment benefits extensions because we have the manufacturing area, and right now a lot of it's struggling and we tend to have longer periods of unemployment. And the third is low income heating bills because we're a cold area. And we freeze. So we need low income energy assistance. Those three I watch in particular.

I believe and this is the bad news. I will finish on the bad news. I am kind of a Lou Holtz kind of news. What you do is roll up your sleeves and fight harder. I don't give up.

The bad news is most you have seen the ads, look I made some trips, I talk about the trips, that's what I do as Congressman, I learn. One in Norway was up to the Arctic Circle to talk about gas with Congressman Boucher who heads the subcommittee, we were up there meeting with the polar bear people talking about gas and oil and how to balance it with the fact that the polar ice cap is melting. In this mix, one of the things the Norwegian said in the spring is that you will have your gas prices drop by a buck. This is before they knew the financial and the economy. We don't want to drive down gas prices by having an economic collapse as what's happening right now. They will drop because India and China having it. You need to understand the second India and China have, it's their additional growth at 15% rates, we grow at 3, that's driving, in a limited market for energy the prices up. They said you're headed to 6, 8, 10 bucks as soon as you start to come back.

Now the fundamental question is as we move to this, and I see Tom here. He was raising this last time. To his credit and I've been raising and I raised energy six years ago, but he made it a big issue and he was right. And I've made it a big issue. And we're right.

Energy, underneath this, is a huge thing. Now, I'm not calling it a benefit, but one of the side things that happens as energy costs come up is people start to make better decisions about: Look, do I have enough money to commute this far? Are we going to always do greenfields rather than brownfields development? Are we going to change our habits?

And some of this is we need to make sure there's adequate infrastructure to make sure that we cover those who have no alternative to public transit. But quite frankly, the market conditions are going to change as we move public transit in ways to move around because of the cost of moving. And the market's going to fix part of it. We just need to make sure and this you raised underneath it, the property tax question. Look, the urban areas are the biggest challenges in America because they have less of the financial base with which to do it. In that that's why we tend to fund at the federal level supplemental funding for the urban areas because if they raise their taxes, even more leave the urban areas.

So I will continue to support that. We have some different agreements in high speed rail. High speed rail will go to the bigger areas. Our practical question on mass transit is what's going to happen in the Fort Wayne public transit authority? Those of you who follow this know we had a brawl over the Social Security office. I found it extremely offensive where they put that office. They designed a map to deliberately have it downtown. We have changed their criteria that they have to include the low income population when they do these relocations. They're not supposed to be driven by staff preferences. They are not supposed to be driven by economic preferences. They are to be driven by who needs this office and where should that office be in Social Security? It was the same argument because when they went out there and didn't understand who's likely to be using this office, then they expect Fort Wayne to figure out how to do the bus system to get there. And that this is part of a system wide problem that hopefully we got at least that subpart fixed with the Social Security Administration. Thank you for your time and the questions.

[Applause.]

>> VINCE ROBINSON: Closing remarks by Tom.

>> TOM O'NEILL: I want to take just a moment and thank Vince Robinson for moderating, the great job that you did tonight. Thank you very much. Much appreciated.

[Applause.]

Congressman Souder, I want to thank you for being with us tonight. I would suggest something other than chocolate chip cookies for dinner. And with your cold, maybe some chicken soup or something might be a little better. But we have more cookies for dessert if you'd like some.

I also need to do a mea culpa, I realized later this evening, after I had done the introduction here that I forgot to mention Fifth Freedom when I mentioned the organizations that are part of the coalition that has put this together. Fifth freedom, there are two people from there, Cheri who is with us tonight, and Betty, I don't think she's here this evening. But who have done a great deal of work on that. And Doug. Thank you very much to fifth freedom also.

The goal of this coalition, and somebody asked me this question earlier this evening, the question somebody asked was: Was there a purpose to endorse a candidate? It is absolutely not to endorse a candidate. Whether it's Congressman Souder or Mike Montagano. And most of the organizations that are part of the most of the organizations are part of this coalition are 501 C3 corporations and we don't do that. Our intent, our goal was to bring Congressman Souder here, was to bring Mike Montagano here and for us to present them with questions and for them to learn from us and for us certainly to have the opportunity to learn from you. And we appreciate that.

I'm a firm believer in the political process. It's not always a perfect process, but it's an incredibly important process. I don't think history's ever shown that anybody's had a better process than we have here in the United States. And as we do this, it's the opportunity, this is kind of like in a sense a town hall meeting but with a particular agenda this evening, and that being disability issues.

But the process is important. Voting is important. Congressman Souder, a few moments ago you mentioned the issue of passion when you started to talk. Our oldest son has Down's Syndrome. We've been around this world of disability issues and Down's Syndrome for 30 years, which seems kind of hard to believe as we're only in our early 40s.

[Laughter]

But the clock tells us otherwise.

What I've learned in the last 30 years is that we have the best educated group of people with disabilities that this country has ever seen. Public law 94142 was signed by Gerald Ford and I believe it was May of 1975. I know I have the year right and I believe the month also. April or May.

And what we've done is we have gotten people with disabilities into the community in ways we never have before. That's just 33 years. That's basically just a little bit beyond one generation.

And I think the pieces that we haven't quite figured out yet, and it's not due to anybody's fault, is this whole system has evolved and that is how do we take this best educated group of people with disabilities, perfect and imperfect as the system of education has been, but how do we take these people and move them into society, into the workforce as it does with the rest of society? And these are challenges. They don't just face Congressman Souder or they don't just face Mike Montagano but they face all of us.

The other point, one of the last points I want to leave you with, and that is that we as parents and we as advocates for people with disabilities should never forget that we are absolutely the most powerful force that's out there. And if you look back in the last year going back to 1945, which is 63 years ago or something, 62 years ago, the major pieces of legislation that have come to be have not been pieces of legislation that have been given to us by the service community or by the legislative community. These are pieces of legislation that have come from people with disabilities and they're pieces of legislation that have come from the spirit and the hard work of families. And that's a key thing to remember. We do have that power. It doesn't happen immediately, but we do have it. It's in our responsibility to try and drive that power.

Once again, if you want to watch this on television, the phone number is 421 1250 if you call the number, you can find out when this will be shown on access television. We have time, hopefully Congressman Souder can remain for a few minutes and have some dessert with us. We have cookies and some water or something to drink. And again, Vince, thank you. Congressman Souder, thank you. And thanks to all of you for being with us this evening.

[Applause.]

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This is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in Order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.

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