 I appreciate the opportunity to be here and apologize for I guess it didn't matter because the last panel ran a little late but we were voting until just a couple of minutes ago and I've got a flight to catch in just a few minutes so forgive me if this speech is a little truncated but I appreciate being here as we were talking in the back Michael Crowe was explaining that I come from the town called Snowflake so I'm a flake from Snowflake Arizona I grew up not knowing that flake was a pejorative term because the town was actually naved after my great-great grandfather William Jordan Flake and Arrasta Snow another person who helped settle that part of Arizona but when I moved out here in 1987 I was in at a reception and it came up in conversation with somebody that my that I came from Snowflake but this fellow didn't know my last name was Flake and it turned out he knew somebody from Snowflake I don't know how it's a pretty small town but that he was trying to think of the name and he struggled for the longest time and finally I thought I'd help him out and narrow it down I said was this guy a flake he said nah he seemed pretty normal to me so but I knew from that point that you know I wasn't safe anywhere and I sought a place where there were I could be comfortable around more flakes and so Congress was about the only option thought but but I appreciate the introduction I'm usually just referred to when you have the other senator McCain from Arizona I'm just usually the other senator from Arizona so I'm resigned to my lot in life but I appreciate the assignment that I was given or loose assignment to to explain how we can make social contracts great again no that wasn't no that's not yet but I haven't asked to to try to mount a conservative case for a new social contract now I know it's rarely smart to disappoint early on but I'm not sure that I can make that case mostly because I'm not sure if I'm smart enough to know exactly what a social contract between an individual and their government is I I know that there is considerable debate and that is a convenient out but at a minimum I think we can all agree that the concept concept aims to describe that relationship between an individual and their government and on that I do have a few thoughts fundamentally I believe that it's a government's role to protect and not inhibit individuals prospects for prosperity now from the agrarian to manufacturing to a silicon economy one constant in our domestic economy has been changed and much attention is being paid now to the transitioning us and global economy and we're moving it seems to digital age 2.0 but while the specifics may vary I don't think this transition alters what we should primarily expect out of government along with basic function there are steps that government can take and should take to make sure that it isn't hindering the success of the individual and by this I'm referring to the economic success of the individual I'm happy to share some of the specifics as reflected in my legislative efforts in the senate now critical to prosperity is the opportunity for employment and employment for the freedom for willing workers to join with willing employers to move up the economic ladder now unfortunately our antiquated immigrant or antiquated immigration system stymies that relationship rather than fostering it when I first arrived in the senate I decided to do something I never thought I'd do I joined a gang the so-called gang of eight I thought I'd left gang life behind after the mean streets of snowflake but but our effort there was to revise and to modernize our immigration system we've got to ensure that the US economy has access to highly skilled foreign talent that it needs now these folks are often trained in US institutions like ASU and but rather than being allowed to stay in the united states they are often forced back overseas to compete with us or against us on the global stage as our economy moves to its next stage the US simply needs to retain the status of being where the best and the brightest want to be of course we've got to do a much better job in our k-12 and our universities to promote stem education I learned recently that Mexico will graduate as many engineers as the united states will this year not in a per capita basis but in raw numbers we can't hope to compete in today's global marketplace with figures like these now I realize that this may conflict conflict with notions that we have of a need to protect the American worker but in the short to medium term we've got to until we can have a sufficient number of homegrown students in the stem fields we need to attract foreign students educate them in our university systems and provide long-term visas for them to stay long enough to be here and to create jobs and it's not just the highly skilled that with which these reforms are critical I've recently introduced legislation that fills the void that currently exists between temporary visa programs for seasonal workers and the h1b programs for highly skilled immigrants and regardless of where they fall on the skill scale I don't agree with the canard that foreigners are always taking us citizens jobs economic activity is not a zero sum game and filling positions with needed talent leads to increased opportunities for everyone I talk about trade for a minute in addition to removing barriers for the flow of talent government needs to work on reducing barriers for trade in the global marketplace the us chamber of commerce reports that more than 95 percent of the world's consumers and 80 percent of the purchasing power live and work outside of our borders in an increasingly global economy we have to think first and foremost of the financial opportunities that free trade opens up for a variety of sectors in the u.s economy and it's not just jobs related to exports in 2013 the us spent more than 450 billion dollars on research and development more than any other country on the planet and those who incessantly worry about the balance of trade with certain countries often fail to consider that a large percentage of our imports simply provide inputs into us manufactured products products that are then often exported do we really think that us companies are going to pour their hard-earned dollars into developing products and technology to sell to the u.s market alone and if they don't where do we think we'll be in the next 20 or 30 years with calls on my side of the political aisle to renegotiate nafta and circle the country with protectionist tariffs i'm trying to wrap my head around having a republican candidate for president that for all intents and purposes is running to the left of the democrat on trade issues it's a brave new world out there and not good for republicans i would argue in my book if we continue to go against free trade now the fact remains that access to global opportunities means very little if your government is burdening you with excess taxes and regulation to the point of smothering any chance of prosperity or being able to compete with your global neighbors now in that line i'm often surprised at what taxpayer dollars are being spent on something i spend quite a bit of time on is trying to curb unnecessary spending last week i put out a report on frivolous nih studies to see if drunk birds slur when they sing or to see what kind of music chimps prefer it's metallica metallica if you really want to know and drunk birds do slur when they sing your tax dollars are paying that kind of thing we're always expanding already far too generous agricultural subsidies subsidies that make it very difficult for us to enter into free trade agreements i might say with our neighbors as well we're spending millions of dollars on things like for dhs funding party buses in the hamptons a lot of this spending you just scratch your head and say why are we doing it but more than anything the ability of our government to provide opportunity for prosperity whether or not it's called a social contract depends on the federal government's ability to get our federal or i'm sorry our fiscal house in order and it's not just under the studies that we talk about and the research that we put in trying to get rid of frivolous spending i realize that's on the margins but when people ask me what really keeps me up at night i say honestly that i worry about waking up one morning and learning that the financial markets have already decided that the united states is no longer a good bet that nobody wants to buy our debt anymore and if they do they want a premium in the form of higher interest rates do you know that every quarter point of an interest rate increase means 50 billion dollars more just in debt service money that we get virtually nothing or nothing from if interest rates return to where they've traditionally been we will soon be using all of our so-called discretionary spending things that we spend for defense or transportation or education or anything that is so-called discretionary just to service the debt according to cbo if we continue on our current trajectory that will come not much longer than a decade from now if we get to that point we will become like japan where it will take decades if not a generation to dig out of that fiscal hole the only way to avoid this fate we can't breeze past 20 trillion dollars in debt while we're still running half trillion dollar deficits and avoid this fate the only way to avoid it is do what they call the grand bargain or the big deal that will involve both entitlement reform and revenue measures we all know the basic contours of such a deal some form of chain CPI coupled with an agreement to continue to raise the age for self-security along with more aggressive means testing for medicare to bring in more revenue we needn't raise tax rates but some popular deductions like we have with home mortgage interest deductions will have to be changed it behooves us to move now while we still have time now to sum up being part of the legislative branch this may sound funny but i still hold to the reagan maxim who's building we're in now that government is rarely the solution to our problems instead i believe in personal freedom and individual liberty and have faith in the capacity for striving individuals to achieve on their own what government can rarely even glimpse given that we find ourselves in the middle of a somewhat unpredictable education season to put it mildly and let me tell you people ask me sometimes what's the best thing about the senate it's a six-year term when you when you're not up every cycle like this one that's uh that's uh been nice to sit back from afar and and watch this one a little bit but we're in the middle of a very unpredictable election season now focusing on the relationship between individuals and governments is more than a thought experiment in this campaign we're grappling with these very real issues right now though i would tend to think that uh greater minds and mine are still confused about where we are or where we'll be i think the best we can hope for is the fact that uh to demand or we ought to demand that government supports rule of law and even playing field and beyond essential functions tries to stay out of the way of individual prosperity i appreciate the invitation to be here today and thank you again for having me