to encourage and congratulate those who won and that we pray for one another in the way that god tells us to. on the republican line. hello. caller: thank you for taking my call. i wanted to speak about the previous scholar who said that trump hasn't instituted any policies benefiting the poor class in the country. i am part of the poor class myself. i am now making more money than i ever have and i am paying less taxes. and according to everything put out, we have less food stamp participation and historical lows in minority unemployment. host: that was edwin's call. now, we take you to the u.s. chamber of commerce hosting their annual labor day press

briefing which will feature talking about the current affairs of state. that event.to correct the comments are understandable. we went through the great recession, followed by the great meandering. and now the economy has accelerated markedly. we grew at 4.2% in the second quarter, .irst half of the year there was some expectation that the economy was reporting to somewhat of a fiscal sugar buzz and it would slow down going forward but apparently not so. the atlanta fed is telling us they will expect the third quarter to keep coming in at 4.6 percent. if it keeps going this will become the great acceleration.

this far along, you don't expect an acceleration but it isn't a surprise. we talked about the reasons for the great meandering for many years. the obamaabout how administration policies was a drag on the economy and if they would remind, the economy could pick up steam and we go about having regulatory debate in a stronger economy. not that the obama administration didn't want a stronger economy, they did. but they always wanted something else more. we now have seen strong evidence the arguments were valid. the first thing the trump administration did was to suspend regulations in the pipeline of various agencies. and as congress got into a review act including what they were allowed to repeal that were growth, theconomic

trump administration set out with regulatory reforms of their own that we are seeing unfold. all of these were important. what was that the exchange was the economy. up.umer confidence has shot grown robustly. it has shown up in the labor market with a low unemployment rate. we are around 4%. that is a low what the congressional budget office would consider the full employment rate. growth in excess of 200,000 jobs a month. what that is telling you is that the economy is strong. it also tells you we are not yet

at full employment. we will be at full employment when job growth matches the growth in labor supply. 80,000-100,000 jobs a month. this also is something that is of theble at this stage recovery. we have heard for years that is a says had a tough time finding workers they need. to expand and meet orders. many industries are subject to this. .ransportation manufacturing. across the board. idf we are still growing jobs at a very rapid pace. those businesses having trouble finding workers, i would say that, you better get used to it. theuse this is the state of labor market going forward until

we have the next recession which thankfully is not going forward. so this is to continue for quite some time. the weakness in the labor market is that real wages have not been growing rapidly. it extends back towards the beginning of the recovery and back towards and prior to the medianecession where real wages were simply not growing rapidly. nominal wages war. total labor compensation for. it is one of the strange questions in economics and nobody has a good answer. why, when labor markets are so tight for so long, our markets not responding with accelerated growth? we're not sure what the answer to that question is. noi have noted, there is cause for concern in the economy

suggesting a recession anytime soon. so the tight labor market should persist. is normalizing monetary policy so it isn't a threat. simply removing the stimulus. the combination from the great recession. we are not yet at the point where the fed is putting its foot on the brake. we are still taking our foot off the accelerator. the biggest threat we face -- that we have noted since beginning of the year -- the possibility of a trade war. the president's aggressive trade policies with respect to mexico unions,da and different these have been worrisome. isn't helpful to economic growth. so far, the effects of the actions have an localized. they are painful to those directly affected with the products you are importing. certainly painful to those

directly affected. but we have not seen much of an effect with these actions. although many of them have been threatened and not yet put in place. where we start to worry is if this would start to filter down into business confidence. much as the previous administrations regulatory policy had. if business confidence were to be affected negatively by the trade actions then it would eventually feed through to lower business investment and it would take some of the strength out of the economy. we have not seen that. and now, of course, we are steering -- with the trade union. an agreement with mexico. we wait for canada to be included in that.

and then we can have a judgment. but we are threatening to have peace breakout and if so, the threat of a trade war to our economy going forward, would greatly diminished. we still have certain areas -- steel and aluminum, the contest one,china -- but, one by the president is making progress on negotiating with these trading partners. , theing the pressures likelihood of a trade war. which right now is the main threat we have towards our economy today. otherwise, continue to acceleration and growth is the consensus forecast. it is really just a question of, accelerationthis of the abnormally strong growth persist?

we don't know but the regulatory effects are still taking effect. and we are about to pass the baton to tax reform. it should really start to take effect in the second half of this year into next year. and it should give the economy extra impetus for growth in the latter half of this year and next year. affect that we probably haven't seen yet. it takes a while for the tax law to be understood. to be manifest into orders. and finally into new capital league. you have to get to the last stage. and it takes a while. hence the suggestion that we really would see tax reform affect in the second half of this year. let me conclude on economics. am glenn spencer.

as was demonstrated clearly, the economy seems to be doing rather well. wasas indicated, a big part the mandate issued on employees. some of these were regulation or guidance documents. and in addition there was a sense that employers were that actors. there was a strategy built around shaming employers with punishments against them even before allegations have been adjudicated. and that has now changed under the trump administration. there were two administrator interpretations that the wage hour division put in place. one of those try to expand employer liability. the other try to limit the use of independent contract and

those both now have been repealed. letter toa guidance accompany inspectors when they were inspecting non-guidance workplaces. of drafting a new overtime regulation will replace the obama rule struck down by the court. and the department is also repealed the kurt schrader regulation. april the obama administration tried to put in place to limit the legal advice that employers could get with regards to unions. they pulled that policy back and replaced it with a commonsense .olicy opinion letters are issued once again. letters given to employers to help understand employers how to understand with wage regulations with complex issues that is required of them. and the department has offered

an office of compliance assistance. making sure employers know how to comply with the law. replacing the assumption that .hey are bad actors making sure employers know how to comply with them. a positive change. it has been noticed. employers around the country have noticed the change in tone and the past the department has taken on regulatory reform. it also applies to the national labor relations board. replacing the unremarkable policies that the obama administration has put in place. first up, the process of undo thea new rule to browning farris standard put in place in 2000 15. that was an expansive definition of joint liability and we hope this rule will clearly address that.

the board has issued a request for brief in a decision that took away the ability of employers to manage their own email systems. the board has also done away with a ridiculous policy of scrutinizing viewer handbooks and inventing violations out of common sense. for example, things like requiring courtesy in the work place. somehow that was considered to be against the law. the board has overturned a decision that allowed for the formation of fractured micro wherein worker places they had rejected unionization. and they rejected the process to reject the ambush election will. to automatically have that be a violation of the deck. i don't need to go through for

decision the board has taken but there are a lot of them. and it has been noticed by employers around the nation. i would sit just all of this is a big interbreeding factor to the economic growth just outlined. that said, there are clouds on the horizon. the first relates to immigration. at a time when employers are having trouble finding employees they need -- something we hear all the time and something you can find in the papers -- it doesn't make sense to pull back on legal immigration as it relates to employment-based visas and the status of people living and working in this country for many years. the second cloud i will mention relates to legislative efforts -- theite the neighbor labor relations bill. and two were written this year to give a sense of what congress has in mind when it comes to

labor relations. the workplace democracy act and the workers freedom to negotiate acts contain regulation to make the bill from 2009 look reasonable. -- woulds would propel repeal the right to work law. these would remove those laws. care bills would impose check or bargaining orders during unionizing campaigns which would give unions a free pass to organize worksites around the country. if those are imposed, mandatory binding obligations for first contract. which could stick workers and employers with unworkable contract terms. and most damage lay, they would repeal the ban on secondary boycotts. meaning a labor dispute with a single employer could involve dozens of employers.

those are a few of the damaging proposals in the bills. there are many more. to be clear, these are not going anywhere now. if you look at the list of cosponsors, i think both of them will have legs through 2020 and we will need to keep a close eye on them. the final thing i will mention is that there is a concerted effort to tie up the new members of the nlrb in recruiters ocher issues. a coordinated campaign to issue him a crucial standard but if this becomes the standard it will have impacted a lot of other agencies as well. overall, it is pretty good. we see a lot of positive things there are a couple of downsides that we need to keep an eye on. we are open to a few questions. so? >> [indiscernible] >> thank you. i am isabel with inside u.s.

trade. my question is the impact that trade is having on the economy. what is your take on the investment protections that were agreed to between the u.s. and mexico? canada'spect participation or lack there of later to have an impact on the economy? >> canada needs to be part of .he final agreement the initial agreement between the u.s. and mexico -- apparently nafta is permitted.

in terms of the details of to holdt -- i will have off on that until the experts who do understand that better than i have, better than i have. >> [indiscernible] concernedring how the community is to the --.-china french compared to trade disputes? i don't think you can rank the relative concerns. the business community is

concerned about all three. the u.s., canada and mexico trade region is enormous and terribly important to the u.s. economy. europe is important to the economy. what elevates china in one is that negotiations with china are inherently more complicated. so you can negotiate this. the chinese economy is structured differently then europe or the united states. manythere are so dissimilarities, it makes it that much more difficult. an example is state owned enterprises. the fact that there are not it isowned enterprises --

much narrower in scope. having a trade agreement that covers the potential for subsidies and government support in an industry that is heavily dominated by state owned enterprises is difficult. something that was omitted when china joined a world trade organization. that the chinese economy would evolve more towards the western model, if you will. that was a bad assumption. a bad assumption not because it couldn't have transpired but it assumed the chinese government wanted it to transpired in that way. structure the chinese economy in a different way. it is a matter of policy. a matter of where they're starting out in the evolutionary process. china is catching up rapidly. it is in catch-up mode. so you have three different places in terms up -- in terms

of evolution. save our in as much interest to --hasize when this dispute we began to see stories asking the question, who would lose most in a trade conflict to the u.s. and china? everybody loses. nobody wins in a trade conflict and china. u.s. we want to have an agreement so both countries can win. >> [indiscernible] ask me three years from now. tariffs are tactics. this is a point that i emphasize time and time again. , i am purely

speculating. the president is not imposing tariffs because he likes tariffs . he had to upset the apple cart the regime because we were not getting far. .o he imposed tariffs people's attention with those. he scared a lot of people. he got the government's attention. and as a result he was able to come up with a detente with the european union. will it work in the end with china? i don't know. you assess the strategy at the end and not the beginning. politico.

reports --everal [indiscernible] reaction --see your working on more employer clear under pierceseals chairmanship. what is your reaction? >> last night the white house sent mark pierce to the senate to be renominated. he will have to be confirmed by the senate when they get to that. i think if you were to look at , therecord during his time decisions he offered and what he , it the record will look at the appropriate conclusion about what to do with

that nomination. there were a number of decisions but now it is up to the senate to do its job on the nomination. >> are there any other questions? as you said. a tariffs is a tactic. but -- [indiscernible] there are companies who may not be able to survive because of tariffs. cost --ou think the [indiscernible] if you are directly impacted by a terrace in any way, it will be extremely painful.

business. you out of it can drive you out of markets. but from a mass in view, those are localized effect is. and then you have to evaluate with a manner of public policy costs versus immediate costs. we have to wait to judge the benefits. and we can't do that until we see what the final outcome is. >> thank you all for coming.

>> watch c-span this week for honoringrage of events the life and career of john mccain. his 82ndld have been birthday. before 1:00 p.m. eastern, we will be live at a ceremony at the state capitol in unix. -- in phoenix. his body will lie in state where members of the public can pay respects. friday, -- thursday, a funeral in phoenix. we will hear from joe biden. following that, his casket will -- two jointoin

base andrews outside washington, d.c.. friday morning, congressional leaders will speak at a brief ceremony at at 1:00 p.m., his body will lie in state at the nation's capital rotunda. at 9:00 a.m. eastern, cindy mccain will lie a reese at memorial in honor of his service and at 10:00 a.m. we are alive with a memorial service for senator mccain. speakers include former presidents george w. bush and barack obama. i am here with sadness to say jeff kavanaugh, you don't belong in this building as a justice. >> the extraordinary career and -- the strength that

left me profoundly impressed. the point i'm making here is that the 35 month amount of time -- ripe with issues of a constitutional moment. the reason that the american what wasve to know said. those are things that the republicans are hiding from the american people. >> let's not waste more time. judge kavanaugh was supremely qualified for the supreme court. >> watch day one of the

nomination hearing for brett kavanaugh. watch any time on c-span.org or anytime on the radio mobile app. richard haass spoke earlier this week. he was previously the state department policy planning director during the george w. bush of ministration. this is one hour. [indistinct chatter] >> hi, my name is colette and i'm the director of academic programming here at the society. thank you for everyone who came out to make this event possible