JOHN ENGLER:  Well, good afternoon, everyone.  I’m delighted to be able to convene this session, and tried to do so right on time.  I’m John Engler, the president of the Business Roundtable, and it is our privilege to welcome you to this Business Roundtable forum on the work of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction and our program, appropriately entitled:  “Meeting the Challenges of Economic Growth and Deficit Reduction.”

And I think we’ve got a treat for everyone today.  We’ve got outstanding panelists; the experts’ experts really are here today to help us focus on budget, taxation, the economy, the role of this incredible 12-member commission.  And we hope to have time not only to have a – just a productive discussion but also a little bit of give-and-take with the audience.  We’ve got C-SPAN on site today.  We appreciate their presence and their coverage of this afternoon’s forum.  And there also will be a video that’s produced and will be available in a day or so on the Business Roundtable website.

Now, there’s no question that America’s business leaders care deeply about the issue of deficit reduction, and it’s something that matters not only to them as citizens but it matters to our companies and our job providers as we seek to have the world’s most globally competitive nation.  Our association is actually an association of chief executive officers of leading companies, but those companies are what really matter -- $6 trillion in annual revenue, more than 13 million employees directly employed in those companies; and the impact on the economy, obviously very, very substantial.

As we think about this day and those companies – the stock market down earlier quite a bit – they comprise nearly a third of the total value of the U.S. stock market and invests more than $114 billion annually in research and development.  And that’s nearly half of all the private R&D spending that takes place in the country.  So the fiscal health of the nation – the host nation, the headquarters nation for virtually all of these companies – is something that’s highly significant, and their shareholders, their customers, their supply chains, their retirees as well as people currently employed have very much at stake, as does our nation.

We’re certainly also today, I think, providing a friendly “welcome back” to Congress.  The Senate convenes today; the House Wednesday, tomorrow; the president speaking on jobs on Thursday.  The Business Roundtable has the view that it will work with anyone who wants to help create jobs, to reduce the deficit and strengthen our economy.  And there is much work to be done.  The bipartisan, bicameral supercommittee will meet for the first time also on Thursday.  And they’ve got a tight schedule and a – as I think as we’ll hear from our panel – not much time at all.  But what they lack in time, they make up in power.  As near as I can tell, they’ve got unbelievable, awesome authority been delegated by their colleagues.  And so the ability to put together a package of recommendations before Thanksgiving – the opportunity’s there.

This afternoon, what we hope to do is the first panel will focus on the process, just how much power do they have, how great is that opportunity, what can and maybe should the bipartisan, bicameral group be thinking about as they go about their business?

The second panel, of course, gets into the real meat of it:  details of entitlements, discretionary spending, defense budgets, even a dose of – or dash of federalism – a dose probably overstates it.  But the idea – a lot of this has already been tabled in various groups.  Some of the participants today have actually been the ones who’ve put it on the table.  But what’s sort of generally agreed to, and what are those opportunities?

And then the third one, I think, the president will be very interested in because it’s jobs and economic growth and the role of tax reform.  And again, without predetermined conclusions about our discussion today, I think there’s one thing that’s pretty clear.  Without economic growth, you can’t cut the budget enough and you certainly can’t have enough jobs to really result in a strong, healthy fiscal condition for our nation.  So time is short not just for deficit reduction and the committee’s work but for the forum itself.  So I would hope we could get started right away.

Our first panel, panel one, “The Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction:  How Broad is This Opportunity?” – we’ve got a wonderful moderator, Maya MacGuineas, and somebody well-known to all of us.  Maya has served with great distinction as the president for – of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan group, a who’s who of directors; and they’ve examined and explained budget issues to the public and policymakers for, oh, 30 or so years.  Since 2003, Maya and the committee have also housed at – have been also located at the Center for a New America.  Maya herself is one of the most respected analysts and commentators on budget matters – experience at Brookings, Wall Street and a number of other forums that she’s been part of.  And so we’re just delighted.  She’ll be provocative and lively, as always, today.

And Maya, why don’t you come forward, and you can present your first panel, and we can hear from them.  And I’ll come back up and introduce our moderators of the second and third panels, and we’ll move the afternoon along.

But ladies and gentlemen, Maya MacGuineas.  (Applause.)  Good afternoon.