i just happened without realizing it go into one area in yuma where because of so much cross-border work and such a long history of it, people didn't feel quite as open about taking advantage of them. pilgrim's pride, as terrible as the chicken plant was, you get a sense of why it is. it's not that the bosses at pilgrim's pride was so terrible. the way it's structured right now, is everything has to do with how cheap you can get food to places. so pilgrim's pride and tyson are fighting to get the lowest possible chicken prices to a place like mcdonald's. it's that way with wal-mart, too. it's not that one company is acting so terribly because they dislike human beings. it's because the way the structure is, until we start -- you know, i think about the way people will pay more now organic food or the way they think more

about how far away their food is coming from, and so there is a group of people in the food movement that are thinking beyond just how cheap it is. and yeah, they also have more disposable income. but i think there's room to start thinking about adding those concerns to -- if i'm going to pay a little more for organic, do i want to pay a little more for a company that's providing health care? for farm workers or that is paying a sustainable wage? and i think that's -- there's a promise in that just because the food movement is so huge right now. and it just means they would have to pay a little more attention to something that hasn't totally been on their mindset. >> would you consider being a nurse's aid in a nursing home? >> well, that was -- because of this whole immigrant work and stuff? >> right. which is notorious for having

the worst care through their system? >> well, i mean, one of the ideas -- one of the industries that i thought would be really interesting would to do home health attendants. you have immigrant work -- many, many immigrant workers, women, that are taking care of older people and the wages are terrible generally. the work is pretty unregulated. there's also domestic workers taking care of kids. it also just -- it illustrates how broad all these jobs are. you know, it's not just farm work. it could be this. it could be caring for people with alzheimer's. the main reason i didn't delve too deeply into it here is because i realized logistically there's going to be some things that's going to have pass and it

would take a little while and it kind of didn't fit into that. but, yeah, i think -- [inaudible] >> oh, yeah. nannies. i mean, in new york city, you have like these incredibly wealthy families that have nannies that are paying them, you know, terrible wages. and they're perspective is we got to watch them because they're going to try to do something terrible. very unhealthy dynamics. for this i wanted to get something a little quicker, i guess. i heard that was the last question? well, thank you all for coming. i appreciate it. [applause] >> gabriel thompson has written for the "new york times" and the "nation" magazine. he's also author of there is no jose here. and calling all radicals.

for more information, visit working in the shadows.work press.com. sflshg . >> we're here at this year's conservative political action conference talking with jerome corsi. tell us about your new book. >> well, tonya, it's america for sale. and it was "new york times" bestseller. it's an economic analysis of globalism, the need to preserve u.s. sovereignty. very strongly supports the tea party movement. and it's predicting a lot of the economics we're going through.

and, unfortunately, we're not through the hard times yet. and i talk about a coming debt crisis that i think is next in the book. but it's comprehensive. a lot of solutions. a lot of emphasis on things people can do to solve the economic problems. >> can you give us a few examples. >> well, for instance i recommend the people for their personal lives even look to consolidate families. i mean, if someone has lost a job, a son or daughter, move them back into the home. when parents get older, forget about nursing homes, expand your home and bring them home into the house. go back to consolidated families. make sure your primary residential real estate is paid off. and then in terms of the larger issues, i think we need to have the federal reserve audited. i'd like to see a transparent federal reserve. very strong suggestions for job creation. reduced taxes would be a good idea. small companies create the

majority of jobs. we're aiming at trying to get the private economy revising to get people back to work. that's what america for sale is all about. >> do you spend any time talking about the relationship with china right now? >> extensive part of the book is on china. i predicted that china was not going to continue buying u.s. debt. that china -- that's what america for sale is all about. if we continue to have debt in cycles that are unmanageable as we're headed towards, countries like china are going to say we want assets. in other words, have public/private partnerships. maybe we could manage some of your roads. maybe we could have guaranteed investments in various u.s. businesses. so china is coming. and i think we've got to be very concerned that we don't get too reliant on china both economically and politically. >> you've actually been rather prolific these past couple of years. can you tell us about some of your other work?

>> yes, the obama nation is now in paperback. and i still think it was really a comprehensive biography, critical biography. but certainly now it predicted that president obama was going to be leftist in his politics. by his history, by his training, his intellectual development, his work with people like ayers, the weather ground bomber, reverend wright. i go into saul olinski for his intellectual training. it's in paper book now at a reduced price which i'm really happy because i think it will get a much wider audience -- go ahead. i also went to israel. i spent three weeks in israel. i interviewed the top israeli leadership. i met president peres.

i met prime time netanyahu. why israel can't wait about the coming war with israel and iran. in the final analysis, self-defense israel would launch a preemptive attack. now, i wrote the book to try to prevent that. i think that's the worst possible solution. but i had to let the israeli -- i think the israeli government work through me to communicate to the world how urgent this situation. the best opportunity is right now. if we would just -- from the white house support the green movement within iran, we might actually get a peaceful change from within. that's what i'm hoping and praying. and wrote the book to try to promote as the best solution. and my first novel will be out. simon schuster is publishing. i wrote the book called the shroud of turon. it's called shroud of codex. i am catholic. it's very supportive of the

catholic church. very supportive of the christian position. it argues the science. it argues all the history of the shroud. world net daily where i'm a senior staff writer, we're organizing to do a tour to turon during the shroud exhibition in april and may. i just got back from rome. i presented the book prepublication to the vatican. let them know it was coming out. and i'm very excited to have my first novel appear in april, the shroud codex. >> and with all the time you spend writing, do you get very much time to read? >> i've been gifted to read quickly all my life. and i'm a constant reader. i read all the time. what am i currently reading? this new book on hiroshima, the one that's possibly a movie on, that's an extremely good book. i have to admit i've been reading michelle malkin's

culture of corruption which i think is a very good book. another good study of president obama that i think is very valuable. so i read very generally. and i read fiction as well as nonfiction. i read some old fiction. i've recently been going back and reading a lot of the old crime books. you know, the maltese falcon. i read broadly all the time. >> do you know yet what your next nonfiction project will be? >> i'm talking with simon schuster about a couple of different projects. i'm thinking very seriously about another book on oil. remember, i wrote a black gold stranglehold, very cofer. -- controversial. oil is not dinosaur soup. it's abiotic. it's not made by fossil fuels. i'd like to advance that in another book.

and simon schuster is talking to me about another book on obama. maybe we'll write a comprehensive book on obama after a couple years in office. >> thank you very much for your time. >> thank you very much. >> host: well, there's a new worldwide community gathering to read a book. and it's called one book and one twitter and the organizer is jeff howe. mr. howe, explain to what one book one twitter is. >> guest: well, in a sense it's a global book club. but the inspiration was really not book club. which twitter has a few of and they're really wonderful. as the big reads that we've seen over the last 10 years. the first one being nancy pearle's what if everyone in seattle read the same book. where in 1998 where all of seattle read russell banks ea

east -- bank's one sweet here after and there's a case where they read to kill a mockingbird and the sorts of connections that drew. and i was reading about that in a course -- i'm a fellow this year at harvard. and i was taking a course in social capital with robert putnam, who, of course, wrote bowling alone. and so the idea was that these programs -- you know, while they get people to read and that's wonderful -- what they do is they build social capital. they build connections between people. they give people nothing in common something in common. >> host: so what book was chosen to be read? >> guest: well, there was a long and involved nominating and then voting process. ultimately the book chosen was american gods by neil gaiman. . >> host: why did you choose it? >> guest: it's the crowd. why did the crowd choose it. there's a lot of classics up there.

i launched this on wired.com. i'm a contributing editor at "wired." the books that were nominated and then collected the most votes -- in that first phase we had a lot of science fiction. we had some -- 1984, brave new world, fahrenheit 451 was probably the runner-up. but -- there's a lot of neil gaiman fans that read "wired." but even when we added, you know, the board picked the six popular ones and then added four titles to sort of introduce some diversity into a list of finalists. people still -- you know, a broad group of people really decided that they wanted neil's book. and i think -- anything anyone read in high school or college, people didn't want to read in this project. they wanted something new. >> host: what's the process here. have people already started

reading american gods and started tweeting about it. >> guest: good heavens, yes. it's been -- we have a lot of traffic. it's been at least as successful as i probably could have wished and more. in fact, we're -- i keep saying this is one big experiment. one book one twitter, one big experiment. you know, we've never -- no one to my knowledge has really tried to conduct a global book club before. and it's so international that there's no dip in activity overnight. because that's when all the people and everywhere from india to poland arreading the book and tweeting about it. it's what we've done is there's one hash dag. -- tag. general comments about the book are being made. and then we split the subsequent discussions up into chapters so that aren't giving away some of the plot points. >> host: if some of booktv's viewers want to join the discussion now, can they?

>> guest: absolutely. log on to twitter. and just do a search for hash mark 1b1t and they should also follow our official count and that's the @symbol. >> host: how long will this be going on? >> guest: for another eight weeks. >> host: all right. thanks for joining us on booktv. >> guest: sure. thank you. >> john samples' new book "the struggle to limit government" examines 20th century political battles over whether to expand government. the u.s. capital's rayburn building hosts the 50-minute event. >> my name is brandon arnold with the cato institute and we're very pleased today to have you join us to talk about a new book that we've just released, a struggle to limit government. we have two excellent speakers here unfortunately our first speaker is going to have to leave very quickly so we're

going to do just very brief introduction of congressman jim sensenbrenner. everyone is probably familiar with him having formerly chaired both the science committee and the judiciary committee on capitol hill. one thing you may not know in all his time in congress, going back to 1992 in the national taxpayers union began their taxpayer score card, which is a measure of how congressmen do on spending and debt, he scored an a which is pretty phenomenal. he's i believe the only one to have done that. so you see so many members of congress kind of lose their way philosophically as they spend more and more time in washington. certainly that has not been the case for congressman sixteenen brenner. i had the great privilege of working for him for about three years. and we still get along pretty well. so that says something as well. and with that i'll the congressman make his remarks. >> thank you very much.

you know, first of all let me say that i probably knew ronald reagan longer than anybody around here. because when i was a 19-year-old undergraduate at stanford university, he was the chairman of a somewhat quixotic drive to unseat liberal republican u.s. senator thomas kekle of california. and even though i came from wisconsin they couldn't find the northern california youth chairman for his conservative opponent lloyd wright, who happened to be then actor reagan lawyer during a lot of the screening actors guild fights that get the communists out of the screen actors guild. so once a month i went to southern california. reagan was an active committee chair. and shortly before the registration deadline before the 1962 california primary, i was

there when ronald reagan changed his registration from democrat to republican. i had nothing to do with it. but i remember very vividly his comment as he was signing his reregistration form, i have already been converted so it is now time for me to join the church. [laughter] >> having said that, i'm one of the few republicans that had actually served during the reagan administration in the congress. as well as subsequently up until this time. and i'll make a couple of points. that i think are relevant to this discussion. first of all, while reagan submitted budgets that did limit government, one must remember that the house of representatives, which originates appropriations legislation was run during that period of time by speakers tip o'neill and jim wright.

and a lot of what came out of the congress was not as good as what president reagan would have wanted. the real revolution in limiting government was in 1981 and 1982 when we were in the midst of a recession. and the spending freeze bills were passed as well as the first tax cut. there were two at tax increases that were passed. though largely driven by republican senators bob dole and bob packwood that ended up having to be the price for tax rate reduction and tax simplification. when the republicans took over the congress in 1994, bill clinton was the president of the united states. and newt gingrich tried to revolutionize government. and we had a government shutdown at the end of 1995 because clinton and the republican

congress could not agree on a spending package. and politically bill clinton won. he won on the substance. and also what he did in the government shutdown ended up reelecting him in 1996. what i can say is i think we did a better job on finances in 1997 and 1998, which was when john casic, who was the chairman of the budget committee actually got passed balanced federal budgets and that was the only time since the second world war where the federal government actually ran at a surplus. so, you know, i would point out that limited government taxes and sensible spending like a balanced federal budget actually became the law of the land. i dissented a lot from the spending packages of bush 43 administration and was one of a

handful of republicans that regularly voted against appropriation bills. i thought that the spending was too high at the time. i criticized the spending at the time. but if you look back at what happened during the first six years of the bush administration when the republicans controlled the congress, we're being criticized by the democrats for running $200 billion a year deficits and that criticism i think was justified. the last year of the bush administration in '08, the recession had already started reducing federal government receipts. and the deficit ballooned to $400 billion. and obama and the democrats ran around saying isn't that terrible? well, the first two obama budgets had a deficit of a trillion, 400 billion and a trillion 600 billion which is the one that we're considering at the present time.

so i guess the present congress has a very short institutional memory on how they got elected, which is one of the reasons why i think they're going to get defeated in november. should the republicans take control of the congress, you can see putting the brakes on spending. i think republicans are doing a fairly good job in reclaiming the brand that we lost during 2000 to 2006. you have to remember that obama will still be in the white house with a veto pen. and taking a hard line and causing a government shutdown on appropriations bills. we already tried that once and we got burned very badly with the re-election of the 42nd president of the united states. and i don't think we can afford for more years of barack obama. we're going to have to dance the

dance a little bit in pointing out if you really want to have limited government and particularly control over federal spending and federal budget deficits, you got to give us the trifecta in 2012. so having said that, it's all yours. >> thank you. >> thank you so much, jim. unfortunately, congressman needs to get to another engagement. i really, really appreciate your comments. next we'll move on to the author of the book, the struggle to limit government who's dr. john samples. dr. samples directs cato's institute. he's written a couple of books. another one that i'll mention briefly is the fallacy of campaign finance reform. certainly remains a hot topic here on capitol hill. prior to joining cato he served eight years at the georgetown university press where he's the director of the georgetown university press and prior to

that as the vice president of the 20th century fund, dr. samples earned his ph.d. in political science from rutgers university. dr. samples. >> thank you very much, brandon. i'm happy to say that i don't have any disagreements with congressman sensenbrenner which is a good thing because he was here and lived through it and i did not. i just read about it in books and occasionally talked to people. i think one of the things he mentioned bears repetition because it's, one, an important factor on this that is often forgotten. which is -- and i will generalize it. the american political system that's in the constitution and the parts that have come down to us are not designed to bring about large changes in policy and in law. they are designed to make it difficult to bring about those changes. and it was done so so that you wouldn't simple majority rule. now, the result of that is if you really want to limit

government, and i believe both reagan and the reagan administration, certainly david stockman and again, the new class of house republicans that year genuinely wanted to limit government. but in the context in which we live, that is in the post-new deal era, after 1930 and onward, to bring about a genuine big reduction in government is a big change. so it's going to be a difficult thing to do. and the system as the congressman mentioned at crucial points was not unified, right? in 1980, you had president reagan and you had as was said, a house controlled by the democrats, skillful experienced politicians like tip o'neill. and in 1994 the people who wanted to limit government and were taking real risks to do so were in the house of representatives.

so you had newt gingrich trying to run the political agenda and bring about big changes from the house itself. so those two things were very difficult, i think. and made it very difficult and are looked over a lot when we think about this era. so that means, i think, as we look down the road one thing to keep in mind, that is if the house does move in a direction toward more constraint on the government side, the spending side and the taxing side, then there's also the people who come to power, if it is the house gop or the senate gop, have to think in bigger terms. which is 2010 will be the beginning of what is really a long and lasting and going to have to be a long and lasting struggle to limit government. so you have to think about 2012 and afterwards. now, let me look back briefly and talk both about reagan in 1994. reagan came into office in 1980.

he did so at a time when the new deal order had been around. that is the new deal and affidavits the great society. -- afterwards the great society. you had an order that had entrenched itself in important ways. there had been a long time since there was someone. it was generally that barry goldwater's defeat in '94 was the end of restraint on the federal government. so reagan came in at the end of that but he also came in, in a period when that whole effort to manage the society, manage the economy had come in to real -- into real question. i mean, the 1970s were a time where the government promised continuing prosperity and you had economic problems throughout the period.

real instability instead of prosperity. you had a society that was seemingly falling apart. and had seemed to have fallen into decay in certain ways exemplified best by president carter's speech toward the end of his presidency in which he said that there was a national malaise. and that we were -- the public wanted the wrong things and the country was seriously off track. reagan used this crisis quite well. the other point i would mention about it, this crisis, was that taxes had been going up through the 1970s primarily through inflation but they had been going up on everyone. everyone was paying more taxes because government spending was growing. and reagan responded to that. and made, as was mentioned by the congressman, in 1981, and early 1982, you got real cuts in both tax rates but you also got cuts in government spending. serious ones in the order of 10 to 15% of actual spending.

the problem was in looking back is that they did not persist. reagan eliminated one program, one out of all the programs. it was a fairly big one. but still only one. many were cut back. but even the ones that were cut back, the cuts didn't persist. by the end of the -- reagan's two terms my best example is the department of education, which contains federal education spending, which reagan had run against and had promised to get rid of had spending 14% higher than it was in 1980 when he came to power. so it was not generally a period of great absolute cuts or reductions in spending. but what it was actually reagan did succeed along with some of his failures. the success can be defined this way. at the end of the day, by 1988, reagan and the administration relatively spending by the

federal government had declined. that is government spending as a proportion of national wealth, national gdp had come down. in the 40 years prior to reagan, it had -- the trend was that about every year just a little less than 1% of gdp was transferred over into the government side of things. with reagan for the first time, that trend broke. and you really for the next 20 years have relatively speaking a plateauing. you go -- instead of continuing forward and the trend from 1950 to 1988 continued, by the time 2005 or so is the last time i looked at it, you would have expected that the federal government would have had about 40% of gdp. in fact, it had about 30, 31%. ...

>> and even in my view wrongly or incorrectly the line-item veto. none of these things are actually accomplish. the changes in the rules and budgetary rules he was not able to get through. i do see that come and i think it's one of break-ins accomplishment because it shows the flexibility and about politicians. i do believe reagan's great strength was he was a natural politician and had extraordinarily good judgment to go with his obvious ability to have rhetoric. his greatest achievements early in the second term was the tax reform act of 86. i think it was an achievement because reagan understood that

the way congress used tax preferences are sometimes called loopholes, the way congress uses them as a way to control the economy. or they think of it that way, to manage the economy. it's a way of the government reaching out and managing the society, managing the society with carrots rather than states. so reagan thought, i believe, that if you got rid of those preferences, those loopholes, that you would pull government back from the private sector. you would pull government back from society and you would in a sense create greater freedom and less government. now, this required some imagination because in fact tax reform up until that time had been a democratic issue. they thought, without reason, that a lot of these preferences were really just going to powerful interests. so reagan was able to put together, and through his own force and potential for the basics would not have happened

if reagan hadn't been behind it and willing to expend capital on a. he was able to get that through, and it did lead come it was tax neutral ticket lead to a shifting of taxes rather than a reduction. but he did lead, i would argue, to a reduction of the size of government. and he was willing to do that and willing to bring it about. reagan had lots of luck, one way or the other. he seemed odd like being shot good luck. that really created a public image that was very positive, help them to get his programs do. his bad luck was that he came to power in a recession. a deep and powerful one, elite ones that started around september of 1981. if you look at reagan's signed his tax cuts and spending cuts in august of 81, almost immediately that recession started and lasted until early

1993. his new federalism ideas, the devolution of power to the states, went nowhere because of that. so that was bad luck i think. he did as well as possible given that he didn't have the majorities in congress that he was able to attract democrat's line, particularly on the house side. was this a great change? no, it wasn't, but it was a breaking of a long trend. on the entitlement programs which in many ways is the key as we learn more and more as time goes forward. reagan did, in fact, tried to gut social security spending. he tried twice. and 81 and again in 82. he did so against all political sense in a way that is a difficult undertaking. and both times he lost rather completelcompletely, into with the commission we know, the greenspan commission that ended up raising taxes over a 20, 25 year period. as my time until i want to have

some questions you. i'm going to jump to -- of thing just to finish up his it was politically what it was, and you remember back in 1980, george h. w. bush had run second, and was a representative of a more traditional wing of the republican party. but in his choice of bush as his vice president, the legacy i think really hurt, because george h. w. bush of course was his successor as president. and the tax rate reductions didn't persist until 1990 under his successor. 1994 was i think also a genuine concern, in a sense the 1994 group was, as reagan had wanted it to be on the limited government side, and they face the problem that they worked, didn't have the presidency and they had to do it from the house side.

but they undertook, going back about what was discussed and what was proposed and what was the 1994 crew wanted to do, it's amazing. i mean, they really wanted to undertake, get rid of the entire department, a deep cut in the federal government. and, of course, there was this that led specifically cuts and the medicare program over a five year period that led to the government showdown. and it's ironic i think because, of course, the health care bill that just went through at least proposes to have significant cuts in medicare spending in the way of paying for the program. just cuts that aren't -- they are a little less on a year to year basis with a 94 crew propose. but are somewhat similar. they lost i think in part because you have to remember that the republicans have not had power in the house for 40 years. and they weren't used to also i

think either governing or finding out these battles as a spotlight. bill clinton responded very quickly and responded strongly. you would have to say. he knew, learn quickly how to win this battle. i would point out though that it's not actually notice all that much, was even though they lost the government showdown, they were able to constrain government spending in some ways and get some of the things they wanted. and second, the 1996 elections indicate pretty strongly that there were no, or few, electoral costs for the people during that period who ran as part of the 1994 group wanting to cut government. so it does indicate both with reagan's general popular in the 94th -- 96 result, that it's possible to do so as a winning political strategy. now, the book talks quite a bit toward the end about the two

bush administration, or the second bush administration, the george w. bush administration. in my view, the effort to limit government i think i differ a bit here with the congressman, really begin to end in the summer of 1997. republicans in congress and elsewhere began, stopped believing that it was a winning political strategy to run on cutting back the federal government. and so they started looking for other alternatives. and during that period a number of evangelical conservative christians have been entering the republican party and affiliate with the republican party in increasing numbers but selecting one idea was that you can build a majority on that group. that led, i believe, in part to the impeachment in 1998, which as you may recall failed politically.

and then thereafter, george w. bush, and is also is forgotten because there's so much history between us in 1998. george w. bush ran very explicitly as being the anti-gingrich, and to illustrate the, the anti-regular but certainly the anti-reagan who was the government. bush always talked about reagan's optimism and maybe sort of generalized concerned with freedom. but he was definitely trying to put some distance between himself and that period. so you end up with republicans and initially passionate conservatism, which is sort of appeal to evangelical and other conservative christians in some way, but also activist government that we interpretation of that tradition, i think. so that's the initial agenda for the new republican party. i think you've got a different kind of republican party really after 98.

they are running on different grounds. and then of course 9/11. and i put a great deal of emphasis in this book, it's based on public opinion work, a man named gary jacobson who was one of the tops in political science. it is difficult to underestimate the damage done by the iraq war done overtime to both the bush administration. i go into the whole social security effort to partially privatize it, and the effects of the war on that. and just general. and the other thing, the problems of the war, and its unpopularity's spread from george w. bush to the republican brand itself. it very nearly by 2006 and 2008, very nearly destroyed the republican party. and i also point out that this

was actually the board itself, the effort of nation building and transforming entire regions of the world was very much in the woodrow wilson kind of frame of mind. it was a progressive notion, and one that was out of keeping in the past of conservatism or libertarian roots of much of the republican party. and it was a political disaster. so we find ourselves now, i think, at the point where the future beckons in many respects, and the republican party has run out one alternative to the limited government framework. that is, from 1997 to 2006, something else was tried, a different kind of republicanism was tried. and we see the results in 2006 and 2008. i believe the tea party movement offers not the certainty but the possibility of this kind of foundation of republicanism in limited government ideas and

concerns about individual liberty, and about a proper constitutional order. all of those things offers a time and the possibility of renewing that kind of effort. and i think we may see that in the income and mood here in the 2010 elections. the question will be, i think, can the movement sustain itself, and while the republican party respond to it in ways that, not just in 2010, but in 2012 and beyond, in ways that present a real alternative and a kind of renewal, i think, of the reagan of 1994 spirit. and we will see. but that possibility exists in a way that i was very doubtful about, say, at the end of 2008, or early 2009. >> we will move on to push. reform we do so i will use and

abuse my moderators prerogative. as the person. in your book and in your comments just now, you shortly suggest that republicans lost their way when it comes to maintaining conservative fiscal principles. and in doing so you talked about to a great extent the iraq war. also the terri schiavo case where the republicans certainly made an appeal more to the social concern. there's a competing narratives of course when it comes to what happened in 2006 and 2008 at the polls. george w. bush took this country so far to the right with extreme conservatism, and the results of the elections more reflection of that, but the electorate was moving back to the left. i wonder if you can address those two competing narratives? >> welcome on budgetary issues it's i think difficult to argue that the bush administration was, unit, moved -- if you

understand the right to the sort of reduction in size of government. it's difficult to argue they did that when you think that, you know, you got your real first large entitlement passed under the bush administration. you do get an increase in size, relative size of government from 18, 19% to about 21 or so. and over the bush years, at the height. so i don't think there was -- you have to admit that it was, as i've mentioned, the social security effort but it came late in the administration. it was undone by the iraq war. i really think from what i can see, looking at president bush's approval ratings and looking at public judgment about the iraq war as it went bad from really almost the late 2003 onward,

throughout those three long years, that you don't really need much else. people talk about katrina. they talk about a lot of things, but if you look at and think that the presidents approval rating was doing all this damage to his side of the political equation, you really don't need much to explain what happened in increasing unpopularity. wars are big things. they are big -- the public doesn't focus on everything that they focus on how the economy is doing and then there's got to be something big for the public to focus on. and a war is a big thing. president bush took a big gamble with the war and it didn't pay off. you know, very clearly it was a different kind of -- it wasn't a limited government enterprise. it was an attempt to change fundamentally of distant part of the world. so his gamble didn't pay off, whatever else you can say about whether it was desirable or not. >> all right.

we will take questions from the audience now. if you have a question, we asked two pairs of the. for speak up because we don't have a microphone for you. tried to give a short so a short so we can try to get as many folks as possible. we'll start right here. >> you were saying that bush was not -- i agree with that. but thing is the last time we had a strong and successful limited government movement, the 94 movement and we had a democrat president, we know where we went. and we're in the same impossible scenario within six months. >> yes. >> and if we get there, i think my greatest concern, that's more to me than some of the other aspects. but how do we manage to articulate what we are for is

instead of just what we are against? it's great to see limited government, but one of the reasons public opinion when you clash with the other side, is that it is seen as negative. so how do we work with the concept of more freedom, more economic freedom, rather than just less government? >> that's -- i knew would be there -- there would be some tough question. and in a sense i think your question goes to some of what seems to be changes at times that the appeal to doing less so that when reagan was elected had a visceral appeal. you do see in a lot of the tea party movement people i think a couple things that are productive. one is a sense that they understand that while the

spinning is going on now and the spin is an associate with any taxing really except on about 1% of the population, that it's not going to stay that way. that really what is at issue here come and it really -- what we're demanding it is a maturity and something of a farsightedness from some or many american voters. but i think many of the tea party people understand that over time this is not what's going on cannot be reconciled with any kind of limited government at all, and also not reconciled with extraordinary tax rights, which seems to be the tendency. so we can hope that that sense of the future is a part of it. the appeal to the constitution i think an idea that it enforces a kind of limited conception. and a conception of government that does say no and doesn't do things. but i do think it is also true that one of the things i noticed

during this period was that there have been changes in the culture of america, that i think has to be fought against. and one is the idea that if you don't do something that is inherently an obvious wrong. that saying no, when, in fact, as i said at the beginning, the government is designed to make it difficult to do all sorts of things because it's based on a conviction that most of the time, or many times when government responds to everything, there's going to be mistakes made. now, do i have an answer? the reason your question is so tough is how does one man's that kind of culture, cultural change? and that's what i see some hopeful signs in this pic you have a spontaneous political movement worried about the future and reflecting these kinds of virtues. i'm talking about. it's not impossible that leadership can still make a

difference. >> yes, sir. >> my question, what factor does the 98 place in government beside the way the tax cut and reagan -- [inaudible] >> and also, the tea party, are they part of the government? >> good questions, both. i would say with the major points that during the 1980s were the ones you mentioned, tax rate cuts, and some program cuts. not just one as i -- will simply limited number of eliminate programs but also i think reagan's sustained and, you know, it's only fair to mention that the regulation of many industries took place under the

carter administration. reagan's sustained those. it's also probably likely that reagan, even though it hurt him politically, reagan's sustained a monetary policies of the fed that, over time, had a quick effect on inflation that probably helped impact -- in fact, if nothing else, rein in inflation made it difficult to mask tax increases. and i would say also there were no sort of your credit decisions that were made like any administration, more or less government that were made during that period that probably had some constraining effect. on the tea party movement, it's a very difficult question you ask. i think that's a question many people want to -- i received an e-mail this morning from a friend of mine who, speaking of kind of limited government ideas

at the cato institute, he said i don't think the tea party people are with you, and he said i don't think they are against you but i don't think they are with you. well, and i think that's probably true because the tea party people that have responded to this are, yeah, they are different people with different ideas. but there does seem to be these two elements that at least i see them and i think the polling data supports it, which is this concern about the track the countries on and what is inevitably leads to a very large 45 to 50% of gdp going to the government. over time. and the other part i see that's really striking is the devotion, and a very traditional devotion, one that was a century ago was lamented by progressive and thinkers but continues to our day to devotion to the constitution, and a feeling that the constitution, we are letting

the constitution down. now, that seems to me to be the part that jumped out. it is certainly a movement, the problem i should say on the other side of it is there is some polling data that appeared last week is that many people associate themselves with the tea party movement do believe that the entitlement programs are worth their cost, a majority do so. that's not necessarily what you would expect. so i think the real question and the challenge of leadership for the future, if everything works out in a poorly, -- electorally, is leaders based on the movement that have not yet confronted the challenge and government programs. they are going to have to somehow, the leaders are, bring that movement to a more general skepticism and a readiness for reform with those programs.

>> yes, sir. , in the back. [inaudible] to what extent you think they need to be handed off like some sort of a balanced amendment? >> in the post-1980 period it was a great deal of this sort of thing. you have budget summits, the 1990 tax increases, and sort of limited, to put it mildly, spending came out of a budget summit that went on for four or five months. the concern i would have about a balanced budget amendment that is if you can't enforce it would work, but i think the difficulty might be that congress would find a way around it. and a lot of people that study budgets have that concern, but it's also possible that it would

be constitutional. it would force decisions, i think. politics as usual, and it's a good question because i think -- i have a general sense of this whole period, which is, looking at 1980 down to this moment, one thing i would say is true is that congress doesn't respond until the car is about to drive off a cliff. right? until they're absolutely sure, or they think they are sure that the car is about to go off the cliff. they're not good at -- so incremental politics is a little bit of this and a little bit of that, and mostly expansive. the example i would give is one that is now forgotten, the whole process of budgetary compromise and negotiation that ends up with -- in 1990 begin actually in 1987, in october. as you recall, in the last few

months or the last couple of years with had reason to recall there was a gigantic drop in the dow stock market index. in october of 1987. there have been talk for about five years or so about deficits, right? that drop led everyone in washington, there had been budgets gridlock at that point. led everyone to the assumption that the drop, the 25% in one day which would be equivalent to 3000 points today in the battle. led everyone to conclude that the government deficits had caused the stock market to decline and something needed to be done. now in fact that was not correct. the stock market decline remains unexplained and had no real effects on the larger the economy. but to me that's really a really

revealing event. that means we'll go straight to the event and the stock market loses a quarter of its not you in one day, then we will focus on doing something. now, the next time we may not be so lucky. the next crisis we seem headed for a fiscal crisis. and politics as usual, as you mentioned, doesn't seem capable of doing anything except going right to the edge. and my concern would be that the next big thing that we won't stop the edge of the cliff but it will be a real cliff to go over. so it's a complete answer to question, but i think politics as usual is not -- is a much more risky option than we think right now. >> what role, if any, do you think it marks have played in the expansion of government? >> i mean, i think the traditional view of budget

people is that the numbers are small enough that, while it isn't innovation and is a big change, the numbers themselves are not large enough to affect it, expansion of government all that much. i think, you know, the expansion of government and the problems of big government depend on a couple of things. which is small groups are able to protect benefits, and if you cut government spending, you offer a lot of relief for taxpayers, but every cut in government is a cost to somebody. and they are usually able to organize and protect their part of the pod. the other big problem is the entitlements, which both seem to be politically entrenched and yet we know, i mean, my colleague, extremely good

economist on these issues, points out that to do with the liabilities we have made the government, the promises the government has made would require 9% of our gross national product in perpetuity. 9%. i mean, that's an enormous -- we are ignoring it right now but that's the underlying reality. the entitlement issue has to change and has to be reform. it's just one kind. >> catch preferences. you talked about the democrats have on his work more with tax preferences and they continue to do so. that they concern is the fact that we're at a point where either just about path or less than half across the country is about taxes. and we have a president keeps telling us that 95% of all americans got a tax cut when most of them were not paying taxes anyway. so they got an increase in some kind of offset preference,