worlds of another irish poet, make hope and history rhyme. he said, "history teaches us -- but rarely does the moment comes when we have a chance to make hope and history rhyme." we cannot make a utopia, but we can surely make the world, our circumstance better. and the prospects of the circumstances of the world will better not only us. it has been a genuine honor to be invited. i thank him for always being straightforward with me over the years. i looked closer to our relationship, being able to produce some of the beginnings, some of the compromises that are necessary to do what we both believe, and enable america to

be convinced in the reality we have, that the best days are ahead.



>> as national public radio turns 40 this year, republicans in u.s. house have voted to cut funding for public broadcasting. correspond susan stamberg looks at the future of npr with reporter leslie berestein rojas and geneva overholser of the annenberg journalism school in california. host a by the library foundation of los angeles, this is just over an hour. [applause] >> i'm not abandoning you. good evening and welcome. it's a pleasure to see here tonight. before i start the official introductions, just a bit of housekeeping. our format tonight is in the form of a conversation among our three guests. after which will open up to your questions. so we will be circulating a microphone, two microphones in

the audience. so please wait until they come to you and please make your question a question. that would be great. we do record for podcast. after the program susan stamberg will be signing her new book in the lobby, and we welcome you to join us there. another important piece of business also before the unofficial official welcome is just to let you know that something very important is coming up on your ballot on march 8. that is measure l., which is very important elaborate. and i know that you care about libraries and then of you probably care very much about this library because you were here tonight, and measure l will restore it if it is passed six-day service at all of the los angeles public libraries. [applause] >> and eventually a seven day service at the neighborhood libraries. so please find out more about measure l. we have information in the lobby. tell your friends about it. put it on your facebook page and

we'll try to get it passed. i'm trying to, the curator. -- i'm louise steinman. the curator. this is npr, the first 40 years. i want to thank our local npr affiliate kp pc -- kpcc. thank you so much, bill. and our own library foundation president kim brecher i think it's somewhere in here. if he is not he is on his way. so i want to welcome our two presidents here tonight. and i want to thank those of you who are already library foundation members and to support allows the support of the los angeles library for access to ideas and information which is certainly a mission that is part of what we care about in pr and what npr does as well. you can find out more about supporting the los angeles public library in the lobby after the program.

just talk to one of my colleagues. just as many of us have grown up with a public library, many of us here have grown up with trendy. we love npr. we can't imagine life without npr, and we are either to be part of the conversation about what the future will be in npr. tonight we have a stellar panel of journalists discuss the past, present and future of npr. it's my great honor, susan stamberg is the voice you heard in your head when you think of npr. she is one of the pioneers of npr. she's been on staff since the network began in 1971 and is the first woman to anchor a national nightly news program. she has won every major award in broadcasting and i will not list are members accomplish this but you should know in addition to being an acclaimed broadcast journalist she is also the author to books and coeditor of the third, talk npr. susan stamberg all things considered book and coeditor.

plus a wonderful book we're here to celebrate tonight. geneva overholser is director of the school of journalism at the university of southern california annenberg school of communication and journalism. she is appealed surprise -- correction, pulitzer prize winning reporter and editor and newspaper ombudsman, a former correspondent in her career. she is a national leader in the discussion about the future of journalism and in 2006 the public policy center she published a very influential manifesto titled on behalf of journalism, a manifesto for change. and leslie berestein rojas is the lead reporter for kpcc news immigration blog pictures forward with the san diego union tribune. she covered immigration issues from the u.s.-mexico border. followed legal and illegal immigrants coming to the united states and she has reported from throughout the americas and has written for several publications and likely will be our moderator tonight. i will turn it over to her.

please welcome geneva overholser, susan stamberg and leslie berestein rojas. thank you. [applause] [inaudible] >> can you hear me now? better? okay. thank you all for being here. thanks for having us. so susan, i'm going to start off by ambition -- >> no, not me. start with the geneva. >> i don't have anything to embarrass geneva with speed back okay, go ahead. >> to read a passage from npr written by john. many people have contributed to getting npr on the air and keeping it there. but i'm convinced that if it hadn't been for susan, npr would not be here today. serving out with an audience in the range of 30 million people. with that interest, it's all yours. >> good heavens, i'm lockjaw. i won't be able to say a thing. thank you very much.

he is a misguided young man, that is true. he's a economics correspondent but he is having quite a hearing problem over the years. now, i'm being unkind. thank you very much. and hi, everybody. i said it's lovely to see you in person because we talk to these people who we think are in a void. and until we can put a face with the years, it's a special pleasure to be able to just see who you are and see that you are our listener. i am a founding mother of national public radio. i was part of the very first step and i was there from day one. i wanted to give geneva a chance to talk before i ramble off too much, but at some point i had very little responsibility for this book which is a lovely compendium i must say, different people farmed out different

decade. no adams writes the '70s. david gets us into the tens and beyond. i have merely done a small little forward and i'm going to want to read to you as someone but i don't want to go on for too long without asking geneva to talk some, because part of our subject is public radio. but it's also the future of journalism. and you as dean of the school of journalism -- soon you will be deemed. but as director, what do you feel you are teaching? what promises can you make to all those young people who think that they want to do journalism these days? >> we can make a lot of promises because i really do think that the future is full of hope. but i want to return to susan by

saying i first met susan by telephone from paris when i was living there, i had been working in newspaper for a long while and we had a mutual friend who recommended that susan talk to me about a unesco story that was very large. so i wrote a story like a good newspaper reporter, right? and i called to file the store. then i start talking to this susan stamberg about the store. and susan said wait a minute, are you reading this? i said yes. she said talk to me as if you're talking to a friend. after i got over -- i realized the importance of this. this relates to your question because if you think about it, 40 years ago we are celebrating the birth, 40 years ago of this news medium which has become so important to so many of us. and really, the sense of talking to people as if you're talking

to a friend is part of what has differentiated them. so as we look at the future of journalism now, i hope this is something we can talk about, what will be the characteristics of this next chapter? and i think some of them are very promising. the one thing the people formerly known as the audience as a jay rosen says, that's not my life, i wish it were, are able to make contributions to our work much more richly. that is something you are certainly dealing with. and i think it would be something that would appeal to greatly if you were that brunette who we are picturing. >> they publish all of our problem pictures here. this is the most popular book national public radio has ever published because look at her. i mean, i -- but, you know, sorry leslie, former host, have a tendency to run things. >> that's all right. >> forgive me. >> i wanted to say something

about voice because it's the intimacy of the voice of radio but there's also the writing voice. and that's something you as a writer somebody who came up to newspaper and now we're doing it online. surely know what you would say to yourself, for us we open our mouths and there's a voice in the. but for you, you have to create the voice with your computer keys or pen or paper or whatever did you use. spent and it's very different now blogging. i come from a print background. blogging gives a bad name because it all, people sitting in their pajamas sort of talking about whatever they want to talk about, to the cat, whatever. and then that has changed. there are bloggers who are not journalists and there are journalists who blog. but it kind of contributed to this rather confusing media landscape which the lines are becoming blurred. i'm going to launch into basically everything in the landscape is change right now. we were accustomed to npr, the

television, that were television and, of course, we have a large newsgathering operations which were in the large cities the newspapers that have been dwindling. everything is change. social media, especially twitter is disseminating news faster than we can even make sense of the. sometimes accurately, sometimes not. the line between news and opinions have become somewhat blurred at least in the public eye. there are bloggers like i said who are not journalists. journalist who are bloggers. there are pundits who get mistaken for news. it's confusing. and it's remarkable all at once. so i guess i would like to ask both of you, what are the bright spots here in this very rapidly evolving landscape? as accountable as the future of journalism, what are the opportunities and what's in it for npr? >> i will give one quick answer before because geneva will really weight in on this. you're a bright spot as far as i

am concerned because i asked you where you came from and what your background before you started this am and you told me you are a journalist. and trained, that you've worked in print, which implies you that good editing come to the people putting things idea in making sure that what you were reporting was the best truth you could have at that moment. that timmy is a bright spot. i fear this is getting into a dark spot that we are becoming that any nation, that that's who we are. and all sorts of people who have no depth, no training, no real understanding are being taken as seriously as people like leslie or people like national public radio who have all of those layers and layers of sourcing and care and attribution behind us. so, thank you so much. [applause] >> but you're a bright spot to me. >> how do we, this organization

and others, how to choose navigate these waters these days? [inaudible] >> like that? better? may be angled it better. >> how about that? its lose, it keeps dropping. is that better? very good. so first of all, one bright spot is that these the traditional media like national public radio, which by the way is thriving, that's a bright spot. and newspapers are far from over. we are a bit mark twain overstating the deaf hear about newspapers. and far from over. they're very important it is to the economic underpinnings are challenged but they are far from over. very important contributors. my credentials are all in newspaper and. i'm a 62 year-old "new york times," "washington post," former editor of the "des moines register." there is much to embrace.

the one thing we used to leave out a lot of people. i mean, i could tell you i edited a newspaper. they were certain neighborhoods of down we didn't report on nearly enough. there were certain people whose voices were not heard nearly enough. does a great democratization going on that is scary and wild west feeling, but is very promising. so i think part of the responsibility that we all have as journalists, a part of what we're hoping, and they believe we are in choosing in our wonderful student to completely embrace the future and believe in the same ways we believe that we are going to go out and enable society to be better educated about what's going on, better informed, live richer and four lives, that's what they believe. they are going to be entering a world where they will bring these enduring values and enable people to find information in a whole lot of different ways. but we can't assume that people who find information through social networks are always

ill-informed. people make interesting decisions themselves. and i think one of the most important things to recognize is that news literacy, helping people think about what is credible, judging a source of news by who funds it and by what its intentions are, and how transparent it is about those things, all of those things are increasingly important. i guess the main thing i would say is there's so much change but there has been change before in the media world. and while it's important to talk about these concerns of we love boys but we don't like rants, they are important things was to talk about here but i do want to not as loose the fact that there's an awful lot going around this very promising if scary. >> one of the great things going on is because there's so much, much public input now, you could harness that. news organizations are able to harness the into what it could happen before. you for i was sick, nobody saw what i would look like. that i

would write my story. people would read it and that was the end of the. someone might write a letter to the editor right now i get feedback. i get comments and i interact with people who can comment. sometimes i take some of the comments and i find it interesting that i will post them. the public is a great source as it always has been a great source of news. now have other ways of tapping into that. that's one of the exciting things going on right now as well. >> the i tell a story about that that builds are links to the idea of the intimacy of the radio and of the voice on the radio. with all things considered, when i used to get a cold, listers would soon be chicken soup. [laughter] >> that tell you how long ago this was, right? because it could come in a package, if you left at your best answers and you would drink it if you wouldn't have any question whether or how it would be. but that's a connection really

that -- you're getting it in a different way without the suit right now, but it's something about radio, the medium of radio, and that kind of personal connection with listers, partly because it's where you all listen to us. sometimes i don't want to think about we are in a share with you in the morning, in the bed with you in the evening, or the early morning. or in the car, especially here. but there we are, sort of the wraparound sound that becomes a soundtrack of your lives and becomes personal in a way which i wonder whether anything on line or anything in cyberspace or anything that is tweeted can be cached at what you think about that? >> think first of all what a change that was. people complained you were the first woman, national news anchor. people complained your voice was too high. listen to this voice. a squeaky voice, right? people complained your voice was too high.

it was untraditional. people were used to the voice of authority speaking down to them. >> that's good. >> and one of the differences is that helped revolutionize the way people thought, authoritative voice. that was a great thing. we now have another opportunity to be even less top down. it's not really always good for me as the editor to decide what you need. on the one hand, you do want people who are able to make these choices. but not just me sitting there beside and not getting a fig what you think. when i was at the "washington post" i would listen to readers as was my job, and my colleagues at the post would come by and say you are listening to those people? so we now do listen, and there is an intimacy in the listening. we now listen to them. you hear from you readers unsure. it's that kind of intimacy. i have at one time i took a sick

day, i would have and i just posted a photo of some medicine and cough drops and said excuse me, i'm out sick today. no one sent me chicken soup. i don't have that effect. but i think there is, you're right, there is a different kind of relationship and a different kind to build. it's not always warm. sometimes you people who want to yell at you, and that's the way it's been good but that's the way it's been even newspapers have opened up to comments it seems. you don't get that on the radio side. >> sure. roses. it's always part of the mix. >> we've come a very long way. this is a vendor -- a very general question. 40 years, god, my lifetime, -- >> please. show off. [laughter] >> but from a time when npr broadcast put together by

editors who would slice up, put them back together, to an era where information is leading living practically by the feed. what has npr's role been doing this time in terms of changing the media landscape, changing our society, changing the way that we understand our country and our world? >> could have been, what an enormous task for us. i think we certainly have been part of the changes, and again it's that carry along with the voice in the car, keeping you informed pretty much throughout the day. that's a different experience from the newspaper, or not so much different from computers and cyberspace. so there is a bat, a kind of respect for the list or the consumer of news as well as respect for the information and the way in which we put that information out. i think that's been something different. it was a reinvention of the

medium itself of radio. and sort of the raising of its profile in a way that never existed before here but also the pervasiveness across the country, and that was true from the very beginning we would have these member stations, 900 of them now, when we started maybe we had 68 or so, but still they were everywhere. it wasn't just in the power, it wasn't just, i become in particular on the east coast it was only in washington. it wasn't only in new york and near wall street, but the commitment was to cover murphysboro tennessee you know and we had a station there. and that station have people who could get on the radio and bring their listers. that you're reminding me really that it is still the kind of global village were talking about it before it's one of the bright start and that we are doing it at the beginning. now it's being done through keys and screens and various devices. but listening to america and

listening on the half of america by putting those towns and people from those towns on the air. we did it from the very beginning. those are places where we really to this day remain an oasis because there's no competition. you know, there's nothing else, the local papers are shrinking or they're not doing the breath of reporting that they might be able to. television is on some of the centralized source but never local. and so what they're getting from national public radio and those, becomes a vital, vital source of information spent a couple of other things adding to what susan has said about the role of national public radio over these 40 years and its impact on other media him and the way our nation consumes news. one is this was an original creation for us to have this public television and public radio. public really is kind of the afterthought. >> it would be and radio.

>> the book is full of wonderful stories like this. i do commend it to you. and partly because of that i think, and partly because there has always been an effort -- always imperfect. it always is what is objectivity what is balanced and what is fair. has always been a commitment by national public radio to deliver the news, you knowcome in a bows and proportionate way. and there have always been complaints. there have been some more from the right perhaps would have been complaints on the left. but the record of credibility that has been built up by national public radio is exceptional, and the continued growth of national public radio. so what do we do now, what does public radio do know at this juncture where a couple of things that already mentioned, one, the speed of news, you've got to embrace twitter and jeff got to -- brm portals but how do you incorporate them and maintain a sense of thoroughness

and had you incorporate voices and maintain a sense of civility. but one of them is that record of credibility. the other is the means of support, the public supported public radio. that's been huge. as we look at how we are going to sustain the journalism of moving forward, that is one of the models. >> people look to us now as a business model. can you imagine, that we never -- >> and it is true that fundamentally we have taught people in this country to believe that the news will come to them free. plunk down a quarter for the paper. believing, that never paid for much. it was funded by advertising. and until people got cable there was just a feeling i don't have to pay for it will come to be. but, of course, it's a very pricey thing, the reporting of into living of news. and the concept of national public radio was that the public would be supporting it which i

think it's a terribly important -- >> and establishing people will pay for. you don't have to but you do. it's not like someone will come to the house and take your radio a way if you don't pay up and become a member. but, in fact, it's because you value it and you want to pay for it and you want to participate. and have ownership in and be part of the stewardship of it. that's what such a miracle here. >> is a question that you brought up during our conversation prior to this which was, as some of the more traditional newsrooms do shrink, do you think that public radio will be filling more of avoid? if so, what does that mean in terms of funding perhaps? >> well, i doubt that public funding is anytime soon, not one for political reasons but, of course, because the government doesn't have any money at any level right now. so i don't think public funding -- government funding is likely -- any kind of government funding for the most part. doesn't look promising for me.

but i think the length of us are more and more concerned with what's happening and are likely to be, more joan crocs would be a good thing. and local philanthropist i think are going to take on a stronger role. >> and businesses, corporations, and listeners who more and more value this but if it comes to a dollar for this or a cup of coffee, people will decide that the radio really is more important. maybe they can, like myself, by a mr. coffee machine for a mere $16 at target, make it at home and turn your radio on. >> and i think the public radio will partner with more people. we are partners of kpcc. we have both benefited. i think more and more there will be collaborative work that will enable the public to proceed the same quality of information, but through more collaborative it means. >> and our -- there's a greater presence.

there's a goal to bring in a younger more diverse audience. there's a cold of a local presence, more partnerships at local stations. now, how do you go about doing this and maintaining the trend eight as this all grows? >> that's my favorite new expression. npr -ness. they keep trying to define and what is our mission. those who do it and so they know our mission very well. how it is can you keep doing it. you keep listening to each other and keep saying no, that's right and no, you didn't get it right and no, you're sounding pompous. ..

>> in all of these years, how i to make it sound a little bit different, how to put in in the kinds of pauses that hourglass builds in sometimes into those stories that get told on this american way. just the art of it, the creativity of this medium. and that, that's how it will sustain. and those values will be applied to all these new technologies and new devices, i hope. >> i do think it's more challenging to figure out how we bring it forward when we're doing it in many different ways. if i think about, okay, the same question faces newspapers. one thing that i've thought very long and hard about is, okay, which of the things we always did are traditions, you know? is we wrote a certain kind of lead, we had an inverted pyramid, the most important story on the right, you know,

those are our traditions. they're not our principles. what are our principles? and that's what, it seems to me, you really have to go to because if you're going to translate radio, the npr-ness, you know, into the web and mobile, then you really do have to think what are the things that are particularly significant about the things that we do? -- >> but i'll tell you something, that's absolutely right, but it's so shifted because of what's happened in the media landscape that that npr-ness which used to be duls her playing, you know, in the '70s and people talking over their back fences and mothers-in-law with relish recipes -- [laughter] thank you very much. have you tried it, by the way? >> coolio is a fan, by the way. >> a rap singer who helped me present my mother-in-law's recipe this year, and the man rhymed relish with fetish. [laughter] it was really a high for me as a

broadcaster. but nonetheless, there's a far greater burden on us now given i'm glad you feel that newspapers are healthy. my new york times in the morning when i pick it up with my pinky looks anorexic because it's not getting the advertising that it needs. >> it looks about the way it looks when bernstein and woodward were at "the washington post" doing what they did and npr, i mean, "the new york times" was doing amazing work on the pentagon papers. >> the advertiser's flood? >> no, the news hole. oh, you know, there were 1400 people at the l.a. times x number of years ago, but if you look back just a few years, i'm not saying we don't need to worry that now there are only 550, but there is plenty of good work left at these newspapers. we shouldn't just judge by whether it's as big as a telephone -- >> oh, no.

absolutely, the depth of it is superb. my point was given the fact that our responsibility now at npr has really shifted over the years in ways that i never could have predicted nor the man, really, who created all things considered or we founders could have imagined. we certainly wanted to be authoritative and solid and as good as we could, but we didn't think we'd be the last man standing, you know? that we would have become at this point people's primary source. and we are. for in-depth information, not just electronically as broadcasters, but any way at all. and so that does, could, can and often does edge into the time slots. because we're so fixed by time and the clock as to how much time there is to give these cranberry relish recipes and how much time there is to do music. i used to do 12, 15-minute music pieces on the air. that doesn't happen anymore.

but thanks to new media, we have wonderful online music sites where that music can get played. so that's, that's a bright spot, i suppose. it's a way of reallocation. >> you've increased your depth of what you can offer. >> yes, that's true. and i can put outtakes from interviews of mine on -- because if i've got six minutes and that's all there is for a story that i have which is major time in any other broadcasting organization but never enough for me -- [laughter] i can put outtakes, things that i just didn't have time to put on the air in my story online and guide people and say if you want to hear more of that conversation, this or that, and we can do that too. so it is a wonderful expansion. oh, i'm cheering up. [laughter] you know, i came here quite depressed. thank you, geneva. [laughter] >> wonderful. >> that leads me to another question -- >> wait until the q&a. [laughter] >> oh, no, they're all staying.

>> talking about personalized content, i mean, as people go and download what they want and they cherry pick the news they want to hear, how might this affect content, and in a larger sense, what does it do to us not just as media consumers, but as a media-consuming society? >> this is a wonderful question, and i would put it to you because if you say you don't want the editor-in-chief to say this, this, this and this, doesn't somebody have to make the decisions as to what the content will be and what it is that the listeners, the readers, the clickersthe tweeters, the woofers -- [laughter] should know? in a democracy and to get through the day? >> i wouldn't say i don't want editors to make decisions. i do say i don't want them to make decisions without the input of the public. it is scary if public is making so much input that the editor becomes somebody with their finger to the wind, that's clear. i think different news organization os will make different decisions, and i believe they will make decisions

that do include the thinking of the people formerly known as the audience but, clearly, will bring their own editorial judgment to it. there'll be others that make decisions already completely by popularity. but, you know, news, i mean, i hate to say this among my broadcast brethren, but i an awful lot of that has been going on in television for a long time. it's not as if we invented this on the web. i believe that we will distinguish among news organizations by exactly this kind of thing. >> uh-huh. >> and we'll go to trusted sources of news because we do believe that the judgment that's exerted there in combination with thoughtful listening to readers and listeners will, will be valuable enough. >> but let me ask you this, and i'd love to hear you talk about this a bit, leslie, because you're not 40 yet. [laughter] one of my concerns is how you build consensus anymore in this

society. and if, if people are only going to the things they want to hear like national public radio, god bless you, but there's more in this world than us. i sometimes don't like admitting it, but that's true. and others who only want to go to their blog with lonely girl, whoever, whatever the most current thing is, how does, how do people ever come together when they're riding individual hobby horses and that's all they want to know about? i mean, i think that's a real issue these days. >> can you know, i have to say it pains me, it does. i mean, i'm old enough to really miss -- i mean, i still do it, but, you know, picking up a newspaper and getting my information about the world from, you know, from the national, from the international. that's, it's not that way anymore. we do, we go to different places for different things, and i think there's a degree of cherry picking where, sadly, you know, some media consumers miss out on some really good stories, and

that's just kind of the way it is right now. >> i think i'm talking about something different. let me see if i can articulate it a little bit. it's not just the absence of the newspaper. i'll take a giant leap back to the days of the three-commercial television networks. and at night america sat down and mostly listened to walter cronkite. so you've got a universal -- it may not have been the most diverse assemblage of information -- >> no, that's an understatement. [laughter] >> but we were receiving it, maybe it was received wisdom, maybe it was received something else at the same time that we were as a nation experiencing something all together. and that doesn't happen very much these days. it doesn't happen on any of these platforms really. but -- >> but i think in some ways now exposing myself as a child of the '60s that what happened with civil rights and women's

right erupted because there wasn't a broad enough conversation in that very narrow living room you describe. i, too, am very much concerned with the level of civic discourse and the lack of civility. i do think we have seen at previous periods in our history in the u.s., and it's not necessarily only a product of what's happening to the media. that doesn't mean we shouldn't be concerned as we figure out what to do in the media, but think of previous eras of american history where there have been terrible periods of inability to gather around one idea. i mean rg obviously, civil war not least among them. but i don't think we should think, you know, it's the only time in the history of the u.s. in which we've ever had this kind of incivility. but it's particularly awful right now, that's for sure. >> yeah. what can the media do about it is an important question. >> i think what i was emoting wasn't the loss of newspapers, it's the loss of the broader

exposure, really. if you want to just sit in front of your computer and listen to whatever pundit you want to -- >> two ideas that are really different from yours that you don't agree with can and that make you think, that push you in some way or pull you or make you have to reevaluate some old saw as i am doing in public this evening as i listen to these brighter spots. >> people going online. we shouldn't assume people aren't going online and only reading their own stuff. because they're doing information gathering differently does not mean they're doing bad information gathering. most of the people who are shouting at one another on talk radio are not exemplars of what is happening when people go online and search for information or when people share with one another through social networks, their information. we shouldn't assume that because these are new methods of delivering information people are delivering only poor rants, you know, poor quality of information. >> yeah. i don't think i'm assuming that it will necessarily always be poor, but i am assuming that the

ranters will only listen to one another, and that they'll talk louder than anybody else. >> but the way they've done that is mostly on radio. [laughter] >> here we go. actually -- >> guilty as charged. >> not on yours. >> in the book quote ago software designer for google who's developing an application for android, and he says he's much more likely to listen to radio streams and increasingly wants to listen only to the content and artists that i find interesting, says michael. in the past radio was something i tended to listen to when there were no alternatives, now i have the option to listen to relevant programs and stories when i want to. with the advent of smart foins, the content, time and place can be of my choosing. on his own time he's devising an npr application for android hoping it will bring more readers to the text web pages and more colleagues to design their own npr applications. it's, you know, it's --

>> who wrote it? >> this is, oh, my gosh, you would ask me. this is the most recent section, whoever wrote the most -- >> yeah. [inaudible] >> yes, it was in his section. >> but that's very good, actually, and what it does is put programmers out of jobs. maybe that's okay. i myself love making radio programs, giving them a shape and deciding how we begin and how we go through it. it's sort of that inverted pyramid business, those things of newspapers. i like doing that about -- with a radio program, taking through some sort of an emotional journey in the course of an hour. but, obviously, i know that that's very old-fashioned now. and, and this kind of scatter shot thing is really what seems to be the prevailing business and that the radio pieces are being downloaded and listening to -- listened to at the time anyone, an individual wants to hear them. >> well, we no longer continue to have -- >> an hour. >> [inaudible] >> that's right. >> won't we have a shapely show

any longer? i mean, at the end of shapely shows? >> the makers of those shows will continue giving them that sort of shape. but, you know, we do focus groups all the time, we put 20-somethings in a group and say show of hands, how many of you own a radio? not one hand goes up. so i don't know who's got the time to spend listening to the two hours in a row. they don't think about the radios in their car and how they may sit in traffic jams, but they will download to other devices in the car rather than turn, push that dial, turn it, whatever it is. so the makers will continue giving that shape to it the way you give the shape to a drama or a poem. i really do feel it is an art form in many ways and that's something else that distinguishes our work. but how long before it will be cut into bits and pieces for personal consumption, i don't know. >> okay. well, then, let's see, let's move on to something totally different because we're still

talking about reporting the digital age and, um, let's talk about keeping up with the information and the misinformation. i mean, we know this weekend, you know, as we know there was a terrible incident in arizona, and there were several news outlets including npr that at the beginning erroneously reported that representative giffords had died. in fact, she was critically wounded. and part of the problem was, apparently, it was also being tweeted by other news outlets. it was making for this very fast, hypercompetitive environment. in fact, i'll read part of what executive news editor dick meyer wrote in his apology. all of us have been reminded of the challenges and professional responsibilities of reporting on fast-breaking news in a time when misinformation and information move at light speed. it is very challenging. what are these challenges in the how to do it better, how to learn from this? >> well, we've always had these challenges, you know, how many different sources should we get before we report something? we've always made mistakes. you remember dewey defeats

truman? [laughter] but now it's happening at lightning -- >> so fast, yeah. >> so what happened, i think, with npr, and it was really very unfortunate. i mean, you report someone's death, obviously, it's a grave mistake. but what happened was that there was somebody in the county sheriff's office who said it, and there was somebody else who said it, and it becomes one of these things, well, i heard that, and people tweeted and other people tweeted. the good news is that we also, now, have the ability to really air exactly what happened. and npr did that at great length and with good transparency. and i think increasingly we, this will be part of our news literacy as news consumers. we will ask ourselves, well -- and i hope that news people will be very careful to say in the tumult, you know, it was, there were -- say exactly who said it, but there were reports, it's -- i mean, be straightforward about the level of assurance and can confidence that you have in it.

>> i've always felt it was really important to, to raise the curtain and tell exactly what the wheels looked like and how they got greased and how we really came to that story. but this lightning speed is really something serious. i've seen it in breaking news being on the air myself as an anchor and a reporter coming in with the, as i said before, the best truth he had in that moment. but making mistakes and having to correct if i knew something that he was saying was incorrect, having to jump in as any good anchor will and make the little tweak and clarify and make the correction as you go. but it takes a tremendous amount of integrity and intelligence and, also, real quick-wittedness to be able to do that. the cracks are enormous, and the risks are huge. but i think a key thing is to come out as quickly as you can and say, we made a mistake, and we need to correct this. we regret this mistake, this is what we found out now.

and you just have to -- that's the future. >> the media are much better -- >> i remember "the new york times" would, oh, good lord, to publish a correction was as terrible -- >> no, unbelievable. >> yeah, a sin. now they have huge corrections columns -- [laughter] either they've gotten very sloppy, or they're much more forthcoming that way. [laughter] >> some news outlets actually did withdraw their tweets, and it's -- >> let's talk about that. >> yeah. >> let's talk about that because this was something i had to think about today really almost for the first time since i don't live in tweetsville. >> but, you know, one of the interesting things, actually, a social media strategist for npr wrote an interesting post on this one web site explaining the blow by blow of what the decision was, actually the decision to not erase the tweet. because some outlets did. and he just felt, actually, it's a pretty simple answer. he wanted to just keep it transparent, so he just wound up

tweeting again, you know, as it turns out, she's alive. >> it's a historical record e question. andy carvin wrote a really nice thing, i commend it to you, it's a real kind of examination of what exactly happened. >> yeah. >> and, i mean, everybody is struggling with this, and if you think the answer is, well, then don't bother with this twitter stuff, that cannot be the answer for those organizations that are trying to embrace the future because these are reporting tools, these are ways of receiving information, and these are ways which a lot of us use. i use them, and i'm an old bat. [laughter] so we've got to be out there. but it does mean that it's going to be a real struggle to figure out how we now define accuracy and attribution. >> this is, actually, part of my learning process just this -- thinking this through and reading stuff today getting ready to talk to you. my first impulse would have been not understanding that world of tweetdom not very well, take it off, erase it. you've published a mistake, pull it, get rid of it.

but it doesn't disappear. and so in order to keep the historical record, you leave it there, and then you however many tweets later make the correction so that you can see what the process has been. the problem is so many of the people who will have looked at the first tweet and won't catch up with the correction. that's always an issue. and we do it on the air, too, we make a mistake, but you correct it. our program rolls over across the country, and there are three different editions of it. and we will correct for the middle of the country or for you, get the perfect program every time. [laughter] by the time it gets out here, we are flawless, i'll tell you. [laughter] the only question is what gets kept and what happens if you've only heard the first draft. >> one thing we should know while we're beating up on the twitter part of this -- >> no, i don't mean it -- >> what i mean is we're saying what happened on twitter? >> twitter, do it all the time. >> because the social networks guy was listening to the radio

and heard on the radio that congresswoman giffords had died. so the tweet actually followed the broadcast. >> no, that is correct. >> it wasn't, you know -- >> the scoop, npr, i mean, it's a horrible scoop to have, but we were first out with the story of the shootings. but then the death business came first on the radio and then, you're right, went to the tweets. and this is another burden, now, when you get out there and become that kind of primary source. other news organizations then think, oh, npr's reporting it, we'll go with it, and that's just what cnn and "the new york times," even fox went ahead and did that day. [laughter] so it was, there are a million lessons to be learned, and no one will learn them more carefully than we will, believe me. >> and, basically, you know, one more thing that i'll throw out is, you know, back to, again, back to as this land scape shifts and we have so much information out there and coming at us, kind of to counter a bit about the cherry picking.

you know, one of the best things about it is that, yes, you can pick which choose, but -- pick and choose, but you can also choose to be flooded with information because it's coming in from all places, including the social networks. and that's actually a very good thing. i'm turned on to stories that i wouldn't have been in dalety life -- daily life ten years ago. and i incorporate this into the way i report and how i think and what i wind up doing that day. and so, actually, all these different approaches we're using towards disseminating news and gathering news are very valuable, and they're valuable to npr and everyone. >> with amen, sister. >> and on that note, let's have some questions. [laughter] are we done? [laughter] leslie? is it time for questions? >> i'm glad you're moderating, leslie. >> we're about two minutes until question time. >> that was such a great way to stop this. >> [inaudible] >> oh. >> okay. >> well, the firsthand i saw was

over there -- first hand i saw was over there. >> [inaudible] >> okay, over there. all right. >> hi, and thanks for a great conversation. i run a discussion group called deep thinkers, at one time it might have been called a salon. and we're getting together this saturday to talk about journalism. and the question is -- i'd like to hear your thoughts on it -- which is, what is a journalist? is it julian assange? is it jon stewart? is it keith olberman? is it glenn beck? >> great question. >> yeah. >> and regarding wiki reek, legally speaking, how does wikileaks differ from npr? [laughter] oh, my. well, in many every imaginable way, i would think. an investigatorrive reporter at national public radio would work as hard as he or she could to get access to those documents and then having gone through

them would evaluate, would decide where the leads were, where new information was, check them back against their -- all they are are documents in their rare form. it's like pentagon papers, i suppose, in that way. but would then try to provide some context for that raw information that was, that was available. i think that would be part of the difference. anything to add to it? i mean -- >> well, i always turn that question around slightly because i find it virtually impossible to define a journalist. i think it's easier for me to think in terms of defining journalism, and i like to think of journalism as information in the general population that has verification. and so you can argue whether wikileaks is or is not in the public interest, but i don't think it's journalism because it doesn't have, as you pointed out, susan, exactly right,

nobody, you know, there's no middle -- there's no one sort of carefully trying to think about what parts of this might not be in the public interest because they endanger lives, there's no one trying to figure out, you know, what is the source of this and what are the intentions of the people, no one editing it, nobody -- >> [inaudible] >> there's a lot of public interest in having access to a lot of data we didn't use to have access to, so i think your question is very important. i think it's less necessary that we define journalists, it's more important we think about what kinds of information do we as a public need and what are going to be the right sources for those kinds of information? >> i think it just becomes all about context and giving, giving a certain proportionality to the raw material that's out there. i mean, any journalist goes out and gathers, but then it's what you do when you come back and the kind of shape that you give it and the way you choose to

tell, to make a story out of the chaos that is life, you know? and give it some sort of a narrative line that will make it clear to your readers, your listeners, your consumers. >> would you say we'd be better off if we hadn't, if wikileaks didn't exist? is. >> no, i wouldn't say that. i wouldn't say that. but it does need some mediation. >> uh-huh. it's interesting to me that wikileaks went to some news organizations this round. in fact, seeming to recognize that it needed mediation. but maybe not, maybe it just recognized it really wasn't getting attention unless it went to the news organizations. [laughter] >> well, there's that too. no, that's true. >> people have speculated, because they still released it unexprogated and unedited. does that answer the question? >> no. [laughter] >> what do you think? >> do you want to give us your answer? >> [inaudible] i think julian assange has only

released about a thousand documents of the hundreds of thousands that are out there, so there is a lot of misinformation flowing around, and i believe the columbia school -- >> from who? from whom? whose misinformation is it? what do you mean? >> well, i think that people are saying that there's a document dump and that implies that he just tossed all these documents out. >> oh, you -- >> i don't think that's the case. i think glenn greenwald is an excellent source for information about what's really going on and what kind of legal protections should wikileaks be afforded or denied that npr or "the new york times" would get? >> uh-huh. >> i think that is a very interesting question. i'm not -- what i'm saying is i don't think that, there again, what do we as a public need? what kind of information do we need? the same kind of legal challenges have been, you know, argued about which are the

people who deserve to be able to protect their sources, right? and it's very hard to define journalists in that regard. so i don't know exactly how we're going to go down that road of figuring out what kind of information sources the public needs and, therefore, which should b be protected. >> but in this age it will become more and more of a question as you can hack, as you can get things available which were not meant to be seen, and so there will be more and more of that very controversial, could be inflammatory or endangering raw material out there and available. so that's something really to think hard about. >> but although it's true, as you said, that not all the documents have been released, when they do release them, they do generally release them without editing them. >> but they're selecting. >> [inaudible] because of the danger that it poses to life and limb. >> more this time than the last

time. more now than they were at first, i think. >> that's true. >> it's a moving target. it's going to be very interesting to watch. i think it's a very important thing. i think giving people access to information like this is very empowering, but the question of how it's treated is very complex. >> i agree. >> you know what i'm -- oh, we should take another question, i suppose. i'm thinking about a very heroic decision that you made on "the des moines register". why don't you tell them about that -- >> oh, no, that would take all night. actually, it was a heroic decision made by a woman in iowa who was raped, and the woman wanted to tell her story. and it really was brave. but i think we do carve out new. >> no, but your bravery was in deciding you would not reveal her name, correct? >> no. no, she wanted to tell her story and have her name in the paper, and that's what was courageous because nobody's name was ever in the paper. >> oh, sorry. >> that's another program. >> i'm a very avid npr listener,

but i guess that doesn't make me special in this crowd. [laughter] >> no, but beloved. >> thank you. one of my questions was related to wikileaks, but i don't want to beat the dead horse again. the second question is to do with the impartiality of npr, the npr-ness that we talked about. what i have personally noticed that npr seems to maintain that very well when it comes to domestic news. i mean, people can accuse it of leaning towards the left slightly, but on the whole you see very impartial, very accurate reporting from both sides of the aisle. but when it comes to international news, sometimes it feels as if npr is tagging along the u.s. foreign policy line. it doesn't report on incidents from, let's say, it doesn't report the other opinion, opinion from the other side from, let's say, the states which may be considered hostile to united states. so would you like to, like,

comment on that, that the -- this name of impartiality, shouldn't npr be making more effort to, to grab the news from -- >> well, you're hearing an absence of a full picture then, yes, we should certainly do everything that we can to flesh out a story. but i'm not exactly clear on what it is you are hearing. you know, we have correspondents at the state department, and their job is to report on what american foreign policy is. and we have correspondents in foreign countries, and part of their job is to report ramifications for an event in that, in that nation for us back here at home as well as reporting what the government of the place where they are stationed has to say about it. so i feel as if picture's pretty cleat. i wonder -- complete. i wonder, i can't defend this,

i'm not on the desk of the editor, a pulitzer prize winner, by the way. do you want to be specific? or can you be? >> [inaudible] for example, the, one of the issues that i personally have felt is the israeli/palestinian issue, for example. it gets muddled a lot. >> yeah. >> we don't get to hear the story, i mean, for example, in order for me to find proper news, i had to delve into other resources. to get the palestinian opinion properly. i think npr is lacking -- >> yeah. we could talk about this for the 40 years in which we've been covering middle east affairs. all i can do is quote to you from thomas friedman who said his experience was whichever side you talk to said to you, you report it my way, or you die. i mean, that's how hard it is, really. i don't mean to be glib about this, but that's how difficult it is to report that story and please everybody who's listening

to you or reading you. it's just, it's just really, really hard to do. you make your darnedest effort to do it. >> [inaudible] >> i see, i see a hand up there. >> [inaudible] >> and there's one there. okay. i saw it, right there. right there, i guess. i saw a hand right in the middle. okay, right there. >> along the same line, i also am an avid fan. sometimes i feel like i just have to move over to democracy now and hear amy goodman and hear a different version, a little more depth, a little more raw, a little more gritty. and some -- i have a feeling that there are an increasing number of sort of little cute, personal comments often made by not so much the reporters, but

the hosts of stories. i don't quite know how to identify them. so i, i need a little more grit back into npr because i do count on it as my main news source. >> i'll convey that home. send grit. [laughter] >> a variety of news sources, we were talking about earlier. you know, next. and we had one over here. >> hi. thank you for this conversation, it's wonderful, and congratulations on 40 years. um, one of the things you mentioned, susan, at the beginning of the conversation was the place of editors and the many layers that kind of define journalism. it was a topic this week of the public editor's column in "the new york times" about what becomes record and how that record is edited. "the new york times" used to in its print edition have the

definitive record. excuse me. but now, you know, it continually revises its stories, and i'm wondering in this, in this blogosphere and even with npr taking on other vendors of news other than itself -- pri and all these other vendors -- how the editorial process and how the layers, the filtering layers will evolve many this new world -- in this new world both online and in the mobile world, but through all of it. how do you, how do you examine the vendor, how do you edit the content? >> i don't know what you mean by the vendor. we're not taking news from other people, we're not taking news from other news organizations. we do some or we did from the bbc or other very distinguished news organizations, but we're not buying stories from other news organizations. we will use freelance reporters, and then we edit them ourselves. we wouldn't put anybody else's

edited material within the context of our news broadcast. does this get at what you're asking? but on all those other platforms, this is the daily challenge is to convey what those, sorry geneva, hierarchical standards that we've established in these years as to these are the elements and these are the steps through which you have to go in order to get on the air or to get published or get an npr story out. and that needs to be shared with the people who write our blog and the people who write columns for us and others, the nonbroadcast elements that we're working to expand and explore. and that's hard. we sort of hard core people there from the beginning are very concerned about that frequently. >> thank you. >> is there time for another? is okay, we had a gentleman --

two more here. we had a gentleman who raised his happened just now. yeah. >> thank you. it's been very enjoyable, very informative. i want to understand where npr's heading because looking backwards to another time when, let's say the vietnam war where i can relate to, we looked for a point of view, for hope, for inspiration, a way out of controversy. what i see now is a middle of the road, a sterile, not a point of view, but a competition trying to be like everyone else. is there a possibility that npr can have more editorializing or point of view, let's say, against the wars -- >> that's not our business to make points of view, to take

stands for or against. >> okay. is npr afraid of upsetting the government? [laughter] >> one of our jobs should be to upset the government every day. [laughter] i mean -- >> okay. because you look -- >> to empower the powerless, you know? >> yeah. >> that's one of the basic jobs of journalism, to give voice to the voiceless and -- >> because -- >> and to make trouble. >> the british do a good job. thai not afraid -- they're not afraid of criticizing government, of getting, you know, some point of view out that counters and maybe changes the government's understanding and their policy. i think we need a strong position -- >> well, you get that on editorial pages. >> yeah. >> you get it from commentaries on our air, but you don't get it, you wouldn't get it from the basic news organization. you shouldn't. our job is to give you the information as to what's happened today in the most factual, clear, objective if you

can but at least fair, manner possible. >> one more? sorry, guys. i've seen somebody, who was the corner that was in the person before? okay, over there. okay, thanks. >> what a wonderful way to spend a tuesday evening. thank you so much. [applause] it seems to me that in this discussion of transparency, npr-ness and npr wither goest -- [laughter] the name juan williams really can't be avoided, and at the risk of being unpleasant and i don't mean to -- >> don't be silly. >> put it on the list. >> i and, i'm sure, many others would appreciate if you could all comment in the ways that you think are appropriate or, perhaps, inappropriate. >> i'll do what i can. darn, i was hoping i'd get away this evening with two things not

being raised, one, a request for my mother-in-law's cranberry relish -- [laughter] and, two, the question about juan. but i'm glad to talk about it really. he put in years of good service with us. but it gets, really, it's been the theme, one of the threads we've been dealing with all night. and it's the difference between commentary, that is the expression of personal opinion and analysis which is the slicing, the dicing of a subject to talk about its implications and its meaning. juan was hired for us as an analyst. in the tradition of daniel shore. a daniel shore would never have gone to any news organization -- fox, cbs, whatever -- in a round table format of so-called pundits and expressed his opinion. he would not have done that.

he knew he was a newsman. and can that his job with -- and that his job with us was analysis and could not stand in both worlds at the same time. juan is, was and is perfectly free to express his opinion on that, on those programs for fox, and fox is not the issue there. it's really the job description that's the issue. but to have it both ways, it's a credibility business. then if he's over on this program waving the flag for palestine, how do you trust his analysis of the middle east the next day on national public radio? really, it's that simple. >> i wish i felt it were that simple, and i greatly admire susan. but i just, i think this is going to be one of the great struggles for news organizations moving forward in this era when acrimonious expression of opinion is so common. i mean, npr is either going to have to say that you can be a -- well, first of all, i do not

think that the line between analysis and commentary is that clear and perceptible to most listeners. i do know that daniel shore didn't cross it, i agree. but most analysts express some opinion when they're making a comment, and i think that if npr really believes this is going to be a workable thing, that it's going to have no commentators who ever say anything anywhere else or it's going to have no analysts who are not heard, i mean, to me it was not workable from are the beginning to have juan williams who's kind of a provocateur and, you know, to say you can't say this over on fox and say it on npr is -- >> well, that's just what i'm saying. it was not a situation we should have permitted for as long -- >> ever. ever, okay, then i can buy that. >> that's all. >> does that mean you'll never have any analyst who would ever say something somewhat provocative on another -- i guess my main point is i think this is going to be a real struggle for media moving forward, and for npr, you know,

that really built its reputation on this kind of -- >> the last thing that i heard, geneva, and i find it troubling is that our days of in-house analysts are over. and in some awful and ironic way, i guess they died with dan. >> well, yeah. then that may well be true. >> yes. >> i think it's a very difficult challenge, and it will be for all media that have really kind of said we divide, you know, there's a clear line between the news and opinion. >> so the way we will do it is to have e.j. deyoung, you know, we'll get outside people coming in -- >> but what if e.j. goes somewhere else and says some sort of -- >> but he's not on our staff. i mean, this is a little spy speck-y, but he's not on our staff, he comes in be once a week, and that's it. >> actually back to the question that i had which is that there is this, you know, lots of confusion sometimes between what's news and what's punditry. and because we do have these shows that have really just

blossomed, i mean, 10, 15 years one of which he was on, i mean, what's going to happen there? i mean, because in part it was the climate, it was the show, the type of show that he was on. it was a provocative environment to start with, so is that -- >> you're talking about the fox show? >> exactly. >> can that's very much a discussion that's going on an np -- at npr right now because we have a number of reporters who also show up on such programs, other people's programs. and whether -- i don't know how it will turn out, whether lines are being drawn for them, whether they're going to be told you can't do it, you know, you made your choice, i don't know that. my view is that is what should happen. they should be either told ours or theirs, you can't do both. >> does that answer the question? okay. is that it? okay. [applause] all right. [laughter] [applause]

>> we want to thank you all for coming tonight. our wonderful panel, our audience, please, support npr, ktpc and remember to vote on measure l. someone left their cell phone in the restroom. please join susan in the lobby for a book signing. thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> live pictures, now, from the white house briefing room. in just a moment we expect spokesman jay carney to update reporters. live coverage here on c-span2 when it gets under way. [inaudible conversations]

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>> standing by for the start of today's white house briefing with spokesman p.j. crowley. in the meantime, today's state department briefing is underway,.j. crowley is -- p.j. crowley is there offering remarks about the the prettial unrest in libya. the obama administration will throw it weight behind the european effort to expel libya from the u.n.'s top human rights body to look into alleged atrocities committed by the qadhafi regime. here's live coverage on c-span2. >> good afternoon, everybody. sorry i'm late, i apologize. [inaudible conversations] >> [inaudible] >> i take it back. [laughter] >> there you go.

>> before we get started, i have a couple of details about recent conversations that president obama has had with foreign leaders. first, since the readout was sent last night fairly late, i just want to make sure that all of you know e last night around 8 p.m. eastern the president spoke with mexico president calderon. president obama expressed appreciation for the strong investigative work of the mexicans to arrest one of special agent zapata's alleged killers, and president calderon expressed appreciation for the cooperation of american agencies that made the arrests possible. the president said that neither the united states nor mexico could tolerate violence against those who serve and protect our citizens. as special agent zapata did so selflessly through his own life. president obama also said he was looking forward to welcoming president calderon to the white house on thursday, march 3rd, to discuss our important bilateral relationship and key global

issues. also i'd like to mention that this afternoon the president is scheduled to speak with prime minister cameron and president sarkozy to coordinate our reactions in response to the situation in libya. we expect additional conversations with foreign leaders on this topic in the days ahead. with that, i am ready for your questions. >> can you talk about the americans that are in this situation with the ferry that's not able to leave tripoli? are there contingency plans to get them out? >> the state department, government is working very hard to evacuate the americans from libya. the details of those operations are available at the state department, but we are doing everything we can to safely evacuate them from libya. >> and with that evacuation still not having happened, how does that complicate the u.s.'

response to the situation? >> well, as i think you heard the president say yesterday very clearly what our, what his position is toward the situation, towards the actions of the libyan government, very clear condemn mission of the violence against -- done dem nation -- condemnation against the violence against libyan citizens. he also is, obviously, very concerned about the safety of americans, and that is a priority. that's, you know, all i can say on that. >> any movement on sanctions, no-fly zones? >> you know, obviously, sanctions are something we're looking at. i don't want to get into specifics. we're working very closely with the international community, and we're hoping and believe that the international community will speak with one voice as i think is often the case.

the, when the international community comes together and speaks with one voice, it has a powerful impact in terms of persuading a government like libya's to do the right thing and to stop the kind of violence it's been perpetrating on its own people. so we're examining a lot of options, sanctions are one of them, but i don't want to specify that one is going to happen and one's not going to happen. but we're, we're working with our parter ins on that -- partners on that. >> will sanctions be on the agenda when the president speaks to cameron and sarkozy today? >> well, they will be discussing libya, and i think that they will be discussing different options that we can take, the united states, the united kingdom, france, other countries, international partners to affect the behavior of the libyan government. so i'm sure, broadly speaking, our options will be discussed.

yes, go ahead. >> what kind of military options are being considered? >> i think what we said is that there are no options we're taking off the table, but what we're focused on are the options that we can take to affect the situation in the near term. and we would like to see the kind of concerted, broad-based international action that can compel the libyan government to cease and desist from the kind of actions it's taking against its own people. >> as far as u.s. citizens in libya, who are you guys talking to with the libyan government? i mean, while we're waiting for the ferry to go, the weather's not subject to change for at least the next few days? >> well, obviously, the security of these american citizens is an extremely high priority, and i

wouldn't want to say anything from this podium or publicly that would effect their security. so i'm not going to get into specifically what we're doing to make sure they're safe. we are taking, doing everything we can to evacuate them, to make sure they are safe. but beyond that i don't want to get into how we're doing that. >> colonel qadhafi today in a rambling phone interview with libyan state television as well as two days ago talked about how the protesters had been fed hallucinogens by osama bin laden. i was wondering if the administration had any response to anything mr. qadhafi has said in the last couple days. >> jake, the way we've approached this, the way the president has approached this is that our position on the unrest in these countries is not about an individual leader. it's about the responsibility

that each government has to not respond with violence to peaceful demonstrators, to not restrict the universal rights that their citizens have and to move forward with the kind of e reforms that will be responsive to the legitimate aspirations of their people. it's not about personalities. and i would, i would simply note that one consistent theme i think you've seen in the way we have responded to these developments, these events in the region has been to make it clear it's also not about the united states. it's not about the united states dictating outcomes, picking leaders, telling countries who can run, who can be their leader and who can't be. because what we have seen are legitimate, organic, grassroots risings by the peoples of these countries demanding more freedom

and greater opportunity in their lives. and, again, it's not about individual leaders, and it's about the people in these countries. >> the french defense minister has talked openly about imposing a no-fly zone, more openly than the u.s. has talked about it. can you explain why? >> well, i don't want to explain what other leaders in other countries have said or other senior officials from other countries. what i, what we have said is that we're not going to specify which options are on or off the table. we are discussing a full range of options with our partners at the u.n. and elsewhere, and, you know, we expect to take action in the near term to, with the international community to, we

believe, hopefully, compel the libyan government to stop killing it own people. >> do you have any theory as to why other nations have been allowed by the libyan government to land planes, extricate their citizens, and the libyan government has not allowed the united states to do so? >> again, for the details on our efforts to ec tract american citizens from -- extract american citizens from or help evacuate american citizens from libya, i refer you to the state department. i just know we are doing everything we can to make that happen. dan. >> thank you. get back to the military options. has the president been presented yet with a military plan on -- [inaudible] from the pentagon? >> i'm not going to get into specific options that are under consideration or not under consideration. i would, again, point out that we want to work with our

international partners because we think the most effective action in many cases can be when the international community speaks with one voice and acts in a united way. again, i'm not ruling out bilateral options, but i'm just saying that that is a focus right now. >> you're not ruling out that -- >> i'm not ruling anything out. >> but you won't say if president has been presented with a military option yet. >> no, i won't say that. >> is there a list of priorities this terms of what options you would like first? you know, whether it's sanctions, whether it's no-fly zone, whether it's military as the administration put together a list of options and priorities? >> again, i think we've, it's been -- i've been asked and it's been discussed, the possibility of different kinds of sanctions, dimpt measures that can be taken. that's, obviously, on the table. i don't want to categorize which

options might come in the which order, but -- in which order but we are interested in acting quickly because we have a situation in libya that demands quick action. so we are interested in some of the actions that can be taken, you know, in the near term. >> any frustration with the administration that this is a country that the u.s. has no real deep ties to, no real financial ties to and so the option was available, would have been available in egypt or other places not available in libya? >> well, dan, as we said, each country that has been affected by this unrest is different. each country in the region is different, each country has different traditions, political systems and relationships with the united states and other countries around the region and the world. so the way we approach our

policy positions and make our decisions based on, in reaction to the events in these countries is, obviously, affected by those differences. while it's also guided by the principles that we've talked about, that apply to, that guide our approach to all these countries and the unrest in them. so that's a long way of saying, you know, each country's different, and we deal with them and their differences as necessary. ..

>> that's for the people of the country to decide. that in many ways is what this unrest has been about. either specific leaders or regimes or the way that the government has treated their people. and i would point you again to the fact that the leader in this country, colonel gadhafi, has said, tried to suggest that the united states was behind the uprisings of its own people, the demonstrators, the demonstrations, the peaceful demonstrations of its own country and within his own people. that's clearly not the case. and i think jay pointed out he

is now searching around for somebody else to blame. our focus is on the principles we have out late, we have laid out on the need for these governments in the region and around the world to be responsive to the legitimate aspirations of their people. and first and foremost, not to use violence in response to peaceful demonstrations. >> military operations, i know you said you don't want to take anything off the table, but my guess is a lot of the american people would like one option taken off the table and that is a significant number of u.s. troops into libbey. is that an option you can take off? >> chip, again, i'm going to go back to my answer. i don't think it's productive for us as where examining our options to take one option or the other off the table. but i am focused on -- we are focused on working with our

partners internationally to take steps that will persuade or compel the libyan government to change its behavior your. >> if you will take that off the table, then send a significant number of troops is on the table? >> well, i'm not taking options off the table one way or not. >> i'm sorry, congressman ellison and others have called for the president to come out -- [inaudible] >> not that i'm aware of, chip. i think what we have made pretty clear is that the president thinks and we think he has stated this, obviously a lot of states in the union are dealing with fiscal issues. big problems in the state budget that need to be addressed. and they need to act

responsibly, tightened their belts, live within their means, just as we in washington, the executive branch and congress need to do with our federal situation. but again, you know, he believes very strongly that the way to achieve that, just like the way to achieve it here, people need to come to the table, work together, share the sacrifice and produce the results. the people in the states won and extrapolate to the larger picture here, the whole country, do the things that we need to do to live within our means so we can invest in the future. i think that's true at the state level. >> forgive me if i'm being redundant. you've been asked about what he said about joining the ticket lines back in 2007, when he said if american workers are being denied their right to organize, when i'm in the white house i will put on a comfortable pair

of shoes and i will walk on the picket line with you as president of the united states. is he ready to put on a comfortable pair of shoes and fulfill that promise? >> i think, chip, the president as president has an ability pressure he spoke to the situation in wisconsin and his views on it last week. and i'll leave it at that. >> do you think he meant that when he said it? >> i was a with them at the time. but again, the president has different meanings a speaking out on issues and being heard. and clearly he made his you pointed out on the situation in wisconsin, the need for people to come together. he takes very seriously the fiscal situation that states find themselves in, some of the states or and understands -- he understands at the federal level. he encourages the parties

involved to come together and sacrifice together and reach a solution that serves the interests of all the people of the states, just like he is trying to do for the broader nation. >> the inspector general of the program says effectively -- does the president disagree? >> hold on one second. i'm not sure i have anything on that. >> spencer bachus of -- >> i understand, i understand, i'm just -- okay. >> whether or not the president agrees with the ig's report, spencer bachus plans hearing in

the house next week and he's going to try to move for. we've tried to fight that it didn't? >> i don't want to speculate what we will do in response to a poppel's -- a possible action by the senator. if and when something happens, we will have a response. >> would you consider saving six, 700,000 mortgages when the goal was 4 million, to be a success? >> well, we've been very clear about the seriousness with which we've been trying to deal with the stabilizing the housing market, helping responsible homeowners stay in their homes. the fact is that, as you state, tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of homeowners are in the home because of the program. we are working to make sure that

those responsible homeowners that can be held are able to stay in their homes. and, you know, it is important to remember that those programs, that is homeowners have been helped by this program. >> you're working on a new program that would have the industry put up money to reduce the principal, the loans that are underwater. comic? >> i don't have a comment on that, possible programs we made working on. >> can you talk about the saudi a national arrested last night trying to target former president bush? >> i can say a few things about that. the president was informed about the operation by john brennan, prior to the arrest. this arrest i assume anybody here knows about the story, the arrest once again underscored the necessity of remaining vigilant against terrorism here and abroad. president thinks the fbi, the department of justice and the

rest of our law enforcement intelligence and only see the professionals who continue to keep us safe. and once again answered with extorted skill and commitment that there are enormous responsibilities demand. you know, for anything else i will have to refer you to the department of justice because there is an investigation. [inaudible] >> that this was coming or there was a lone terrorist after they were worried about? >> he was informed that the arrest was coming. >> can you say whether the president has asked secretary gates to come up with a contingency plan to enforce a no fly zone or to start working with nato on that respect? there are reports that is taking place. >> chuck, i think it's fair to say when they're examining all options and that option has been

tabled, i guess at least in the press, it's been discussed in other venues, that by exploring those options we are looking at feasibility. and i mean that broadly about all the options that could potentially be on the table. so without getting into updated plans for this option or that, explore the options means just that, examining what our options are and what might work. >> what kind of consultation has there been? >> i refer you to the defense department, but again i'm not, i don't want to go down a one lane here on one option and leaves you with the impression that i am ranking them. [inaudible] >> again, we are examining all the options that are agreeable to us. and conversations around that examination are taking place. >> are these sanctions, is there a concern that some sort of

sanctions are going to harm, i guess, the free part of libya where gadhafi doesn't have control? is there a way to do sanctions that you can humanitarian we help one part of the country while punishing the government itself is? >> as we look, we are examining the impact of different options. and our interest is not in causing more harm to innocent people in libya. the very people we are trying to help, international community is trying to help by doing what it can to get the libyan government to stop its dangers. so i'm sure that the consideration, without how you would execute different options in a way that had the greatest

impact towards the goal we are trying to achieve without negative consequences. because you raise a humanitarian aspect of this, you know, the libyan government has the responsibility not going to refrain from violence but to allow the humanitarian aid to reach those in need. you know, as humanitarian assistance is attempted to be made available to libyans, another responsibility the libyan government can be held accountable for. [inaudible] >> the administration views this as a serious issue and that's why we are working, why secretary clinton is traveling to geneva, why bill burns is traveling and engaging in these consultations. why the president is having phone calls with other leaders tonight on this issue. we will continue to have conversations with other leaders. this definitely is definite

focus of our efforts right now. >> one question on the continuing resolution debate. gives the present open to signing a short-term resolution that does have spending cuts in the? >> chuck, there are two broad points to this. one, the president made clear when he released his budget that he believes we need to cut spending. democrats on the hill have also said that they agree, we need to cut spending, as have republicans. he wants to work together. the president wants to work together with the leaders of the congress, both parties, to make that happen. on the issue of potential new resolution, the short-term funding of the bill, how that process will be negotiated out, i don't want to prejudge different options. we believe that we -- two things, that we can work something out and that the american people absolutely want something to be worked out.

as leaders of both houses of congress have said, republican and democrat, as the president has said, it's not in the interest of the american people for the government to shut down. and that's because principally because of the impact it would have on our economy. we are still in stages of recovery here, and the negative consequences of a shutdown, the uncertainty that would create could be detrimental to our economy. >> are you encouraged or discouraged by what he is watching take place right now between speaker been an senator reid? >> the president believes the leaders of the house and the senate need to get together to work something out. and he, senior members of the administration are engaged in conversation on the hill. as well. but as you note there is a congressional processor that has to work.

the house passes something, the senate passes something, compromises are worked out. we believe we can work together to get something done and that's what the american people want. let me move around a little bit here. >> the president suggested one consequence of the government shutdown will be social security checks not going out. during the clinton shutdown, social security checks did continue going out. is there a reason to believe it would be different this time around? >> look, as i said we are confident that we can find a common ground that we need to fight in order to avoid a government shutdown. and the leaders on both parties agree that that's what we need to do. the president was pointing out some of the consequences. the potential consequences of failing to act, failed to prevent a shutdown, and some recipients new applicants might not receive their checks.

if retirees have questions about their checks and they didn't get a check in the mail, if they had a change of address, all of those things could prevent them from getting their checks. that are obviously consequences that directly affect people who are recipients of social security benefits. and there could be. but the broader point is that the uncertainty created by this, the number of consequences that could unfold if this does happen are, would create the kind of environment that would be harmful for the economy overall which would then, speaker of the house said yesterday he is focus on jobs and the economy. the president makes clear every day as he will this afternoon when he speaks with his new council on jobs and competitiveness that he is focused on jobs and the economy. and we do not want and we do not

believe leaders of congress want to know the american people don't want actions to be taken in washington that upset this recovery, set us back, affect growth and job creation. >> there are reports on the ground that people are being killed, a woman -- a woman being shot for standing on the balcony, sort of looking out at what was going on. berlioz report in cnn today that a person standing in gaza was being murdered and the world is standing by. the president yesterday said the world is watching. what is the message of the administration is giving to people who are being killed right now in libya about what the united states and tends to do keep this kind of thing from happening to people who are simply exercising their exercise of freedom?

>> we actually support the people of libby, the people of iran, the people of egypt, the people who are peacefully express their desire or change in the country. again, i take it back toward governing principles as we approach these problems. we're working with the international community to take the kind of action that will prevent the libyan government from continuing to make this kind of habit -- havoc on its own people. the president is very clear about how strongly condemns this action. it's unacceptable, unresectable. it's deplorable. >> on monday -- >> we are interested in outcomes. we are interested in doing, taking the measures that will actually have the desired effect, which is to get the libyan government to stop the bloodshed. and the president is absolutely focused -- let me speak year. the president is actually focus on this, and as a secretary

clinton and the rest of the national security team. >> is very concerned that it's more forceful -- is very concerned that a more forceful response by the administration could result in more bloodshed against libyan protesters? >> well, i don't want to speculate about what might happen, but anytime you're a situation like this you have to gauge what the response will be to the actions you take. it's a fluid dynamic and dangerous situation, and we are committed to getting this right so that the libyan people are no longer subjected to the kind of violence that they're being subjected to by their government. april? >> thank you. back on the situation with libya, protesters -- [inaudible] the result is gas prices going

up here in america. is this administration asking countries in africa for support, not that they can export oil to us, is this administration asking candidate, asking mexico, asking saudi arabia to increase their oil output to keep prices down and? >> april, whenever you have unrest in this part of the world, there will be reactions in the oil markets. and that is obviously something is seen. the situation remains fluid, but we are monitoring this closely. we are very of the fact that oil prices can affect the economy, and affect people and their wallets, their pocketbooks. but we are in touch with the iaea and oil-producing countries

about the developments in the market. we have the capacity to act in the event of a major supply disruption. i don't want to speculate on a singular action and they don't want to again speculate or predict what may or may not happen in terms of disruption. but the global community, global system has a lot of experience in managing the kind of disruption that you have seen, and you know, our focus now is on monitoring this and making sure we know what our options are if they need to be taken. >> but the supply and demand -- is the administration concerned that analysts will talk about the possibly of $5 a gallon, we saw $4.11 a gallon and people were mad, the economy will start to show signs of breaking. so, what is happening right now? >> well, i can assure you,

april, that we are very closely watching the situation. i don't want to speculate on where oil prices may or may not go, i want the effects of unrest in libya may or may not have tomorrow or next week or down the road. on oil prices. but we, you know, we have the capacity to act in case of a major supply disruption, and we are talking with the international institutions and other oil-producing nations as we examine the developers in the markets. >> given what was said, there are people being killed right now in libya, what is the timeline for the administrations getting the international tenet together and getting a tangible response of what's going on? what's the tiebreak? >> well, i can assure you we are on this aggressively and

specifically with the goal of taking action that can be most effective, most sufficiently. and i'm not going to tell you that this is going to happen tomorrow and then something else will happen in two or three days, because we're talking about actions that we are coordinating with our international partners. and i don't want to preview again, take options on or off the table. but believe me, we are moving very quickly. [inaudible] >> it's a very fast-moving situation over libya. if you don't want to tell me what the timeline is come is there even a timeline for getting a response in place? >> i would point you to the fact, look at the international reaction. this is a case where what libya has done has garnered very little support around the globe, and quite the contrary. the international community is

speaking almost entirely with one voice condemning what's happening there. and so, i don't believe this is the case. i believe this is an opportunity to act in a concerted way with our international partners. >> a timeline for -- >> i'm not going to give you a timeline. let me -- mike? >> sort of following up on april's question, several democratic members of congress asked the president to consider releasing oil from the reserves to keep prices from rising too much. is this something that he is considering? how does he react to members of congress? >> well, i think i would just repeat what i said, which is we have the capacity to act in case of a major disruption. right now we don't, we are sent to monitoring the situation and discussing with the iaea and

oil-producing states what's happening in the market. but i'm not going to preview what might happen if the disruption ,-comcan it be for the disruption happens and what our options are. [inaudible] >> back in august of '08 when price of oil was about $120 a barrel, at what price would president obama want to release oil? >> i think what's important about that is to remember that the causes of the surging oil prices in 2008 were quite different from the circumstances that we are seeing now. and then i would say that we are examining our options, and we have the capacity is necessary to act in case of a major disruption. but again it's important. there's not a one size fits all response when the actual circumstances are quite different. let me -- all the way in the back.

>> my name is sarah. my question is if we should have a government shutdown, would people get paid or i was going to ask about social security because obviously that would affect me. [laughter] >> what you just said, that's not going to be so so you don't know yet or what is going to have been? >> first of all, part of the problem is the uncertainty that it creates, but there are, the point i want to make very clear is that we believe we can work together with congress to avoid a shutdown because we all agree that a shutdown would be disruptive to the economy, affect our capacity to grow and create jobs. that's an outcome that no one -- we sorted no one, the president doesn't want any american people don't want. so i don't want to predict what might happen in a circumstance that we very much hope to avoid. all the way in the back.

>> about the uprisings, you said that all the nations are different and all the relationships are different. so then what metrics is the administration using to evaluate that an uprising in one country is different from an uprising in another country and the response is different from one country to another? >> well, because each country is different you have to measure that, but we are guided by dispense with that i talked about yesterday, that were enunciated by the president in his speech in cairo about the need for the countries in the region to respond to the aspirations, democratic aspirations of the people. because they had a problem on their hands. and that still pertains. that is our approach. no violence, respect for the universal right for your citizens, and actions, reforms that respond to the demands and aspirations that are legitimate

of the people. and in terms of how you evaluate, we -- these are events that are happening from the ground up, and we've all seen them in egypt, you know, how the people in the streets represented all walks of life in egypt. and obviously we look at that in each country and how broad-based the unrest is. fundamentally, peaceful demonstrations should never be responded to with violence. [inaudible] >> i have no comment on that because it's an ongoing investigation. john? >> the vice president is me with richard crunkilton today along with hillary's a lease. i'm wondering, why the president was not on that list and to be present drop in on that?

>> i don't leave the president did, but i will doublecheck. and if he did, i will let you know but i don't believe he did. this is a long scheduled meeting. as you know the vice president meets with the labour leaders periodically. this is the schedule for quite a while. >> right in the middle of a big labor fracas. is the president trying to keep his distance from that? >> the president made very clear as all of you wrote about and many of you made more t what was actually the case, that his you on -- that his view on public sector employs to tighten their belts just like everyone else as we all try to get control of our budget, the state level and federal level, but is concerned that what not happened is the fiscal problems that states find themselves in be used as an excuse to go after the fundamental bargaining rights, collective bargaining rights, sort of underlying

foundation of unions. so i think he made his position on that very clear. >> a different topic. following yesterday's -- members of congress overturn the law. consider the administration now has a position that it is unconstitutional will we be expecting support from the president to make law and operative? >> the president has long believed that toma, defense of marriage act is unnecessary and unfair law. he supports repeal of the law. as for his constitutionality, august the he made clear his views on the in the decision he made announce yesterday. but he does support the repeal, yes. >> by -- >> your next. spent why did the president tell us -- [inaudible]

>> mr. davis was perceived by the government of pakistan as an employee of the embassy, and he was granted diplomatic immunity under the vienna conventions, and what we are saying very clearly is that he needs to be released in accordance with those treaties, which apply to the personnel of countries, not just to the united states, pakistan's employees of the united states around the globe, and every other country that participate in those important treaties. and it's a fundamental principle that can't be compromised. [inaudible] >> him what he said, what we're talking about here is the fact that he was perceived by the pakistani government as an employee of the embassy, of the united states embassy and have the protection of the vienna,

and it needs to pertain companies to alter and he needs to be released according to the. [inaudible] >> is there any guidance from white house officials about when it is appropriate to meet off campus with a lobbyist and when a lobbyist meeting should be on campus? >> this administration has taken extraordinary actions to be transparent. i think this question stems from a store that frankly was absurd. we released hundreds of thousands of records, voluntarily, policy instituted by the president because of his desire for transparency. something no administration had ever done before. the decisions about -- those records are available to every american citizen online to be reviewed. and all different types of people come to the white house complex for meetings on issues.

and our level of transparency disclosure is unprecedented because the president believes deeply in a. what i would say is that as any of you have walked around this complex and no, been in the west wing, not like the tv show, very small space, very few me from. the old executive office building, the eisenhower executive office building, a third of which has been under renovation since we've been here, very limited space. jackson plays is a white house conference center so designated, and, therefore, would have large meetings sometimes we use that space if there are no spaces here. so, that's -- >> would you agree with me that effect when a transparency loophole here, the goal is to show when lobbyists, powerful images army with white house officials, that right now it's routine for white house officials to meet off campus and there's no daylight on them. >> it is routine for the white house officials to meet with all types of people, including

lobbyists. and frequently here. the suggestion that we are not being transparent is laughable, given the unbelievable precedents this administration has set in closing the door, the revolving door and releasing these records. the way system, the system that produces the records, operates in certain buildings and not others. those decisions and how that operates, i referred you to the united states secret service. but the principle here is the unprecedented level of transparency that we have provided because we believe deeply in it. >> would it be inappropriate for white house officials to potentially arrange a meeting off campus, to not be caught by the way the record? >> we have meetings with all sorts of people. we have them here. those records are available.

and we -- look, i don't have -- >> if you chose to go off campus because you did want to show that, yes or no? >> the guiding principle here is transparency and we believe that -- nobody that i'm aware of is hiding where they are meeting. needs to happen at check in place, the big meeting place, and that's where -- [inaudible] >> we do not control where the wave is and i'm not going, in terms of -- >> you can change the policy. >> look, i'm not aware what policies might be instituted in the future, but what i think is fundamentally important to remind you of is that we released information that has never been released before. i think you probably remember, you are coming for the previous administration, they went to the supreme court to prevent disclosure of people who are meeting with the vice president.

we voluntarily release the records that are of able to us. and we never said like there was a way to get every name in every meeting. the principle is disclosure, and we're going to extraordinary lengths to make that happen. spent i will repeat -- >> again, i don't want to predict about future policies that may be put in place. i just want to remind everybody about what we have done and why. >> what is the level of concerns the white house has about the gas that is stockpiled in libya? >> i don't have anything for you on that. >> j., you said they're going to move quickly on libya today. the president said yesterday wednesday that senator clinton will be going to europe on monday to consult with the human rights council. that's five days. other libyans can die in five days. >> secretary barges also, to

deal with this issue. secretary clinton, president officials at every level are working on this full-time. i can assure you. >> i haven't quite finished it in addition, my other question was, some of the european counterparts already calling for sanctions. spent we are discussing options with -- >> why not join in with them? >> we are interested in examining sanctions of the possible option but we are examining all options and we will take action as soon as possible. let me go to jerry. >> jay, on the european counterparts, you said at the top of the briefing that cameron and others are getting calls from the president. is there any outrage to get the other members of the security council members for something on that level? is that on the cable? >> not that i'm aware of.

i think the president will be discussing, having discussions with other foreign leaders going forward. i don't have a thing on who specifically want what contacts state department might be making, or ambassador at the u.n. let me go here. >> when the president makes phone calls like that to his going to make today, there's always groundwork for them. would you describe this as a decision go on what's going to happen next with these two other leaders? or is this just continuing the confrontations? >> i would want to characterize beyond what i have said. >> now, on the assets of gadhafi and his family, the swiss government today has frozen the assets of gadhafi's sons, the family. are the wheels in motion for that to happen here? >> i recently say that we are examining a variety of options, and that we will move as quickly

as possible to implement them. >> jay, on the arrest in texas, does the white house believe president bush was a target? >> i don't want to get into the details of this investigation. so i'm not going to comment on that. >> has president obama spoke to president bush about this? >> i don't believe he has. [inaudible] there are a lot of allegations that a saudi was arrested but not in this country. should the screening process be tightened to screen out potential jihadists? >> again, i don't want to comment on this investigation in any capacity. i mean come in any detail. questions about immigration, i direct you to dhs. [inaudible] >> three?

[inaudible] >> i don't have any announcement on presidential travel. [inaudible] >> has been nothing said although the our -- [inaudible] >> i would not, could not speak about operations that may or may not happen. i don't want to suggest that anything is happening but it's not something i would talk about. [inaudible] >> obviously outraged by the actions of pirates that result in the death of american citizens, and the president as you know has expressed his condolences to the families of the victims. but beyond that i don't want to get into a. thank you. i will take one more. >> given the fact the libyan government is signaling already

a balance of rational reasoning, is it realistic to think that sanctions and international efforts would convince them to stop doing so? >> i don't want to predict, what the libyan government will do but what i do know is this administration, leaders of governments around the world are outraged and appalled by what we've seen happen in libya, and will take and are taking the actions that they believe to be most effective in changing the behavior of the libyan government. >> would the sanctions be designed not to gadhafi but family members of other power centers that might convince him to try to peel away from gadhafi? >> i would only say that we are examining a variety of options. that's it. thanks, guys. [inaudible] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] xóx>

>> and now a republican look at issues facing congress. freshman congressman tried to represents a district that is larger than many states. he held accountable meeting in casa grande about halfway between phoenix and tucson and answers questions from about 100 constituents on health care spending, national security and immigration. due to technical difficulties we are unable to show you the last few minutes of this 90 minute

event. >> please follow me in the pledge of allegiance. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america. and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> order, arms. forward march.

>> would you join me in prayer, please. in the name of the father, son and holy spirit of god, father we, in front of you tonight and we give you thanks for the blessing that is called america. and we are now in the midst of?@ difficult times as we have often been during our history. we just ask that you give insight and wisdom to those that we have elected to represent us, ask that they opened their hearts and minds to your believing and your spirit be with those first responders that protect us here at home and those military around the world as they stand for freedom. be with us now as we go into these proceedings. all these things we ask in your name, amen. and it is a great pleasure to introduce to you, america's favorite sheriff, paul babeu. [applause] >> thanks. i don't know about favorite, but

certainly you're all welcome to take a seat. thank you all, not only for being here, we are seeing tonight freedom at work. we have a town hall here by our new congressman, and as i'm introducing him, but i want to welcome your to pinal county arizona our congressman, paul gosar. [applause] >> come on up. known as doctor paul gosar as a dentist from him because he has been back and ressional throughout this entire past year. and this is where coming back here, literally within his firsa month in office is what our democracy is all about.

literally holding more town halls in the first 30 days than the prior congressman held in two years in office. and this is where, whether we agree with the congressman or not, he's our representative and he needs to hear from us. and that's what one of his priorities is to come up here and listen to what we have to say. and we can't ask for more than that. so big pinal county welcome. and i it wouldn't be right if i was able to give him a sheriffs had -- and welcome you to pinal county, our congressman, paul. [applause] >> i've always wanted to be sheriff. [laughter] [applause] >> well, thank you folks. thank you very, very much. thank you for upholding the constitution. your first liberty, your first right, your first amendment, coming here peacefully being able to talk.

and -- by congressman gabby giffords did just about three weeks ago. she was assembling, allowing you to partake, about what we see fit for this country and its direction. and for that, i want to have her kept in our prayers and those victims as well and those that lost their lives. because those are the things that we are fundamentally founded on. so if we can take just a quick minute, a pause to think and reflect on what that means to all of us, please. thank you.

now folks, i believe in trust. and trust is a series of promises kept. and that's what we're all about, faith in congress is at the lowest it's ever been. and what we had in the election was reinstalling that vigor of including us in making the decision of everyday life. things that are very personal to us. and so what i told you is that i was coming home, and i am. mission accomplished here. and we're going to call this your first house call. and the reason i want to point that out is, there's something special about having a health care provider being your representative. because just like when you were a patient of mine, when you come into my office, the first thing i have to do is listen. and if we're not listening, you cannot voice the concerns of our constituents. so the first thing we're going to do is listen.

and i gathered all of my washington, d.c., staff and i brought them here. and what we've done is we've had a series of town halls throughout its history, five in five nights and it's been overwhelming what we've been able to get. passion, ideas, the dialogue and listening to you. that's what it's all about because solutions come from here. they are your solutions. we have seen over and over with a solution from the care -- the federal government, one size fits all doesn't work. if they're going to reclaim the america, the one that you and i get to benefit from am they will all have to continue this path way of making a difference right here. so let me tell you some of the other promises i told you i was going to keep. number one, i told you i was going to go back and review obamacare. and i did. [applause]ñ?i?i?i? >> i also said do we need healt?

care reform? absolutely. we voted to renege back for discussions about how we do that and how we benefit people, and how do we dialogue you into the creative process where our government doesn't stand between you and your health care. we also voted that there's three things that still has to apply to in order for them to pass down. number one, where in the constitution does it give you the privilege to do that deal? so getting back to our founding principle, second, does it create jobs? we can cut all we want, but if we don't create jobs would not going to get out of the financial mess we are in. and last but not least, where do we cut government? where do we make a more nimble government that empowers you, that works with you instead of dictates to you? and once again, here we go. we've also voted to try to minimize, start the cutting process so we can show some of the rewards, start the process

with the american people. we cut our budget and across the board, we did not across congress to start that process. we ended up with about $35 million. it's not great but it's a start. we also been major we were going to cut the paperless trail of laws that we don't have to post them on paper so we can go another $35 million. presidential campaigns. once again we've got another big debt. so the process is started. and we're going to have to go even further. we have a cr, containing resolution coming up next week, and we have to start the cutting process. making sure that we live within our means. congress is no different than you and i when we do our budget. and we can't income our future

generations with a dream that we have been exposed to and allow it to go any further. we also have to make sure that we're starting to get our country back online. and that's getting jobs created. so one of the first things we're starting to do is seeing where we can get government red tape out of the way. and so some of the things that we are looking at is our committee assignments are where did i get place so i can make a difference? i think the two committees i was this district. natural with natural this district. have seen where we have been restricted and how we're able to access to better ourselves. there are three subcommittees in which i was place in natural resources of the seven. the first one is native american affairs. the second one is energy and

and power. all of those play a principal a perfect avenue for us to make a difference. the second committee, government oversight. this is one that really no one understands quite well. because it doesn't build policy. the government oversight exposes what part of laws or regulatory burdens are wrong, where we can make some changes. hopefully we can use it to expand on what are some of the because god knows we need all the solutions on the table right now. on, i was place on three subcommittees. the first one is how agencies work between agencies and how they are built within and how people, the communities, the states, right up my alley. the second one is, is national security, homeland security and

once again right of our alley. and last but not least, a subcommittee on health, d.c. archives and the census which i will be the vice chair of so i will be holding the cattle much of a time when we are talking about health. i told you i don't like what we did come up with the committee with our health reform bill. we need help care reform but my job is to make sure we're going in the direction that health care is affordable, health care is personal and that is patient base. so i think we've got a really do. there's only one ingredient missing. we saw in the election process. now all we've got to do is carry that momentum. all hands on deck that's where we have to go. listening, and so what i did was i wanted your team, my team, our washington office to come here and be introduced to you. so what i want to do is let them

introduce themselves to you so that you can put a face and a name. because these are your team, these are the people that you are going to call. and i want to start with stephanie. we will start with my chief of staff and work our way down. >> rob robinson. i'm rob robinson, chief of staff but i'm also the district director. this is one of the ways that doing two jobs. i'll be in the district an awful lot. arizona. my son graduated from school here in arizona, and i will be here for your questions. >> hi, everybody. i'm tom. the legislative director. we review policy laws and advise the congressman. i went to law school down the road at tucson, and i'm very happy to be here.

>> high everyone. my name is kelly ferguson. i'm a legislative assistant working out of the d.c. office. i will be working on issues ranging from health care to tribal issues, education, labor, social security and so on. this is the last event in a five day tour of the first district. and i've learned an awful lot from you and other members of your community. and i think this tour has been instrumental in helping us to what congressman cozart asked which is helping him to build solutions from the bottom up. and that requires input from all of you. i have met a great number of wonderful people and look forward to meeting you a little tonight. so thanks for the hospitality. >> height, everybody. my name is transcendent i am one of the congressman's legislative assistance in washington, d.c.. i will be handling natural

resources, energy, homeland immigration policy. before i joined the team i work for another member of congress for three years, and so i have a look at the expense dealing with some of the issues that you are facing at a. it's been a great week. a great 10 days going through arizona. i have met a lot -- some of you who are here, and i look forward to working on some of the issues that are facing your commute. please don't hesitate to give us a call in washington, d.c.. we are here to serve you so i hope i will be in touch with you soon. thanks. >> hi, everybody. i am anthony smith, and i'll be on the congressman's arizona team. i'm living here in arizona, and i will be doing two goals for the congressman. one is i will be his district legislative assistant. so i'll be taking a look at local issues that directly affect arizona's first district and then i will also be working as his business liaison. reaching out to the business community, the chambers, finding

out what's working for you, what's not working for you, how we get that red tape and get people back to work. i will be around afterwards to answer any questions. high everyone. i will be the services director in the district working with all of you one on one and trying to solve your problems that you might have getting to the federal red tape, which there's always plenty of. and i make this generation arizonan and so i know a lot of the issues and i know the district. and i've been here a long time. i look forward to meeting each >> hi, everybody. my name is rachel ihopaha. stop in and say hi sometime. i'm also a caseworker so like penny i will be helping you with any issues you have with federal agencies and moving those issues through the system. i look forward to meeting all of you.

>> hi, everyone. my name is stephanie and i handle the congressman skimming occasion. so please check out his website. www.goes our top house about gulf. is also on twitter. .. >> customer service. that is where i came from, customer service. great customer service is reported. that is what we have to do. the reward is the american dream, and the america that we grew up in.

we are going to come up with some big issues like health care , the welfare of our health, the welfare of our country. what it's going to take is a personal commitment by each one of us. the america that i believe that we were raised and had personal accountability and personal responsibility. those are the principles that we all have to undertake. we also have to be involved. who are you not to sit by and give us your idea? you may be the one that gives us that opportunity. phyletic customer service and communication. hopefully we were going to put our website out to drive you to that. one of the ideas i have had is, number one, putting ideas out. calling it idea ranch. what idea ranches all about is taking an issue, putting it out there in the forefront and starting to dialogue with you in real time, having blocking from my staff and me as we deal with issues in the day. if there is an issue you want to take up, be my guest.

that is a wish to start to a bucket it. of a sudden somebody's idea starts me to think. that is how we come up with some solutions. but we can do is take the solutions and put him out there for everybody and start measuring and. see what people want to buy into and get a better system. the second part, you will know when you open. what you are going to hear is a pigs we'll. that is my whole point. you are going to have to hands holding the pagan squeezing. when it squeals outcomes some money that goes into a piggy bank. the whole point here is a system that does not work. show us. be specific about how it is, why it doesn't work, what is going to cost us, and what it is going to save less. also, give us a solution to. does it need to be abandoned totally or can it be worked to help on the community level in mainstream america?

if you have another idea, we would love to hear it, but those are two opportunities that we want to start. inexpensive, real time, technology that allows us to really dialogue our diverse cultures. our diverse districts. that is what makes it happen. don't tell me you can't get this done. that is not the america i know. every time we had a series of problems the america i know always rose up to the occasion and got the job done. it is our turn. i think if you look at it in a positive light we are going to get something done. so i am going to end with that, and i want to talk with you and have a listening session, listening to your questions. hopefully i get some answers and can give you some direction on where we are heading. we have some big decisions coming here. we have a continuing resolution coming about. we also have a debt ceiling we

have to have a discussion about because that is coming here shortly. this is an issue that we all can partaken. this is an issue that applies to every single one of us. folks, thank you so very much. has been humbling to see the outpouring of people coming from all the first parts of this district from flagstaff. the navajo nation, it has been unbelievable. stay engaged. it matters. it really does matter. that first district is the district that shows us the way out of this recession and its american shining again. so, folks, thank you very much, and let's hear your questions. and if you would to state your name because i like to be personal. >> my name is diane. >> hi, diane.

>> precincts nine. i would like to talk about foreign aid. he spoke about several things, saving money. at think they're a big amount. >> thank you. but so much foreign aid is going to countries that don't even like us. it never gets to the people or where we intended to get. it just goes to corrupt government officials. it seems like that would be a big place to save money. there are people in this country , the people in this district you could use some of that money. why did they never mention foreign aid and there are talking about cutting things? >> well, thank you very much, dan, for your question. >> that my social security and medicare. they don't want to cut the foreign aid. >> well, let me tell you about this freshman class in congress.

over 100 strong. over 30% of this class has no legislative experience. they have experience and wisdom. we have a rancher from south dakota, an all-pro lineman from new jersey. these data and commands that attention and is brilliant. we have a pizza maker from downtown illinois. we have a banker, a private community banker. they all got involved because they saw the america they grew up in falling apart. their idea is everything is on the table. nothing will be left until we look at everything across the table. but remember, all we can do is to what we can do from the house. you still have to have the senate go along with the administration, and that is where you come involved. i want to ask you to keep the pressure on. count me, all the members of congress. this administration. your forces need to be heard and

the need to be directed along those lines. foreign aid will be like that like everything else in the budget. we have got to go through it. you are welcome and thank you for all your volunteer work. >> i have two questions. >> and your name is? [inaudible] >> about the what? >> the cold weather. >> i have to be an advocate that that got involved doing this for some kind of reason, maybe reminding us where we are going. [inaudible] >> that's right. >> my serious question is based on your own personal experience and now your can you explain to me the efficacy and the wisdom of continuing the bia? >> well, a great question. thank you very much. first of all, another side not

about the weather, we were in lower right yesterday at-23. we brought it down a little bit. no wind. i was trying to do is get my staff to stick to a time out on the flagpole. it didn't work. it didn't work. [laughter] these are all the things that we have to start to look at. also have to have a dialogue with our native american friends. let me ask you a question. i told you where trust is in my definition. a series of promises kept. but part of trust does mbia give to the native americans to back that is a discussion we need to have with them, not at them, with them. it is a discussion that is already going on. all of these things, all of these agencies, all of these ways of doing business can't work anymore, folks. i think we realized that. business can't continue as usual. so everything is on the table.

inclusive and decisions and not an exclusive. let's make sure that everything at the table is effective so that we are creating how we've okay. and following. yes, sir. >> my name is gregory shuler. >> hi. how are you? >> just fine. under governmental affairs can you put a stop to the bureaucracy's going around congress putting out lost like the epa and others that we don't elect, those people. i don't believe they should have any business putting out any type of law that does not go through the congress. >> greg, that you for a quick question. boy, that is wonderful. let me ask you a question and tell you where we went. we asked a question. i am kind of that person.

my first question when somebody tells me i have to do something, i raise my hand. a lot more of those freshmen asking the same questions. ask the question. as in there a way that congress should have authority over the rulemaking from the agency's? guess what the answer was? yes. you have never used it. so not only can congress have the ability to build those laws, but have those agencies answer back before they are enforced. i wonder if that is what you're going to start to see. i also believe that when we do laws we have to have a sunset clause because they sometimes lose their application. they might have to be tweaked for an application. there is no reason why a lot has to sit on the books forever. we should demand those agencies come back and be answerable. once again, if i'm asking you

responsibility, so should the agency. >> my name is rodriquez, here representing my wife who is down with the flu. >> i hope to get better. >> he wanted me to ask you about the con con, a constitutional convention. she has been hearing stuff about it and wanted more information. apparently she read somewhere that you were one of the listed persons that we could come to >> a guts to close to you. tell your wife, first of all, to get better. one of the things we can look at is that we have to look within the framework of what we have going on right now. there are a lot of things we can do differently. the first thing we are starting to look at now is looking at the constitution and how it applies to bills to your taking that

application. i am sure we are going to look at that when we look at the applicability of those laws the way they are of the on the books. will we have to try to do is resurrect what we have already to be that is where i want to start. there is no tomorrow. the financial that we are seeing right now of over $14 trillion, when i talk to you over here about 35 million i felt bad because we are talking about trillion. i'm still trying to count the zeros. so my take is, let's try the forms we have right now because we have a great start. now we have to carry it through. harold. >> yes, harold. congressman, thank you for coming. for decades now seniors like myself have stood in front of politicians like you and said

it, if you don't give me a free tow he don't get my vote. that has to come to a screeching halt. also -- thank you very much.ññ atñ the seven out -- the rationale is a need of repair of this because i get older. i have to tell you, there is at least one in your constituency that says that my country owes me nothing and i know my countrñ everything. whatever you have to do. [applause] whenever it pain you have to in effect on me, you inflicted so that my granddaughter's have a future. right now they cannot afford.w whenever you have to do to me to get that burden off of them ask you to do it. >> thank you, harold. [applause] folks, once again, trust, a series ofu? promises kept. one of the things that we saw and previous congresses, being

put aside for seniors. it is not fair what transpired here. it isn't. i wish i could have an answer for you to find that money tree. i've been looking. by the way, i have contradances try to find that monetary. what we have to do is hold of some part of our promise that we give to seniors because a lot of people are banking on that. at the same time what we have t? do is take are used and not make an indentured servants. i don't have all the right answers on how we have toñ progress. i have some ideas.a/a/ that is also where you have to come to the table and make it so that we are all in or on out.,l i am tired of the federal government taking winners andñ losers. that is all we have been doing here, making winners and losers. the way i was taught about america was i had the right, the ability to succeed or fail.

yes, succeed or fail. and if i failed i have the ability to pull myself of bama bootstraps and succeed again. that is what america is all about. this is very are at. once again, this is a dialogue. i don't have all the answers. and just like you. i have 25 years next to my patients given health care. i think i'm a pretty good authority on health care. what i did is i included you. when you are sitting this close to people all the time it better include you. but that is why we have to do. i want to uphold the promise that was made by congress's. they also instructed and cause you to have some distress and rightly so because they took that money, they stole the money. we have to have that dialogue. can we do it? i believe in the exceptional as some of use. american people are achieving

what we need to have happened in this country right now. yes, ma'am. >> my name is nancy. >> i know where and paul is provoking budget amendment spirit as want to know your opinion and what you think as far as washington and how they are going to receive that. >> that you very much. we have to have a balanced budget. most of us have to go buy a balanced budget. there also has to be some caveat in there so that there are benchmarks. you can take an equation and skew it. that doesn't have to be tied to mainstream america. so a balanced budget has to have some caveat the time it to us so that it can be skewed out of whack. i think we are on the process. what does that mean? well, the first thing is our financial house is still out of order. over $14 trillion.

right now we are paying our debt with over $0.40 on the dollar right now just going to debt service. we are lucky, books. we are absolutely lucky on that number. if we get the inflation that said normally occur right now we can't pay our bill. so this is the first part, and this is for the freshmen are uncomfortable and so are a lot of other members of congress. we cannot keep spending. there has to be concrete ways of cutting that are on the table by what date and the benchmark, just like you and me. that is where we have to go. has to be bipartisan. it has to be across the aisle, and it has to include administration's. thank you very, very much. yes, ma'am. >> my name is barbara manning. >> hi, barbara. how are you? >> good, thank you.

district 27. >> precincts 27. >> proceed, excuse me. the republican senate indicated there are going to propose a health care plan. i wonder if the house has a plan ready that they are going to cement and if so does it carry any of the suggestions of paul ryan, our congressman from recovery? considering his suggestion. >> thank you very, very much. one of the things as we repealed but then the house as far as the law of obama care we also remanded it back to committees for immediate talk about how we resurrect it. there are some pieces in that legislation that everybody likes. a lot of people. maybe not everybody, but a lot of people. some cornerstones. fortunately at think there were about ten pages comparatively.

yes, we are all talking about that. inside the is are inclusive, but not exclusive. we should be looking at all these ideas on the page. for example, should we have the ability for insurance companies to help us in the individual marketplace, something i have been asking for a long time, helping direct. if we are all competing on the same front where we can't fix rates, shouldn't they do the same thing to increased competition? i want the insurance companies to succeed, but i want them to succeed on an individual merit, not in a monopoly type fashion. when we have a personal plan, that allows us to cross state lines. the first breakdown of allowing portability. because once again, you, the patient know what is best for you. you should be making the decisions. a direct relationship between you, the customer, the patient, and them. they should not get in between you and your provider.

he should have the flexibility. yes. those are already on going. jenna. hi. >> i just wanted to ask you about how important it is to arizona to get some started again and give us some optimism for producing. is it widespread to keep pursuing that? if you agree, can you help us get that result? >> that you, janice. i appreciated. frank, i hope you are feeling well. thank you. copper is a big deal in this part of the neighborhood. we had a town hall last night. a common-sense business person, i want to know where we were and how we went in with stalls us. i have asked for time to get to

this is not so much the flood problem, but never getting the problems down the line. if you spend that time at the front in doing it right you're going to move it very fast when you have the opportunity. remember, once you submit a bill it's not your bill and you have no control over it. we want to do this right. once again we control one side of the house. there are other programs in the senate. what we want to do is make sure we don't compromise resolution copper or that project with what is going to happen that we can't tolerate. you want to make sure that the stand alone has the incentive to stand alone. i have met with interested parties. come down to 3500 feet. when do i get to get? i was very impressed with how aligned with taking care of. by the way, my dad is a geologist. i've been around minding my whole life.

very impressed. i also took the time to go out to the tribe and sit down and talk. we have a wonderful discussion. in fact, we had my staff there. once again, inclusive, not exclusive. i didn't feel good when i was excluded and that health care plan. i don't think you felt that way either. i think we go forward and have a better chance because obstacles will be horrendous trying to get that bill through. we should be all in and make sure it's the best bill possible to make it through. it is priority number one. >> so, my name is doris. >> i. how are you? >> good. i'm wondering where you stand on the issue of education. right now i no there is a bill getting ready to be proposed that would reduce the pelt grant from the current level which is 5,500 per year to a mere $1,000 per year.

the pell grant really does help low-income students. i believe it is a big equalizer. i am wondering where you stand. i know you have to balance the budget, but i am begging you not to balance it on the back of students. >> well, thank you very, very much. to we agree that one size fits all doesn't work? that is exactly what i have heard. one size doesn't fit all. how do we have education and arizona is not the same as we do in texas or florida or new york or man or montana. the governors across the country have asked us, come to us saying, listen. include us in part of the solution process. a lot of our money is going to the bureaucratic aspect of the department of education. but we have to do is have the ability to have flexibility to educate our own. do we need accountability? absolutely. yes. how about if we took that money that was going to the doe and

allow part of that to get to teachers and students in direct relationship to make sure there were getting help? that is where we need the help. i think that is an opportunity that we have right now. looking creatively. an application for this agency forcing things on us instead of working with us. we need to be part of the solution, and we all have to have that. it takes a community to educate a child, not just one person. >> thank you. my name is rick miller. it's great to have you here tonight. >> thank you, rick. thanks for having me. >> have been a public servant for 30 years and local government, and you are right about one size does not fit all. one thing that is going to be impacting this area in the very near future is a designation that we don't really want to have a guy that is the designation of becoming a non attachment area. this is arizona.

this is a dusty place. we are being compared the same as the state that receives 50 inches of rainfall a year. the same category, and it is going to have some really serious consequences to our taxpayers. we are forced to comply with preventive measures, you know. we were going to have the test anyway regardless of what we do. the editing is ready to be looking at that. the other thing is fema. we need to really be looking at fema and the impact that fema has had on designating certain properties within floodplains. today i spend a great deal of time working with the company that wants to bring in 300 jobs to the area in an area that was designated as a flood plain through a pretty arbitrary study. at this point they are wondering if the want to be here. we need to look at fema, one size does not fit all. some areas, not an issue.

those are two areas i would like to look at. >> well, that is the same thing that i have heard from the navajo nation of away to hear. the same thing. one size does not fit all. also an unruly regulatory body that has now decided if we are going to dictate to you what is going on instead of working with you. you're right. it's a lot different in portland oregon. isn't it about time -- i mean, long time ago i remember we didn't have an epa. i remember when the first tpa folks came about. we needed them. they were one of us. practical applications. there were one of us. there were helping the situation, working in concert with our country and our environment. but now what we have is a disconnect. we have a disconnect the people that may be educated, but and now have no application on

real-life world situations. that is where we have to start driving. that is why i think the second of the two committees and was telling you about is very important. that is oversight. who is to save we can bring agencies and and say, show us how you are adjudicating. what is the difference? did you try to work with those communities? how did you place the sensors? were they placed equitably? it is not just limited to air quality. you already have it going on with the usgs subsurface water. it is in the service. it is in your ng and the water that comes into the middle part of the state from the navajo generating station. you heard the president. again, i was disappointed because we are picking winners and losers again. energy, everything should be on the table. not saying we are going to go.

it is time that we can to the table with a solution and demanded the regulatory bodies answer to us because they should be answering to you. that answer goes back to congress because you elected them. so we must bring them back to the table and say, how are you doing this? if you don't, and the other part of the magic from the house is you control the first ring on the house. if you don't want to do it the way we expressed, you're not going to get any money. we have spending time with everybody listening, and that is a primary concern. as well as education. we have been looking at that. right here. >> thank you for coming and giving me an opportunity. >> sure. >> my name is scott willis. living in post september 11th i believe that we need to have do something about the security

of our country, which includes the borders of the united states. one of the main goals of of qaeda is to bleed our country economically. and the president of the united states says that we can absorb another september 11th, i completely disagree. we have spent so much money for our security. the al qaeda in my opinion is winning. what i would like to see is we need to secure these borders. we have the numbers to prove it. lifetime people that have lived in per now county that i know personally have said drug cartels have been coming through this for years. they control a sector in the valley. i know you know these. and i know what i'm telling you. but what i am concerned about is, two weeks ago there was up but found by a border control agent. there were people, flying into

buildings. if we have another september 11th i don't think we can absorbent, and my question is this. if we don't secure our borders in the democrats, once you have -- they want have amnesty or they want to go ahead and bring amnesty into this country. i believe that we secure our borders first and then we talk about amnesty if that is even an option, which i don't agree with. you know, the democrats, in my opinion, should come together. we will secure the border first, and then let's talk about immigration reform. from what i understand and what i have read, he did the same thing. he gave her a loss 3 million citizens from other countries amnesty. the democrats ran the house and

the senate, and they never held their side of the bargain. never secure our borders. so if they want -- if we want to come to the metal i highly -- in my opinion that secure the border first and then let's talk about immigration reform. >> thank you. >> well, i'm going to go. one of the things we did once we were elected, we had two meetings, two groups actually. one was an orientation about figuring out where you had to go, how you had to go, the people that ran the class trying to get some staff. the second one was in early december in which we were starting to look a policy. and in the evening of the first night we had a policy on terrorism in hot spots around the world that part of considerable interest. the hot spots, the first one, both of those convicted out. iran.

number one, most of us say peron we did not have egypt on our radar site. so that was exempt. but imagine the second one. when the answer became mexico. are lying. there is an acknowledgement that we have the problem. number two is the actual securities starts with homeland security. the problem we have is we have a department of justice, a federal government that does not want to do their job. and commerce to my just like they do in anything else, pick winners and losers. they want to pick laws that they want to uphold and others don't exist. thank god we are pushing that issue for to the supreme court. one of the things our

forefathers did is give us some balancing. we have an executive branch and the legislative branch, and judicial branch. we have to bring that judicialx? branch or that legislative part back to sanity. now, once again we can dox?x=aó everything we can from the house. it's going to be also up to the senate. i think a rational person is going to say, i'm a numbers guy. we have lots of math and lots of numbers. the give me numbers and i can bring you an equation. what you have right now is a set that keeps going. the fact is not just our southern borders, folks. we have people getting green cards legally and then disappearing up along the we don't even control our own ports. so will we have to do is have a policy that first defense homeland by making sure we have homeland's security and it is not an option for federal government. the problem we have to do is get

them to come to the table to do that. i suspect that it is going to get to the supreme court. god, i hope that they believe in the constitution. that, i hope that they have to enforce that. last but not least i hope that they work with people on the ground. you know a few things. we have the sheriff of the year. we have talented people. we have ranchers to have been doing this over and over again. let's listen to the people. let's work with them. another one, how can our border agents not go through for service land. excuse/ me?ñññnñ i thought this was america.ñññ that is wrong. so security is number one. there is no other discussion. then we will talk about anything else. that has to happen first, and i think we have got a concerted

effort across the board. last but not least with of want to show you, i've had delegations come across the country that said we would like to sponsor legislation to ask this administration to drop all lawsuits. isn't it about time the federal government drop lawsuits against the state's? [applause]tñt>t>t>t> >> my name is jim klein, and i'm not here to talk about education. [laughter] i have a few points, and i am concerned about the budget. way out of control. i want to compliment you and the congress for first 35 million in the second 35 million. but you know, with the approval levels being so low it seems to me that the people in congress ought to refuse any raises until they turned the corner up and get the confidence and trust

built back in. secondly, i think the members of congress ought to be in the same kind of health care system as everybody else. [applause] put them more in touch with what other people are having to deal with. the second thing that i wanted to bring out, and maybe you can clarify here because i'm not sure i have all the facts and figures, but i understand that the congress for the past three decades have been dipping into the trust accounts and social security is number one. there are probably about another 50 behind it. all they do is put in an eye of view. there is no date of when that has to be paid off. that is a real concern. i don't know how if we tried to do that in the private sector rebekah to jail for that kind of operation. it seems maybe the lock box has got to be stopping.

have to put a handle on that. so i just leave that as food for thought. if you have something that you can't clarify for me, i appreciated. >> yes. i refused it. i'm doing my own insurance. i am a father, and i have three children. and slowly above the average american family. that cost the $1,400. the federal if i got on it was a little over 300. i guarantee you i am going to make an example that about what mainstream america is going through. no, you bet i'm going to. we live just like you, and that is what our job was. in fact and i believe it's part of the constitution that no loss of the pass with exemptions to it including congress. it is about time that we start

laws. maybe we would put some restrictions on them, and maybe we wouldn't get down. what we have done to the ponzi scheme. jail. the problem with that is that we have personal accountability. where is that for our regulators, federal government? i will give you another question to ask. it has been circulating more and more. have been hearing it more and more. we have regulators the say, you know what, i've never seen a bureaucrat fired for not making a decision. i'm not making a decision. excuse me? wrong answer. the problem is i'm one person. we have about a hundred 50 people here. everybody has to pick up the personal accountability, personal responsibility. folks, we are part of the problem. i hate to say it.

so am i. when times are bad we are allowed to our liberties and freedoms to go out the door. out of sight and out of mind. so it's upon us now to dig does back out. it's going to be difficult because it did happen overnight. we have to dig in and dig out. that is why i have the shovel. a mantra for the average daily man and woman because it is the power you are surrounded by. one shovel at that time. if one of you don't pick up that shovel somebody else is going to have to. we are beyond that point. the second part of your question, we have to start looking at what we do with funds. we are making winners and losers. you look at the banking schemes, you look at the scandal and the oil spill, creed and wall street, also the private sector. absolutely. but the bigger part of it is

government oversight. we have regulators asleep at the in fact, a lot of the downfall was because of the federal government dictating to the risk markets for housing saying you are going to give us housing loans. we were making and enforcing markets in those industries. so when i was asked the question, who do you fear most from a foreign country? any canter whatsoever. a lot of the folks i ran against said china. you know what i said? i looked and said the enemy is. we are our worst enemy. we keep my feet to the fire. i'm fine. i know how cold it gets. i love fire. keep on the pressure.

right there. >> my name is terry kessler. i am the pri now county director for the central arizona project. yesterday we had a meeting. one of the things that i learned since you spoke about the navajo generating station, i don't know if all of you know, but central arizona project is 336 miles of canals that bring arizonas allocation of colorado river water into maricopa canal and now county. our farms and cities and our way of life. one of the things that i learned make rules, they call them, and regulate the navajo generating station where central arizona

project by federal mandate kit 96 percent of all of its power to push that water uphill 336 miles to serve us, navajo generating station, one of the rules they are trying to make is based on air quality and their visibility. yet i learned this yesterday. there is no baseline. they don't have a baseline reading of let's just say we get everybody out of there, the power station out of there, the cars out of there, return it to all of its natural glory, 300 years ago. there is no baseline reading for what that air quality was. they are not going on any kind of baseline. i would like to see that only the epa and especially with burnout county, where is the baseline for that? at think there was already dust year before the epa came in, and i'm pretty sure that if we all left there would be passed.

at the seven so one of the things that i would like for you attack as you are on the subcommittees with water and power and all these different things, as the question of are we looking at what the baseline is? as a dental hygienist myself in the health care profession i understand that we have to look at baseline readings in our own practice before we can make decisions about how to help our patients. >> you're right on the money. that is, what we have to do is i should be able to take the same parameters and be able to hand it to somebody else here and get the same results based on the same premise. that is where we are missing out. we are utilizing science flawed. to give you another example more post a home, when i came out of dental school 25 years ago -- i'm aging myself now. there was maybe five or six

channels. you were very, very peer review for the most part. he knew that people were trying to look out for the best interest to make sure that it is very based for the patient and had the best interest at heart. sometimes it didn't work. pretty well peer reviewed. now there is well over 35. talk about power reading. what i would do is look at the title, see what a fancy title is and then go back to see who paid for it. you can skew anything to read out give you another example. we have been talking about how much this health care bill, obama care, is going to save you. well, we keep tearing out what they call the congressional budget office. now, the congressional budget office has the side. it has no side, it really doesn't. it is not republican or democrat. but what it determines its outcome from is making sure you are fair about putting

>> you've got a goldenopportunie golden opportunity. when its greatest disarray, the greatest opportunity for change. when there is no money, great time to correct it. use the facility of congress from oversight to bring those regulations to the front, and

allow the american people to speak on them to give them an up or a down. let's start cleaning up our house. >> i'm dennis. [inaudible] >> our rich uncle, harry reid, our neighboring state declared today that the democrats will not cut any budget or reduce the federal spending in 2011. how are you going to vote on raising the debt, national debt limit that is right on the immediate horizon? >> thank you. a great question. from what i've been tell you, what do you think i'm going to do? you know what?

this is a recurrent theme over on the new members of the house. as well as some of the other members of the house. you can't just leave it to the new members. i am not willing to raise the debt ceiling unless i see concrete timetable specific cuts in where they're going to cut. [applause] >> let me make this perfectly clear. if you read the book young guns, you will find out, i believe it is eric cantor, with congressman boehner to the president about some ideas and trying to get this country back into working order. and as they were in the netmeeting, the president made this following comment to congressman cantor. you know, eric, elections have consequences your think about

that. seriously think about that. my job is on the house. i can take care of what i need to do in the house. i will put every pressure i can on the other side. they also need me to raise the debt ceiling. now, we all have a hope of centers are running for reelection's. democrats. i think you better look it up. they are. if i was on the hot seat, i'd be careful on how my leadership speaks on this subject. and what we have been told, you've got to raise the debt ceiling, the sky is going to fall, everything is going to cascade and fall. all the financial marketplace are going to fall, the world will go into -- the sky is falling. maybe it will, and maybe it

won't. but let me point back to you, kelly what the federal dollar for you lately. tell me what the currency has done for you. on what the federal government has done for you. please tell me what ireland has done for you. please tell me what africa has done for you. please tell me what all these systems have done for you. know, this is a time to have that until conversation. i've been reminded that i'm an adult. yes, it is time for an adult situation. that i don't moment is now and i challenged senator reid to come to the table on behalf of the market people and not on his behalf. because it is greater than -- [applause] >> once again, documented cuts when they're going to happen and then we will continue. that's the only the debt ceiling will be lifted. i don't know that it will be lifted very high.

>> my name is eric. educating our children has always been a local issue. and handled locally. as jim klein have gotten older, i really isn't as good at its it used to be. but i've been thinking for quite some time now, i don't remember when we turned educating our children over to the federal government. you talk about one size doesn't fit all, i just cannot -- jim, do you remember when we did that? i don't remember when we did that. thank you. >> thank you. all of the things that have occurred over time because we have gotten busy with our lives. we didn't keep the -- my grandfather always used to say, or politics will dictate to you. i remember seeing my dad and mom

sitting at a table with coffee, with centers talking about ideas, where we were going with water policy. i also saw my family get behind and the real part of the rate of her body in a small town in western wyoming. you can do this. folks, you can do this. you are just going to have to work together. you're exactly right. government doesn't know how to educate our children. right now we are the second highest in the world for expenditure. deleted the second best results? absolutely not. the relationship isn't just about money. i can tell you that because i've got a wonderful public education from a small podunk little town in western wyoming called glendale. my sophomore year, by -- they ran out of math and sciences and yet i saw some administrators reach out to the private sector,

and agencies frankly where i got to work with it i got to work with the game and. for two years i got scholarships on it. i understand aquatic biology. i got to run the equipment so that when i went to college and the instructor did not run the equipment, i did. so don't tell me you can't get that kind of an education from a public institution. you better. i've seen it. i'm the first 15 kids. and icy excellence all the way across the line. but there's also part of this equation that we are forgetting about. and that's a home. because you can't put a teacher in a situation where they have defeated shell. you can't put a teacher, to have them teach women also have to do, the behavior modification. that they have done

their homework. it's about getting back to family, and that is the last thing i remember with family, community. we all knew, we always watch out for each other and took care of each other and that's what we've got to get back to. that's what i see in district one. every single place i see, that's exactly the dream and that's exactly what is there. now we just have to live it and make sure it happens. >> good evening. councilman steve miller. i guess this would be kind of a three-pronged during. we need to update the epa, air quality control. >> thank you, everybody. >> does all things i been preaching except for about two years now. and just one of the added, the

classic example of the administration picking winners and losers. and we have an air quality control director in this county that has decided to get rid of agriculture. so, i don't know, i don't know if he has his own garden, he doesn't need to eat or the grosses of cotton 40 shirts, but it's a real sad deal. and i can go on about that later with your staff and discuss some of the issues in that area. but one of the things -- [inaudible] >> idea because it's so important. the first he thinks i've always been taught is what you need to do as a family. put a roof over your head and feed yourself. thank you. >> anyway, it's a real crucial issue and i think it covers multiple states, particularly the southwest. and so we will look into that further. probably the other thing i would like to talk about is the economy, and i know it's very

difficult for the government had anything to do with trying to spur on and get business point again, but there is an awful large project that potentially could come to in our county with the railroad. is there any insight on any of that or any discussion that you could share with us in that area? >> wow. you're right. there is a lot, very few things the government can do to get our economy spurring, except for one, get out of the way.uh [applause] >> because we can cut all the programs we want, but if we don't have an economy or a business to produce, you can't get out of this hole. so you are dead on. with the railroad, it is something that once again we're looking at. i hope that we can keep that in arizona. i hope we can be creative about how law enforcement, agriculture will look at in keeping it in transit. i think there's a creative way.

because first of all we can also look at that aspect, and they're from law enforcement that we are sending -- spending resources at the border we are spending resources in phoenix, but it is the track inside. as one law enforcers said the person living in south carolina, north carolina or chicago, that illegally came into this country came through pinal county. so why don't we refocused that effort? can we agree, can we work it out? i've heard different opinions but i'm here to be a connector. i also have ties to the railroad. my family were railroaders. so i got to learn a lot about the railroad. it's a major conduit for us. especially north and south. i hope we can work that out when we can keep a project right here in pinal county, and hope we can work together because they can be an asset, not a deterrent. so we are hoping it stays you do if are not going to agree, it's going somewhere else. what i fear is if we don't agree

here, it's going to new mexico. did i answer everything? >> hi, paul. >> how are you? i haven't seen you in a long time. >> i know. just a touch of education again, we were speaking earlier. you remember, i've been on the school board for years. and arizona is a leader in the country, as far as school choice, charter schools and letting the parents make the decisions what's best for their child. [applause] >> so just quickly, two things if you just touch base on your philosophy of school choice and specifically, will you support the opportunity college program since congress is the caretaker of the d.c. schools that might be coming up in the near future?

>> well, i believe in competition. i mean, i'm a dentist and it works. i needed to base my practice on making you happy, making sure that you find value in the services i give. plus on held accountable. it would have competition in our school district that allows choice, that holds accountability, you got me. because we have to have the. because the ultimate product is the student or that's our investment. we've got to make sure that both of those things and those parameters are carried through. with the d.c. aspect in the choice with d.c., that's a project that speaker boehner is very prominent about, okay? we're going to be talking about that very, very shortly, so justly you know, no ill carrying back over from one congress to the next so we have yet to see that reintroduce we are looking at that and that happens to beuz one of the oversight committees that i serve on.up [inaudible] >> purchaser you know, in this

office we will read every bill. we won't say anything about the bill until we read it. [applause] >> hold on one second. because i am a dentist, and the beauty is in the detail, so. >> good afternoon. if you think one is on the epa that she was talking about and choosing winners and losers, the administration or the epa is holding all these corporations and companies accountable for inequality except one. ge. they have given them an exemption. and i'd like you to comment on that. the other situation is your predecessor did something that i thought was remarkable, which was she cut her staff by $200,000. and i know you don't you have a

small staff which is very well appreciated. but why can't we have the rest of congress do the same thing? >> well, i mean, we did cut our budget across the board. and that hurts. in our district. that's over $200,000. we are the 10th largest district in the country. we are bigger than pennsylvania and we are diverse. we've got lots of road. in fact that action fact that action had to buy a new car because all my cars had over 180,000 miles on them. but know, once again the federal government can't make winners and losers. you're exactly right. what we did with the health care bill? ago such a great extension why do we get it an extension to mcdonald's? holy cow, i've got great legislation included us all, that we were equally in or out.

once again here's our legislation that we've got to hold accountable. echoes all the way across the board. is not limited to health care. it's not limited energy. it's not limited to our oversight of any other regulation, including education. we have got to get back and get government out of control. >> -- government under control. >> i have a problem that i've been trying speed is and your name is? >> my name is eve on johnson. i've been trying to resolve this for over five years. i have talked to two of her predecessors, staff, senator mccain staff and senator kyl's staff. i purchased my usda financed home in 1984. i paid -- welcome it was actually six months after the ronald reagan administration drew a line through section 502

of the 1949 housing act that had sealed the interest rate at 4%. so i am paying 11.8% interest on my mortgage, and i cannot, by law, refinance my house through the program. the last letter to mccain's office, usda responded for him, action has the audacity to say that i should be grateful that i am paying only 11.8% interest because most of the mortgages that usda financed in that year were between 12.99% and 14 points 75% interest. -- 14 points 75% interest. they told us of the program they have set up is we can go through this and mortgage it through a bank.

that all sounds good on paper and that's what i keep being told. well, i tried going through that process. i owe only $23,000 on my home, and no bank will loan just that much, that little bit. besides that they don't loan money to poor people. most of these usda houses, and this is thousands of houses in pinal county that are mortgaged their, and if anybody that white house in the 1980s, we have been paying -- i paid, literally paid over $100,000 for the 36,000 i borrowed. there were two pairs in my life when i was ill and i had to take a subsidy. well, now i think they throw darts to come up with that because they haven't told me how they figure it. but i know my 20,000 plus a subsidy 22000, and what happens when you do a bit, if you want to do -- you can get the subsidies wiped out if you do

remodeling on the house. but to get the mortgage from the bank, to do the remodeling you have to borrow the 20,000 that i owe, the 20,000 subsidy plus whatever the remodeling is, and that's way too much in the bank will say no. poor people have to refinance through the usda. they cannot do it through a bank. and -- >> you're exactly right. i can't speak for senator mccain, but what i can tell you is we've got a problem. and you're highlighting a lot of the problems. first of all, i've been approached by the small banks. let me tell you the plight of a very good thing. they are tearing 39% assets to mortgage, and lit yet last year they were audited three times and had two more odd is coming this year. in december they have the money to loan. they did to loans.

now, let me ask that question. do you think the big banks got the same kind of scrutiny? absolutely not. now, what i would offer you is you're not alone. there are a number of people out there with usda loans. and so we have an opportunity, would you be interested in telling your story to congress? that what i need you to do, i need you to outline that issue, who you talked to, what kind of questions you want to ask. and i want these people in my staff to hear about that. and we will make sure we run it up the flagpole for you. because its main street america that needs to benefit, not the federal government. >> anybody who has a usda home and bought in the 1980s. >> i agree. what we need to do is we need to have an example so that what we can do, expose that to the rest of the country. but dfar we can't we will try to make that happen for you. [inaudible] >> my neighbor two doors down,

her father bought the house about six months before i did. he is 92 years old when he passed away a year and a half ago. she nailed and all the paperwork to the usda, and they didn't process it. so they wouldn't let her continue buying the homeowners insurance on the house because it wasn't in her name. her father was dead, so she could get the paperwork from the usda and her price first -- her pipes burst last night and the whole ceiling collapse, the whole house is totaled and water damage, and she's uninsured because she couldn't get the paper because usda wouldn't process it in a year and a half. >> i agree with you. this is not unusual. you take the community i am from in flagstaff. let's talk about another example. it shows exactly the content that they've had. our universe, our land. there was a fire last year.

we forbade private entity from going in. we dictated everything and not allowing that to occur. well guess what happened. it burned. something interesting about that now. overtime it's made out and they said, it is a crumbly mature. that over time, it can grow grass and trees. but it does something kind of funky. when you put a lot of heat to it, it turned to a crystal. what happens with a crystal it takes at least 50 to 100 years to break down, for grass to grow in it. okay, take that, you all know, it's a volcano and it's been don't do. the angles are all 45 degrees in a ghost. right after that happened, guess what happened? we have 800, 1000 houses that are now protected women digging

in the national minute to try to get the water to get taken care. the federal government has been dumping hay, what is hay going to do? so every time it rains come every time the snow melts off, we've got a problem. and you're about ready to bite 800-1000 homes, much less losing the life that was taken from an 11 year-old girl. that's what i call government nonresponsive to the people they're supposed to be serving. those are the lessons, tragic as they are, that we need to learn a lesson about bring about accountability to the federal government just like they are holding us accountable. so thanks for sharing that story and i want to make sure we hear that from our staff. they will take care of you. >> due to technical problems we are not able to show you the last few minutes of this event. you can see it in its entirety online at c-span.org. 

>> congressman jim cooper of tennessee recently traveled back to his alma mater, harvard law school to talk about his idea of solving problems in congress. the blue dog democrat is the top democrat. he's proposing that congress changed the redistricting process. this is just over an hour. >> but tonight it's my great pleasure to be able to welcome back to the law school congressman jim cooper. that's a secret that he doesn't repeat often down in the district.

congressman cooper is from tennessee's fifth congressional district. easier to deliver a lecture entitled fixing congress. congressman cooper graduated from this law school in 1980. before that he received a degree from oxford in politics and economics. and before that a ba in history and economics from the university of north carolina in chapel hill. in 1982 at the age of 28, he was elected to a version of the district in tennessee that al gore had represented before he went to the united states senate. and in 1994 after al gore became vice president, cooper ran for the united states senate. as you might remember, or you might have read if you have studied history, for those of you not only have to remember, 1994 was not a fantastic year for republicans -- for democrats. indeed, in tennessee the republicans swept the senate, both seats and governorships,

and was the majority party in the congressional delegation for only the second time since reconstruction. so that brought jim back to nashville where he ran a private business, and then taught at vanderbilt business school. in 2002, he returned this time in the fifth congressional district as a blue dog democrat and has been reelected comfortably each time since, including in this most recent replay of 1994, one of the few very successful blue dog democrats to come back to congress. he is listed as the 65th most senior member of congress, but that's actually a bit misleading because if you base a seniority on when he first went to congress, all but 22 members of congress have seen congress with the perspective that he has seen. and add is the youngest of that list of 23 by far. so he has a better memory of that perspective of congress

than the rest of them. that experience gives him a perspective on congress that i think is essential to understand the institution, understand its weaknesses, and understand had to restore its potential. it was for that reason a laney k. can first introduced me to jim cooper when i started pestering her about these issues of how to make congress work again. and since then he has been my most important teacher. spending many hours with me, educating me about the institution and its ideals and its potential. and i am therefore very happy that he is excepted by invitation to come share with us his thoughts of how to make this institution work, work work better. and i'm also happy tonight to be able to announce that the other, another side to this question, fixing congress, will be offered by a republican on march 24, a friend of jim cooper, buddy groom, who will come and deliver

his view on the same question, i hope this community can join and learn from. so please join with me in welcoming back to harvard once again congressman jim cooper. [applause] >> thank you so much, larry. i'm honored to be back on campus and you pay be one of the highest couple that i could ever receive, to be teacher for you is indeed a privilege. since all politics is local, let me sing about one person, a former mayor of national -- nashville, tennessee. bill purcell. we are glad you're at harvard, at least on a template basis, but we want tobacco. former senator howard baker once said that there are three things he could not possibly understa understand. the holy ghost, the middle east, and the house of representatives.

no one probably understands the house fully, but most people do think that it is broken, badly broken. as larry said i've been in congress off and on for almost 30 years. i have seen the decline, but it's not the decline that worries me. what worries me is that we, as the world's only superpower, cannot afford a breakdown now. and worse, it worries me that as an aging superpower we might be losing some of our capacity for self renewal. our greatest strength has always been our ability to bounce back in time, our greatest strength is resilience. as winston churchill once said, america can always be counted on to do the right thing, after she has exhausted all the alternatives. you are about to hear a very

fundamental critique of congress are i focus on the house much more the this and although i acknowledge the need for the filibuster reform innocent is urgent. forgive me for speaking somewhat fast due to time constraint but there's a lot of ground to cover it is a grim diagnosis, but i believe it's a lot better for the patient to hear the news early rather than late. don't get too depressed. there's still time for a cure. not much time, but enough. first, i see a congress that is willfully blind to most of our nation's major. for example, the true national debt is many times larger than publish numbers, more like $50 trillion than $15 trillion. but congress has exempted itself from a normal accounting rules. and i want to single out for being a rare leader in pointing

out this problem, because not even "the wall street journal" uses the right numbers of frequent basis. these are the accrual numbers, and no interest group in america support is real accrual accounting for america. so congress sleeps. not even the president, the fiscal commission could waken us. second, the core business of federal government today is insurance. huge programs like social security and medicare, medicaid, the egg, and government subsidies for private health insurance. but people systematically refused to understand these programs. it's common to hear the phrase i want to keep the government hands off my medicare. these insurance programs are so large that they dwarf the central government functions by national defense and homeland

security. they completely overshadow all domestic spending, things like interstate highways, national parks, research spending, agriculture. yet despite the dominance of insurance in government, there is no congressional committee on insurance, no focus expertise on insurance products. tax expenditures are another huge but overlooked area. they dwarf appropriations. congress rarely even holds hearings on this annual $1.3 trillion during. on our nation's revenues. never has america been in greater need of tax reform. third, the biggest disconnect in politics today is the fact that these vile and other programs are not come as politicians claim, sacred commitments, tested benefits, or even government promises. what they are are scheduled benefits that we know today

you'd yo you, you do not know hw to fund. these programs are in jeopardy. when this realization sinks in, it could make the tea party movement look like a picnic. the sooner we act on these programs to stabilize them, the more likely we can save them. it will be painful but we should be thankful that we still have time. all three credit rating agencies like moody's and standard & poor's gave as one or two more years. fourth, congress often refuses to use the right tools to solve problems. in fact, most members of congress really don't know what's in our toolbox. year-round campaigning distracts us from the craft of legislating. a screwdriver problem obviously need a screwdriver solution, but oftentimes we will use a wrench. and we choose ranges because they are popular that year.

the classic example of the tax credits, these are golden on the stump but as has been shown, they at least waste to at a very $3. i sometimes wish we had competency testing for congress, are they some sort of apprenticeship program. finally, congress has grown spoiled because modern presidents have refused to veto much legislation. for most of his administration, george w. bush vetoed fewer bills than any president since thomas jefferson. every president since richard nixon has had budget recession power and use it hundreds of times. except for our last two presidents. president obama and his first speech to congress call to an end for a market and the next is democratic congress gave him

8500 in marx, and he did nothing about them. i was thankful this week in the state of the union message when he said he would veto future earmarks. but congress will simply not believe him until he fights back. so how did congress get this bad? and why didn't you know more about them? when cambridge his own tip o'neill was speaker of the house just over 20 years ago, congress was very different than it is today. imperfect to be sure, but functional your tip o'neill believed that he was speaker of the whole house. he did not want democrats to win every vote. he wanted the house of representatives to work its will. he criticized president reagan during the day, and drank beer with him at night. he was proud. a major issues, major stay were expected to vote their

conscience and their district. it was the job of the eloquent majority leader, jim wright, to corral enough democratic votes and the job of the gentlemen minority here, bob michael, to defeat those majorities. people could disagree without being disagreeable. you are considered a party loyalist if you support your party's position, 70 or 80% of the time. members knew exactly what they were voting on because of an elite group of staffers called the democratic study group that wrote authoritative pro-con memos before every vote. republican, trust the democratic study group so much that they subscribe to its services. in the own deal era members worked for five days a week in washington, d.c., where the families usually lived. members knew each other's names, and often spouses and children. a few members did belong to a tip called the tuesday-thursday

club. where members worked a short week in washington, shirt their legislative duties, casework however it is also a part of the legislative portfolio and members could do that back home. on the house house floor, this is very important, so-called king of the hill rules for debate were very common. under such rules members are allowed to choose among competing solutions to different national problems. the solution with the most votes won, even if a previous proposal had already received a majority vote. king of the hill rules allowed limited legislative freedom, but it made it much harder to predict how members would vote. back then you never contribute to your colleagues campaigns, except in an emergency. in fact, it was considered an insult to give a colleague a contribution, almost like handing them a tip.

campaigns could cost as much as $700,000, but only if the rates -- the races were hotly contested. likewise, political parties did not dare charge reduce. it was there job to help you. the chair of the democratic congressional campaign committee work in a modest room near the page dormitory, blocks from the capitol. chairing the dccc was considered a chore. well, congress has deteriorated badly since the tip o'neill air. when newt gingrich became speaker in 1995 he centralized power in the secrets -- -- emerged the speaker's office with a majority leader's office. committee chairman weren't emasculated. gingrich wanted republicans to win every vote. he waged total war on the clinton white house, even temporarily shutting down

government in an effort to get his way. the next speaker, dennis haskins, continued the approach when he admitted he really only listen to republicans because he called it the majority of the majority. congress polarized rapidly with party entities rapidly climbing to 95% plus levels. objective information sources like the democratic study group were banned. members were force fed talking points so that everybody could stay on message. members were told exactly how to vote. gingrich reportedly had said at the time that the first set and the revolution is to silence the television stations. king of the hill voting was ended. what we had instead were partisan steamroller goes with one vote, yes or no, at the end of a long debate. no coherent alternatives were allowed to be considered.

only the approval of party doctrine instead of limited legislative freedom. members could choose between being a team player or a traitor. gingrich ordered freshmen republicans not to move their homes to washington so that they could campaign full-time and back home. soon, everyone belonged to a tuesday-thursday club that tip o'neill had criticized as lazy. members quickly became strangers to each other. making it easier for them to fight. the cost of campaigns soon escalated into the millions. some soon were spending almost all day and into the night on call time. dialing for dollars at a party call centers just off campus. parties started requiring that the members pay dues, minimum levels of $100,000 but it could escalate up to 1 million.

these dudes had to be pages so you could remain in good standing. colleagues began the many contributions of each other. sometimes just to pay the party dues. instead of legislation, the old job of congress, the new job became telemarketing. fundraising and earmarking. the heads of the party campaign committees soon had the pics of offices and the capitol itself because they are being groomed for party leadership. when democrats took back control of congress in 2007, democratic leaders, sadly, tragically, did not even try to return to the policies of tip o'neill. we blew our chance to go back to the future. instead, democrats quietly adopted most of the bad habits of gingrich, and of the notorious tom delay. few democrats even remade who

could remember the tip o'neill air a. essentially we forgot all about brigadoon, and we settled for lord of the flies. some people said it was impossible to go back because times have changed. fox and msnbc had claimed partisanship. social media have popularized non-fact-based reality. the truth, however, is that they gingrich delay model works. if you're only interested in controlling congress. no speaker wants to yield to step in committee chairman, or listen to opinionated rank-and-file members. it's better to keep them both in the dark in order to quell dissent. it's also easier on backbenchers themselves if they can just follow the party line without thinking. this parliamentary system is certainly efficient, was laws are the hallmarks of congress.

open debate, independent decision-making, putting the interests of the nation first year it will be interesting to see if the speaker made a false the parliamentary or the congressional model. or if you appreciate the difference. today, members of the newly elected 112th congress of the united states of america were just worn in three weeks ago. two members missed the swearing-in while attending a fundraiser. the first floor action was reading the constitution allowed. the first weekend after the oath of courts as everyone in the world knows, a beloved colleague was nearly assassinated. since then both parties have tried to pay more civilly, distribute committee assignment, voted on repealing health reform and held planning retreats, and sat together at the state of the union. the big vote everyone is doing right now is the upcoming vote on raising the debt ceiling.

we don't know if republicans will risk ruining america's credit in order to force spending cuts, or whether democrats will join them in that gigantic game of chicken. aside from our own personal safety after tucson, most mayors are preoccupied with two issues. redistricting and fundraising. ..

>> citizens united could be the determining factor. many members are inherently panicked about their district disappearing in just a few months. they love their district. and old tennessee legislator once said there are two things you don't mess with. my wife and my district. and not necessarily in that order. [laughter] >> every decade, however, the constitution requires the every member of congress represent the same number of people, about 7 700,000. some are gaining seats, some are losing, most are staying the same. let's be honest, democrats and republicans love gerrymandering. i represent one of only -- 91 politically balanced districts

in america out of 435. and both political parties think that 91 is entirely too many. each party is working hard to create fewer competitive seats for itself and for the other party as well. how convenient. computer technology helps them etch tiny lines on large maps that help them divide neighborhoods, houses, and even in theory, double beds in order to find partisan majorities. they are able to do this because politicians know a whole lot about your voting habits. the secret ballot is almost gone. and because of that, you may well need a gps device to find out who your next representative is. today both democrats and republicans are trying to hide the fact that a secret election is already well under way. it will be over this spring. we only have a few weeks to reform it. it's not only a secret election, but a reverse election.

because regular voters don't get a chance to vote. only the politicians. you don't choose them, they choose you. and most states, the public is excluded from participating in the state legislator deliberations on on redistricti, and it will control the outcome of races for a decade, if not for generations. gerrymander, of course, fosters extremism, both on the left and on the right. because it's a lot easier to get elected in highly democratic or republican districts. then they only have to worry about primary, not elections. relatively few voters vote in primaries at all. newly elected extremist are vulnerable really to someone more extreme. states with party registration

laws have successfully outlawed participating by independent and other party members. no worries about alienating someone in the other party. often time the loudest voices in congress are the extremist. this week i filed a bill, hr419 with 19 co-sponsors in an effort to put some sunlight in the redistricting process and allow the public participation a month or two before the redistricting map becomes final. this is our last chance to solve the redistricting problem. regarding citizens united, mixing money and politics has always been awkward. everyone knows, for example, professional athletes are not allowed to accept money to throw a game. but it's perfectly legal in politics. massachusetts congressman barney frank is famous for saying the current election law assumes that every congressman every time demonstrates per spect --

perfect ingratitude. that's like saying every law floods the system with money and expects them to say dry. good luck with that theory. last year every member of congress had to raise $1.6 million, for a job that the salary pays 1/10 as much. the top ten congressional races raisedder -- raised $8.5 million each. and top congressional race raised $35 million each. some campaigns raise all of the money themselves. other were flooded by last minute, allegedly independent money from outside. in the final weeks of the campaign. television ads that suddenly appeared, kind of like the calvary in an old western movie,

arriving just in the nick of time. the supreme court commissioned those calvaries, allowed corporations to campaign for the first time in our history. already these troops have boosted election spending by $300 million. and this is only the beginning. because the sky is the limit once these political mercenaries are allowed. my objections to citizens united are the following. one, allowing corporations which are artificial persons under the law to have free speech rights puts regular citizens, ordinary american human beings, at a disadvantage. a better name for citizens united is corporations supreme. the court should stop emancipating these artificial persons, these business robots. this year, the court is even considering giving corporations privacy and due process rights. what's next? voting rights for corporations

and unions? two, the court kept the century-old law that made a felony of any corporation contribution directly to a candidate. but the court by a slender 5-4 majority suddenly turned indirect expenditures, everything around the felony into a celebration of free speech. this is like allowing college students to sleep in the same bed and pretending they won't have sex. everyone accept five justices of the court knows how technical and ridiculous that distinction is. you don't need to contact a campaign to find out what it needs. especially in the final days of the campaign. hardly anyone reads the tag lines on these commercials, on television. what people do notice is the quality of the ad.

and citizens united donors can afford the best. almost all ads today sadly are negative, but independent expenditure ads can be especially cruel. meanwhile, the favorite candidate benefits from this publicly can pretend they had nothing to do with him. three, citizens united had the potential of multiplying the money involved in american politics. no matter how expensive you think campaigns are today, they look cheap to corporate america. many corporations spend many more times advertising diapers, colas, potato chips, you name it. often times with less return on their investment. a cleverly spend $1 million in politics can sometimes buy a billion dollars in tax breaks or government spending.

in fact, that seems to be the going ratio these days. four. citizens united allow a tax by largely unknown groups with hidden sponsors. in other words, you may never know if that citizens united calvary saved you, or whether it was the native americans, guerrilla warriors, snipers, aliens. citizens united doesn't fit any script that you are familiar with, or could imagine. don't count on the federal election commission forcing timely disclosure. it's notoriously flat footed, timid, and lenient. already half of the spending is unanimous. a percentage that's only likely to grow. finally, citizens united could reduce the role of washington lobbyist. why use a middleman if you can buy direct? this may sound like a good idea. but remember, for all of the

citizens of k street, things could be worse. today's lobbyist are relatively identifiable, they fend a -- they spend a relative small amount of money, millions not billions, and they are often less selfish than their bosses realize. i'm not say they advocate good government. sometimes they do advocate pretty good government. in a citizenned united, state ad agencies could beam down by satellite, cable, or broadcast. cruel messages without ever talking to voter or elected official. "big brother" makes lobbyist look better. ironically, the cure maybe the corporations themselves. this would be a welcome reprieve, because otherwise we must amend the constitution or change justices. both very difficult tasks. i doubt that most large

corporations wanted the new freedom that the court gave them. will they be able to resist the temptation of using it? for a few years, at least, i think most companies will be unfamiliar and uncomfortable with electioneering. meanwhile, a few corporate fanatics could cause damage, causing a backlash against the decision. which will come first, corporations learning how to campaign, or business retaliation against outlaw firms? we can only hope it's the latter. in conclusion, the trouble with congress today that you get what you pay for, and we are paying for the wrong things. taxpayers today hire mediocre talent, candidates that think their job is to duck fundamental issues in order to get elected and reelected. fixed salaries do more to perpetuate the terrible status

quo that most realize. today, it's almost unthinkable to suggest for results. real leadership, however, means expanding the scope of discussion, and then making it happen. members are custom to blaming others for failure, in fact, they are so good at the blame game, they excel at it. the first objections will likely come to congressmans themselves. they are also afraid of making less money than other colleagues. it's precisely this fear, however, that motivates people to behave better. why not pay members of congress for performance? surely there's a way to measure and reward quality legislation. universities and think tanks could help us device a system. many other professions, afterall, teachers, ceos, physicians, have been facing such pressures for years.

why not congress? here's a thought experiment. what if congress were paid on commission to cut spending or to repeal obsolete laws? my bet is that you never have to worry about deficits again or redundant statutes. of course, congress should already being doing these things, but carrots make both donkeys and elephants move faster. here's another thought experiment. what if congressman could only raise money from real people that live in their district, not outside interest? that would put a premium on residency, and raise the states in redistricting. but it would also give local taxpayers more influence. the lesson of these two quick thought experiments is simple. we need carrots, and they need to be put in the right place. i think taxpayers should

position the carrot, not special interest. because we need better people to run for office, we need them to focus on the most important issues, and we need fewer, better laws, not more loopholes. it's ironic in all of this that the lessons of market economics are well known outside of congress, but almost unknown within it. notice that china, for example, practiced state capitalism. but our congress refused to use market principals to governor itself. we probably shouldn't be surprised when congress isn't even true to itself, but unwhittingly supporting parliamentary behavior. focusing on what taxpayers are getting for their money is only the start of a real fix for congress. congress has long been developing other or generous funding sources than taxpayers.

the check and contribution limits are double. for decades, special interests have helped finance campaigns for reelection and commit too assignments. now citizens united have has those special interests on steroids. they have also been funding careers and supplement retirements for congressman, since many of them want to become washington lobbyist once they leave office. the average tenure of the house member is ten years. just long enough to collect a government pension and to start looking for better work. this revolving door has meant for a long time that congress has been little more than a farm team for case. after citizens united, it could electric a wholly subsidiary. don't expect too much from congress. i would hate you see you

dispointed or disallusioned. congress will never be more than a sausage factory. but it can be a better sausage factory if more people volunteer to teach. what if they channeled the volunteers after campaigns for government service after the teaching was done? what if law schools like this one or other law schools around the country startered lawyers were america to help reform congress? i personally have never student why a students wanted to spend a lifetime reading and studenting all that's written by c students. it should be the other way around. although congress will always be flawed, we should never lose faith in the america's ability to bounce back from adversity. the fact that we know congress is broken should give us hope. it's actually a sign that a cure is already under way. the body politic is starting to

heal itself. the worse shape that we are in, the more likely we are to be proud of our recovery. no one has said this better than mark scheels when he said recently quote we saw a white, catholic male republican judge on his way to meet a jewish member of congress who was his friend. her life was saved initially by a 20-year-old mexican-american gay college student, and eventually by a korean-american combat surgeon. and all this was eulogized but our african-american president. only in america. only in america. thank you. [applause] [applause]

okay. so that was extraordinary. and -- but your work is not finished, jim. >> okay. >> so we are going to have questions. our convention is that i will identity the question and then the next question as well so the microphone will be in the right place so the question can start right away. so let me start with norm here. and aaron. >> thank you very much. >> is that on? >> thank you very much. my question is whether you think citizens united was an intended or unintended affect of something else. and the reason for the question

is corporate america was doing very well for a long period of time. why take the risks that this kind of political change in control and power might involve rather letting things go as they were? >> i believe that all of the justices are good people. and i also know from experience and politics if you are ever confronted with the situation which you can't explain, and it could either be a conspiracy or a screw up, 99% of the time, it's a screw up. conspiracies take way too much time and effort to manage and control. so i know conspiracy theories are popular, they are also almost impossible to disprove. i think this is just a mistake, and a mistake that america should go about correcting. >> aaron? >> thanks for a fantastic speech, congressman. you spent the fist part of it talking about how congress is

parliament system and sort of declining that. but political scientists have found the reason nonparliamentary system are rare is because they are unstable. i see why having the freedom to vote your conscious, but as an average citizen, it seems much more problematic. the one vote that people care about, the vote for president, they get invested in. and the president isn't capable of putting through the legislature platform, it ends up through congressman and committee chairman. can you explain more why you think a nonparliamentary system is so valuable? >> excellent question. i know that political scientists are often falling in love with parliaments, but remember, i should have elaborated this in my remarks, we have the worst. we have parliament aspects, but not the accountability of a

prime minister that has run the government. we can blame everybody else, and nothing will get done. it's crazy to think our democracy like ours would go backwards. i think we are better than this. that's time for americans to enjoy the listening to air -- to their angels. this two-line whip, the three-bot voting does not noble america. >> jim, thank you very much. this is terrific. i'm intrigued with your idea of pay for performance. as somebody as you know has spent a lot of my time studying the legal profession. in the legal profession, there's been a move as you say in many other areas. but it's been a complicated move as you probably now. and many people have argued that actually that move is actually

been responsible for swamping some of the other values that we might want lawyers to have. and i guess me the context of congress, it seems similarly complex because sort of two things. one is who would decide what the standards of performance are? and who would be evaluating? that if you were in charge, i'd be happy to put you in charge of evaluating all of us, actually. and then the second thing is, it's a collective product. and so it's always complex to measure the individual performance of a collective product. so kind of on those two things if you could just say a few more words about that. >> well, professor wilkins and i are friends, classmates, i say in response to your excellent question, let the debate begin. there are always going to be thousands of reasons not to do something. we know congress is broken

today. show me a better way to fix it. i think the power of the thought experience, if we pay people on commission to cut spending, we're going to get spending cuts. certain economic incentives work. perhaps i'm too much of an economic determinist. when cain said we are all slaves of economist, that rang true. the carrots are in the wrong place, sometimes the stick, smart folks like you and universities and think tanks, surely we are smart enough to put the carrots and the sticks in the right place. i think that's a worthy endeavor. >> thank you, congressman. i was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about how you personally navigate the pressure to raise money and the people who are trying to give you money it achieve their own interest. >> well, i'm a terrible fundraiser. my campaign folks will tell you

that. because i try to spend most of my time on what i thought i was elected to do, quality legislation, excellent case work back home. but i'm a dying species. when i first came to congress, there was a very disciplined and wonderful congressman from kentucky named bill natcher. he had perfect posture, wrote a journal to his grand kids to know what his life was like. completely honest. never raised more than $500 for campaign. he would post, and everybody knew bill is running again. those days are gone like perhaps my days are gone. money has always been the mother's milk of politics. when speecher pelosi was asked why she should be the democratic leader after the terrible defeat of 2010, she said, well, i raised the democratic party $280 million. as if that were an answer to the

question. to me, money will always have it's place, but we've got to focus on other quality measures as well. right now those other quality measures are suffering. >> right here. >> this was an fascinating talk. as everybody else has said. and we're much indebted to you for it. i have a comment, i think as much as a question. and the comment has to do with your reliance on markets and market metaphors as the solution to the problem. how would you response to this alternative vision? the problem is that markets have spread where they ought not have spread. that there are some things that shouldn't be subject to the forces of the market. and that rather than looking for market solutions, we ought to be looking somehow for some sort of moralized approach that drives markets out of the house of

congress. but the reason that i partly motivated this comment is if we're in the economic determinist mode that you described yourself as being in, then don't we have here what economist would call a collective action problem. such that although it might be in everybody's interest if things change, or it might be in many people's interest if things change, those are people who are likely to be unable to get together coalitions large enough to affect the change. and so if you are in the market model, aren't things worse than you suggest? isn't this the path of dispair, rather than hope? and don't we need to look for some other avenue of hope if this is to be one? >> professor, as another friend and classmate, this is why he's a professor and i'm not. i'm a lowly public servant. i knew from our first meeting, this guy was maine is really,

really smart. let me put the cookies on a low shelf. to affect any change in politics, you have to use the language that's understood. and right now market economics, people think they understand it. i'd be the first to agree with you. sometimes markets have intruded into areas where they never should have gone. likewise, sometimes we fail to introduce market behavior and far be it from me to mention market economics to a tenured professor. there are pockets of things. i used the basketball analogy. we need a hard fought game on court, and we need out of bounce lines and referees. the better of referees and the foul lines, the better the game. so it's a combination of market incentives and fierce competitive behavior, animal spirits, and also places you cannot go. so i think this is a debate once we visualize the debate, it's kind of like the tools of government problem. most people that i work with do not know how to recognize the

screwdriver problem. that's why they use a wrench. let's help expand the vocabularies so people can think in new ways so my knowledge, in the literature, we passed the library of congress. they had no answer. we've got to try something knew when congress is this broken. if you have a better idea, i'm open to it. let's at least give this a look. >> we have a question right here. >> this is actually building on your last comment. i don't expect you to be a mind reader. but you have known a lot of congress people since 1994. of those members, how many of them -- if they heard you today would basically privately agree with you? how many of them would vigorously disagree? and given your grade c, how many would not under the problematics that you outlined? >> well, i value my relationships on the hill very

much. but i've never tried to climb the ladder. if you are a terrible fundraiser, you don't have a chance. most people that run for congress and most people that serve are good people. they are from the heart land. they risk a lot to serve. they endure a lot of bad stuff to do it. now there's some perks, there's some opportunities. but most are good people. but we will always be a mirror of the american people. you'll find the name number of rascals and names in congress as you do in the general public. somehow the public elects these folks. we try to cleanse the institution, periodically, as speaker pelosi said to drain the swamp. the swamp keeps filling up. that's the glory and the problem of democracy. there was once the senator from nebraska, ramon who said we need more mediocre justices on the

supreme court so that mediocre can be represented. this is the government of the people, for the people, by the people. i hoping this peach is not a career limiting move. it is pushing the edge. most of my colleagues prefer clubbiness, and talking about things like if, if ever, within the family. but sometimes you get tired of waiting for change. i think a lot of americans after the 2008 election thought more change would be happening. the president essentialed faced a honeymoon problem. he gets elected, he doesn't get a halon magic wand with the job. he has to work with two people, harry reid and nancy pelosi? do you pick a fight on your honeymoon? he chose not to do that. after all wise husbands do. now the honeymoon is over. i think he needs to tango with

congress and make us behave, and that would help the institution and help the country. >> thank you, mr. congressman, for a stimulating presentation. i'm a political scientist that's not in love with parliamentary systems. i prefer howard baker. i'm instruct by the fact that you are giving this presentation in 2011. if you had given it exactly 100 years ago in 1911, it would have had similar tones. you have have been railing against a power speaker, joseph cannon, and there was a revolt in that year against him. on the other hand, if you would have given this presentation on 1961, you would have been on the side of sam rayburn to expand the overly powerful house rules committee. that seems to bracket. powerful speaker and

decentralized. we seem never to get it quite right. i wonder how you square the circle. how do you balance the two extreme forms of legislation organization? >> well, thank you for your question. i know it's frustrating for professors that we never quite get it right. i think this is a saving grace of democracy. our government is a whole lot like an antique grandfather clock. it's 200 plus years old. that's a giant pendulum that swings back and forth that does two things, not only provides energy, it also gives us something to watch. democracy is a spectator sport. we want the people to be involved. it's boring if nobody pays attention. congress today is being a channel on reality tv. because congressman are cheaper to hire, or easier to make fun of, and you get to vote us off of the island every two years. all at taxpayer expense. so there's a messiness in democracy. this is what i refer to as

taking the bismarck line about the sausage factory. two things you never want to see being made, laws and sausages, that messiness is hard. sometimes for the clean rational academic to appreciate. but it's also part of the system. and it's worked better than any other system. i celebrate it. you are right about the pendulum swing in history. i don't know how we voted 50 or 100 years ago. i was just trying to make it work better today. >> i was hoping you could say a couple of words about health care reform. i'm a medical student, and fairly concerned that my profession is going to be the anchor of the drag stone on the u.s. economy. it seems like in the current health care debate people are saying you can have everything, you don't have to go with anything, it won't cost you a penny. clearly every player is going to have to give us something. how because it's such an immediate debate, how -- is there any way we can make that better? >> thank you for asking about health care reform.

i've demoted more of my time to that than any other issue by far. someone sitting in this audience who is truly a national treasure. i'm lucky because he worked for me for a short while, he has transcended, arturo delande is here. read his essay in "the new yorker." it is awesome. the piece on hot spotters literally shapened and maybe transformed the health debate. he can put complex things in simple terms and help both regular folks and the ultra sophisticated understand what's really going on. this is the subject not only of a lecture on it's own i tachismessic on this add vanderbilt, but medical systems need to learn about the system. you have a terrific regional expert john winnberg, at dartmouth. his current book "tracking

medicine" is amazing. it's transformative. read it, take it to heart. there are really exciting things going on in medicine. there's no reason to be discouraged. this is the best time since the flex report. it's a great time to embrace not only individual care, but population medicine. we can and will make the system work better. >> i want to press you a little on how realistically you can think of pressing a campaign to accomplish some of what you are trying to accomplish? so it seems to be part of what makes your remarks so powerful is that you are in congress. and you are speaking from knowledge about what it used to be like, what it is like now, and i a little dispair of what you sort of talk about how universities and the think tanks could provide answers and wonder how much you are working and this is -- there's one question a little like this this -- but w

much are you working to try to create coalitions within congress? because it must be that there are a lot of people who feel the frustration that they would -- i would at least hope it's true. there are a lot of people that feel some of the frustrations that you do about not being able to do the kind of work that you went to congress to do. >> professor from dartmouth is a friend, i have learned a lot from her on the family care issues and foster adoption, which is neglected and most broken part of all of federal law. she's trying to fix it. the key in american politics, you have to be optimistic. things are never as sad as they seem. reagan's optimism after the carter years, although he never mentioned that in the speech, something that americans appreciate it. because you can't build moral without being positive. now there are daunting obstacles. i'd be the first to admit that.

but there are ways to help people understand. now we have elections, and they should be competency tests, they should be rewards or punishments for good or bad behavior. right now the public is not given the tools to understand who's a good legislator or not. i'm a democratic, we are fiscally conservative, it's difficult for us to show concretely, exactly which votes were good or bad or america. voters are clueless. you can spin is either way. we have gotten so good at spin that we've almost departed from facts and they can not even cover the same events. you are almost wonders if they are reporting on two different nations, red or blue america? and never in between. somehow we have to get beyond this. the recent financial reform commission was unable to agree on the facts of the fiscal crisis. you know, that is stunning. so somehow, it reminds of the center cannot hold. you know, we've got to really be

careful here. because he was overly pessimistic in the '20s. maybe not about ireland, but about the world. you know, when the best like all conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity. that is a scary situation. there are opportunities here to build, and i think the key is to be able to persuade the average rotaryian back home. because in my opinion, they are the backbone of america. and i think arbor would back me up on that. you can reach the folks. there's a balance wheel somewhere in the grandfather clock that's always worked. it's going to work again if we let it. there are powerful outside forces, media and other things pulling it in different directions. but i think it's about to work. people should not be discouraged. >> thank you very much, congressman. i thought that your comments were very poignant. but what you didn't address, or

you addressed that the congress is broken. but no one puts forth drastic solutions. the old kitchen table, what obama said, the average family is sitting around in discussing, the issue is revenues and expenditures. the government is like running a business. where are specifics that someone will stand up and say, i will throw my career to the wind, but, we've got to raise revenue? and there are other ways of raising it. a value-added tax, don't call it tax, a luxury fee for somebody that buys $100,000 car. $500 pair of shoes. things along those lines. where does somebody stand up and say enough with tenure or

certain levels of poor quality education? we're at the bottom of the pit. how do we climb out of that wealth? where does a congressman or a senator stand up and say a, b, c, and d, and literally either get the money since corporations or there are some good people that will fund that, go on television and say here are the solutions. it's painful, you are in the icu, or very close to it. where is that? >> well, the limiting factor on an open discussion of ideas in american politics is the fear of the 32nd attack ad. somebody can take something out of context and you will look like a jerk when they didn't hear or didn't want to hear the entire speech. there are excellent examples we could be doing.

the president's commission did an outstanding report. we cannot allow that to gather. it's spending cuts, decreasing, it got 11 votes. it needed 14. both house and democrats and republicans torpedo the report because either the democrats or the republicans voting for it could have forced a congressional vote. yes or no, up or down on that on a congressional alternative. kind of like the king of the hill. progress is being made, but we need to be informed enough to know about the reports, and how valuable they are. we have a terrible problem, and we are not measuring the problem. i know accounting is boring. i hated taking it. if you can't mention it, you cannot manage it. and we are refusing to measure it. the area is if you can't measure it, perhaps you don't question serve -- don't deserve to manage it.

that's the position that congress is in right now. without the accurate measure we don't truly understand our problem. when the "wall street journal" and nobody will help us, congress needs stronger backbones. perhaps, looks like you can help us with that. >> so let me take the advantage of being a chair to ask a question. i understand your profession required you to be optimistic. mine doesn't. [laughter] >> so i'd like to put together the kind of incentives that you've described and see how you can see optimism in it. two dimensions. one is member space. you repeated my favorite line of yours about congress becoming a farm team. and why are they a farm team for k street? we have many people going into congress making less than graduates of this law school make in their first year when

they go to work on wall street. assuming they can get jobs which is not any longer an assumption that you can make. but -- so they have an income stream which many of them because of their talents or their families, or they choose they can't live. so they assume they are going to be moving into the place where the exercise influences in a way that makes the problem you've described much worse. so you've talked about some ways of thinking about tinkering with incentives on congressman. are you talking about congressman pay as a way to resolve that? and on the other side, let me put together the elements that you've described and see if they fit like that? congress is eager to minimize the number of cost up seats, or increase the number of safe seats. safe seats make it easier for people to talk to the extreme. talking to the extreme makes it easier to way raise.

if you really want to raise money, it's best to be talking loudly and sharply to the base and the base is increasingly at the extremes. that means the whole rhetoric of the active politician become more polarized. as a way of raising money, as a way to facilitate the raising money. so the raising of money here inside the campaigns can be driving the discourse towards these extremes which making it harder to have members like yourself who are trying to figure out the moderil -- moderate middle. the solution, what is the real solution to that? that's not congress pay. that might be some version of public funding. i assume you think public funding in the form given the house voted to eliminate for the presidency, completely off of the table. >> well, first, larry, i appreciate your devoting so much of your professional career to reform our democratic institutions. that's vitally important work.

i'm grateful to you for that. this is the curious subject. smart people have hard times grappling with it. einstein said physics is easy, politics is hard. right now it's hard to suggest things like public financing, having a huge republican tide. but there are surely better ways to do this. and i am suggesting that we change congressional pay. you have to have a direct incentive. i don't necessarily think we need the pay increase at all. i'm not advocating the pay raise for all of congress. but today the only differentuation in pay that the salespeopler gets paid more, maybe the majority and minority leaders. everybody else is paid the same. the senator that represents california makes the same money that i do representing 700,000 people in tennessee. this is unusual system. so how do you create incentives for better behavior? there has to be some bench marks

for doing it. the few times they have been suggested in the past, they pay if you show up. if you miss votes, they dock your pay. that's simplistic. there's got to be a way and maybe some groups can help us with this. who really is fiscally responsible in this country, regardless of spin. there you are going to have to change the way congress packages votes, and we'll put things in the giant sausage role. so discreet voting maybe an important by-product of this discussion. so we separate issues and you know with clarity with members are voting on, and what they supported on support. that would terrify members. that might be more hostilely received than pay differences. because it's easy to hide in congress. we're largely unanimous. and actually to me there's a point here that's worth noting. the senate was supposed to be the group of statesman. now with more secure outseats,

if anyone is still left in america, it would be house members. senators are guaranteed every six years, they have to raise $30,000 a week. they have to be raising money like crazy. house members, the multimillionaires don't seek our job. there's not gratification, so we are relatively productive. other key insights since this is an academic group, hopefully you won't punish me. henry adams had it right 100 years ago when the purpose of a political party is the purpose of hatred. fear and anger motivate people. how do we over come that? another key insight is from 80 years ago. he said the purpose of the liberal party is to keep on making mistakes. the purpose of the conservative party is to refuse to correct

those mistakes. [laughter] >> i think that does more than dualing negativism than we have in american politics than anything else that i've ever seen. somehow by understanding the machine, the mechanism, we can improve it's workings. i'm optimistic not because i have to be, everybody no matter how angry they are acknowledged the one simple overwhelming fact. we live in the greatest nation on earth. we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. our job is to keep it that way. we can do that. >> one more question here. with the microphone. this one. i'm sorry. one second, sir. let me just get a microphone to you. >> i'm the county benedict fitzgerald. president truman pointed me

chief council of the committee to investigate lobbying activities. and we prepared 10 volumes of our investigations which are available in the library. and since then, there have been 40,000 registered lobbyist admitted in washington. which many of them prepare the legislation that's being drafted. and they present it to the congressman. do you have any comments as to what improvements should be made to the series of lobbying acts that were made following further investigations? >> well, mr. fitzgerald, i appreciate your pioneering work on this issue. it's remarkable that it was a recognized problem even back then in the truman

administration. today we view that as an innocent panel. it's curious today in america, we have a system of dual representation. there are now 33 lobbyist in washington for every elected official. some estimates take it as high as 60. and one group, the elected, are paid for by taxpayers. the other group is paid for by largely volunteer contributions, or maybe your church or your charity. it's amazing that people so distrust us that they are willing to pay twice to get the same job done. i tell people all the time, you are already paying my salary. i'm a hired hand. i work for you. you don't have to come to washington. i come home every weekend to see you. they want to come to washington. they get a break, get a nice meal, stay in the hotel room. this is a curious system. there must be a felt need. perhaps economic, perhaps cultural. keeping tabs on us. but the voluntary sector, you

know, sometimes call lobbyist is curious. i fight with them all the time. because if anyone likes on the uninformed member, it's a lobbyist. then there's a slate they can right on. folks like me, history, they write questions and troublesome. i think if they have more members that might curve the public need to feed the system. and also the lobbyist successful. the theory that they are equal interest, it's wrong. on a few issues, it's perfectly equal and balance. usually the money side in my opinion is not in the public interest. we have to rely on the goodwill of folks to over come the money by doing the right thing for the country. >> charles fried was on a panel for the ava that was reviewing lobbying practices following on the same question. and one the recommendations made by the panel is that the

lobbyist give up raising money for members of congress and raising money for areas that they are lobbying. do you think that would be a significant change? that's an interesting idea. i haven't heard it yet. money are so tricky. there are so many pathways, it's fundable, i don't know how you monitor or police that. it's a little bit like the citizens united distinction. how do you know when you are occurring favor with a citizens unite the donor? it could be anybody. if you give a speech to the board of directors or employees, you are likely to be on their favored list. if you are not never invited, you are likely to be on the unfavored list. you kind of wonder who's doing the thinking for the corporation, evp of policy planning who knows the issue, or getting a memo from the chamber of congress that says republicans are good, all democrats are bad. we face this as a blue dog in

democrat, because we are between, it's a troubled home. it's very dangerous for us. jim hightower once said there are only two things you see in the middle of the road. yellow lines and dead armadillos. in my area, it's more bed opossums. they were talking about earlier, you have only one flank to protect. we have both to direct. it makes us race twice as hard. there's a harder time to pigeon hole. update your stereotypes once in while. try to understand the issue. everything has dumbed down in many generation. it's hard for you to see. "time magazine" did not like to be use "people." "people" wasn't invented yet. even the magazines that cost

thousands of dollars a year has been dumbed down. more and more people don't want information. that's painful. we want to reinforce around prejudices. that's comfortable. that takes today's environment particularly tricky. >> i have a question about political rhetoric and political range. i was very st t -- struck listening to the address speech. the insistence on american exceptionalism. your final comments, only in america. i'm not sure how true it is. the president of france is a son of hungarian immigrants that have the labor party in britain is the son of a well-known belle

gun marxism immigrant. i don't think that would happen here. the question is, is it necessary to keep insists that we are the greatest nation on earth. so keep insists on exceptionalism. it seems to me there are real hazards, and real advantages in pointing our commonalities with other countries and the problem that is we face. >> on this issue, we're going to have to disagree. the average american really doesn't want to travel aboard for vacation. doesn't want to learn a foreign language. and really doesn't care a whole lot about the rest of the world. now perhaps they should be faultered for that. but that's the way they feel. i'm fairly international. i try to focus on these issues. i know a few languages. i try to do a little better than that. but it's a challenge.

remember when the house of representatives reframed french fries freedom fries. you know, i like to found out there are only two portraits in the house chamber. one george washington. that's the obvious. who's the other? it's marquis lafayette. he helped finance the revolution. i worry that americans with a.d.d. can't remember 10 years ago, much less 100 years ago. we are the only super power. i think it's good. america has done to promote more good than any other nation. that's not to say we're perfect. my brother just pointed out a book called "the last cruise" which erodes teddy roosevelt's representation. his terrible injustices in the

philippines. every country is going to be proud of themselves. we don't want an empire and take over everything. we have vast cultural and economic influence. but we are essentially the most altruistic power. i think it's a good thing. it should be celebrated and appreciated. i think it's far more good than bad. when i look at the glass, it's half full, it's not half empty. >> questions back here. >> i was wondering what advise you were give to a law student considering a career in congress man staffer with regard to their own career and how to assist their boss? >> apply for a job in my office. if we don't have something, we'll help you find something. we need to attract goodal into the hill. gush -- good talent to the hill. that's the best thing you can do.

i knew george steph nonlouse when he was younger. if you show talent and ability and if you can write and think, my god, you are precious. so please don't be discouraged. it's not the coolest thing to apply on a job on the hill oring a -- or an agency. but we needs folks there. too many people have vilified public service. we have to bring back the reputation. paul volcker, a political giant, this is the biggest issue. we need to listen to paul when he talks about those things. >> one more question. >> so i understand there are major differences in the political system in the u.s. and other countries. i also understand why it's often not possible to talk publicly

what we may learn from other countries. but are you having conversations with legislators, colleagues in other nations about doing things that might be helpful in this system, whether it be broadly accultureing notion of public service or solutions? >> i appreciate your interest in international comparisons. certainly we can learn from them. but to be honest with you, this is something that our academic friends are going to have to help us with. having worked a lot in health care, the only helpful book in health care, i apologize if you are one the authors of the other books, the only helpful book on international comparisons on health care is t.r. reid "the healing of america." there he did keep it simple. he had a bum shoulder. took it to ten countries. who did the best job?

it's a real life description that you can understand. it makes a difference. it helps people understand, guess what, if you think you hate the british system, we have had in the va. if you think you hate the kann maidian system, we have it, called medicare. if you think you hate the german system, we have it