the half to $4 billion. that is what people talk about having to fix. that is not all of the problem. i learned a long time ago, if you want to find out the fiscal condition of a company or a city, town, or state, the best place to find the real answers is to go back and look at their bond statements, the statements they have to put together when they're going out to borrow. i started looking at the new hampshire bonds statement from about a year ago. i found this section called retirement obligation. sure enough they talked about the pension liability with year-and-a-half to $4 billion. then i read this paragraph. there were two other liabilities

one is health care obligations to retirees. that is not included in the number you are all hearing for each state. and so in new hampshire there is another almost billion dollars in health care obligations. that is not the end of the issue. there is another obligation called 0ppd. other post employment benefits. and in new hampshire it is another two-and-a-half billion dollars. so instead of the three and a half billion dollar liability, as people are acknowledging in the press it is a $7 billion liability. instead of california having $114 billion pension liability i suspect you go and look at their bonds statement.

you find out it's close to a quarter of a billion, a quarter of a trillion. unbelievable. this is what we face is a country. the point is as all of you know, the sooner we get to fixing these issues the easier it will be in the long run. it won't be easy, but it will be easier. that is part of the challenge. and, yes, we are watching television and people are being accused of being so heartless, so cruel, so tough and trying to cut back and address some of these issues. i suggest to you that the most important thing you can do to help people to what they have to do responsibly, not to remain

silent, but to provide encouragement for those who want to deal constructively with these issues. quite often when i speak somebody will stand up in the back of the room and they will raise their hand and usually they are the ones that seem the most agitated. i call on them, and they will say governor, when are the politicians in this country going to have the guts to make big good hard decisions that need to be made. my answer is, you think in that question you have identified the political figures as the ones who have to do the right thing. in fact, if you think about it your real condonation in that question is a combination of us. why in a democracy should be

making the right decision be a hard decision. it is up to us to create a climate in which the right decision is easy and we have not done a good job of doing that over time. second issue i want to address in general terms is energy. favorite line on all of the talking head shows and by all the political figures who don't know one part of their anatomy from their elbow -- c-span this year. , they love to say that this country has no energy policy. in no way they are right. this country has no energy policy because the right energy policy is not politically

correct. it is an easy thing for anyone who understands energy to put an energy policy together that is both effective and tool will. some people talk about it. they talk about it as the all of the above choice. we need coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, large scale hydro. you want to throw wind in fine, you want to throw solar in, fine, but don't think they will be that magical fantasy solutions. he needed all. most of all are the traditional sources. that is the right in its policy. it is not the politically correct one. it is not the one that the media likes, not the one that we like to think will save us from hard aspects and investments and issues.

now, i know that nuclear is taking a tough wrap this week with what is happening in japan. i personally think it will be working its way out and we will end up with not as dire a set of consequences. i could be wrong, but i don't think there will be a diverse set of consequences. if that happens to happen, if the japanese and up fixing this without any different -- serious injury or loss of life, then the important message to the world will be exactly the opposite of what the media is trying to make it now, it will be that energy source can withstand even a magnitude nine earthquake in one of the largest tsunami that have ever hit japan. but we have to have the courage and the strength to create a climate where, again, the

correct policy becomes an easy policy rather than the wrong policy being a politically correct one that people would hope we would have. it is up to us. we have responsibilities. the third thing i would like to talk about before we get into the political side of politics is what is it going on around the world. we certainly watched with amazement what was going on in egypt the activities and the young people and the capacity to use twitter and facebook and gather crowds and stand up and protest the reasons that they were not very happy with and with a reason not being happy with, and we stand in a chair that and feared what was going to begin to happen in libya.

we even gave a strong encouragement as a government in libya. gave the people that are beginning to live to fight. egypt was more peaceful. libya was cheating at each other. civil war. we give encouragement to the protesters. then we did nothing. we have done nothing. how unconscionable to give people the impression that we would provide some support and then stand back and let what is happening happened there. let me get back to the larger point. watching what is happening in egypt. we see issues like this taking place in bahrain, unrest in yemen, and we are tempted to be sitting at home cheering it on.

the fact is we have no idea what will come next. no idea at all. how do we know even the people who were protesting in that country will be better off with what comes back? how do we know the world will be better off with what comes next? we pressed for democratic elections in palestine. look what happened? hamachi one. we certainly cannot be happy with that result. it is one thing to have democracy as a stimulating philosophy of what it would like to see take place and around the world. it is important to help people get there eventually, but i'm not sure the most responsible

thing is to hope for democracy by traumatic action. so i see those three aspects being critical as we try and sit down and decide amongst ourselves what we would like to happen in this country in the next few years, what we would like to happen at around the world, and who we want to be the leader of this nation as we go through the 2012 process to decide who should be in charge on inauguration day 2013. we have an incumbent in the white house. then the republican party must choose. then we as a nation will sit down and select.

that me talk of the bit to you. i apologize if it have not partisan flavor, but it's almost impossible for anybody to give you an honest expression of their opinion without tinting at a little. i really do think there is a huge void in the world and specifically the void in this country. i was talking with some friends from around the world the other day at an as the launch with about four countries represented. very different opinions, but the one thing we agreed on is that there is a really big difference in our opinions, at least on the quality of world today.

no helmet, no margaret thatcher, ronald reagan, no people who were able to take a look at the macro problems up there, defined as set up positions and work hard to employment them and make things better. i offered my opinion that i think the closest thing that approaches the style of is vladimir cuban in russia today. other than that i don't see any, i don't see any defining philosophies, i don't see any commitment to moving in a certain direction. a dance to the capacity to bring things together. i really don't see anyone there that can help reshape the world in the direction that i suspect we would all like it to be reshaped.

and so i think that is one of the questions we might ask ourselves, and i am very much aware of the fact that margaret thatcher was not margaret thatcher until after she was elected. helmut khol was not helmut khol until after he took office. francois mitterand was not francois mitterand until after he took office, and ronald reagan was not ronald reagan until after he became president. i accept that. we at least have to look for people that give us hope, and we ought not to stick with people who have demonstrated that they can't. it is too critical. it is too critical. our economy is at a tipping adds. what is going on around the world is seriously in turmoil. this is not easy times that we all thought we would have after the soviet union collapsed. this days of euphoria, the end of superpower conflict, happy

days are here again. it did not work out. so now let me talk of the labatt about what i think is going to happen as a sickness of a fence politically as we move to 2012 and to talk about some of the cast of characters that will come knocking on your doors asking you to support them. you don't live in new hampshire. the one knock on your doors. you will see them on television. 2012, two parties, and republicans and democrats had tried to make this a little bit more orderly than it used to be. two national committees, democratic and republican have both adopted a set of rules that of virtually the same and have set aside the month of dead urey, february 2012, as a time in which nevada to, i welcome

the new hampshire, and south carolina are allowed to go first be in their delicate -- delegate selection process. all other states can start march 1st and schedule themselves in. of course neither the democratic or republican national committee really has much power. it there are rumblings. other states think that they ought to be entitled to go early. i suspect we will see particularly florida, michigan, and texas making noises as if they would like to go into during or even january. when they asked me as former governor of new hampshire, and i was going back to be state chairmen to clean the rascals out last year, which we did, they asked me what will happen

if these states start jockeying the mac i remind them that the one advantage we have in new hampshire is that our secretary of state is empowered to move our primary as far forward as he has to in order to keep it first in the nation primary. that reminds me of little bit of a story. and i was governor, a southern governor who i will not name here out of courtesy to him came into my office when i was governor. a courtesy visit to tell me that he was going to run for president. coming to new hampshire for the primary. he wanted me to know that. what started off as a courtesy visit, he started to get all he did and started showing how angry he was that new hampshire somehow was allowed to have the first in the nation's primary. he told me he was going to go back to is state of florida.

i let a little out of the bag. see how what it takes you to good will that. he will go back to florida, and florida would move their day forward and would end up ahead of us. you can go back and change the law, but our secretary of state has tremendous powers in new hampshire and will just keep moving forward. he said we are going to move it so far forward that there will be no room left to move new hampshire forward. so i turned to him. somehow i kept a straight face. i said, governor, then will just put in provision be, utilize provision be of the law. he said, what is provision be? i said, the law permits under dire circumstances such as that. the governor of new hampshire did declare that the primary has already been held and to fix the

winner. and he really went down to the secretary of state's office and asked for a copy of a provision be. i don't know if we can use provision be, but there will be jockeying, real jockeying, and it will be fun to watch how this process works out. there will be early voting probably in january, and it could even be as people get ridiculous as early as december. with that in mind i think you're going to find some people who have hoped it did not have to come in san beginning to commit pretty quickly over the next few weeks. i don't know who is really going to be in and to is not going to be in. in know, all of the list of suspects. certainly governor romney, former governor of massachusetts

will probably be a candidate. the former governor of minnesota will probably be a candid. haley barbour will probably be a candidate. there is a good chance that mix daniels will be attended. jon hunstman has said he will be a candid. newt gingrich has suggested he might be a candidate. and then we have the hecate's and palance and bachman said. i actually think that it is not pulling to be that large a field. i think that at some point people are going to decide there are too many. people always ask me what my personal preference is. i have not decided yet. i will tell you, i have a terribly huge bias toward governors or former governors. i have for governors that are old friends one way or the other. governor romney, barbara,

plenty, and daniels. i suspect that my personal preference will probably go to one of them. i got asked the other day by the press about jon hunstman, former governor of utah. i guess i give an answer that got a lot of headlines. i said he was obama as ambassador to china. why would the republican party nominated and obama night to be their nominee? i really mean that. i don't understand that process. then they ask me about speaker gingrich. i reminded them that at least for me it was pretty disturbing to see newton gingrich sitting there with nancy pelosi talking about a carbon tax. i think that's calling to be a big problem. i suspect that all of the others are going to find out that it is easier to be kind of brash and

get headlines when you are not a candidate without responsibility. but if you want to run for president you have to start speaking with little bit of discipline, of little bit of focus, the clarity on issues, and a little focus on direction. i think it's going to be a very important race. at think there is a huge responsibility on the part of republicans, and i urge republicans across the country to understand that they probably are going to be picking the next president. acting president obama has serious problems. i think the last two weeks have been his worst two weeks whether he understands there not. at think he underestimates the impact on people of what has appeared to be his indifference over the last few days traumatic

issues around the world. i think his encouragement to the protest in libya and then the failure to provide any or action when the europeans for begging us to take us position of is going to be a serious problem. and i think that continued coolness which became clearly indifference as we watched what was going on in japan is going to hurt him. the fact that i at least from what i have seen in the press may be going to mardi gras this weekend while these issues are still critical i think creates a huge political problem. i don't understand it. i listened to -- i serve the

president the took these issues seriously. i serve the president that understood that comes not only from putting a policy out and defining it and urging the rest of the world to support us, but it also was reflected in the body language of the presidency. this president's body language the last two weeks has been in my opinion absolutely not presidential. these are critical times. everybody here has their own particular political perspective. i would suspect that at least half of you think i'm of horses asked for everything have just told you. the fact is of want you to go home and think about him. they are real issues. there are real, defining aspects of leaderships.

we have of role, still to lead the rest of the world even though there are some in washington who would like to suggest that we are just another one of the boys were the girls. these are critical times for our country. economics matters, energy policy matters, foreign policy matters. america's capacity to lead matters. experience matters. wide-eyed favor governors? i've ever devised because they have been in the firing line of chief executives of a large public entity that had to make decisions in the public domain. that experience is important. i urge you as we go forward to the next 11:00 months, left its

shortened by the process. about 11 or 12 months we as citizens are called on to make important sources. we have to decide whom we will support. i just ask that you take the time to think about this serious parts of the decision. the decisions should be based on philosophy, perspectives, issues, based on experience, at capacity to lead, based on an understanding of what the responsibility of the job is. if you do that i suspect the country no matter where you come down as an individual, if we all do that and go through the process, i suspect the country will be a bit better off than if we fail to do our homework. you're very nice to let me come down and visit with you. i think you very much, and i will either take questions or go

away quietly, whichever you prefer. thank you. questions? if you prefer i won't look so you can ask them anonymously. the gentleman in the back. the gray-haired gentleman in the back. >> talk about libya and the conflict that is going on there and the military image of the united states. our country, it's a superpower. rejecting out of iraq. now we're in afghanistan. we have spent cost the lives which can never be replaced.

the financial aspects, we spent billions and billions of dollars on two wars. i just don't find it justifiable to go into libya and give them a no-fly zone like want because if the europeans want to do it like england and france and so forth let them do it. why do we always have to carry the whole burden of the world? we are financially broke, can only do so much, give them a nuclear umbrella, protect them, but they want a no-fly zone. >> i was not suggesting that we have to get actively involved in order to support it. as you point out, the europeans were so strong that they probably if we had encouraged them would have gone in and taken out at least the runways to keep the planes down. i think that would have been an important thing. if we had joined the europeans in recognition of the opposition instead of failing to recognize

and merely saying that he must go the would have provided coalescing around the and coalescing around leaders is what gives opposition's crowd strength. there are a lot of things we could have done besides just saying, hey, keep doing what you're doing. so those are the kinds of things that i think could have had a significant impact. if we had moved quicker and earlier with encouragement instead of waiting until where we are now it would have made a big difference. >> you're going to up lose that aaa rating. are you fearful? >> the nation on the state? >> nation. >> i am not as afraid of that as others are. i really do think our economic system is the strongest. i really do think we will fix the debt problem. i really do think we will demonstrate the capacity to have fiscal discipline. we have had this kind of a

problem before. one of the reasons and 90-91 the george herbert walker bush, the first president bush, one of the reasons that we had to have a 5-year budget plan, the very controversial budget plan that we finally agreed on was that the rest of the world was hinting that they may not continue to buy treasuries if we did not get a multiyear plan. when push comes to shove at think we will be smart enough to fix it, but that doesn't mean we should not be working awfully hard and providing encouragement to fix it in the right direction. >> thank you for asking. anyone else? sur? in your opinion is the answer to the pension problem facing the states, what is happening in wisconsin will was there something in between that can be

done? >> the most important thing the states have to do is to negotiate with their pensioners and movement from defined benefit plan to a defined contribution structure or 401k structure, and that has to be negotiated because there are contractual obligations. i really do think the most important thing we can do is to provide the political support and the encouragement to those that are trying to do that so that people don't come to the table and say we are not using anything. the worst thing in the world is for the pensioners for these plans not to be fixed. so i truly think that that kind of a transition is an important part of it. there are two great studies out there that have been put together, not to, a lot of great studies. utah, for example, have made some movement in that direction. i think those are the kinds of

solutions. the general objective of what has made the headlines in the last week to are the right objectives i would like to see a process in which it was more negotiation and less confrontation. it's up to us, i think, to try and stimulate the difference. >> governor, first of want to thank you for showing up. i was worried about a tough crowd. my question is, there are many problems for us to face in the world. i look at iran as one of the toughest in the long term. what is your opinion of how the united states should be dealing with this moving forward. >> well, i think, again, when peron had its internal unrest a little over a year ago. i think, again, we fail to do

the right thing. there are lots of things that we can do to help things coalesce internally. we can't do it in such a way that people get killed for no reason, but we can provide support in a number of ways. our allies we're encouraging us to take lead. we didn't. so i think the most important thing to do is to charlie, as much as we can, support our friends in the region who are scared to death. a lot of the arab countries that are going through difficult times are scared to death. saudi arabia is not very happy. most of the other countries are concerned that they have ambitions. so we have to, first of all, support our friends rather clearly. secondly, the find a set of actions that are intolerable. that might even, if we are standing as strong as we used to

stand, that would include in my opinion funding and arming terrorist groups in the region. the third thing we can do is to try and encourage the internal democracy movement. they have a democracy. they elect, but they don't really elect. interest serious restructuring of an opposition that can get public support and provide an alternative in the long run. peron is a very big country. it is a very powerful country. it is a country that we should work constantly on trying to make sure that it does not do the kind of things it has been doing. there have been some estimates that a significant proportion, if not the majority, of u.s. casualties in iraq were the result of equipment and munitions imported from her on. that is how serious the issue is.

>> server. >> this is probably a follow-up. i'm concerned about how you see the linkage between energy policy and the moves will make or don't make in libya and the rest of the oil-producing middle east where we are deeply indebted to saudi arabia and any movement favoring democracy in brain could upset that balance. let's look at history. i suspect it is awfully hard to find any serious conflicts throughout history that did not have an economic component to them. this is not new. economic interdependence is an issue. there is no question that it is

irresponsible not to acknowledge that we care about who rig controls major economic assets around the world. we do care. of course we care. we care who has, who controls the loyal to be we do care about the relationships we have with those countries that have the oil. it is a part and parcel of the debate. takes place all the time. it is part of the nsc papers that are presented. it is part of the discussion at the state department, part of the discussion in the oval office. of course it is part of the discussion. we have to include it. it is important, and we ought not to pretend that it does not exist. it does, and we have to pay attention to it. it should be part of our discussion and debate.

>> you're great to let me come down, come on up to new hampshire. the skiing is great this winter.

>> and as they said, i think, during the