housing secretary sean donovan said his agency would have a hard time funding grants for cities this year and he called on me years to fight to prevent cuts to the programs in congress. secretary donovan spoke of the annual u.s. conference of mayors meeting in baltimore. this is almost 50 minutes. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> okay, thanks. >> welcome, everybody -- [inaudible] welcome everybody to the council for they knew american and this has been a great council. we've done a lot of fabulous work for our cities and for the

country and for the u.s. conference of mayors. we continue as counsel to work on several initiatives. they include the metropolitan economy reports that we all look to that provides that analysis has to forecasts of job creation and other things that relate to our metropolitan areas. our counsel continues to perform research innovative economic development strategies. today we will announce a joint research initiative building off the work of michael porter, and that initiative will be with the initiative for the competitive intercity group and will then put capital formation for inner-city businesses and the role of anchor institutions in economic development. we will continue to expand our national dollarwise campaign. i know that many of us have been

recipients of checks to our communities to help our network with financial literacy. we are also expanding our employer assisted housing programs. we are very focused on one of the biggest issues, our cities have encountered in a long time that is to address the vacant and abandoned housing problems that blight our cities all across the nation and we work very hard at that and have some conversation about that as well today, and we are glad the devotees here. my name is michael coleman, the mayor of the city of columbus, and we are so pleased to have here the secretary sean donovan

this morning. but before we get into the comments of mr. secretary, we have to my left the president of the conference who is going to provide office with words of wisdom today and comments. she has a lot to do it today with respect to many of the council and meetings and committees, and i now turn her over to madame president. >> thank you very much. mayor coleman, chairman and mayors. yes, welcome. i'm so glad to be with you here today in this committee because when i took office of the president of u.s. conference of mayors, it was and is still the agenda for our organization and that is our metro economy.

i focused on jobs and secretary donovan was at the meeting at the white house when the administration first took office and we were all there to work with them and one of the things that we said and i said before the president was that jobs were a priority one. and we have never detracted from that message. it's about jobs, it's about our economy. and we were so pleased in that conversation with secretary donna van and secretary lahood into chu and secretary duncan and mr. holder that we said one of the things that was the challenge for all of us in the federal government, and ladies and gentlemen, one of the things the administration has done, and

thank you, secretary donovan, is that the collapse of the silo between transportation and energy and hud. thank you for that because it facilitates our work to help you help our citizens. and so, ladies and gentlemen, we are here today because cdbg is a very important program for all of us. it is the only program that sends dollars treacly to cities. it is the program that we have used to help retain jobs, create jobs, and in cities what cdbg has done is to help us create about 150,000 jobs. just think about the programs in your cities and how it helps your citizens, our citizens.

the other thing that cdbg has done is it has produced about $13 billion in gdp. think about that. you are looking at revenue that comes into the state treasury and the federal government treasury because of this program that we are privileged to have from the federal government. we have a lot of work to do because as you see, last year we had to fight hard to even maintain a tv coming to a little bit more of the cdbg because the proposed cuts come if you remember was 65%. that must have been devastating. but we were able to work hard with secretary donelson and also

the congress and the administration to at least have the cut de11%. but ladies and gentlemen, we have a long way to go because the president's budget for 2012 has a 7.5% cut in the cdbg. so remember, we are backed. they said that we have included 11% from last time so it is even going to be more drastic. we have a lot of work to do. it is widely important that we keep our eye on jobs. let us not detract from jobs in our metro economy because that is the engine that makes our country run. and ladies and gentlemen, it is us because those companies are located in our cities, and when those nonprofits are in our

cities precontract with to deliver some of the services that we have cdbg dollars to help us so that it's not always coming out of the property tax and remember, all of us with the companies and cities and all of our people recent income tax money to the federal treasury, and this is the only program that sends money back directly to us. so don't you think your citizens need their taxpayers, don't you think that cdbg is important? is it not important for the programs, for those who need our help? i think so. and we need to continue to fight the fight and remember our citizens, and we need to remember that it is important to

preserve these jobs that deliver the services for those people that we serve. they are the people that elected us to office. and so, ladies and gentlemen, i and for you, keep our eye on the wall. do not detract from our agenda. stay focused on jobs and growth the economy. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you very much. we have c-span here today. so, after secretary donovan makes his comments we will open up for questions but i ask that each first introduce themselves upon each question and then a number to come speak directly into the microphone so that our audience can hear. again donovan has been a friend

of cities and friends of communities all over the country and has spoken with us on several occasions and is very accessible, and mr. secretary, we appreciate the relationship that you have developed with us and we have developed together all over the country. and as you know, we live a very, very challenging times, very, very challenging economic times and budgetary times, and as our president indicated there are many critical programs that have been under attack in a tremendous change. of those things that help build our cities and neighborhoods and create jobs and we look forward to the ongoing collaboration that you have always had with us and thank you in advance to your comments for all the work you have done with cities all over the nation. now secretary donovan, welcome to the council for the new

american cities and thanks for being here. [applause] >> thank you. it's wonderful to be back with you. i want to start by thanking a year to become mayor coleman. you've been such an innovator in many you talked about neighborhood stabilization, the work we've done through the neighborhood stabilization program which is in critical to help the neighborhoods hardest hit by foreclosures and abandonment. we actually came to columbus to announce nationally the second round of the competitive round of neighborhood stabilization funds because of the innovative work you've been doing in columbus. i think the mayor hopefully has almost forgiven me. he's done great work on homelessness that we stole the person who ran his homeless efforts to lead the u.s. interagency council on homelessness barbara poppy and

in so many ways your work on the sustainability and building columbus into a stable, you are a begin to all of us trying to help you do this work at the federal level so congratulations think you for having me here today and for leading this important council. i also have to say thank you to mayor kautz boustany wonderful job as president and also to recognize her successor to i had the pleasure of spending a little time with an los angeles just a few weeks ago to congratulate him, and i look forward to working with him and all of your leadership as we go into what will be a challenging year for us and i want to come back and talk about that. also have to thank mayor war and for his very important leadership on the housing committee, whether it's out on

the streets doing press conferences around the importance of cdbg at home and other things. he said it has been a terrific partner to us and leader so thank you to him as well. i also want to say a personal welcome to two new members your organization, alvin brown who live just ran into on the way in here worked closely with me actually during the clinton administration, ran the white house community empowerment board and she will be a terrific addition to your ranks as the new mayor of jacksonville, a terrific addition to the also have to welcome from the emanuel, who i think you all know at some point held the position at the white house as well, and also will be a terrific addition to your

efforts to try to make sure that everything we do is valued and protected in washington. so, to rahm emanuel, alvan, congratulations and welcome to the conference. let me -- i want to try to take a few minutes and focus on the immediate challenges we are facing what may be put in and build this context this is the council on the new american city, and you know, there is no question that we have made real progress from the enormous challenges that we inherited. two and a half years and it's easy to forget i think that we were losing over 800,000 jobs a month on the date the president walked into office. whether you measure the progress by the more than 2 million private sector jobs that have been created over the past 15

months, and despite a disappointing report last month the acceleration of jobs that we've had, a million private sector jobs created in the last six months, so we do have real progress, and i want to take a moment just to recognize the incredible work that you will do on the ground. you are the closest to those who are struggling in this economy. you have the most direct ability to affect the lives of people in your community and help connect people to jobs in this economy. and i have seen the role that you play very personally and frankly the way that funding which has always been critical in this crisis that we've been facing has been more critical than any time since pub was created in 1965 and i just want to take a moment to recognize

the efforts and the work of mayors in the midst of this crisis. i have spent time over just the last few months walking the streets of tuscaloosa alabama with mayor mattocks to try to help. it is a critical role to play in disaster recovery to help him recover from the man-made disasters that we face, and the natural disasters we face in so many parts of the country in tuscaloosa, birmingham, smith fell mississippi, all places that we are working hard to help you as mayors recover from. was just an atlanta with me your read. i spoke at a conference on the foreclosure crisis, and it was called piece by piece, and that meant not only the house by

house block by block approach semidey if you are taking to help your communities recover but piece by piece also meant to the way that may your read like so many of you have brought together not just the public sector but the private sector, the nonprofit sector, all of the players you need a table to help your communities recover from the foreclosure crisis. and one of the things i heard loud and clear was the importance of the housing council. the neighborhood stabilization funds, fha which is part of hud was 40% of people who purchased the of the country last year used fha financing. but i also heard loud and clear that without the counseling piece of this that you can't be successful. those who gave counseling or 50% more likely to be able to stay in their homes in the midst of this crisis. and yet, the congress and particularly the republicans in

the house were very focused on cutting housing counseling. the eliminated housing counseling this past year. we are going to need your help to fight for that the president has proposed in the budget for next year for the housing counseling. i've also seen the remarkable work that you have all done to help those who have been most hurt by this economic crisis, those in the on our streets whether it is veterans, and this is tragic veterans are 50% are likely to be homeless in the average american. despite these economic challenges we just released our latest findings this week on what's happened to homelessness in america. we've seen a 1% increase over the last year, only 1% increase given the enormous economic challenges we face that is an enormous accomplishment and would not have happened without your support.

one of the tools we have used is homeless prevention and rapid rehousing program. this summer we will reach a million people who have been able to stay off the streets to find decent housing. a million people that would have the homeless but for the homeless prevention rapid rehousing program that was part of the recovery act. that money went directly to you as mayors to be able to change the way that you respond to homelessness and prevent homelessness before it happens and that is remarkable work and i was just in salt lake with the mayor baker and saw -- about this, the state of utah reduce chronic homelessness by 69%. 69%. thanks to the remarkable work that mayor baker has done with his partners at the state and all of the nonprofits and other organizations in the city that have come together to do just remarkable, remarkable work. and that is why we have been

able to ensure that a flood of folks haven't ended up on our streets around this country. and you heard mayor kautz talk about it, you've seen the work our block grant programs to, and one of the things that i think we have to help the congress understand is that these are not just urban programs. a large share of our were cdbg pervez, hundreds of millions of dollars goes to the rural communities around this country. i was a list in north dakota recently and saw how the flexibility of cdbg funds combined with home funds are helping them meet the desperate housing needs. in williston the of a shortage of people to the jobs because of what has happened to the energy industry and they are desperately trying to build affordable housing and if they've been able to use block

grant funds in the communities to be able to do that and we have to keep reminding folks in congress that these funds reach every part of the country, every district, red, blue, everything in between, and so i have seen that as well. finally, i'd seen the way that you have been innovators in connecting the funding that we provide on housing to all of the other pieces that make your communities worked. our sustainable community grant, 170 million we provided last year for the first time as neyer kautz said help to connect housing to transportation in ways that make an enormous difference. i was with the mayor villaraigosa who put his credibility on the line to get a half cent sales tax passed to accelerate investment in transit in l.a. successful about two-thirds vote on that and i went and visited with major blum

in santa monica who's using a sustainable community grant to rezone an entire neighborhood around a transit stop. there will be 8,000 new jobs, 8,000 new jobs just surrounding that one transit stop thanks to the work we are doing in a sustainable communities initiative to help zone to create new density, new jobs, commercial space and housing surrounding that transit stop. so those are just a few examples of the ways that we have worked with so many of you that are here to become so many of your colleagues around the country to make this recovery real to use hud's tools, and as we sit here and think about the new american city, i reflect on my own interest in cities and how i started down the path to become hud secretary. i grew up in new york city at a

time when frankly many were questioning whether there would be an american city. the south bronx lost 75% of its population in just one decade, and there was an exodus from so many of our cities around the country come and we sit here today almost 50 years after it was founded literally when our cities were burning, and i can celebrate the success so many of you have had in making the american city something that we all can believe in again that many people are moving back to our cities, and what you need to help you support that new american city is a hud that brings new flexibility, new tools come in many ways frankly what i inherited was a hud that was stuck in a model of the 20th century when you all are trying to build a new american city of

21st century. and so, i want to talk for a moment about the work that we need to do to reform hud to continue to make progress with you, but also to demonstrate that the funding that will be a real challenge for us to bring to hud to bring to your communities this year that we can put that funding to work and innovative, and efficient, effective ways. and so, let me touch on a few of the ways that we have tried to transform hud to be a better partner to you. one of the things we heard loud and clear is that you need a partner to help you transform public housing in all of your affordable housing into housing that is an asset in your community that is create jobs through innovation. we've others 20 to $30 billion

of construction work that can get done in public housing around the country and debt, at work rules and regulations are standing in the way of allowing you to move forward. it's not just the funding, but the old inflexible way the public housing is operated. we have brought new tools like the trees neighborhoods program. we have seen transfer of almost 100,000 units of the most distressed public housing around the country but we also heard that many other kinds of affordable housing privately-owned affordable housing didn't have access to the same tools so we created a choice neighborhood program that allows you to transform that housing as well. but the other thing we heard from many of you is look, we are tired of having to go to six different agencies and apply for different funding and not be able to have the federal government work in a coordinated, comprehensive way, so we brought together arne duncan and his team and we will

bring promised neighborhood funding to help to transform the schools at the same time that you're transforming public housing and other forms of affordable housing. we heard that, you know, if folks don't feel safe and they can't walk the streets the kids can't be out on the playground because they are afraid for their safety we can't be successful in those communities so we brought the department of justice and the criminal-justice initiative and the funding to get your with our public housing choice neighborhood funding. we've heard that healthcare is a critical need so we brought the hhs to the table to make investment in community health centers along side. all of those pieces are now being brought together in our choice neighborhoods initiative. but i also will seek the truth is that we are not going to transform a million units of public housing with a half-dozen or a dozen grants this year, each year and those grants will be under attack.

we are going to have a tough time finding those this year and so we are working in our budget to give you the flexibility to bring private capital into public housing. we believe there's $25 billion of private capital sitting on the sidelines that could be invested in public housing. we think it could total over 300,000 jobs, construction jobs around the country so we have an initiative in our budget a demonstration that would allow a quarter million units of public housing to convert to project base contracts that will allow them to bring private capital tax credits, home of dollars, all of those to the table and put people back to work and help transform those communities. that is an example of the work we are trying to do. we also trying to simplify the rules and we need your support to recover section 8 vouchers reform act would simplify the rules and regulations a voucher program for the housing authorities and by we, save a

billion dollars over five years while serving the same number of people. that's the kind of more efficient smarter program that we are going to need to help get done. we need your support in congress for the section 8 vouchers reform act to get that done. and finally, let me touch on cdbg. as mayor kautz said, there is perhaps no more a single more important program to all of you to our most flexible tool that we have come and a tool that is absolutely critical. in my prior life as a local housing official, was the biggest beneficiary of cdbg funding in the country. so i know very personally and directly how important it is to the work that you are all doing what it's building housing, whether it supporting the boys and girls club or all of the various services, infrastructure and other things it can help support. what i want to say is we are going to need to show that cdbg

works, and frankly, the very flexibility that you all loved so much and we love so much at hud about cdbg makes it hard to demonstrate the results to show the difference that it's making in the communities because it does so many different things in so many different places, and so we are going to need your help i think to do three things. first, to show that cdbg was created jobs and innovative ways, and we have begun to show that through the recovery act. of all the programs we funded through the recovery act, cdbg on a dollar for dollar basis created the most jobs. we have that data. that's not informational we have on a regular cdbg dollars commesso we need your help, we need you to tell the stories, we need you to give us the information to show how it is

creating jobs, and we need you to focus as much as you possibly can as mayors on directing cdbg to work things the will create the maximum number of jobs possible. we need your help in doing that. second, we need cdbg to leverage every private dollar that it possibly can. many of you may be aware of this section 108 program under cdbg and many of you may not. it allows you to use cdbg to raise private capital towards a very large scale catalytic economic development project, and to have that guarantee effectively by your future cdbg founding. that is a tool that we have the ability to use a much wider basis. it will allow us to accelerate investment in these large scale

catalytic to the limit projects to create jobs right now and show that cdbg isn't just about public dollars but it leverage as a large number of private dollars as well. that is a critical, critical tool and that sort of private-sector leverage is going to be only more important as we go forward and challenging budget times. finally, we need to have transparency, we need to have as much information as we possibly can from you about where cdbg is going, how it's being effective. i know it's not easy sometimes to report the recovery act for a sample was required you to report in ways you ever had before. put your teams come in your staff and challenge them to report in the systems and do other things they hadn't had to do before, but i will tell you the difference the transparency and the data that we have had from the recovery act has made in making the case is

remarkable. we can show where jobs were created, and it has made an enormous difference to us. we need to show that to folks on capitol hill to show where it makes a difference, how we have created jobs, and we need that data, that transparency from you to be able to do that. finally, let me just close by saying we need to do all of those things. we need to be smarter, more innovative, we need to reform our programs, we need to continue to do work at hud to meet the partner you need us to be. but even after we do all those things, we're also going to need to fight this year, and you all probably saw the "washington post" published a series on the home program over the recent

months that attacked the effectiveness of that program. we are fighting back. "the washington post" got the story wrong. they claimed there were 700 projects around the country that had wasted money. we have gone and begun looking at every single one of those projects. we found more than 50% of those projects were complete and occupied. so we are fighting back on that story but we need your help and my team is going to be coming to all of you. we need not only have the data that shows the projects are complete, we need the photographs, the personal stories of the folks that have moved into those buildings because let's be clear, this is going to be a question not about whether the goals we have are the right goals, but whether the programs that we have our meeting those goals, and we have to be able to demonstrate in

compelling terms to tell the stories of the people and the places that are benefiting from these programs, and we have to be clear about the challenges we face. there is a chance that there is a proposal from of the house republicans that what zero out homeland cdbg. that is a real possibility. the president has proposed it difficult choices of 735 reduction and cdbg in the 2012 proposal given where we ended up in he 11, that would actually be an increase in cdbg from what we are able to fund this year. he proposed a small reduction in homes given what we faced in the 11 that would be an increase as well. but the real choice that we are facing is the future of these programs, whether they will continue at all. and so, fighting for home and cdbg and restoring our housing counseling funds, fighting to

show that these programs can make a difference is what we need to do this year and we are going to need your help and support and partnership. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, mr. secretary. i would like to present to you this study that is called the community development block grant impact on metropolitan economies. we will provide this as well to members of congress, but this study reflects that in just ten cities here in the united states cdbg has created over 9,000 jobs, over $800 million in gross metropolitan product for those communities and over 550 million labour income and nearly $65 million in state and local tax revenue. this come annually, and this

effort cdbg has been a great benefits to cities all over the country. so this is a study we prepared. we present this to you and your staff and we also have it presented the council to congress as well. what i will do is open it up to members of the committee for questions. i would like for you to raise your hand. i will call on you and tell who you are, what city you're from and ask a question because the secretary has to get moving. start over here, yes. >> if you could talk into the microphone, please. >> thank you, mr. chairman. the city in chickadee massachusetts and secretary donovan, good to see you again, thank you for being with us and your cooperation and removing some of the red tape getting these programs moving has been

very helpful. i guess three quick comments. , and we will show you 100 new first-time home buyers and family homes that were financed through the first time home buyer program with a home funds. it's been very helpful working on the foreclosure issues and getting some new people with skin in the game. i want to reiterate our comments before about the stimulus. i think the cities and the mayors have shown we manage stimulus and federal funds better than any state ever could that we get programs on the ground, shovels and the ground and jobs for people a lot better come a lot quicker than the states have and i think that leaves me to suggest that we may want to consider bundling some of these federal programs where you talk about coordinated with federal agencies and create a form of revenue sharing the will cut out some of the bureaucracy and get the money on the ground to the cities and towns.

there is enough i think oversight mechanisms we can fulfill national objectives, but i think there is a way to get through the republicans in congress by saying we're going to eliminate red tape and move the money to the local level. apparently they like local choice and frankly, so do we. and finally, i want to talk a little bit about the foreclosure issue, and i would invite you to do what i did when a constituent came to me because i did not believe how horribly the banks and their servicers are treating people, and so i basically took all the information and acted as if i were the bar were in trouble and i tried to get through to somebody who had some authority to look at the paperwork asking for the loan modification. i was flabbergasted. i started in massachusetts with the law firm representing the servicer. we went to detroit michigan and we wound up in florida.

my last conversation was a gentleman and in india who had no idea what i was talking about. and so, i can only imagine what the frustration is of homeowners who are actively working and trying to make some kind of deal to stay in their homes. there needs to be some enforcement to the are you getting lit service from the banks, and i would hope he would look further at that. thank you mr. secretary. >> let me address that last point directly. many of you may have seen press reports about the work that we are doing with the state attorneys general, ten different federal agencies to correct the problems but also much more broadly the problems with the way the servicers have been treating customers, and we are -- i personally come into the president are very focused on

holding those banks accountable for those practices and really in two ways. one is to create real servicing standards the would require, for example a single point of contact the would require when you're talking to someone about a modification you can't be foreclosing on them at the same time to create real standards of how quickly you have to respond to a customer, homeowner and a series of other things, and frankly you've seen the attacks on the consumer financial protection bureau, because we were able to create a consumer financial protection bureau, we now for the first time ever have the ability to create servicing standards that cover every kind of institution, not just of the banks but the nonbanks. you know the country wife and other non-bank financial institutions for a big part of the issue that led us to the

crisis so we have the ability and authority now that is under attack to create national servicing standards and we are going to do that we are also going to push the banks and the settlement to help existing homeowners still in their homes to accelerate what they are doing about modifications and principal reductions so that we can get some teeth into not just public future but help current folks who have been wronged by the practices that we found. so we are very focused on that and i hope in the coming weeks we will have an announcement on that. >> okay. thank you mayor? too thank you. good morning. from salt lake city, thank you for joining us here today and for coming to salt lake city, and looking at our work on homelessness and housing as well as the grand we were successful on and receiving for their

region to look towards the future development and quality-of-life in the region that will allow us to take a step forward so think you for that. i appreciate that all of us in communities and residents or businesses are facing very challenging times, and we've seen that reflected obviously directly for us in terms of reductions in communities along a block grant programs and other programs that enable our residents and communities to have opportunities for housing for jobs, the infrastructure in the communities that are vital to the future opportunities, and i also appreciate we have never seen in this country the kind of bridging of federal agencies to

allow us as communities to work with the federal government rather than individual areas. i know in my community that we have me be taken for granted the federal partnership and residents are not fully aware of the enormous difference that it makes year in and year out in our communities. i know from my own discussions with our neighborhoods and residents and businesses that that appreciation media is starting to grow but i am wondering how we can on behalf of our residents and working with congress in these difficult economic and political times how we can improve our understanding within our communities and towards congress particularly about the approach that is benefiting all of us in our cities. >> so, it's an important

question in normal times. it's a particularly important question right now. and i -- to be very clear this is not a sort of long-term question either. this is literally over the next three to four months how do we tell the story come and how do we connect it to citizens and also to their representatives, because if we are not able to, we are going to have a difficult time continuing to work that i'm so proud of that we have been able to do together, so part of it is this, being able to tell the story effectively, and to just give you an example, there is one area of funding that actually increased in the hud's budget in 2011 to be only one and the was homelessness. why is that? because now over a decade we have been able to build the case that not only the programs have

been effective in reducing homelessness, chronic homelessness is down by about a third nationally, but have been also able to show that these investments save money because the cost of being homeless is actually higher than the cost of being housed particularly for the chronically homeless, and so i do believe that if we can tell the story through this kind of approach in st. not just what are we paying, but what are we getting for the investments that we are making and do it in ways that our scientific and it's incredibly important but we also have to tell the story very directly whether it is the event that we did while i was in salt lake which told that story very directly, or it's the kind of event that u.s. mayors have

begun to do. those are absolutely critical in telling the story. and there is nothing like the face of a real person who may have benefited from being a new homeowner through the home program or there is nothing like those stories. i remember being told when i first came to washington worked here the first time during the clinton administration a senior staffer on capitol hill said you know, politics is self need, and there can be huge needs out there but if they are not felt, if they are not seen, they are not going to be met and this is the time if there's ever been a time to tell that story coming out is the time to tell the story. >> we have time for two more questions. >> thank you, mr. chairman, secretary. mayor of florida. i'm so glad you received the doggett and i'm so glad that you are here as you always are

supporting us. we had a meeting in washington last year. one of the president's advisers didn't the cdbg was such a good idea. i kind of came unglued and gave him my thoughts on it and told him how important it was and a spells out how important it was and wednesday night we pastore allocation for 800 falls of dollars from the cdbg block grants to go ahead and do our 2011 program to get a senior housing, to get the seniors around our city for doctors' appointments and for public transportation under 570 to 018, c, a, become of those documents that we satisfy ourselves under. so, and you talked about veterans, very quickly that a lot of a tree lost a child at 16 with leukemia. i heard about it in the newspaper they nominated him i went to see him. the only thing he wanted was to

be able to get around the wheelchair and his house and be able to get environmental, went to a private entity and they gave him those and we used the block grants to help renovate his home so he can get around this great veteran of ours that had nowhere to go except us and our government. so my question to you is if you want to come to every city in this great country represented here, we can show you right out there what we are doing to be the nexus for our great engines to make this country strong. so my question is we just want to help you. how can we help you? >> telling that story helps and that's my point is each of you has to figure out how to tell the story. i mean, i often hear from members of congress folks in my community, why constituents

don't even know that this is federal funding. and this is -- you will care about cdbg and homeland feels so much ownership about it because it is flexible. you get to decide how to use its and sometimes i think -- and i was guilty of this at the local level as well, sometimes we treat it as if that is our money and it is not federal money because it works in the way that it does, and so i think each of you making the commitment to go back and do something to tell the story and to let members of congress know you're telling that story that it does connect to the federal level and that without federal support we wouldn't be able to do those things, that's what you can do to help. that, and as i talked about earlier, the more we can do to direct cdbg to jobs, it's an

enormously flexible. we want to keep it flexible, but if there was ever a time to pick and choose and direct cdbg towards jobs, now is the story, now is the time to do that. we've got to be innovative and bring as much private capital as possible because the more we can say look, you take away a dollar of cdbg, that means $5 of private capital are not going to work in your community, so using 108 and ways to leverage private capital and then the transparency to be able to say here's what we've done with it, this kind of transparency, but being able to collect the data to help us to help you by giving us the facts to make the case. >> mr. secretary, i want to thank you for spending time with us today. it's very clear that you are a friend of cities and that we are on the same page. we need others to get on the

same page that we are on and work in partnership to improve housing opportunities and economic to the limit opportunities for those in our communities and we will work together on that. thank you very much mr. secretary. i know you have to go. [applause] >> thank you. [applause]

former devotee is mike huckabee of larry johnson as well as u.s. senate candidate from texas who are among some of the speakers to address the opening session of the 2011 republican leadership conference in new orleans. this is two hours and 30 minutes. >> -- april of 2010 at the southern republican leadership conference. it's a little hotter, isn't it? >> [inaudible] >> i'm not talking to the climate, and talking about the top political season. come on, are you ready for change? [cheering] are we've ready to to cover country back? [applause] ready to hear from the best

leaders this country has to offer? [cheering] are we? come on. [applause] thank you. we are going to have fun the next three days and now i would like to introduce the eminent great wonderfully successful chairman of the louisiana republican party, obviously i met his acolytes, roger. [applause] ♪ >> thank you. it's a pleasure to be here. welcome to new orleans and to the 2011 republican leadership conference. we are excited to have attendees from all across the country to join us to hear about our nation's some of our greatest conservative leaders from all around the nation that will be with us. over the next three days we will

have individuals from 38 states to join us in this room and probably tens of thousands media be even more are going to be joining us by television so we are excited to have all these people here. we have over 40 major speakers from all over our country including nine announced potential candidates for the republican nomination to be president of the united states. [applause] week of three current governors and four former governors also going to be on our agenda. we have congressmen, senators and conservative leaders from all over the country from this whole nation. as the chairman of the republican party of louisiana, i am thrilled that we have all of these conservative leaders coming here to join us in new orleans. but i am really more thrilled that we have all these good conservatives here today and throughout this conference this weekend.

you know, we need to fight to take back the white house. this is not something that is going to be easy. this is something that we to be hard. we have to win this fight. it's going to be a long journey and it begins here. it begins this weekend. it begins now with you and me. it begins with all of us, so we are glad you are here. each of us can make a difference. a difference we need to reject obama's bid for reelection, and -- [applause] we need to restore fiscal responsibility in washington. each of us must do our part to eliminate the big government and get our economy growing and exciting and moving again. each of us over the next three days we will be hearing the great speakers and i know you're going to have a good time and can enjoy yourself and i know i will. more importantly, i think we need to leave here inspire, we need to be energized, we need to be ready to get behind our conservative candidates all across this nation and with every candidate receives our

nomination, we all need to get behind that candidate. [applause] you know, this year, 2011 is the 100th anniversary of the birth of ronald reagan. [applause] and next year, 2012, we are going to be celebrating the bicentennial of louisianan becoming a state in the great united states. and so we would like to welcome as a member of the bicentennial commission i would like to welcome everyone to new orleans and to louisiana and we are going to be wishing a happy birthday next year. [applause] thank you. >> at this time i would like to open the conference with a little prayer and i would like you to all pleased about your hands and pray with me. lord god, we come to you to join this national crisis of faith, a crisis that puts men against the

brothers, fathers against their sons and mothers against their daughters. this crisis has roots growing out of instability, pride. routes that have shamefully blossom in our public discourse and poisoned our words. as we turn once again to tackle the challenges we have that face this nation, we pray that our party and candidates a spiker to what is perfectly right and a perfectly good in your eyes and as this election season begins we ask for your help, lord. we pray for divine and moral clarity when the fog of the debate rises and for your guide to the to abiding presence to ensure we stay on a path of righteousness. we prefer strength of character, humility and spirit and courage in the face of obstacles. we pray for endurance and peace in our precincts and polling places, meeting halls and hellholes.

your generation's blessings for this tremendous country of ours and overflow this bountiful cup that you graciously given us. thank you for the work that you have already done and for the grace and mercy that you have given. we preach these things and unity to you, our creator, and may you watch for and protect us, protect the conference as the chart the future course of america. amen. i would like to ask everyone to stand for the pledge of allegiance. >> where did our flag go? supposed to i think bring it up on the thing. but i have one right here. 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. thank you. [applause] ♪ >> our country now stands at a crossroads. there is widespread doubt about our public institutions and profound concerns not clearly above the economy but about the overall direction of this great country. i've said before and i will say it again. america's best days are yet to come. [applause] >> for 200 years we have been set apart by our faith and the ideals of democracy. we've remains the one nation to rest of the world looks to for

leadership. but now we have arrived at the moment of truth. the serious business of selecting a president. now is the time to choose what kind of change can we republicans offer the american people. you ain't seen nothing yet. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome erik erikson, editor of red state dhaka -- redstate.com. [applause] >> thank you for having a need. it's great to be home. everyone says i am a guy from georgia on cnn and have a radio show over there but i'm actually a native of louisiana.!v!.!

my v kids show up in purple and> gold. [applause]0, you know, i left louisiana in ,, 1993 to go to college in , , , , georgia. , , ÷

their state legislator knew someone who worked there and i look at barack obama's america and i see barack obama's america looking similar to the louisiana where the government picks the winners and losers. it depends on who you know, not what you know, and i don't want that. the president gave away the game of the other day. it was the first time he had a moment of honest candor in his presidency. he said that on any planet is so high because their atm. the atms eight our jobs. and the kiosks at the airport never mind the president's bureau of labor statistics shows the number of bank teller jobs has gone up every year since 2008. the data doesn't match but i reminded of the word sabotage. you know where it comes from? back in the 1400's dutch workers feared the rise of automated textile manufacturing, the

wooden machines that were used for looms and they threw their shoes into the gears of rate of manufacturing and afraid of technology. this is an old economic policy. it says something terrible and horrible about our president that he would buy into an economic policy that's been rejected from everyone from adam smith to henry hazlitt and yet the left continues to buy into this economic policy that technology kills jobs. i think we have reached the point in this statement where we can no longer give the president the benefit of the doubt that he's ignore it. we must recognize that he sabotaging the economy. [applause] my friends on the left cringe at this and say it's horrible. how dare you say that. that's so mean. the president himself in the state of the union says he wants the government to invest in technological innovation and the greens on sector and should go to china. if the president believes that

technological innovation kills jobs he wants the government to invest in technological innovation by his own words he might want to kill jobs. the problem is for those of us from louisianan the jobs he once killed or hear in the oil and gas industry. he wants to kill these jobs. our president of the united states has bought into the field of leftists from the 14th century in europe. is it any wonder we can't recover? milton friedman was driving through the countryside in europe and he saw with his post men digging ditches and building roads with shovels and asked the host why they were not using heavy machinery, why not bulldozers and tractors and the host said this is to keep in place at high and the road construction industry that if they use heavy machinery there would be less workers so there would be higher unemployment and

give them spoons and increase employment? [laughter] >> we've gone from a chicken in every pot with herbert hoover to a spoon and for every worker with barack obama. [applause] there is an alternative. the alternative is the belief in the american people, not in washington. [applause] there is an alternative. there is an alternative called a higher power predestine us to be the last best hope for mankind. there is a high your power and there will come a last day and we must fight until the last day comes and guess what on that last day those of us to fight the good fight we win. some people may not like to look at it that way there's a struggle going on now between freedom and equality. and understand the democrats versus the republicans need to1÷ understand freedom versus equality. democrats believe in absolute equality, republicans believe we

are created equal but have a destiny ahead of us we ourselves choose and the best way to the only way for us to continue with the quality is to be piled together on the social safety net and for the government to punish any of us want to get off and take a risk. the equality of slavery to washington. it's that simple. we cannot be equal unless we are all required to be attached to washington, joined at the hip much like my friends going up many of whom still work for the state government. many of chalazion are upset with governor general and the changes he wants to make because it might get them off of the government payroll and into the private sector. [applause] that to me is a good thing. [applause] moving people from the government to the private sector fighters of the engine of economic activity. yet some of the legislators and others don't want this and it upsets me having grown up and louisiana. i don't want edwin edwards louisiana as barack obama's

america. edward went to jail and if it gets to the national situation the fbi would be in on the racket instead of throwing people in jail. we can't afford that. we know what it was like. so i would tell you there's an alternative that is called the republican party. we will hear from speakers who are running for president. they will have many different ideas. you will like some better than others and i may like some different from you but understand this, all of them are better than the alternatives. [applause] all of them are more committed to freedom. all of them are more committed to the people, not the government. when we turn our country around to the unelected bureaucrats in washington who get their positions and their powers for voting on a labor union who gets lots of money in the democratic party its scheme over for the country. all of the republicans will oppose this. so you and i may be to disagree who the best candidate is.

you and i need like different candidates, you and i may to dislike different candidates but as we leave in new orleans and we've heard of the ideas all of the ideas are better than any of the other side's ideas. [applause] everyone talks about hyperbole. everyone says wonderful hydraulic things about the elections. this is no hyperbole though it may sound like it. i genuinely believe this is the last election to get it is over the press of this to the t european style socialism or it j is turning our back toward the t american dream. t í j it's z turning our back toward í american dream where you and i í make our í own american dream oí over the president's where the n us. abraham lincoln, the first republican president traveled to weeks on horseback from his homí in springfield illinois to kalamazoo michigan in 1956 to!íí

candidate for the republican crowd showed up and 10,000!í!n people showed up and they tell me back in the day when there were no aircraft and no machinery you could actually a1t hear people speak with a of a microphone and people were silent and listened to and remember a speech about except!z one thing, abraham lincoln said what made america great even inn its infancy, even then j j n z j considered its infancy in '86 zj was that in this country and z z having barack obama, the democrat, tell us where we must go to school and get our health care and do for a living. that is not american and i intend to fight it. thank you. [applause] [cheering]

[applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome, dorothy wallace, ceo of caring to love ministries. [applause] ♪ >> it is so good to be here among friends who will diligently worked to keep obama out of the white house this next presidential election. [applause] i am proud to be an american. i am proud to be from louisianan, a louisiana pro-life state that is protecting unborn babies and mothers from the tragedy of abortion. [applause] here we are one year later, and

we still have the abortion funding in obamacare. obamacare's absent of any comprehensive provision against the use of federal money for abortion. his exit of order is bogus. and it only addresses to provisions in the law that requires strict compliance with the law accounting which is a gimmick along with the new health insurance exchange that's supposed to go into effect in 2014 and supposed to promote abortion by adding funding to community health centers which pro-abortion, the secretary sebelius has not set any regulation to restrict abortion and community health. so therefore, we will have abortion in the obamacare and the community health centers

which are pro-abortion clinics will be open and running. abortion is not healthcare. every time we talk about health care and abortion were reminded of some and louisiana women that must be remembered. janet, sheila, laura, tanya willson, virginia woolf and ivan willson and unfortunately there are more women who died in abortion clinics in the state of louisiana. in march, 1974, janet went into the new orleans abortion clinic for her so-called safe legal abortion. five days later, her and her baby died and she died from a hemorrhage because they gave her a fatal dose of anesthesia. ..

[applause]

>> now, the star of huckabee, from the great state of arkansas, governor mike huckabee! ♪ >> thank you. thank you very much, everyone. welcome to new orleans. getting back here is a special place for me, and it is for many of you. new orleans is place where many of us have enjoyed through the years. but it's also place we remember visitly because -- vividly because of what happened during katrina. and when that happened -- i was governor at the time -- my state welcomed 80,000 people. most of whom came from new orleans. and they came to our state in often very desperate separations

situations, with literally nothing but the clothes on the back. it was a challenge to find housing for 80,000 people, but it was one of the finest hours of our state because these were our neighbors, and we wanted to treat them the way we would want to be treated if the situation were reversed. remember in "tale of two cities --" you clapped because you read it, not because you wanted -- do you remember the opening line, "it was the best of times and the worst of times." and i didn't understand how somebody could be the best and the worst at the same time. i think one of the reasons i understand it better now is because during katrina, i saw

the worst of times, but i also saw the best of times. i saw the horrors that people experience, not people who are losing a 401k or their stock value, but people who didn't have a stock value or a 401k to start with. and by the time the hurricane and the subsequent flood had finished doing all of its damage, these were people who at any time even have an i.d. anymore. it had floated away. as did their medicines, as did virtually everything they owned. i remember the thousands of people that would get off buss s and airplanes and land in our state, some of whom had absolutely nothing. those who had something had a plastic trash sack with what little they could accumulate and bring with them. it was the worst of times for those people. we recently seen it in tuscaloosa, birmingham, georgia,

joplin, missouri. arkansas. memphis, tennessee. tornadoes and floods that devastate people's lives in ways that we look and we can't even begin to imagine. but while for many it is the worst of times, it is also a reminder it can be bathes of -- be the best of times to be an american, because what we see, even in a mountain of debris and broken dreams and lives, there's also a mountain of diapers being donated. and mountains of clothes and water bottles and food. and this isn't something the government is doing. this is something that americans are doing. because that's who we are. when i hear people say that we 've got a government that is in trouble. i agree with that. we have a government that is in trouble, that is incompetent, inefficient and ineffective, spends money it doesn't have and bosh -- borrows money that it

has no way of paying back. the american people are still people who give us the best of times. if you think today that i'm going to give you this gloom and doom message about the end of america, i'm sorry, you've probably come the wrong hall to hear the wrong speaker, because i'm not here today with a sense of pessimism. i do not believe it's time for us to give up, sit on our hands and fold up our tents and quit. i think it's a time for us to recognize that this great resilient nation of ours is still capable of getting on its feet after it's been on its knees, and being a great nation all over again. it's going to require work and some sacrifice. [applause] >> but i'm confident, just because government fails, that

doesn't mean america fails, because, we, the people, are hill america and that makeses the strong country we are. >> i want to vent a little bit bat presidential candidate that didn't quite get into it. not me. i'm talking about my friend and political mentor, haley barber, who i think you'll hear from later. i found it interesting during the runup -- now we know where the people from mississippi are seated. i found it interesting during the time of speculation that haley would run, people would say, nobody is going to elect some white guy from mississippi with a real slow southern accent to be president of the united states. i was highly offended by that. for many reasons. but one of the reasons is because i thought, i thought our nationed learned something.

i thought that maybe we had taken seriously the message of dr. king, who said we should not be judged by the color of our skin but by the contents of our character. [applause] >> i think that if he were hearing those kind of remarks today, he would add, and we should not be judged by the accent of our speech. i'm tired of hearing that southerners are only regional candidates and have only a regional appeal. i'd like to think the common sense kind of principles we try to practice in the south have a universal and national appeal because we find it works. it raise good kids, creates good job, and frankly, i was disappointed haley didn't run because i think he would have made an outstanding president. [applause] >> in that same ven vein, we

hear southerners are regional candidates. and i also hear social conservatives have a regional appeal. and i share the idea -- i don't find that people are somehow marginalized out of the main stream because here's what make sure you remember. i know of no social conservative who is not also a fiscal conservative. i know of no special conservative who is not also a security conservative. i'm tired of people trying to put us in various tents and leave us there as if we're only capable of thinking of one thing at a time. >> i hate to tell you this, but, those of us who-under unapologetically social conservatives, believe that lower taxes are bitter than

higher taxes, and government ought to be local and limit and not where at it all-encompassing, and i also believe this, that there's an important remembrance for all of us, that moral failures in fact do cost us. do you know why the program of of government are so expensive? why so much accident did tour in prisons and court and police and welfare, because a fiscal crisis is usually that which follows a moral crisis, when the character of a people break down, we end up putting more government in place in order to contain the out of control lack of character the those who have failed to live by the simple social contract that the rest of us have decided to live by. i can give you some specifics. in this country there's a 300 billion -- that's right-billion -- $300 billion a year dad deficit.

let me explain as we approach this father's day on the weekend. you as a taxpayer spend an additional $300 billion of tax money every year in this country to pay for the fact of fathers who are nothing more than sperm donors, who don't raise their own kids, and they give birth to children and then disappear and leave it to the rest of to us pay for their children's upbring, education, clothing, food, health care. [applause] >> so, when someone says to me, these issues don't really matter because what we have to focus on is the economy. do you understand that two-thirds of the children who are in poverty in this country would not be in poverty if the mothers with the children were married to the fathers of those children? we have other serious economic problem because we have had a breakdown of our basic sense of character structure.

in fact, most of us fought hard in the '90s who are governors to change the welfare system in this country, and we did. i remember the liberals fought us tooth and nail because they said there would be vast numbers of people on unemployment and people would go hungry and children would die, the typical stuff. grandma would be thrown out of the nursing home. all the stuff we hear if the republicans take charge in the senate and the house. here's what really happened. the welfare rolls were cut in half. people went to work. the lowest sustained unemployment numbers we have had in history, and we had a prosperous decade. and i know that the democrats would love to take credit for it, but a lot of it was that people were working instead of living off of welfare, and it is an amazing thing that jobs produce money in the economy, welfare takes money out of the economy. i know that may be hard for

barack obama and some of his hoe -- cohorts in washington, but that's just the plain fact. sadly, we have folks today who belief that we ought not just to bail out single moms. we ought to bail out the biggest banks banks and the biggest insurance companies and the car companies who are mismanaged. i want to be honest. i thought t.a.r.p. was a tremendous mistake because government is not in the business of deciding who the winners and losers are in the market place. it's the role of government to referee a game, not to pick a team and choose the outcome. t.a.r.p. was wrong. bailouts are nothing more than welfare for people who have collectively messed up in the same way that others didn't work out very well as individuals. and, folks, let's not be

hypocritical and it's wrong at an individual level but it's okay if it's bailing out gm or chrysler or some other company that has failed to mapping itself probably. when i watch an sec football game i expect the guys in the striped shirts to do one thing and that's to make sure the play is fair for both sides, and when it isn't and the officials start calling it with favoritism toward one team against the other, i'm not real happy unless they're calling it for the razor backs. then it's okay. i'm going to leave the name of the team nameless put we were playing another sec at their homecoming a couple years ago. the officiating was so bad, the espn announcers went on and on how it changed the character of the game and in fact it changed the outcome. the sec officials were so horrible, they were suspended for three weeks. that never happens in the sec. the within didn't get the glory

that the winner would normally have had, and the loser should have been the winner, and still bitter about it. and i will be for the west of my dog gone life for that matter. but what made me mad was that the guys who were supposed to simply make sure the game was played fairly, participated in a way that it determinedded the outcome of the teams. when the government gets involved and decides which brokerage house is going to live or die, this one ties big to fail but your business on main stream is too small to succeed, the government has usurped its constitutional authority and it's time we make it clear, enough is enough. no more. [applause] [applause] >> now, i know that we as republicans have been told that

we're not supposed to bring up the issue of missing birth certificates anymore. but i'm going to tell you, i want there to be a very serious focus on missing birth certificates in this election. and here's where i want to put it. we 53 million missing birth certificates of the children in this country who have beenbert since 1973,, -- been aborted since 1973, and that is an issue that we as republican should not let people forget. people say let's not bring these issues like abortion up because we need to focus on the economy. that like saying that in a bad economy where up employment rate is 9%, we don't talk it, but abortion is only bad if the unemployment rate is down to 5%. i believe this. if deficits and debts are sins against the future children of this country -- and they are -- then so is the destruction of

life, and it's not just wrong when economic times are good. it's wrong all the time. and it's not that we will somehow miss focusing on the economy. but i'm telling you now, for those of us who believe that god gave every life with precious worth and value, it is not an issue we'll walk away from as long as we have breath and life, and for many of us this is not an issue we want to divide over. it's an issue we ought to unite over and say it's the fundamental principle of america to believe that all are created equal and are endowed by the creator with unalienablelights, among them or life, liberty, and the're suit of happiness, and the idea that every human being has worth and value, is what is critical to put forth as a government and a people. let me do a little math with

you. nine plus one minus 7.2. what do you get? some are saying, well, the math of that is 1.9. let me give you another idea. 9.1, minus 7.2, equals victory. here's why. not since franklin roosevelt was president has anyone ever been re-elected to the office of the white house if the unemployment rate was higher than 7.2. i'm saying to you today, we have an incredible opportunity to take the total message of our party and help americans to understand that 9.1% unemployment is not about percentages. it's about people. people who didn't have a work job to good to today. people who loved the dignity of work, and would work if they could get a job, but haven't been able to because businesses

who could be hiring aren't because they're scared to death that the obama administration is going to increase their taxes and the cost of doing business through regulation, and so they're scared to death to open up jobs we desperately need to open up in this country. some may be encouraged that obama got rid of some of his economic aid vier yo, larry summers, austin ghoulsby is gone. but it's not just about getting rid of the wrong people. it's about getting rid of the wrong policies, and those policies he hasn't changed. [applause] >> we have a president who understands how economics works

and why would he? he hat never signed a paycheck in his life. you at lee's least ought to have experience running a lemonade stand or selling popcorn at football games if you're going to be the chief executive of the state and country. if there was an economic gps in the oval office of the white house it would constantly every day be saying, recalculating, recalculating, recalculating. [applause] >> he's been growing government. and government's been growing. the only place where housing values are going up is washington, dc. i'm not making that up. look at what the values are in your home town. housing is selling for less. there are people who are underwater in their homes. if you happen to be so fortunate to own property in washington

its the only region where values are going up because it's the only sector in the country that is growing. but if you growing the wrong crops is the wrong stuff, you'll starve to death, and what we're growing in washington is the wrong stuff. i wish the president would get an understanding of the growing economy. right now i'm afraid michelle is growing a better type of process in the garden on the south lawn than the president is growing in the oval office trying to get is back to work. maybe it's time this country get back on its track by getting someone in the office who actually understands what has to be done to make it work. we also have a president who has given us an incredibly failed foreign policy. when he made his infamous arab spring speech, i found it interesting he never mentioned saudi arabia, who against our desires, still sent troops to

bahrain. who monetarily have been supporting the muslim brotherhood in egypt, creating further destabilization of that country. we said not a word to saudi arabia. this is a president who started issuing his high hopes that president asaud in syria would -- he is a butcher and a terrorist. this is a government that supports both ham mass and hezbollah. and we're thinking they're going to bring reform, even as the slaughter their people in the streets of syria, and wreak havoc and take financial support from iran. he has hopes for reform in syria. he says nothing the saudis for what they're doing by supporting groups like the muslim

brotherhood. but he has the audacity to say israel needs reform. with all due respect, israel is a country that is a reformed democracy already. it could teach us all something about freedom and democracy. [applause] >> in israel, they don't have to reform themselves to have religious freedom. they already have it. they dent have to reform themselves to have free speech. they already have it. they dent have to reform themselves in order to give women equal rights. they already have them. they don't have to reform. thes to have an educational system that's open and available to every person no matter how rich or here or pewish or arab or christian they are, it's already available. they don't have to reform themselves to provide health care to anyone who needs it,

including an arab as much as to a jew. they don't have to have some type of reform in order to have free press because their press is very free. i assure you. to criticize their government just as ours is. sometimes as irresponsibly has ours does, but free nonetheless. israel is not a country that needs a talking-to. and when our president puts more pressure on the israelis to stop building bedrooms in their own communities so their families can live free, then he does to tell iran to quit building bombs that would be pointed against israel and against us, i think it's maybe time not to just change the worded of the president but to change the president who has a different word for israel then the rest of the world what freedom means in this nation and this land. [applause]

>> his answer, his answer them to has been to stop building. my response would be, build more. we could use a whole lot more of what you're building and a whole lot less of what iran is building and what syria is building and what the saudis are building. let's be assured of something. the tunisian fruit vendor who set himself and the rest of the middle east on fire did not do that because somehow he thought israel was his problem. that guy, the fruit vendor, whose frustration and humiliation that led to setting himself on fire, did not go to columbia or harvard, but this much he knew. that israel wasn't his problem. it was the repressive government in which he served under that was his problem. and when we saw people beginning to try to unshackle themselves

from the tyranny of countries cn the middle east, we did not see people who thought that their greatest threat came from a tiny little sliver of real estate called israel. but it came from the oppressive, hideous governments who have routinely murdered its own citizens, and who have routinely trampled upon their basic fundamental human rights we take for granted. we need a new president and we need republicans in the senate and the house because we got to get our domestic policy back in order, starting with the failure of obamacare, and if you wonder, how die know it's failed? in because because if nancy pelosi's district has so many businesses that are demanding exemptions because they know it won't work, then maybe nancy was right when she told us that we

will know what is in the obamacare bill when we pass it. well, now we've passed it and we know what's in and it we don't like and it we want to repeal it. let's do it now. [applause] >> and at the risk of being a little bit irreverent, when nancy pelosi made that statement that we will know what's in the bill after we pass it, i thought, this is absurd, ridiculous and illogical to say we'll know what we have for lunch after we passed. my dear friends, the result is about the same. [applause] >> with the way, we really don't have a healthcare crisis in this country. we have outstanding health care that people all over the world come to receive. what we have is a health crisis in this country.

when between 75 and 80% of all the money we spend, almost $2.5 trillion in the health care world -- when most is spent on chronic disease. your lifetime health care accident did tours as an american citizen -- because of chronic disease, 85% of all the money that will ever be spent on you in health care, is likely to be spent in your last 18 months of life. we don't have a healthcare crisis. we have a health crisis, which is the result of chronic disease and the impact of that means our end of life care is extraordinarily expensive. and the answer to that is not kill people off sooner. by getting more death panels or whatever we want to call them and rationing the care so people

just die earlier. no. the real answer is, is that we would understand that the best way to deal with the cost of health care is, first, prevent the need for the cost in the first place. preventive care makes more sense. secondly, what you cannot prevent, cure it. and if you cannot cure it, or prevent it, then at least manage it responsibly. that's not a health healthcare , that's a health crisis and it requires the leadership that recognizes that it's not enough simply to cut taxes and tax rates. we need to be the party of innovation and creativity that talks about cutting disease rates and death rates and ending alzheimer's and cancer in people, because it's the cost of these diseases that is eating our country's economy alive, and rather than just say, we're going slash the spending, let's

slash the spending because we have eliminated the need by finding the counter. the party that can spend a person to the moon within ten years, the country that can do that. the country that can take the ideas that came from that space program and end up creating cell phones and video cameras and all the amazing thing wes think we can't do without, is a country could find our way within a decade to stop having to spend trillions of dollars in the cost of dealing with not only medical tragedies but the human tragedies that many of you in this room have gone through by losing a loved one to cancer or alzheimer's or heart disease. let us by the party that talks about changing america economically, by changing ourselves as a nation. that finds the cures and the ways to prevent the diseases that are eating up the cost of

medicare and medicaid. i'm not interested in taking graham off of what she needs. i'm interesting in getting her to the place she doesn't need it in the first place, and when she does, it will be available because we have cured most of the people who have the ailments. that's the kind of talk we head to to be giving across the country, and we'll save not only medicare and social security, but we'll save the lives of the people that we love. i want to say that sometimes when i think about the way that we as a party are confronting the great issues of the day, i want to make sure we communicate it so that it's really making sense to that person out there that probably isn't interested in politics as much as you. for you to spend your own money to get to new orleans and get a hotel room, have an air ticket

or expensive gasoline bill to drive here to pay the meals you'll eat while you're here, registration fees, buy the books and the things you'll buy in the exhibit area, some of you will make a pretty good investment to be here. you're obviously interested in politics. a lot of you, the only thing you watch on television -- you don't watch pbs. [laughter] >> that's okay, most of america doesn't either. you just pay for it. you probably are for most part watching fox news, like you ought to be. [applause] >> but i tell you, there's a lot of people that aren't paying that much attention to all the partisan politics we pay attention to. they are for the most part people who don't think like some

of us do, who are i call the political practitioners. i say those who are the practitioners of politics usually see things horizon yaly, left and right, lib control and conservative, democrat and republican, and we tend to vote they way. horizontally, i'ms a far to the right as anybody in this room. there may pea few -- may be a few that are farther out than me, i don't know. but you'd be hard pressed to find an issue that if we got to talking my horizontal position is anywhere but on the right. here's what understand. all the people who are really philosophically on the right will vote that way, and people on the left will volt that way, and those are givens. the election will be decided by that little sliver of people, 20% of the american voters, who do not see politics horizontally also theft or -- left or right,

republicans and democrats. they're the people who will make the decision based on how they see things vertically. they'll ask themselves this simple question. if we elect this guy, will things get better or worse? will they good up or will they good down? i want the republican party to be the vertical party that points people to a better america, not the party who only can tell us what's wrong with the guys who are there. i can tell you plenty wrong with the people who are there but you know what i believe most is important about the republicans? is that we offer the solutions to how we get america back to work and how we get america -- [applause] >> -- out of the need of government care and government services. and i want to communicate it in such a way that there's not a person in this country that doesn't understand, i'm on airplanes four and five days a

week most weeks, and i was on a plane the other day, and i happened to turn and look back, and i saw a guy in the row behind me and i hadn't noticed hem getting on. but i noticed that he didn't have a leg. and then i saw that he had a hat on indicating he was military. and the flight attendant told me he was going for therapy, that he was one of our soldiers, having lost a limb, fighting a battle for us, and will spend the rest of his life never having the full use and capacity of his body like most of us take for granted. i want to make shower that we are the party that says that whatever it takes, that veteran, who has given that much for his country, will never have to ask but one time for what he needs to live the life he has a right

to live. [applause] >> and that if we can -- [applause] [applause] >> and that if we as a nation can spend in great deficits to put a shrimp on a treadmill as we did spending $500,000 to find out how the shrimp would do on a treadmill, then my friend, whatever it takes to make sure that the veteran gets everything he needs, we must do it. a couple of weeks ago i was at the gas pump, filling up my car. that's a joy, isn't it? did you ever think you'd live to see the day when one fill-up cost more than your monthly payment, and you no longer have to get a loan to buy a car, you

have to get a bank loan to fill the darn thing up. i was filling up the car. and i was watching the numbers just whirl by. and i saw a car pull up over to my left. at an island of pumps nearby. a lady gets out of her car. i see a couple little kids in the car. she gets out and squeezes the handle and starts putting gas and. notice she is finished and in her car and driving off, and i'm still pumping good, and i'm thinking, and i looked over there and i noticed that she'd only bought $5 worth of gas. and it hit my hard. she did not buy $5 worth of gas because that's all she needed. she bought $5 worth of gas because that's all she could afford. i don't know if she was married,

had a job. i don't know anything about her other than she had two kid in the car. it said to me, here's a person who found enough $5 to go get some gas in the car to take her kids to day care or school, and then she'll try to hunt up another $5, and then another 5z $5. i want to make sure when we take our message to the american people, that it is not a message that just resonates in the corporate boardrooms where we talk about derivatives and major mall tax rates. if we don't learn how to talk to that lady at the gas pump, pump $5 of gas in her car, we don't edee serve to -- deserve to win the next election. but we have an administration whose policies are causing her to have to go $5 at a time to put gasoline in her car. and i want to make sure two things happen next year. one, we let the american people

understand that the lack of a coherent, logical, sincible, remarks until policy as it relates to the economy and energy is the reason that the lady is standing there putting $5 in her car and no more, and want to make sure we have real answer, real solutions so we know if we open up our energy capacity, that we don't have to be dependent upon the saudis and other people who don't even like us, that instead of making some prince in a middle eastern country obscenely wealth we'll start bringing that prosperity and wealth back to americans amd making them wealthy and giving them jobs and feet to stand on. that will cause to us win. god bless you and thank you very much for being here in new orleans. thank you very much. [applause]

>> ladies and gentlemen, please turn your attention to the screens for a short trailer, previewing the movie we'll be showing at the end of this afternoon's session. ♪ >> my fellow americans, it's been the honor of my life to be your president. so maybe -- many of you have toronto say thanks. i could say as much to you. >> 30 years ago america was confronted with a bad economy, serious energy crisis, and foreign enemies who threatened our freedom. >> at a time when americans were told there was a crisis of confidence, one man changed

history. >> that man was ronald reagan. president reagan believed in freedom, america, and the american people. >> his rendevous with destiny is a reminder we have a similar rendevous, and we can create a better future for america. >> he called himself a citizen politician. and only entered politics when he warned government was gaining too much power. by then he was age 54, with a successful career behind him. >> ronald reagan bust just an ordinary republican politician. he got into politics because of what he believed. reagan was a conservative first and a republican second. he challenged the republican establishment. >> governor, are you prepared to take the constitutional oath? >> i am. >> the secret of governor reagan and president reagan's political success is that he was all

underestimated. people saw him as a grade b movie actor, and he always exceeded expectations. >> the president of the united states! >> in 1981, ronald reagan came to washington with three goals. >> he wanted to revive the american economy. >> the inflation rate, the interest rate, the country was in disarray. >> not just that he was great communicator. you have to communicate the right ideas. growth and hope and opportunity. >> he wanted to restore the american morale. >> president reagan believed in the american people and their ability to pull themself out there these problems. >> you ain't seen nothing yet. >> and president reagan wanted to end the soviet oppression of millions in eastern europe. >> we all knew how ronald reagan felled about -- felt about the communists and the soviet union. >> the west won't contain

communism, it will transcend communism. >> lie, create crimes. >> mr. gorbachev, tear down this wall! >> ronald reagan alone believed and said that communism amounted to an evil empire and it would collapse. >> in eight amazing years, president ronald reagan changed our nation and the world. >> the greatness of ronald reagan is not just a story about the past. >> it's a lesson about the future. >> we can bring the same courage and optimism to our times that president reagan brought to his. >> once you begin a great movement, there's no telling -- we went to change a nation, and instead we changed a world.

♪ >> ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm republican leadership conference welcome to ted cruz, former solicitor general of the state of texas, and county -- candidate for the united states senate. [applause] [applause] [applause] >> good afternoon. what a fantastic day we're having and what privilege i have to follow not only governor mike huckabee but president ronald reagan. what a terrific voice for liberty and american values,

governor huckabee has been, and we're all in his debt for his standing up and defending the constitution and american values. i don't know how many of y'all saw it, but a couple of weeks ago the inventer of the tell prompter passed away. actually this is true. this is real news. he was 92 years old. i understand when president obama was informed of this, he was speechless. [laughter] >> it's hard to resist a teleprompter jobe. in all serious in the president is going to be formidable next november. he has announced he intends to raise $1 billion and just today he announced a national new media director in charge of all things facebook and twitter.

it's a good thing anthony weiner is out of a job. >> we're in a remarkable time. we're in a time that is a fundamental crossroads for our country. this president, barack obama, is the most radical president this nation has ever seen. he is a true believer in government. government is the solution to every problem. government is the answer to every need in your life. and, yet, at the same time, i am incredibly optimistic. for one very real simple reason. all across the country we are seeing a great awakening. americans are standing up to fight for individual liberty, the u.s. constitution, and our fundamental rights. [applause]

>> every man and woman in this room is a warrior for liberty. you're here because you care about america. we're facing what i am convinced is the epic battle of our generation. it is quite literally whether we remain a free market nation, and the american people are rising up tremendously. 2010 was the front of a tsunami. of americans all across this country waking up to defend the constitution and our liberty, and 2012 is going to be the second half of that tsunami. [applause] >> every one of you is here because you're excited to doing what -- committed to doing what it takes to save the country, and i'm going to suggest to you three things we need do to win this fight and to save our country.

number one, stand for principles. a big part of the reason barack obama got elected is because republicans failed to lead. we failed to stand for conservative principles, failed to stand for limited government, failed to defendant -- defend the constitution, and the american people sent us home. yet i'll tell you, i am convinced in many ways the greatest legacy of barack obama will be a new generation of leaders in the republican party devoted to standing up for liberty and the u.s. constitution. >> we got into this problem by not standing for principle. the first way to fix it is we stand for principle. i had the great honor of serving

for 5 and a half years as the solicitor general for the state of texas. i was appointed by greg abbott who is the finest attorney general in all 50 states. during the five and a half years i serve as sg, over and over again, texas stood up and led the nation defending consecutive principles. we defended the ten commandments that stands on the state capital grounds. we went to the u.s. supreme court and we won 5-4. >> we defended the pledge of allegiance when the federal court of appeals struck it down as up constitutional. we went to the u.s. supreme court and we won unanimously.

>> defended the light to keep and bear arms. we went to the u.s. supreme court and we won 54. >> when i mention that in texas, i always wonder if people are going to pull out thunder guns and shoot in celebration. >> and we also had the biggest fight of my year as solis tar general, we stood up for u.s. sovereignty. the world court, the judicial arm of the united nations, the world court issued an order the united states to re-open the convictions of 51 murders across the country. the first time in our nation's history a foreign court has ever tried to bind the u.s. justice system. texas fought the world court and we fought the united nations.

>> we went to the u.s. supreme court. on the other side were 90 foreign nations and on the other side was the president of the united states, who had signed a two paragraph order that attempted to order the state courts to obey the world court. so, texas stood up to the world court. we stood up to the united nations to 90 foreign nations and stood up to the president of the united states. we defended u.s. sovereignty and won 6-3. [applause] >> this is a serious time. and we need serious leaders with a proven record who will stand up and fight and stand for principles.

that's number one. number two, stand for liberty. you know, at the end of the day, it's not all that complicated. how many people in this room have been to a tea party? these things are phenomenal. they're millions of people all across the country, standing up in the hot, blazing sun, with their kids, because we believe in liberty. because we understand that when government takes over the economy and takes over our lives, what is lost is individual liberty and individual opportunity. a very simple principle. freedom works. and freedom isn't just a gift given to us by government. it is an inalienable right given to us by our creator. [applause]

>> and the tea party is about one very simple principle. it's about americans standing up to defend liberty and to defend the american free market system. >> one of the terrific things about our federalist system is you have 50 states that are laboratories to democracy. governments that reflect the values of the citizens. in my state we have seen an extraordinary burst of jobs and economic prosperity. tomorrow we'll be hearing from our governor, rick perry -- [applause] >> -- who may well have an announcement in the coming weeks -- [applause] >> -- and i'll tell you, he is a remarkable governor. in texas, between 2008 and 2009, more jobs were created in the

state of texas than all 49 other states combined. [applause] the interesting thing is, rick perry didn't create those jobs. he understands government officials don't create jobs. but rick perry and the government of texas didn't destroy those jobs, which is something president obama is very good at. >> it's interesting, if your compare the governance of the state of texas and the state of california, you almost have an object lesson in what works -- low taxes, low regulation, and an environment that encourages entrepreneurs to risk capital and create jobs, versus high taxes, high regulation, and a government that seeks to drain the life out of every small business person in the state. i had a cynical friend of mine that asked the question, what's the difference between the state

of california and the titanic? the answer is, the pongs -- passengers on the titanic didn't vote to hit the iceberg. that joke will get me in trouble because my wife is a californian. i'll tell you what this president is doing is taking this country in a direction that doesn't work. >> and this administration is killing jobs. there's a fundamental dynamic in national politics. conservatives win when we are particular late what we believe. liberals win when they effectively obfuscate what they believe. it's led to a series of democratic presidents whether

it's fdr or jfk or bill clinton or barack obama, who got elected by being smooth-talking politicians, who pretended to believe what anyway didn't. so i'd like to ask everyone here to engage in a thought experiment with me. imagine what would have happened if barack obama had campaigned on what he actually believes. i want you to imagine it is october 2008. then senator barack obama holds a national television conference. my fellow americans. if you elect me president, the first thing will do is fire the ceo of general motors. i will then take that venable institution, tear up the contracts with the bondholders and handed officer the union bosses who put me in office. then i will propose a

$900 billion pork plan that won't generate jobs but will pay off every liberal special interest in the country. then i will propose the largest energy tax in history in cap and trade, that will take thousands of dollars out of every family's pocketbook if they ever turn on a light switch or start a car. then i will forcibly socialize one-sixth of the nation's economy. i will force down the throats of the american people a takeover of health care that will put a government bureaucrat between you and your doctor. then i will go on a nationwide and a worldwide apology tour. standing in front of every two-bit dictator in the world and apologizing for the united states of america. and then i will throw israel under the bus. and i will arrogantly demand of them they go back to the 1967 borders and essentially

unilaterally surrender to terrorists who deny their right to exist. those are radical views. those are extreme views. less than 30% of the american population agrees with those views and let bogey -- barack obama believes those today and he believed those in 2008. [applause] >> if we want to prevail, we need to stand for liberty. one of the most critical aspects of liberty is obamacare. an arrogant piece of legislation that denies our liberty, destroys jobs and is fundamentally wrong. how many of you have smartphones? ask each of you to pull out your smartphone and come to our web site, ted cruz.org. when obama karr -- obamacare passed, we launched a nationwide

petition to repeal every word of obamacare and vote out of office every politician who voted for it. >> i would ask each of you to join us in that, come to ted cruzing forking for, sign the petition to repeal the obamacare, and ask five of your friends to do the same. so the first thing we need to do is stand for principle. the second thing we need to do is stand for liberty and the third thing we need to do is defend america. this is a president who routinely defends the interests of other nations, our enemies, and yet fails to stand for our own interests. i'll tell you, there's nothing i believe in more powerfully than american exceptionalism, and like many of you, my belief is not a simple academic belief i

studied in history books. it comes from my family and personal story and life experience. my father is from cuba. he was born in cuba and grew up in cuba. and as a teenager, when he was 14 years old, my dad began fighting in the cuban revolution. ... so in 1957 my father arrived

in austin texas. he was 18-years-old and he didn't speak a word of english. he had no position but he had $100 so and to his underwear and he went and got a job as a dishwasher making 50 cents an hour. he worked seven days a week and paid his way through school. he got a job and then he started a small business in the oil and gas industry. he worked hard every day. to work towards the american dream. my dad my whole life has been my hero. but, you know, when i was a kid, my father used to ask me all the time, he used to say when we face oppression and cuba, i have a place to flee to. if we lose our freedom here, where we go? and i will tell you there's no question that better explains why it is a limit for the u.s. senate and that question right

there. if we don't stand up and protect our freedom as president ronald reagan told us freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction and the only way we preserve freedom as if americans stand up and fight to preserve it. and that is exactly what we are doing. [applause] and so, with apologies to barack obama, i would like to ask you a few questions. ken we defend our liberty? yes, we can. [laughter] ten we've restore the constitution? >> can we cut federal spending? >> can we retire harry reid?

>> yes, we can. >> can we repeal obamacare? >> yes, we can. >> and can we retire president barack obama? can believe in. [laughter] [applause] let me say finally enclosing the fundamental question everyone of us has here today is a decision of how to go into battle in 2012. every election cycle candidates say this is the most important election ever i tell you this is the most important election ever. and the question all of us should be asking in the presidential race is which candidate is best prepared to

stand up and fight, to stop the obama agenda to defend free market principles and to defend the constitution. and i will tell you in the race for u.s. senate in the state of texas, we should be asking exactly the same question. which candidate has a proven record of standing to fight to defend liberty, to defend free market principles, and to defend the constitution. we are building a coalition of conservative all across texas and all across the country. i would ask everyone of you to come to our website, tedcruz.org and take a look of the proven record by running on. because this is a time of each of you or more years for liberty and we need to stand up and rally behind candidates and leaders who will defend liberty come to defend free market principles and defend the constitution. thank you. god bless you. [cheering]

[inaudible conversations] >> was that eloquent or what? [applause] let's help them out all we can. governor huckabee, how did you like that? [applause] thought that was a great speech. eloquent man. speaking of governors, i think we have another governor for you. and now, from the state of new mexico, former governor jerry johnson. [applause]

[cheering] ♪ >> hello. i am gary johnson, and i've run for president of the united states and i am trying to get the republican nomination to do that. so, i'm going to kind of use this as an informal job interview, thank you very much. [cheering] i've got a couple of great kids, a son eric who's 28-years-old who quit his well paying job in denver a year and a half ago to come do this with me on paid. that's really loving. i have a daughter who is 32. when she was in college at the

university of colorado boulder was the valedictorian out of 9,000 students. she's an artist extraordinaire and the story i like to tell about her is when she was in college she was driving her car outside of dallas to mexico. the car broke down, she had her tools with her, she knew it was the alternator, she hitchhiked, bought an alternator, went back to the card and installed it. [applause] one of the biggest casualties of being in office being he governor was that my wife and i grew apart as a result of the governorships. we grew apart, and after we left office, we divorced and very shortly after that, she died from heart failure which is about the worst thing that's ever happened to me in my whole life.

currently i'm engaged to be married. i've been engaged to be married about a year and a half now to a wonderful woman, kate. we've been together for over three years and it's great to be in love. i'm also an entrepreneur. i've been an entrepreneur my entire life. i started a one-man handyman business and albuquerque when i was 21-years-old, 1974 and 20 years later, 1994, i had 1,000 employees, electrical, mechanical, plumbing, american dream come true. i became intel's facility contractor between the 286 chip and because of the expertise we had doing that, we have an expertise that a free company in new mexico than did any sort of manufacturing needed us. by evelyn, the governor of the

mexico was not a positive for business, and so i sold that business in 1999 because we were not getting the work we should have gotten, but i sold that business in 1999. no one lost their job and the business is doing better than ever today. i'm also an athlete. i think it's important for you to know this. i really take this very seriously. sound mind, a sound body, something i'm proud of, it's something that i do. i have a goal to climb the highest mountain on each continent, and three years ago, my children and i climbed kilimanjaro and africa, which was a great adventure, and when i was out of office, i went to nepal and had a great privilege to be able to stand on top of a planet mount everest. so i have three of those mountains to go and i think i'm

going to knock them off. i ran for governor of new mexico having never been involved in politics before to ai from fer to elective offices and i got elected both times. to me, running for office was about actions, and not talking about it. that's the way i've lived my life. actions speak louder than words. but to get elected as governor of mexico, i had to talk about it. i had to talk about what i was going to do. i went and i introduced myself to the republican party a couple of weeks before i announced my candidacy for governor, and the republican party embraced me. we are an inclusive party. we want to part of this process. we want you to take part in the debate and the discussions. you're going to be great for the party. but you just need to know that you will never get elected.

[laughter] that it is not possible to come from completely outside of politics and get elected governor in a state that is 2-1 democrat. well, what were the words i was saying? i got elected. what i say? what i said as i was going to run state government like a business. what i said was my philosophy is the best government, the government that rules the best of the government that rules the least. [applause] the government that rules the best is the government that empowers me and you as individuals to be all that we can be. and in that context, there are personal responsibilities that go along with that. and government does have a role. government has a role because there are bad actors out there. there are human beings that are bad actors come there are businesses that are bad actors.

in the case of the united states government, there are foreign governments that are bad actors. and the government needs to play a role in this whole notion of a level playing field, not to get advantage to anyone, any groups to make sure that we have that level playing field, and that level playing field means that this is a country where you can go from having nothing to having everything if you are willing to work hard and innovate to do that. so i get into office and the first thing i find myself doing is vetoing a whole lot of legislation. how much legislation? 750 bills while i was governor of new mexico. [applause] [cheering] i had thousands of line items

vito's governor as a mexico. only two board overturned. so it made a huge difference. now, putting those vetoes into perspective, i might be embellishing here, but i may have vetoed more bills than the other 49 governors in the country combined. [applause] [laughter] so, actions speak louder than words. [applause] i vetoed hundreds of spending pieces of legislation. three-quarters of a million dollars to study our educational system in mexico. i held a press conference. three-quarters of a million dollars to study the educational system in new mexico. i see them make up of the legislation. this is an important topic but let me just save taxpayers in the state three-quarters of a million dollars and tell you out

the outcome will be before it even starts and that will be to put more money into education. so i'm going to say citizens of the street three-quarters of a million dollars. i relished the job. i really enjoy the job. i took on the debate. i took on the discussion. what has johnson the total today and why? [laughter] that was the newspapers, that was the radio, there was television. my favorite a bill i vetoed, and i hate to say this, but a third of all those bills i.t. two, a third of the legislature was republican. a third of all those bills i vetoed were republican bills because republicans seem to grow government just like democrat on the republicans do it in a way that's good. they're going to grow it temporarily that ultimately it will shrink government. i never understood the formula. i vetoed republican bills, too. [applause]