>> i read the other day, one of the disastrous side effects is they had something in that bill about not buying minerals from something, whatever, and what's happening is the poor people of the congo are losing their jobs, and, of course, the bad guys are figuring out ways around it -- [inaudible] so, you know -- [laughter] >> dodd-frank and obamacare and cap and trade and the national labor relations board trying to shut down the boeing plant, every one of those is the exact same thing. there is a pattern behind this administration. president obama and this administration, they are true believers, and they believe in government. they believe in government control of the economy in the our lives. that's what dodd-frank is about. and what they want to do is empower politicians. let me take a why would gets here, has win in this room read "atlas shrugged"? [laughter]

.. >> we need to get the federal government out of the business of controlling our economy, and we need to end bailouts across the board. [applause] >> by the door. >> yes, sir, given the problems texas has with sanctuary cities and aliens -- [inaudible] i apologize for saying this, but

i e-mailed your campaign wanting your answer on immigration. i never got an answer. i need to know -- [inaudible] >> yeah. >> on the illegal situation. first right citizen, anchor babies, all of that, do away with that, the welfare, and everything for the illegals. [applause] illegal aliens, all the homes that are being built will stop being built. people need homes. they'll buy the homes that are depressed, raise the value of the depressed homes. we got illegal aliens, 15 million unemployed americans, they will be able to go to work, and we rid of the illegal aliens, the drains on the infrastructure, schools,

hospital, everything will go away. the whole cotton picken problem would be solved. [inaudible] [cheers and applause] >> thank you for that question. let me tell you my -- [laughter] my views on immigration are simple. i strongly oppose illegal immigration. >> good. >> i categorically oppose amnesty. >> what does that mean? >> i strongly support legal immigrants who come here and follow the rules to work towards the american dream. now, let's -- [applause] let's talk a little bit about more what that means. on illegal immigration, i approach it from the per perspective of someone who spent their adult life in law enforcement. in a post-9/11 world, it makes utterly no sense that we don't

know who's coming into this country. it is absolutely madness that we don't know the criminal backgrounds of those coming into the country the first thing any sovereign nation does is secure its border. [applause] my view is we should secure the border by any and every means necessary. [cheers and applause] that includes fences, that includes walls, that includes technology, and most fundamentally, that includes boots on the ground including tripling the size of the u.s. border patrol. [applause] >> next -- right here. >> you touched on the issue of

international imports with national issues. could you please discuss the concepts of defunding certain aspects of the united nation's activities including in particular the stance on the middle east, their efforts especially to deport education of palestinians to kill jews. >> look, the united nations is a travesty. [applause] any organization that creates a human rights council -- [laughter] and puts as members of it cuba and libya -- [laughter] you know, saturday night live couldn't parody this. [laughter] saturday night live got together and wanted to make fun of a human rights council, they'd butt libya and cuba on it.

that's where the united nations is. i agree the united nations works against the interest of the united states. it should be guided by one simple question on policies -- what is in the national security interest of the united states of america. [applause] i will tell you on the u.n. in the case, that fight is just the tip of the iceberg. you know, one of the leading opponents of the state in texas was the dean of yale law school, a man named harold koa argued the uses supreme court should be subservient to the world court and united nations. he's the chief legal adviser at the u.s. department of state under president obama. the most radical economic in the

country for giving up our sovereignty is the number one lawyer at the u.s. study department. this is going to be a fight that is going to continue for decades. it is a fight from the left that want to give up our sovereignty, and the reason they want to give up our sovereignty is two-fold. one fundamentally, they don't understand american exceptionalism, the unique miracle that is this country of freedom, liberty, and individual responsibility. [applause] number two, they understand their leftist progressive agenda is contrary to the values and principles of the american people, and so the reason they want to give up our sovereignty is they want to go to these international bodies to get them to impose their enlightened leftist agenda on the rest of us. that is fundamentally wrong. i have fought with that with every ounce of breath in my

soul, and i will continue to do so every day in the u.s. senate. [applause]

>> dr. martin luther king was not a president of the united states. at no time in his life did he hold public office. he was not a hero of foreign wars, he never had much money, and while he lived, he was reviled at least as much as he was celebrating. by his own account, he was a man frequently racked with doubt, a man not without flaws, a man who, like moses before him, more than once questioned why he had been chosen for so a task, the

task of leading people to freedom, the task of healing the festering wounds of the nation's original sin. >> watch this entire event, the ground breaking of the martin luther king j.r. me mori yalg at the c-span video library, and now five years later, the memorial will be dedicated in washington, d.c. this sunday live on c-span. we'll have coverage of other events surrounding the dedication on the c-span networks. >> more now from the red state gathering. it's a conservative political blog, and we'll hear remarks from nebraska state treasurer, donald rumsfeld -- donald stenberg and from charleston, north carolina, this is about 20 minutes. [applause] >> nebraska will be represented by a genuine lifelong

conservative in the united states senate. as nebraska's next united states senator, i'll vote to repeal obamacare. [cheers and applause] i will vote to secure our borders. [cheers and applause] i will vote to cut federal spending and balance the federal budget. [applause] i will vote to defend life, the second amendment, and religious freedom. [applause] i'm honored to have been endorsed by red state and by mark levin, and honored to have the support of many, many tea parties all across the state of nebraska, and i'm honored to be here today. you all are the salvation of our nation, and god bless you for all that you do for our country.

[applause] america, today, is going in the wrong direction. we have a president who apologizes for our nation instead of leading it. we have a president of the united states who bows to foreign dictators instead of standing up to them. we need a new direction. we need a new president, and we need to restore america. restoring america must begin with defending our freedom. our founding fathers understood that big government threatens our freedom. the source of our freedom is not a benevolent government. no, our freedom is not a gift from our government. it's thomas jefferson said, the god who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time, and our declaration of independence

tells us that the source of our freedom is our creator. the declaration of independence says this, "we hold these truths to be self-evidence, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and to secure these blessings, governments are instituted among mender riving their just powers and when any government is droughtive of these ends, it's the right of the people to alter or to abolish it." ladies and gentlemen, -- [applause] ladies and gentlemen, our own government has become destructive of our liberty, so the time has come to do what the declaration of independence tells us to do. we must alter that government.

[cheers and applause] we can do that at the elections next year, and with god's help, we will do that at the elections next year. [cheers and applause] next queer, we can throw out the washington politicians like ben nelson who voted for a federal takeover of our health care. next year, we can throw out the washington politicians who want to impose socialism on the united states of america, and next year, we can throw out the washington politicians who are leading our nation on the path to national bankruptcy. next year, we will alter the government of the united states. [applause] there are two competing ideas about the american people. the idea of the elites is the most people are ignorant,

uninformed haters who must be controlled by a central government, and who are incapable of making good decisions for themselves or for their families. because of this belief, the elites impose national health care on us and tell us it's for our own good and want to tell you what car you can drive, what foods you can eat, and even what lightbulbs you must use. the elites will decide who gets medical care and who does not. the elites will tell you this is all for your own good. my friends, this is not freedom. this is tyranny. [applause] so let the word go forth from this time and this place that as a free people, we will decide

what's good for us, not the elites in washington. [cheers and applause] the other view of the american people is that there are intelligent, capable people who want the freedom to live and to work and to raise their families without government interference. for those of us who see the american people this this light, we believe this less government, lower taxes, and more personal freedom, or as thomas jefferson said it, a wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injurying one another which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuit of industry and improvement and shall not take from the mouth of labor, the bread its earnedded. this is the sum of good government. that's the way thomas jefferson

described good government. that's the government we want for ourselves, our children, and our children's children. like you here today, i believe in the people. i believe in the goodness of our people, and i believe in the greatness of our nation, and i believe that the united states of america is a nation that all americans should be proud of. in 1936, the olympic games were held in nazi germany. adolf hitler was in power, and hitler attended the opening ceremonies of the olympic games. the olympic teams of each nation were told that as they marched pass hitler's viewing stand, they should dip their national flag as a sign as respect, and so one by one the nations of the world marched passed adolf hitler, each one dipping their

national flag, and then came the american team and the american flag, and the american team believed that america and the american flag should never bow to a foreign dictator. [cheers and applause] and so they marched past hitler with the american flag held high. hitler was furious as dictators always are when free men and women will not bow down to them. we need to restore the pride in america that our 1936 olympic team had. never again should a president of the united states bow to a foreign dictator. [cheers and applause] and never again should a president of the united states

apologize for our great country. [cheers and applause] we need leaders who will defend our nation, not apologize for it. what do we need to do to restore america's greatness? i believe that it begins with faith. the bible tells us what is needed to restore a nation. it's written in second chronicles 7:14 that if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then i will hear from heaven, and i will forgive their sin and heal their land. [cheers and applause] so restoring our nation must

begin with earnest prayer, and when you go home tonight, i urge you to pray for our nation, pray that god will heal our land, but it is not enough to pray. every story in the bible except creation involved men and women inspired by god who did what they were called to do, so what else in addition to prayer do we need to do to restore america? number one, it's very simple -- go vote. number two, talk to your friends and neighbors and get them to vote, and number three, help those candidates who are courageous and who share your values, your hopes, and your dreams for america's future, and what policies should we demand of our politicians to restore america? let's start with cutting the budget and adding a balanced budget amendment to the constitution of the united

states. [applause] we must repeal obamacare. that's -- [cheers and applause] ben nelson of nebraska was the 60th vote to impose obamacare on our nation, and i will be very happy and proud to cast the 60 vote to repeal obamacare. [cheers and applause] there should be no more bailouts, no more earmarks, and no new taxes. we must develop our domestic energy resources. we can want continue to allow the radical environmentists to block energy development in the united states of america. [applause] we must firmly reject cormism in

the united states of america -- socialism in the united states of america. [applause] we must maintain a strong national defense, and we must stand firm in defense of the second amendment in defense of life and in defense of religious freedom. [applause] do these things and more, and we will restore america. i'm running for the united states senate because our country is going in the wrong direction, and senator ben nelson of nebraska is a big part of the reason why. we must defeat him. we will defeat him if we can get the financial help that we need for our campaign. now, ben nelson was the deciding vote to impose obamacare on our nation. he made that vote in exchange for the cornhusker kickback and voted to waste $870 million on

president obama's wasteful stimulus. he voted at the table, cut, cap, and balance. he went to washington claiming to be a moderate, but he is clearly a big government democrat right now. the good news is that i'm leading him in the polls 46% to 40%. [cheers and applause] the bad news -- [laughter] is that he's leading us by $3 million in campaign funds. thanks to his big government friends. we need some financial help to balance the scales. will you help us? [cheers and applause] just in case you want to know, our website is stenbergforsenate.com, and we can make it as easy as possible for you to help our campaign,

and we would appreciate that help. restoring america requires courage on the part of our elected officials. t.a.r.p. was passed because of threats of an economic depression if it didn't pass, but then most of the t.a.r.p. money was not used for what they said it was going to be used for. the debt ceiling was raised as part as a ban in insufficient budget deal because of overblown threats of immediate economic collapse if the debt ceiling was not raised by august 2nd. we need senators and members of congress who are not afraid to vote against bad deals. we need men and women of courage. i stand in awe of the courage of the signers of the declaration of independence. the declaration of independence was in effect a declaration of war against the military superpower of that day. the military expert at that time

would have told you that the rag-tag revolutionary army would be quickly defeated by overwhelming british force. signing the declaration of independence was an act of treason against the british crown. the penalty for treason was death. despite the e enormous risk, their love of freedom was greater than any fear they must have felt, and so they courageously signed their names blow these words, "and so for support of this declaration with firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually prejudice pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor." because of their enormous courage, we are free today, and i thank god that they had that courage. if our founding fathers had that much courage, surely we can find

men and women today who are not afraid to insist on the passage of a balanced budget amendment to the constitution of the united states. [applause] if congress had listened to the tea party, the credit rating of the united states would not have been cut last week. [applause] [cheers and applause] but it's not too late. we can restore america's aaa credit rating right now. we don't need to wait for the supercommittee. congress, go back to washington and pass cut-cap-balance right now. [cheers and applause] if we believe in freedom, and if we believe in america, and i know that you do, then let us go forward boldly with courage asking god's help, loving

freedom, remembering those who gave their lives for our freedom, loving our country, and changing our government so that our pos posterity will say of us, when the challenge came, we had the courage to defend our nation and restore our -- to defend our freedom and restore our nation. thank you, and may god bless you and may god bless the united states of america. [cheers and applause] >> taking any questions? >> i'd be happy to. [applause] >> folks, i got to tell you, you know, normally when endorsing a candidate at red state, i've gotten to know them somewhat. i endorsed don sight unseen on his record. [applause] it is that good of a record in nebraska. yeah, he just -- we've got to

support a guy like this to get rid of a guy like nelson. now, we'll open it up to questions. anybody -- right here. >> we have a lot of great young senate -- how do we get rid of the mcconnell and old boys that seem to -- [inaudible] >> yeah, the question was if we elect some young lions, and i appreciate being put in that category -- [laughter] you know, how do we overcome some of the gulled ol' boys? i had a conversation with senator demint about that, and his view, which i share, is that we need to send reenforcements to the rand paul, jim demint,

lee group. it's amazing how much what five new seriously committed conservative republicans could do in the united states senate. we send them another five or ten, if we can get that many, it's going to make a huge difference, and pretty soon the good boys have to follow what the new young lionsment to do and that's restoring the nation, cutting spending, and renew our freedom. [applause] >> yes, ma'am? >> now that you're headed to washington, what's your view of term limits? >> i'm a supporter of term limits. the attorney general of nebraska is not term limited by law or constitution. i served as the attorney general in the state of nebraska for 12 years, reelected twice with 68% of the vote both times, and i don't think there's any doubt i could have been reelected again had i chosen to do so, but i felt 12 years was enough, did

not seek reelection, returned to the private sector for eight years and returned as state treasurer last fall. i would support a constitutional amendment to the constitution of the united states to require term limes, and i want to point out as the attorney general of nebraska, our state passed term limits for our senator and congressmen. the arkansas case went to the supreme court could states limit their own senatorrings and congressmen, and i wrote the friend of the court a brief in support of the right of the states to limit the terms of their senators in congress. we're not successful in that effort, but we were there leading the effort as a friend of the court, and i would support a constitutional amendment to the constitution of the united states to impose term limits. [applause]

[cheers and applause] >> more from the red state gathering with former florida house of representatives, adam, who is running for the republican name nation to take on bill nelson in 2012. he speaks for about 20 minutes. >> i have to tell you charleston has a special place in my heart. this is where i proposed to my

wife, jillian, who i'm proud is here with us today. [applause] erik, i want to thank you for everything that you do, and i want to thank everyone who is here today, and who has taken the time out of their summer schedule in order to be a part of this incredible event. red state has truly become a central pillar of the conservative move movement, and i am just proud to be a part of it. now, being from palm beach county florida, i am always asked how it is possible that i turned out to be a conservative let alone a republican. well, i can tell you it certainly wasn't my upbringing. i was not raised in a privileged, conservative, or even a republican household -- far from it. my parents were liberal jewish democrats who were public schoolteachers from brooklyn,

new york. when i was born, they had $31 to their name, and they saved and sacrificed so that we could move to florida. i got my passion from my mom, and my love of baseball from my dad, but i got my politics from someone else. [laughter] that someone was ronald reagan. [cheers and applause] despite being born in brooklyn and despite growing up in palm beach coupe, and despite being the son of two jewish democrats, i came of age when it was morning in america, and when i turned 18, i registered as a republican. [cheers and applause] now, i'm sure you can imagine that conversation. [laughter] after the my lays of the carter years, ronald reagan just didn't tell us there was a shining city on a hill.

he led us there. he had a profound influence on my life, and i was inspired by his can-do spirit, his unapologizing em grace of america's greatness, his moral clarity, and common sense main street wisdom, and for all of that sunny optimism, ronald reagan was the original tea party insurgent. [applause] when he disagreed with the direction of the republican party, he didn't abandoned it. he changed it permanently and for the better, and his example still inspires me to this day, and it's a lesson to all of us that are determined to make the reforms needed in washington in order to save our country. now, ronald reagan didn't do anything halfway. he didn't manage america's decline. he reversed it. he didn't campaign on making inflation just a little bit less

painful. he stopped it. he didn't just slow down the soviets. he defeated them. [applause] ronald reagan came on the scene and swept away what passed for the conventional wisdom of the day. think about reagan four-word vision for the cold war -- we win, they lose. it sounds so simple, doesn't it? it brings to mind a great reagan quote, "they say the world is too complex for simple answers. they are wrong." that is even more true today. the experts and the establishment are once again telling us that we have to give more of our freedom, our money, and our decisions to people in washington, d.c.. we hear all this talk about changing the debate in washington, and how the policies

that we know are right aren't realistic. our job isn't just to slow down obamacare or simply manage the national debt our just accept 9% unemployment. our job is to provide a clear alternative to the policies in washington and offer real solutions to turn america around. [applause] because -- [applause] because the nature of the challenges we face simply demand that we put principle first and our country's faith ahead of politics, and that's why i believe so strongly in cut, cap, and balance. i was the first candidate in the country to sign on to it. i did so because it was the only proposal that actually attacked the real problem. it's the only proposal that actually may have given us a

fighting chance to stop the endless borrowing and spending, to stop the mountains of foreign debt, and to start us down the path of reigniting america's economy. now, it was so simple that even the experts in washington declared it impossible. it defied the con -- conventional wisdom, and it turned washington on its head, but isn't that exactly what we need to be doing right now? the recent debt deal is a perfect example of what is wrong in washington today. too much gamesmenship and not enough leadership. [applause] now, i've heard all the arguments and some good friends. defend it, and their their call, but it doesn't change the fact that it's a bad deal. the downgrade and common sense

proves it. now, the whole process was a dysfunctional mess, only in washington could they make this kind of stuff up. they tossed cut-cap-balance aside for what? a deal that adds $10 trillion more to our debt, a deal that opens the door for higher taxes and threatens our national security, all curtesy of a not-so-super committee. if the debt limit fight doesn't prove that we need more principled conservatives in washington, then i don't know what does. this suspect just about cutting -- this is not just about cutting. it's also about growing, growing the economy to provide the jobs and opportunities that our nation is capable much. we need leaders who speak out for pro-growth policies that build our economy and create

jobs. we need to be aggressive on sweeping tax reform, to flatten and simplify the tax code, and we should push to eliminate loopholes, subsidies, and special interest carveouts, and lower the rates for individuals and businesses. [applause] you see, democrats see tax reform as an excuse to raise taxes, punish job creators, and redistribute wealth. we see tax reform as a manner of fairness, and a way of stimulating economic growth in our country, but getting government out of the way doesn't just mean reforming taxes. it means reversing job-killing regulations. president obama wants 4200 new regulations on businesses. the epa alone wants to implement 330 on everything from farms to construction sites.

let's freeze any new regulation that would have a substantial economic impact, and up stead of epa's stealth cap and trade scheme, we should be pursuing more domestic energy exploration. [cheers and applause] while we're at it, let's shake up the agencies that are killing jobs and let's begin with a national labor relations board. [cheers and applause] we must -- [applause] we must stop them from advancing big labors agenda through the back door, and what they are doing to companies like boeing is economic extortion, and it is anti-american. [cheers and applause] lastly, if we are going to solve our nation's debt crisis and jobs crisis, we must repeal obamacare.

[cheers and applause] obamacare is a trillion dollar nightmare that will make our health care system worse, not better. it will lead to the rationing of care, tax increases on small businesses, and increases on dependency on government, and once it's implemented, it will be impossible to get rid of. the fall of great societies begins when freedom gives way to depend sigh, but if we act bodily, we can reverse the course that president obama and washington politicians placed us on because it's not too late. america's decline is not inevitable. if we place our trust in the power of individuals and not the power of the state, then we will usher in a new era of economic prosperity and security.

if we hold president obama accountable and provide a clear alternative to his failed policies, we can and will take back the white house and the united states senate and achieve the vital reforms necessary to turn america around. [cheers and applause] but we've got to be willing to fight, to stand firm, to not blipping, to do the hard work to ensure victory, to knock on doors and walk presipghts to blog, tweet, and work in phone banks. it's not easy. as eric says, it takes a lot of money, sweat, and prayer, but i know it works because it's how i ended up here. you see, in 2002 when i decided to run for the florida house, a lot of people said that i didn't have a chance. they said i was too young and

too conservative. the party establishment told me to wait my turn, but i knocked on over 10,000 doors and won a four-way primary. [cheers and applause] then people said he wouldn't last, that i could never get reelected in my district was an a-rating from the nr ark. they attacked me for being pro-life, and for standing up against the unions. my local newspapers beat me up for being too ideological and too rigid and despite it all, i won reelection three times. [cheers and applause] the eight years that i served as a part-time legislator was a tremendous honor. we were proud foot soldiers in jeb bush's conservative revolution. we cut taxes. we reformed education. we balanced every budget and

grew florida's economy, and then in 2007, i was picked by the speaker of the house to serve as the republican majority leader. that speaker was my friend, marco rubio. [cheers and applause] marco once describedded me as the most partisan republican in tallahassee. [laughter] now, he meant it as a complement, and the mainstream media tried to use it as an insult, and i wore it as a badge of honor. [applause] now, it was also that same year when charlie crist became governor. he campaigned as a bush conservative, but when he was in office, he began governing like a president obama individual. people have short memories in politics. they forget that before obama, before the tea party, and before

the great american awakening, the establishment in our party was telling conservatives that the way to beat the democrats was to be more like them, but like you, i stood by marco's side while the party establishment stood with charlie. when his poll numbers were through the roof, on the cover of every magazine, and was being referredded to as the -- referredded to as the future of the republican party, we stood up to him, we ignored the polls, ignored the establishment, and ignored those who declared that conservative was dead. our beliefs never changed, and our principles never waiverred. we proved the media and experts wrong them, and we can do it again today. [applause] we can't back down now because if we don't stand and fidgeted, nobody else will.

the work of people like you in this room and in rooms like it all across this country, began this revolution in 2010, and we must work even harder now. we must send more people to washington who will do what is right, not just what is popular or easy. we need conservatives who will stand up to the democrats and to the republicans who act like them. [applause] you see, this is even -- this is even more important now than ever because after the message we sent last year, every politician is trying to reup vent themselves as a conservative, and it is getting so silly right now in florida. where charlie, former chief of staff, the guy who crashly called his maestro, the same guy

who two years ago described himself as a charlie republican and was attacks marco rubio is now trying to run as a true blue conservative. now, think about that. that is like rahm emmanuel running from president obama. now is not the time for reinvention, but reenforcements -- [applause] republicans to stand alongside jim demanipulate, marco, mike lee, and the new generation of limited government leaders, and i would be proud and honored to be one of those leaders you send to washington next year. please join our movement. visit adam hasner.com, connect with us on facebook and twitter because this is a battle for the heart and soul of our country, and we must rise to this generational challenge like those before us rose to theirs,

because when we look back at this moment in our nation's history, i want us all to be able to say that we answered the call. join me to fight the status quo in washington and together, we will save the united states of america. thank you, all. god bless you, and god bless the united states. [cheers and applause] [applause] >> so, you know, we put him on the spot here at the red state gathering. they not only pay their own way, but take questions too. i was saying they can stop the he's the next marco person because he gives a heck of a speech himself. questions, ma'am, right back here, second row. >> [inaudible]

[inaudible] [inaudible] >> let me share with you that i was one of the figure in the country as a -- first in the country as a candidate to embrace the paul ryan plan to embrace medicare, and i recognize many of the challenges we have and decisions we have to make in order to preserve social security. you see, in florida, we have 3.3 million floridians on medicare. every one of us in the room knows the medicare trustees said medicare will be bankrupt in the next ten years. if we do not make the tough decision now and transform the system from one that does not work with health care inflation what it is and 10,000 baby boomers coming on to the rolls

every single day, if we don't make the tough decisions now for future generations, these programs are going to collapse on current beneficiaries, and they are going to burden future generations with crushing taxes, a lower standard of living, and infringement on their personal freedom. people ask me all the time -- you're running for united states senate in the state of florida where the senior population is so high. e remind them -- florida's seniors have the most to lose if we don't have this conversation, so what we need to do is go out, arm people with the facts. we need to be on offense. republicans are far too often too passive. we need to be aggressive. we need to have the facts, information, the charts, the numbers, and the stats and go out and persuade the american people that the way we're going to preserve our greatness is not by increasing taxes and build on

these programs, but by making them work for future generations unlike the way that they currently are headed in in terms of their current path and direction. >> [inaudible] >> i believe that the reforms start with the ryan plan is a great first step. i fully embrace it in terms of providing individuals with the payments so that they can go out and purchase their own health insurance. put the decisions back into individual's hands. we trust in the individual, not into government. that's the beginning of being able to reform medicare, and then when it comes to social security, we need to be more specific about raising the retirement age. we need to be more specific about how we calculate benefits. we need to be more specific about giving people the opportunity to have their owning thes and ultimately be able to opt out. that's what's going to preserve the social safety net for future

generations. >> yes, senator -- >> we have not gotten there yet, but thank you -- [laughter] thank you for your optimism. [laughter] >> our chair says that -- [inaudible] [inaudible] i wonder you we can see the problem considering that we can probably close -- [inaudible] >> we were just in haines city the other day for the political barbecue, and while i recognize that so much of the crime in florida and elsewhere in the country is drug related, that i don't support efforts for legalization. i'm watching what's going on

right now alongs the southern border. there's a full-fledged war taking place along the mexican border, and what we see with the drug cartels, and what we see with kidnapping and murdering and the human rights abuses, legalizing drugs is not going to make that situation better. we need to be more individual -- vigilant to preserve our values our and culture. [applause] >> [inaudible] agriculture, epa, and innovation, what are you going to do to -- [inaudible] >> that is the beginning, but it can only be the beginning, and restoring -- restoring -- >> [inaudible] >> the question was domestic discretionary spending and the elimination of certain agencies in order to -- beginning to

dismantle government, and it starts with education, energy. it starts with housing and urban development, department of transportation -- >> [inaudible] >> we have to go in and win the battle of ideas. this is an ideological battle. we need to be ail to demonstrate that job growth and economic prosperity does not come with more -- with higher taxes and the growth in government. what we have seen in washington over the past few years and even before that, e just don't blame the democrats. republicans share in the blame of growing the size of the federal government. we also have to recognize -- we also have to recognize the size or the portion of the budget that's over 60% is on the social security, medicare, and medicaid side. while we work to restore constitutional principled spending which means dissolving pour back to the states in areas of education and elsewhere, we

have to remember we're not even going to come close to our fiscal responsibility promises if we don't address the other issues of social security and medicaid. medicaid is a great example on how to block grant funding back to the states and give states more power. >> [inaudible] >> adam, an absolute pleasure for having you here. >> thank you all so much again. thank you so much. [applause]

>> back now to the third annual red state gathering with current u.s. house candidate, michael from texas. >> thank you for your friendship, and thank you, my friend, with your support of this particular race. you gave me an opportunity very special today to be in this room as my friend and colleague for the last 1 years, announced his candidates to be president of the united states. my friends, this is already one of the best things i've had. you know, i wanted to do something, very, very special. somebody once asked the great american novelist who gave him the inspiration to write "roots," and he said when you go about your business each and every day, you should find some good and praise it.

my friend, i came to praise good. .. america's exceptional not simply because of our per-capita income are not simply because of how many of our youngsters go to college. we are exceptional because we are the only nation on the planet that came to her heavenly father. my friends, i came here just to see if i could get somebody

stirred up in the next couple of months and get you ready for the campaign. my friends, it is interesting this thing about fighting for and liberty, we understand this notion of individual liberty and personal responsibility and so we are fighting in a war that is a complex if visions, vision of some folks who believe the only way that we can prosper is for government to row and for those of us who know that we prosper by a person kind come each and every single one of us. folks understand quite frankly on the one hand you have a government that does they can force you to buy certain products, sort of like health care which means one day they may want to force me to buy chocolate and idoni chukka. they may want to tell you wait a minute, they are going to control your business and your family, and epa that is following the fancy of global warming rather than letting a american producers produce american energy. somebody is going to sit there

and tell me that wait a minute, he is going to not recognize i have an inherent right that came from someone above to possess and bear and carry my arms and my friends i'm a texan so of course i have a concealed handgun license. i am a carrier. my friends, we have got work to do in the moment i have today want to spend some time -- everybody in this room knows we have heard folks come to this podium before me to talk about how we have got to be about the business of cutting spending and ending earmarks in stopping this the slide to european-style socialism. my friends, we just saw an exercise in washington, raising the debt ceiling. i have to admit i don't know why we call at the ceiling when we keep raising the roof. now we are looking at

$16.5 trillion debt. $200,000 per capita, so the new child is born today every five minutes we get 67 new children born in this country. what do their parents get? they get a certificate in one hand and a federal debt will in the other because we are spending money we don't have. we are arming money that we can pay back. my friends, we know that we have to cut and don't let any of us come to you and say that we will cut spending and they will answer two questions. have you ever done it before and what are you willing to cut? when i became a member of the railroad commission of texas i put my left him in the bible in my right hand in the air and that praised with so helping of the railroad connection -- when i resigned on april 2 they authorized less than 705 and we had less than 670 on the

payroll. i'm a politician who has cut the size of government. my friends in addition to that i have to tell you it occurs as no small risk or sacrifice. back in 2005, the texas legislature gave the ate of the statewide officeholders in the executive branch a 45,000-dollar per year pay raise. and i never took a penny of it. not in 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10 or 11 before he left. my friends i want you to know that i know how to put the words public in server and in the same phrase. as texans know i do have to admit what i'm saying, i am married to a talented and absolutely gorgeous woman. and even if i have taken a pay raise that would not have been the breadwinner and my family so i want to be kept in the lifestyle to which i had been accustomed. i had the occasion for two and

half years to be an assistant secretary at the department of education under george h. w. bush. this country did not have the u.s. department of education in 1979. it will not need one in no -- 2013. [applause] for the last 12 years, for the last 12 years it was my daily obligation to try to make sure that america had an abundance of affordable and reliable and safe energy. we did not have the department of energy in 1973 and you won't need one in 2013. [applause] my friends, we can defund np r&d fund planned parenthood but i have another one for you. president george bush of pointed my wife donna to something called the corporation for national and community service. she left and went to washington for her first board meeting.

after she had flown through senate confirmation must faster than i ever did when i was appointed. they said what do we do? do you know what the corporation of national community service does? 957 million of your dollars every year getting people to volunteer in their local community. help a brother and her stand come has anybody here ever volunteered for anything? and of the national government have to give you to volunteer? my friends we have to have a whole lot of cuts and activity just like that but we have to be more than 30 program. we have to go about the business of creating wealthy prosperity and jobs in this country and it seems to me that one of the first places we look and had to look is that our tax dollar. my dad is a retired high school football coach. dad was inducted into thousand of the texas high school coaches hall of fame. battled foot wall coach would say if your team isn't winning

and other teams are you might want to do what they are doing. my friends there are two ways we can do it. if we look around the world looking at some of those -- one of the things many of them have done is move to a simple flat tax. i recognize there is another option. a national fair tax. but as long as we have a constitutional amendment to eliminate 16th amendment we can get there because if we don't, somebody in washington will try to take the money out of both of our pockets. my friends, we have lost it to something else. in creating jobs, let's take one of the resources that was given to us to use as a platform to create jobs in america. we should be exploring for every model fuel of american energy, everyplace of a molecule of american energy. we should exploring the east coast, the west coast the gulf of mexico and in anwr. [applause]

my friends in order to keep the lights on we recognize to keep the lights on we have to rely upon american natural gas. whether you look at some estimates that we have a 100 year supply or another estimate that we have a three and a deer supply we are going to turn the lights on for american gas, clean coal and nukes. thing about nuclear power. the french 75% of their power is nuclear power in the japanese 35%. my goodness if the french can figure it out, surely we can. [applause] in order to move our cars, trucks and buses, i don't know what some entrepreneur and technologist will develop tomorrow, but i have an idea that the way they get from today where we spend $40 billion a month on foreign crude, much of it going to people who don't like us, causing us to pay both sides of that war. the way we get from there to there is american natural gas. my friend's --

[applause] we have other things we have to do. as a prospective congressman from a southern state, we have got to recognize that we have to control that border. it is interesting, pope john paul ii said america is a whole. we were created under a divine idea. the idea that all men are created equal and we want people to come to america. part of what makes this country as great as she is is the confluence of all of those juices that came from different kind of places. but there is a way to come to america. it is consistent with the rule of law. my friends because some folks haven't got the message, we have to control that border. i think you control it with a wide for 80th tools. some places where offense -- other places where you might use a technology fence and in still others you will need loots on

the ground and because that is an international order, some of those boots are going to be military boots. my friends, we have got to also say, we have also got to say quite frankly that we have got to provide disincentives for folks to break our laws. say no to an uzi uzi and we say no to -- cities and no to benefits for folks who came over here illegally and revisit the question of birthright citizenship. i go back and think about -- i go back and think about what was the purpose of 13th, 14th and 15th amendments and that is why my friends we need to be clear about that. we also have to say to employers, we will give you the tools. we ought not to force them to use it but we get tools to make a determination who lives here legally and who does not but if one persists in hiring folks that are not here legally, i'm

all in all prosecutor. they should get their day in court. [applause] my friends there any number of things we can and ought to be doing. i want to just leave you with about why i think if we have a conversation we would say this notion about the american dream and fighting for the principles of individual liberty and personal responsibility are part of our family's story. i want to share with you some parts of the williams family. my grandfather was a unique man, one of the few men of his generation who earned a high school degree. he became an entrepreneur, business owner, a patriarch of the black community in texas where i was born and raised. he wanted his daughter, my mother, to have a similar life with similar opportunities. but the midland school only went to eighth grade, so my grandfather put my mother on a train and sent my mother to san antonio texas 200 plus miles

away where she attended a catholic girls school, and graduated from high school, went on to college, went to graduate school, became a teacher and taught for 40 years. when i came along, my parents wanted the same thing for me. i went to catholic school k-8. there was no catholic high school. i am old enough to have gone to school doing -- during segregation but i didn't go to segregated schools even though my parents taught in one. so what did my parents do? they found a catholic border school when kenyan city colorado, 602 miles away. when it came time to go to school dad was coaching. mom was teaching so they put me on the bus. they pulled out a map. they take eight -- to the route of the map. they put circles by the cities where the bus would stop. they put axes by some of the

other cities. they gave me some rolls of coins. they said, when you get to the exes call your grandmother to let her know you are all right. my friends i will tell you you cannot send a 13-year-old child on a bus 602 miles away from home to a community where there is nobody who looks like him other than the people in the state prison in not having embedded in his dna the notion of individual liberty and personal responsibility. it is played out in unique ways. as i go around our state, this country, people are telling me that what you are looking for in this cycle, the job description if you will, for people you want to send to washington are people who have records, proven records as consistent constitutional conservatives who have the courage to go to washington and will not wilt under the washington union, will stand up to obama, reid pelosi and even the republican establishment if that is necessary.

[applause] who will not be seduced, who while not a seduced by "the washington post" and "the new york times" and who can rally americans around the next generation of conservative solutions and ideals. my friends, give no in 1986 i was a 33-year-old ross acute or of the united states department of justice in the reagan justice department. i was the lawyer assigned to the case, the united states of america versus five members of the carolina nights of the kkk. i had indicted those individuals for conspiring to obtain weapons stolen from fort bragg, and other military installations across the south. they go to the records of the united states senate they will tell you that i prosecuted those cases under no small risk to myself. individuals who have done harm to others put a death warrant out against me. i put three of my witnesses in the federal witness protection program.

i tried two of the cases under the heavy protection of federal agents. and at the end of the day, those five individuals got a taxpayer paid trip to a federal institution of higher learning. [applause] four years later, four years later i was an assistant secretary at the u.s. department of education under president george h. w. bush and i announced a statement is at colleges and universities should discontinue assigning seats in their classrooms and providing financial aid dollars for their students based upon one's bloodline. "the new york times," "the washington post," the "dallas morning news," "the boston herald," other major newspapers across the south said it was in a frontal assault on race-based race-based -- wide-awake silly that story? i tell you the stories for a

reason. we are insignificant times at the moment. you are getting ready to hire some folks. i think you have told me what that job description is. i have to think that the courage that was shown by that 33-year-old kid still resting this 50-year-old man as he stands here -- [applause] i have to think that the fidelity to the notion of individual liberty, the prospect of giving to all american youngsters the opportunity to sit in those seats, the responsibility we have to educate them all and get them all excited and willing and prepared to be our next leaders. i have to believe that fidelity to that notion of individual liberty rests here as well. so my friends from texas, my friends from -- 25 and my friends from across the country, if you are looking for somebody who has got a record of

achievement, and a vision for a brighter american future, i ask for your support and your help. [applause] made a piece of the lord be with you. may god bless you. magog bless america. thank you. [applause] >> i'm going to ask you the first question because our friend the governor is not here and i just need somebody's response from for this. while the governor of texas was announcing he was running a profound metaphor to this image, while the governor of texas was standing near sane he was running for president the president was playing golf in a rainstorm by himself.

at andrews air force base. >> you know, we have a working governor and after the january 2013 we will have a working president. and as a matter of fact i'm surprised -- governor perry does not play golf. [laughter] >> the district where you are running. >> the district you to remember texas because of our growth we are getting for new seats. this is not one of those. this is a seed that has been drawn in a way that is now pretended to be governor perry took the -- 53% of the vote and senator mccain got 56% of the vote in his presidential bid so it is a republican seat and i look at it as a take away seats because it is currently held by one of the more liberal members of the senate and won it be ironic to replace doggett with

me. the difference is that he has got hair and i don't but that's the right. the district is a fairly long. it is about 200 plus miles length. it goes from a small part of tarrant county and shaped like a banana on the west side of i 35 and it runs through all the way down to a large part of traverse county and then the end of it is hays county so it is 13 counties. it is anchored in travis county. travis county is about 249,698,000 folks -- people live in that district. 550,000 voting age population but 698,000. yes, maam? >> you are very conservative and you in your thinking, but could you

describe exactly what you are -- [inaudible] >> i think there are a couple of different ways. she asked me, she said, you sound to be conservative and have a conservative record. how in the heck did you get there? i parents were not political when i was younger but they have become more political as i have gotten older. my parents were quite conservative. obviously they are conservative in terms of, you can see it in terms of our faith up ringing and you can also tell it in terms of the way they live their lives. my parents got a new card even though they could afford one, every seven or eight years. my parents were very very huge sticklers about saving and preparing for the future. in addition to that, i say i am blessed with three things and has helped shape who i am today. number one i have the heavenly father but number two i was born in america and i was born in one

of the most conservative cities in the country at that time, midland texas a city that has given you two american presidents as a matter fact. that was part of it. i also grew up at a time however, have to admit i was not a conservative as a college student. i grew up at a time in which a college in the early 70s and when i returned home to midland in 78 after i got out of law school i started analyzing my think -- myself and thinking, how do you create wealth? how is it legal about the business of advancing the african-american community? i said one team has one plan and we have seen that one. it doesn't work and there is another plan. i started investigating that other plan. back in 1982, i went up to a cabin that my parents owned in a city called rhea dose of new mexico and they took with me a bible and milton friedman's book and i have to tell you when i

came out of that no man knew exactly what i was. this is true. and it has been on the run ever since, ever since. who else? [inaudible] [inaudible] >> can i piggyback on that? one of the things, i heard one of the questions that was asked prior to me coming up here. you guys don't know how important you are to the movement we are in the midst of, because we are in a movement of

sort of not only providing education but immobilizing new voices and additional voices and what we have got to get back to the business of doing is what ronald reagan said her go first when the argument and then when the vote and we win the argument quite frankly by engaging all kinds of folks are biting them with information, providing them with a persuasion and that is what we have to do. we are in the persuasion business right now so we should take that information and share it with a bunch of folks. i think they are telling me my time has ended. >> one more question. >> one more question, way in the back. [inaudible] >> i mean think about it. the federal and shoe policy today is affected by number of things. number one global warming and

the threat of greenhouse gas regulation of rainouts gases. also we also have onshore the challenge of dealing with the u.s. fish and wildlife agency who now has decided it is going to protect a three-inch sand dune lizard at the risk of hundreds of thousands of arrows of crude on the largest onshore crude oil in the lower 48, and thousands and thousands of jobs. we have got refiners in this country that had on schedule large construction. -- projects who will tell us today that they have shut down those because they don't know what is going to happen with obamacare. i do. repeal and replace but they don't know what is going to happen with obamacare and they don't know what is going to happen with greenhouse gas. if you look at what is happened in the gulf, we know that the bp incident was one of the consequence of human error and we produce crude there every

day. and have been doing so every day safely. what we should do is make sure that producers attend to the rules and when they don't, they should then -- we should have them then deal with those enforcement agencies but you they don't shut down production in the gulf. those rigs have left and most will never come back. on sure if you think about it, for every reg that is running onshore, that is about 12 jobs just on the rig. then there are another eight to 12 indirect and induced jobs and in keeping with that, that is just on an annualized basis because obviously some of the people are there for a couple of weeks and some do their job and go a way and go to another rig. so we put american jobs at risk

because somebody really just does not want is producing in the gulf and elsewhere. somebody just wants to sort of go after the energy industry and our ability to produce our own energy. think about the nature of borrowing money from the chinese so we can loan it to the brazilians so they can go drill for oil. [inaudible] >> the question is what do we do about the black vote and let me mention a couple of things. we have got to recognize and we have to have a conversation with that community and we have to meet that community where that community is.

we are so impressed with our policy position we want to run up to people and say here. i tell folks all the time that the way we make that change is for them to understand first of all who we are and so it and getting to understand who we are we have got to have a conversation. having had the conversation we have a responsibility. you guys applauded when i talked about my work at the department of education on individual liberty, right? when we see somebody act in a way that is clearly racist, clearly biased, clearly discriminatory we need to be the first people in the room to say no. nature -- and if we don't fill it somebody else will so don't get upset if somebody on the left if we didn't philip first. that doesn't mean that we cower every time somebody calls is a racist or something else, calls this a racist or a nazi or

whatever, whatever those words are. we have to have that conversation. i am condensed and this may sound self-serving, but i am convinced that with the election of allen west and tim scott and michael williams, you are going to start, you are going to start a prairie fire and with that prairie fire you are going to give folks permission -- [applause] you are going to give folks permission. you are going to give folks permission to say i am a republican. i find it interesting as i go around my state the number of folks who come up to me and say you know i voted republican. right now what we want is the vote. we want them to vote with us and that is going to happen as we get more and more of us to get on that national stage and more of us are seen by the folks in that community. they are going to say well, my goodness, if he can do it i might be able to do it and the

community grieves with us on those -- they just don't think they like us. >> michael williams i'm going to make a point here at the end that may get me in trouble or not relevant to this. it won't get me in trouble. you and allen westin tim scott, i just got an e-mail from a buddy of mine who says herman cain is in iowa right now and it is the darndest thing to see 13,000 i went out here -- cheering herman cain on stage. [applause] and we are in the second part rational district in south carolina which is the district that fired the first shot in the civil war and it happens to be represented by a black man who happens to be a republican. [applause] and it is nice to see michael williams and allen westin tim scott and herman cain in the list goes on, running not a stun

who they are, but on what their ideas are. and you have been consistently, since 2009, i still can't get over the fact that you are railroad commissioner who has nothing to do with railroads, but the power of your ideas and what you say, i have appreciated you prefer and i thank you so much for being here and folks, you can send michael williams to the united states congress with your prayers, your money and your voting. [applause] ..

next to the evolution of homeland security since 9/11. former and current representative is from the department of homeland security and the private sector spoke of the early days of the department to read cybersecurity threats and information sharing. this panel is part of a discussion hosted by the chamber of commerce. it's about 55 minutes. >> from a national standpoint of the organization are they changing or evil thing, what are they going to look like ten years from now? pfc your efforts as a first private sector office and a dam in the senior sector and linda from the o.d. in my private sector office and north, as the private sector office. is that a good thing or --

>> we can protect those trusted traveler programs, those trusted shipping programs. all of those things that help expedite the commerce and the movement of people. when i was asked what do you do i would use the example saying you travel, everyone here gets on an airplane, what would you rather have? you want to have security or facilitation expedia.com si gooding through? if you raise your hand you want security i would say i think it is extremely important. neutral six hours before the flight to have to be there but we can't do that. second side was the one to get through the airport faster okay we are going to sign a waiver because we are a legal country and losses are important that is your plan blows up because there's a bomb you're not going to hold the airline or the government or anybody else responsible for it because this is one of the consequences that's going to happen, so again, the answer is we've talked about the public-private partnership that as we go

forward this is the kind of thing we have to do working together and making sure that again, trade, commerce, our daily lives are not hampered or hindered. >> so i was watching hells kitchen less i and one person comes up with raw stevan and one person comes up with burned salmon. i recognize burned rall and bur. there's 20 different competition shows and i think what quantity we can sometimes lose quality. and so, to get to your question about five years from now where do i think we need to be, ten years ago people were barely speaking to the public-private partnership and just any of the vernacular. now everybody has their own program, state and local land regional and national public-private partnerships that don't even have a public side so

they are not really public and private but everyone has their own communication network and statement, and we've got into the world where they are ubiquitous and nobody understands them and then they are competing so they collectively have achieved with the each individually serve to get at. so some people don't like hearing it i think we need to synchronize and in some cases compromise to get the best ideas to float to the top so we remain focused on survivors and communities in the resilient america. >> i would say within the context of either protecting america work resilience in america we focus inside that for the critical infrastructure and what has to happen in the critical infrastructure is a better connection between the things that happen that the generals level and in washington the things we put together at the national level. we have not yet figured out exactly how we get those to synchronize and complement each

other as well as they should. saddam the road, i would expect that we would build a much better framework systematically doing that public-private partnership across the three levels of the government which is the public partners. >> a couple things i would like to ask. estimate there are two things we need to accomplish that it's reached a certain maturation lovell at things. people join those things for lots of different reasons. media was looked at as national interest for good corporate citizens, maybe there was a commercial competitive to do business with ex i have to belong to ex. we've now gotten to the point of the preparation response point of view we need to be thinking of these public and private partnerships about how we expand

the people involved in these things to drive them down further into smaller business entities and a broader participation, so that's one thing and then the second thing is how do we keep them from becoming a regulatory in nature rather than being a true volunteer a public-private partnership days and how we continue to answer the question for participants of what's in it for me? until we can do those things we are going to be kind of stuck in limbo and i think it is our biggest challenge from the public and private partnership point of view of moving forward in the homeland security initiatives but it's also the biggest opportunity that we have. >> when you think of cybersecurity in the public and private partnership, five years down the road, ten years down the road, we could look at the public-private partnership as an electronic one and that is when we think about the technology

that all of our critical infrastructures operate on there is an extraordinary amount of technological innovation and a lot of that innovation breeds more formidable lobbies, more threats, more exculpates, and there's sort of an interesting think peace from the dhs released not long ago called cyberspace and it's a futuristic look at how we can develop long-term with concerted basic research and research and development and electronic internet based network based ecosystems that is self aware, self peelings of monitoring in an automated way, and it's really something to think about if we devote resources to research and get us to the point where we have a broadly distributed interoperable automated system for recognizing threats, stopping them before they have been coming keeping our electronic ecosystem secure,

resilient and functional. >> i'd like to just comment about the fact of where are we going to be in a fight for ten years is more of where we are going to have to be an five for ten years. if you look at what is happening, 420 million people crossed the borders every year, 70,000 containers in the maritime it's looking to double by the year 2015. we are going to have to come up with a way of reducing the size of the haystack and concentrate our efforts on what truly opposes a threat. finland's like the trusted

traveler programs i believe are going to be absolutely essentials if we are going to be able to manage this huge amount of people and finance that are moving in the country but that also entails people studying up and being willing to provide information and i know you don't like to hear that about asking for more information than we are already asking for but that is a necessary part of in my opinion of the solution down the road and what i would like to see the chamber do and initiate is a program "if you see something, say something" campaign to encourage the members of the chamber. who travels the most in this country? the business community. that is who is out there moving around the country. if we can get you to initiate a

program to encourage the people in the companies of their traveling to join distrusted traveler programs, up for the global entry and other programs that's going to facilitate moving them more quickly through a and going back to the issue it was all about what were the benefits going to be. what is the company going to get that they provided in the tier three capabilities. so the benefit is it helps you, it helps your employees and the men and women out there on the front lines to try to separate the good from the bad potentially so maybe the chamber could put it "if you see something, say something" campaign encourage your employees to join these programs, and maybe even be willing to pay a few bucks for them to do that as well.

i know that is asking to do a little bit too much but that is something i would like to see happen. >> to the synchronizing compromise i would add operational, the united states for example when we activate the state emergency operations center for any hazard the association of the washington business comes in and engages with us and i told them i don't want to push information to you, i don't want to wondering what i know. whenever i know i want you to know real time. you're welcome. be part of the team. we have a corporate affairs section that deals directly with our business partners and so we do participate in tabletop exercises, corporate tabletop exercises with high sensitivity to proprietary information and we are honored to be asked to be there and contribute what we can to be there as the exercise i think it's healthy to have members of the business

community observed the resources the partnerships so that they really become trusted. >> we need to get more of the states doing that. i think that washington is a sort of leader in that area. we need to get more of the state's that have a private sector seat in their fusion senator finding the training. >> its seats, not a seat. >> one of the things the general points out is the public-private partnership is a contingency relationship. it's for when that hurricane happens, not all of it but some pieces of it how do we make that work, because people in many cases won't invest the time until ultimately be needed until the hurricane happens and it's this building a more agile way of having that supported in that

period of time there isn't something happening there requires you to take your precious time and focus it on this. obviously post even to everybody's focused on it, but the period between the hurricanes and some states and regions etc., how we maintain the glue and keep the relationships going? we have to find a better way that is less occupying of people's time to sustain them. >> we talk of the public and private partnership and i really want to make this real what we mean by that and i think that randy malae has a great example from conway the terrorist plot in texas. do you want to give people a little flavor of what that was like? >> one thing i'm not going to give is a lot of details of what is going on because the case is still being tried, and also i'm not going to get a lot of details about the methods of stuff i'm going to put my hat on today's is that everybody knows that i won't share either. [laughter] i will share as much as i can.

early on, conaway was involved with an old program at the tsa called highway watch. we helped develop that program and trained thousands of truck drivers across the country and the work force is trained under the highway watch. there was a very early in the process. but since then, through the corporate security and risk-management and recovery efforts, pandemic efforts come all these things that kind of blend into an all hazards type of approach to the training and it has evolved not as simple as see something say something but how do you recognize anomalies in the system, what things should mchugh want to push the button, raise your hand, whenever you call it and move it through the escalation plan? once our corporate sector gets a hold of it, then it is that a

little bit more, and we work very closely with both local and federal law enforcement to investigate these things but for those of you that don't know what it is talking about, the shipment through the system that we discovered down in austin texas was a chemical that shouldn't be moved into a private preference, those kind of things come and we were able to report that to the right authorities. it moved up the ladder, and ultimately that was the individual who was alleged to have had targeted former president bush's, and that sort of thing so we felt very proud that our system works, but that was a result much liked the homeland security efforts are tall businesses and in the public space coming years and years of evolution and moving to the new norm, and i think that is a great lesson to learn that

while a lot of things that have to do with terrorism are strictly based on terrorism and don't interrupt laid out with safety these things are not totally unrelated to and from a corporate point of view when it comes to risk management, business continuity plans, employee training, those sort of things, they really are complementary and if they are done right, you can get a -- it can become a part of your culture where it is embedded in your system and through the annual training reminders and encouragement, we find the we do get involved with a lot of these kinds of things that all. >> do you want to talk about the private sector seat at the nrcc and how that has been maturing? >> it goes to where we need to be in five years to your

original question. we've made a lot of mistakes that fema to the good intentions and because martinez to the good thing and that is to bring the private sector in. not just for exercise and meetings the we've done a lot of that but we've created a position that rotates every 90 days where a member of the private sector works on the team in their operations center behind the iron wall, sees everything i see, welcome of all the meetings and gives us a real-life check. we started last november followed by a dog from big lots and let me stop there for a second because we created our own problem. if you don't notice of the government side and public site most of them seem to think private sector and retailer are synonymous terms. forget there's this whole other world out there. so then we have the properties the was critical because everyone had said let's put the full property and getting to answer the question we are able to educate folks about the role of the property management

firms. and then currently, we have come and i think that market is here, we have for a rise in, thinking very much, bill from verizon started his rotation and we have home depot's scheduled in the year if anybody is interested. but the point of the program is i'm not a fan of all of platitudes and a year of the government being transparent. you can call any of them or other companies. if nothing else we learn from each new fallujah rotation and the learn from us the challenges of the cycle. >> especially the recommendations from the 9/11 commission. were their recommendations that have not yet been implemented that you think should be and also talk a little bit i will open about the role of technology going forward and immigration and other programs.

>> one is exit which i talked about but another one that is often overlooked is the idea of regular consequences for immigration violation and this gives out why we have such a sizable label on the immigration population because people who do overstay their visas don't feel or to the code your consequences for some other purpose or effect someone works here illegally there often are not consequences for that. so, this gets at this overstate question coming and a couple ways that technology can help is one, the system while we have come a long way in terms of sharing information and breaking down the stovepiped database among the state department, cbp, i.c.e., etc., and the doj, there's still a long way to go.

ideally where we want to get to race for all of these agencies across these departments and including state and local law enforcement to be able to see the same information across the agencies particularly real time immigration status because the determines and makes the decision for what this person is applying for if they are eligible for the next visa or admissible into the country. if they are deportable, so to do that, we need to continue to connect to databases so that across-the-board they have the same view. another aspect to it is agencies need to know who they are dealing with, the need to have trusted identities of the individuals, there's still quite a bit of identity fraud, identity theft that increasing in the cyberworld, and there is actually a promising private

public effort going on under what's known as nstic. whether it is to set up a bank account, to ask for a movie on the netflix etc, having to manage more and more passwords across all of these commercial entities people tend not to manage so they use the same password over and over again to identity theft, commercial fraud, etc.. so this is where nstic came about to tackle that. so in addition to improving commercial transactions and decreasing the possibility of identity scott, there are real benefits to the side of immigration from this idea.

the people applying for the immigration benefits, visa, etc., then the prospect of the fraud goes down and a lot more integrity comes to the system. the government and agencies can get out of the business of having to develop or be in the identity business. >> one last question before we open up to the audience. for the panel, ten years later aren't we focused on the right thing to be focused on the right problems? we spent a lot of time on airlines and a lot of time on other aspects. what are we missing? what should be focusing on? >> i can tell you that we have focused a great deal of energy on the aviation and energy on maritime. but one of the great vulnerability that still remains is general aviation.

we can track and regulate some of the commercial, but if you think about some of the aircraft that are coming across the border that we really don't know that much about coming into another area that i think we need to be focusing on is a u.s. coal type of situation. can you imagine that have thick out because if a tanker were attacked by a small vessel at the port of l.a. and a sock it in that harbour it would be devastating to really focus i believe that there's a great deal of interest on the part of the adversaries out there and the aviation and and this terrorism where they are picking

smaller and more strategic targets to go after that is not quite as operationally challenging. and the small strategies are areas that we are just not up to. estimate i will refer to other topics. i think we needed a lot more work on the process, and first off, if how there is an issue that is a public and private problem then there should be public and private solution. too often on the public side here's the solution and force feed it. i recently got back to san francisco the urban area security initiative conference the today track of the public and private session and they were 95% on the panel of the public sector and 95% of the audience in the private sector. that is the wrong answer and so when we defended the policies and programs on the government side, we need to bring the private sector in on the ground

floor and not the 11 hours a you get the curse revoking you can give an opinion that the last second. and the other process needs to be changed to what you're referenced washington is one of 17 states. they're all different as well they should be, one size doesn't fit all but only one of 17 states that has a formal public-private partnership i would argue there's a business case for every state and territory to have some form of the public-private partnership and until we do where there is a problem although topics won't be addressed adequately. >> the other thing i would say is 1996, 1997 if he went to the issue with cyber on the commission coming out of 9/11 you expect us to be shifting our focus to be one of our priorities for the protection as we got to that new level we brought cyberattack to the issue and to recognize the cyclical nature in which we will deal

with these things in response to the urgency of the issue or some event that nearly happened or happened, and over the course of the next ten years we have to make sure we balance out where we focus because this exists across the spectrum we are more, but hurricane katrina because four or five years afterwards. another will happen at some point and we will see the same cycle. we have to accept that keep the underlying tension to make sure we can deal with a full spectrum of the issues. >> a concept that sometimes including a i misinterpreted when i first heard it is going forward is the idea of their resilience. we used to prevent, prepare, respond, recover and somebody said know it is a new term we now have resilience i thought it was because english is my second language but i was having a hard time with the word. as we work on that though, clearly if you really understand resilience i was talking to mark

earlier it does have to do with the way the you design the building and you design the systems to withstand and then to take a hit and get back and the general mentioned talking about getting the private sector up and running and by the way things got we haven't talked about taxes in this whole thing it's a relief be in washington, d.c. but you want the private sector paying taxes again so we can keep the country going so it is a somewhat simplistic sort of thing but we want to be able to have that ability to bend to a certain degree as opposed to not break when there's a very strong wind and to be able to get back up and start working and paying taxes and go about our lives. >> general? >> i think we need to focus on the evolving nature of the threat. the threat that confronts us the next ten years is a residual threat that confronted us ten years ago but is dramatically different, and we need to have a national dialogue with that that

identifies what the basic capacity or capabilities we need in this country to address the evolving threats and then focus on how we assure consistent capabilities across the nation to respond to those. we take in kind of refractor approach over the last ten years in large part if i had my christmas list i would have a piece that would encourage the congress to reorganize the structure so that there would be focus on homeland security instead of the 20 committees and house. [laughter] [applause] >> but beyond that, is there a certain capability necessary for the social security and business community security in every state and territory to be a national undertaking to do that and i don't think we have really come to grips with of that yet. to go back to the interoperable communications information sharing etc, et cetera. the cyber domain is going to loom ever larger in the next ten

years as a point of the vulnerable the for every physical action and the undertaking anywhere in the country. if you can prevent oil from flowing or flowing anywhere on the demand, then you don't have to use the kinetic force. and we need to continue to think that. we need to be able to respond to the chemical biological radiological nuclear age and for the magnitude most of us don't want to think about what are literally the same capability of what is referred to as stray dogs and people said of the looming threat isn't a lone wolf from the pack it is a stray dog of and they are right here in the united states. so, what used to be the ability of the nation state to unleash in terms of the catastrophic destruction are now being leveled by a single individual acting alone. so, we need to focus on medical

surge capacity which i think is the one thing all of the state officials identify as 9/11 and really hasn't been systematic or aggressive and the consequences grow ever larger and our inability to respond to anything other van a chain reaction in the automobile collision really is a matter of life and death for all of us. >> randy? >> a couple things. i agree entirely we need to watch how the threat is evolving and be able to change with that. so often the way the departments are structured and the ways that we think of a bureaucratic way when the field of the private sector we are still working on things that happen in the past. we have a tough time shifting to some of those. a couple of examples i will use are the agency just announced it is going to promulgate the rules on the modem nitrate. just announced mauney am i trade is what timothy mcveigh used in

the oklahoma city bombing. there is something wrong with that. we have been working for years on a transportation worker identification provincials. it is a huge expense for the private sector and that isn't brought about by the conventional oversight. most of it is by the agency parochialism. we have the dod provincial, we have a transportation worker identification provincial, which and 15 second, hazardous material endorsement and to be built across the canadian border. we have a fiber badge for being able to get into airports. all of those are based on the same security threat analysis and background checks come in yet the agencies won't give that up so we have those kind of things, and we talked a lot about the most important thing

is to allow the private sector to get back up and running by the company sent me to washington it is fair for the government is going to do to our business model. i would say that when we start talking about our company response and recovery plans the biggest on known that we still have is what is the governor still going to do, and as we continue to do the top of exercises and continually are reminded that we are going to shut down the border and close that and the other thing and we are learning from that that is the single biggest hurdle we have. most of the tension has been on the southern border and understandably so was the mexican drug war but in terms of just listening to the republican debate last week to talk about

how do you secure the burse, plural, all the talk about what is the southern border and southern states, no mention of the northern border and our enemies are smarter than that. second is the interior enforcement we cannot seal the borders so from a risk management perspective, we have got to deal with people who either speak through or fly in the visa and overstay and so it's at that recommendation by the 9/11 commission again of the routine consequences for the violation, and most immigration bills are more border patrol agents and while that's important and needed their needs to be more focus on interior enforcement so that there are those routine consequences and remove some of the haze to expose the needle. >> we are just about out of time here i am afraid. first of all i want to thank you all. we could be here all day. it's a great panel, great

expertise. you can see that it's very interesting a lot of folks that were formerly at the dhs and private sector and how this rotates around and i think that cross pollination of ideas and thoughts and furies is actually helpful to protecting the homeland, so i want to personally thank you for taking the time to be with us today and share your thoughts, thanks very much. [applause] >> i will just ask you to keep your seats. wrap up from the governor ridge at this moment. thank you. >> often times during my tenure as the assistant for the homeland security or the secretary people ask me how do you sleep at night? my usual response is i sleep very well i just don't sleep much. one of the reasons very well is because i knew the people

represented the quality and commitment and passion the were going to work every day to make america more secure. on a new because i was inside how committed these individuals were in their teams and their co-workers, so why do want to pay public recognition for their public service and the group of men and women they represent on the homeland security family. i want to thank the sponsors, con-way and cse. it's been a very important dialogue and conversation. i want to share with you a couple of final thoughts. information sharing is at the heart of how you connect. and we've made a lot of progress. a pretty good job of, not good enough in my judgment, we've moved from a culture that needs no of a culture of need to

share. we are part of the way there. the only need to get there is to say a couple of things the panelists have been loaded to directly or indirectly. information is only valuable if it is shared. if you keep it to yourself, then you, yourself or limited to use it but its share there might be other folks out there that can use it and it adds value and enhances your capability to make yourself more secure and communities more secure. the other thing i say that is absolute essentials trust. there's still this incredible notion i better not share because it is wikileaks all over again. that is a potential and if it encourages them if you can't trust americans to secure america then who else can you trust. can you trust the big city mayor, the police chief, the vice president security in this company or that company one of

the challenges going forward as recognizing we change the culture from need to know to meet to share. we need to share more and do more trusting. i love the conversation about the private sector engagement. we talking about partnerships. the only thing i can say from my perspective is we can't be ad hoc. we can't just not on the private sector door right before the incident occurs or after. you've got to be there long before. they've got to be involved in the planning, involved in the policy development, involved in the training, you've got to be involved in the execution. the best example right now was the cybersecurity legislation and to the department's credit. the resources available in the infrastructure necessary to protect frankly the government's infrastructure is owned by the

private sector. so if you want to secure the country's cyber and digital assets you better involve the private sector of the front end rather than the ad in not in an ad hoc way. so i think that message and i appreciate fema and sector napolitano. the other thing i felt was important was the employees i think you talked about the impact of some of this and this ecology to read a lot of folks talk about the psychology on of the "see something, say something" but it's something more than that. i'm reminded we wanted people to have a ready kit. i wanted a color-coded the duct tape and i just couldn't get it in. there are certain responsibilities of ravee has to share and i think depending on certainly the projected that notion very well to read and in going forward i think everyone

has their concerns but they are all manageable. i had a budget cicatrix it when you walk in his office and when i was governor i will conclude, nothing stimulates the imagination like the budget cut. think about it. do you think there is an agency of the government today that couldn't get a hold of -- couldn't get a loan with a little bit less? maybe not. but given the economic restraints in the country where we need thoughtful leaders to set the priorities and then find ways to find them, find ways to build partnerships. it can be done. then i think this is been a very enlightening panel and i hope that you enjoyed the discussion on the behalf of homeland security i want to thank you for participating in thank panelists who deserves an extra round of applause thinks, ann. [applause]

>> [inaudible conversations]

>> notice the color, that amber color that you see is all coming

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dr. martin luther king was not a president of the united states. at no time in his life if he hold public office. not a hero of foreign war, never had much money, yet while he lived he was reviled at least as much as he was celebrated. by his own account, she was a man frequently wracked with doubt. and man and not without flaw, a man who like moses before him more than once questioned why he had been chosen for so arduous a task, the task of leading people

to freedom, the task of healing the wounds of the nation's original sin. >> next, the nuts and bolts of medicare, how it works this week on washington journal a series looking at medicare, the governments of insurance a program for people of 65. tomorrow we look at medicare and a vintage. wednesday or topic is medicare i

part d and we will wrap up on fears a with a look at thel wrap fiscal health of medicare and proposals to bring down medicare costs. medice cost today the history of the hi marilyn werber joins us now. the law was signed in 1965. was it controversial? guest: yes, health care is always controversial. the debate went on strong for a continues before it was signed into law. if jfk could not bring it into law, you know it was controversial. when we had to turn over in 1964, we have a democratic sweep. that is when they were really finally able to -- president johnson was able to sign this into law.

host: you talk about how it was debated for 10 years before it got through congress successfully. guest: the impetus was poverty. half of seniors in the 1960's were living below poverty. we're talking about the federal poverty guidelines. you have to be pretty poor to qualify. we'reay's standards, talking about $10,000 or $12,000 or less a year in income. you had to be pretty poor to qualify. we're talking about almost half of seniors at that time qualifying as living in poverty. host: president johnson signed this into law at the truman library in missouri and enrolled president truman as the first in the fishery.

-- as the first beneficiary. guest: truman started the debate going. he is the father of medicare. host: what are the big changes that have happened in medicare? guest: it is not that different today. we have added more over the years. when medicare first started, we have two parts. a and b. a was hospitalization and hospital coverage. that program was intended to get at catastrophic health care costs. when it was created, we also have medicare part b. that is the voluntary parts of is that seniors can often too. that covers physicians' services and a thing that is not

in-patient hospital -- anything that is not in-patient hospital. there was an addition of disabled people. medicare covers 47 million americans. only about 40 million of them are seniors over the age of 65. the remaining 7 million or so are disabled people. it is very different. we added them in 1972. then you move on to about 1997 and create a new program called medicare plus choice, the predecessor of the medicare advantage program. that gave seniors an alternative to the traditional fee-for-service style medicare where you pay a percentage and the government pays a percentage of whatever doctor or

hospital you choose. the newer program allows seniors to choose private health care plans. still today, this is mostly managed care. we're talking about hmo's and pco's. that allowed them to make that choice. fast-forward to 2003, the medicare modernization act was the last big change. that created the prescription drug coverage. more than half of all business histories -- beneficiaries and taken advantage of that to get prescription drug coverage. host: we're talking about the history of medicare. let's look at the dates she

highlighted in the monaco -- a moment ago. in 1962, it was expanded -- in 1972, it was expanded to include disabled people under 65. the following year, prescription drug coverage was repealed. guest: medicare does not have limits on out-of-pocket spending. if you are a senior and have a particularly bad year with something that costs a lot of money, there is no limit on what you can spend. the islam was intended to put a cap on spending -- of the law was intended to put a cap on spending so you would not go broken in health care costs. it's all the people needed

prescription drug coverage even then. -- it saw that people needed prescription drug coverage even then. the problem was that there was a group of people very concerned they would have to pay a little bit more to get this extra coverage. it was not that large of a population that oppose the law. nevertheless, it was a very vocal group. of one ofon the car the leading members of the house who pushed for the law. it was a big deal. within about a year-and-a-half, it was repealed. it never went into effect.

look at thetake a meeting with the senior citizens that are angry about the tax that would have raised the cost. >> he raced across the street, still pursued by angry senior citizens. >> he is supposed to represent the people and not himself! >> inside the car, he could go nowhere for a few minutes as the crowd surrounded him. finally, he got out of the car and walked down the block, diverting the crowd away from the car. >> i do not think they understand what the government is trying to do for them. i do not think they understand what is going on. >> moments later, his driver pulled into a gas station. he jumped in and was gone. >> that was the congressman in

1989 meeting with citizens curious about the catastrophic health care law that would have raised taxes on medicare beneficiaries. guest: i wonder if they knew at the time that they would be getting rid of prescription drug coverage and how long it would be before congress again got the point where it could give seniors some sort of prescription drug coverage. i wonder if they could have seen into the future whether that would happen that day. host: in 1997 medicare advantage was enacted. in 2003, congress added prescription drug benefits. our guest is the special correspondent and special fellow at kaiser health news. if you would like to join the conversation, here are the numbers to call.

let's get to the telephones. paul is on the independents' line. caller: and the medicare should be expanded for everybody. there should be a premium placed on income. no. people would be healthier and pay a higher premium based on their income. it would be solvent. -- younger people who are healthier would pay a higher premium based on income. it would be solvent. the best medical system is the va system. i am a retired veteran. there are no claim forms to file. there is no chance of fraud. $200 billion is wasted you are on medicare fraud and waste. that would be eliminated. the doctors are paid a good salary. nobody is making false claims. we could have a medicare

premium, but there would not be any claim forms. we would have a low-cost system that would be high quality. the va system was rated the best. guest: there are many people who would like nothing better than to see what style system can is what people in washington called single payer. democrats have stopped pushing for this for the most part. they realize that most republicans will not go for this. some democrats will not go for it either. they have bought away from trying to push for the medicare for all style system. the one. y have backed away from trying to push for the medicare for all stall system. we are seeing a lot of changes

in the health care law passed last year. high-income seniors will be paying more for their medicare. we're talking about seniors about $85,000 in income and more. they will be paying more in their premiums. they already are in certain parts of medicare. we are expanding this. we're seeing a lot more of this. this is something we can expect to see more of in the future. the financial system continues to be tough. medicare spending continues to grow. i think we will see more of this. host: today we're focusing on the history of medicare and the basic fundamentals. people over 65 qualify. people under 65 with certain disabilities qualify. 48 million people are in bold.

we're getting those numbers from the 2011 medicare trustees' report. lee in maryland, a republican. caller: i never hear talk about the military-style medical court in this country -- corps in this country. why could we not have that to train doctors and nurses? it would allow us to create a school for doctors. nowadays to be a doctor, you have to pay a billion dollars to become one. everybody says they are paying a lot to be in the medical system. we could create some one to give us medical supplies. it would be just the way our soldiers take care of our needs. we could profit off of the bottom of it. we could put that money back in the economy.

i am unemployed. we could start this country back up. we're being sucked dry by the doctors and nurses. if you go see the doctor, is $200 for one hour. guest: it sounds like you and the first caller agree on quite a bit. the problem is political. it is also an ideological. you have two different viewpoints. this split's fairly closely along party lines. democrats would like to see more of a national plan, something more standardized by the government. on the republican side, if you have a group that is very committed to private insurance and competition. icause of these is t logal .. it is unlikely we could end up with that kind of a system.

host: mary writes that there are two different types of medicare. guest: it is very complicated. right now, there are four different parts. a is hospitalization. that has to do with anything in- patient hospital. in the working world, this is what you see taken out of your paycheck. this is the payroll tax. it is up 1.45% of your payroll that goes to pay for medicare benefits trees -- been beneficiaries in this hospitalization program. your employer matches that in the system >> the new health care law is going to increase that tax for wealthier americans so those

workers who are over i think it's about $200,000 in income a year, they will start paying an extra almost 1%, so that is part a, that's hospitalization. then you have part b which is physician coverage. you go to the doctor, and that's that. now, unlike -- it's very different from part a. part a is something that you get when you turn 65. if you've put into the system for ten years or your spouse put into the system for 10 years, you're on it when you turn 65 or if you qualify for disability. part b is different. it's a volunteer system. you don't have to do it. about everybody does. it's a good deal. >> host: that includes doctor visits and physician care you get, but might seek out, but not necessarily hospital stays? >> guest: that's right. it's even out-patient services. that's financed differently from

finance revenues, and it's financed by premiums. you aa premium that's just over a little over $100, but, again, it is more for higher income seniors. now, with the seniors, the higher income level is lower starting at $85,000 for an individual. you could end up paying something closer to $150 a month or up to $350 a month. those are the two parts of medicare, original. now, what the writer's talking about is medicare part c which is medicare vac. that is -- advantage that is private insurance. the government has a lot less to do with that. you either opt for the traditional medicare, a and b target or opt for medicare part c which is private insurance. it's probably an hmo or ppo but it could be a

private-fee-for-service program. this program is about to change. it's going to have changes. originally the program in 2003 -- it was changed in 2003 as part of the same law that created the prescription drug benefits, and the republicans at the time very much wanted to drive people to this program because it's private insurance and they believed the competition would lower cost and give seniors better care so they decided that the government would pay more for seniors who participated in that program than if seniors participated in the traditional fee-for-coves style program. in fact, it turned out to be about 14% more. as a result, people in this medicare advantage program, they typically get better benefits. they might get benefits that

medicare a and b don't cover like eyeglasses, hearing aids. they might have lower premiums. they typically do have lower premiums. in some cases it's been zero premiums. now, under the health care law from last year, that is changing. the differential of what is paid of the two different programs is going to become more equal, so as a result, people who have this medicare advantage, and it's almost a quarter of medicare beneficiaries could very well see some reduction in benefit, could see some higher premiums. we are definitely going to see higher premiums for people who are higher income. in all of medicare, so it's going to be a little bit different moving forward, and frankly, a lot of people in medicare don't know which one they have. it's hard to tell. >> host: let's look at the

spending. these numbers from the kaiser family. part a costs $185 billion, spending in 2010. part b, the doctor visits and so forth, $150 billion. part c, medicare advantage has a price tag of $116 billion, and part d, which vef not talked about, prescription drugs, that had a price tag last year of $58 billion, that total $509 billion in spending. >> guest: right. we're talking about medicare on the whole costing -- it's eating up almost 15% of the federal budget. it's big. it's growing. it's expected to grow by almost 6% through a year, through about 2020. now, that's after you've taken into consideration some of the cutbacks and the savings that were passed as part of last year's health care law. still, we're talking about growing it at 6% a year. >> host: beth joins us from new york on the democrat's

line. good morning. >> caller: hi. i used to be a staunch democrat. social security came in with the average life expectancy at 65. it's a joke. it's like our laws about race. race covers phone and muscle and culture, not just the color of your skin. native american skulls have more bones, asian eyes are different. medicare is -- it was -- i think it's really met to appease us like we're stupid. i know my mother collects it and thank god she has private insurance because she pays $100 out of her social security, and what they are doing basically is saying, uh-huh, you caught up with us. in 1965, you would have been dead by the time you could collect social security, and it's a game. now we can collect, and they try to prevent us from getting it. there's money from the military, and they are basically gaming us. if they want to do that, give us their benefits which we pay for with our taxes.

>> guest: well, you know, you mentioned the military, and part of the discussions that are going on right now about the difficulties that congress is having in raising the debt ceiling -- these are discussions that are coming up. what to do with the money. now, frankly, it looks like every area's going to get cut, not just health care or the military. it looks like we're going to have some of everything because frankly, you know, the cost of medicare are very high, and both democrats and republicans would agree that something needs to be done to lower the cost of the program. now, you also mentioned the retirement age being 65, and, yes, you're absolutely correct. origin originally, life expected

sigh was lower, and therefore not many people claimed benefits for quite so long as we do now. that is why one of the options that's on the table for saving money in medicare is rising the eligibility age. there's a lot of talk about raising it to age 67. now, i will tell you that a year ago we only heard republicans talking about this. right now, we're starting to hear democrats talk about it as well which says to me this is much more a possibility for the future than it has been a year ago. >> host: pennsylvania, joe, independent line, welcome to the program. >> caller: thank you. regarding obamacare, wasn't nancy pelosi said the only way we know what's in it is we have to find out what's in it. is it true that medicare itself, obamacare i should say, wiped out $500 billion in medicare; is

that true? >> guest: well, that's -- that's a whole other can of worms. that is -- that was the big claim of republicans in the midterm elections, the last set of midterm elections, and republicans did very well with that claim. now, it's not exactly true. there were some cutbacks in medicare, yes, definitely some cutbacks in medicare, but to say that $500 billion was cut from medicare is not true. the program is still growing so cutting $500 billion sounds like you sliced the program and it's less than what it was before, and that's not true, it's not getting less. >> host: on twitter, one says figuring out how to get tests paid for by codifying the cause correctly.

talk to us about the reluctance by some providers to deal with medicare. there are some who will to the take medicare pairkts. >> guest: oh, yeah, and this is definitely a problem. you know, traditionally, private insurance pays doctors the most of any payer, then comes medicare, then comes medicaid which is a distant third. what typically happens is when we talk about saving money, we talk of providing payments to doctors, hospitals, and the law makes straightforward cuts to hospitals. physicians -- we've had some physicians that have been -- they were supposed to take effect every year now congress has stopped the physician cuts from taking effect, and we still don't have a permanent solution to this. doctors every year are worried if congress doesn't step in, they get cuts of -- if they

really let it happen, it could be up to 20% of what medicare pays them, and physicians are very concerned that they cannot make ends meet, so the question is well, do i take medicare or do i not take medicare. well, if you're an internist, you probably want to take medicare because how are you going to slice that large of a population out of your patient base? it's getting harder and harder and physicians continue to say, look, if it gets worse, keeps hitting us, i'm not going to be able to medicare any longer. the health care law from last year does increase payments for primary care providers. actually, this has more to do with medicaid, but they are trying really hard to recognize there's a big deferential between physician practices, and when i say that, i don't mean from group to group.

i mean from specialty to specialty because some specialties are doing just fine, and others, especially the family practice and the internists, they are the ones that are having the most trouble. >> host: so is there any issue with the paperwork or any sort of processing? is it more just about the reimbursement rate? >> guest: well, paperwork is very difficult, and we hear this complaint all the time from providers whether it be hospital or physician or nursing homes or whoever is making the claim or the beneficiaries themselves. you know, we're talking about 47 million people. this is a big program, and it is -- and we do often hear problems with paperworks and claims. is it any different than the private sector? not so sure. >> host: marilyn werber serafini, special correspondent at kaiser health news and distinguished fellow. the website is

kaiserhealthnews.com. going to florida, republican caller, good morning. >> caller: good morning. she didn't talk about a washington cut. it doesn't cut anything, just cuts the rate of increase the the republicans were right if we want to be truthful in the way peek talk about cuts in the washington as far as the $500 billion. i'm glad that you put up a projection of what it costs, the $500 billion today. that originated 65, that projection is ten times what they projected in 1965. it was supposed to be done about $5 billion. this is a mat mat call problem -- mathematical problem, and same with social security. people don't want to talk math because there's no way to lie about math. i had the pleasure of cleaning out a few houses in my time, and i came across a couple bills from my own township when i was 5 years old in 1965, and the co-pay then was $20.

a few years earlier, my sisters went in the hospital in the 1961 time period, and they both were charged $10 each for having their town sills removed. there's bills if the doctor came to your house, it was $10, and if you saw them, it was $5. it's amazing how the bills were so small back then prior to medicare. the reason is once the government gets involved, people don't really have to pay the true cost, and when people don't have to pay the true costs, and you have another party paying your bill, that's what's driving up the cost of medicine, and that's another thing that no one wants to talk about is why is it costing more? what's the real reason? it's the cost. >> guest: you know, whether it's medicare or private insurance, i think that democrats and republicans both would agree -- republicans probably more fervently that it is a real problem when you have

a third party payer. if you have to go in and pay the whole bill yourself, you're going to shop -- if you're buying a flat screen tv, you're going to compare the prices at three different stores, but currently, the way things work with insurance whether it be medicare or medicaid or private insurance, someone else is paying for you whether it be your employer, people don't have a good understanding of what their employer is paying for them. it is -- there's widespread agreement that this is very difficult, and it causes people to use more health care to not -- to not really know what health care is costing them, and therefore just getting whatever they need. this is republicans pushing in recent years for health savings acting thes where, yes, you have

a catastrophic insurance plan, but you have an account, and it's tax favored so you can take that money and you can do whatever you want with it. you take it, you decide which hospital you're going to go to for your hip replacement. you decide what physician you're going to see to do whatever it is that needs to be done. now, i have to say that the issue with that kind of a system while everybody agrees, yes, better to get the consumers involved and have transparency, but transparency is a problem now. we don't have a good enough system to allow people to compare prices. it's better than it was five years ago, but if you try to call around to hospitals today to see which hospital gives you a better price on your hip replacement, good luck. >> host: what is the so-called dock fix that congress passes every year. >> guest: i referred to it earlier talking about how

congress always looks first in spending to reduce spending. they look to cut the doctors, the hospitals. okay, so the doc fix was a cut that was made years ago, and it had an unintended consequence. this is not what they meant to do. they did not mean to cut physicians as much as this law was going to do it, so as a result, and this was an ongoing thing. it was a complicated formula that would have required these kinds of reductions every year moving forward, so what congress has done, and this is democrats and republicans alike agree. you can't cut physicians this year or next year 20%. you just couldn't do it, so every year they step in, sometimes twice a year, and they fix the problem, add a little bit more money, and it's costly. now, the problem is that they

have not fixed the program permanently, the problem. they have not fixed it permanently, and so the problem continues to grow, and the longer you wait, the more expensive it is to fix. >> host: margaret in california democrat's line, hi, march great. >> caller: good morning. >> host: good morning. >> caller: i have a simple question. my husband is retired military, and when he turned 65, which is just a little while back, we discovered he had to have enroll in medicare part b in order to qualify for his care. i was wondering if you could tell me why that is and why it's implemented. on the paul ryan plan from what i discovered seems like from my understanding seems like he wants to give like $6,000 vouchers for medicare replacements for the medical, i guess that's the part b, and i

was wondering if people realize how far the $6,000 goes, and it would go just very little, you know, towards a medical coverage nowadays, and there was a guy on there one day, republican guy talking about it, and he, himself, before he realized he's live on tv, he said, yeah, good luck getting that. i wonder if people realize that. that's all i have, and thank you very much, and thank you, c-span. >> guest: sure. as far as your first question with military and part b, i don't know the answer to that question. i apologize for that. when you speak about the ryan plan, you're talking about paul ryan, the republican house budget committee chairman. now, he had his own plan for a long time. then he -- it morphed into what was passed by congress, by the house as part of the house budget.

now, the house budget, when you pass a budget in congress, it's a non-binding resolution just saying we'd like to work towards this so that did not become law. nevertheless, it got a lot of discussion. it started a lot of discussion about how medicare might be changed. the part of the plan that you're talking about is something called -- you're either talking about the original plan paul ryan's original plan which was vouchers, giving seniors a certain amount of money not handing a cash or check to use for anything, but must be used to buy a private insurance plan. i interviewed paul ryan and asked him the question would this amount of money be enough for seniors to buy insurance? his answer was, in some cases yes, in some cases, no. some people would probably have to put in more money to be able

to buy a plan. he said this is going to take work. we have to figure out whether there's any way to get anymore money in there, but the point was to reduce medicare spending. now, that is a little bit different than what the health actually passes as part of its budget. that was a concept that has been talked about a lot since then called premium support, a formula by which medicare would pay a certain percentage of the seniors premium so that senior could buy private insurance. it takes us back to private insurance and competition. instead of being a set chunk of money what premium support would be support for the preach premiums, and the government helps with a certain percentage

of the premium cost. >> host: daniel, independent line, welcome. >> caller: hi. >> host: hi. >> caller: live tv? >> host: you're on with marilyn werber serafini. what's your comment? >> caller: my comment is that i believe that medicare starts out with the patient, and all different issues with health care and the psychologists, therapy, doctors, you know, and i feel everybody has a right to health care and as an independent person, all the people should own all hospitals which is financing and government and then also that would build more hospitals much more employment and much better health care service and regardless of old, young, because, you know, fannie mae, you buy a house, you retire, and

then you die. >> host: a comment for our gears? >> caller: we have public hospitals. it's not -- of course it's a very different system than if all hospitals were public. currently public hospitals have a tough time of it because they are publicly financed, and this is often where a lot was unensured people will wind up getting their care, and so the hospital has a lot of uncompensated care, and the government ends up stepping in. a lot of state spending goes to public hospitallings. it's a stuff system. these public hospitals make it hard to make ends meet. that said, it would be very different if all hospitals were public. my guess is we'll never see that happen. there would be a lot of opposition to doing that. again, this gets back to ideology. if we have the republicans

wanting to move more and more towards private systems, private health plans, private hospitals because they want to build competition and lower costs and improve quality by building competition, that's the way they see it ideologically. you know, i don't -- i think it would be very poor chance of that happening. >> host: we touched on this, but let's get a little deeper. what kind of people -- premiums to beneficiaries have to pay? out of pocket other how does it work? >> guest: medicaid is a complicated program. if you're in medicare, you get it. for med car part a, in-patient hospital services, there's no premium because it is financed by the workers so me, today, i am paying my payroll tax, and when i retire, i'll benefit from that. now, that said, i do not pay a

premium once i hit age 65 or become disabled before that, but the deductible is really significant. it's $1100, so before you can get any benefit from that system, you're paying $1100 into that system. that is why many people on medicare purchase supplemental coverage. if they have retiree health care coverage, that might help with some of that cost, but a lot of people, they just see that as too much, and they want a supplemental policy to cover some of those costs. now, for medicare part b, again, the position services, -- physician services, you're paying a premium. that premium is about $110 a month. if you are $85,000 income a year or so, you could be -- you're probably paying upwards of $150 a month, and you could be paying, if you're much higher

income, $350 a month. now, that said, the deductible is much lower. it's, i think it's about $150, $110, $150 or something like that. the deductible is a lot less. moving on to part c, medicare advantage, the private plans, the hmos and ppos. the premium, you're paying a premium. the premium is typically much less. i think the average please , premium is $44 # a month. well, that's less than half of what you pay if you were in part b. again, that said, we are going to -- we have wealthier seniors paying more, and in addition to that, we could see those -- we could potentially see the premiums rise as the government pays less money into the plans

to equal out the payments between the different parts of medicare. then we have the fourth part of medicare, part d, the prescription drug plans. the premiums for those have actually been relatively low, and averaging, you know, in the -- i don't know $37 a month, something like that, but they are all private plans so depending which plans you choose, and you got in every year during open enrollment and compare your plan, you would find some plans with zero premiums and others with higher premiums. if you take a zero-premium plan guaranteed, you'll have a higher deductible, higher cost sharing. it's a bit of a mix. it's a little harder in that program to see what it actually costs because you the senior who

is has to choose the plan with her. >> host: a week long look at medicare covering the history of medicare and the basics, thanks so much for being with us today. >> guest: thank you. >> this week on the communicators, reducing cyberthreats against the u