>> was dropping a series on

residential additions and replacement, improvements to existing houses. now those numbers are frankly much less reliable than the census would like and it causes frustration for people who are trying to track total construction spending that they have to adjust their estimates each time they go forward. >> host: this tweet, hey america, go shop. go buy a home. wonder as economists over all whether not consumption, which is most of these charts, weather homes or retail or food israel indicator of the health of our economy. >> guest: it's absolutely one of the most important, or two of the most important measures of the current state of economic activity, and where we are compared to what we were a month or a quarter, a year or five years ago. it's not the be all and end-all. we're going to get into some of the statistics in a minute for trade and investment in capital

goods, and durable goods. those are also important indicators of how we are doing in terms of the global picture and the business investment side of the economy that these two, housing and retail sales, our extreme important. >> host: as we look at these numbers we will, the president is planning to sign the free trade agreements that congress passed last week, today in washington, d.c. u.s. international trade center goods and services, it looks of both imports and exports, what's the story behind the chart? >> guest: over the last 15 years u.s. trade has climbed upwards, but a few exceptions and that actually has occurred during the recession of 2001 and recession in the most recent recession. in both cases, also the trade deficit actually also declined. but as we can see on the chart now, more recent decline was

pronounced in the recent recession. but the trade deficit actually went from a high of 66 billion on this recession down to a low of 25 and a half billion. so now the trade for exports actually have rebounded and we are exceeding the pre-recession every level. and so what we look at is imports in trade deficits actually our rebound as well but at a slower pace. >> host: what will she we know about these numbers? >> guest: first, i think it's easy to jump to the wrong conclusion about them. to me what's important is they are both going up. we don't have to see that gap ago to zero or reverse into a trade surplus. it's not even necessarily a red flag if the gap widens 40 period. the u.s. economy has been --

benefited. consumers benefit from imports, too, and i think that having open trade and getting these three trade agreements should open trade for the with more and hopefully change the tone towards opening trade means that we are a more nimble economy, that we are using our resources the most efficiently and given the most opportunity for consumers. >> host: next call, question comes from a latte in san antonio. good morning. >> caller: good morning. how are we going to keep our money flowing so the banks can loan out, mortgage company can lend money to build homes or commercial buildings? the flow of money has completely ceased and freddie mac and fannie mae kept going in a circle, what goes round comes round. we've got to get it back otherwise there's not going to be any builders building no.

still, bring it back and don't pay the investors compound interest. you know, if fha loan was based on 30 years, the investigators initial loan or a money back in 11, he had 19 years of profit. we've got to stop that. >> guest: there's no question that the banking system went too far in how it was treating mortgages before the financial meltdown of 2008, and we've gone to another extreme in terms of making it much, much harder for people to qualify for mortgages and for developers to get money for commercial projects. i think there is no quick fix to that, but we are seeing signs that both private residential and some categories of private non-residential construction are improving. i think will continue to do so for 2012 and hopefully beyond.

>> host: if you're interested in tracking the economy through the census numbers, beyond what we're doing this morning, they have gathered them all and publishes them on its website under the tablet economic indicators. if we can show it on screen here please on ipad. where the economic indicators and it's got current and previous positions. what can people learn from this particular aggregation? >> guest: well, they can put ask all of the economic indicators together and look at the segments of the economy to evaluate and assess how well these particular sectors are doing. so there are snapshots of the economy, and you can look at one place on our website and. >> host: you know whether not the public will access this number or is it for more like professional economists and? >> guest: the census. it's a huge number of hits from all kinds of folks. certainly economists like me download some of this data them in a comes out.

certainly the wall street folks who are trying to pick stocks based on various indicators, they are on top of it immediately. but there are thousands of students and academics and members of the general public to go to the census economic website every day. >> alabama, good morning. you are on the air and part of a conversation. >> caller: thanks for taking my call. question is, i don't know what your expertise, but is there any, you know,. [inaudible] specifically, offenders about the unemployment rate? >> host: there was a bit of a break up would you repeat it again? >> caller: ex-felons, unemployment for ex-felons, specifically sex offenders. that would not be -- >> guest: that would not be on a census. i think the bureau of labor statistics certain has a lot of figures unemployment with some

demographic characteristics, some of that data is collected by census survey takers. in addition, the department of justice has a lot of statistics on people who have been through the criminal justice system. it's not an area i work in. >> host: i want to put a chart on and go back to trade. national export initiatives, 2000-2014. what is the initiative? >> guest: it was introduced by president obama in 2009, and the goal is to double exports in five years. so, we are looking and we're kind of monitor the export rate. so doubling exports require an annual growth rate of about 14.7% based on our 2009-2010 data. so we've actually achieved a 16.7% growth from the 2009-2010

total exports. so, going forward we need an average of about 14.3%. and so for the next about four years, to achieve the goal. where we are looking through august of 2011, we are actually averaging on an annual growth rate of 15.8%, but we are well above the 14.3%. >> host: and you talk about the national export initiative from a policy perspective, what it's intended to do and what passionate where the exports are generated and where they are going? >> guest: exports are an important piece of the u.s. economy. we are much less dependent on exports and some smaller economies, or some other resource producing economies, or the developing countries like china. but nevertheless, in this recovery, exports have certainly

outstripped the growth of domestic sales, a 14-60% growth rate is one of the strongest pieces of the economy. that shows up in estimates of gross domestic product that another agency, the bureau of economic analysis, reports on. they will be providing the first estimate of what happens. third quarter next week. those figures are going to be very closely watched by economists and policymakers also. export, it's fine to have a goal like that. it depends partly on policies like the trade agreement you mentioned that the president is going to sign. like removing other barriers, perhaps limited incentives, but if you're providing an incentive to export, it means you're taking money away from something else. and personally i would like to

see the market making the decision as to whether or not we want to be investing in exports or in some other area. >> host: and next slide is our top 10 export trading partners. canada, mexico, china, japan, u.k., germany, top six. imports, china first place. why does the census bureau keep this data? >> guest: with a collection of all the trade information, we often will get questions to look at with the rank of our top importers and the top exporters them with our trading partners. >> host: how long has china been a number one position? >> guest: china, 2007 was the first year china surpassed canada as a leading important trading partner. >> host: then trade with japan is part of this next slide, also indicating the earthquake and tsunami. tell us more about that.

>> guest: prior to the earthquake, actually the japan numbers were rising and just about all major product categories. and the earthquake disrupted the trend for just a few months. and the area most hard hit was actually the automobile industry. so imports of automobile parts, automobile cars. just under $2 billion. and now they rebounded to about $4.5 billion. but when we look at the overall year-to-date from january to august, actually even with the earthquake, japan's imports are about 6% higher than they were last year. >> host: this may not be such good news for people are looking for jobs in the united states because it looks like our exports have really stayed pretty steady since japan over the course of the year. our imports are rebounded. what would you say about that? >> guest: i think that we have to focus on what is the overall

picture, that we don't need to be in balance with anyone country, and i think going back to the list of top import and export countries, it's clear that the our major trading partners among the top six. they rank differently on the exports and imports but i think it's interesting, for instance, with china has become the number three country to which we export. a lot of people think we are getting lots of goods from china and we're not selling anything to them. but our exports to china have been moving up rapidly. not so much with japan. the last decade, a struggling economy so i would not expect to see our exports into japan growing so fast. but i think it's a healthy sign for us that we have been able to sell more to china, and there's more that we are selling to korea. and again, the trade agreement the president is signing, a major reason that the united

auto workers and many others are supporting that is the opportunity export more to that country. >> host: ohio, good morning to you. >> caller: yes, over the times i've been driving a bus and in the military, problems in the me, both rich and poor neighborhoods are pretty much the same. gas prices were the first indicator that drove the price of goods and services out of reach. in the interest rate was another factor that people, people losing their jobs. that's the reason why they lost their homes because they lost their jobs. and a third thing, these companies getting too many tax breaks. they don't need tax breaks so they have incentives to move to other cities to reduce their taxes. there's too many jobs overseas. i agree, jobs come back to america. we should not give anybody an advantage over american workers to help them create a better situation, environment for their

own country. thank you very much. >> host: thank you very much for your call. georgia, and them early, good morning. annamarie left us. this gentleman who is watching, looking at these charts has this comment particularly. you notice how resilient markets are, he writes. they bounce back no matter what. >> guest: that is my take, over all. if you look at the whole 40 years at some of these slides, yes, the trends are unquestionably upward, but it's the details in between that affect us. the famous economist is known often quoted as saying in the long run we are all dead. we're all interested in what the trends have shown, and what they suggest might happen next. that we are living in the here and now. so it's those squiggles that sometimes lurches downwards that are important to us now.

and, unfortunately, we are well below trans-on a lot of these indicators. >> host: next to the agriculture market this chart is on exports of soybeans and corn. again, trending up. what should we know about this? dollars per metric ton so talks about the price of the commodity. >> guest: that's correct. these are two of our largest agricultural export, and what's happened here is that increased demand coupled with global weather conditions has driven up the price for both of these commodities. so for an example for corn, it's used for producing ethanol, and along with poor weather conditions it leads to diminished supply. the same thing with soybeans, though when you look at the growing nation completing soybean growing nations such as the u.s., brazil, china, that have had, you know, tough weather conditions, it has

depleted their supply and driven the price of. >> host: next caller, try george want again. annamarie, you're on the air now. go ahead, please. >> caller: yes, thank you. my question is for mr. simonson. do you see the need for housing, the attitude of buyers towards housing changing with your analysis? my question relates to the fact that in the past it seems if many people bought home to flip them or use them for investment. and i'm hoping with our new buyers coming, coming up, they will think of homes as being a place to really have value in that they can raise families. or in my case, living on saint simons, maybe having a second home where they can enjoy family

gatherings for the next 20 years, and maybe as i've done, come to that home i bought 20 years ago and now am living in it, working as a realtor down here on saint simons. so, there some element of planning that has to go into a home purchase, whether it be, you know, for your destination, maybe it's your work because i worked in atlanta for many years, or in my case now, my husband is retired and i'm still working, but, you know, this is the end of the plan. my plan was to buy this some 20 years ago. now i'm living in its. >> guest: you're right, that there was a lot of speculative homebuying before the recession, and that hasn't come back. one of the big challenges for economic forecasters is, has there been a change in the collective mentality, so people no longer going to be investing in homes either for their own

full-time use or as an investment or possible second home, or retirement property. certainly we have seen much more growth in rental properties than the have an owner occupied properties lately. so it does say, for now at least people are not ready to go back to purchasing a home. are they being shut out by tighter credit conditions or a change in their own preferences? that's one of the things we have a challenge sorting out. we really depend on the census bureau getting the figures right, getting enough funding so that they can really do the numbers correctly and getting them out timely so that the economists and policymakers who need that census information to interpret forecast and make policies can do it right the first time. >> host: as we close here, if you're interested in following

these on a more regular basis, the census website has a place where they track from month to month, the indicators we talked about this morning. and very briefly because her time is short, the major take what you want people in two or three words less about the economy. >> guest: it's about the numbers to assess the health of the economy. >> host: what is it looking like right now? >> guest: well, it's moving along. >> guest: i think the dichotomy has turned more positive in the last few weeks. i'm optimistic about the u.s. for the medium to long term, but i think we are still at a severe risk of having subpar growth. >> a live picture from the white house briefing room this afternoon. shortly we'll bring you today's briefing with spokesman jay carney. we are all saying that president obama may be there to make a statement. reporter mark knoller has tweeted the president had a security video conference with

iraqi prime minister. reporters also suggesting that the president is going to announce a complete drawdown of u.s. troops from iraq to zero by the end of this year, 2011. we expect the president will say something about that, possibly some of changes going on in libby. we will have live coverage of that at about 1230 eastern when he gets underway right here on c-span2. until then your phone calls from this morning's "washington journal." >> host: let me show you some of the headlines today. nato air strategy. many call it a template for future innovation. "the wall street journal" today. in your times, a news analysis for obama, some indication of his much criticized approach toward. the financial times, gadhafi's death bolsters obama's security standing.

and the front page of the "washington post" today, limited intervention contrast obama with bush. that's a front-page piece that looks at the leadership style. on the line with us to start our discussion is marked who wrote the piece for the new times and he is on the white house beat and brings to a number of years of diplomatic reporting as well. thanks for being with us. >> guest: glad to be your. >> host: it is the estimate of what you had a new piece in the times this morning. >> guest: i was exploring the way the president obama has sort of begun to set out a pretty discernible foreign policy, an approach to foreign conflicts in particular. and as you said earlier, it's an approach that contrasts quite clearly with the bush administration, and really with the approach of many presidents before him. it's one that emphasizes surgical strikes over massive troop deployment.

it's one that emphasizes building coalitions and collective action over unilateral action. and all of the elements of that were on display in the libby operation. where, you know, as you know, the president acted only after building up, not only support from nato allies and arab neighbors of libya, but actually by insisting that france and britain take a lead role in the air campaign. with the u.s. providing sort of front and logistical support, and targeting support but not actually providing the ongoing air power. so, this was a model that was really very different than what we saw in iraq or afghanistan. and it raises all sorts of questions. i suppose the most obvious one of which is to what extent is it a model for u.s. involvement in

future conflicts. >> host: it's not without its price tag to examine the estimates, one won a green to the vice president, $2 billion but not a lifeblood. how mindful was the white house with always debate about the budget of the cost of the libya operation? >> guest: well, of course very mindful. one of the major targets for cost cutting into deficit reduction exercise that's underway now, of course, will be the pentagon budget. in the president's speech from last april where he laid out a fiscal strategy, he talked about reducing the pentagon budget by at least $400 billion over 10 years. so that kind of dirty and cost-cutting in the pentagon's future, it's hard to imagine how the pentagon could take part in the kind of open-ended massive commitment of troops that we saw in both afghanistan and iraq. there simply won't be the money

for that. so to the extent that this operation cost, and, maybe vice president biden mentioned to bring other people have said 1.1 billion, i quoted an analyst saying that relative to these other engagement, the u.s. has been in, that's a rounding error. so i do think money played a role. i think it didn't play the foremost goal. i've been president obama had a very compelling reasons to keep is limited and to seek burden sharing for allies. but clearly that was also an issue on the table. >> host: last question for you, that's the politics of this. in the reelection campaign of foreign policy, the purview of republican candidates. when you listen to the present yesterday, how did you see in framing his foreign policy leadership skills? >> guest: he clearly said that there was a link between his positive and in libya and the raid that killed osama bin laden, as well as other raids and drone strikes that have

killed al qaeda leaders. and he said that this was the case is seen american leadership all across the world. and he also pointed out that at the same time these successes are happening, the administration is wind down the war in iraq and transferring control for security to the afghans in afghanistan. so he is clearly laying out a record of success that goes back to the early part of his administration. and it's likely to contrast sharply with his handling of the economy where there have been so many problems and so much dissatisfaction on the foreign policy front. he's going to be running on a quite a strong record. >> host: markland's piece is available. thank you for joining us on this friday morning. >> guest: happy to do it. >> host: we were future calls, e-mails and your tweets in a couple of minutes. our question is, is this a new model for more. we have some statistics to put out there. let's look at u.s. operations in

libya. the dollar figure, 1.1, comes from the pentagon but that does not include state department cia and other agencies involved or other native and participating countries. the 1.1 is the pentagon's aspect of this, and we mentioned at the "national journal" is quoting vice president joe biden as saying the u.s. 2 billion total and didn't lose a single life. other aspects of this are $820 million in military operations just for the period of march 19-june 30. give you a sense of the multiplier there. humanitarian funding through september 29, 92 million. and $250 million sold in ammunition. let's look at the statistics. it's important to get to phone calls and your reactions to this. new jersey, you are on the air. >> caller: good morning. >> host: good morning. >> caller: two points to make. the first one is i'm not at all

convinced that commander gadhafi is dead. all we have are low quality video images that are purported to be him. if it were him indeed i think we would see some photos or a body of these but i suspect later today we'll hear that he was buried at sea. the second point is this whole operation that nato has done was to prove to africa that nader could knock off the toughest country in africa was libya. and moammar gadhafi. he kept libya unexploited he didn't let the corporations in their two explore the oil. i think educated, americans and individuals who researched this will come to that conclusion. i do think this is a new protocol for more. state-sponsored assassination, and i'd like to allow our politicians speak out against that, like ron paul. i know he isn't getting coverage but ron paul turned out to be a shill. i supported in the past and i will never again. >> host: multiple pictures of

moammar gadhafi's body. is one that is in "the wall street journal." .. thousands of those that

quote, unquote, disappeared? i have a feeling lot of israeli planes are going to have difficulty with those as they try to fly the airways there, if they don't make it over to the united states and, the muslim brotherhood now has facilitated the rise of the muslim brotherhood versus hated qaddafi. that is all i'll say. >> host: john from maryland. online. new model for war. president as a dictator. i don't think i like it. i think the president should get congressional approval or be thrown out. let's look at the timeline of the u.s. involvement in libya. beginning back in march, the senate first approved a nonbinding resolution urging the u.n. to impose a no-fly zone on march 17th. the u.n. approved action to protect libyan civilians. on march 1 this that multi-state coalition begins

miller ray intervention. the president addressed the nation, march 28th. by. house votes against using use forces requires a report on mission. the june 3 the house votes against u.s. military operations and rejects efforts to limits funding. next call from baltimore, who is an independent there. jordan. good morning. >> caller: thanks for the opportunity. today is a great day for the people of libya, the people of liberia, a country i'm from. a country which qaddafi, paid and equipped, the rebel lead they're destroyed my country. i'm a victim of qaddafi atrocity in africa. i lost my mother, my sister and 250,000 liberian ares dead pause of 50 years of civil war qaddafi paid for. the war went into sierra leone. amtation of hands of babies

and rape of women. the killing of men all over africa. today is a great day for africa. we thank god for nato. thank god for president obama. nicolas sarkozy and the president of great britain. you have done the continent of africa a great deal. thanks very much to the american public that support the president and everyone because every day qaddafi was in power someone in africa was getting killed, every day. today justice has been done and we are very, very happy. -- africa --. god bless the could not ment of africa. thank you very much. >> host: jordan from baltimore. to echo that monte on twitter writes this. this is model for peace as well. nato flags were seen in libya and arab muslim nation in recognition of their positive role. here is bit of what julian

barns and writes. the approach emphasizes quick planning, a small footprint and limited duration engagements according to u.s. officials assessing the outcome. nato showed it could provide a ready made coalition capable of conducting a far-reaching expeditionary operation. president barack obama, an early champion of the approach, said thursday demonstrate what collective action could achieve in the 21st century. in contrast to the other recent conflicts in libya, the americans took the initial lead opening days of conflict but at mr. obama's insistence quickly handed over most airstrikes to european allies leaving the u.s. to take a support role. the nato model was also beset by shortcomings. uneven participation and inadequate supplies and fuel and targeting intelligence. future interventions may not look the same and may not involve nato. some could involve little air power and more special operations troops on the ground. others could involve u.s. forces training indigenous forces of the not all see

the nato mission as template for the future arguing some hypothetical intervention are still likely to require a ground force. next calls from las vegas. this is denny, republican there good morning, denny, you're on the air. >> caller: good morning. yeah i have a big nonsupporter of obama throughout his presidency but i would say the strikes he has done on pakistan the nato strikes he called on libya are probably the finest part of his presidency. it not only shows off our military might, without sending one single troop on the ground, we're able to accomplish and liberate a country. in future engagements we should look towards our technology and use these kind of weapons to conduct war instead of sending so many thousands of troops on the ground and coming back with a bunch of casualties. >> host: many thanks for your call. echoing that the lead story in the "washington post" today. limited intervention contrasts obama with bush.

this is scott wilson and karen deyoung's piece on the front page. like military manhunt for saddam hussein the soicht for fugitive dictator muammar qaddafi took seven months. i popped up like is iraqi counterpart and similarities end there. libya vast difference between way he and his predecessor george w. bush deployed diplomacy and military power against their declared enemies. both results resulted in removal of a long time nemesis who enjoyed a few years of washington's favor. bush's intervention, cost 1 trillion dollars and american lives. obama highlighted national security strategy and global burden sharing and secretive tactics and technologies whose legality has been questioned. nato airstrikes on qaddafi's con voi thursday including a missile launch from a u.s. drone aircraft. obama's technocratic approach to governing served

him far better in foreign poll i, facts expert appraisal and intelligence trump ideology than it has in domestic politics n a time of economic uncertainty at home the achievements abroad including the killing of osama bin laden in may have not translated into political popularity. that is the "washington post" this morning. a new model for war in libya as we saw with muammar qaddafi's demise yesterday. a comment from st. louis. bill a democrat. good morning. >> caller: good morning. i don't know how you call this is new model for war. a same old thing slaughtering civilians. killing their leader and stealing their resources. that's what we're getting out of libya. this is nothing but murder, state-sponsored terrorism by the united states government. libya hadn't done anything to us and neither did qaddafi. you people are cowards. anybody that stands for what we just did is nothing but a coward. >> host: next comment from comes from oregon, the town

roseland. this is ken who is an independent. you're on, ken. >> caller: yes. qaddafi was, was, i believe, this was staged based on the, what dr. steve who worked with special forces in operations for 20 years and has hollywood connections. he said it was staged. the green charter movement claims qaddafi is alive. green committee should confirm the leader is alive and enemy is seeking to take advantage of his being currently out of communications. the aim to please hillary clinton who barked at -- wants muammar qaddafi dead or alive. he was highly respected by african leaders. highest standard of living and very well-educated architects, lawyers and teachers in libya. and it was, it would have

been very embarrassing to the u.s. to have him brought before icc because he would have brought out that the overthrow of libya was accomplished with the aid of al qaeda terrorists who killed u.s. and british troops in iraq and, he had also secret deals with former heads of state like tony blair and more recently met with president barack obama. well as was such a terrorist, how come the president met with him? this was saved a lot of embarassment. this thing i think, was, was staged and i was, i was on the countdown show with this. for two million listeners this morning and doug stefen didn't contradict a word that i said after my presentation. >> host: ken from rose space land, or gone. oregon. president makes peace with being war hawk is his column today.

let me read a little bit what he wrote. barack obama didn't want to become a war president but as his triumphal talk yesterday following the death of muammar qaddafi made clear, a war president is what he has become. later on he writes what explains the embrace of projection of american power through the use of military force? it turns out when we call the president of the united states the leader of the free world we're not just resorting to cliche. the inhabitant of the white house instantly shoulders responsibilities unknown to anyone, save those who preceded him, unknowable to him before he takes up residence there. before his presidency barack obama surely would never have contemplated involving u.s. forces in a civil war in libya. he surely would have could haved at the very idea, indeed might have scoffed only a year earlier but as president there was no one else to make the choice. act or do not act. do what you can to change the reality on the ground or not. yes or no. the same was true for president clinton in kosovo. that is jon podhoretz this morning in "the new york

post." we're asking about whether you see what happened in libya with nato volumement a new model for war. next jacksonville, north carolina and this caller is josh, a republican there. good morning. >> caller: hi, good morning. thanks for taking my call. i have three points and i will make them as concise as possible. my first point, your guests at the beginning of the show, mr. land i believe, i would caution him to avoid participating in presentism when he describes president obama's foreign policy as being some, something rarely seen in modern history. you know, non-unilateral, being multilateral. i would remind him that two of the largest wars that this world has seen were fought in the 20th century and for half of the 20th century we had a bipolar

hogemony with the soviet union and united states of america. on to my second point, the callers that have called in suggesting that the people that support qaddafi's ouster, not necessarily his, you know, his execution but his ouster at least, the idea that we are cowards i would suggest to, to his supporters, that they take a hard look at themselves as individuals and say how many people have to die at the hands of a dictator before it is justified to take this person out no matter what their iq score? and lastly i would say that in direct regards to the, to the question that you have posed today, we need to take a look at the definitions of warfare and armed conflict

in today's world because i think they have changed. obama's counterinsurgency methods and antiterrorist methods i believe are a, just an evolution of the pentagon's antiterrorist strategy and i believe it is working. it is more intelligence-based and it's a limited troop involvement strategy that i believe is working. also's take a look at the definition of terrorism. terrorism today is definitely not what it was in the '70s let's say. >> host: josh, you're in a big military town. are you military man yourself? >> caller: former marine, yes. >> host: thanks for your call this morning. next is massachusetts. this is richie, independent. good morning. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. we're doing exactly what we started out to do since after world war ii is take over the middle east and that's exactly what we're doing. next we'll be in syria and then we'll be in lebanon

again and just goes on and on and the guy from missouri hit the nail right on the head. we just love killing people and, when we kill people, we're nice guys. we're killing them because those guys are bad. who are we to judge who is bad and who is good and who is doing what they were doing in their own country is none of our business. and this is, definitely what we're going to be doing is taking over the middle east and this is just the beginning and it is just going to keep going and i thank you for taking my call. >> host: richie, from mullen, massachusetts. joe, twitter, community member on, calls himself american hero asks this question. was libya a threat to the united states? let's listen to a little bit more of the president yesterday in his announcement in the rose garden about the death of muammar qaddafi. >> this is a momentous day in the history of libya. the dark shadow of tyranny has been lifted and with this enormous promise the libyan people now have a

great responsibility, to build an inclusive and tolerant and democratic libya that stand as the ultimate rebuke to qaddafi's dictatorship. we look forward to the announcement of the country's liberation, the quick formation of an interim government, and a stable transition to libya's first free and fair elections. >> host: the president yesterday. let's take a look at some of the united states role in libya. operations that this country provided 75% of the aerial refueling sorties. 70% of the intelligence and surveillance and reconnaissance. 24% of the total aircraft used in the mission. they flew, we flew, 27% of the total sorties. 11 fighter aircraft were involved. one guided missile destroyer and a number about of predator-armed aerial surveillance from nato early on in this process. back to your telephone calls.

springfield, vermont. up next is maria, republican. you're on the air. you're on, go ahead. >> caller: good morning. good morning. i don't approve of what is going on in libya with president obama. he is getting every credit he wants to be reelected and i hope he doesn't succeed. that's all i need to say. >> host: maria, from vermont. some callers have talked about the arab spring. let me show you "washington post" story looking at some of the implications of the death of qaddafi. in wake of libyan uprising attention turns to yemen and syria. here is what liz sly writes. as the arab spring claimed its first dead dictator the spotlight swung to other revolts still simmering across the region in yemen and most intractable struggle of all, syria. muammar qaddafi's death coming two months after rebels drove his forces from tripoli and began setting up a new government was in some

way as footnote to already tumultuous year but the scenes of his corpse being dragged through the streets of his hometown of sirte rekin deled revolutionary sentments across the region on. along with hopes his violent demise will give hope to despots who remain. call for the ouster of their president in the tunisian capitol of tunis which is all began in january with the flight of the president there, president ali. young men took to the streets wrapped in libyan flags and drivers honked their horns into the night in celebration. next a call from silver spring. this is ricardo, independent. good morning. >> caller: good morning. i have a few things to say. one thing is, most people don't know what they're talking about. they just sit about what they hear from other people or the media and haven't done the research themselves. the united states, i believe has committed more murders and atrocities and

international crimes than qaddafi or any islamic or any terrorist group in the world. and the other thing is, minister farrakhan told us that the our government planned to go into libya in 1989 and during a press conference, you can youtube it yourself. these things we knew would come to pass. but libya atrocity that shouldn't have happened and people have to investigate what qaddafi did for libya. many people who live in america are not happy with america. are not happy with the way our representatives representing us. they didn't even pass the jobs bill for our fighters and teachers and our police officers. it don't get no basic than that. look where the country is headed yet we're so grateful in other countries spending billions of dollars doing this when our country is falling at the same time. yet we're promoting death and killing all over the world. there is something wrong with that. there is really something wrong with that. that's all i got to say.

>> host: ricardo is referencing the vote -- >> from this morning's "washington journal." hear is the president in the white house briefing room with a response and remarks on iraq. >> as a candidate for president, i pledge to bring the war in iraq to a responsible end. for the sake of our national security and to strengthen american leadership around the world. after taking office i announced a new strategy that would end our combat mission in iraq and remove all of our troops by the end of 2011. as commander-in-chief ensuring the success of this strategy has been one of my highest national security priorities. last year i announced the end to our combat mission iner rake -- iract and to date we removed for than 100,000 troops. iraqis have taken full responsibility for their country's security. a few hours ago i spoke with iraqi prime minister maliki.

i reaffirmed that the united states keeps its commitments. he spoke of the determination of the iraqi to forge their own future. we are in full agreement about how to move forward. so today i can report that as promised, the rest of our troops in iraq will come home by the end of the year. after nearly nine years, america's war in iraq will be over. over the next two months our troops in iraq, tens of thousands of them, will pack up their gear and board convoys for the journey home. the last american soldier will cross the border out of iraq with their heads held high, proud of their success and knowing that the american people stand united in our support for our troops. that is how america's military efforts in iraq will end. but even as we mark this

important important milestone, we're moving into a new phase in the relationship between the united states and iraq. as of january 1st, and in keeping with our strategic framework agreement with iraq it will abnormal relationship between sovereign nations. an equal partnership based on mutual interest and mutual respect. in today's conversation prime minister malaki a meeting of the strategic framework would meet in coming weeks and up invited the prime minister to come to the white house in december as we plan for all the important work we have to do together. this will be a strong and enduring partnership with our diplomats and civilian advisers in the lead, will help iraqis strengthen institutions that just, representative and accountability. we'll build new ties of trade and of commerce, culture and education that unleash the potential of the iraqi people. we'll partner with an iraq

that contributes to regional security and peace just as we insist that other nations respect iraq's sovereignty. as i told problem malaki i will continue to help iraq train and equip forces just as we offer training and assistance for countries around the world. after all there will be some difficult days ahead for iraq and the united states will continue to have interest in an iraq that is stable, secure and self-reliant. just as iraqis have persevered through war i'm confident that they can build a future worthy of their history as a cradle of civilization. here at home the coming months will be another season of homecomings. across america our servicemen an women will be reunited with their families. today i can say that our troops in iraq will definitely be home for the

holidays. this december will be a time to reflect on all that we've been through in this war. i'll join the american people in paying tribute to the more than one million americans who have served in iraq. we'll honor our many wounded warriors and the nearly 4500 american patriots and their iraqi and coalition partners who gave their lives to this effort. and finally i would note that the end of war in iraq reflects a larger transition. the tide of war is receding. the drawdown in iraq allowed us to refocus our fight against al qaeda and achieve major victories against its leadership including osama bin laden. now, even as we remove our last troops from iraq, we're beginning to bring our troops home from afghanistan where we have begun a transition to afghan security and leadership. now when i took office roughly 180,000 troops were deployed in both these wars

and by the end of this year that number will be cut in half. and make no mistake, it will continue to go down. meanwhile yesterday marked the definitive end of the qaddafi regime in libya. their too our military played a critical role in shaping a situation on the ground in which the libyan people can build their own future. today nato is working to bring this successful mission to a close. so to sum up, the united states is moving forward from a position of strength. the long war in iraq will come to an end by the end of this year. the transition in afghanistan is moving forward and our troops are finally coming home. as they do fewer deployments and more time training will help keep our military the very best in the world. and as we welcome home our newest veterans we'll never stop working to give them

and their families the care, the benefits, and the opportunities that they have earned. this includes enlisting our veterans in the greatest challenge we now face as a nation, creating opportunity and jobs in this country because after a decade of war, the nation that we need to build, and the nation that we will build be is our own, an america that sees its economic strength restored just as we restored our leadership around the globe. thank you very much. >> what about iran, sir? [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> in just a moment here on c-span2 we're going to take you back to the white house briefing with jay carney. we expect that to get underway. there were several network reporters doing their stand-ups. after the president's announcement today that the u.s. would be with drawing all forces from iraq by the end of the year. "the washington post"

reporting this after the u.s. failed to reach an agreement with the iraqi government that would have left several thousand troops there for special operations and training. you can see on your screen we've put some numbers up. we'll get your reaction by phone. we expect the white house briefing to resume and following that we will take your calls just so you can know the lines for republicans it is 20-585-3885. democrats, 202-585-3886. we're doing the special on not independents on our third line, 202-5853087. if you're iraq veteran, that is your opportunity to call in. actually we've got a couple waiting. while we wait for the, white house briefing to get back underway, let's go to jewelly in staten island, new york on our democrats line. julie. hello. julie in new york. you're on the air. julie, having a little problem hearing you.

is this staten island, go ahead? all right, we're having, we're having some problem with julie in staten island. gone the phone numbers are on your screen. we'll get to your calls momentarily. [no audio]

[no audio] >> still waiting for the white house briefing to get underway. let's go to some of the phone calls we have waiting. vincent in new york, republican caller. what do you think? >> caller: i think it is a really bad idea to pull out of iraq right now. we should stay in there and actually -- >> vincent, in new york, you're still on the line. go ahead. let's go to wisconsin. we have a democratic caller waiting in wisconsin. what are your thoughts? wisconsin on the air. go ahead. >> caller: hi. i, from wisconsin and essentially, i think we've got a good commander-in-chief, fantastic. during the vietnam era i was

a medic luckily. they made an x-ray technician out of me. so i didn't have to hop on helicopters but i think obama has just done one terrific job. >> we're going to take a couple more calls. as you can see, jay carney is waiting to give the afternoon briefing. president obama announcing this afternoon just a few minutes ago, we'll show you his comments as well again, that all u.s. troops would be out of iraq by the end of the year. here is mayor -- georgia. angiles on the democratic line. not on the line. california on our republican line. dan are, are you there? dan in california? >> caller: yes. >> dan make sure you mute your television or radio whatever you're listening to so you don't have feedback. >> caller: isn't that the truth? >> dan you're on the air. >> caller: oh i am. >> we'll put you on hold a

second and listen to jay carney. >> -- on my left. vice president's national security adviser tony lincoln. they are here to take your questions about the announcement the president just made. after that, why don't we give your questions to them on that subject or other subjects they may be able to help you with. then i will remain to take your questions on other subjects. gentlemen? >> [inaudible]. >> nine years complete withdrawal. in the white house's assessment is this victory for the united states and if i could follow up just on if you could answer that and follow-up . .

>> specifically, long discussions over unity. house that issue been resolved? with the present have referred to have u.s. troops remain there as trainers? >> what the president preferred was the best relationship for the united states and iraq going forward. that's exactly what we have not as a result of the painstaking work in part of our commanding general, our pastor, and what we

have done over the course of these last three years is indicate, the president has indicated his, not only commitment to fulfilling that security agreement but also his willingness to hear out the iraqis on what kind of relationship they want to have going forward. we talked about immunity. there's no question about that but the decision, the president will insist on our troops having what they need no matter where they are but the bottom line is the decision year the president talk about today is reflective of his view and the prime minister's view of the kind of relationship we want to have going forward. that relationship is a normal relationship that is based on a diplomatic, sobering presents in the lead but also we will have important security components as our relationship, diplomatically all around the world have, from jordan to egypt to colombia to other countries that have similar kinds of security components. we feel like we got exactly what we need to protect our interest and the iraqis feel the same.

>> you guys are confident the iraqi security forces are very well equipped, take the lead without any further assistance or training? >> well, i think we feel very proud of the work our guys have done, civilians and military have done. i think importantly they've worked together over the course of these last several years, not only trained together but also deployed and partners together. very robustly. as we have done this, tony can attest to this, as we've done very intensely frankly over the course of the last seven or eight months of full review of where we stand with the iraqis, one assessment after the others about the iraqi security forces came back saying these guys are ready, these guys are capable, these guys are proven. they are proven because they have been tested. a lot of the kinds of threats they will see going forward, so we feel good about that. >> even though the troops are coming home, major attack

continue in iraq,. [inaudible] do you think they're prepared for that, but what prevented an agreement being reached on passionate. [inaudible] said training was essential to get those troops in order and. >> i think it's important point out we have capacity to maintain trainers. in fact, the office of security cooperation in iraq will have capacity to train iraqis on the new kinds of weapons and weapons systems that the iraqis are going to buy, including important like the f-16s they just purchased just about a month ago. so we will have a training capacity there. we will have the kind of normal trading relationship that we have with countries all over the world. you will see, for several centigrade looking for opportunities to have increased naval cooperation. you will see opportunities in table exercise.

opportunities to have increased air force training and exercises opportunities. so we'll will have the kind of robust security cooperation with the iraqis that we have with important allies all around the world. so the suggestion of your question that somehow there's not going to be training is just not accurate. [inaudible] >> the main purpose, the main purpose of the effort that we undertook over the course of not only the last several months and intensively tony and i but also over the last several years, was the establishment of a normal relationship with a secure, stable and self-reliant iraq that allows them in the region of a considerable unrest at the moment to chart the kind of secure future that they want. that was the goal. not some kind of arrangement around communities. and getting this kind of bulk --

all, for filling this goal of a secure relationship, secure stable self-reliant iraq, we got exactly what we needed. [inaudible] >> i will check you on that, sorry. >> does this leave an open door for iran to insert influence in iraq? want to the u.s. plan to counter iranian power? >> the fact of the matter is i think that as you stack up or the iranians feel they stand right now, in 2011, after years of the kind of international, united international pressure that they've seen over the past several years. the kind of, frankly, robust outcry against them, the kind of activity that we saw announced just last week as it relates to the not living up to their obligations under the convention to which they are party to protect diplomats of all things. so i think what you're seeing is in the first instance in iran that is weaker and that is more isolated.

so we don't need to try to exercise out influence on those matters through iraq. we frankly do that as a matter of course through the united nations, bilaterally, with her friends throughout the region. and so we are concerned about iran's unwillingness to live up to its obligations, the net on human rights, be that on the nuclear program, or be that on something as simple as protecting diplomats. where ever they are serving. we have concerns about that but we don't have concerns about our ability to make sure that the iraqis can exercise the kind of sovereignty they want. i think it's important to highlight one critical fact as we look at iraq's future. if you see the kind of increase production of iraq oil output as we've seen over the last couple of years over the next two years they will surpass iranian output for oil production. so this is just one indicator of the kind of very positive future that we think the iraqis have in front of them. >> how can you be assured of the

security of the diplomats and contractors who will stay in iraq? >> well, it's something we're spending a great deal of time on. we've insisted that for our diplomatic presence, incidentally we will maintain an embassy there. with embassies all around the world. other countries of embassies all around the world so we have to assume a basic amount of protections for people. that's where we are communicate to the iraqis. the president underscored the prime minister and maliki that we continue to insist that the iraqis help us in the protection of her diplomats as well. but as we look at that presence we will ensure the kind of standard protections of our diplomatic personnel to include remain security detail and stuff like that with embassies all around the world. we will also make sure that working with contractors and otherwise would have the kind of protections that our guys are going to need. >> do you guys have any sort of estimate as to how many security contractors are going to be left

behind in iraq? >> we think it's around four, 5000 security contractors in various forms of security, be that for site security. remember, we have at least three diplomatic post. we have a consulate down in basra. where the consulate up in our view and we have the embassy in baghdad. then we'll have our people driving around and everything else. ukase even around here that we have everybody has their security details. we will continue to negotiate this with the iraqis, but we will make sure that we have the kind of presence that we need. both as relates to the fixed site security but also in their ability to move around and do their jobs. >> cannot ask one more question? i'm sorry. was this five or six years ago, i understand a lot of progress has been, but i was six years ago that civil war is going to break out in iraq. i'm wondering, what concerns do you have about how secure the sunnis or kurds or any other

minority group will be in this new sovereign state? >> i think what we've seen is politics is taken hold in iraq. that's been the big story over the last two to three years. and increasingly, iraqis are figure out how to resolve their differences to a political process. it's not always pretty. is not always linear, but they work through the problems through the political system and that has taken a lot of the fuel out of the sectarian problem. the other thing worth pointing out is of course to continue to be erisa good jobs in iraq. you've got to put in context. go back to 2007, early 2008 there were about 1500 secure incidences every week. now we're down to about 100 a week so we've seen more than tenfold decrease. this has been sustained over the last couple of years. so the bottom line is we think that because the iraqi security forces are increasingly competent and capable in dealing with internal security and because of the emergence of

politics, the safest way of doing business, the secretary in, never say never but it's unlikely are less likely certainly to be litigant. >> eight years, trillion dollars, 44 of our men and women dead, 32000 wounded. was this war worth it? >> history is going to have to judge that. i don't think any of us can judge that now. what we can say is that our troops have performed remarkable he over that appeared. at her diplomats are doing the same. the results of that is today we are at a place where as dennis said, iraq is emerging as a secure, stable and self-reliant country. that was president obama's goal. but as to the rest, that's really up to history. >> cannot ask a question on pakistan? was there any reassurance from the pakistanis that they would stop support the haqqani network? what was the chief?

>> we believe the secretary to -- it included any of her colleagues, our colleagues from national security council, chairman of the joint chiefs. obviously, others in the national security council. so we are in the first instance, very appreciative of the secretary leading this effort. secondly, obviously the breath of the delegation, the secretary lead, the pakistan underscores not only the importance we attach to the relationship but also the importance we attach to our ongoing concerns about the security situation, not just in pakistan but also in afghanistan. so as a relates to the particular conclusions of the visit, we will leave that to the secretary and her delegation to read out. but i think the president is very appreciative of the fact the secretary lead the delegation and that the delegation itself, its makeup and its seriousness underscores to the pakistanis the strength of our convictions about these

matters. >> dennis, the mechanics for people watching and trying to see what the president says your family will be home for the holidays, how is this going to happen? how quickly people going to get home? how do you do it in a responsible way? >> you know, i'm going to leave that to the pentagon. i will just make one comment about this. i happen to be in iraq over the weekend and was able to see some of the things that general austin and his team are effectuating on the ground. absolutely unbelievable, powerful demonstration of our, not only our strength and capacity, military strength and capacity, but also its commitment to making sure that we do this the right way. so you are seeing every piece of equipment very closely accounted for. it's being accounted for. it's been been assigned to where it will end up. it's degree of carefulness and scrutiny to this effort that i

think as with the rest of this effort, as tony suggested, makes all of us very proud and, frankly, very appreciative of what they are doing. >> quick follow on libbey, this video that has emerged that appears cutoff was alive, injured, he is dragged around, beaten up. nobody will stand up for david, bad guy. but saddam hussein was as well. after he was killed there were some concerns on a lot of anger on the arab street. about how all played out. now doing his talk about investigating. are the concerns about what happened on the ground in libya, and are you going to back the investigation to figure all that out the? >> bottom line is this has been very dynamic 24 hours. we're still getting additional information ourselves about what exactly transpired. we obviously are very close contact with our nato colleagues and i know they're looking at this today so not get out from it. [inaudible] >> we always have concerns about exactly what's happening in each of these situations.

and, frankly, that's our concern for the situation in libya is exactly what the president took the kind of boldness he took now several months back. but the fact that i have concerns doesn't lead me to want to get out in front of the fact either. >> dennis, considering that you had turkish troops having to chase the kurds into iraq. has been a rise of violence inside of iraq. what about it gives the united states confidence you're leading a more secure iraq's? >> well, the first thing i would do is disassociate myself with tony's comment earlier, that's one. to is that you're right, at various times you've seen spectacular attacks across iraq. frankly, that's one of the techniques of some of the insurgent groups. and what we're seeing is that they try to do that once every several weeks, or even months to try to get attention.

but the fact is that, chart, you can't say the number of attacks in iraq have gone. it's gone dramatically down. in fact, as tony suggested, more than a tenfold, even 15 fold decrease over the course of the last couple of years. we think that is one indication of progress. another of course is the capacity of the iraqi security forces but as i indicated a minute ago. every study, assessment, over the last several months comes back to the same conclusion. these guys are very capable. again, the threats that are most pertinent to them. three, a point that tony made and the vice president has been critical in helping bring about which is that politics is broken out in iraq and people are resolving these differences in the kind of political democratic way that i think just a few years ago we all could've only hope for and that gives us reason for great hope. >> the strategy in libya versus what we are seeing, decisions

being made in iraq versus the decisions that were made in yemen, for instance. this is together on the obama doctrine. >> as tony said, the historians will be busy on this one. but what the president does not is that he is very committed to making sure that we remain secure. and the threats to our security are different in every country. and, in fact, we have to be nimble enough to address those concerns with the agility that allows us to confront them but not get bogged down in any particular type of threat because what we're seeing is a more dynamic threat environment. so, again, i will let the historians or the others lay down by the doctrine is but i do know that having worked on with the president for about five years, he does not take anything as seriously as he does, knowing what the threats are, identifying them, and then

bringing overwhelming power to bear. to neutralize those threats. that's going to be different in different countries and i think as you have watched over the last couple of years, he's not been bound up by a particular ideology but rather bound up specifically by his interest in making sure that we neutralize the threat. >> can you explain to americans and other critics -- [inaudible] >> i think as president indicated in his remarks, what we've seen here is tremendous progress over the last several years by the iraqis. you see tremendous capability, not only in their ability to carry out security operations but also in their ability to carry out democratic and political operations, which is to say that they are much more able now and much more

interested frankly in a political resolution to the ongoing disputes. the other thing is that we also have to recognize that as the president laid out in his speech in 2009 down in camp lejeune, we set very clear set of objectiv objectives, iraq, secure, stable and separate line. that's exactly what we have today. culpability to maintain robust, diplomatic and civilian presence there our ability to maintain ongoing and training efforts with iraqis, all that will contribute to work with iraqi colleagues to ensure that they can maintain the great games they have made. but i also think the lesson of the arab spring is quite important, which is that representatives, governments, that listen to the people and that conduct elections are ultimately going to be much more secure. i think in that regard the iraqis have a leg up on a very dynamic situation.

>> i think it's important to look back over the last almost three years. as the president said he would do a number of things and he said everything one of them. every juncture, iraq security has not gone backward, he's gone for. when we started at we 150,000 american troops in iraq. we said we would be out of the cities in the summer of 2009. we were. things didn't get worse, they got better. in the summer of 2010 we said we would in the combat mission in the to advise and assist in get down to 50,000 troops. we did. finally the president has been committed and repeatedly to fulfilling the security agreement and bringing all of our troops home at the end of this year, and we are on track to do that. as we've discussed, security incidents have gone down, not up. iraqi security forces have gone up, not done. politics had come away of doing business in iraq. for all of those reasons we have a track record to suggest that

security of iraq will continue to move forward. [inaudible] >> what we have seen, you know, efforts to use this data dynamism and change on the ground to try to take advantage of that situation and to threaten our guys and threaten iraqis. i think what you're seeing, frankly, especially over the last couple of months because of the great work of general austin and our troops, less and less success. and, frankly, i think you're seeing more and more frustration on behalf of iraqis because oftentimes with these extremist groups are doing what they try to start a groups is there killing more iraqis. and it all contributes to the kind of developments that make us feel as positively as we do about the situation we find ourselves in. but again, just going back to

chuck's question. we will remain vigilant on this set of us as we have from southeast asia all the way through north africa. the bottom line here is that tony suggested, not only is it that we have done, not only have we done what we said we would do, in iraq, the president has done exactly what he said he would do from iraq to the horn of africa, across the arabian peninsula, throughout south asia and all the way into southeast asia. so we will stay on the offense on the set of threads, but also in so doing, take advantage of the great opportunities out there at the moment. so we feel very good about it as i think you heard the president suggested. >> if you could give others a chance. >> i had a couple of questions. is the u.s. considering -- [inaudible] can the u.s. helped iraq to defend its airspace maybe

through building in kuwait? >> on iran, i think we ivan's, the president is very clear what we expect from the iranians. so i'm not sure how you characterize them idea of the iranian threat, but i just want to be very clear, we have big expectations that the iranians live up to their obligations under and the international committee, be that human rights, the that nuclear responsibility, or be the even something as simple as protecting diplomats. secondly, as it relates to turkey, as you heard or you saw the president expressed significant concerns about the attack in southeastern turkey earlier this week, we are staying in close touch with our turkish allies but i don't have anything specific to announce to you now. as it relates to iraqi air

sovereignty, we will continue to work with iraqis as it relates to the full range of security and training opportunities or needs the ss that they have. but we can do that fully within the context of a fully normalized relationship. [inaudible] it doesn't sound like a conclusion of the conference was a surprise. it's like the president had been preparing for today's e.u. conference. can you talk about why it was made a poignant morning for him? >> maybe tony has something more poetic than i do, but i would just say that i just thought that it was a poignant exchange because of what appeared to me to be genuine appreciation our behalf of the iraqi prime minister, for all of the sacrifices. in fact, he called out all the sacrifice that our troops and their families have, and our diplomats and their families

have put on the line for iraq's future. that's not new to me as it relates to the president of the united states. he obviously has lived this and expresses it quite vividly on numerous occasions that i've seen. but i just thought it was an important moment where the two leaders expressed their view that having set out together on this effort about three years ago, now they feel like they've got two very important point where they can take this next step, pursuant to this agreement, but also then continued forward with the kind of robust partnership that i think they recognize our troops and our diplomats have built over the last several years. >> dennis, does the president support the turkish movement in iraq? >> you know, i'm not going to get into the specifics on this but i will say that we've worked very closely with our turkish friends about the ongoing

concerns from such attacks. we've obviously designated certain of the kurdish forces as designated foreign organizations i'm not going to get into any more than that. we will see what the coming days and weeks unfold. but we remain in close contact with our turkish ally. >> thank you, jeh. he made reference at one point to iraqis loyal. iraq and later are very well the country. [inaudible] >> can you repeat the last question? >> syria and hamas. spent as a relates to whether we'll have to as a reimbursement to don't anticipate. as a relates to three and hamas, we've been very clear as to what we expect of the syrians. and so we will see whether, after now several months of allowing themselves to fall into

deeper and deeper isolation, whether they made the right choice but i think the president has been quite clear on this as has the secretary of state. [inaudible] >> what about hamas with regards to the prisoner swap? >> again, i think jay has talked about the prisoner swap the last several days. >> my question is a logical follow-up to this but are you offering u.s. assistance to iraq or to india in light of yesterday's announcement? if yes, how much? if no, why not? >> we have a very robust security assistance program with the iraqis, includes the kind of things like foreign military sales that we saw with the f-16 purchase last month. but also other pieces of it. so that's a matter of public record. it is passed every year by congress, and so we anticipate that being a very important part

of this robust and textured, important security relationship going forward. as it relates to the libyan, we are continue to work with the tmc about what we expect, kind of representative government there. we're working with our partners and our allies to indicate the kind of support will provide in the future. but there's no specific changes in our assistance since yesterday. will continue to work this one very aggressively. [inaudible] >> we did briefed members of congress. in fact, a number of us were on the phone with senate and house leadership, and other members, to brief them on the president's conversation. with the primaries and to brief them on what the president intended to say. and, of course, all along over these many weeks and many months we've been in regular contact with members in both houses on iraq and what we're doing, on

what we are planning. and the main point is that the president all along has been absolutely consistent in saying what he would do and then doing what he said he would do. that's where we are today. [inaudible] >> i think all the leadership was. >> you mention protection for the indices. do you have an asthma is how many troops will be left there to protect the embassy? >> there will be no troops there to provide security, other than the standard green security detail, which we have at embassies and every country in the world. so other than the marine contingent to provide security, there will be no troops kept in iraq for security of the indices. for security of our embassy and consulates, we will contract with security contractors to provide the kind of, as i said

again, fixed site security as well as movement security when our guys get out and do their job in the country. [inaudible] >> the president is working as and i know jean and secretary guide our so so i will just let them work it and we will hold our comments. >> a quick question. although the president is emphasizing the troops will be home at the end of year, how many should expect to be redeployed made into afghanistan? >> i think you heard the presence remarkable score that. we're continuing our effort in afghanistan but as he suggested the number of u.s. troops deployed overseas has now been robustly reduced. so as it relates to the specific deployment schedule, i will leave that to the pentagon to brief you through the specifics on that.

but the fact of the matter, given that we're looking now at eight dramatically fewer u.s. troops deployed overseas, as a result of these policy choices, i think you can extrapolate from that that we will see a less robust rotational effort it but again i believe the pentagon to comment on the specifics. >> thank you, jay. i would like to ask both gentlemen, the withdrawal of troops, even by those who support it, nonetheless is questions about for giving the exact numbers of when the troops will leave and finally begun. it's almost like telegraphing the message to possible enemies of the regime. what do you say to that criticism? >> well, i will try first. security agreement was negotiated and signed in 2008 by the bush administration stipulated on december 31, 2008,

at the end of the mythic presence. so that has been in law now, or then enforcement now several years. so, it's difficult to rebut the proposition that this was a known date. by the same token, i think the individual decisions that our troops, our commanders are making are informed by their assessment as it relates to individual movements and security related therewith, and we feel very good, and, frankly, very appreciative of their efforts in that regard. [inaudible] >> there was a call that many members of congress on from both houses, including leadership. they were certainly invited. we thought they were from both parties. >> we will get you a list. spent only thing to add, to

questions. other dates are well known in advance but it was well-known we're going going to be i dashed out of iraq see in the summer 2000 again security improve. it was well known we're going to change our mission in the summer of 2010, and combat mission is to a different position and get down to 50,000 troops. security improve. there's something very important about the united states keeping its commitments to that sends a very strong and powerful message throughout the region. in iraq as was countries outside of iraq and that's exactly what we are doing. >> appreciate it. >> you guys want more? i am here today questions on other subjects. >> two follow-ups. one, if he was carrying any

special message from the president, because as you know from the think tanks and as the secretary said, including the defense secretary -- [inaudible] >> once the question? >> was there a message she was carrying to the present? >> secretary of state was leading a high level delegation, and, obviously, at the direction of the president of the united states. so i will echo dennis in saying that i will leave it to those participants to read out their meeting. but, of course, this was a nation embarked upon at the direction of the commander-in-chief. >> does president believe now that this is a message for other dictators, including in saudi arabia or china? because many are iranians are

demonstrating outside the white house for freedom. >> i think setting aside the issue of countries that you name, i think that the lesson we have seen generally in the arab spring and throughout history is that tyrants who do not respond to the people and who in fact murder their own people will not last and should not last. >> can you talk about the jobs bill? he started the week on the road selling the bill, the weekends, not suffice, but the senate last night again voted the bill down. where are we at how does the president get this go through? >> i appreciate that, transit. as you know the senate did vote on a provision but it would've put, if passed, up to 400,000 teachers in the classrooms educating our children as well as putting to work additional

police officers and firefighters and other first responders. once again, we saw an overwhelming percentage of democrats vote in favor of that, and once again we saw precisely zero republicans voted in favor of that. if we lived in a world where majority were to rule in the senate, i think we could've counted on the vice president to come and break the tie last night and assure passage of this measure. the fact of the matter is that senate republicans chose, in unison, and to vote against a measure that would've it teaches back to work, would have put construction workers on the job, or rather teaches back to work in first responders back to work, rather than asking millionaires and billionaires to pay a little more. that's the choice they made and that is unfortunate but the present will continue to make the case that we need to take action to address the biggest

challenge in front of us right now as regards our economy, which is an economy that is not going fast enough, not creating enough jobs. the senate, republicans, failed to act in a way that would have addressed in part this problem last night, but the president and democrats will continue to insist that the senate and hopefully eventually the house vote on every measure within the american jobs act. it's my understanding that today we are able to say that when the senate returns, the we get returns, they will vote on a provision that addresses the infrastructure provision, a provision that addresses infrastructure and would put workers back to work. rebuilding our highways and schools and bridges. and ensuring that we have the kind of economic foundation to be competitive in the 21st century. hopefully, maybe after they take another recess, senate republicans will hear from their constituents, come back with a

different attitude about what this economy needs right now which is a measures that are fully paid for, by asking millionaires, multimillionaires and billionaires to pay a little more, an idea that is supported by an overwhelming majority of the american public, democrats, independents and republicans, and will provide the votes necessary to pass that provision and the ones that will hopefully be voted on after that. >> to follow-up on that, why doesn't the president insist that the senate vote on the things that are clearly much easier to pass, the payroll tax, perhaps the unemployment assistance? if it's a urgent why do you go to these exercises and end up in these 50 votes -- >> let me make clear, we want and insist that congress vote on every provision. and at least senate majority leader has a dress that as well. so we expect that both will be taken on those provisions.

the extension and expansion of the payroll tax cut would take effect once the current payroll tax cut expires. so whether it is voted on this week or two weeks from now will not affect when it is implemented, which is very soon and let positive impact it is passed in 2012. every one of these provisions, if passed, would have positive impact on economic growth and job creation, as judged by outside independent economists. so we think every provision is valuable, every provision should be passed in every provision should be voted on. but be assured every provision will be voted on and senate republicans will have the opportunity, hopefully, if you will to save face and vote on some of them and help this economy grow and create jobs. >> i was one if you could comment on the report about the 520 minute million dollars loan to a company -- [inaudible] so they are being manufactured

in finland. >> i would be delighted to answer that. as was known, the cars being manufactured in finland going to be manufactured in finland. the loan that is being provided is not for the funds that is provide are not being used as ugly the ceo said, the abc, not be used for its facilities in finland. there are already jobs on the ground in the united states, both directly at the plant in wilmington and at the headquarters on the west coast. and the model that will be built in the united states will be built in the united states, and the loan program that was provided will assist in that endeavor. not only that, the model that's being built in finland relies on suppliers and others here in the united states for its manufacture. what was discovered in that piece, this plant is doing exactly what it said it would do. this company isn't exactly what set it would do, and that we

anticipate and hope that it will continue to grow and that the jobs will continue to be created here in the united states, and we will continue both through this and also to the major detroit automobile manufacturers to be a leader in the ottoman of industry and the world. a role that republicans in congress were willing to give up for the united states of america. they oppose the president's decision to insist on the restructuring of gm and chrysler, for example, and to assist them on staying alive and saving more than 1 million jobs in the united states. we think that was the right decision to make and we think helping other car manufacturers locate here or built here create jobs here is a good idea. [inaudible]

>> well, we certainly welcome, thank you for the question, we certainly welcome -- [inaudible] [laughter] is that a trick question? we certainly welcome the fact that the senate has confirmed a number of nominations, both administration positions as well as judicial nominations of late, and we are clearly working very closely, rob neighbors, head of congressional liaison office here is working very closely with leadership in the senate to get these confirmations through. we certainly appreciate those. >> polling suggests voters care more about economy than they do about foreign policy. there's a narrative that i think we're seeing the president -- [inaudible]

>> why do you think that message is important? >> americans are very focused on economy because as i just discuss its the number one priority for them and for this president. we need to grow the economy. we need to take measures that will have the economy creating more jobs. he is focused on that. the president will be judged on his record as president, and that clip includes commander-in-chief of the only thing i think is worth pointing out and this applies to foreign policy, national city policy as well as domestic policy is that this president has made it series of very hard decisions, whether it was bailing out american automobile companies to save a million plus jobs and ensure that we continue to be a

leader in the automobile industry globally, or ensuring that we pass the recovery act so that the great recession would not become the second great depression in american history. whether it was keeping his commitment to wind down the war in iraq and end it responsibly, something he campaigned on when he was running for office. i think it's important if i could just ed gresser one minute to remember that during the 2008 campaign, the iraq war in many ways was a dominant issue. this was an issue that many, many americans rightfully care deeply about. then senator obama took a very clear position on that. he made very clear what he would do. and as is the case in every decision he makes, he says what, he said what he would do and he did it. and he is doing it now with iraq. and again, just a series of tough decisions both domestic

policy and foreign policy. yes, scott. >> when the president goes to nevada next week will be be talking about the jobs bill or that he is something about -- [inaudible] >> he will continue to talk that the economy and the need to create jobs here. we are not going to let up. on this discussion, because it is going back to what i just said, our number one priority and the president in one priority. so you can assume that next week on the trickiest taking he will continue to talk broadly about economy and these pass and measures and the american jobs act. but i don't have any specific announcement about what he's going to do and the tavistock is going to make, today. >> the campaign talk this week about the republican debate and sort of the lack of any effort to address those situations since he will be right there at ground zero for foreclosure. >> this president has taken a number of, maybe number of

decisions and taken a number of measures to try to assist homemakers, i mean rather homeowners. some of them are homemakers as well. [laughter] in dealing with the housing crisis that we confronted when we came there and has continued to be a real drag and burden on the economy. we most recently took an executive measure, the president did, to assist for the unemployed and mortgage forbearance to allow hard-working americans who find themselves unemployed, continue to stay in their homes. we will continue to look more ways to deal with that very difficult housing situation going forward. >> does the president have any plans to talk to former president bush about his decisions today? >> i am not aware of any. as you know, the president saw

former president bush, george w. bush on 9/11. to the point i think that was made earlier, i think an answer to a question from human events, the announcement the president has made today is in fulfillment with an agreement that was signed by president bush to remove all u.s. troops from iraq by the end of 2011. but i'm not aware of any conversation that is planned. >> last week -- [inaudible] he became a leader in the gay-rights movement. >> i'll have to take the. i'm not aware. i know that he passed away but i don't have a comment. [inaudible] >> i don't know so i have to take the question. >> just one last question. there will be a public viewing.

will be present be open to attending the ceremony? >> i don't know the schedule. [inaudible] on the bus a trip he -- >> i think the senate will next. >> the bus trip the president talked about the order in which he expected the sentiment, he talked the infrastructure in the next that after would be held the long-term unemployed, and after that the tax credit, and after that the millionaire tax hike. >> no, no, no. this war tax on millionaires is part of every measure. >> he said on the bus trip he said he wanted a vote on the. i'm just trying to clarify he won several votes on each of those in that order to? >> the senate majority leader decides the order in which business occurs on the senate floor. so i will leave it to senator reid to make announcements about that. i think it's true that they had the vote last on teachers and

first responders. the week to get back on infrastructure, they remain to be votes on the additional provisions with india including tax breaks to hire veterans, and payroll tax cut for individual, the payroll tax cuts for small businesses, and other provisions on unemployment insurance but i don't have in order to get to that. and i would say that as was the case in the vote last night, the pay for on all of these is, as the senate decide, that surtax, so-called surtax on millionaires, and just a porsche and according to size of the delineated measure within the american jobs act. thank you very much. may be my last day i will remember to read it before i asked. get those rumors going. on monday, the president will travel -- [inaudible] i'd take that job. >> i don't know.

>> may not be good for boston, but on monday the president will travel to las vegas, as we've been discussing, commit make remarks on the american jobs act. he will participate in a campaign event while in las vegas. in eating the president will participate in campaign events in los angeles and spend the night there. on tuesday when the president will tape an appearance on the tonight show with jay leno before departing% of cisco. san francisco the president will participate in a campaign event. the president will travel to denver and participate in campaign events. he will spend tuesday night in denver and on wednesday when the president will deliver remarks on the american jobs act in denver. vatican and the president will return to washington, d.c. on thursday the present will hold a bilateral meeting with the prime minister of the czech republic and friday the president will attend meetings here at the white house. thank you all very much. had a great weekend. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> rapping at today's white house briefing, dominated of course by remarks on president obama's announcement today a short time ago of a total u.s. troop withdrawal from iraq by the end of the year. president citing an agreement reached today earlier with nouri al-maliki. if you missed the announcement you can watch it anytime at the c-span video library. also see dimbleby and the president's remarks starting at 2 p.m. eastern, about nine minutes from now. they will have as part of our prime time schedule tonight. >> and be sure to join us tonight more from the road to the white house. we will feature texas congressman ron paul. is scheduled to speak in iowa city, iowa, at a youth for ron paul event. we will have that live for you begin at 9 p.m. eastern right here on c-span2. some news from the campaign trail from the hill. of report, michele bachmann's

staffer resigns. staffers have all quit. they stressed their departures want you to any lack of support for bachmann. instead they said the reason for quitting was because of the campaigns apparent lack of focus on the new hampshire primary. >> this weekend, six republican presidential candidates traveled to des moines, iowa, for the iowa freedom coalition candidate for them. watch live coverage of herman cain, newt gingrich and rick santorum as was governor rick perry, and representatives ron paul and michele bachmann starting at 7 p.m. eastern saturday. >> republican presidential candidate mitt romney said yesterday the republican party needs to a better job in its

message to voters. he said the world is a better place with moammar gadhafi now gone and at the president should get some credit for his death. he made these comments at a town hall meeting inside the olsen student center at morningside college in sioux city, iowa. this is about an hour. >> i'm doctor, in economic care of our psychology and for some of you who may have heard, i have a radio show. i want to take this opportunity to didn't come here to listen to me. all the press is here. great turnout. i want to introduce candidate for president of the united states, governor mitt romney. [applause] >> thank you. thank you so much. i was just on the radio with same this one. he asked good questions on the air. randy has a pretty good audience and went on.

do you do as well as randy? just as good. just ask him, right? thank you for joining me this going to a number of students here from morningside as well. how many are morningside students? great. a good turnout. i have to be honest with you guys but i do not any young person in this country would vote for a democrat. i know that's a bit, i just need to say to you that my party is focused on making sure that america is strong at prosperous for you. not just how will we can do for ourselves and how many benefits we can accrue for my generation but instead how can we make sure that we care for our own folks at the same time we care for the next generation. and we america stronger and more prosperous and we found it. because you see, what we enjoy today, i'm 64 years old, what i enjoy today, the benefits of

living in america are the results of investment and the contribution made by my peers, made by the greatest generation like these folks here. not those too. this guy here. and people who made a real contribution and holding off tyranny in the world, in building the strongest economy in the world, in leading the nation that had an economic base that was second to none. and right now the question is what are we going to leave? will we leave a stronger america? will this be an american century, this entry we're in or will he be the century of some of the part of the world. and i want is to be the american century. i want us to the strongest values and the strongest economy and the strongest military in the world. and i'm committed to making sure we keep america strong. my foreign policy can be boiled down to the idea of keeping america strong and in whatever it takes.

[inaudible] around the world is -- [inaudible] you know that. this president points out that he did not cause the recession, and he's right. but he made the downturn worse. and made recovery last longer than it should have. and i don't think he is a bad guy. i just don't think he understands how the economy works. i think he is over his head. and evidence of that is that you are 25 million people today, three years after he was inaugurated, 25 million people out of work or stopped looking for work, or in part-time jobs when they need full-time employee. evidence of that is when you get your graduation certificate from morningside and you go to get a job you'll find it's not as easy as you might have expected. evidence of the failure of the president in getting with our economy is the fact at home guys continue to go down in this country. and that the median income of

americans over the last three years has dropped 10%. this is just unprecedented. and so what i want to do is get this economy going again and allow the american people to know that the future will be brighter for them and brighter for their kids. than in times they've enjoyed in the past. we have the president right now campaigning. going across, i think he is in, let's see, north carolina today. he is campaigning for his stimulus. someone needs to tell him the stimulus is dead, gone, disappeared, invisible. the emperor has no clothes. that villages, the stimulus bill was turned down. by the democrats. his own leaders in the democratic party in the senate have said no, that bill isn't going for. i don't know what he is campaigning about. what he needs to do is to stop campaigning and stop blaming and go back to washington and sit

down with democrats and republicans and work on legislation that will get america working again. [applause] >> leadership is hard. reaching across the aisle with people who disagree with you on issues and finding common ground, that's tough. he hasn't been able to do those things. he likes campaigning so that's what he's doing but we didn't elect him to campaign. we elected him to lead. we need that leadership. i laid out a series of things i think you have to do to make sure that the foundation of our economy is so strong we start creating jobs again. and i, i described them in four major categories, even though it's a much longer list than that of think you really need to do to get america's economy going again. one, you can make sure that the tax rate for our employees are competitive with other nations. ours are right now the highest

in the world along with japan. and as result, over time businesses will tend to leave our shores and go places where the taxes are more competitive. number two, you have to have regulations. by the way, as republicans we've got to make sure that we don't pretend like we just want to get rid of all regulation. you need regulation to make free markets work, which the regulation needs to be modern and up-to-date, streamline. and the regulars need to be encouraged in the private sector, not try to kill it. ..

>> right now, there's a president who's been in office three years stalling on trade agreements with south korea, colombia, and panama. those finally made it through the congress, but during these last three years while this president negotiated no new deals to open up markets for america, the chinese and the europeans have put together some 40 different deals, and that means they're going to have trade relationships establishing distribution and brand awareness and so forth making it harder for us. we need a president that wants to open up markets. number four, you have to have energy policies to be on the track to be energy secure and energy independent. 245 means you don't say no to all sources of energy in the country. develop our coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear power, renewable

resources like ethanol, wind, and solar, and encourage efficiently in our use of energy. five, you have to have the rule of law. in order for america to have confidence to invest in the future, you got to believe that the law's going to be followed, and when the president stacks the national labor relations board with stooges and tells boeing they can't build in the state, that violates the rule of law. there's an applause, thank you. you agree with that. [applause] number six, you have to have institutions that build human capital. what do i mean by that? well, we're in a capitalist system, as you know. sometimes people don't like that word. i like capitalism and free enterprise. they are the only antedote to poverty the world's ever seen. even china is copying what we're

doing and bringing people out of poverty as a result of doing so finally. you have to have capitalism, not just capital for financial resource, or capital for physical goods, assets, you also have to have human capital, and we have to have institutions that build human capital in an exceptional way, and let's think about what they are -- schools, k-12, unfortunately, our kids are treated to schools performing in the bottom portion of the nation, the world rather, and you have to have greater institutions of higher learning. we do a good job, but it's more expensive than it ought to be. i'm sure that's not true in morningside, but other places it is. you also have immigration policies that open the door to the best and the brightest, and welcome legal immigration and stop illegal immigration because illegal immigration is an enemy of legal immigration. [applause]

i mentioned there were seven things, and the last one is if you are thinking about investing your life savings in america or if you had capital of some big company you were asked to run, and you were thinking about where to put your money, you don't want to put it in a place where you don't know whether down the road they face a greece-like melt down or the dollar won't be anything in the future. if you have a government consistently spending more than it takes in, you worry about the future of that country. we cannot allow our country to spend massively more than we take in. we have to cap the spending, cap how much the federal government takes from our economy, and have a balanced budget. those are things to get the economy going and right for america. [applause] now, i know that this is a town meeting kind of format. i know this is not officially a town meeting, a town hall, but

you'll get the chance to ask questions. i know there's friends in the audience that are see romney stickers on, even though i learned those are sometimes just camouflage, and there's some romney stickers, obama stickers in here, folks voting for other people, and that's what is fun about this nation. i love the fact we can disagree, let's do it respectfully, and i'll try to be respectful too. with that, let's turn to you for yeses you might have. yes, ma'am? >> oh, thank you. you were on governor huckabee's show a few weeks ago, and one of the things you folks talked about was that you would support a life begins at conception amendment. now, that would essentially mean banning most forms of birth control. 98% of american women, including me, use birth control. could you help me understand why you oppose the use of birth

control? >> i don't. [laughter] >> okay, well -- >> i'm sorry, life begins at conception, birth control prevents conception. my view is this. i'll clarify. what i believe is the right course with regards to abortion and life is that i would like to see the supreme court return this right to the states and let states create their own legislation with regards to life. that's my view, and states would make different decisions which is their right to do so, and my view is i'm not out campaigning for an amendment of some kind. i'm campaigning to see justice is ultimately appointed to the supreme court that follows the constitution, return to the states the right to make the decision themselves. >> absolutely, but i don't know if you want to have some staff look into this, but hormonal forms of birth control work differently, and they prevent implantation, not conception, so it would ban hormonal forms of

birth control which is what most women use. i don't know if you want to look into that, but as someone who uses birth control, this is a terrifying prospect to me, so i hope you can, you know, look into that i guess, so thank you. >> thank you. appreciate that. yes, yes, back there, please. >> i have a question about the fact that what do you think about the fact that our democratic-run senate has not passed a budget since this president has been inaugurated? to me, that has caused most of this financial crisis and problem because we're running on resolution after resolution after resolution which they create a crisis over, waste our time, and nothing else gets done. what would you, as president, do if the senate is still in the hands of the democrats to get

the actual budget done? >> i would lead. one of the responsibilities of leadership is that you work within your own party, and you also work across the aisle and see if you can't bring people together. had the president been spending the last 1,000 days. he's been president over a thousand days. had he invited beam to the white house, going to congress, working with people, back and forth, trying new ideas, listening to ideas, i'd said, well, he's tried, and they just can't get the other side to move. he's not been doing that. he's in north dakota campaigning. look, the job we elected him to do happens to be right now in washington. you got all these people out of work. you have government spending massively more money than we ought to be, and he's not there leading. when he came to office, one of the things i found most surprising was his decision to delegate the stimulus to nancy pelosi and harry reid.

my guess is that had probably about as much experience in the private sector as he had -- none, and so they crafted an almost $800 billion stimulus plan which protected government jobs and didn't get the economy going, and now they want to do another one like that. i mean, you know, shame on us if we fall for that twice, and so we have to insist on a president's that's willing to lead, and i agree with you. the idea of a budget process is to make the tough decisions we have to make opposed to kicking the can down the field. look, washington's broken. i said that four years ago. it's more true today. washington is broken. it's not doing its job. that's not because of the real estate. it's not because of the 535 members of the senate and the house. it's because right now it doesn't have a leader, and america needs leadership, and, you know, i say, again, you know, i like the president. i think he's a nice guy, but

he's never led before. he didn't lead in the legislature in illinois. he didn't lead in the united states senate. he's not had that experience, and i, you know, i don't know the answers to all things, by any means. there's a lot of things i can be educated upon and learn from, but i learned how to lead through different experiences doing that, and if -- i have five boys. i could come down to complain that the dinner table is not respectful, there's too much joking going on, that these boys should get there on time, but it wouldn't be their fault, but my fault. you have to be the leader of the family. i learned leadership at my dad and mom's feet. i learned it throughout my clear. -- career. we need a president who leads. if i'm president of the united states, i'll do everything in my power to get people to work together for the good of the american people, and i'll give

that all of my energy. thank you. [applause] hi. >> there is a huge appetite today for getting rid of the irs because it is a book of special favors and opt outs for friends of legislatures. also, there's an $800 billion in subsidies to get rid of in order to balance the budget. how do you stand on those issues? >> yeah, there's a lot we can do to reform the tax code to make it work better, and that's going to be -- my view, i'd like toe see a tax -- to see a tax code that has lower tax rates, flatter tax rates, where a lot of special deals are taken out of the tax code, but let me tell you what we need to do right away because that process of going through a complete restructuring of our tax code will take a long time, and i've got some ideas in ways to do that. i like -- well, i won't go

through them all right now, but what i want to do immediately is help the people hurt most by the obama economy, and that's the middle class, and so what i look to do is to provide an immediate tax relief package for the middle class, and i think that can get passed pretty quickly if i'm lucky enough to become president, pretty quickly, perhaps in the first, well, 100 days or so, so what i would do is this -- i'd say for anybody making $200,000 a year or less, we would eliminate tax on your savings meaning no tax on your interest, dividends, or capital gains. middle income can save for college, retirement, or home or whatever they want without paying taxes on it. that lowers the burden on the middle class america. that is a simple change to be carried out quickly. i'd like to have employers have

tax rates brought down from the current 35% rate to 25% to be competitive with others around the world. we'll get rid of special breaks in the tax code butt there by various -- put there by various lobbyists and interest groups over the years. what other tax ideas might work? one is to go to the fair tax, and you're nodding your head. you're familiar with that. that's to replace the income tax with a sales tax, a national sales tax, a consumption tax, if you will, and there's a loot of positive features to that, and we can look and see if we can make that work and what the pros and cons could would be. the current fair tax has a problem in my view that endorses the fair tax proposal as it stands, and that's this -- it raises the taxes on middle income families, and it lowers them on the other two ends among the poor and the wealthy, and so i don't like the idea of raising

taxes on middle income americans, but lowering taxes on middle income americans, so for me, that's a non-starter, although, the con cement of a consumption tax make sense. the so-called flat tax steve forbes championed in 2000, the flat tax has a positive feature, and again, you have to look and make sure it doesn't raise taxes on middle income americans. for me, one of the key criteria in looking at tax policy is to make sure we help the people who need the help most, and in our country, the people who need the help most are not the poor who have a safety net, not the rich doing just fine, but the middle class, and so i will look for tax policy which makes tax reporting and calculation easier, which reduces the burden on the middle class, and which causes the growth of our economy because the best way to balance

our budget in addition to cutting spending is to encourage growth. those are my principles -- pardon? >> [inaudible] >> and subsidies are deductions. there's corporate subsidies that you have to take some of those out to get the tax rate for corporations from 35 to 25, and there's deductions for individuals. for instance, one is we get to deduct the interest on our home mortgage, and some are saying get rid of that. well, if you get rid of that, people who bought homes and deduct interest on their mortgage on their taxes finds that costs them money, something that was unexpected, and it's might not be helpful to the home industry as well, and buying and selling homes right now is not something we want to hurt. look at individuals, and people say get rid of the chaishtble contribution -- charitable contribution, and that would be a dramatic change,

and before we propose that, i'll e wait how they impact middle income americans and growth. there's a question -- thunk. >> first of all, governor, thank you for being here. the first time i saw you was when you were governor of massachusetts, and i got to hear you speak. i was impressed by how you talked about reaching across the aisle and being bipartisan in massachusetts. now, when you gave your introduction remarks before, you don't think obama's a bad guy, just in over his head, and i think there's a lot of people and there's a lot of iowans who agree with that, but so far, your campaign has not been heavy in iowa, and instead, we have candidates who focus on the hyperbole, we have a candidate who once thought the greatest problem plaguing the nation's schools was the movie "aladdin"

and there's another one offering a 999 tax plan, and we have a candidate with a claim to fame that he shot a coyote as governor. are you here in iowa today, and is your campaign here in iowa today to give the people of iowa an alternative to that? >> yes. other questions? [laughter] look i want the support of iowans. i'm in iowa. this is not my first trip to iowa as you know, and i will be here again and again campaigning here. i want to get the support of the good people of iowa. i'd love to win in iowa. any of us would, and so i'll campaign here. i intend to campaign, and, well, in all the early states at least, and maybe all states at some point. look, i want to become the president of the united states. i didn't imagine that that was going to be part of my life's

experience, that i'd be campaigning for president. had i known that i was going to get involved in politics, i'm not sure i would have chosen massachusetts as the place to do so as a republican. all right? a limit tough there as a republican -- a little tough there as a republican, and yet i find myself in a position where having spent my life in the private sector, 25 years working in small business, big business, having started a business, having run other enterprises, i have, in my view, the kinds of skills that america needs right know to get the economy going again, and so i'm running for president, and that takes me around the country, and you guys have a big say. iowa comes first. you have an enormous say in who the next president's going to be issue, and i think the american people are increasingly aware that president obama can't get elected to a second term, shouldn't get legislated to a second term, and he was on the

"today's show," a few weeks after his inauguration. he said, look, if i can't get this economy turned around in three years, i'll be looking at the one-term proposition. i'm here to collect. he's not gotten the job done, and -- [applause] and here he is today in explicably campaigning talking about a new stimulus. it's like, mr. president, we let you have your way with the nation for three years. you had -- he ignores the fact that his first two years he had a democrat house and democrat senate, and he put in place $878 billion stimulus bill. he ignores that fact, ignores the fact he pushed through obama care and other pieces of legislation that the american people tried to stop every way they could, even electing a republican senator in massachusetts. we tried to stop, yet he went

ahead with them, we're still suffering, and he's looking for someone to blame. we've gone from hope and change to divide and blame, and the american people have seen enough of it, and they want to see someone who will lead, and i can tell you i'm not going to agree with the democrats on all issues. i'm not going to agree with liberals. all right, i'm not going to compromise my principles, but i'm going to look for commonground because i happen to believe there are democrats that love america just like the republicans that love america, and the old ronald reagan line, "it's not that liberals are ignorant. it's just what they know is wrong." you seek the opposing side and seek to find places where you have agreement, and right now given the state of our budget deficit and the massive total debt that america has and the fact we're facing challenges

around the world of an extraordinary nature, i think there's good democrats who lib tip o'neill go to the white house to sit with reagan, good democrats who will sit where me and say what can we do about this? where's the agreement? how about this or that? let's make this change, i predict it does this. if not, i'll give you something you want. let's work together based on our principles. it can happen. i've seen it happen in my state, other states, and in this country under leaders, and i intend to be one of those leaders. thank you. yes? >> hi -- [applause] i have two -- excuse me -- i have two questions. one's easy, the other is more difficult. the easy one is what 4r -- will you do about -- [inaudible] get rid of them or keep them?

>> [inaudible] >> the other question is how are you going to stop the influx of illegals? to me, you have to shut the spigot off and put the fence up. >> okay. yeah, thank you. czars. i thought you were talked about sars. remember that infectious disease we had a couple years ago? [laughter] i don't know how we're going to stop that. i got to tell you. [laughter] but czars, i certainly hope i'm not to a point where we have to appoint czars. there will be envoys going to places in the world that represent the president of the united states or the state department, but czars that are, if you will, managing the cabinet posts, that doesn't make sense to me. look, the structure of our

governmental organization is kind of strange. businesses -- i was in the business world as i've mentioned, a couple times already, and every now and then, businesses reorganize. they find ways to do things better, and they are consulting firms 245 come into companies and say, hey, it's organized wrong. change the way you are organized. people are reporting in the wrong order. you have this person ahead of that person and so forth. businesses do that to be more efficient. we have not done that in this country for hundreds of years. we got the same structure now we had back in the days of george washington. it probably makes sense to sort of update the way we work to the. there's probably agencies and departments that ought to be combined. there's probably some that could be eliminated, a lot of programs that can be eliminated. i'd like to make the government for efficient and responsive to the people, but i don't expect to appoint czars, i can tell you that. >> [inaudible] >> i'm for a strong america now,

is that what you said? >> [inaudible] >> everything i'm focused upon is getting america stronger and keeping america strong. i want strong values. i want a strong economy, and i want a military that's second to none in the world, and everything i do will be focused on making america stronger and keeping us the strongest nation on earth, the hope of the world. we're a shining city on a hill. i want to keep us a shining city on a hill, and i'll do everything in my power to keep us strong. now, you had another question? what would you do about illegal immigration? well, i mentioned that as i began. you know, the interesting thing about illegal immigration is that it's not that difficult to solve intellectually. it's the politics that are hard. some problems are hard intelligence -- intellectually. how do we stop attacks that come from jihadists around the

world? that's hard. how do we deal where various groups are trying to overflow governments or to terrorize people? that's a tough one, and it's going to take ongoing work, but illegal immigration is pretty straightforward. i had the occasion i went to the border to mexico there with border patrol agents. we have a big fence there, and they said people get across the fence. they build ladders out of rebar, and they throw them over the first fence, climb up, jump down, grab the ladder, and go to the next. i said what do we do then to stop the flow of illegal immigration? he said something i agree with. one, you have to have a fence. number two, you have to have enough border patrol agents to patrol that fence and secure it. number three, you have to turn

off the magnets. when you have employers hiring people illegally and get paid ten times as much as they do in their home, they're going to find a way in. you have to crack down, and that means you need a system that identifies who is here legally, be a biometric card, this is the person, they can be here, you swipe it into the computer, type in the number, it tells you whether they are legal or not, and if they are, you can hire them, and if you don't check the card and hire someone illegal, you're going to get sanctioned or fined like not paying your taxes. once you do that, you close that magnets. the legislature passed a dream agent when i was governor of massachusetts. texas was the first state with a dream act saying we should give tuition breaks to illegals

living in the country, taxpayers should fund the college education of illegals in massachusetts. i vetoed that bill, and my legislature, overwhelmingly democrat agreed. they upheld the veto. now, interestingly, there are other people who have a different course in that regard. i think that's a mistake. you got to turn off the magnets. build a fence, patrol it, and turn off the magnetses, and we do those things, we'll stop illegal immigration, not because we don't want immigrants. we want legal immigration. we got 4.7 million people in line waiting to come here legally. i want to legal process to bring in people who speak english, who have education, who have skills we need in the country. welcome to the u.s.. we love legal immigration. we will stop illegal immigration to protect our legal immigration system in our nation. thank you. [applause] yes, sir?

>> [inaudible] a good leaders knows their weaknesses and willing to bring them out, confront them, and make them stronger. what are things, maybe you don't struggle with personally, but running for president and all, but what your party sees as struggles and use that to unify america? >> i think one of the things my party needs to do better, and me as well, something i learned in the first came pain is communicate the message clearly. gosh, darn, we don't do a good job of that. i mean, when i said jokingly at the beginning that if anyone here is going to college, you shouldn't vote for a democrat, i met that jokingly, but also seriously, and yet most young people, most college students don't vote for us. we don't get the message across. we're not good at communicating a message. we are outmessaged. ours is the party of trying to

protect opportunity and making america's economy so strong that you get great jobs when you come out of school. theirs the party of benefits and handout, and that doesn't create the opportunity you want in life. you know, the other day i was pointing out that my democratic friends want to give more and more benefits to people of my generation, and we say, well, fine, heap it on me, but we pass the burden of that on to your generation. look, i'm going to be dead and gone before that $14 trillion is paid off. the interest on that, year after year after year is going to be paid for by your generation, and my party is trying 20 find a way to stop that from happening, by cutting back on the spending, not because we don't care about the things we spend money on. we'd all like to buy lots of stuff for everybody, but giving away free stuff kills the next generation. we want america to be stronger and more prosperous for you.

i'm not in the race for me; right? i'm almost 65 years old. i'm in this race if more kid and my grand kids, and so if we do a better job of communicating our message, we'll get the support of young people, and, you know, i don't know how it works here, my guess is you do is good job among the faculty in communicating the kinds of choices we have, but i think we do an ineffective job too often in communicating with young people, with hispanic voters. one of the issues -- another weakness of ours -- look, we're not doing well with hispanic voters, and with other minorities, but the hispanic vote is a very, very large portion of our national voting public, and ours is the party that wants to preserve the american opportunity that they or their ancestors came here

for. this nation is all about freedom and opportunity, and, gosh, that's what we're about, so number one, weakness. come on mitt and republicans, do a better job communicating the message. if i'm the nominee and have a chance to debate president obama, i'll be able to post up on the fact that i'm in favor of keeping america strong, creating good jobs, making sure the military is second to none, not for me, but for the coming generations of americans, and i happen to believe this is an exceptional nation. i know there's some, and i think our president's among them, who think america's just another nation with a flag. he said american exceptionalism is like greek exceptionalism. i disagree. this nation was founded on a radical principle that our creator endowed us with certain

unalienable rights and among those are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that idea swepted world, and nation after nation adopted those prince. s to one -- principles to one degree or another. a strong america is part of our exceptionalism, and i want to do a better job of communicating that. thank you. oh, yes, sir, the staff said one more question. yes, sir? >> on the super committee, how do you tell them that the budget process needs and what type of cuts. >> yeah, yeah, thanks. there are a number of things we can do right away that get us on the trajectory of balancing the budget. one is to take the discretionary spending back to the 2008 levels. that's the paul ryan plan. number two, is to stop obamacare. it's an extra trillion dollars of spending we can't afford, and turn back to the states the

responsibility for their own unensured # and their own poor. number three, take medicaid, which is a huge federal spending program, grows at very high rates, and send that back to the states saying you care for your poor and the way you think best. we'll give you the money you got last year plus 1 or 2%, and you live within that figure. we slow down the massive growth of medicaid. four, cut federal employment by about 10%, maybe more -- [applause] and do that -- do that through attrition because there's a lot of people who are baby boomers retiring now, and finally, we set federal compensation to equal the compensation that exists in the private sector. i saw yesterday, i don't know -- i was going to say don't quote me, but you the cameras, that's not possible, but i saw a report, and i can't verify it, but the average compensation of

a federal employee is $125,000. that strikes me than being higher than the private sector. there's differences in job titles, but looking job to job, responsibility to responsibility, i think we should link federal employee compensation with that that exists in the private sector. 23 you do -- if you do those five things -- [applause] you do those five things, and you balance the budget. now, we have to be honest to young people coming along, and that, again, talking about college kids and people, 20s, 30s, 40s, and early 50s about what the promises that we make with regards to social security and medicare. i want those programs to stay in place. i want them to be there as a safety net for the american people, but i want to make sure we're not overpromising and laying upon them a massive burden they can't carry out, and at the same time, live in a country that has opportunity, so i propose ways to make social security and medicare sustainable. you do all of those things and

thank heavens you're able to cut the funding or the spending of the federal government, you would cap it in my view at 20% of the total economy or less, and then you'll have a balanced budget amendment, but those are the big steps i'd take. by the way, i did that, not quite at the federal level, but the state level, and the numbers were smaller. our budget gap was $3 billion, not a trillion and a half, but we made the tough decision of consolidating agencies, agencies who had different offices got put together, we got rid of press secretaries and lawyers because if we put them together, they request use the same press secretary and lawyer. some programs, in my budget, i actually eliminated legislature put those back in, but we balanced the budget, and we -- that is what i'll bring to washington because the idea of consistently borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars actually

$1.6 -- a trillion and a half dollars, borrowing that, knowing we can't pay it back, asking the next generation to pay for it and get stuck with the principle payments, i don't know how we expect that to go on. it's wrong. it's immoral. as a result, we have to stop that, and i'll make sure that happens. [applause] thanks so much for spending time with mement i hope those of you go to college for this get some credit for this, and those from the community, thank you for spending time. i appreciate the chance to be with you, to hear your questions. this is an important election. you know that. we're walking on an economic tight rope by the way, right now. on one side, it could be a double-dip recession, and with all the borrowing that's been

done, be -- with all the money printing done by the fed, it'd be a real tough time to go into a double-dip. the other side is a long slide like japan experienced, and i don't want to see one of those things happen. i'm afraid if we stay on the current course, one or the other of the very frightful scenarios will be realized, and i believe it's essential for us to fundamentally restructure the economy to be competitive with anyone in the world, opening up markets, getting regulation to work for us, getting our energy policies on track to allow america to compete globally, those are things i will do. i will make sure with every ounce of my energy we keep america's economy strong to protect ourselves with a strong military, and we can promise the next generation that we'll get a job, a good job with rising incomes and that the future will be brighter than the past. that's why i'm running.

i love this country. i hope i made that clear. i didn't see that as directly as i would like to. i love america. we're a unique nation, an exceptional nation. i love this country. i love the principles upon which it was founded. i believe in america. i believe in free enterprise. i believe in freedom. i believe in opportunity. i love america. i believe that we have a role to pass to the next generation in america that's strong and free, and i'm not going to die without doing everything in my power to fulfill that responsibility just like my parents fulfilled their obligation and a nation that was the strongest economy in the world. i don't want to go down in history as being part of the worst generation or a mediocre generation. we can be a great generation. i want to be one of those. i want you young people in the

room saying thank heavens my mom and dad and people like my mom and dad went to work to cut back on the excesses of government and get working again and provide for the future. this is a great country with a great role and a great responsibility, and the defense of liberty is not going to be long entrusted to any nation that's weak or timid. it's our responsibility to give to the next generation in america that's as bright and prosperous as the one we inherited. i appreciate you being here and i look forward to working with you as president. thank you, great to be here. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> thanks for being here. >> can i get a picture? >> absolutely.

>> good to see you. thanks for being here. >> good to meet you. thanks for being here today. >> thank you, sir. >> how you been? >> good. >> wonderful. >> keep it up. thank you. good to see you. >> can you sign this photo of us? >> oh, absolutely. >> and i'll follow-up with the same question. [inaudible conversations] >> great, and then you want your name? >> matt. >> sorry about that. >> that's okay. >> great, thanks, matt. >> thank you. >> thank you for answering my question. >> you're certainly welcome,

thank you. appreciate you being here. >> absolutely. >> thank you. got numbers for the media. is that how that works? >> i think you got it backwards. >> no, no, we're in the picture. >> okay. >> wrong button. >> i'm just pushing every button. >> will, where are you? make this thing work. this guy knows how to make the cameras work. oh, it's on video, that will be fun. all righty. there we go, took a little time. >> i was volunteering on the campaign. >> oh, thank you so much. appreciate that. right here? sioux city?

appreciate it. thanks for coming by today. you go to school here? >> i teach here. >> you teach here? >> history political science. >> oh, what fun. >> thank you. >> thanks so much. good guy, isn't he? got a couple business guys in there, that would be helpful. we need those two heads up there. >> thank you, sir. i will do that. i'm looking at this hat here. what do we have here? touchstone energy. good to see you. thanks for being here. >> nice to meet you. >> hi, how are you? nice to meet you. sure, how are you? this your daughter i imagine? >> no. >> just a student. are you a faculty member or student? >> staff. >> staff here? okay, good. great, good. >> thank you so much. >> thank you, what are you

studying? >> premed. >> oh, great. becoming an md, medical professional? >> i want to get my ph.d. >> research perhaps? >> yeah, hopefully, i'm not broke and i get through the next 20 years of my life. >> my sonmented to do that, and then he got attracted into radiology. >> i'm still young, we'll see. >> good luck to you. thank you for coming. >> thank you for coming to the campus. >> thank you. >> what do you think you're going to do when it comes to after we defeated the obamacare problem and the insurance companies, and a group of politician got together who didn't know what they talk -9d about, how do you handle that after that is gone? >> well, a couple things, one is returning the care of the unensured back to the states. let the states try a different model. if they like what we did in massachusetts, they can adopt

that or try something they think is better, but one relevant thing is i think that the discrimination that exists now against individual purchases of insurance should be eliminated. as you know, the corporation buys insurance for their employees, they get a deduction. if an individualments insurance, they don't get that. i want individuals to have the same tax treatment as companies so they can buy their insurance and keep it throughout their life if they want. they don't lose insurance if they change jobs. >> sure. what process will you use? >> there's a process of gathering information from people across the country and whether you do that through hearings, but also bringing in folks from different backgrounds come in, and typically, try things and experiment with them before you impose them on the nation. >> what about experts? >> have everyone at the table, express views, and try various

elements. one people are convinced of that makes sense is the idea of letting individuals purchase insurance like companies, and that means people can continue to get insurance through their company as most will, but small businesses, a sole proprietorship or an individual not working can buy insurance at a relatively fair price on a tax advantage basis. that's a plus. we'll get more people in the insurance world or the insurance pool by letting individuals have that same treatment. >> thank you for being here. >> thank you. >> continue the story about the shining story, would you? we don't hear half p that. >> i will. thank you. >> quick picture with you? >> sure. how are you doing? students here? >> yes, we are students. >> that's great. what are you studying? >> elementary education. >> elementary ed. >> there we go.

>> thank you, guys. >> thank you. >> good to see you. >> yes, oh, my goodness. is this for me? >> that's for you. >> thank you so much. want me to sign that? all right. sign this, all right, i'll sign that. your name there? >> [inaudible] >> great, thank you. sign that? all right, i'll do that. >> [inaudible] >> i vice president got that one. how about this? just sign it? >> just sign it. >> all righty. thank you, good to see you. take care. >> this is my wife. >> hi, there, how are you? >> can i get a picture with you? >> absolutely.

[inaudible conversations] oh, say that louder. i want the media to hear that. oh, just kidding. [laughter] we did that four years ago. we did that four years ago. don't you want in the picture? >> no. hey, joyce, one more. >> okay, all right. >> thank you. >> thank you. nice to see you. all righty, we'll be back. >> [inaudible] [laughter] >> hi, how are you? thank you, nice to see you today. appreciate you coming here. >> hey, will, you got a pen? look at that, he does. sign that?

hey, look, it's signed, but that's signed by a machine. that's about the same, don't you think? look at that. you got the microphone out this morning. [inaudible conversations] thank you, good to meet you. again, last night or this morning? that's yours, sorry. that's yours. i got to give you that, shake hands, and say thank you. appreciate the chance to be together. >> [inaudible] >> just about time, gadhafi, a terrible tyrant who killed his own people, murdered americans, and others. the world is a better place with gadhafi gone. >> [inaudible] >> sure. thank you so much. >> that works.

thank you, good to see you. >> come back to iowa. >> thank you. good to see you. good to be back. i'm back again. thank you. >> the senate finished their work for the week in the wee hours of the morning gaveling

out before 2:30 a.m. eastern time. they were working on hr2112 which rolls three appropriations bills into one. they were able to dispose of two dozen amendments. also, the senate rejected democratic moves to bring parts of president obama's jobs bill to the floor. a vote to proceed with that measure failed to win the required 60 votes. senators also rejected a bill by senate majority leader, mcconnell, calling for a repeal of the 3% holding tax. they are out now for a week long district work period, and back october 3 1st 3 p.m. eastern you can watch live coverage here on c-span2.

>> next, the impact of the youth vote in the 2012 election. the enthusiasm gap and a look at with which way young people are leaning in the election. this is about 35 minutes. >> host: meet heather smith, president of the rock the vote. we heard a lot of discussion about whether or not there is an enthusiasm gap among younger americans for voting next year. you work with young people. what are you learning? >> guest: you know, the elections are far off to young people right now, and they are much more concerned about the issues of every day life, whether that's getting through school, finding a job, worrying about primarily economic concerns, but we're also seeing them as you've seen around the country, you know, taking to the streets and really being enthusiastic of finding solutions to the problems they are facings.

i think the big question is whether that turns into participation at the polls. >> host: in addition to our republicans, democrats, and independentings, there's a special line specifically people watching the 18-29. whether you are republican, democrat, or independent, ewe that line and tell us whether you are paying attention to the presidential races thus far, and whether or not you're enthused about being involved this cycle. we'd like to know what you think. you spent your life in politics and political organizing. how did you come into it in the first place? >> guest: you know, i first started this work around issue-related stuff, so, as a college student, i was passionate about social justice issues, the environment. i ended up doing a grass roots organizing school called green corp., and they taught me how to organize in communities and organize my peers to maintain issues we cared about, an after

doing that for a couple years, we win some, lose some, win some, lose some, and without the political power of my peers, i'm actually participating in the voting process, but we could really make lasting change on the issues that we cared about, and so i started working to engage my friends, peers, and young people around the country not just in, you know, the issues they cared about, but also in taking 245 concern and passion to the polls. >> host: how has the emergence of social media changed your ability to connect? >> guest: it's a very distled world. i think back when we didn't have cell phones. my task was to find a computer and sign up for an e-mail address, and we were able to talk to people one-on-one. today we do that individual communication, but at scale, and it's such a rapid pace. just for comparison, when rock the vote first started in the

early 90s, you know, we were registering concerts, festivals, bringing so 10,000-20,000 people into the process and had 1-800-numbers and fax machines, and now we register 2.5 million people every election cycle through online programs alone, and really scaling that work, have conversations with people, and engage them in a much larger way. >> host: rock the vote is funded how? >> guest: it's a non-profit organization. our funding comes from foundations, from individual donors, from young people themselves, and then from little things like t-shirts and concert sales, you know, but really, you know, trying to be accountable for our members and constituents, the young people, and the work we do. >> host: rock the vote calls itself nonpartisan, and yet you've had criticism from republicans and conservatives that you are focused towards

involving young people in democratic and progressive politics. what's your response to that? >> guest: yeah, well nonpartisan, you know, is part of the core approach to this work, and, you know, i describe it like if you're a young person and your parent tells you what to do, you're probably going to do the opposite; right? nobody wants us to say vote for this person or think about things this way. what we try to do is bring together information and provide those tools and resources for young people to make up their own minds, for them to find the resources and information they need to get informed, to interact with candidates directly on all sides, and ultimately, the information they need about voting. 5 lot of what we see today is there's interest in participation, but there's a lack of understanding about how the process works, so where to register, when you have to do it by, what your ballot looks like, and how the process will be excuted, so making sure we're

able to be a trusted source for information for young people and really never have any intention of telling them who to vote for. >> host: want to show a chart here to look at the voter participation by younger americans in the last couple of cycles. the 18-29-year-old vote in 2000 was 40%, and in 2004, it was 49%. 2008, when we heard about it, it was increased just 2 percentage points. there's been a trend for major involvement. >> guest: yeah, we've seen turnout go up, both the percentages increased, but the population also increased. this the largest generation of young people that our country has ever seen. it's the most diverse generation as well, so the number i find most striking about the 2008 elections, while the percentage was -- well, only, two points higher, that's a couple million additional voters, and there's more who cast a ballot under the

age of 30 compared to any previous u.s. election. >> host: digging into demographics, so how does the vote shape itself? >> guest: yeah, so like the rest of the population, you know, there's a couple factors that do indicate and are good predicters of voter turnout, so education level, income level, and so those who are in college or have college education tend to be voting at higher levels, even amongst the youth cohort. what i found striking about 2008, probably not surprising, but got little coverage, is that a lot of the increase, so the new voters who entered that process, that was driven primarily of minority youth like african-american youth. >> host: and the enthusiasm gap discussion starts. when you talk to african-americans, people who voted in the last election who were young, are they as interested in going to the polls

this time around? >> guest: yeah. what they're telling us right now is that they, you know, that they're struggling. that they absolutely care about the issues of concern, and that they are looking for a path to participation. they are looking for ways -- they are not interested in the finger pointing and bickering. they are turned off right now by politics. they still believe in the polling, and they have high favorability turnout for government, but they are turned off by politics. if we can find a way to help them understand how to improve the politics in our country, then we'll see them get back engaged, but, you know, just can't be a facebook page and, you know, a stop on a campus, and, you know, an expect suddenly that the yiet vote's going to be -- youth vote's going to be enthuse yat tick. they are facing real problems, hungry to participate, but they

need a real path, an authentic one, in order to get involved. >> host: these statistics indicate challenges for young people particularly reporting that the unemployment rate for 16-24-year-old worker averages 18.9%, and high school graduates are hardest hit. under age 25 not enrolled with school was 22.5% compared with others of the same age. what this did mean? >> guest: it's hard to motivate and go to the polls when you face joblessness rates higher than this generation -- well, than young people have seen since the bureau of labor statistics has started tracking this. it's gotten worse, so four years ago, let's say they got involved, many of them in about a 2-to-1 rate in the obama campaign.

5 lot of them, you know, a nonpartisan effort like rock the vote because they hoped they could make their future better, and so you get the hope by calling your friend, knocking on doors, participating in something with a very positive message they can make their future better, and they engaged in that. four years later, it's worse. ..

>> i also think it can make them want to off out. i believe that's a huge disaster that would happen in our country if we had a generation of people who felt disenfranchised and disempowered like they're getting the short end of the stick, and as result, we can have a generation of nonvoters year but that would do to our democracy into the future decisions in this country you know, is a scenario i don't like to think about. i think we have a lot of work to do. >> host: we want to get to your calls. let me put a couple other numbers on the screen. user from politico. they used the census bureau for their source and they call it obama's young voter challenge. here's the numbers they give. 1.9% is between the ages of 15-29. 55% is the unemployment rate, excuse me, the employment rate.

that is the lowest level since world war ii. 48%, president obama's approval rating among ages 18-29 which is a 26-point drop since 2009. and then finally two-thirds, the number of college students who graduate with significant student loan debt. let's go to telephone calls beginning with bloomfield hills, michigan. kerry, the democrat. >> caller: i had a couple questions i would like to ask you. i noticed a lot of things now are trying to make things very difficult. and requiring federal ladies. in the morning -- federal ids. i wonder if you're working on that. it seems a shame that someone who was born in alabama but now is living in illinois and a 75 years old, now we've been able to even get a copy of your birth certificate.

it feels in justice. another thing that i want to ask you is, and that is, i lived in florida and so marco rubio is our center. just on the news this morning it was brought to attention he was saying i guess that he had, his parents had suffered under castro, but it came out that he left, and they left in 1956, prior to castro even being in power. do you have any facility to challenge things like that? you know, it seems like if you tell a lie long enough people believe things. and i as a young voter find it very disconcerting. i wish there was someplace where we could go so we could check out these erroneous facts that are bandied about, and actually i think that c-span, you do such

a wonderful job. i wish you had a little time every day where you could challenge the statements that people make. >> host: thank you for your call. >> guest:just really, the paper says a review of dartmouth including naturalization papers and other official records reveals that the florida republicans account embellishes the facts the documents show that ruby is parents came to the united states and were admitted for permanent residence more than two and a half years before castro's forces overthrew the cuban government and took power on new year's day. she wasn't asking you to comment on that but so much were the voters can get straight facts about politicians and histories and voting records. >> guest: absolutely. thank you for your questions, and i'll talk to both of them. first on the second question iran where to get good

information, and you know, with so much of the campaign and all the money that's going to go into it over the next year or so, people need a place to go to find out the straight facts, get the truth and feel like there's somebody who's telling it to them who was on their side. c-span of course is a great place for that where you can see them take on issues and take both sides are you can get a good answer. and that rock the vote we tried to do the same thing for young people. we have young reporters on the ground covering the campaign from just perspective. we bring young people in the direct contact with the candidate so they can ask these questions and get to the bottom of some of these issues and concerns that they might have. we hope to provide that so we can, in fact, get straight information, trusted information and help young people navigate this process for the first time. but if something is making it harder for them to navigate. this process, are these laws that are being passed in states around the country, their are

over 30 i believe the number is 36 states in the past year in 2011 that have contemplated or proposed legislation that will make it harder for people to vote. some of those which directly affect young people. in the state of florida, for example, there's a law that passed that will make it harder for organizations like rock the vote and the league of women voters to do our work, adding additional levels of bureaucracy, putting financial burdens and potential fines for our young volunteers who are in the classroom or in their own communities to register their peers and colleagues. but in states like wisconsin or texas where they had passed these very super restrictive voter id laws, and i want to be careful about this. this is only, these laws that we take issue with where they're really restricted and they're requiring identification that many people don't have in order to cast a ballot.

from the student perspective and just perspective, we are very concerned. so for example, in texas they eliminated student ids as a form of identification that you can show. many out of state simply don't have drivers license from the state of texas because they're going to school there from somewhere else now have to find a different form of id or get a texas id and call no longer use their student identification cards. same thing in wisconsin. so we are concerned and a lot of the states there's going to be an additional hurdle for these young voters to actually be able to go to the polls and cast a ballot. >> host: for all the work you've done on the college campuses, do they vote at college or at home? has been often we find they want to participate where they're living right thing. the supreme court granted him the right to decide if they

could vote for the go to school or where their parents live. there's something, i think it's part of our culture and our history that you want to participate and you stand in that line, you get a little nervous but it's the first time you're done it. it's right there on campus. is a table to ask questions at if you don't know what to do. the student newspapers, printing the voter guides for you. you get to go to, you push the button, pull a lever. there is a democratic experience, a u.s. experience i think that, that there's something appealing about. we find that most people choose to vote where they live. whether that's where they are renting an apartment, where they're going to school, but ultimately that's their choice. we should facilitate that process. and you will see, we did a scorecard, rock the vote did, under the research section on our website, but we look at all the state laws and policies that

affect access to the polls. the states that have same-day voter registration or laws that allow young people greater access and greater choice are those states that have the highest levels of youth participation. >> host: here's an under 30 photo by the name of john. >> caller: hi. recently we had a poll out legalize marijuana. it is now polling at 50% four, 46% against the expecting young people from the age of 18-29 it is pulled that 62%. even a long from 30-49 is at 55%. then they broke it up by region. this has been shown if you have these on the ballot you get more young voter turnout, and i guess my question would be, with all the economic impact of legalizing marijuana, jobs,

growers. we have medical marijuana initiative but if you get a doctor who says it's okay, you can have your medical marijuana card. and i have one. but anyway, do you think that legalization of marijuana, movement, if our politicians, i mean, in the senate and congress we had very few people like barney frank, ron paul has introduced legislation but we don't really see like if we had 50% of america supporting, especially young people, i guess under the age of 65, the whole demographic destiny support, do you believe -- >> guest: i'm going to jump in. it's a great question, john. i think a lot of young people, when i got involved it was around issues. seen the impact you can have, if you participated in the

electoral process on issues that you cared about. young people today around the country when you look at that same polling, some register as democrats, some identify as republicans but the vast majority of people come in between 18-29, are less driven by party identification and more driven by the candidates themselves, as well as by the issues that are of top concern to the. so i do think leading with issues that are concerned of young people are a great way to engaging in political debate. in terms of putting issues and initiatives on the ballot we've seen a lot of that. in particular, social issues from both sides. getting onto the bow as way to drive turnout. it's proven to be successful. it's not something that rock the vote would do, per se, but, you know, if you're so inclined to start that movement, collect signatures and get that on the ballot, you know, that is something i do think would support and help increase

participation. but i want to be careful that while that will motivate a set of people to show up, i think our political debate when we are talking about young voters really does have to be about the issues such as education and jobs and economy. i don't want him to be isolated. i don't want you to be isolated into a conversation that is strictly about social issues. but i do agree that leading with issues is a great way to engage people. >> host: how many full-time staff has rock the vote have and how many volunteers? >> guest: a great question. we are small in number. so there's about, there's about 10 of us full-time on staff. but we have street teams of volunteers all around the country that you were. a lot of volunteer driven activity plus a huge online presence which has allowed us to do our work. in the 2012 election we will register probably about, you know, somewhere close to

2 million young people to vote. it will be the largest nonpartisan voter campaign in the country. >> host: are you mobilizing voter registration at the occupy protest? >> guest: we are not right now. we are supporting young people in their activism, so making sure they can find information about where these protests and things are happening. and i find it inspiring. i think that, you know, personally we saw them in engage in the obama campaign at record levels and in the political process in 2008. today, we see them a little more cynical, a little more frustrated and taking to the streets in this initiative to get money out of politics. i think that they will come around and realize, the young people i talk to are pretty clear that money out of politics

and then flood the polls will be a great way to take our country and put it back on the right track for this generation. i'm hopeful that will happen and yes, we hope to occupy the ballot box in 2012. >> host: from the other side of the aisle, twitter, comment on ron paul's revolution of young people propelling important without banks or corporations. >> guest: rate question. ron paul, -- great question big tease authentic. you know where he stands. is kind of point of view has been clear. i think young people find that attractive. clearly they do. they are join his movement as well. we saw that in 2008, and actually i was thinking back to iowa as the date for this cycle caucus gets set. in the last election the presidential it was young people who propelled mike huckabee to

victory in the first caucus as well. so i think that it's not a partisan interest. it's a desire to see this country righted, to see politics be more accountable, to the voters as opposed to those who are the wealthiest few. and whatever candidate can really speak to that in an authentic way will win a lot of votes of young people today. >> host: joe, republican. >> caller: good morning. i'm a republican. i future demographics last year in '08, and i voted for senator obama, now president obama. the reason i voted for president obama is, he's a very good speaker, change, and, unfortunately, we don't have a lot of positive since.

however, one thing that i don't see out of the me that much dashed out of the media that much,. [inaudible] plenty of other things, my own party is basically been blocking him and anything he is trying to do, good, bad or different from the very beginning. and i feel that they have had that plan in place ever since he was inaugurated. again, so bad at -- [inaudible] as far as the fight, that remains the limit, et cetera. you're absolutely right. all that kicks off our age group, and without that i really do not see obama winning a second term. there's really nobody on the

republican side now that is really i would call for because i don't think it would do any good. >> host: what would you say to him? >> guest: i think you share the same frustration that many other people we talk to everyday share. and it is that the political system is broken in a way where as the concerns of the voters are getting trumped by the concerns of politics. whether that's, those that we have elected, whether they be republican or democrat, doing things to either further their reelection and often that means playing to those who supported them financially. so this frustration, the voices of people and the concerns of people are being trumped in the clinical process. i think that's what you see so many young people in particular engage in the occupy protest that are happening around the country. and i guess around the world at this point. so, you know, it's frustrating.

and it's not working, but i think joe, as you were saying, the solution can't be to opt out and let that get even worse. but, in fact, find a way to call for reform over the political process to get money out of politics, and show up at those polls so we have the political power and leverage to continue pushing those demands forward. >> host: of you who tweets, just want to point out that occupied is a crossgenerational movement including those of us in our sixth and seventh decade, not just going. next is a call from allentown, pennsylvania. go ahead. >> caller: first lady who called in kind of stole my question. i was going to ask about -- [inaudible] here in pennsylvania. either sign a bill either tomorrow or monday, and it's

about voter, it's about photo id, and there's just a lot of people, like people that are handicapped and a lot of young people, even a lot of older people that don't have drivers licenses will kind of be kept out. and you know, the young people have been voting democratic lately, a lot of, that's just the way, the reason that they've been passing those laws, to keep your own people in power and not let the young kids choose for themselves. well, that's the question. >> host: thank you, bill. >> guest: on the rock the website you will see, which is rock the vote.com, an initiative we started called rock the vote,

don't block the vote. very simple concept that we should be making it easier for people to participate, not harder. we want full participation in our democracy. we can't put up additional barriers. of course, that is the impact on a lot of these voter id laws are going to have to. because so restricted and what is being allowed under these new laws, when people show up. the statistics from the brennan center at nyu has shown that about 10-11% of the population do not have the kind of idea that is being required, and those people tend to be low income minority's students and the elderly. so you're really putting a disadvantage to those populations by passing these laws. and in total the most recent report showed about 5000 voters will be affected in the 2012 election. >> host: rowland, republican,

good morning. >> caller: thank you so much for c-span. heather, i do have, i question your nonpartisanship, but i just have a couple other items i'd like to run over real great because i know your time is limited. i'd like to know, i'm redoing your website and i'm looking and i don't see any disbursement of funds, what your total budget is as a nonprofit and watch what they is individually. the other thing is you mentioned earlier about the static type that you mentioned about 10 people on staff. you're the only one who has somewhat logical biography, the other people are just too cool to mention what they've done or where they have been. the final thing is, the villages before we talk about voter suppression. do you or the organization see voter responsibility as far as voter fraud, people coming in and either voting twice in the event that students can vote

where their parents live as well as if you're down in texas, you mentioned on the texas vote that says student ids are no longer required. just to me, you know, just going through over and over, i also wonder how many christian organizations or gatherings that you go to because i know you do a lot of rock concerts and festivals and lollapalooza in things like that. just wondering where the balance is. are you truly, i'd be happy to stay on the line and discuss anything, but -- >> host: as you said were just about out of time. thanks for your called. >> guest: thank you for your call. great question. on the disbursement and all that, as a 501(c)(3) charity all of our information is filed with the irs. the 990 is public so you can find that through that process. i think it's up on a website but if it's not i will make sure that we put it up there because i know we have full disclosure is part of our policy and

process. our annual budget depends very wildly spinning very whether there's an election cycle or not. in the last election, we spent about five and half million dollars in registering 2.6 million young people to vote. i will also tell you, roland, and finish things dramatically in off years, our goal in 2012 is to raise between five and $8 million. and to do at least 2 million additional new registrations of young people and provide information about where to go and when to go and all that good stuff. in terms of the staff, there should be some bios. they are most young people who are committed to this kind of work. then in terms of who we register and who we engage, we use new media and popular culture. we go where young people are hanging out so that's concerts and festivals. that's the face but pages and

twitter -- facebook pages and twitter. so in the fall of 2012, we will start bringing people together as well so we will host our own concerts. we will go on a bus tour. we will to would be an entire states and down the country and hopefully engage people of all parties. we have country-western singers and with hip-hop artists and we have rock stars who act as your messengers and help us dispersed that message to the audiences that are listening to them. >> host: do you do a lot of college events? have you ever asked to go or go to conservative colleges? cranky we haven't been to hallandale in particular but i'm aware of, as one college, but we do, for example, we toured throughout virginia in the 2008 elections and we hit a number of colleges and high schools from all various different --

>> host: would you go to liberty? >> guest: assure. -- sure. i guess we wouldn't take them out because they have concerted students, but if there's a campus and it's in a state where we are spending resources, absolutely. for example, we are in iowa. there's not a democratic caucus, per se, in january but we have partnered with the secretary of state there. the republican secretary to run a program called rock the caucus. the program will be doing mock caucuses at high schools throughout the state to help those first-time voters who want to participate, and the republican caucuses understand how that works. we do try to be fair and balanced in the work that we do and provide information to all voters. my board likes to remind that would probably registered more republicans than anybody else ever has because we let them decide. we've registered more voters than anyone else writ large.

but the last question that you got was when we face all the time and that's on the concept of fraud. i absolutely believe that there's responsibility and integrity that needs to be established in our election process. i think he needs to be modernized and updated. we have a system that was held up. there are many, many ways to do that and there are many solutions to providing a more modern and election system that has great security and integrity. but those solutions can't disenfranchised segments of the population in the process. >> host: last tweak. he says they are already registered. the president of rock the vote, thank you very much thank you very much for being here and talking with her audience. >> guest: thank you. >> join us later for a new row to the white house event as texas congressman ron paul

speaks in iowa city, iowa. j;j; >> because i am a businessman, of which incidentally i am very proud as he formally connected with a large company of the doctrine there is opposition, have attempted to picture me as a total of liberalism. i was a liberal than many of those words are the work. i pop for the reforms -- before another roosevelt.

>> he was a member of the democratic party for over 20 are switching in 1940. wendell willkie sought and won the republican nomination for president and although he lost, he left his mark in political history speaking out for civil rights and become in the foreign ambassador for his former opponent, franklin roosevelt. he is one of the men featured in the contenders. tonight at 8 p.m. eastern. >> during this period at the department of education, my working relationship with judge thomas was positive. i had a good deal of responsibility and independence. i thought he respected my work and that he trusted my judgment. >> it's been 20 years since anita hill testified alleging that been supreme court justice nominee clarence thomas sexually harassed or. this past week and she spoke about what the testimony meant

in her life and a lasting effect it's had on culture. >> with you can't return from testimony that is become this event that you really have no idea what's going to be what it was. and then, i said i walk out on the street and everybody, they did polling, so they did polling, immediately after the hearing, and the polling show that 70% of the population thought i had perjured myself. so in addition to the pressure that i was having on the job, the threats to me personally, bomb threats, at law school, at my home, i had to go to the grocery store, and realize that, you know, seven out of 10 people i would encounter in the supermarket thought that i'd

perjured myself in my testimony. >> watched her remarks as was the complete 1991 senate judiciary hearing on line at the c-span video library. it's washington your way. >> the senate education committee continued working on a new version of the bush administration's no child left behind law which was due for reauthorization in 2007. the original are required 100% of students be proficient in math and reading by 2014. the new version requires only continuous improvement in schools, and give states more control in keeping with low performing schools. this part of the hearing is about four and a half hours. >> senate committee will resume its sitting. i think all the centers for being here and for your helping to move this legislation a long. and were going to go, i don't

know when we'll break for dinner. will try to find it with a four situation is like an assembly have some idea, on votes in the floor we will try to do our dinner break around the time that we may have a bunch of votes on the floor, too. so i think we're making great progress. i think everyone in i think we've had good debates and good discussions here. i understand senator murkowski has an amendment on title i. >> thank you, mr. chairman. this will take us back to highly qualified teachers. >> what number? >> i'm sorry. my amendment number three to title i. if that can be distributed. and as it is being distributed let me describe what we're trying to do. amendment number three. we have a lot of very small rural schools in alaska and i would imagine that in all of the states that would represent we have some areas that are really very extremely rural. and it kind of tissue back to the days of glory in the wilder

and the classroom where you have multiple classes or multiple grades in the same school. teachers that are required to teach a little bit of everything. and with highly qualified teacher we all recognize that there have been some issues as it relates to a teacher who may have had emphasis in math, but now is in a position where he or she ends up teaching in a school where they need to have somebody be the science teacher for that year, or help out in history. we've had situations in alaska where teachers come to us. they come out to a very small rural village and they are told you are going to be a teacher that would be teaching history. and a teacher who was hired to

come out and and teach, whether it is math or science, that falls through and all of a sudden you are scrambling and the ability to get our teachers out into some of these very remote areas i think oftentimes is very, very difficult. then the issue that you have when a teacher is tasked with teaching different core subjects. what i would like to do through my amendment is allowed for us to utilize the technologies that we have available to us. we do a lot of distance education in alaska, not necessary because we want to but because we have to. that's with the expertise is and if we can being a teacher in from one of the urban areas that can be that expert, then that works for us. it allows us some flexibility. one might and it would do would insert the language from your

school accountability improvements act to provide the flexibility from highly qualified teacher requirements for multi-subject teachers in remote rural schools. it would allow the districts that are unable to meet highly qualified retirement by placing teachers in each classroom for highly qualified can each core subject that they teach, that they can meet the requirements by providing construction by highly qualified teacher via distance learning. so you could have that highly qualified teacher who specialized in, let's say map, and working with a teacher in the classroom in that village, who is not highly qualified in math was highly qualified in another core area, but through the team teaching basically with one teacher being on the ground and the other highly qualified teacher being the expert that is able to be beamed in by the technology. so what we are doing is still

ensuring that we got a level of expertise that our children, in all areas, what hope for, that we want. we are not lowering the bar, but we are allowing for a level of flexibility in using our technologies. and essentially providing for a teen teaching using our distance delivery. >> thank the senator from alaska. i went to one of those schools. let's see, kindergarten, first and second was in one room. third, fourth and fifth was in another room. six, seventh and eighth is in another room, one teacher. >> you must have come out okay. >> i think there's a lot to be said for that kind of teaching. because when you're in that classroom and you're in the sixth grade and is seventh and eighth graders, you're always doing what they're talking about and what they are teaching. anyway, that's just my own

thought on that. but i think this, kind of an innovative way of using new technology. to ensure that it's kind of a backup. if i understand, a backup for the teachers that are out there. >> obviously the preference would be to have that highly qualified teacher in every classroom. in every school. but our reality is that oftentimes that is not achievable. so rather than shortchange them by giving them somebody who doesn't have those credentials we provide that back up and we do it through distance delivery. >> mr. chairman, this is an outstanding amendment. i'll give you two examples because congress already find this exact opportunity in two cases. never won, our military men deployed overseas in afghanistan and iraq and many other areas

are taking college-level content and getting their degrees from distant learning from highly qualified professors on the ground in the united states. that's been huge breakthrough in our military. and in our foreign service to our ngos with basic education coalition and others on the ground in africa, we are teaching africans english through distance learning with highly qualified people in the united states and monitor o on e ground in the village where they are learning. so i think that's two examples of where distance learning is delivering highly qualified content that otherwise would not be available to an individual. >> good examples. anything else, senator franken? >> i was just wondering, maybe on the floor i could introduce amendment to exempt rhode island from this. [laughter] >> you know, i just don't think that's very funny. i didn't understand that at all. >> we have a local version that i think needs to be defended here.

>> o. any other discussion? if not, on the murkowski amendment, all those in favor say aye. vote is no. do we want a roll call vote? the clerk will call the roll. [roll call] [roll call] [roll call] [roll call]

[roll call] [roll call] [roll call] >> would you hold the vote? senator sanders is not here, and i don't know how to vote is a

proxy, so will you put him down as a past? the amendment is agreed to. title i, title i. title i. >> go ahead. [inaudible] >> did you have a title i amendment? >> thank you, mr. chairman that i would like to call up my foster youth amendment, title i amendment three. than 4 i will draw. spent with the sender say what amendment this is, please? >> it is title i, amendment three. amendment 4 which i'm dropping. i split this into two separate

amendment because it originally contained a grant program and i'm dropping the grant program for now anyway. and the grant program is relatively small. in a hearing last year, to help foster children, to help children who are in foster care, but i've been told this would be too problematic for my friends on the other side so i dropped it. a little disappointed, but also don't want the perfect to be the envy of the goods am going to offer an amendment number one, title i, number three. a scaled-down version that does not include the grant program. i will be offering the other amendment containing only the grant program. i hope this committee can support a, on a bipartisan basis the scaled-down version which is vitally important for foster youth. we all know the difficulties that children in foster care face. my amendment addresses

educational instability which surprised many foster children -- deprives many foster children of the opportunity to get, obtain a decent education. i think many of us remember the testimony of kayla vandyke before this committee. in fact, i think the chairman said something about her testimony about how it was awesome. she had been in seven foster homes, and children in foster care frequently move between foster homes. and too often to change, have to change schools when they move. and their high rate of school building has a devastating impact on their education, each time foster youth move they tend to fall further and further behind in school. they end up scoring lower than their peers on standardized tests and dropping out of school at higher rates. changing school not only harms

foster youth academically, kayla testified she missed an entire crate. she missed a great entirely. but also to deprive some of the relationship with her old friends and teachers at a time when foster youth need your support the most. in other words, if you're a kid in foster care can you go to school you like. your foster family, you change foster families to another school district. what this bill would do is allow those kids to stay in that school that they like, if it benefits them. now, kayla who was just remarkable, she had been in two different schools. she had -- 10 different schools. somehow managed to keep her head above water, graduate on time and she went on to college. statistics show most foster children can't overcome the hardships that kayla overcame.

to address this problem congress passed the foster connection acts which requires child welfare agencies to work to improve the school stability to foster children. and while this was a positive step forward, child welfare agencies can't go it alone. they need the full cooperation of state and local education agencies. this amendment requires a state and local education agencies collaborate with child welfare agencies, provide foster children who move to new school districts, to provide them the opportunities to stay at their current school if it's in their best interest. when it's not in their best interest, the amendment trucks child agencies to collaborate with the school districts to enroll these children immediately in new schools. that was part of her testimony, too. the unbelievable cat. i talked to a number of foster children after this, in interest

of informing me to write this amendment. so, i would say that the welfare agencies have to collaborate with the school district to enroll these children immediately and a new school districts, if that's in the best interest and transfer their school records immediately. this amendment is an important step forward in improving the education of foster youth, and i urge my colleagues to support it. >> so, once again basically, i don't know how many remembered kayla's testimony, but it was quite striking. and i met with her in a whole

roundtable of foster kids, and the number of schools these kids go to is pretty astounding. and the gaps they fall into, and this would allow them to stay in the school that they want to stay in, if it's in the best interest. it would also create a point of contact in the school district to talk to all foster youth. they are are not, there are only about 200,000 schoolchildren in foster care across the country so this would not be a big burden on the point of contact. so, mr. chairman, i guess you want to put it up for a vote? t. want to have people asking questions? >> i want to make sure. this is amendment number three, dealing with -- >> it is foster, do we have a name for this thing? >> is title i, amendment three.

>> is there further discussion? senator enzi. >> mr. chairman, i remember having had several different hearings on this, and i appreciate senator franken bringing this amendment because it is a vulnerable population, the students that are very often overlooked. in 2008 we passed some legislation that would attempt to address the issue providing the transportation and sharing services with social service agencies. and i don't think that's had a chance to really take hold yet, and i'm hesitant to put further restrictions and requirements on state and school districts until we fully understand how that has worked. >> okay. that is a child welfare law, and it, the child welfare agencies really haven't done, and was a 2008 that was passed?

okay. it can't put these requirements on school districts, and it takes two to tango. all i can say is, is that these kids who really have a tremendous amount of challenges, going from home to home very often, being the products of homes where there was abuse or drug use or that kind of thing, very often, you know, they find a school and it takes them away from, it breaks the continuity of their education. it also takes them away from the friends and teachers they like it i think this will just help them stay in the school. and the 2008 bill is for welfare agencies, but this brings the

schools into it. >> the law that was passed in 2008, which was a finance committee bill, the law, my notes, collaborate with local education agencies to enable foster children to remain in their current schools after they move to new school attendance areas where in its in their best interest. >> that's right spent when it is not in the best interest the law directs to enroll these children immediately and new schools and transfer their school records. >> right. >> well, they say they have to stay in the same school when it's in their best interest why don't understand what the import of this -- >> in other words, they stay in the same school being the school they are in, when they change parents into another school district.

so in other words, let's say you were going to a high school in st. louis park, and you have parents in st. louis park, and suddenly those foster parents, for one reason or another, this happens repeatedly during a foster child's career as a foster child, they are adopted by children in maplewood or something. and now you've got to go to the maplewood school district. but this bill would say no, you can stay in st. louis park. you can stay in st. louis park, and you can go to school where you want to go to school and where you got a coach that you love, or where you have friends that you really like, and it creates continuity. what we saw from kayla's testimony, and what i hear from these foster kids is that this is so disruptive in their lives, and so many of these kids that i talk to, it's pretty astounding

how many homes they are in throughout their life as kids. throughout their childhood. >> there is no education law. that's why bring it to this committee. that is a child welfare agency law. this isn't education law that says exactly what this bill is saying, which is that kids who go into, change foster families can stay in the school if it's in the best interest. and these are very vulnerable kids come and they are to do tend to drop out at a high rate. we want to decrease dropouts. and if they like the school, i think the least we can do is keep that continuity. that's what this is about.

it's pretty simple. >> the child welfare people would be involved in the decision whether it's under the education bill or under the welfare, that's why since they are involved with it anyway that's why it's under that particular, that particular title. if we put it under both titles, do we get into a problem of the conflict of whose jurisdiction it is, who gets to make -- >> no, we leave it up to the state to figure out the child welfare agency and the educational system, school system work together. but it directs them to work together. that's what it is basically saying. so with connecting the two pieces here. and schools have no requirement to keep their kid in school, in the school if they were to move somewhere else.

[inaudible conversations] >> in other words, schools don't have to do it now. they don't have to keep the kids if the kid decides -- i think it's in the best interest of the school, frankly. to keep a kid who wants to be there. and i think that, you know, because the news go get a kid who doesn't want to be at their school. >> i would hope that the senator would withdraw this and save it for the floor so we have a chance to review. that's 11 pages which we been talk about the length of the bill already. that has a lot of different changes and definitions and stuff. and this would add a transportation requirement for title i money i think, but i'm not sure. >> well, the money would be carved out of -- >> just tell me.

>> [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> mr. chairman? >> i'm sorry but it wouldn't come out of title i, that the states, the states and the child education people and the child welfare agency would work out where the money came from. for transportation. this is really to help these kids that are so vulnerable. and there is the child welfare available for transportation. >> i'm just trying to determine what it is that we are really doing here. is all that we are providing for with this amendment is this requirement to collaborate between each state education agency and the state child

welfare agency, to develop a plan. i mean, that's what you're laying out here. if it's a requirement of collaboration -- >> that's right. >> that's fine. i certainly support that. we should be doing that anyway. >> the ranking member is correct. there will be some money involved in making sure these kids get the transportation they need from the new home to their old school, that they stay in. now, the states, we want the states to figure this out, exactly how to do that. and there's child welfare money to do this, and there is, and we can also, it just gives us state flexibility is one thing and allows them to choose how to allocate responsibility for the transportation costs between the

welfare agencies and the school systems. >> i think [talking over each other] spent the transportation side of it would be important to those of us that, from big states will be don't have a lot of roads. if you've got a child in nome, alaska, and foster care situations directs that they're going to go to fairbanks or anchorage, all of a sudden you are talking some real transportation costs here. i would assume in that case the best interest of the child, that would be -- i'm just trying to determine whether or not we are talking about an issue where we're going to have the transportation dollars really be driving this. i don't just agree that you should have this collaboration going on. i would like to think that is already in play, but i am

concerned about how you work at the aspects of a requirement. >> is the states the flexibility to do that. and i mean, it asks the states to coordinate between the school and the child welfare agency. so, this is, again, we know somewhere around here i've heard that the states do things better. i can't remember, i can't remember where that's been coming from. but this was, allow the states to figure out how they would do it in alaska or minnesota or wyoming. and, obviously, i mean, you know we're not going to make a kid from nome go to anchorage every day. and back. i don't think a kid would choose that. spent all, you might be surprised. >> well, i think that would be unreasonable. and not necessary in the child's best interest.

>> does committee remember kayla and her testimony? because it was, it was really quite striking. i don't think anyone who saw that would even hesitate here to say, well, this is something that makes a lot of sense. i mean, i think that what you would see is higher graduation rates among foster kids. udc, you know, dashed that you would see coming year, they would tend to stay in the system, become more productive as citizens and pay taxes and create inventions. they would be the next steve jobs, i can guarantee that. >> mr. chairman, in answer to a question that is been floating around, -- >> i'm sorry? >> i'm trying to answer a

question that has been floated around. what it basically does when it's in the best interest of the child, that the state educational agency in cooperation with department of family and children services which is where foster children are, will determine how they will pay for the transportation to maintain the foster students in the school where they determine it's in their best interest. then further on in the bill it says if the child goes out of foster care, which i think when every stage of maturity, they are still in school and they still have to -- >> or if they go home to their original parents. >> whatever the case might be but they selected figure out how transportation is paid for out of one of the two agencies. that's what the bill says. >> for the remainder of the school year only. >> that requires them -- i think what he is trying to do, i do a lot of work with foster kids but i think we've got to have some wiggle room on these agencies. and i think you need some

language in here like whenever possible the state education, or whatever policy the department of family and children services. there will be some cases where the transportation because of your reassignment of the foster child would be very, very difficult to meet that requirement. i think you're thinking. i'm not arguing about the intent. our foster kids go through a lot of stuff, keeping them in the same about can be helpful. getting them out of it can sometimes be helpful, and that's another transportation issue. i think if you gave them wiggle room it would help these agencies deal with the needs of the child as well as the hope. >> i think that the need of the child is there in the language. that's wiggle room. and the state decides how to agencies work together. that's wiggle room. i think all it is is saying look, the child welfare agencies now are directed to take this into account. ..

senator murkowski raise that issue dealing city to city. we have some cities in america where if you move from the south side to and north side regardless who pays for it and this is more about shared responsibility for the cost of transportation that would be the title of this bill because now it is the department of child

services based upon statute. if you transport one child from the southern part of that land of to north atlanta you are talking an annual cost that would be probably prohibited even though there may be a determination the child is better suited -- got to be elimination that is established. >> if you are talking about commutes like senator number cow's the is talking about it is in the best aspects of the child. you are picking an extreme example of the south side of the metropolitan area to the north si side. >> could i ask the questions? i am told by staff on this transportation i don't tend to understand this issue thoroughly. title iv of social security to

be used for this transportation -- [whispering] >> portion of title iv--forget i even asked. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and won't understand from the perspective of district. the first thing you are trying to solve is residency requirements that don't allow foster children to stay in their school because they moved to another jurisdiction. and i think that is a very noble thing to do and i share that objective. my concern is on the transportation side. i want to make sure i understand when you close schools to take pairs and example the immediate

concern people have, one of them is transportation and what i have seen districts do is make a commitment to families to always be transportation from that school to the new school and at a certain point you end up with empty buses running back and forth because people figured out how to do something else but the commitment has been made and resources on buses, not on the kids. the chairman heard me talk about the special ed requirements for transportation as they affect the districts and we are spending a fortune of special lead many that could be used transporting kids. i am not taking a position on that one way or another. it is just a fact. i want to get a sense of the order of magnitude or something. if -- it is one thing for you to

tell me you can't keep that foster kid out of your district. it is not their fault they are living someplace else and i can't get that. it is another of thing to say you can't spend that money educating that kid or whatever but have to use it for transportation. >> i think there are 200,000 foster kids, school age foster children in the united states. this is not analogous to a school closing or buses promised. this is one kid. it is one kid. one kid's life. and fro it is not going to be vans or buses. colorado's number, 1,984 kids in

the entire state who are foster kids. i am sorry? so obviously not all of them would be in this situation and many of them wouldn't need that. big transportation needed. >> all i can say is i am sympathetic to this bill we had a young woman who testified. don't know how many people were at that hearing we had. kayla was there. it was a tremendous testimony. she changed schools 17 times in high school. 17 times and they wouldn't transfer credits and lost this and lost that. are remember her plaintively saying i did not have a normal school and couldn't make friends. i wanted to stay in one place and they shipped me to another place and i am not ready to go

to college because i didn't get the kind of steady course work i had. i remember kayla very well. she gave very stirring testimony what happened to her at school. to the extent that we can foster -- to the extent we can promote educational stability for foster kids i am most in favor of. i had thought that the 2008 law did that but i am now on the understanding that it only took part of one half and that was the family side. the location of the family itself. the other side is whether or not the school's were told they had to keep this kid if that was in the kid's best interest. emma right? >> that is right.

that is what this is. it is going to cost some money sometime for a kid to get transportation. >> this is our responsibility. i feel responsibility for these kids and i feel that -- talk to the foster kid and it is not unique that they have to change parents so many times and go to a foster house where there is abuse and they go to foster house and changed many times. and they are in our custody. we have responsibility for them. the state has responsibility for them. i feel responsibility. and i want to make sure that

they have a chance, these kids who face a very special challenges. they have an opportunity just to stay in the school they like. >> there are a lot of questions on this. this is the only minute we spent half an hour on. i would hope that it would be withdrawn and we could get some things -- questions and answers work out. >> my feeling is -- >> only reason i would agree to do that is if i didn't think you could pass here. could i have a show of hands? if the senator would like a vote -- >> i withdraw consent to reoffer it later when i promise we spend

less time on it? >> we are trying to get finished today. wheat postponed other votes. i want to be as amenable as possible to senators have their amendments heard and considered. we spend a lot of time on this. it is up to the senator himself if he would like to withdraw this and work with this and see what we can do on the floor. of the senator wants the vote i ready to call for a vote. >> i will call for a vote. all those in favor -- all those in favor -- >> hold on, mr. chairman, please. [inaudible conversations] >> my staff in addition to myself, my staff feels very strongly about this. i apologize but we do feel very

strongly about this. they are consulting with each other. >> all those in favor of the franken amendment will say aye. opposed no. pretty close. >> clerk will call the roll. [roll call] [roll call] [roll call]

[roll call] [roll call] >> thank you. [inaudible] >> say that again. >> 39s, 9 nays. >> mr. chairman? >> senator alexander. >> let me see if i can set a good example and do this quickly. we have had a discussion and spend some time on this before.

this is alexander amendment v, fleet -- the flexibility turnaround strategy. offenders will remember, the draft provides six options for states who want to intervene in 5% of schools that are low performing to turn them around. my amendment which was contained in the legislation offered by senator isakson and burr and others add seven to was. it simply says if the state comes up with a different way to do it, that the state believes is better that it can bring to the secretary of education and if the secretary says yes the state may use that seventh option instead of one of the 6. several senators pointed out to me that my amendment did not

require this seventh option to do the same preliminary things the other six did. i looked at that and while i would rather not do that i would rather leave it to states, amended my amendment and asked consent to modify the amendment v by striking lines one through four in the modified amendment and the effect is to sail seven options including the new one i proposed would do the same preliminary list of things in the harkin enzi draft. the national education association has made a statement in support of my amendment before it was modified and because of the diversity of schools, students and communities is necessary to provide responsive strategies and models to those most in need.

next, what i have in mind is a situation like ours in tennessee where we have a new governor and outstanding education secretary and 80 schools that need this turnaround and achievement school district that is different than the first six options and they brought in an outstanding leader from texas and i am convinced they will probably want to come to secretary duncan and say we have a better way to do this tailoring to tennessee's need. the only argument i heard against it -- i have heard two or three but one recent argument against it that i don't think has merit is somehow named at allowing vouchers. this is a title one program. these funds are title one funds. the way i read title one, their only for public schools so unless you take the position that we can spend title one money for private schools this money can be spent only for

public schools. so i would ask my colleagues to accept my modified amendment. i tried to modify in a way that accepted their suggestions. i believe it will strengthen the draft by creating another option that recognizes the diversity of schools. >> mr. chairman? >> senator whitehouse. >> i would like to thank senator alexander for the amendment he has made. i was one of the senators who requested that the substantive turnaround elements that pertain to the first six turnaround methods also be retained for the seventh and i think him for clarifying the voucher issue. i agree that this language would not support a voucher program and it is important we make that

legislative record clear here and now and the senator has just done so and i hope i have hammered it home with the amendment the senator proposed, i am pleased to support his amendment. >> i want to follow this up. i am concerned about the voucher program. we had a preliminary -- i will say it is preliminary -- from the crs saying that this could allow vouchers. i see nothing that prohibits it. what if a local state came in, you don't know who the governor is for the situation, let's turn around -- close the school and provide vouchers. we close the school and provide vouchers. i don't see any prohibition on that. if i am wrong on that i am glad

to be enlightened on that. >> mr. chairman, i think -- if we read this amendment that way we would have to take the position that all title one money could be used for private schools because my understanding of the law is it is for public schools and this is title one money. are don't know why crs said this would allow for a governor to do that. >> mr. chairman, with crs being the language before the senator's amendment of the amendment, they might have been -- >> i don't believe that is so. >> with the new amendment back it is hard to imagine a voucher that would meet the requirement for the turnaround of a school that are embedded in the seventh option. it really confirms that doesn't

make sense as the reading of the bill, of the amendment. >> if it is title one money it is for public schools. if i might -- so the law says title one money is to be used for public schools, but we are amending that law here and we are saying that if a state and the secretary agreed upon a model, they can do that. and it seems to me that would override the present law. money may be used for public school. >> i don't think that would change the underlying law. we could go through all the title one program that say they

might be used for private schools. i don't think anyone wants to make that argument. people would like to but i don't think we want to open that door. >> i say to my friend there is nothing else that i could see in present legislation or in this bill that does anything to open that door but for this. that is the chief concern that i have. barring a prohibition that they can come up with the plan aside from -- actually we have nine plans, not six or seven but nine and they come up with something else, barring of the language that would definitely prohibit the use of vouchers, it seems to me this would override the present law. >> states come up with plans all

the time. are put up here on my desk the tennessee state title i plan. are you suggesting if tennessee submitted a title i plan that wanted to use some of its money to send children to private schools that that would be within the law? i don't think it is and i don't think you believe it is. if that plan wouldn't be legal why would this plan allows it? >> because this language the way i read it allows the state to come up with a plan and say what it has to be. could be anything as long as the secretary approves it. that is a. >> that is not so because of the language senator alexander put back in. it would provide staff at the school. not where the kids go at the turnaround school, with ongoing development consistent with the

needs -- to conduct regular evaluations of teachers and principals at the school that provides significant feedback on areas of strength and time for collaboration among instructional staff at the school and improve student achievement. all of that is back in. i am not sure crs saw the version that had that report. >> what if the state decided a turnaround plan is school closure? what if they decided to provide vouchers? what if they close the school and provide vouchers? >> it is an option. >> then they could provide vouchers. >> in the draft you don't have any prohibition on the school closure option that the money could be sent to private

schools. [inaudible conversations] >> this is a murky area. >> what about -- [inaudible] -- authorizes -- [inaudible] >> i agree with the interpretation of senator alexander explained. but if some modification work to accommodate the concern the

chairman raised. >> mr. chairman? >> i don't know of any exception in the law whatsoever providing a public fund for vouchers except special education. if a state and local education agency cannot provide service needed by special needs child they must favor tuition to a private institution if they can. i ran the state of georgia board of education. we had multiple times when we had as many as we through for three students paying for a voucher. that was the exception in the law. , want to point that out. >> i would be glad after this amendment is adopted and we discuss it on the floor to enter a colloquy about you weathertight i funds can be used in public schools or not. my understanding of the law is

they can't be and this is the title i program. this does not suggest money could go to a private school. a way which suggests it would be at public schools and none of us can think of anything but what isakson said that would allow it. so i would hope we could vote on it and recognize these are title i funds. >> i wanted to raise one other issue here because my concern is different. i know it is likely to pass the house and senator alexander has the best intentioned as somebody who used to do the job, i would like to have seen this kind of option but i want the record to reflect that we are talking about the bottom 5% of schools in this country.

that is what we are talking about. none of us and kids to those schools or have grandkids in those schools and it is hard to imagine the bottom 5% of schools in this country. these models have been a significant forcing mechanism on behalf of the children of those schools when the adults for whatever reason--not casting blame but for whatever reason are not getting done what needs to be done. when we close our first school in denver, our first high school in denver which we would not have done if these forcing mechanisms were not in place i would not have been able to do it. somebody followed me to the parking lot after one of these meetings. i can do you your worst town hall meeting is a million times better than my best school closing meeting ever was and

they said to me mr. bennet, you don't understand we are running an orphanage here. i understood her, what she was trying to say but what i said there was it said high school on the outside. if we are going to accept it as an orphanage we need to take that name off of the side of the building and call it something else. so my hope i am saying for the record is whatever these models are are at least as robust as the ones that are contained in the legislation because otherwise we are going to have the children marooned in that 5% of schools marooned in those schools for the rest of their k-12 education and the rest of our lives. i think that is the issue here.

>> mr. chairman -- i know we want to get to of votes but i do think we got a little sidetracked on the vouchers may be. i think this is the key point. what is best for the kids? remembering that this is the bottom 5%, i still remember joel kline saying these mechanisms, these turnaround models gave him the ability to do it. on the other hand, i too understand senator alexander has the best intentions here and there's another part of this that 50 laboratories and maybe some other states will find a

better model. those of the two side. i would not be so quick to go to a vote. the crux of this is we're talking about the bottom 5% of schools and what is best for those kids. this is a tough vote for me i can tell you. >> we got sidetracked on the voucher issue. still a murky area. i think states will find the least onerous have to take, what ever is the easiest way out and we want to be rigorous on those bottom 5%. and make it very rigorous. we did expand the models. there are nine different models but they are rigorous and requires them to do certain things. human nature being what is, i think they will try to find the

easiest way out without doing one of those models on the bottom 5%. we tried to make -- i keep trying to remind everyone we try to make a balance here. we are withdrawing the federal footprint to the 5% allowing 95% of schools and l.a. that 5% we have the federal intervention. ..

>> we were the first state to take on the issue of rewarding outstanding teaching. i met with steve jobs in 1981 on computers, so there may be a state that comes up with a worse program out of 50, or there may be two, but i bet in the environment that we have today, almost all the states doing more. we're not talking about just districts here. we're talking about whole states. >> no further discussion? senator murphy. >> thank you, senator chair, and i want to echo the sentiments my colleague from minnesota expressed about the difficulty

about this issue because the success of our children at those least performing schools is so important to the children and to our nation. i have visited one school that had a remarkable turn around. it developed a model in which it was basically among the three worst schools in the district of about 25 elementary school, and it became one of the best three in a two year period. it was experimenting with a different set of structures working in partnership with best evidence developed with the university on what worked, and it succeeded beyond anyone's expectation. you know it the moment you walk into the school. you knew it when you talked to the faculty, and when the test scores came out, they were incredibly successful. as i took and looked at each of

these strategies, none of them quite fit for what that school undertook. it seems to me that we need, in a situation where not many schools have succeeded in such a turn around, we need the inspired efforts of folks in every corner of this country to try some different approaches and share their results with the nation, and so i am uncomfortable with the general premise that we have the patented set of solutions and there's not -- especially when they have not worked terribly well to date. there are pieces of this, though, that weigh the other direction for me. i was concerned about the issue of vouchers whether it strengthen the school or underminds it as the most motivated families move and leaves the rest of the kids in a

worst situation than before. it is my understanding that title i funds cannot be used in that context, and it's not my understanding that -- it's my understanding it's not the author's intent, but that's not what this is aiming at, but i would like, if you spoke about this before, i apologize -- did you speak to it? you did? >> i did, and i said my understanding of the law is that title i funds can only be used in public schools and this is title i money. >> right. i understand there's still some legal discrepancy which is what i was checking on because apparently services to children who received vouchers have been funded with title i funds, but would you feel comfortable working on that piece of this puzzle if we go forward with this because it's not your intention to have the title i

funds used for vouchers? >> senator merkley, it's not my intention -- i agree that title i funds under the law must be used in public schools, and i suggested that if that were still a concern when we got to the floor, i'd be glad to engage in a colloquy with senator hark harkin or others or you that that's my intention. >> okay. i'll support this, but i'll also reserve my privilege as you will, and i want you to be aware, that i may pursue clarification when we have this on the floor to put that in statute as well, but i feel like this is in the right direction and thank you. >> any other questions? note the amendment, all in favor

say aye? >> can we have a roll call vote? >> call the role. >> [inaudible] >> pass. >> senator murray? >> no, by approximatey. >> senator sanders? >> aye. >> senator casey? >> no, by approximatey. >> [inaudible] >> no, by proxy. >> senator franken? >> aye. >> senator bennett? >> no. >> senator whitehouse? >> aye. >> senator enzi? >> aye >> [inaudible] >> aye? >> senator paul? >> i. >> senator hatch?

>> [inaudible] >> senator mccain? >> aye. >> senator cassidy? >> aye. >> senator kirk? >> [inaudible] >> mr. chairman? >> no and vote know be proxy. >> [inaudible] >> i'm sorry? 15? 15 ayes and 7 nays, the amendment is adopted. next amendment. >> mr. chairman? >> senator? >> mr. chairman, i hope what will be a simple what i hope is a straightforward amendment.

it is blumethal13 that aims to consider in amplifications for competitive grants, the numbers of of or percent of students who are two or more years underage or under credited for their grade level. the reason for including this statistic in the assessments that have to be done is it is simply the best predictor of drop outs, and therefore in the competitor grant program is a factor that should be considered, and i ask for voice vote. [inaudible conversations]

it's amendment-3. >> amendment number 3; right? >> as i understand it, the secondary school reform program requires grant applicants to complete a need analysis as a part of their application. this amendment would require them to include in that analysis the percentage of the students who are two or more years overaged or under credited for their grade level. i understand the amendment requires grantees as a part of the early warning indicator system to analyze academic indicators to determine which students are under aged and over credited.

is that the thrust of the amendment? >> that is correct, mr. chairman. it requires essentially no new data collection, no cost, only an analysis both in the presentation of applications to the improving secondary schools' grants program and that needs assessment because it is such a strong indicator of dropouts. >> we do know that overaged under credit students are the most likely to drop out. we know schools that make an effort to meet their needs can turn their lives around. i think it is important that schools identify those students so we can design appropriate interventions, get them back on track so i support this amendment. >> mr. chairman? >> yes. >> i assured his support for securing the data, and the percentage of students dropping out are under credited. i agree that's a major problem,

but the canada that where -- data where we only test in grade unless they go to the computer adapting testing won't be available unless they did an unusual thing to get the data. we never required that data to be collected, so i think with some modifications it could be made so it's adapted, but it does involve that testing thing we've been talking about before. >> senator, i respect your point, but this data is essentially very simple. it's the numbers of credits and the year that the student is presently enrolled, and every school has that data. it's simply a matter of literally taking it from either the paper or the computer and presenting it as part of the needs assessment. >> so you're saying if a child's

in 5th grade doing work at 3rd grade level, they know that? >> they do. if they don't -- >> i think we know if they're up to grade level, but i don't know that we know at what grade level they are. that's the point we were making before. >> all right. we may be -- we may be saying different things. essentially, overage or under credited means that they are older than the grade -- >> means they've been held back two years. >> exactly. >> yeah, yeah. >> and that should be a matter of record for every student. >> just for clarification, may i -- i think you just did clarify it, but i think what this is is if you're -- you should be ten years old in 5th grade, but if you have a 12-year-old in 5th grade -- >> it actually --

>> at the end of the year, then that's what you are talking about. it's not that they know what grade level they are at in terms of the way we talked assessments. >> that is essentially correct, mr. chairman, except just with one minor correction which is that this requirement would apply only to high schools. it would not apply to elementary schools. 5th grade would not apply, but to take the point, which senator franken's expressed better than i did, if you're 16 # years old -- 16 years old in 9th grade, that should be self-evident from the records of the school, and that's the kind of phenomena that we want to measure because that 16-year-old is very unlikely to finish school, and we want to know that, essentially in realtime before he or she becomes a dropout, and

that's the kind of fact that should be included in the application for funds under the competitive grant. it, again, i stress that this requirement applies to the applications for competitive grants, not a requirement across the board for every school in the united states. >> i see. i understand. again, i'm just reminded this is in the competitive grant program too. >> yes, mr. chairman, in the competitive grants program. >> any further discussion? >> so, you know, i'm interested in this. don't you any high school is too late to identify when they are two grades behind? if they get to high school and have not dropped out already -- >> if the ranking member wishes to offer his amendment to extend it, i'd be happy to support it. i don't mean to be facetious,

but we're really trying to frame the amendment so it complies to the grant program which is the improving secondary schools grant program and if there were a way to apply it similarly to elementary school, that would be a good option. >> they'll get more points if there's more kids that are behind on their competitive grant -- >> they'll get more points for considering a relevant measure of whether they are likely to have dropouts, and, of course, dropout rate already is part of the needs assessment, but they just consider it at an earlier point when it may lead to dropouts. >> so this might reduce actually the number of kids that get passed along without achieving what they are supposed to

because it counts towards a competitive granted. >> i'm not sure i understand the ranking member's question. >> some complaints is kids get passed along because they are a problem or some other reason, and so if they did just get passed along, they wouldn't get extra credit in this area, so it might encourage them to be more honest where the child's grade level is. >> i hope it will measure, senator, whatever the reasons may be, whether there are more or fewer students who are, in effect, overage and under credited. overage for the grades where they are. >> okay. thank you. >> further discussion? if not, all in favor of the amendment say aye. opposed, no.

ayes appear to have it, the amendment is adopted. >> mr. chairman? mr. chairman? >> senator? >> i want to follow on the comments from senator blumenthal because he challenged the ranking member if you have an amendment to deal with the dropout rate at an early age, bring it forward. well, i actually have an amendment that would do just that, and i will -- i will briefly discuss this amendment. it's not my intention to ask for a vote on this at this point in time. as much as i would like to. my amendment to title i, it's amendment number 2, and it is an act that i have introduced as a stand alone bill earlier called the early intervention for graduate success act.

it is a -- it's a 37-page bill that i have introduced. i want to just bring it before the committee at this time. i would have liked to have figured out a way to have incorporated it into the provisions of this bill. was unable to do that, but it may be that as this legislation moves through the process, i will have the chance to do that and would like to work with some of you on this issue. as i mentioned earlier, and as some of you have stated, you just don't wake up one day in high school and say i checked out of school. it is a process that begins very early on. it is -- it is a whole series of factors. we try hard to understand what it is that -- that kind of

intervenes and despite all the good counseling and best efforts of so many, young people still are dropping out at unfortunately very, very high rates. alaska has some statistics that we're not proud of, and we're trying to get on top of it, but one of the things that we have studied, we have really focused on is the earlier we're able to identify some of the risk factors, the earlier we can identify and engage and intervene, the better chance of success these children are going to have because as senator blumenthal mentioned, you know, when you're 16 and a freshman, and your six foot four, and growing a beard and not feeling like you're fitting into that freshmen math class, you're

checking out for lots of different reasons, but it didn't just happen then when you were 16. it happened much, much earlier along the way when you're struggling in reading and you get behind and you're embarrassed in class because you can't do the calculations on the board, or you can't read the passage out loud, and it -- there are a series of obstacles that present themselves in front of you kids, and it's a sad set of facts really so what i have -- what i have developed through this early intervention act for graduation success in working with educators, administrators, all those through all levels of the spectrum is to really try to identify some of these risk factors and work a process to

allow for earlier intervention, 10 what this -- so what this act would do is to be to add to the esa a way for schools to receive competitive grants to do that. right now in your measure in section 1201, it allows for the middle and high school reform to access competitive grants. this would allow for the elementary schools to make application for those competitive grants. it would provide state school districts identify those children who may be at higher risk working with the school districts in the early learning providers where available to work together to get the kids on track and really to keep them there, and then timely to require that the -- finally to require the plans developed to help the kids are actually passed along from

school to school whether it's elementary scoop up to the high school or if they are moving or if they are foster kids, but, again, so we are working and we're assisting these kids every step of the way. this is an area, i think, we, as a legislative body, can do more if we step in earlier. i'd like to work with my colleagues on how we can advance this. i'd like for you to take a look at this agent that i've introduced, and if it's something that we can incorporate in this bill as we move forward through the process to the floor, i'd like to do that because i think it's going to be a better indicator of success in the long run if we get in there earlier and work

with them. >> say, the senator, i feel strongly about this, and i think you're right on target, and i look forward to working with you as we go to the floor on this to see if we can't get something that both sides would agree on and that we get to the floor. i just -- said this many times, just got to focus on kids early in life, and we're just not doing a good job of it right now, and i think you're right on target with that. i look forward to working with you on that. >> good, thank you. >> thank you, senator. senator sanders? >> thank you. thank you very much, mr. chairman. let me mention i also agree with you and senator about the need to address problems early on. i'm offering titles 1-rbgs and 2-rbgs, amendment two, and title 9, amendment one, and i'd like to address both now both related

to the same issue, which is the issue of highly qualified teachers. >> sanders number two? >> sanders number two in titles 1 and 2, and amendment one in title nine. >> passed out, please. oh, okay. >> senator is recognized. go ahead and explain it. >> okay, thank you, mr. chairman. let me begin by mentioning that these amendments have the support of 82 separate organizations around the country, mr. chairman, including some of the most important civil rights organizations who are fighting

for the rights of low income students, minority students, and studentses with disabilities, and i'd like to 13wr as part of the -- enter as part of the record, that entire list, but among those organizations, and there's many much them, are the naacp, the naacp legal defense and education fund, the national alliance for black school educators, the american association of people with disabilities, the national association of state directors of special education. i think that's a group, mr. chairman, you referenced earlier today. the national association of state directors on special education, the counsel for exceptional school children, and easter seals among many, many other groups, and my office has been receiving many, many communications from these groups and from groups all over the country about the issue related to this amendment. there's no question as i think all of us are united in understanding that we want to

make sure that all of our kids are, especially i think in this legislation, are children of low income backgrounds, children of minority families, children with special needs, get the very best education this country can provide, and i think we are united in saying that today we are not doing the kind of job we want, which is what this legislation is about, and one could argue, mr. chairman, that this bill is really an educational civil rights bill. a civil rights bill. one of the concerns that we all have on this committee is the unacceptable high rate of dropouts among our kids. as i mentioned earlier, we're talking about 50% of kids who are african-american dropping out of school, talking more than of that latino heritage, and we're talking about kids, despite the wonderful work down

by the chairman of kids with dates still not -- disabilities still not getting the quality education we'd like them to receive. now, implicit throughout this bill is that we want to make sure that schools have the -- schools that have the greatest needs, schools in low income areas, schools with a lot of kids with disabilities, that these kids get their fair share of quote-on-quote "highly qualified teachers." that's the word we're talking about, "highly qualified teachers," and in this bill what we're calling for is an an equitable distribution of those teachers. what we're saying, when we have highly qualified teachers, we don't want them all in middle class neighborhoods educating children to go to harvard and yale. we want that, but we also want

to make sure schools that have serious problems where kids are dropping out, kids have a lot of disabilities, we want to make sure that those schools get their fair share and equitable driex -- distribution of quote-on-quote of "highly qualified teachers," and that's the thrust of this legislation. kids do well when they have good teachers. we want the highly qualified teachers to be spread into every area, and not just into upper middle class schools. now, the question arises what is a highly qualified teacher? well, i think we can have disagreements, and i'm sure we will about exactly what that means and how we can measure that, but there should be no disagreement, and here's probably the main point i want to make with regard to the amendment, there could be no disagreement that when the term

"highly qualified" applies to 98% of teachers, it loses its meaning. let me repeat that. whatever your definition may or may not be about a highly qualified teacher, it doesn't mean anything if 98% of our teachers are regarded as highly qualified. might as well throw that term away. it doesn't mean anything, and that's where we are right now in the bill. under the current language, we believe that about 98% of teachers are considered highly qualified. now, let me give you an example of what i'm talking about. i happen to believe as i'm sure all of you believings that we have got to do everything that we can to attract the best and brightest young people in this country into education. we desperately need gifted and inspired teachers. i personally want to see us

raise salaries for teachers. i personally want to see our educators get the respect that they deserve, which unfortunately in many respects, they don't have that today. i want to see college education affordable. i want to see a whole revolution in terms of how we deal with child care in america. that's my own personal view. in that, i am a strong supporter of programs like teach for america and other efforts to attract young people into education, but let me just briefly explain what the problem with the current language in this bill is, and why we should pass these amendments. here's the problem in english. right now, you have a young person graduating from college in june, going into education, and in september, that young person finds himself or herself in a 6th grade classroom full of kids who are reading at the