it is a remarkable achievement. do they have a long way to go? yes, but they're making progress you alluded to corruption. the the subject has been spoken to several times. they themselves to acknowledge that is one of the biggest problems, not just in terms of nuclear security, but also in terms of economic confidence, investment, and so forth. i would hope that they would make progress on that, but in addition the military has control of certain elements, particularly weapons. there are other agencies that have jurisdiction over things like research reactors were small amounts are, so there is a divided responsibility that i think probably needs addressing. with that, let me see if you want to comment further. >> specific information. russia scores very well in three categories, security control measures, global norms, and

domestic commitments and capacity. the score is brought down by large quantities of nuclear materials, similarly to the united states, both by -- as a legacy of the cold war, and as senator nunn pointed out, but levels of corruption which imply that russia needs to be extra vigilant. >> okay. somebody in the second row. right here. >> the dialogue in establishing priorities. is the ultimate goal to have a global standard for nuclear security? is that useful and necessary? is that feasible? ..

international, i think, approach to the whole question of the fuel cycle. we started that with the fuel bank now, which has been authorized in the iaea is moving forward on that. the iaea and there's a lot in the report and i will for you to the details because it's enormously important. the iaea or some other organization like the iaea will have to be put in charge of the and given a mandate, the link authority and resources. they don't have it now. this is not their mandate.

what safeguarding means, we've explained this in the report and it's very important. people assume that we safeguarding the security. it doesn't necessarily mean security. the example i have used before and this is actually in the report to some extent i alluded to. but the safeguarding specter from iaea goes in a building and they are basically doing accounting and they have cameras, that job is to make sure it's not diverted to weapons, has not been diverted to weapons. it is not to see whether there are locks on the dorsal holes in and the ceiling or whether predator cards and people are secure. so that would only be after-the-fact. the iaea is doing what their mandate as amended their mandate is not broad enough in their resources are not significant enough and at some point, the international community has to come together and decide who is going to be responsible for this. this is an ngo operation now.

we are doing it because governments are not doing it. but that doesn't mean that government shouldn't do it in the future and perhaps that kind of discussion can be held in south korea because that could be a beginning point of deciding what authority the iaea ought to have. but i know that the iaea does not have the kind of resources they need to do a job on the security side. safeguarding is different from the security. >> , i'll just add a little bit to your question. you know, i think we do need a global standard eventually. but we have right now i think our states looking for some guidance again on what matters most. if we had the local standard, we would be able to do a far better job of holding states accountable and we would also appeal to track progress. again, what we have done with this index is we're putting 40 framework that helps us get our

minds and our arms around the scope of this problem. the other thing i would just say is we included in our index to relevant treaties and one of them is the convention on the fiscal protection of materials and its 2005 amendment. that amendment isn't enforced. if it was, that actually would require states to enact standards unprotect teen materials while they in years or in storage and not just when they are being transported. we still need over 40 states to actually ratify that appeared currently states aren't obligated to enact the standards and we clearly need to do a far better job of getting out there and i think that is one clear step we can take. >> okay, we can take a couple more questions. charlie. [inaudible] >> charlie curtis, part of ng ins on the board now and ran the organization.

>> can i ask for the night because i also chair the nuclear security, which is i think relevant to this last, not to detract in any way from the comments about the need for the minimum standards. ntia has not waited for that. it has catalyzed the creation of a world of nuclear security to share best practices for the physical protection and security of nuclear materials worldwide. it has concluded just now its third year of operation and it has over 700 members from 53 countries. and so, we are trying to improve the assist of physical protection security while we await this more important international standard. but you can't wait because the physical protection are so

great. >> there is a large vacuum here and in the chios are trying to fill it. we are not the only ones, but the winds organization is in vienna. it has international board. as charlie said, over 600 members. roger housley is to head a future. robert was one of the members of our panel. that is a voluntary organization and is certainly not mandatory, but we are hoping it will grow and we are also hoping it will be up to help develop best practices. okay, i think we've got one more question here. >> yes, for leo. he mentioned countries are given the opportunity comes to bessie said, tweet some of the numbers. to what extent were you in your example lasorda for canada we are able to verify the fact that they only had 50 instead of 150 kilograms and i can't

figure? >> for some of these, it is difficult to verify decisively. what is to understand his signature regulators and so were not necessarily going to have positions. you don't really know when it's almost impossible to know exactly what the quantities are. again, we took them from central sources. the central sources are fairly good in another cases gave ranges. we went to say, would you be willing to offer us more information one-on-one dinner normally provide me to other people who collect the information. in a number of cases, they were able to do that. now, were we able to verify every case? not in every instinct, but we asked them to justify it. we push them on the points as well. if for some reason we are not satisfied with what we came back, we made the ultimate judgment on this. we felt by and large we had very good levels of cooperation.

he puts it this process seriously and i would describe it as more of a technical process. we were dealing with technical people who said your post this. it's in the right direction and we can define it. we didn't find any situations for anyone tries to turn this around and say this is completely wrong. we deserve a wonderful story and it was not kind of exercise. as a technical process. you have certain categories in areas that are sensitive and will remain sensitive to countries will be reluctant to make public. but at least we had to start about sharing with an international organization like an iaea for a winds organization. or even sharing the regional base because if there's not

confidence in the middle east is a good example in your going to see more and our precious proliferation. as you get more and more precious proliferation coming of more countries going to enrichment and more dangerous of terrorist groups and the odds on an international disaster go up up up up. so we've got to make that spiraled the other way around. i don't see any other handset. we thank you so much for coming. we'll be glad to continue to answer your questions. we'll have our staff available for any follow-up questions that the media. page and dt and leo, thank you very much. [inaudible conversations]

>> if we begin now, to match our policy is that their ideas, then i believe it is yet possible that we will come to admire this country not simply because we were born here, but because of the kind is good laugh to you

and i want it to be and together we have made. that is my hope. that is my reason for seeking the years the united states. >> as candidates campaign for president, the server that after 1490 ran for the office and lost. hauteur website, c-span.org/the contenders to see video contenders who had a lasting impact on american politics. >> the leadership of this nation has a clear and immediate challenge to go to work perfect ugly and go to work immediately to restore proper respect for lightheartedness land and not just prior to election day either. >> these young people when they get out of this wonderful university will have difficulty finding a job. we've got to clean this mess up, leave this country in good shape and pass on the american dream to them.

>> david callahan and the ein rant center, aronberg faced off on the role of government. the two scholars took part in a debate hosted by tom hall seattle. this is about an hour and a half. [inaudible conversations] >> good evening, everyone. thank you for coming out to town hall tonight. i am bob redman, program your name decided to introduce our special program tonight. it's hard for national series of debates on first principles presented by the most in the ayn rand institute as part of the satellite programming. the topic of tonight's debate is government, what if it's profitable? it features david callahan in

your own brook of the ayn rand center. it is moderated by john mckay. before you say more, and want to mention a few events coming up to her center for civic late series through town hall. first of all, nobody prints of the timely novel set in the great depression, she links to making a case for a carbon tax and local act to this john degroff and david tucker who ask, what is the economy for it anyway? also coming up at town hall is physicist frank close company said in companies that were full cut of the newly up to become a seattle radio theatre's performance of "miracle on 34th street" and a very cool literary musical collaboration between the bushwick bookclub instead of seattle rock orchestra. all of that stuff is happening in the next few weeks. so it's typical for townhall. if you want to stay in touch with everything we have go on, find out more at town hall seattle.org. the best way is to become a

member. membership starts at $35 provides you discounts on tickets and more. best of all, it gives you a feeling that you are part of everything we do here. over 350 events a year were a member supported organization. under a home, pick up a membership form in the lobby and you can also sign up online at town hall seattle.org. tonight's debate will be moderated by seattle native john mckay who attended st. joseph's grade school, seattle prep high school in university of washington. he served as the united states attorney in the attorney under george w. bush in 2001 until 2007 when he resigned along with eight other u.s. attorneys. following that, nick cage joined the faculty at seattle university school of law where he continues to teach. i want to turn proceedings over to him now and he is going to introduce our debaters and tell you exactly how the evening will

proceed. thank you again for coming. please give a warm townhall welcome to the first principles of debate. [applause] >> at evening, everyone. i am john mckay. is my privilege to see the need to be here at seattle's town hall here in the great hall and to welcome you to what is now the fifth in a series of national debate on very important topics. tonight, to talk about the role of government. in fact, our title is government: what is it good for? may be a provocative line for two debaters. we are privileged to have with us here tonight first david callahan here to your last. he is the cofounder and senior fellow of the most a thing

public policy group based in new york. he is an author like our second debaters tonight come he's a commentator in lecture. his books, in particular the cheating culture in the moral center archer mentis commentaries worthy of your consideration. he is a graduate of hampshire college and holds a phd in politics from princeton university. we'll talk some more about some of the positions that he has advocated and i'm sure he will bring some of those to your attention as well. to my left, to your right is zero brook. he's the executive or of the ayn rand institute. it is of course a well known nonprofit organization. advancing the ideas of object it is them. he is himself a tremendous intellect and writer as well, publisher and commentator.

so we have two very engaging debaters tonight. we were talking before hand that we were hoping that are to be we are not using as the yardstick of the presidential debates just to put you all at ease. what we hope for tonight is engagement. engagement on important ideas, important issues. we have to tremendous protagonists here and we're asking all of you to participate as well, which is a tradition here at town hall. so we'll have money of opportunity in time for questions from all of you for archer mentis -- tremendous debaters. i would like to jump right into our discussion tonight. my role will be simply to move this along to various topics, but not to be afraid to linger on important topics as our debaters may determine it to be and as you may determine them to be. if we ripped from the headlines today, and he to say that the

first issue is the one i think could only be characterized as failure. i am referring of course to the joint committee, looking at the question of the reduction of the united states debt and the failure of the joint committee denounced failure by both parties that that partisan committee. i think that making interesting place to start on what the role of government is and should be in our society. so we will jump into that question and give you each an opportunity to open in the context of that question. so we want to get each of our debaters an opportunity to speak. we believe that question the background. you may dress as you open up or we'll adjust as the finish. david, let to turn to you first and he may take five minutes with an opening state. >> great. it's great to be here tonight. this is my fourth appearance at town hall seattle and as always, i am thankful to the fantastic

team that make season as possible. the townhall is truly one of the best venues or public discussion in the country and i've been to a lot of them come as a thank you. on my previous visits to townhall, but it's the only person appear on the stage. and while it is certainly fun to be a monopoly provider like that, i am also looking forward to tonight. the role of government is the central issue of our time in our politics. and i am thrilled to be here to make the case for a public sector that is strong, that is effective and that can advance the common good. so let me just stretch out the way i see things. for starters, the question here tonight, the real question is not what should government be doing. as if government were some autonomous entity. at its own agenda. the real question is what do we

as citizens want to do through government? this is a democracy after all. government is our common tool to get things done. the government decides. it it is a tool we use when we want to do things that you can't do as individuals, that we can't do through the free market and that we can't do through civil society or charity. the best way to think about government is as a set of public structures that we have will to make society better for everyone. and in a great many ways, the story of america's success and prosperity over the past century is a story of how we together hugged lps public structures and expanded the role of government to improve our lives. i'll talk about a bunch of those good tonight.

but let me flag to be sure to and overarching rules for government. first, we use government to protect ourselves. protection is a fundamental role of the state. it goes beyond protecting criminals and foreign terrorists. we will also turn to government to protect ourselves from other teams by contaminated food and pollution. they no longer die in droves of food or diseases that they did before the creation of the fda in 1906. we no longer choke on the air we breathe and our cities. we also use government to protect ourselves from unscrupulous business practices. governments protect censorship attack deaths from being ripped off and financial fraud or serious blunders portraits by

false advertising. or harmed by and protects us in the work place. a century ago, 100,000 workers died every few years on the job, often because employers didn't really care whether they died. at a time and there is only 40 million people in the labor force. today, find some workers die, which is much larger. because of government, fewer americans are dying on our highways is the federal government step in to regulate auto safety in 1966, the auto fatality rate has dropped by 400%. the elves, airbags, regulated by government. mandated by government. it saved hundreds of thousands of lives. americans want government to

play this protective role. for decades now, how will interest to increase their own bottom line. this helps explain why investors must transit dollars when wall street was allowed to turn into a casino, why so many americans have lost their homes to predatory lending. why so much air pollution still persist causing asthma, lung cancer, heart disease. when governor lapdogs are sleeping or have been put to sleep, that incompetent. and yet, all of this bad stuff apparently is not enough. there are politicians trying to strip away even more of these protections, trying to kill the fda, trying to kill the epa, trying to kill osha. they will come back to all of the theater insurer. a second major role for government, again a row that we

have chosen together as citizens is to help build a stronger economy and ensure prosperity for everyone. it is a great system for creating wealth. they can also be a phenomenally harsh and brutal system. a system that allows some people to live flaking and leads others to start on the street. as well come it can be very unstable system probes prone to booms and busts. this is not the kind of society americans want. yes, we believe in the attic freedom. they want to use the mark in business to build well and build personal economy and realize their dreams. but we also believe in mutual obligation and taking care of each other and as a society, ideally we try to manage capitalism through government to get the best of both worlds, to get the prosperity and the

freedom, but also the fairness and security. and we haven't been doing that very well lately. we haven't been getting the best of both worlds lately in that way as government has been to be. the evidence that this is everywhere around us, too many americans live in poverty. too many americans are in lloyd, too many don't have health care. too many can't afford college and all this at a time when the top 1% have more wealth than the bottom 90% of americans put together. that is not okay. it is not the kind of country we want to live in. it is not the country that the founders envisioned. we can do better and government offers us a way to do better together. >> let me ask in the context of your remarks. utah about the week is with

government. it seems perhaps in the joint select committee and deficit reduction, an enormous amount of power seem to load into that committee, but it has been a failure. can you say the government is weak, would we strengthen some paint that when given power seems to fail? >> the super committee with a failure because the republican party has been taken over by antigovernment ideologues who are implacably opposed to raising taxes under almost any circumstances, despite the fact that taxes are at their lowest level in 60 years as a percentage of gdp and were facing a retirement of the boomers. that's what the super committee failed. it is not about the problems of government structurally. it's about the republican party has lost its mind. [applause] >> in return -- let me turn to mr. brook and also in the context of your opening statement if you wish to address

the failure that i've mentioned. they want to give you an opportunity to open as well. >> i'd be happy to. >> this is my first appearance at townhall, said thank you are biting me and hopefully won't be my last, but shall have to let you know afterwards. i have a feeling david is more at home here than i am, but i would like to be at home here. >> you are very welcome here. >> i'd also like to thank demos for participating in these events and i will moderate tonight are being well to moderate pace. we get into all the different concrete issues david has brought up and i'm eager to comment. i don't get a chance to comment on even half of them. but i too step back because i'd like to ask the more fundamental question of why do we need

government? what is it for? and is there something unique about this country and the experiment that is american? because i believe there is. i believe in the 18th century thinkers of the time in the founding founding fathers in particular face a crucial turning point in human history. they have to decide who each one of our lives belongs is your life the property of the key? is your life the property of the tribe? the group of eight kubek of democracy. is your life or property of someone else? because that is the human and have been living forever. before 1776, all countries come to you as an individual didn't

count. you belong. you are responsible to some other entity above and beyond you as an individual. but the lightning did and what founding fathers a thousand is the first country in human history where that was not true. the country was established with the idea that your life belongs to you, not to the pope, not to the king, not to your neighbor, not to any group. nice group, that group, doesn't matter. your life is not owned by the trait. it is yours. it is yours to live as you please. this company was established on a moral principle of individualism, on the idea that we are autonomous entities that have a moral weight on -- a more

great honor and and to pursue our own happiness. i infringed by majorities, by popes, by anybody. now, how do we live a life like them? how do we fulfill that individualism? how do we live in a society where everybody is pursuing their own interests and a harmonious way. the founders ally john locke had an interesting concept. pick out individual rights. the idea was if you lived your life the way you want to do that pursuing your own values can be your own life, your unhappiness, that was okay as long as you didn't use force against your neighbor. besides he didn't heed your neighbor's ability to do the same. so we all have individuals

rights to pursue her dreams, happiness, value. but we need an entity to prevent us from using force against one another because we know throughout human history fortunately we are pretty bloody race of people. people use force all the time. and that is what this particular government instituted to do. protect us from our neighbor who might decide to steal our stuff, defraud us and take stuff away. that is the role of government, to protect our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. that requires a very small government. that requires the government is just as these things, military fiduciary and leaves us alone otherwise, we just want to pursue our lives.

because once the government starts trying to do all the things david would like them to, they how to start infringing on my rates. now, let's say there is a really good cause of it. people -- you know, people need more help. people are not getting the best health care they could. there only two options ultimately to get me to help them. one, is to ask. that's the system i like, a voluntary system, where my right tire expect it to break it to make the choice of who the up and do help, under what conditions to help them and under what conditions not to help them. the only other choice is to force me. and that is a violation of my right. that is a violation of my right and taking property way for me in using it in a way that i do

not want to use it. for that i have not chosen to use it. and that is fundamentally wrong. it is wrong when we do it to each other. we call it stealing. it is equally wrong when we get a group of people who want a percentage to take my money away. it is still stealing. it's still wrong. it's still a violation of my rights and is still exactly the kind of government the founding fathers warned us against, the kind of government to live, what to do their money, to help and who not to hope. so i approach this issue. my approach to this issue is very simple. the government should do one and one thing only. it should be is because it needs to be to do something really well and that is protect our individual rights. you should do nothing else. everything else, all the wonderful pollster david might have for society out there

should he achieved or not by voluntary association of individuals per doing their own life and their unhappiness. so, to the super committee way up there. >> a failure perhaps. >> in my view failure is not the super committee. the failure is the failure of 100 years of a mixed economy that has brought us to the brink of bankruptcy. the failure his administration after administration spending money on things the government should never be spending money on to begin with. the failure is a failure spending money we don't have come in the notion that somehow government should deal to buy her everything the time is much as they want whenever they wanted, which leads to greece. it leads to destruction and chaos. but more importantly and more fundamentally, it leads to the violation of each one of our right, our life, our right to

live a life in the best way that we choose to live our life. the system we have today is the system of autocrats dictating how and what and where we should live. and yeah, in some very narrow field, you could abdicate the numbers and say somebody is better off. i don't accept the right of the government today day. to me, it's a little technicality on the way. yes they feel. it's a little funny to blame it on the republicans when the problem really -- >> would you blame both parties click >> now, i'm not going to defend republicans. republicans are awful. i mean the bush administration was one of the great disasters of the 20th century. >> could be considered democrats into that responsibility as well? you the same antipathy to

democrats click >> at a great antipathy towards democrats. >> i didn't want to leave them out. >> we certainly wouldn't want to do that. >> my view is the problem today in washington is spending, spending many as regulation. and the solution and the only solution is to cut, cut, cut and recuse the size and scope, most importantly the scope of government. and you don't do that and you can't do that by raising taxes. that is that you can do with taxes and we can talk about that. >> let's hold off for a moment. we will come back. we will cover all of those points, but i would like to turn to david because we have heard a very narrow view of government and i think a fairly dramatic clash here between our two speakers, which is exactly what we had hoped for. yaron mention the philosophy behind government. but the philosophy of our founding fathers were, you know,

putting john locke who rather famously said her fundamental right by life, liberty and property followed by thomas jefferson he might say who is our country came together replace the word property with one might argue, the pursuit of happiness. i am wondering if you have a comment on the basic view towards government in our society. is it a property right clicks is very narrow view of government? is that a government keen to be as we know it in the united states? >> well, i think government should be what americans wanted to be through democracy and to the social contract. think americans strongly support for the most part the government we have. support for social security and medicare, strong support for a rule in environmental protection, strong support for the fda and the role of protecting us against that food and drugs. strong support for food stamps

and claimant and other key elements of the social safety net. strong support for investing in infrastructure, strong support for having government play a role in investing science and keep outdated and global competition. this is not some kind of autocrats dictating to us how your money should be used. we as a democratic society have made these choices. >> yaron says that there is wide enough government. you said there were two and you said that the government should be there to protect us. i think there may be some common ground at least in your first element and yaron's first element. i am unclear as to your second point frankly. you said it was to address the question of capitalism and i took it to mean that government should manage capitalism. >> absolutely. >> what is the disagreement in

terms of the protection element between you and yaron? you did that and then i'll turn it back to you, yaron. >> i believe in a more expansive role as do most americans for government protecting us from a whole bunch of things. magistrate criminals, not just foreign terrorists. frankly, whether or not they lose money because my house was burglarized over these many because my financial investor rips me off because the securities and exchange committee commission has been downsized doesn't really matter to me. i still for money. whether i died because i'm a murderer or in a workplace accident because my employer is cutting corners doesn't matter. i want protection as do most americans from a range of dangers that exist in modern society. >> do americans seem to be protected in that way? >> no. so this is the difference.

i view forces something unique, something different. it is something that people inflict on one another and it is the one in my view, enemy of human life. in my view, to be successful, but we need is to be free to use our mind, to think, to reason, solve problems, to engage in reality, choose between a variety of options out there come and make decisions. we need to be free. one thing that struck their ability to speak. when you have a gun stuck to the back of your neck you're not thinking. your doing with the guy tells you. it obstructs her ability to progress our happiness discourse. so when my view, forces unique. it is not like cancer. it is not like a vice. it is not like he voluntarily

taking on a risk than maybe somebody else would. i believe people should be allowed to take their own ideas. forces unique and i want the government -- the one thing about the government to do his bayonet. now the example of david has given us a little fuzzy in the sense that were both against fraud and the world has a role to play. if there should be an sec it has only one job yet that is catch brittany made us. the reason i can't do that job is because it is monitoring every transaction they make. i have to file those of paperwork. i'm an honest guy. but i am a crook and advanced that is just waiting to cap chimney. they are a million other forms come up if they don't have time to catch the real corporate of ernie made off. >> what about catching the ceo of worldcom who committed fraud?

>> that is the job of the sec or the police, however you want to call it. catching crooks, catching people who defrauded the people is clearly the world of the government. the role of the government is not to look over her shoulder to tell me what transactions they can and cannot engage in and buy any particular company, who can sit on a board and you can't sit on a board. so when his forest, that is where the government has a legitimate world in place. there's a fundamental difference being hired. for example, all of these ideas about safety, the notion is that safety came from government. all the statistics show that safety improved. government steps in, puts and

regulations and continue that improvement following that, following those introductions. safety make sense of our profit perspective. it is a shock for people that never been in business. it's not an ability to employ your police. [applause] >> yaron, before you go on -- the statement has been made a david and i want you to expand your comments. you talked about our financial system. capitalism needs to be managed. would you care to comment on that? and we'll get it an opportunity to expand as well. capitalism needs to be managed. that is a different concept than protection. would you like to address that? >> obviously i'm against it. i think that

>> is a threat to individuals in any way. >> ics to the contrary. i believe is the protection that causes behind, not capitalism. i know a little bit about the financial crisis. i can address that one. why do we have a financial crisis? with a capitalism for the financial crisis. banking system is the most regulated and united states. the mortgage business was completely satisfied, completely controlled. you know, how many of you rent? how many of you own your home outright? thank you because all of you guys are subsidizing my mortgage. freedom is everywhere the same is to use. there is no accident that three of the nature of most industries united states led to a major collapse. it is the regulation that caused the collapse. it's the regulations that attend

to control a voluntary, healthy win-win interaction between participants in the marketplace, which causes those transactions to become lose-lose, which causes the risks and desire behaviors in the financial crisis. that is what causes the problem. that is not a solution to a problem. it is interesting that we never think the regulators. we never think the regulation. we always for the last hundred years plane the so-called free market, even when there is no sign of the free-market banking space. >> when he turned to david. on this concept of managing capitalism, if one turns to decide my website, there is a statement there supporting the occupied wall street movement. can you tie those two together in terms of managing capitalism? >> yeah, fundamentally the occupied wall street movement is

about taking on the excessive economic quality that has gone up in the society and has grown up because starting a couple decades ago we decided to take a more hands-off approach to the economy and we did not intervene as structural trend started to siphon more wealth upward. globalization, technological change. not only did we not intervened to defend a middle-class in the face of those trends, but we make situations worse in washington by lowering taxes on the rich, by making it easier for the people on wall street and the ceos to make these huge fortunes by letting compensation go out of control. and this is i think what occupied wall street is fundamentally protesting again. unless they manage capitalism, it does have a tendency to concentrate wealth at the very

top of our society. and that i think is fundamentally incompatible with american values. this is an egalitarian society a hurry. and we need to intervene in the economy and we need to intervene in the economy and we need to intervene in the economy and we need to intervene in the economy egalitarian spirit in the face of an economic system that is total disregard for it. >> if one were to look at some of the photographs of the tea party movement, you will occasionally see a sign they would relate to the ayn rand institute. what does objectivism have to do with the tea party movement if any? and if you'd like to comment on the occupied movement, which seems to be endorsed by demos and callahan that would be welcome as well. >> eye of the have a lot of sympathy for the tea party movement. the tea party movement is a very confused movement and to some extent an impotent movement because it doesn't have a real agenda. it knows what it doesn't want. i am with them on that.

they don't want the government. they wanted to stop. they want smaller government. they have no real plan and that's unfortunate because it's a huge missed opportunity. but the fact that americans stood up and said enough is enough to me is a wonderful thing and many of those people get inspiration from alice trout and that is why you see the signs. i think the occupied wall street doesn't is a very different movement. it is not about obviously shaky government. it's expanded government. its so called against crony capitalism, cronyism. it's just against the cronyism they don't like. wall street cronyism. i didn't see anyone occupied wall street person hindsight that object the bailout, the auto bailout. they are not against subsidized solar energy. their subsidies and corporate engagement.

i would like to see the tea party in occupied wall street. i like to see government completely disengaged. i'd like to see government subsidizing all business. i.e. this one happened, but if i were in any position of power, the first thing i would do, the first thing i would do is eliminate all subsidies to business, i'll tax deductions, get the government out of the business for a intern said to manipulating subsidies and tax. so check them out. then, corporate tax rates dramatically and slowly phase out regulations imposed on it. absolutely, governments should be involved in any of that stuff. my sense of the occupied wall street movement is far more about having stuff down are very much in terms of inequality, this issue of wealth inequality. i don't have a decision.

i don't know what is right and i don't think david knows. i'm curious what the number is. i don't know the rate the quality of love. and that inequality is a good thing. i don't think the quality is good. it is actually real bad. >> let's ask david to comment on that. he had the opportunity to comment on the occupied movement. you have to comments at least on the tea party movement and any others you'd like to add. >> just on this question of what is the right amount of inequality, there is no absolute answer to that, but i think it would be a good thing if we lived in a society for all of those throws together, which was the case for most of the early postwar decades. the rich got richer, and made a lot of money, but the middle middle class grows on the working class grows in starting a minute and 70s mantra to

very different kind of economy in which omega yachts were not. there is a study that came out by the congressional budget office, which showed the incomes of the top 1% have grown by almost 300% in 1979, while the incomes of the working class, middle class have barely moved at all. that is not the kind of society we want to live in. and that is the kind of situation you get when we have an unregulated form of capitalism, when we take a hands-off approach. and i think that we need to do something about that if we are going to retain our egalitarian democracy. remember, inequality of income and wealth always translate into inequality of political power. people with money and wealth easily translate those resources into a bigger say in our democracy. and that is not compatible with

values of this country. >> so, i said that i don't know what the rate makes sense, but i know how to get there. and and how to get there is freedom. it's leaving people alone. it's getting the government out of picking winners and losers in getting the government out of redistributing wealth. but that a real free-market and let's see what the redistribution of wealth is. let people be reported waste on what they produce, not based on what some bureaucrats think they deserve. >> let me put that question directly to david. his government's role to redistribute wealth? >> absolutely, yes. we do it through the progressive tax system, which enjoys wide public support. we do it for social security and medicare. we do to education, redistribution is a fundamental role of government and the last time we had discretion in iran

arrest was the end can tax before the rise of modern government and what does that society look like? it was a society with incredibly high levels of economic and society. a society dominated politically by tressed and in effect was an oligarchy. and that's what we would get again if we try to go back in that direction. >> this is a completely radiant history. from 1800 to 1850 can average incomes in the united states doubled. not like today. doubled. from 1850 to 1900, income doubled again. gdp per capita grew from the civil war to 1913 at the highest rates in human history the same time as the united states was absorbing lands and millions and millions of the poorest of the poor from all over the world. freedom works but the disparity of wealth. if some people are making huge amounts of money, that that we

value the services they are providing. how do you make money in a free market? not today with some people make money by getting a subsidies from the government. in a free market you make money like microsoft made money by selling product with its value and you pay a fraction -- a fraction of the benefits actually provided to your life. the fact bill gates made 40, 80, i don't care come $100 billion, good for him. he exerted himself. he worked to the max. he lived his life to the fullest. he exercised and at the same time -- at the same time come he made all of our lives better in math made a lot of money. that's great. >> let me ask you -- [applause] select me ask you through at all. through let me ask you -- to

promote disparity in wealth? >> know, the government is neutral. i believe -- and let me just address one issue david keeps bringing up. america wants what he wants. this debate is not about popularity. nobody likes that i'm advocating for. [laughter] i am right. [applause] >> solicit a good thing? >> i believe in the separation of government economics. i don't believe that government should be involved in redistributing wealth. i don't believe it should be involved in the economy. you have to be a socialist under freedom? you can assign as you can convince other people to live with you in a commune in each according to his needs and ability, you're free to do so. if you want to bail at detroit can make it a bunch of people together, you know, pull your money together, go to detroit. >> is it a good thing to have

significant wealth disparity is a product of society? >> i think of it is a product of freedom, then yes. again, i am a strong leader that there is an evil goal. the regime that takes closest to achieving equality of outcome, where if you are a different come, fewer classes, for smarter than everybody else can he win out in the killing field in your shot. that's a quality and they killed 40% population. during many people even members of the polity. who among you is an equal? i don't believe in equality. it's neither idea, novel idea. they talked about equality before the. in those days if you are an aristocrat or a peasant, the aristocrat at a much lighter sentence. that is how you function here but the founding fathers

objected to is that kind of inequality. the government should treat everybody the same. that marketplace? the marketplace will treat us all different because different things to the marketplace. that's what makes it fun. >> i think we ever clash or in terms of what the role of government might be, at least two outcomes of relative wealth. let me turn to a point in which i perceive perhaps some agreement between our debaters. and that may be the role of the government as it regards to national security. and if you wish to throw my enforcement, i would invite you to do that as well. this is the idea that what the government should do well is keep it safe and i would pose the question to each of you. does that mean that you favor significant, even massive and creases in their military budgets? altered to you first, david. >> i think yaron and i both agreed that government has a major role to play national

security. we may even agree on the size can i resources needed for that. >> should we increase it? >> know, at this point clearly we need to reduce their military obligations. in fact, that his article and have been under the budgetary deals reached by congress in august and also through the trick or the trick or agreement with good defense cuts of a trillion dollars over a decade. i think that makes sense. we been fighting two wars abroad. we need to turn to the domestic challenges and we need to really focus on the economic challenges that we face to compete with the likes of china, presale, india. it's a geoeconomic game in the 21st century and we need to be much more effective at taking. >> said david is for the military that thinks it should be cut. is that your view as well? >> i certainly think of the cut. we have way too many troops all over the world doing others bidding, not america's bidding. i think the military should

serve one purpose. there's a theme here, right? and that is protect the lives and property of americans. that's it. i believe we should be building democracies are helping south koreans defend themselves and they don't want us to help them defend themselves. .. just moments ago there was a

reference to metric, if you will. how are we supposed to evaluate the effectiveness of our government, whatever its size may be? and if i may be permitted an editorial comment, i think it is fair to say that if you ask americans today what is there view of the success, not what it should look like, but the success of government, we would have a very poor response. i think people see dissension, dissension in politics, a lack of commitment, at least even in the words to the pursuit of the common good, but rather the acquisition of power. it seems to be a great infirmity in government today, at least that is the arctic much of the public use it. what is the metric from your different points of views on how government can be successful? smith you mentioned the gross product you can go to other parts of the world, and they choose a

different kind of determinant for whether or not government is successful. is government successful when it promotes happiness? if that is true, how is it defined, the common good, the financial success, the relative debt of the nation, the degree to which people can engage in wonderful leisure time, maybe the pursuit of the greeks, which was also raised on this side of the debate, but what is the metric of government success? >> i think that is a good and tough question. i think for too long we have been measuring the success of our society through a narrow economic indicators, gdp as the sort of dominant indicator that we always used to look at how things are going. i think we need to move beyond that to create indicators which capture how people's quality of lives are, and that involves a number of different things, it involves how much time they have for leisure. it involves, you know, the strength of community, the

loneliness of the environment. there is a project right now called beyond gdp in which we are looking at those kinds of alternative indicators. bhutan famously has the gross national happiness. i think that is going in the right direction. one thing government can do is be the instigator of some of those new indicators and create the kind of data necessary to measure our progress. in terms of how you measure the metrics for measuring the success of government itself, that is very difficult to do. you're right. many americans, in the abstract, are disenchanted with government. when you ask them about particular things that government does, they like it. they like social security. they think government has been successful in ensuring retirement security or that

seniors have access to medical care. they like the government role in ensuring a clean environment. in those particular americans are very pleased with the successes that the government has had, and those successes have been substantial. in 196035% of seniors live in poverty. today it is under 10%. that is a remarkable success for this war on poverty that is so often been derided. >> is there a metric for happiness? we have gross domestic product, a new sort of gross national happiness scale, perhaps, being proposed by others around the world. i fear that your answer may involve something more like, well, the less the government does the happier we are, but i want to invite you to make -- to make -- to offer a metric for government, even in a very limited view, what would be egg of -- metric for evaluating governments. >> this is not about what makes

most of us happy or some measure of happiness. i certainly want to distance myself that the matrix of government is hiking gdp. it's not. i just happen to think it government also has that as a result. in my view the metric is individual freedom. it is the job of government to move from my perspective, the protection of individual rights. the measure by which we measure whether the government is succeeding is if it is protecting rights or is it, as the case is today, the biggest violator of individual rights as the founding fathers indeed warned us it would become. so suddenly government today is a violator of rights, infringes on our freedom, restricts our ability to make choices and decisions and pursue our own happiness periods of the metric that i would use is to what extent are you free? plan out your life, make the choices they you need to making your life, to what extent does

the government leave you alone to do that and get rid of the crooks and the terrorists in order to let you do that. i think on that matrix we are failing. on that matrix we have been declining dramatically for the last hundred years. just a simple example. i believe government should not be engaged in the decision of whether i should be allowed to take a certain drive or not. there is risk involved, but i should be able to decide. the pain that it reduces verses the risks that it entails. that is a decision i should be able to make. my doctor, pharmacist, every time government makes a decision like that for us, we have less freedom, less ability to pursue happiness, and, yes, i believe we are less happy as a consequence. i don't believe in conventional

happiness. sadly not collective that happiness. >> do you have a comparative analysis from your viewpoint, or is there another government samara that you would say we should be emulating? when you say government are you referring to the united states government to more all governments? give us some comparative basis if you can't. >> no government has ever been like a government i would like. no government has ever practice the kind of government i think the founding fathers imagined. but to the extent governments have advocated for freedom and focused their attention primarily and overwhelmingly on the protection of rights, people have prospered and can be successful. i believe happiness has grown and freedom has grown. you know, i am a huge lover of 19th century america. i know david has a different perspective.

i think that was being in this country where individuals absolutely are as free as we have been in america. i believe if you compare china to hong kong, america to hong kong, there is a thinking and economic index. singapore and hong kong up there at least economically. i think that, yes, there are better governments and worst governments. i think the u.s. government which started out as the best government in the world is slowly over the last hundred years and an exhilarating sense, moving away from that freedom. even by simple index of freedom, you know, it is dropping dramatically. >> let me give david an opportunity to give us a comparative analysis, if you will. >> well, i find the dark picture of the past century rather puzzling.

last i checked it was pretty good. this is a time when we created the first mass middle class in the history of the world. this has been -- this is a century, the 20th century was a time when we became the freest, most dynamic society in the history of the world. i mean, it was a phenomenal century when america became the richest country in the history of the world, and that also coincided with the lives of a powerful government that was committed to making america number one in a lot of different areas, government and was committed to of the gi bill, the interstate highway system that opened up suburbs, public universities that made higher education affordable, through scientific investments that put us on the cutting edge of industry and technology. the government played a central

role in creating the golden age. the golden age of america was not the 19th century when children were working in factories and people did not have the right to organize and robber barons ran america. the golden age was the 20th century. absolutely. in terms of the comparative international comparison, you know, i think one of the best examples and the world is denmark, a country known for its economic freedom, a country that is a great place to do business, but also a country with a very strong social safety net and a lot of investment in human capital through its education system. we are in a major global economic competition right now with other countries that have very strong government, very strong government and are trying to chart their role in this future, this 21st century. we have to compete with a strong government. >> let me take this up virginity

to invite the participants who are here with us in the great hall of seattle's tom all to join us at the mike here to my left, to your right. we will have someone here to sort of moderate activity for us, but i ask you to begin thinking of your questions. while we're doing that, i just want to make a comment about this last bit. maybe i am standing in the middle for reason. from my standpoint i continue to believe i live in the greatest country in the world, whether we look at it from our economic success and opportunity to the role that we play in terms of safeguarding the world security, not to say that we are perfect. i think americans better than anyone else exposed their weaknesses for all to see, and that is a powerful thing. let me just read some -- says there seems to be some agreement that this government may not be

good for certain things and our metrics -- let me just give a few, and this is from newsweek magazine, attempted to pull together some of these other happiness in this these from a round the world, ranking the world's best countries based on measures of health, education, politics. the united states ranked 11th. the united states was 301st. similarly, in recent rankings of the world's most livable cities, the economist bring to the american entry at number 29. marchers quality of living has the united states at number 31, so, perhaps we have another form of agreement here -- >> which countries are at the top? >> i could not say. i believe there are a number -- some of them in scandinavian countries. others think the view that china has the emerging economic.

>> i propose, we cannot do it. i propose that we take the top of that list, primarily scandinavian countries and open their borders. i am willing to put my entire wealth on the fact that the movement is toward this country. the smart, productive want to be in silicon valley. well, let that be -- [applause] thank you. >> we have to have a very different political environment. >> well, we do want to involve our guest here at town hall. we will take some questions now. >> a question. i just wonder, where is the morality and the merit based aspect and accumulation of wealth? you seem to espouse the idea that no one should be limited as to how much will they can accumulate.

that is in a country where you have people working three jobs with no health insurance. i wonder where the morality is. prides itself on christian values. the base does not actually does bows the you have such a wealth disparities. >> let's let. ♪ address that question. >> i am a radical. i don't believe in the christian morality. it is a corrupt morality. i don't believe you are your brother's keeper. i don't believe you belong to anybody else. i believe and immorality. i think your moral responsibility is to your happiness, rationally pursued over the long term. i don't believe in sacrifice. i don't believe your job is to take care of other people. i believe one of your jobs is to take care of ourselves, make our lives the best they can be.

and i want to ask that opposite question. what is the morality that says i cannot accumulate beyond a certain amount of wealth? what a fund selling products you love so much that you keep buying it and buy more and more and more? who are you to say enough. from now on you have to give it away. why do we live in a country where making wealth, creating value for people, trading with people value for value is somehow despicable morality, giving it away after you have made it, and if you want to make bill gates a saint, you know what he would do, he would give it all away and bleed a little bit when he did that. we would declare him a saint. i am against that. i don't believe that is good. i think it is evil. bill gates producing and we are voluntarily not being forced, voluntarily buying his stuff and he is making a profit. he is wonderful.

>> do you want to respond? thank you for the question. thank you. [applause] >> i don't think that wealth is created by individuals acting alone in some heroic fashion. wealth is created by individuals working within a society where there are the foundations for wealth creation. the roads, schools, infrastructure, legal system, and society decides together how all that wealth is used. individuals don't get to decide completely on their own. actually, this is not of you that i created out of the blue. this is a view that andrew card any fate -- party famously is bounced in the 19th century in which she argued for an estate tax on the grounds that because society created wealth collectively and opportunities for people like carnegie we

needed to capture some of that wealth and recycle it so that opportunities were created for others. that is what redistributive tax policy is all about. creating opportunity for all. as for some of the other points. he has been saying that, look, government should not have to solve the problem because people will step forward to solve them with charities. we know historically that was not the case. 35 percent of seniors live in poverty in 1960's. charity is not solve a problem. they're wrong goes further and says in his philosophy no one has an obligation to anyone else. i don't get it. we are going to, in his world view, get rid of government, expect charity to solve its demand also espouse the philosophy of radical self-interest, which takes away anybody's sense of obligation for anybody else. that is a formula for a brutal, brutal society.

[applause] >> next question. thank you, sir. >> i would like to bring the discussion down to two very concrete issues that seem to be some of the greatest threats we are facing today. one question for you, i'm sorry, did not get your last name. okay. how does your understanding of the role of government deal with what economists call call-externalities', which is simply pollution which is the danger of global climate change in the world. if i could ask you a question -- and i did not get your last name either. it is a question about democrats who seem to join so eagerly in waging war for the purpose of gathering resources from the world because we realize we aren't running out of not just oil, but everything. finally, if i could ask

mr. mckay said he would not be left out. >> you're very kind. one of the issues i have understood the courts are doing, and it is related to the role of government, is ruling that if we go to war courts are ruling that is a political issue. make no judgment about whether the war is legal or illegal, despite the fact that our supreme court justice said, initiating a war of aggression is a supreme international war crimes. how do you understand the role of courts in restricting the actions of the executives and the -- that should last the three of you for i don't know how long. >> you guys can all gone now. >> thank you for the question. i think our speakers are two people came to see tonight, but i think that the courts have had

a very important role in determining accountability for international activities, especially for war crimes. the war crimes tribunals. the abuses that occur in what we considered to be the rules and laws of war. >> against ourselves. it were invasion of the rock. >> well, i think one of the best ways to consider this is the engagement of the united states supreme court on the question of guantanamo bay where the executive branch displayed tremendous wide view of the power of the executive to hold individuals outside the united states in what could be seen as a, perhaps, constitution-free zone. the supreme court stepped in and said, not so fast. individuals have the right to petition for habeas corpus, the right to review the conditions

and the basis of their confinement. a pretty dramatic conflict between the role of the united states government, these of the executive and war-making authority in the application of the united states constitutional terms of human and individual rights. very much restricted the rule. we will see a continued trend in now way. the reach of the executive branch. that is my answer to that question and a thank-you for involving me. i think the better questions are coming for you. let me turn to answer the question he posed to you. >> quickly, it is crazy to be fighting words and expend resources. we need a policy for developing renewable energy here at home,

and in my mind this is a great place for government to take the leading role. this is a strategic area. i think the best thing that government can do would be to set a price on carbon, push up the price on carbon, and the market will solve the rest of the problem. if we don't do that now quite apart from the challenge of climate change we will continue to be dependent upon oil from some of the most dangerous places on earth. >> the question. >> well. i don't want to get into the policy question. completely different direction. the idea, a fuel energy solutions around the corner is ridiculous. it is fantasy. it does not exist. 95 percent of all the energy in the world is from carbon sources, except that it will be

like that for a very long time. if there was really an alternative, venture-capital lisp's in civic value, all government is doing is throwing money at this problem. it will be one of the biggest in american history. you know, windmills and solar panels will solve the problems of seattle, using enough energy for us to get it. the only way to do this is to have a carbon tax. lower the living dramatically command that is what happens. i don't want my standard of living to go down. i would like to continue to use gasoline and natural gas. but to the issue of externality. first, i have to point out that people talk about negative externalities', but of want to talk, far, far more dominant. we are in seattle.

bill gates is a huge positive externality if she lived. a number of jobs, number of facilities. the wealth created because he chose to locate microsoft here and build this business. he did not do it alone. he paid people to work with him. you know, one day there was such a thing as private infrastructure. so there are no free lunches. this is the -- the whole society is involved, but that is what the system does. the degree of their involvement. employees who came early and contributed more did more. the negative externalities'. my solution is private property. you can't dump your garbage in my backyard. we established that. let's get innovative. a first of all, let's create private property everywhere,

including on water, including in creative ways over the air. and let's figure out how to protect our private property, each one of us, just like we protect our backyards from our neighbor polluting. the our creative ways that we can protect ourselves from harm delivered to us. we don't need massive government regulatory agencies to achieve that. indeed, i think it's slowing down the process. human beings would live in a cleaner environment. slows down progress. my last point. >> please include. >> too many -- the human environment today is the cleanest it has ever been in human history. it is cleaner than a decade, a hut, london in the 1960's when

there was horse manure everywhere. industry, capitalism, technology , a movement toward cleanliness. all we need is freedom. >> thank you for the question. [applause] >> this is a question for both speakers. government is the government of people. but what is the proper government would depend on what your view of people is. what kind of creatures, what kind of circumstance, how the people live, what are there capabilities, what are their competencies', how should they lived? and i wonder if both speakers addressed fundamentally how you view people? >> i think people are moral animals to believe in

cooperation because it is in their self-interest. i believe human beings have a high degree of empathy for other human beings and that there are evolutionary reasons for that. when you cooperate and make sacrifices of your own self in order to strengthen your community you get long-term the rewards, and i think that the government we have in which people are making sacrifices, they are letting some of their wealth be redistributed to help others, is a reflection of that basic empathy and desire to advance the common good. >> do you want to address that? >> i believe the fundamental here is that people are rational. they need to use their minds. they need to use reason in order to improve their lives, in order to achieve happiness, in order to create the values. products of the human mind. and the human mind thrives.

it is possible to reason, think, be rational when one is free, free of forces, and that is why the role of government is to leave us alone to be able to exercise our rationale, to be able to be rational, be reasonable, create stuff, pursue values. if the government, when it tries to tell us how and what we should do into we should help, this or that, it is restricting our ability to think about what truly is in a rational self-interest. restricting our ability to reason. i am all for corporation, against sacrifice, and against forced corporation, against slave camps of any kind. i am for free people voluntarily for up to five cooperating with one another in up rational way. >> thanks you for the question. next question. >> david, i have a question. my question for you is, it seems

that your view is it is better to be a slave than to be poor. i kind of want to see how you go about my statements and hear your argument and then my question for you is, when government fails to do as we want through the democratic process, is there a point where it is proper to have a revolution to initiate? if so, what the society look like at that point? >> david. >> i think that yaron said he believed in voluntary cooperation among free people. that is what democracy happens to be. we have that here in the united states. not as much as we look like because there is too much wealth

and power in the hands of the tiny lead, but fundamentally we have a democracy. we have a social contract, and together we are making decisions which actually have made us a lot richer. we become a much wealthier society over the past 70 years, in part because of the pro-active role of government and the decisions we have made together to strengthen government, to enable us to build more wealth, invest in our human capitol, invest in our physical capital. >> is there a choice. must we choose between freedom and slavery? >> i don't think that slavery is on the table here. i think the closest thing that we have come to slavery in this country is when we had slavery. it was a slavery that was -- it was an institution run by the free market, unchecked by government. we had the civil war.

we had the civil war. >> all right. >> so we have raised the question of freedom and slavery. the question to you was, is it so bad that we have a revolution coming? >> let me quickly address the issue of slavery. no matter what created slavery, it was a force that created slavery. clearly i am advocating for a government that abolishes slavery. it is wrong, and it is the government's job to make sure it does not happen. i think we should have gone to war because rights were being violated, and that is the role of government. >> well, if it is your position that government has failed in such a massive way in terms of its execution, what do we do? >> the founding fathers revolted against big government along less than what we had to suffer under our government.

i mean, everything is taxed. it is a different context in a different world, and i am not an advocate of revolution. for many reasons among others that we would lose. [laughter] what i am for is, this is fundamentally -- you know, there is a sense in which government needs to sanction other people in order to govern. in people agree. that is why we have the government that we have. the people, the overwhelming majority of people believe in one form or another, slightly to the left or right with david. if you believe in something different, what we need to do is convince them that they are wrong. convince them that their ideas are wrong. this is an intellectual, philosophical, ideological battle.

it is a battle of the mind, battle of reason. it is not about wind farms, and we are not going to win the battle unless the engaging and try to convince enough people that the way we are heading is the wrong way. that is the only way. >> i think he covered the ground. let's go to the next question. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you very much for spending your evening here with us. it is my understanding from what you are saying that people are both inherently tending toward violence and also that humans are inherently selfish. selfishness, and you spoke about acting in your own self interest on the basis of morality. i was wondering if you could comment on the role of corruption in your respective ideal governments, how you catch the bernie madoff if the sec

does not have regulations and checks, and how the use of the rampant corruption we have in our government that we see now that is costing so many taxpayer dollars. >> i might amend sort of that to say, how big and robust must government be to catch all of the burning made of that you would say would be out there. >> fortunately we do not test them all because we're too busy with other stuff. >> let me first say just to correct you, i don't believe people are inherently selfish. let me be very clear. to be selfish requires hard work my perception is pursuit of self interest over your lifetime requiring a really figuring out what is in your best interest, it could for me, bad for me, how should i live my life so that i live a flourishing life. aristotle talked about this.

what should i pursue to live the best life i can. that is hard work, not a common view of selfishness. that is all about, in my perception. it's truly about figuring out what is good for you. now, how do we catch bernie madoff? police work is a technical issue. that case, it was actually pretty easy because some of the people who wanted to invest went over there, looked at his books, some of the once he was willing to show, and said this was a fraud. i'm going to call the cops. they did, and they're is a hedge fund manager who wrote a nice memo to the sec and sent it twice. elaborating on this being a fraud. i think it is not hard with all you're trying to do to catch crooks, it is not hard to catch

them. let me argue something a little bit more radical. there are a lot less crux in capitalism than with regulations. regulations are almost purposely ambiguous and leave all of these loopholes and make it -- and we live in a moral code where businessmen are taught to do it whenever -- do whatever they can get away with. it creates these huge ambiguities and fraud. i don't think you need a huge government. the justice department could be, i think, quite a bit smaller. >> enough to get the bad guys. >> you need enough to get the bad guys. >> our other speaker tonight is the author of a book called the cheating culture of the moral center. from that perspective you may be able to answer each of the

strands raised this question. >> i said at the beginning in my remarks that capitalism was a great system in many ways. fantastic at producing wealth. a very dynamic. it rewards hard work and creativity, but it also has some downside. i talked about inequality, but another downside is capitalism, when it is not properly regulated, tends to become corrupt. institutions tend to become corrupt. and capitalism tends to corrupt the political process. in terms of the corruption of capitalism of business, we have seen that in spades for the past 12 years. everyone talks about the financial crisis that we just went through%, a crisis that occurred in part because, just to take one example, the ratings

agencies, which were supposed to tell us whether or not the sub prime mortgages were found, compromised, a major conflict of interest with the companies said they were ready. deep corruption throughout the real estate and mortgage industry as well with very lax regulation of mortgage brokers, lax regulation of appraisers, lax regulation at every step in that way, and that helped produce the collapse we sought. remember, there was a housing bubble in almost every developed country in the world that turned into a financial crisis here because of weak watch dogs and weak government. now, in terms of the corruption of, you know, capitalist and inherently corrupt politics because wealth inequality gets translated into political muscle and influence over the political process. the financial industry spends

$3 billion lobbying washington between 1992 and 2007 in order to loosen the regulations, water down the rules, let it do whatever it wants. you know, that is the kind of -- how do we deal with that? we have to get money out of politics. tougher rules on lobbyists. we need to do a number of things. >> you are not suggesting that those regulations are actually the cause of the problem? the regulations themselves. >> that is totally false. i mean, when we lived -- remember, during the 50's, 60's, 70's, into the 80's, before the systematic attack on regulation of our financial industry we did not have the kinds of scandals and crashes that we have seen in just the past 12 years. we did not have in ron, not to

mention goldman, countrywide, and all of the stuff. we had some financial instability, scandals and the 70's. one reason we had the accounting scandals later on is because we did not respond effectively to those scandals. those regulatory changes were never made. the accountants were writing their own rules in washington, and that is how the system is broken. >> thank you. very quick. >> microsoft spent in washington $0, zero. today microsoft spends nine figures in washington annually. silicon valley is a huge investment and lobbying in washington. they spend nothing. >> you are referring to another washington, is that correct? >> washington d.c. >> far away from this one. bernanke. the clarification.

we appreciate that. thank you. >> not the only one. i'm sorry. >> about five minutes left. >> and think we have time for one or two more questions. the. >> -- questions are excellent. >> this has niggling gnats. >> success. >> you know, justin full disclosure i am a big government democrat. i have run into government a thousand times. the stupidest thing that could ever be. it does not happen more often in government than it does in the private sector, wells fargo, comcast, sprint, every single private-sector entity. they assume i'm cheating, and have regulations based on the assumption i'm cheating. so i think we have to structures that are arguing as if it is between one and the other. my real question is, why do we

believe this is about government verses free enterprise? american system of government, the founding fathers, i have read a lot of the federalist papers. there were not talking about john locke or economics. they were talking about roman systems, athenian systems, and there were talking about government and how human beings are at risk of abusing power. and in government we tried to set up systems to regulate the abuse of power, and we have no such system and free enterprise to regulate. so here is my question, and i just want -- in america we get a credit for being -- for free enterprise, which is built not so much on free enterprise for the first 200 years as it was on free land. >> is there a question? >> okay. the question is, what was the role of the free land --

>> thank you very much. >> i think that is good. we will take to questions, we will take a second question as our last. we will answer them together and give our speakers opporunity to address both. >> why on an evening when we are having a discussion of the first principles of democracy and freedom has there been absolutely no, not one mention. our freedom is about ready to be taken away. to sell provisions put in the defense authorization act of 2012, house sb 1867 is about ready to be voted on tomorrow. >> what is your question. >> why are we not talking about this? is about ready to happen. >> all right. i'll leave that open to our questioners. [laughter] we will take one more question. >> this is for both of you. i was wondering if you could try to define the common good and

what that means to everyone, not just in this room, but across america. what is the common good? i have never really heard it defined before. >> that is a tremendous final question along with the two previous questions, and we will give, in answering those, each of our speakers and opportunity to sum up their comments. so let's see. we started, i think, with david. why don't you start and we will give yaron an opporunity to close. >> i think the society that we want to build as a society of balance, a society where the american value of mutual obligation, which is a strong value is respected and upheld and advanced through government. civil society can play a role, but i think government has a dominant role in ensuring we take care of one another, and it is also about ensuring a strong free enterprise system.

these are not mutually antagonistic ideas. government and business have often worked together historic the to create more wealth and opportunity for more people, and, you know, it is about striking the right balance. we have often done that in the past century, particularly the early post-war time when we had strong free enterprise and strong government. i believe we can do it again. and so that would be one definition i have of the common good, a balanced society where you have both strong government and dynamic in free enterprise. certainly not antagonistic. >> yaron. >> no surprise. there is no such thing as the common good. all there is is individual good.

we can create a society where individuals drive by pursuing or a society in which some sacrifice others for their benefit. some might be the rich, unions, politicians, whoever. they are all men. the idea of sacrificing some people to other people is bad. it is the kind of society -- [applause] i don't want balance. i don't want a little bit of sacrifice, a little bit of violation of my freedom. i want to be free. i want each one of you to be free. i want a society in which those freedoms, those individual freedoms are protected, and that is the job of government. just the one question that was

here. it is really important. everybody does this, but we need -- we don't have a free market, so when sprint or whoever treats you badly, that is not a free market. its print is a heavily regulated business. there is no competition in cable. there is no competition in these services. there is no competition in the rating agencies. monopoly. guess what, they don't do very well because there a government monopoly. the free markets. there is no capitalism. what we have is a mixture of lots of government controls and regulations and some freedom. the reason we have been successful over the past 100 years is because that mixture has not come to toxic. the amount of freedom left in our society has allowed business to create the wealth to create the product to be -- for the goods that allows to thrive and be successful.

that mixture is becoming more and more and more toxic to the point where i agree with this study, in come in the united states today is a flat to declining, economic growth is flat to declining, our freedom is declining. so i am an advocate of individual freedom, individual rights, no common good, government, stay out of my life, except to protect me from bernie madoff. [applause] >> let me -- [applause] let me just -- [applause] let me just add a couple of quick words of thanks, first to seattle's on town hall for hosting this event. all of you for participating in it tonight. thank you very much.

[applause] i think all of us would agree that one important role of our government is to allow this kind of criticism and debate to flourish. and so i think all of you for joining us for the opportunity to be here to listen to it to tremendous individuals. i want to thank david callahan for being here with us and yaron brook and all of you. this debate did not begin in the five series of debates that these institutions and organizations and individuals have been involved in. >> you can see all of this at c-span.org. we go live now to chicago. president obama is attending a campaign fund-raiser at the university of illinois. [applause] >> thank you. thank you so much. thank you. hello. it is good to be -- it is good

to be home. it is good to be home. no place like it. it is great to see so many old friends. you guys are getting older. i will be honest with you, i would not mind popping over. i think that is the plants tonight. there are often a fine start. you might have heard the dallas mavericks came to the white house on monday to celebrate their championship. i told them, enjoy it because the bulls will be here next year. [cheering] that's what i said. i want to thank -- [laughter] i want to think jessica for sharing her extraordinary story. it just get is the sole representative of all of the folks who did so much for years

ago and are doing so much now. give her a big round of applause. we are appreciative of her. [applause] i want to thank her for her wonderful performance. we had been at the state dinner, and the caribbean presidents and his whole family, they were moving around. you remember that? they loved it. music is the universal language. incredibly talented. i want to thank my dear friend. he and i went to law school together. he decided to make something of his life. [laughter] you see him on tv all the time. hill harper is in the house. thank you. [applause] one of the finest public servants and one of the finest

senators in the land, dick durbin is here. thank you. two of the finest members of congress in the land and great friends. [applause] , and we have cook county board president who is here as well. [applause] now, i also want to say a special word about a friend of ours, a man who has done an extraordinary work for me and performed an extraordinary service for our country over the past year, and that is bill gates. first of all, we got on a plane and said, is it really 45 degrees in january? we were confused. thought we had landed in the wrong place. but when he first told me it was time for him to return to our

hometown, i asked him to take a couple of days to reconsider. it is tough to resist the greatest city in the world. and as much as i will miss him in the white house, he will be an extraordinary asset to our campaign. i just want to publicly say how much i appreciate him. now, i also want to say how much i appreciate you. i love you. [cheering] i love you, to. [cheering] now, i love you back, man. [cheering] you know, i am here not just because i need your help but because the country needs our help. there was a reason why so many people like jessica worked their hearts out.

it was not because they thought it would be easy. when you support a guy named barack hussain obama for president of the united states you have to assume the odds may not be in your favor. he did not need a poll to know that it was not a sure thing. but what you understood was the campaign was not about me. it was about our common vision for america. it was not a cramped, narrow vision of an america where everyone is left to fend for themselves. the most powerful are able to play by their own rules. it was a vision of a big, passionate, ambitious, and bold america where everyone has a chance to get ahead. everybody, not just those who are advantaged. a vision that said we are greater together than we are on. a vision where everybody gets a

fair shot and everybody does their fair share. there is a sense of fair play. the rules apply to everybody. that is the vision that we share, that is the change we believe in. and we knew it would not come easy or quickly, but i am here to tell you that three years later because of what you did in 2008 we have begun to see what change looks like. [applause] we have begun to see it. and sometimes, you know, because things are moving so fast, you know, the median moves from think the thing to thing. we will take time to step back and ask ourselves what happened because of the work you did in 2006. the first bill i signed into law , law that says the people day's work should mean an equal day's pay because our daughters to be treated the same and have the same opportunities as our

sun. that is what changes. [applause] [cheering] change is a decision that we make that was unpopular at the time to go in and help the auto industry retool, prevent its collapse. even when you had a lot of folks who said we should let detroit go bankrupt, and as a consequence we saved 1 million jobs and local businesses are picking up again, and fuel efficient cars are rolling off the assembly line. three proud words, made in america. folks are working. that is because of you. [applause] changes the decision we made to stop waiting for congress to do something and go ahead and raise fuel efficiency standards on cars. by the next decade we will be driving cars that get 55 miles to the gallon. that is what changes.

save a billion barrels of oil, save consumers billions of dollars from their pocketbooks, and it means that we will have a better chance of making sure that we leave the planet a little bit cleaner and better off for our kids. change is the fight we had and the five we want to stop handing and $60 billion in taxpayer subsidies to banks that issue student loans and give that money directly to students so that millions of young people are able to get the kind of education that they need in this 21st century economy. that is what changes. , and as disappointed out, change is finally after a century of talking about passing health care reform, in the united states of america nobody goes bankrupt because they get sick. over two and a half million young people already have health

insurance that they can stay on their parents plan. nobody is denied coverage or dropped by their insurance company when they needed most. that is what changes. [cheering] changes the fact that for the first time in our history, who you love and ordered to serve the country you love. that is what changes. don't ask don't tell is over. and change is keeping -- one of the first promises i made back in 2008, ending the war and bring our troops home so that we can focus our attention on rebuilding america. focus our attention on rebuilding america, but also focusing our efforts on the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 and thank you to the brave men and women in uniform, weaker than it has ever been.

[cheering] these changes were not easy. some more risky. almost all of them came in the face of fierce opposition, powerful lobbyists, special interest groups who spent millions. it and not all of the steps we took were politically popular, certainly not politically popular with the crowd in washington. but what kept me going is you. it i remember all of the work did you put in. i remember your hopes and dreams , and i knew that on every one of these fights you were out there making your voice is heard, knocking on doors, making phone calls, keeping up the fight for change long after the election was over, and that should make you proud.

it should make you hopeful. it should not make too complacent or satisfied. everything that we fought for is now at stake in this election. the very core of what this country stands for is online. the basic promise that no matter who you are, where you come from, there is a place where you can make it if you try. that is what is a stake in this election. the crisis that struck in the months before i took office but more americans out of work than any time since the great depression, but it was also a culmination of a decade where middle-class fell further behind , more jobs in manufacturing left our shores, and suddenly our prosperity was built on risky financial deals, homes that we could not afford. we racked up greater debt. even as income fell, wages flat line, the cost of everything

kept going through the roof. those problems built up over a decade. in some cases more. it did not happen overnight. we knew we could not solve them overnight. it will take more than a few years to beat the challenges that have been decades in the making. the american people understand that. what they don't understand our leaders to refuse to take action. what they are sick and tired of is watching people who are supposed to represent them put their party ahead of the country , but the next election ahead of the next generation. that is what they don't understand. president kennedy used to say that after he took office was surprise to most about washington was it is just as bad as they said it was. i did not relate to that.

when you have the top republicans saying the number one priority is not creating more jobs, solving the health care problems, making sure that we are competitive in the 21st century, you know things are not on the level. that is how you end up with republicans in congress voting against all kinds of proposals that -- even proposals from the past, tax cuts for workers, small-business, rebuilding roads and bridges, but when it comes to putting teachers back to work there are opposed. they will fight till their last breath to protect tax cuts for the most fortunate of americans, but they will fight political gains with a middle-class. i guess they thought it was a smart political strategy, but it is not one to create jobs, not one to strengthen the middle class or help people trying to get in the middle class, not a

strategy to help americans succeed. we have a clear choice. the question is not whether people are still hurting, the economy is still recovering. of course folks are still hurting. the question is, what are we going to do, where are we going to go? republicans in congress, presidential candidates who are running, they have a very specific idea about whether want to take this country. they said it. they want to reduce the deficit by getting our investment in education, getting our investment in research and technology, letting our infrastructure further deteriorate. now, my attitude is i have already signed a trillion dollars worth of spending cuts, proposed more. it is time when we're talking about reducing the deficit to also ask people like me to pay our fair share in taxes.

we can do that. we can have a system in which both who have been incredibly suppressed do more for business, the next generation. they will hit on. the republicans in congress on the campaign trail want to make medicare a form of private insurance where seniors have to shop with a voucher that may not cover all of their costs. i think we can lower the cost of medicare but still guarantee the retirement of our seniors have burned. ..

the best airports. we continue to have the best science and research, make in the next breakthroughs in medicine and clean energy. that is the rate we want. we should be in a race to make sure the next generation of manufactures takes root not in asia, not in europe at right here in chicago, in detroit, in pittsburgh, in cleveland. [applause] in charlotte and nashville. i don't want this, i don't want this nation to be known for what

we buy, what we consume. i want is to be known for building and selling products all around the world. [applause] and you know it's possible, i had a meeting this morning with ceos from some very big companies like intel, some of them small manufactures. they are starting to bring jobs back to the united states. they are starting to figure out, they have started to figure out that you know some of these countries may have lower wages, but when you factor in all the costs and quality and the productivity of american workers, it actually makes sense to build plants here. and they are moving plants back from china and plans back from mexico because they know that businesses who succeed here will succeed anywhere. but what they also said was we can only come here because we know we have the best workers and that means education system has to work.

we can't come here if we don't think that the internet and our roads and our transportation infrastructure isn't the best in the world. the competition for new jobs and businesses for middle-class security is a race i know we can win but america is not going to win if we give in to those who think that we can only respond to our challenges with the same tired old tune, just hand out more tax cuts to folks who don't need them and weren't asking for them. let companies do whatever they want. hope that prosperity somehow trickles down on everybody else's heads. it doesn't work. it didn't work when it was tried in the decade before the great depression. is not what led to the incredible post-war boom in the 50s and the 60s. it didn't work and we tried it under the previous president. it is not going to work now.

we cannot go back to this brand of you are on your own economics. we believe that everybody has a stake in each other and if we attract an outstanding teacher to the profession by giving her they paid and training and support that she needs, she will go out and educate the next jobs and suddenly a whole new industry will blossom. [applause] and we believe that if we provide a faster internet to some little town out in rural america, they suddenly have a new world marketplace. and if we build a new bridge that saves the shipping company time and money, and workers and customers all over the country are going to do better. if we invest in basic science and research, in the next new thing will be invented, and so you know, instead of listening to janelle on ipod, who knows

what the next thing is? but, it will be because we have invested in the innovation that makes us the greatest nation on earth. now this has never been a democratic idea or a republican idea. this isn't a partisan idea. it was a republican president from illinois named abraham lincoln, who launched the transcontinental railroad and the national academy of sciences, the first land grant colleges. teddy roosevelt called for a progressive income tax. he was a republican. dwight eisenhower built the interstate highway system and vested in boosting our science and math and engineering education here in this country. it was the help of republicans that fdr helped millions of people, returning heroes including my grandfather, get a chance to go to college on the

g.i. bill. they should not be a partisan idea. and that same spirit of common purpose, it still exist today. it may not exist in washington, but out in america, when you talk to people on main street at town halls they will tell you, we still believe in those values. our political parties may be divided, but most americans, they understand we are in this together. we rise and fall together as one nation, as one people. [applause] that is what is at stake right now. that is what this election is about. [applause] so, chicago, yes it has been three tough years. there are times where the changes we want didn't come, as fast as we wanted, and after all

the noise in washington, know it's tempting to believe sometimes that gosh, maybe change isn't possible. but remember, remember what he said during the last campaign. yes we can. [cheers and applause] we said real change in in a big change isn't easy. i warned you it was going to take time. i said it was going to take more than a year, maybe more than one term. some of it is going to take more than one president. it takes ordinary citizens to keep fighting, keep pushing, keep inching this country closer and closer and closer to our ideas. that is how the greatest generation overcame a decade of depression and ended up building the largest middle class in the history of the union. that is how young people beat

back billy clubs and fire hoses and ensured that their kids could grow up in a country where you can be anything, including the president of the united states. [cheers and applause] change is hard, but it is possible. i have seen it. you have seen it. we have lived it and if you want to and the cynicism and stop the gameplaying that passes for politics these days and you want to send a message about what is possible, that you can't back down, not now. we won't give up, not now. you have got to send a message that we are going to keep pushing and fighting for the change that we believe in. i have said before i am not a perfect man. i am not a perfect president, but i promise you this, and i have kept this promise, i will always tell you what i believe, i will always tell you where i stand. i will wake up every single day

thinking about how i can make this country better and i will spend every ounce of energy that i have fighting for you. [applause] so if you have still got that energy -- [cheers and applause] if you are still fired up. if you are not weary. [applause] if you are ready to put on your walking shoes and get to work and knock on some doors and make some phonecalls, and talk to your friends and talk to your neighbors and push through all the obstacles and keep reaching for that vision that you hold in your hearts, i promise you, change will calm. [cheers and applause] if you are willing to work even harder this election than you did last election, i promise you, change will come. if you stick with me we are going to finish what we started

in 2008. lee will remind this country and we will remind the world why we are the greatest nation on earth. god bless you, chicago. i love you. god bless the united states of america. thank you. [cheers and applause] thank you. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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♪ >> the fund-raiser in chicago paid $100 per ticket. while another fund-raiser the president is attending later on at a private home cost $30,800,800 per couple. the presidents last event of the evening also at a private residence hosts 100 people, each paying $7500 to get in. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ >> south carolina's presidential primary is in a week and a half. with florida's primary 10 days later. you can follow the road to the white house at her web site, c-span.org/campaign 2012. >> in this episode of fact check video we are going to look at rick perry surprising comments on climate change and the scientist behind the research. >> i think there are substantial number of scientists who have a nifty weighted data. >> what i do is i rate different

comments by politicians on a one to four scale. if you say something really outrageous that is completely inaccurate you are going to get for pinocchio's. if you say something that is slightly misleading or out of context you might get one pinocchio. >> in his "washington post" fact checker column glenn kessler evaluated rates the truthfulness of political figures and others. >> whether or not they are deliberately lying, do you think that if a politicians says the same thing over and over again, even when it has been pointed out that it's not true, that they know that they are essentially untrue, and they're just going to say it anyway. >> "the washington post" glenn kessler sunday night at 8:00 on c-span's q&a. >> last week arizona's governor jan brewer, told the arizona republic that her job growth, education and economic funding are going to meet priorities. now governor brewer delivers his

second state of the state address where she talks about her accomplishments in office before a crowd of several hundred people in a house chamber in phoenix. her remarks are or 35 minutes. >> her excellency, governor of the state of arizona. [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause]

[applause] [applause] >> good afternoon. honorable senators,

representatives of the centennial legislature, the supreme court, constitutional officers, tribal leaders and honored guest, and my fellow arizonans, probably don't have to tell you that i love arizona. [applause] it's my home and our home and it's an extraordinary place. after a long hard day, and look forward to walking in my garden, enjoy the wildlife, watch the sunset and plan for the challenges ahead. yes, preparing for the state of

the state address but it's impossible to be in this chamber today and not recall that terrible day a year ago, the day that now is part of our history. january 8, 2011 will be a mark on our memory. we knew that time could not wash it away, so we remember and in that reflection today, the tears belong to arizona. i know countless prayers have been offered this past year and continue to be offered for those that we lost. judge john roll, scott morris, phyllis schneck, dorwin stoddard, gabe zimmerman and christina taylor-green.

though the completeness of life have been broken by their absence, we continue with their memory close to our hearts and we celebrate the continuing and inspirational recovery of those who were wounded in that attack, including congresswoman gabby giffords and our friend and colleague. [applause] we emerge from tragedy and crisis because we are arizonans. we are rust and strong. we entered our centennial year proud them that land that are pioneers both changed and developed while they were tempted by time and circumstances. the great games, udall, hayden,

macfarland, fanon, kyl, rhodes, and goldwater. they are all giant bookmarks in the pages of arizona's history. [applause] and yes, there were women too, who have really taken their place in those pages, women like lorna lockwood. she was elected to the arizona supreme court in 1960 and served as vice chief justice and chief justice. she became the first woman chief justice in arizona and in u.s. history. [applause] we are proud to be their children, proud of what they gave us.

arizonans, native-born and coming from all parts of the nation and the world. found their opportunity to succeed or fail in the last great frontier of the continental united states and built this state. so let us here today make this pledge for arizona's second century. we will not betray their confidence or squander our state inheritance. arizona will remain the last frontier of opportunity. [applause] i have always held a special place in my heart for it arizona's pioneers. i have always been inspired by their strength, their sense of family and heritage, their reference for tradition's. many of the images you will see

on the screen today were taken by scott baxter, part of a centennial legacy project called 100 years, 100 grantors. memorializing arizona's ranching families who have been on the land for more than 100 years. and as you can see, scott's work beautifully captures the strength and the dignity of the arizona rancher, and we are grateful for his work, allowing all of us to see deeply into our roots. we are very proud today to have scott here with us. scott, would you please stand and allow this chamber to thank you for your great work? [applause] these titans of the century that we are leaving behind understood

and it's important for us to remember that the federal government played a key role in the development of arizona. it's an example of how federal and state cooperation can and should work. now, as you might have heard, i take a backseat to no one when it comes to challenging washington d.c.. [applause] and standing up for arizona. but there was a time when we could forge the right partnership with washington. unfortunately, in far too many instances, that's just not true anymore. today, arizonans and americans are saying to washington d.c., we don't like an ever-expanding government threatening our personal liberties.

we don't like government living beyond its means and trying to be everything to everyone. we don't like unconstitutional and unfunded health care mandates. and by the way, we don't like open borders either. [applause] we have so many monuments in arizona that remind us of how things are supposed to work, in partnership with washington. last march, i was privileged to help mark the 100th anniversary of the theodore roosevelt dam, a great monument built at a place the early pioneers called the crossing. the crossing in the salt weber was where native american farmers, ranchers, could forge

the river in the narrow gorge just between a confluence of the salt river and the tonto creek. president roosevelt's signature on the reclamation act of 1902 supply the funding mechanism for the dam and other projects, triggering the development of the salt river valley and the greater phoenix metropolitan area by providing an assured water supply. another monument to the federal state cooperation started in 1973 at lake have us do, and 20 years later, 336 miles and $4 billion later, the central arizona project was completed, ringing life-sustaining water to cities and farms and native american communities. and october of last year, i had the honor of helping dedicate

via o'callahan tillman memorial bridge. is an extraordinary structure. the product of the late arizona congressman, bob stump's relentless pushing and prodding. the bridge restores the freedom to commercial traffic across hoover dam. with the completion of the bridge, now is the time to add another monument to the federal state cooperation, the future interstate highway linking phoenix and las vegas, i 11. [applause] it will connect two of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the country. and by the way, these are the two largest cities in the nation not connected by the interstate highway system. this project will promote

commerce, tourism and trade across the western united states. we must not wait. [applause] these are the markers to celebrate and to rivera. still, we all remember arizona stark times as we headed into 2009. i took take the home of a ship i cherished, but it was a ship that was sinking, weighed down by overspending and expanding bureaucracy, and quite simply, poor navigation. frankly, those dark times are worth remembering, so that we can truly appreciate how far we have calm together.

i know the struggles in this chamber were not fun. and i know sometimes tempers were frayed, patients abandoned and decorum tested but i also know this, arizona has been saved. [applause] and you were part of that great mission. we all know it wasn't by accident we had a plan and it was the right plan. how do i know? because i stand here in front of you and probably say, ladies and gentlemen, arizona now has a balanced budget. [applause]

[applause] and arizona now has a positive cash balance on top of it. [applause] but, there is more. our state government is smaller. our state government is more efficient. our state government is focused on the future. now, an integral part of our recovery plan was the passage of proposition 100, the 1 cent sales tax approved overwhelmingly by the voters of -- for three years. the voters were promised it would be temporary. many doubted that. well, i gave my word to the voters. and a promise is a promise.

so i am here to say, this taxable and on my watch. [applause] [applause] they taxable and after three years in 2013. we are blessed to live in a growing state where does that -- arizona families will, and should, turn to public schools with confidence to educate their children. our state is a leader in allowing parents to choose a school that best meets their children's needs. we must find a way to fund the results we want and to reward those educators who guide us into our next century. [applause] that is my commitment to children for the next century,

quality teachers, a safe environment, a setting of parents choosing, data-driven decisions, and the highest of standards. that is the foundation for job creation, something we are doing as a part of the great arizona comeback. we are creating jobs, 46,000 of them in the last year alone. [applause] in fact, arizona's job growth ranks seventh best in the nation. not bad my friends, not bad at all. and, we are just getting started. [applause] there is more good news.

our state credit outlook has stabilized. companies again are locating in arizona, attracted by arlene regulations, competitive tax policies and a ready workforce. although this is all great news, it's not enough. too many arizonans remain unemployed or underemployed, this economic downturn has been tough for them and their families, and i haven't forgotten about them. together, with all of you here, i intend to do everything in my power to help arizonans prepare for our ever-changing economy. together, just like last year, let's continue to lower taxes, and cut regulation, and tell al employers that arizona means

business. arizona is open for business. [applause] we need to make arizona the free market beacon to the nation and the world where you have the opportunity to prosper. how are we going to create the conditions for success? well, today i am releasing a detailed written policy agenda. now, you will be glad to hear that i won't be going through it line by line this afternoon, so just relax. rather, today is a day for reflection on an extraordinary milestone of arizona's first century. it's a time to look forward to our second century.

i asked for this job because i wanted to permanently perform state government. i am here to make a difference. we are all here to make a difference. here is what arizonans, the nation and the world will see when we succeed. they are going to see the personal incomes at arizonans increase. they are going to see us recapture our position as a top job creator by getting back to the fundamentals that build arizona in the first place. they are going to see excellence and accountability in our education system. they are going to see a rehash and government, equipped for our next 100 years of posterity. [applause] it will be limited, efficient,

nimble government. including personnel reform that improves the management of the workforce restructures the grievance and appeals system and modifies human resource practices. and they are going to see that our passion for border security and public safety make arizona's arizona's -- arizona a special place for families and businesses to thrive. arizona deserves no less. [applause] this past summer, arizona faced the frightening enemy, and enemy that threatens lives and livelihoods and the natural beauty of our state. more than 1% of the total land mass in arizona burned. those fires proved once again

that the federal land management policies have left our public lands overgrown and vulnerable to the kinds of massive places we saw last year. we need a return to the responsible thinning and active management of federal lands. here is my question to the federal government. how long will arizona and other western states have to burn before you do? we can't afford another disaster. [applause] arizona is trying to lead the way with its four district restoration initiative. it has been delayed almost a year now. we need a contractor to be chosen so that we can start sending our forests. it was a truly collaborative process and it needs to be implemented now.

[applause] we have done our part. we need the federal government to do its part. along with the physical devastation, personal tragedy struck when a firefighter was killed in the line of duty while responding to the diamond fire on fort apache indian reservation near white river. he was a fort apache hotshot crew veteran, one of only seven all native american inter-agency hot shot crews in the country. that heroism is not uncommon in our state, but tragically, neither is grievous loss of those who gave the last true measure of devotion for their communities and their country.

they are now forever a part of arizona, part of its history of courage and sacrifice. they are arizonans who loved their country and their state with affection the only heroes can no. here are those in uniform arizona lost in the past year, including a maricopa county sheriff's sheriffs deputy killed just yesterday.

[silence] [silence] >> that our service in this building honor their sacrifice. please rise and join me in saluting them. [applause]

[applause] thank you. [applause] thank you. on february 14, 1912, president william howard taft proclaimed arizona the 48th, and last, of the contiguous states to enter the union of the united states of america. 10 decades later, we celebrate arizona's 100th anniversary of statehood and i know the arizona centennial commission has been hard at work traveling the state and encouraging all arizonans to get involved.

nearby this chamber is the building that was created as part of an effort to demonstrate that arizona territory was ready for statehood. its design, by james gordon, called for the capital to be much larger, with a more prominent rotunda and large wings for both were both houses of the legislature on each side of the current building. but, a shortage of funds meant the project had to be scaled down to what it is today. i think that building is a perfect symbol for this new year. we are scaling down this government. we are making it fit what we can afford. [applause] in my mind, it's pretty simple. less government means more freedom and opportunity for arizonans.

[applause] i am sure you've seen that the dome of this capitol is shining once again. and i like to think that it's shining with the same copper brilliance once intended. it's a brilliance that says, arizona's clean is back, and its future is bright. [applause] there's just one problem, most of our capitol complex, including the building we gather in today, is not ours. so to fortify that simple, to make all our capitol capital truly ours once again, i am asking that you send me a bill by statehood day that allows me to buy back the capitol complex. [applause]

together, we can celebrate the burning of that mortgage. [applause] and, just east of phoenix international raceway near term number four, there is a hill often used for seating called monument hill. toward the top of the hill is another simple, it's a little-known historical marker with the concrete x. called the initial point, it's where surveys for the state first began and still remains the site for all surveys conducted in arizona. as the official midpoint of the state, monument hill is essentially the heart of arizona. the arizona centennial, like the monuments that mark arizona's 100-year-old path, such as the initial point, gives us a chance

to set our bearings for the next century, and opportunity for all arizonans to share our great tried in the past and prepare for the future with a compass heading that is true, worthy and resolute. ladies and gentlemen of the centennial legislature, we are the architects of our second century. [applause] so, will you please join me as we continue to rebuild the state, a state with restrained regulation, limited government, a steadfast commitment to the 10th amendment, an unwavering commitment to advancing freedom.

and i ask you once again to join me in securing these freedoms, freedom to build a business without suffocating regulation. freedom to build a life and to raise a family without the nanny state interfering. freedom to speak the truth about government and those who would leave it, without fear or retribution. and freedom to increase your income without someone telling do you that you are making too much money. [applause] however, freedom should never be separated from responsibility. so, i am asking everyone if you of you in this room, air very arizona. arizona and beyond

these walls, to make a personal statement in support of our centennial year. i am calling on everyone to make a contribution to the future. volunteer, volunteer at your local school, volunteer in service at your place of worship, volunteer at shelters, at a food bank. people are still hurting. so, volunteer for the least and the lost. volunteer to provide food or clothing to the last urchin at. lend a hand at a charity, a retirement home, a hospital, anywhere your talents, time and heart can be invested in the lives of others. let the spirit of service be at the heart of our centennial year. barry goldwater wrote an article

for the february 14, 1962 edition of the tucson daily citizen titled, arizona's next 50 years. he concluded his look 50 years into the future where we stand today with the following words. my children and grandchildren and my great-grandchildren will be as happy living here as i have been during the first 50 years of statehood. because the people will remain warm and kind and thoughtful. and even though much of what we know as desert will have disappeared, there will remain a sufficient amount of natural beauty to satisfied all of the desires of the 10 million people who will live here. and, barry goldwater closed

with, even though i hope to be on cloud nine, or 10, or whatever they allot me, i am sure that it two years from now, i will at down on this delightful spot on earth, and be envious of the people who call arizona their home in the year 2012. well, we know barry goldwater and the rest of our pillars of the past are still watching, watching what we do with the next 100 years. our future depends on the choices we make. and, if there is one thing i learned from my mother and my gears up public service, it's that life is about choices. it's choosing what stuff over -- tough over what is tempting.

and it's choosing the truthful over the falls. and it's choosing a government as necessary over a government that is merely desired. america is an exceptional nation and i believe arizona is an exceptional state. i believe our destiny arrives i this time, and in this place, and binds us together in some wonderful and mysterious way with a great giants of our past. i believe that we in this chamber and the people we represent are connected in common purpose with the keepers of the arizona range. to each we say, you have shown us the way. you and your families, plowed the fields, harvested the crops,

mind the or, raise the cattle, and endured the dust and the heat, the rains in the wind, to allow this territorial lands to rise up as a symbol of what freedom and individual courage can create. i hope years from now that my career, my record, my life, guided by god's grace, all stand as proof of my love for this beautiful state and my caring for all who called this place home. in his february 14, 1912 and a girl a dress, governor george p. hunt concluded his remarks by

saying, i have the hope, the ambition and determination to so discharged by public trust that it will be said of me that, he started the state off right. well, i have a similar hope and determination, to so serve the people of arizona that it will be said of you and me together, 100 years from now, they started the state off right, into its second century. [applause] may god bless you and our glorious 100-year-old state, and may god always bless the --

bless and protect the united states of america. thank you. [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] ..