she did and the photographs she took are in the collections in the arkansas studies institute for the arkansas library system. she kept on writing. she was found in her elderly years to passed away with a manuscript in her hand dedicated to writing and telling the story of arkansas and collecting as much information as she could about the place. >> the arkansas literary festival will be held in little rock on april 12th-15. the yearly festival going on since 2004 features nonfiction and fiction writers for the state and around the country. for more information visit arkansasliteraryfestival.org. ..

>> up next on book tv, grover norquist and john lodge jr. take a critical look at president obama's jobs and economic growth programs. this is just over an hour. >> good afternoon, everybody. welcome to our third newsmaker lunch for today. this is an ongoing series sponsored by the american spectator magazine and americans for tax reform. i'm jim enter from the american spectator, and we are here today to discuss a new book by grover norquist, public enemy number one of taxation in america, and the economist, john lott. over the next few months we will

be hearing a lot of positive statistics from the president about how he is turning the economy around and deserves a second term on the basis of progress toward reducing unemployment and making all kinds of the economic situation better, moving us away from the great recession. the book that we are discussing today, however, paints a much different picture of the president's economic policies. it sums up very well the book's title, debacle. and i don't think a lot of their portrayals that the president's record will be on jobs, economic growth instead of regulation and spending and deficit spending perpetuated by this administration will be very different from what i think you will be hearing on the campaign trail from the incumbent president. so to ticket of we will have grover start with his talk about what they are trying to do. their vision for the economy under obama.

>> about three parts. the first people are more familiar with the failure of fannie mae and freddie mac, the government mandate that banks make bad loans for houses and how that led to the and it's a crisis. and then the question of how the obama administration, the latter part of the bush administration reacted to that with bailouts and the stimulus funding. difference stimulus packages, not just the big one we generally think of. why that actually made the recession worse and the recovery weaker and creating a fewer jobs, increasing gdp less than other countries which did not do stimulus spending and that our recovery is weaker than previous recoveries because -- you can compare what we are going through now with the reagan recovery, the for recovery, recoveries back to the great depression, or you can compare

it with other countries that are going through what we have been going through the last several years. in both cases the obama recovery is weaker, less strong, and in some cases bizarrely weaker than what has happened in the past. why? well, unlike reagan who got a deeper recession in terms of destruction of jobs, over 10% of employment. reagan had to wrestle -- russell double-digit inflation at the same time. what obama did was not reduce marginal tax rates and reduce spending from where it was going and deregulate. he did the opposite of each of these things. particularly on the package you have to ask yourself, now, what was the theory? the theory was that if the government were to take a dollar from somebody you learned it, either in taxes, physically take it, or in debt, borrow it. and then you hand that dollar to somebody who is politically connected.

there are no more dollars in the economy. there are more jobs in the economy. the idea being that if reid and policy and obama went to one side and each had a bucket and dipped into the lake and took their three buckets of water around to the other side of the lake. instead of the in s nbc cameras come up for the three buckets back into the lake that you would have stimulated the late. this is actually the theory they were operating on. now, not only at best the same amount of water in the lake lake-whenever somebody as a tagger take some with them, but at the same time what incentives as this gives to the person who worked on saturday his tell you took for this experiment? to they keep working? kaj their resources? and get to the person who because they were politically connected did with the government wanted instead of working they get the dollar

because it gives balance to the people who receive the cash and disincentives to saving and investment to the people who were actually earning the dollars in the first place. so it should not surprise us that this did not help the recovery, did not create jobs, did not create more money in the economy simply by moving from one person's bank account to somebody else's hand. yet it does seem to have surprised the obama administration which continually predicted that now the economy will turn around because we spent all this money. every time it didn't it had to have a new explanation as to why it didn't work. usually blaming somebody many years ago. so the third part of the book is, okay, now that we are in this mess, we have a weak recovery, job creation is weak compared to the reagan recovery. gdp growth is weak compared to the reagan recovery. now what we do?

and that is where we have the 12 step plan toward recovery. and the short of it is to make a list of all the things that obama, reid, and policy did and stop doing them into the opposite. but it is a little bit ago when somebody says, okay, reduce tax rates, spend less, regulates less fell into into the currency. it is not particularly helpful as political advice, like when somebody says have delegate from pakistan to china. just go over the himalayas. okay. how do we cut taxes and reduce spending and to deregulate. they are in the last chapter of the book. we go through what it's going to take because we haven't ticket ahead of us where the republicans have a majority of the house and should keep it because of redistricting. twenty-five that seats in the house, should have republican house. she looked at the 75 senate seats, 47 republicans commander going to need to net for to get

a majority, but you need to net 16 to get 60, which is obama to what you are going to really need if you make dramatic change in congress and the next election cycle, 2012, 23 democrats seats up in the senate ten republicans and three years later for the democratic seats, 13 republicans. so the next three years, next two election cycles 43 democratic senate seats got 22 republican senate seats. at the republican senate seats, you worry about two of them. the democratic senate seats, they have to worry about 20 of them. republicans need to net 13 of those to get to 60 in the next two election cycles. then the question of the presidency is there, but if you elect a republican president to go to the republican house and senate in 12 or in 14 then you have the ability to begin to turn around some of these decisions. i think that the ryan -- paul ryan of wisconsin road map is happening.

it is the map, the path to a future that works for america. it is a u-turn on the road. it is not slowing down the disaster. it is now reducing the pain. actually does turn us around in a dramatically different direction. actually going to end up with less spending as a percentage of gdp and stronger economic growth, not just for the next 14 years, but for the next 50 and 75 years. so the book is a little depressing at the beginning. stick with it. it is annoying at the beginning. as you see, obama and reid and policymaker mistake after mistake after mistake and double down on their errors. but then it gets its cheerful when you walk through how you can actually, not just theoretically how you could turn the economy around, but politically the steps to electing a house fell senate, and president and keeping them on a path to reduce spending to reduce taxes, and get the

economy moving. >> thank you very much for having this year. well, we want to get -- original motivation for the book was, lots of people who have said obama promised certain things in terms of the economy -- can i have your -- >> all right. >> says. >> anyway. thank you very much. obviously a lot of republicans, obama promised, you know, 8 percent unemployment pass the stimulus. we just can't go and tell people, look, you made a certain promise and it didn't work out.

you have to somehow explain to people why this stimulus make things worse. and this pretty simple strong economic argument for why that is the case. you know, when you have a stimulus, 825 and the other for jobs programs that grover was talking about, not only are you moving a trillion dollars from where you and i or companies would have spent it, from one industry to another. using around with jobs the problem is that john stone and since the move from one company or one industry to another. it takes time. you don't just pack up and throw the kids in the back of the car on friday that star work in another state in a completely different job on monday. it take months or even years or more for people to go and move from one job to another, even if they can find jobs. so you have jobs in the oil

industry, colorado, louisiana. starting jobs in solar energy, california. assuming they are even qualify to go into that. a lot of the jobs in the people were already employed. but that test that you are creating, that turning the you're creating by moving jaws around temporarily increases unemployment. and, you know, it's more than that. you have all these regulations. we have never had so many new regulations are regulatory bills pass in such a short time, whether it be housing, whether it be credit markets and financial market regulation or health care regulations or epa regulations. that, too, creates winners and losers, moving around resources and moving around jobs in the economy. to a temporarily creates unemployment. you know, there are two ways that you can reduce unemployment one is a good way, get people to get jobs, but the other way you

end up reducing unemployment is if people give up looking for work. if you just look at the time from when the recovery started until now we have had about 2 million new jobs being created . but that same time you have about 7 million people give up, stop looking for work. a number of people not in the labour force has increased by about 7 million people. that is unthinkable. that happened during a recovery. it is during a recession, so you have people give up and stop looking for work, not during recovery the you see something like that. now, i don't know if people can see the diagrams. is this working? anyway, we have diagrams here someplace. are we going to have the screen up or not? i have my posters. is that possible?

all right. so you know, one thing while i'm waiting here. that is you look at counting jobs. what they will do, is the money going to someplace? if you have it and if there are any jobs there, even if the people working higher in that industry, we are going to have the stimulus jobs. the problem is that you also have money being taken from someplace else. and what you need to look at is the chain's the you're having happen. so let me just show you a graph. this is the percentage of jobs during the recovery since 1970. you can see here, these are all the recoveries since 1970. the dotted line is the average

set we have. the ones that have grown the most of the ones that have had the biggest loss in jobs previously. so you have the recession, the carter recession of 1980, the recovery afterwards for reagan and 70 and 75. the two low ones here are from 91 and 2001. those are relatively small recessions a you have. this black line at the bottom this is the obama recovery. you can see how much worse this is in terms of job recovery. i would argue, one of the reasons why we actually have job losses here, you know, the bottom line is 100 percent. the reason why it actually has fallen during the recovery for a time is because of the fact that we have had all this turning, this damage caused by the stimulus itself that has gone and created unemployment while it's going and moving resources around in the economy.

now, the book goes and give lots of comparisons to other economies. i'll just go and look at canada here for an example. one place that did not go and follow the type of stimulus policy that obama advocated here . and you can see, 2008, the beginning of 2009, our unemployment rate paralleled canada's amazingly closely. our gdp dropped also parallel to as soon as the stimulus past, the dotted line the you have here, our economy keeps hitting worse. canada levels of as to improve. if you look at germany, if you look at other countries that also did not follow the stimulus because they're to we had the same types of differences. as soon as we had this stimulus hours got much worse compared to other countries. now, where did this stimulus money go? and there are lots of things you can look at. you can look at poverty, you

know, bankruptcy, foreclosures, measures that show places that had the worst problems because if you believed obama and the democrats they were trying to go and how about the ones that were hurting the most as a result of the recession. in fact, when you looked at where the money went it was incredibly perverse. it was the areas that were best of the got the most money, the was the were hurting the most at the least. else showed you a couple of diagrams. if you look at stimulus dollars and poverty rights, the ones that got the most stimulus dollars had the lowest poverty rates. you can kind of see the general relationship with the line. if you look at bankruptcy, again, a similar type of relationship. the ones that had the most money at the lowest bankruptcy rates rather than the highest. unemployment, there's no relationship. states with higher unemployment, no more staleness.

if you were a big union state you would give more money, but it's not related to things that were related to how badly off the state's four. one thing really seems to explain a lot. what that was was, the makeup of your congressional delegation. the states that had the biggest percentage of the congressional delegation were democrats and get the most money. if you basically -- the difference between having a congressional delegation that is all republican verses of democrat comes to about $460 per person in terms of stimulus dollars. so the book also goes through and tries to do with a lot of the explanations for why the stimulus to not work. on the one hand obama keeps some were going to be more jobs every month. the summer of recovery. and it doesn't happen.

and then there up there some excuses. of just give you one example. one thing that treasury secretary tim geithner just recently mentioned again. that is, the claim is, countries that suffered bad financial crises are going to have slower recoveries. do we see bigger increases in unemployment in the ones that were said to have had these financial crisis was the others? impact, if anything the reverse is true. if you looked at the diagram that we have here, the countries that are in the bold black of the ones that were apparently facing a financial crisis, were not facing it, and they agree when is the was the work.

the fed, you see a bigger increase in unemployment in the countries that were not facing the financial crisis. the reverse was true. you could share the same set of thing with regard to gdp, and we go through a whole range of different types of explanations here. okay. i guess that's it. but, you know, the important thing here is that if you're going to convince people, if you're going to help them understand why these policies failed and hopefully not try it again, it's not just tell them, look, it failed, certain things were promised and did not come through because what will often happen, people come back. well, this is a special case. we blame it on this or that of working out. fine. you have to go and answer those questions. i am very proud of this book in terms of how we go through and knocked down each of the claims made by paul krugman and others.

you also have to write a basic theory about why this keynesian policy failed. at the we do that also. i really appreciate your time. [inaudible] >> a microphone. >> a microphone that is off. we had a republican approach to regulatory regimes. yet we still have a recession, and that is an argument you hear a lot from progressives. why is that the case? >> well, bush was in many ways implicit with all of the fannie mae and freddie mac banking challenges. much of that could have been pulled back by executive order. it was not all legislative. unfortunately the bush administration did not have limiting government spending on there to do list.

they realize, you're not supposed to raise taxes. you're supposed to reduce taxes. some tax reduction in 81. the cheney tax cuts signed by the vice-president in 2003 and cutting the capital gains tax, dividend's tax, but of those helped strong economic growth. but every time president bush ran into a problem he threw big government at it. you saw that in louisiana, you saw that with enron. each time there was a challenge he saw that what the financial crisis. a billion dollars of spending in tarp. and $350 billion from the next a magician to thread it later. so there was a real challenge. the bush and ministration cut red tomato raise taxes. okay. they didn't do part two, and that is where the tea party mckinnon with a two by four and its -- instructed the modern republican party so far so good,

don't raise taxes. hey, spending. the other part was the regulatory burden which posted not pull back again. frankly he was distracted by being there for a number of years comanche did not focus on maintaining the limits on government spending. so that said, everything hoover did fdr did worse. everything boosted ron obama did on steroids. i don't want to set bush, as bad and spending as and obama, but he was living in the right direction. >> in you're talking lay out a lot of the stimulus was to not go to the states that were most affected by the economic crisis. is the problem that the stimulus funds were misallocated or that the entire idea of stimulus spending itself was misguided? was misguided. you go and take money from certain places, give it some place else.

that's not increasing their jobs. maybe one could make an argument sometimes that government might know better than individuals where they can get a higher return. i'm pretty skeptical about that normally. you're not trying to be increasing the total number of jobs. what you're doing by moving around this huge amount of money it increasing unemployment temporarily. that is the reason why you see this drop. stimulus is over. now you start to see some recovery. that should have happened before . the stimulus delayed by creating all this churning, delay the recovery that was there. and so you have two problems : three. one is stimulus created unemployment. secondly, it moved a lot of our wealth to places where we get smaller returns. there is a reason why people are not investing on they're own in ethanol or these alternative energy forms because the return from those investments was less

than people could have gone someplace else. so we're making ourselves poor for the future. the third thing is the stimulus basically requiring unions to go and give it or supporting public union jobs that of there, you know, maybe we could go and make an argument that you should have more teachers are teachers to get even better pay and they're getting previously. but that wasn't the argue there was being made for where we should have this, and it is public employees and unions across the board. if you're going to go and build a road why does it need to be built with union workers? why not just try to figure out the least costly way that we can go and build the road for the taxpayers. and it's not assist them. we have other things beyond the stimulus, bailouts for general motors and chrysler. he doesn't even include a lot of the tax substitutes and other basic we have given them.

and so this was probably the largest wealth transfer the we have ever seen in our nation's history. it has primarily been the heavily democratic areas and relatively wealthy areas. the opposite of what they claim the whole point of the stimulus west. >> let's open it up to questions please identify yourself into your affiliated with. >> any questions? >> the question of was going to raise. i think it clarify things of love for us if you tell us a little more about. because that was the case where it seems to follow your criteria for what they did. at the same time as i say,

clarify my understanding of that commission was pretty hard up. i mean, it's true, high up the state's go before the crisis. their work caught up in years of decline. and at least in the popular perception the auto industry is, perhaps, a strong recovery mode. >> they do very much. unless a of a stimulus money went to well-to-do places. but much more on a per-capita basis of their ben to states that were poor off. i mean, just look at the brass. you can look at all these different measures, whether it be poverty or per-capita income more bankruptcy or foreclosure or unemployment. this is not where you would think it would go. now, you know, with regard to general motors and chrysler one

of the myths that has been put out here is that if we didn't go and build about all these jobs would have been lost. you know, if anybody does the bankruptcy they know that judges still shut down, you know, operations that are buyers. this up their point. they may sell off certain days and ordered to appear the creditors, but there is no reason. in effect for the exact opposite, they try to protect those operations during bankruptcy that are viable so that they can keep going. not only did we give general motors $50 billion in direct stimulus fund, but the obama administration give them another $45 billion in terms of tax breaks because, you know, they basically wrote potentials there. the next $45 billion in profits that general motors makes a going to be able to write off. that is pretty much unheard of. those two alone, not even

including the other money that we get from the stimulus, they have a retooled plant, the for developing batteries to all sorts of things. if you looked at general motors stock price today, the value is something around $30 billion. so it doesn't even -- you know, it doesn't even come close to the first 50 billion, let alone the other 45 billion that's there. in fact, it was interesting. read before the government had the stock offering for general motors in this new general motors about a week before this saw how poorly the press is going to be for general motors start, and that's and then announce his new tax breaks. you can only imagine how low the price of the stock would be if you didn't throw another $45 billion. presumably it would be near zero. if it's only $37 billion right now. so, you know, the main impact of that was to preserve the

existing and new contracts. normally would have happened in bankruptcy was preserve viable operations but renegotiate faves like labor contract set were there. they protected them, not only detected the unions are having to renegotiate contracts, but also gave them a massive wealth transfer because money was taken from the bondholders had essentially given to the unions in terms of stock are shipped. and that has other repercussions. that makes investing in the united states riskier than it would have been otherwise. >> another question? >> the mike over here please. >> sometimes i think we discuss these things, it's as though we think they don't know what they're doing.

they just can't quite understand i come from the position of thinking then of exactly what they're doing. it sounds like proposal chaos, and i would just like for you to address that. >> it is certainly purposeful. it was on purpose. the stimulus package was written in the basement of the house and senate by democratic congressman and senators of the spending interests involved. and they basically collection of earmarks' staple together. this is a time when people were promising not to do earmarks. it was all done in secret that his legislation, obama announced that his legislation would all be written in front of c-span cameras. that is not how they did obamacare. that's not how they did stimulus. it's not how they organize to the deregulation of banking. the dodd-frank legislation, dodd and frank, probably the two

gentlemen who have as much to do with the bankruptcy's as anything else, the people who were put in charge of fixing it to lead the robo which regulated everything except fannie mae and freddie mac. i mean, it's almost a comedy. this is and administration that has imported its economics and its ethics from chicago. they've you the proper role of government but as taking money from people who don't vote for you and having it to the democratic precinct workers. and so you're quite right. the fact that people have lost their jobs, they don't care. this is an administration, people talk about war on businesses, a self-employed people, the president talks so watching to cut marginal tax rates on businesses for 35% highest tax rate in the world today down somewhat. would he also wants to at the center of raise the taxes on small businessmen from 35 to 40,

from 40 to 45. and take away their deductions and credits. so it is very clearly a political -- a series of political decisions to tax people who don't vote. while the war and oil and natural gas? well, until recently, oil and natural gas were all found in states that don't ever vote for democrats for president and to not suit and democratic congressman and senators. the war on texas and louisiana and oklahoma. it is all political. the fact that it is not working economically does not bother because in their view at least until 2010 it was working politically. they didn't care that it cost people jobs economically. >> i think there is one other

point. you go and have government policies often it creates more of a problem. and then look, we need even more government in order solve the problems created. so you look at the great depression. a lot of government programs made the great depression much worse and created more calls for more government intervention. i think that may have been part of what is going on, but i think the main thing is, you know, willing to give people the benefit of the doubt. i'm sure a lot of the money was specifically done in order to create wealth transfers to groups, but i think they probably thought that they were doing the right thing in part. the problem is that, you know, this keynesian theory. i thought it was ted 23rd years ago. it is attractive to think, well, a fall in the government spends

money that will create jobs. we see those jobs that are created. what you don't see is the money came from someplace, of borrowing in and the people we borrowed it from what has been to done something and now they are not, we have texas. moving the money around. we see the direct. we don't see what is lost. and so when they count up the jobs under their or other things , it's understandable to forget, but it's our job to remind the minister you have to look at the whole picture. you have to look the other impact. >> text question? >> hello. speaking to your point about the visibility, i am wondering in your recommendations that have passed forward if you're going to try to adjust the disability issue? the new deal was popular and people look back on it bluntly because they're like, you could visibly see that something was

being done. in times of crisis people feel motivated to try and get something done, to see that government is actually doing something. and a lot of things, removing regulations is kind of invisible, not something that the public invisibly see. so, you know, to any of your recommendations addressed that? if not, how would you handle this? >> right. you're right. that is have a problem. you have people who take ditch's until then up again. you see the guys out there. may not be doing something very worthwhile, but at least to see the jobs. you don't see the ones that are lost. that is one problem with selling these things. there are things that we can do. hopefully there are some things you can do that you can see the effects relatively quickly. at least you can ameliorate the problem. i'll just give you one simple idea. the united states is going to have by far the highest

corporate income-tax rates in the world. the problem that you have is, we have a world capital market of literally hundreds of trillions of dollars where people are trying to go and get the highest return that they can go and get. you are an investor contract to make a decision, do i go and invest in canada with the united states. you invest in canada you have to keep $0.15 of every dollar that you make if you invest in the united states. that will be getting bigger of the next year so. you know, if you can go from having nice texture in the world to having something below the average, hopefully a lot below the average, all those hundreds of trillions of dollars are going to flow toward you, or a lot of them are. and that is going to not only increase investment but make workers more productive. i think a relatively quick time. when reagan changed the tax rates and at that time we were relatively competitive after

those changes. we saw a huge investor is in the united states, and it was a social and very quick increase as an employment and increases in wages. and so people have been patient waiting a few years now for some type of benefit here. i think if you were to go and make that type of change, just that one change, you would see huge investments in a relatively fast turnaround. >> challenges that you have as you are saying, the government does pass some laws. affects everybody in the country, and it's tough to tell us that is what is making things better or worse or some other factor. but we have 50 states. there is aloof easier to compare what works and what does not work. that gives you some of the transparency that you were kind of asking about. what i have here is the chart of those states. red states have a republican governor and republican legislature, but the house and

senate. the 24 states, the republicans, the governor and both houses of let such a get together and can pass anything. there are 11 blue states, states the democrats have governorship and both houses and can and are turning themselves into greece, california, illinois. and then there are five u.s. states where republicans have both houses of the legislature but not the governor and 33 states with the democrats have the legislature but not the governor. why status but legislatively. what is happening now in is doing to become even larger over the next decade, these killers on the map are not likely to change there much. redistricting, republican states , so for the next in years the republicans states will be spending less talk taxing less, having less regulation, and

doing better on tort reform. you also see them pass in the rest it's a blue states, trying to raise taxes, not reform the pension systems, raising more spending, having more regulations, and giving the labor unions and trial lawyers more of what they want. we really are seeing a sorting out, not a north-south split or a coast verses the center of the country, but look at those red states and blue states, people are going to be continuing the process of moving to lower tax states to assist with no income tax are low income tax. another decade of that exacerbated. instead of having gridlock in d.c., to gridlock in the democratic senate. they don't necessarily pass position now. in the 50 states use the credit number of them not have gridlock but just the opposite. the republican get together and taxes. other republicans get together

and teacher tenure. louisiana, florida, idaho. all the democrats together and continue everything that they have been doing to make illinois the place that illinois yesterday. dramatically different directions state by state, and i think that will help give some of the clarity and transparency about what works and what doesn't. we already see that now they don't have that kind of control. 20 miles outside of the democratic mayors control. >> hi. just get the books.

have access to read it. one test c-span.org things. one come out greuel 157, the chains to. no one talks about the impact that had in helping bring the economy down. nothing in one day. probably companies. second, the fact that this administration has the least people in it. never even held a private sector jobs, let alone created job when, impact to see. third, that you're no has finally recognized. what we can learn from that. >> okay. europe is further down the road in terms of problems. but, you know, we can see some

parts of the contents have learned. germany, for example, has seen its own employment rate decline very quickly after the recession hit. they did not go and follow our policy of killing, greatly expanded government spending or, you know, huge deficits that were there. in fact, they were fairly innovative in trying to reduce some of the regulations that they had. you know, other parts have gone down the road. amin, liggett greece or other countries and they have continued to borrow. hopefully it is a warning to us. i mean, we have huge increase in debt that we have had. so at the end the bush administration publicly held debt in the united states for federal government was about 6 trillion canal its 11. almost doubled. i mean, that is bad. we think about the fact that we may be talking about $100,000 per family of