but looking at countries like greece or portugal, you can see how quickly these things change. each 1% increase in interest rate means of $150 billion more that you have to pay in terms of interest for the federal debt. so just a few percent increase. 500 billion year. what may be at one. $3 trillion debt could be near to. when you start having the status of deficits and the increase in debt, if your credit rating falls more, you know, your interest rates go up. you quickly find yourself in a situation where what was difficult to pay becomes almost impossible. and in your credit rating falls more. interest rates go up even further. you quickly find yourself in a real crisis. and that is what's, you know,

even a small country like greece -- greece. they have not tried to solve the problems because others bail them out. look. as to up your first question, what caused the problems here, lots of regulatory issues. i think the clear one was what has happened in mortgage markets we go through this and we talk about how people like summers and geithner, the role that they play and obama in doing this. but, you know, you force banks or mortgage companies to make loans to people who they did not want to make too, but were forced because of threatening legal action by the federal government. and so people don't put down deposits on homes. that can work as long as the price of tantillo the value of their home is less and they walk away. then you have the whole thing spiraling out of control.

>> with part of the question of private sector experience. i don't know if it's counterintuitive, but i am not a big believer that we are bringing businessmen into the governors are running politics, necessarily a good idea because businessmen spend their own money and get to tell everybody who works for them what to do and actually do it and can fire people who don't do the job. if you get to be a governor or senator or president, this is not the way the world works. it is a completely different skill set. scott walker, governor of wisconsin, who is saving wisconsin and turning it from a deeply state to red state and changing it so that the unions are not allowed. they get rid of tenure said that pantages can go away. allowing towns and cities to manage themselves and that give the teachers union millions and millions of dollars to some of these mandated insurance companies that the teachers'

union fed up. scott walker, if he had been a banker our business guy they need to be set aside. they're not allowed sub impose work rules or negotiate on pensions. they can negotiate to raise their pay up to inflation, but not beyond that. get rid of teacher tenure, which is, know that -- no matter how bad teachers they keep their good job. all of those reforms or was that scott walker could to end new woodwork and understood because the exit work the question is not so much the obama type people don't have private sector experience.

many of them are academics. they don't like the free-market, the business community. it irritates them because the parents told them that if you work really hard and study hard in school you will be rich, which is not true. so these people got a's and it became professors and there are not rich and see the guy who dropped out of college who has a the heck of them. life is unfair because mommy promised if i did well on my sats i would be rich. they think the world is supposed to be stratified by how well you did on some sort of exam rather than what you do that is productive that other people are willing to pay for. i do that, i much more value skills in managing government connected to somebody who understands the concept of individual liberty. somebody who may be allowed to manage the private sector. comes out of tips include the private sector university, at

least not necessarily the state. but hostile to the concept of individual liberty and property rights. they don't have private sector experience. that is another problem. they don't let -- value would they do. you're talking only about the transfer of wealth from people who earned it to people who got checks from the government in the stimulus package. you see that also in the energy field. what, this administration, taxing energy that works, oil, natural gas, and using it to subsidize energy that does not work for i.e., does not produce energy at reasonable cost that anyone is willing to pay in a place that someone needs it. windmills and solyndra and algae and all of this stuff. the reason they call it alternative energy is because it is not energy. they don't refer to nuclear power as alternative energy or gas or hydro or any of the

things that actually produce energy. those are not alternative energies. those are energies. alternative energies are things that are not energies and so you have large quantities of money and then they can't be for themselves. so just as with the stimulus, you took money from where it was turned inward was valuable and people decided it ought to be in the new have one bureaucrat his ticket from them and where he thought, substituting one does judgment for 300 million people's judgment, and he moved it from an economic used to an uneconomic use. there is a policy is that on steroids. >> hi. the center for education. my question is regarding inflation. you touched on that very briefly. considering that goes hand-in-hand with spending and the increase in the debt over time, was wondering, we also

touched on the visibility. you can necessarily get as much visibility as we would like with an unelected officials such as ben bernanke being paid to zero other magazines the world over as in favor of a global economy. how do you approach that? i know that i get to several the buckles myself with other debates with friends of mine but its think it's a great stimulus to us simply because the messaging is there now. but some are confronting that. >> interestingly you do have the support for ron paul's suggestion. how about auditing it? would you mind if we looked? and they said jones.

it's a huge concern. >> comes through in terms of showing where the trillions of dollars. bail out banks worldwide. not just the united states. and it should be something that was debated rather than was not being debated. but, you know, as far as government spending, i don't think it causes inflation. we can talk about waste. we can talk about things that would have given us a higher return. we could talk about how it lowers our wealth. basically what causes inflation is if you have an increase in the money-supply. the value of each will be less. go and have twice as much money

at there to month tuataras i have today. the value of each dollar. take more dollars to go and buy something than it did previously . borrowing, per say, does not cause inflation. government spending does not do that. there are lots of problems with those, but those, i would not say, inflation is related to it. >> well, i should have clarified more regarding the fact that he is being held as the keynesian official as opposed to a regarding his approach to his entire -- >> yeah basically controls. you know, the keynesian style, running these large deficits. i mean, a couple of times, even a year and a half ago or so he expressed concern about the large deficits and we have had. i don't think he would call himself a keynesian. i may not agree with everything he has done by any means, but,

you know, with the federal reserve, it has not been to related to the type of keynesian policies that obama has been doing. >> other questions? here you go. >> kevin glass with town hall. you obviously would over a lot of how the government money was spent in the stimulus. do you have any positive or negative feelings of some of the broadbased tax cuts, temporary obviously, that were included in the stimulus, whether they were positive or negative for that very useful at all to the economy. >> well, obama often talks about the tax cuts that were in the stimulus. the problem is they were done the wrong way. you know, if there is one thing that reagan, i think, try to get across to people is the important thing is the marginal tax rate. how much you have to pay the government for each additional dollar that you aren't.

if the government takes more out of each additional dollar and you will have the same incentive to go and work hard and expand what you would have otherwise. the problem is, the types of tax cuts that we had were credits or deductions that got phased out along with others. they get phased out as you make more money. so what happened was the obama tax cuts lowers the average tax cuts that people pay but raise the marginal rates. not only will you have to pay the official marginal tax rate of $0.25 on another dollar, but since you lost these credits that you had as you earn more money, the effective rate kiddy 40 percenter soap. and so, you know cannot be imported think there is marginal tax rates, and obama raced his tax programs raise the marginal tax programs. >> a tax credit that is refundable is spending.

writing a check. it is not a tax credit. it is pending. a lot of what he would call, tried to call tax cuts were actually writing checks to people who did not have a tax liability. >> how can a candidate asked the question to voters on the street , argue better off today than you were before? and give some simple understandable examples of how these policies have been at the bottom of whether they're better off for not. >> this session or having no on health care, people were told one thing when obama ran for office. obama was a very good candidate in 2008. he was not a very good president.

about a year ago he could be president. and he has now spent a year and is spending this year being candid for president. which means everything he is doing his political. actually policy. that is what the democrats and the senate don't actually like the budget. the president likes to talk about things that he wants to do . anything that the president or the democrats in congress tell you, oh, we want to do next, well, for two years they have the house, senate, and presidency. when they tell you what to do something guy it's just not true. if they wanted to do it there would have done it already. everything they have not done is on the list of things, one, they don't actually wished to do, but they want to talk about it before the next election, or, the president pointed out, they have a collection of things they want to do but are not talking about because they want to get it passed the next election. you can only imagine, not just on issues, but taxes and spending, the kinds of things

that they want to do that the delta a comfortable telling us between now and the last time we get to vote, obama. health care, they said it would reduce the cost of health care. is now clear that it is increasing health insurance costs. total cost of the government is out twice what they said it was going to be. so you pointed to what they said they were going to do, what they did, and people know. and from questions that you approved, obama's handling of health care, the economy and so on to what people know that they are worse off and could be. i would hope that the people running to replace obama and reid and democrats in the house would focus on how we can improve things in the future. yes, you have to step back and said the other team made worse off. here's how we make it better. ..

we have had seven more people, quote, not in the labor force during this recovery. not even looking at the recession beforehand. the drop has -- these are thing you would normally see during a recession. not during a recovery. and you look at number of new hires. the bureau of labor statistics

has been collecting numbers since 2000. you look between 2000 and when the recession started officially in december 2007, about 5.3 million people were being hired on average each month. during the recession, that fell to about 4.1 million a month. during the recovery, it's gone down even more, to 3.9 million. you know, you don't expect the rate at which jobs are -- people are being hired for jobs to fall even more during a recovery than was occurring during a recession that was there. and i think it doesn't take a lot to convince people that we have had this drop in unemployment, but you can see that the big drop that we have had is primarily from people giving up and not looking for jobs. you're only classified as unemployed as long as you're actively looking for work, and

we can break it down and show how much of the drop to the extent we have had a drop -- we have never had a recession where 33 months into the recession your talking about -- or 33 months into recovery you're talking over 8% unemployment. how most of this dropped in the unemployment we have had is people giving up looking for work. >> we have time for one more question. >> anybody have a question? right here. >> i have a personal question for you. i saw you on jon stewart's show, and is that one of your more typical interviews and did he give you a fair shake? >> it was fun, and they do a larger take that goes on television that night.

you film it. then after they do the six minutes straight interview, they then do they extended interview, which you sit down and talk more. probably another six or eight minutes, and that's online. and we did quite a bit. stewart's kind of a liberal who is a serious person. he is cynical in that he'll call out obama when he thinks obama is being nonsensical and will do the same thing to conservatives. he is a leftist center activist who happens to be on tv doing a comedy show. i have great fun -- we did half an our back and forth, six minutes of which was on tv and the other is online. and it was great fun. he kept asking questions, and he had lots of parts. he had a great staff which did all the numbers.

you couldn't get anything around him or past him. he was very well informed. but it was fun to do. he is the comedian, you have some points, and let him do the jokes. so don't try step on his turf. >> one last thing. when bill clinton ran against george bush in 1992, do you think obama by signing some of these more positive statistics runs a similar risk of being out of -- perceived to be out of touch? >> there are more cable shows, more talk radio opportunities. so, there's a second media as well as the establishment media.

so i don't think you can quite fib about it. the other part is, americans are out of work, their own wages are not going up. i don't think you can imagine an economy that distribute but if you read "time" and "news week" you would believe the problems have been solved. >> been doing its best to paint the recent few months as being robust and having over 200,000 jobs. that's seasonally adjusted jobs, and the real question is about whether the rules that we use right now, if they're useful in the current recovery. we had hundred thousand jobs create inside january. you need 160,000 to keep 'up

with the increasing population. the reason why we lost 2.7 million jobs, it's because of seasonal adjustment. when they say that 2.7 million, they compare it to what it's been in the past for january and say, look, this is a relatively smaller drop than we had three years ago. so, everything else equals. we had the same baseline we had five years ago, we'd actually have a job loss. i think the reporters need to go and explain how this is a recovery, and -- i don't think they're doing that, and hopefully -- people who look at polls, people say whether they have a job, or given up looking for work, and that -- >> i want to thank grover and john for taking the time to be

with us and thank you for coming out. [applause] >> up next, charles sykes argues an increasing number of americans think they're entitled to benefit from the hard works of others and the "occupy" movement which started as a legitimate protest against wall street moochers has come to exemplify this way of thinking. this is just over an hour. >> good evening. my name is lenore, and i'm the owner here of the bookshop and i want to thank you for coming out in support of our guest.

i have a few things to mention. one, please silence your cell phones so they don't go off in the middle of the talk. as you notice, we have a camera crew here tonight, c-span2 from booktv is here to tape the talk so we're going to ask you to please raise your hand and wait until the sound guy with the long boom, the boom microphone, comes near you so they i can pick up the sound of your questions. thank you very much. charlie will speak for a bit and then take your questions. afterwards he will be at this table to sign and personalize your books, and if you have not purchased a copy already, it's available at the end of the program. tonight is a remarkable opportunity to see, hear, and meet an author. my staff and i worked very, very hard to provide these opportunities in an

ever-challenging environment. if you enjoy this program, i'd ask you to mention next chapter book store to somebody new. you have a locally owned independent book store in your community that pays its taxes, creates jobs, and gives the freeway to speak one's mind. so please give a warm welcome to charlie sykes. [applause] >> thank you very much. thank you. i'm usually not this tall. you know, it's always a lot of fun when you talk about a book because, unlike radio, radio is instant gratification. you say something, it goes out. with a book, you write it and then you wait and you wait and you wait, and then a year or so after that they publish it and people notice it.

so i have had chance to go around and do a number of talk shows. and i haven't done any book stores yet so i'm pleased to be here. i was in a political event, talking with some legislators about this, and you have all seen -- a nation of moochers, and i explained the thesis of the book, and one of the politicians said, that really sounds interesting. can i get a free copy? [laughter] >> so, i'm thinking that he wasn't really getting it, or maybe that if you're in government long enough, you're just so used to giving away other people's money that it just seems natural. don't have to pay for that, right? the -- one of the first questions i like to be asked, why moochers? what a weird word that would be. in fact, the publishers in new york gave me a little pushback on that. they wanted something like -- i

don't know -- a nation of freeloaders, dependency nation or the entitlement culture, and i kind of dug in on this one and i said, it's really got to be moochers, because it's such an old-fashioned word. it needs to have a comeback now. i had just finished re-reads ayn rand's at husband struck, and she -- at at that atlas shrugged. and i said you're at a cometail party and you're talking a a corporate executive who is bragging about how he just back from washington and got some special break -- a low-interest taxpayer funded loan or something like that. if you were to respond to him by say, so, you're a moocher you might ruin the party but you would at least help clarify what is going on here.

i also tried to define -- i'm not going to read extensively from it, but one of the things i tried to do, i really did set out to not make this a completely wonky book. i tried to mix up a number of different interactive chapters of the book, including what i call the moocher checklift. you can see, am i a moocher in and the reality is that a lot of us are moochers. we're all born moochers and it's the multiplication of matching that is the theme of the book. i try to define what i mean by matching. a mover is something who believes there's always a free lunch and somebody else should pay for it. someone who expects others to pay to clean up their messes. someone who lays claim to something to which they are not rightfully du. somebody who shifts responsibilities to others, a matter of choice to take on or

rely on theft or forces of others. somebody who takes unfair advantage of others to enrich themselves or otherwise bail themselves out. someone who is the recipient of the transfer of wallet created by others without cause, who lives off the productive efforts of others and appropriates the fruits of their enterprise without making an appropriate contribution, and someone who is voluntarily depend department -- dependent on others, where more americans are looking to other people to bail them out for freebies, entitlemented, transfer payments. we reached this remarkable moment in american culture whether -- i think the heritage foundation said 49.35 americans no longer pay any federal income tax. doesn't include the payroll tax. federal income tax. last year for the fir time the

federal government paid out more in the form of benefits -- actually wrote out more checks for a larger amount than the federal government took in for income taxes so fewer and fewer americans are paying in, and more and more americans dependent on government. so a lot of the book deals with that question. what kind of a nation do you become if in fact we get to the point where, what, 50, 60, 70% of the households in the country will receive more from the federal government than they pay in. part of -- and sometimes when i discuss this, people want to focus in on one aspect or another. one of the points i hope that people take away from the book is that what has happened is that we have multiplied the forms of mooching across the board. something happened on the great bailout when you had wall street

companies, aig, goldman sachs and general motors go to the government and say we have been reckless, greedy, irresponsible, bail us out. do not hold us responsible for our decision. once that happens, then the rest of the country, understandably, says, if you're getting a freebie, you're getting a bailout, where is mine? i have a little chapter called the moocher's dilemma. two of the little minichapters, and it's this. and it's based on reality. consider the escalating tempt additions and the moral dilemmas. number one, car keys left in the ignition of a parked car and the motor is running, you take advantage of the situation and drive off in the car. why or why not? number two the clerk at the store gives you too much in change. do you point out the miss if mistake. why or why not. number three you bank statement includes a larger balance.

do you take the money or call and say you made a mistake. number four, government employee comes to your door with a check for disaster aid. you have done nothing to deserve the money. you suffered no damage at all. he explains to you it's perfectly legal and you're entitled to the cash. if you object, say, don't need this money, it's pointed out if you don't accept the check you neighbor gets a bigger check, now neighbor who probably suffered no damage. so what do you do? do you accept the check? you think most people would accept the check? what's your decision based on in based on character, morality, or common sense? and at a certain point, in american culture, what happens, i think, is that the people who play by the rules, the people who work and put money in 401ks, try to get an education they can afford, with a degree that will actually get them a job, who buy a house that they

intend to pay for, those people, what happens when they look around and go, okay, i'm the sucker? i'm the sucker because we are rewarding and encouraging the takers rather than the makers. what happens then not just to the economics and the politics of the country, but to the character of the country? i just want to read one more thing and then i'll open up for hopefully a lively conversation. i piggy bank which people should read that don't have high blood pressure. my 401k is down, and i may have to work until i'm 70 years old. i also pay pensions pensions foc employees who retire in their 50s. i can't go on vacation but i paid my share of the government's grant to teach chinese prostitutes to drink

responsibly. i pay for bridges to nowhere. i drive a 1997 honda accord but i had to pay for my neighbor's electric car and i bailed out the unite oout coe workers, i contributed to my children's plan, so i pay for other people's kids to good to school as well. i also pay for sociology class where i am sneered at for my lack of social conscience and denounces the very essence of greed, race simple, and environmental sensitivity. i exercise regularly, watch my coe less stall, pay for my own health insurance and copays and deductibles and i also pay for other people's tonsillectomies and appendectomies. i pay taxes for medicare, medicaid, and programs for children and now i get to subsidize the health care of a million more nonelderly, noel non. i ponch 'ers americans. my small business lost its line of credit but i paid to bail out

citigroup, aig. woke executives get bonuses higher than my own network. i pay my mortgage and i pay banks for other people. i pay for groceries for my family and i also pay millionaire farmers to not grow stuff like rice. i buy dinner for more than 42 million food stamp recipients, although they now call it food shares. i pay for school lunks and breakfasts since other parents apparently cannot be expected to feed their own kids. i get red meat once a week, but i pay for urban hipsters to buy organic salmon at whole foods. i pay my electricity and gas bills and pay for other people's air conditioning, cell phones, digital television, new windows, sucks diesed represent and remodeling. afor my daughter's ballet lessons and pay for the university to develop

computerized dance programs. i won't be able to make the show since i will be working. i'm trying to save enough money in case lose my job but i pay for more than 70 different means tested poverty programs. because i work and am successful i am in the 0% of americans who now pay more than 71% of the total federal income tax burden. the tap 50% oferners pay 97.11% in other words, the bottom half of american awayers, theoretically 50% of the voters, pay less than #% of the federal income taxes i par for them. i pay property taxes. sales taxes, excise taxes, taxes on my phone, my cable, my water, state income taxes, social security, and medicare taxes. i also help pay the bills for the nearly half of the household who no longer pay federal public tax. i pay the bills for the 60 to 70% of households who receive more from the government than they pay in. i expect no gratitude for this.

it has been years since the tomorrow provider was a matter of societal respect and personal pride. if understand the transfer of wealth from makers to takers is seeing moral purer than the effort oses of the whose created it. i know my role. i am the piggy bank. so that's my own personal fictional rant. the situation you get in america and i wonder what pint do people say, all right, i know i'm supposed to do these things. i know i'm supposed to play by the rules, but somehow it doesn't seem like i am being rewarded. now, again, i don't want this to become just an issue about welfare or the poor. what happened with corporate cronyism, capitalism, bailouts, i think is fuel that -- has created this momentum because if you say yes to one group of moochers, how do you say no to the next. so, i'll be glad to open this up

for questions. and if i don't know the answer, i will say i don't know the answer. but i'm guessing that i have opinions on almost everything you would ask me about. and by the way, want to thank you for coming out here. i am a huge fan of independent book stores and local book stores and i want to say i really appreciate the fact that next chapter is hosting this. it's one of the measures of life. the internet cannot give you the experience of wandering in the stacks and looking at these books and being able to sit and page through the books and i have fond memories of this particular book store when i had one of my sons who learned to love books, just in that other room over there, that was when he was about this big and now he is 6'5" and is at georgetown university. so, this particular book store has special memories. who wants to be the first person to ask a question? or shy just throw out opinions

at random. yes, joe. >> so charlie, good to see you, thanks for writing another courageous book. you talk about a tipping point and we have an important election coming this november, yet we're such a resilient country, been through a lot. how bad do you think it could get if we get the election wrong in november? thank you. >> well, that's a $64 trillion question, isn't it? because there's two different models. there's the pendulum model of a society that swings back one way can and then you come back and the country moves on. the other model is the going over the niagra falls model. that you keep going in a certain direction, you build up so much debt, you have undermindded the culture and the economy the point where you can't come back. i'm worried about it. i quote paul ryan in this book, and he makes the point, look, this is unsustainable, you look

what is happening in greece and europe. and you're seeing what happens when the bill for the social welfare state comes due. and, yet, our per capita national debt is higher than greece. so, economically you'll get to a point where you have a debt that is so large in relationship to the national economy, that everything that we assume about the american economy and its resilience is no longer truism think what we do is we assume everything is going to be okay because we're america. well the world is changing. the other problem is, quite frankly, i think we have two parallel cultures in america, thank god. we have the older culture of self-reliance, independence, playing by the rules, i you want to buy a house, you buy a house you can afford. if you want to buy a car you pay for it. that culture, side-by-side with this miamiing entitlement culture. this notion if i want something,

it becomes my right, my right means you buy it for me for free. that culture is changing in this country and you can see it in the polls and the public dialogue we have. so there's one tipping point when it comes to the economy. there's the other tipping point when it comes to the culture, and i guess -- i tried to be optimistic but i think this is the real -- the year that, if we keep going in this direction, i'm not sure that we come back. if we come back, we'll be a very different country. >> charlie, what do you see as the role for governors -- [inaudible] -- middle aged and have worked and gone through the changes. i'm 25 years old, what is my future? what can supreme like me do who don't want to be part of the entitlement culture? >> well, you have taken a very

important first step by buying my book. [laughter] >> for which you should be congratulated. this is part of it. i wonder whether -- i'm not completely sure that young people understand that we are engaging right now in the greatest intergenerational transfer of wealth in human history. this is the mother of all moochers. you become that 40% of every dollar we spend is coming from you and your kids, and that's very easy. it is very easy to spend money from other people. so, i think the first thing is to understand how much you have at stake. a lot of news this room are going, we know these entitlement programs are in a lot of trouble, but as long as they last long enough -- come on, we all think that. right? as long as the money doesn't run out before we run out, it's going to be okay. you don't have that luxury. so i think part of it is that generationally you're going to

have to address the fact that, i'm sorry, we baby-boomers are squandering this acorn for you guys, and i think that -- i do sense there's kind of, in terms of pendulum, there's a pendulum swinging back. this is a moment where we -- what we need to do is give you guys the reality check. i think we have maybe -- to use another phrase -- bubble wrapped the generation, telling him that they're entitled to do anything they want you and you sow the people in "occupy" wall street. time for a check, you're going to have to achieve something. hopefully we won't have screwed things 'for you. i got to tell you something, as a baby-boomer -- i can say this as a boomer in terms of perspective. the way that we celebrate

ourselves and said how wonderful we were, when you think about what is our great legacy going to be? the greatest generation fought and won world war ii. we rebelled against them and snead them and then spent all of cower -- our kids' money. think about that. yes. >> in my first career as a delivery -- delivering newspapers, shoveling snow, cutting lawns, i got my first fulltime job at 14 years old. i've been working every since. that officially makes me a circumstance. >> i hope not. >> but i guess what i'm really concerned about is, being the least bit negative that our side is not going to be successful in

the upcoming elections because we have people that are going to spend $100 million on a choo-choo train to -- >> i heard this. >> $100 million on luring a company. where is all this money coming from? and school systems where 50% of the kids don't graduate, how can they not become moochers? they have to become moochers? i have always been an optimistic person, but you can't even make it out of high school, what is your future? and who is going to pay for those people? >> unfortunately when you have a huge portion of american culture that doesn't think that's a problem because they think there are programs for them. you listened to a lot of the

dialogue, for example in-under bab areas, and there's what i install this book the assumption of incompetence, the assumption that we can't expect you to get an education, or be able to manage your life so we are going to make you depen dent. the other thing i talk about is the learned helplessness where, what happens after 30, 40 years of a dependency culture? you undermine that whole sense that i need to take responsibility for my life and my children you see that. now, you mentioned some spending plans. you ask the question, and we need to keep asking the question, where does the money come from? is this program so valuable we are willing to borrow another $1 million from the chinese? is this so crucial that we have to go further into debt? because what we have is that total disconnect. and in the moocher culture, may

at some point intellectually know it's unsustainable, that margaret thatcher was right, that sooner or later you run out of other people's money but the think if it's free to me, it's free, and i'm going to get money from the stash as much and as quickly as i possibly can, and if we're rung out of it, that's somebody else's problem. the rich or the -- some other group we maced to marginalize or the future generations. that's what we're doing. we're saying, i will give you free stuff. don't worry about it. it's not your responsibility. we're going to tax somebody else. we're going to penalize somebody else. or, what the heck, we're just going to borrow the money. i think a lot of americans understand wire going to go bust but they figure that's not my problem as long as i get my stuff. >> yes. >> you mentioned georgetown, and i was just wondering if you're concerned at all about your son

falling under the influence in some fashion or another or the sex-starved girls in law school? >> i understand that apparently at georgetown university they haven't $3,000 worth of sex a year. >> okay. i went to dwm, so -- but the story he is referring to is actually a classic story. every once in a while i look in the newspaper and say, i wish i would have been able to get this in the book. this this story of this georgetown law student who says that we have to have sex. we have to have sex a lot, and you need to pay for free contraception. otherwise we'll go broke, but what -- on the larger point, she really is redefining what rights are, and i have a little chart in the book. this whole process. i want something, therefore it becomes my need, therefore i need to transform it into a

right, and if it's a right, therefore then it is an obligation of other people to give it to me for free. i'm not questioning her right to have sex. that's her deal. i'm not questioning her right to have contraception. but she is now insisting if i want it and it's my right, it should be free. this is the new ideology, and you can apply that to one area of life after another. and if you get -- we get to pint where half of americans think, you know what? i want this, i want this, and you're depriving me of a right if somebody else doesn't pay for it? well, then again, we have completely redefined rights, responsibilities, and obligations in this culture, and i definitely am going to talk to him about that over the weekend because he is about to head off on spring break. >> charlie, thank you for being a voice for so many of us. there are many, many days i feel -- this conflict --

carrying on with what you're talking about, please comment on the main stream media. the story about the co-ed at georgetown, four years ago if you told that, you would heave been laughed out of the room or stoned out of the room, but the main stream media treats those as profound intellects and thinks we need to study very carefully. how did all the main stream media get to be such a joke? >> that may be my next book. i can only cover certain things at a time. i am fascinate bid the transformation of the media. the good news is that we live in an age of the proliferation of media. social media, alternative media. we're able to get out ideas. you were saying you feel insignificant but you shouldn't. i think there's still more of us. i really do.

but we now have a way of getting a voice out that we didn't in the past. used to be that the only way that if you were a conservative, you would be able to see another conservative idea, you would subscribe to one or two weekly magazines or a magazine that comes out every other week. now there are so many other ways of getting this out so when you have somebody saying, hey, i deserve free stuff, the main stream media may see, yes, this is an example our we need to be a more compassionate society are millions of americans who say, you're not necessarily entitled, hopefully we can make it clear you're not a lone and a lot of people had the same reaction you did. think about how profound the intellectual shift is, when you have member this well-educated and she was invited to speak at a congressional mittee, --

committee, and the entire assumption was that my behavior imposes an obligation on the federal government to give me something for free so that i can continue to have unlimited consequence-free sex and she said it with a completely straight face and how remarkable if you have the -- our decisionmakers are masters in washington are saying what a wonderful role model for children. well, all right, you know. this is a new deal. and -- but you can replace that with free lunches, free converter boxes for digital televisions, free cars, whatever. this whole idea that i have a right to freebies. think about how many freebies out there. we live in the era of freebies. cash for clunkers. wireless welfare programs. explosion of food stamps. you go off and you make awful business decisions and you run to them the geithner and ben

bernanke and get them to give you the keys to the kingdom. we're living in a rather historic moment and she happens to be the face this week. [inaudible question] >> i think we all have a little john galt in us. i'm not a complete randy and i don't want to be confused with that. i pick and choose the parts -- i do think her description -- and i'm going to get to your question -- john galt was a cheesehead. he was from wisconsin. the pivotal scene in the book is when a factory in wisconsin decides that what they're going to do is they're going to change the way they get paid. they're going to pay everybody based on need, not on the basis of their productivity. so what happens, of course, is that if you whatnot to get more

money you become the neediest person. you work the least and you develop all kinds of ways in which you are a victim, all sorts of ways in which you are needier than anybody else and the people that work the hardest realize, i'm working for the benefit of other people. john galt, being the cheesehead he was, stands up and goes, i'm out of here. i'm done. i quit. and he said, i'm just not going to participate in this system. the problem is, when you become a country in which people do think -- the makers are working for the ben of the takers, and you feel like the piggy bank, you're going to have people saying, why should i continue to do that? why should i coin to work -- continue to work for the benefit of a system which not reward me but demonizes me and confiscates

money from me. so there's a little john galt in all of us, so when we cape raising the marginal rate, politicians find out that revenue does not rise and people do not work harder to give mow to the government and they find all kinds of ways to do that but at it an interesting question. [inaudible question] [inaudible question] >> what can i do to make a difference on than just working hard? people go out there and get a blog started. you have a wonderful opportunity to make a difference. how do i go out there or i'm 30 years scold my friends laugh at me for the fact i'm here right now. how do i get people to say -- [inaudible] >> first you need to get new

friends. [laughter] >> i'm not just talking -- >> i'm sorry. this goes back to this new media. every single person out there can have a voice. you don't have to have a corporate backing to have facebook or to be on twitter or to do these things, and i think that what you were expecting you feel very countercultural and isolated. i'm not sure you are. one of the things -- one of the reasons why i like writing a book like this, i want to clarify what is going on, what the issues are, and -- because once you sort of lay out that this is what is happening to the country, and these are the ideas behind it, i think it becomes easier to realize that, you know what? we're not the problem. we're not the freaks in america. it's the people who believe that there is this endless bottomless trough of other people's money.

so don't despair on that. but continue to speak out. continue to -- well -- blk. [inaudible question] , i'm not going to understand the me. i'm just going to say it's wonderful we can help out. i'm not going to think about the full spectrum. >> i wish i had a really easy answer for you on this one. i'm going to give a talk next month on the cost of economic ill literacy. one of the experiences i have had being on talk radio, people are very smart. i think they have a great deal of common sense. but when it comes to economics and financial literacy, there's a real deficit there. in part because we haven't taught anyone this. we have a -- re focus -- i wrote a book called dumbing down our kids. why kid can't read, write, or do math and there's been studies about historic incidents and

people who can't find england on map, but frankly pale in comparison to what people don't understand or don't know about basic finance. the entire credit card industry is based on people being really bad at math, not to mention the politics have realized that voters are bad at math, what a great opportunity for us to promise them all kind of things that they won't even ask how we intend to pay for. so, we rale against the darkness. >> the reason that the government has a spending problem is because they have incentive to spend. because this takes -- food stamps as an example. 42 million people, you just bought 42 million votes. or in the case of west virginia, everything is named after bob byrd. built monuments to himself and the west virginians don't get upset because that money could

come from wisconsin, florida, texas, wherever. how do you, like, legalize bribery, buying votes? they have inventive. how do you remove that incentive? >> you're absolutely right. you take the money out of their hands. that's part of the problem and that's why you make it as difficult as possible. you're absolutely right. and i quote in the book -- i admire thomas edsell, a liberal progressive writer, and he essentially makes the exact same case we're making from the other side. he wrote a piece for "the atlantic" about the obama coalition and said we can create a permanent electoral majority we expanding the benefit programs and get as many people -- by expanding the number of government employee and the number of benefit programs, the number of people

who get a check from the government, you can get to a point where you get 55-60% of the electioner toat becomes dependent on the government. under obama care you have that dep dense si into the middle clamps i don't have a problem with feeding the hungry. with being compassionate. i got called a squish by something in massachusetts. i don't. but once you begin expanding it to -- as widely as we have, you have to ask whether or not this dependency is the goal or the -- that they're intending to do that. and you're right, the easiest thing in american poll -- politics is to say, i got something free for you. the hardest thing is to go in and say -- to be the guy that says, can't afford that. you can't have that. you're going to have to pay for that yourself. you know uncle guido said he was

going to take you guys on the caribbean and promised you this stuff. i have to tell you his check just bounced. and and that guy is considered mean. yes? >> in your book you talk about health care that insurance companies will provide birth control -- i wasn't able to get to birth control. what is about to happen with healthcare is a dramatic expansion of this looking at -- looking to the government to pay for it. there's also 0 couple of -- i think i have a section in the book specifically talks about what this is going to mean for the middle class. the middle class is in this crunch right now where the more money you make, you can get to

the point where you get to keep less money the more you make, that you are basically screwed the harder you work. when it comes to the way the health care law is structured, temperature incentives built in where the more money you make the less subsidy you get for your healthcare premium, and at a certain point you just drop off the cliff, and i don't think many people realize this. there is a point where if you make literally one more dollar you will lose something like $17,000, maybe it's more like eight or nine thousand dollar. but suddenly -- you're going to be having middle class families sitting down -- seriously, the conversation does take place -- and go, do we want to have that second job? other do we really want to take that promotion? should we take over time? because the more money we make, the less we get, and in fact we may lose money. we're getting very close to

that. that wasn't the question you about the sense of dependency. thomas edsell would say the way you get the permanent majority, get as maple people looking at politicians to make decisions about their lives and this healthcare reform is going to exponentially increase the number -- it's going to be extremely hard to unravel that. anyone who says that you're going to be able to repeal that four or five years down the road doesn't understand the dynamic of american politics. we in wisconsin have a sense of this, that the most dangerous place in the world to be is between a public employee and the public trough. we found that out. you get between people and that healthcare dollar and you know what that's going to be like. [inaudible question]

>> he asked me about my opinion about the middle east situation. you really want to know? i mean, i could give you an answer but if you think i'm an expert on that, i'm not. so, -- yes. my opinion. it is totally screwed up, which has been for my entire lifetime. i'm sorry. and will be for the rest of my lifetime. >> sorry about the loss of your family member. >> thank you. >> got to be days when you wake up and wonder, how can i do this for three and a half hours? do we have so much material out there that it's never going to come to an end? >> well, it is -- you know, for the last three years there has been no shortage of material to talk about on any given day.

on the other hand, i would be not telling you the truth if i didn't say that it would really be great to have one of those jobs where you can get up and go i'm just going to slowly work into the day. i'm going to read the paper and have coffee until 10:00. if i have to talk about the federal budget deficit one more day i'm just going to swallow my head. but i got to go to work every day. i got to do it. so no point in complaining about it. it pays the bills. i hope. so i hope it does. one of the things, though, is that i really like also being able to sit down and write a book, because it's a very different thing doing radio show. doing radio show, it's very spontaneous, it's very consumable. when you write a book you have a really think through issues at a completely different level, and i enjoy doing it. it's difficult. it's time-consuming.

any of you that are authors in the room -- i know there's at least one other author -- knows it's like a chronic disease every day. just imagine every day you have a term paper to do and there's a real sense of satisfaction. so people say why do you write books when you're on the radio? well, the books in some ways keep me sane because it makes me think it through, and then have some perspective on things. it's like a chronic disease. it goes on forever and ever and ever. i thought you would understand that. >> i read something somewhere that said that liberals profess to be more intelligent. if they're so smart how come they're not getting -- [inaudible] >> they will tell you that all the time. they're also more tolerant and

compassionate, except when they're telling you what a red neck bigot you are. there's an interesting difference. i'm really always fascinated by the defense between intelligence and good judgment. i've known some really intelligent, very sophisticated people who have the worst judgment i have ever met. and have you read david mammoth's book? he comes the closest to describing what goes on. it's basically almost tribal. you belong to this cultural club, and i you're part of this club you share a certain set of values and you're the good people, and the people who aren't in the club, if you dare to say maybe you're wrong about that, maybe that's not the right thing, then you're cast out and you don't have that secret knowledge. so it's almost like, yes, they're intelligent people but

there are certain beliefs you have to have and if you start saying the wrong thing, you become a bad person. as a former liberal, i described myself as a recovering liberal, and my dad was president of the civil liberties union in wisconsin, my first political campaign was for eugene mccarthy. i was actually once the chairman of the north shore young democrats. okay? and when i was growing up, liberals were the people who were the good people, the sophisticated people. conservatives were mean, greedy. you were prejudiced. and so my whole upbringing was part of this liberal culture and i was very comfortable in it until i began saying, you know, maybe these government programs don't really help people. maybe that what we're seeing here with some of these urban welfare programs, not only they're not helping people but they're destroying families and communities. they're destroying the fabric of

the culture. maybe these ideas are having unintended consequences. and then what happens is people go, what happened to you? how did you become so mean? how did you become -- or as my many former liberal friends will say, when did you sell out? so, what, we don't have the ability to change our minds to ask these questions? that's going more directly to your question. there's a real difference between people who evaluate a program based on the -- whether it works, is effective or how it makes you feel. a lot of liberals, i believe, support these programs because it shows how compassionate and caring they are. they're the good people and they care about children and the downtrodden. when you ask them, is it actually improving the conditions of the children and the drown trodden, they say, no. what's important is we care. so i became a recovering liberal by asking questions like that, and then at some point, not

particularly caring whether liberals like me or not. >> the number of people in the whole -- growing moocher numbers. isn't it kind of ironic that the people who are truly supporting and paying for these are going to be the ones that aren't going to be the givers but will be -- does that make sense? where the people who are supposedly the ones that are giving out all this free stuff, the liberals, they support all these programs, but in fact that it's going to be more people taking even from the programs -- >> i don't think many of them have grasped that. also, the interesting thing about this is there have been a number of studies indicating that conservatives and church-goers, for example, are much more generous when it comes to giving money.

of much more charitable -- they're own money. exactly. so whether you define -- if you define as a progressive, i show that i am progressive and that i care by taking your money from you. you give more money to him as opposed to that. so, yeah, there is that problem. but of course, once again, if you see things from on emotional point of view or a litmus test whether or not you're a good person, you're not running those numbers. you're not thinking about that. because to try to have a conversation about -- okay, look at the deficit. look at the debt. we're expanding the dependency, and what you'll get is that's why we need to raise taxes higher. that's why it's not enough that the 10% are paying whatever the percentage they're paying, they need to pay more. and politicians will always figure out -- unfortunately there's nothing new about this. ancient rome, thomas jefferson

warn evidence about that. people realize they can use the government as an instrument of plunder, it is very difficult to dial that back. yet. >> obama keeps saying tax the rich and warren buffet saying i'm not paying enough taxes, and then you have the hollywood actors out there making a gazillion dollars, and why aren't they giving away their money first? chris christie said something along the order of, warren buffet is concerned about that he should write out the damn check. it would be -- >> when obama says something, okay, go save your money. >> here's the interesting that about warren buffet and the hollywood elite they're the rich. you know who gets hammered by the increased taxes? the not yet rich.

the people who are working and struggling to put their kids through school and want to have the american dream they're not there yet. so it's easy to sit on top of the mountaintop and say we have a gazillion dollars and we have lawyers that are going to make sure that we pay the absolute minimum amount of tax, and then lecture the rest of us on how greedy we are for wanting to keep our money. the problem with warren buffet is not that he doesn't get paid enough. it's that he feels that he can now become a spokesman for government confiscating and taking money out of the private economy. i'm more concerned about the not yet rich than i am about the rich. yes. >> it was interesting when you were talking about being a recovering liberal because i'm 20 years old, college student, and my family, most of them are pretty liberal. my mom is -- my mom is one of

the foremost figures in the recall walker movement there, and i've actually -- ironically enough since going to college, i learned to have different viewpoints and open up my mind and now i'm a pretty solid conservative now. and my family members -- >> did your mom want you to have a dna test? >> she hasn't said anything yes. i'm quite surprised. but the -- since my other family members are liberal, my uncle and aunt live in chicago. so, when you shift to the right, and assuming since you said your dad was like with the civil liberties union, were they accepting? >> well, my dad actually was making the same transition almost coincidentally when i was. so, we didn't have a conflict there. and maybe it was a little easier to do that. what i did find was the number

of friends i lost. the number of people who thought that was just a wonderful, honest, intelligent person when i was a liberal, and suddenly back corrupt, and hypocritical and stupid and a sellout when i began to question whether or not these things worked, and part of it is, obviously you're willing to put up with a certain amount of that, and what you should say is, disagree with my ideas without attacking me as a person. and i think this is beyond the scope of my book but i think that one of the things as a recovering lib rail notice -- liberal i noticed that people on the other side of the political spectrum are wrong. they have an incorrect analysis of economics and a disdefinition of fairness and opportunities than i have. different attitude toward the entitlement culture. so we disagree. they think that conservatives are evil.