i have been to believe, with alan, that there is evidence pretty weak on that point. i think a general the literature is kind of a mess on this question. you know, it could be anywhere from where saez thinks it is, on the low income into high estimates around to. whoever it's right, makes a huge difference in how accurate numbers are. they don't claim tax avoidance threatens this very plausible. but i can agree the legitimate option is to dismiss the research outright. the research is highly ambiguous. allen's evidence is really persuasive, and that changes in the tax code can have short term -- short-term impacts on the types of income that shows

up on tax return. the big question is whether it would affect the long-run increase we see or whether it affects the flat inequality we saw before the late 1970s. and i think that's a tougher case to make. so a lot of people switch their incomes -- a lot of businesses switched from reporting in come as corporate income and corporate tax returns as s corporation in terms which you think allen has done more than anybody points out. and that clearly shows up in the data after 1980 as increases in business income received. but if that change hadn't happened, as saez pointed out himself, folks would've received that in the form of capital gains. they eventually would realize their gains, which that income is then reported on corporate tax returns for years. eventually shareholders realize

and then because these are sort of gains accumulated over time, in the background once they are realized and they show up on tax returns, it's going to show up as an even bigger confrontation as is they actually have to report their corporation income. so again, the fact dcd spikes at a particular point, it really supports allen's case that is less clear to me that indicates the big increases we've seen an inequality overtime. so i think i'll just stop there and this is an area where i wish kind of the conventional view, which is there is nothing wrong with the piketty and saez estimates. with a little more gray and if people were more skeptical for other reasons allen has given in the past.

but i think provisionally at least, the best guess as to what has happened to inequality overtime is that it has increased quite a bit at the top end that conclusion may be overturned at some point. but i think for now, the evidence against it is not strong enough to ditch it entirely. so i'll stop there. [applause] >> okay, we are going to go to q&a now. a couple of rules. they want us to the rules. please read to be called on. wait for the microphone so everyone in the room, as well as people watching online at c-span can hear the question and announce your name and affiliation. we don't need to know if you're a capricorn and like long walks on the beach, but who you are and who you are with. and of course people on the panel went to take the opportunity and respond to questions to also respond to

each other in what has been said, that is welcome, too. although we want to make sure they get as many questions as possible. i'm going to abuse my position to as the first question. i want to direct this to brian and allen. joe were making the point about pretax income, post-tax income. does it change your analysis commuter at the libertarian cato institute. we want to go back with much less government, no income tax. does that change anything you all have to say? >> no. i mean, to tell you the truth, i think cato needs to keep going further. >> wouldn't it increase equality if we went to that state of world? >> would have to bet on it. we don't have that on income equality in the united states. that means we don't have the

data. so i don't know the answer to that question. >> the pretext -- pretax data is suggesting the data would be different. >> well, i think some people on your side would say in a quality is not a problem because we have so much redistribution, but you are to mr. boucher institution that does the liquor distribution. >> it does end count for the piketty and saez numbers. not just the means test. my annuity check for the account about because of social security doesn't count. you can distribute money through unemployment benefits. they don't count it. that is a much more relevant remark for the congressional budget office, which tries to

meld some data that includes those transfer payments and all that sort of stuff. but even with transfer payments, and behavioral issues are key. the difficulty with transfer payments as they transfer money from people who are new to people who didn't earn it and not discourages the person paying taxes and person getting the transfer payment. so you have a disincentive, particularly at the margin, whereas if you you work too hard or take another job, you're going to lose that know me or unemployment check, but also food stamps, medicaid and other staff so you don't do it. we still have poverty traps, but the fundamental point about piketty-saez data is since they don't account for taxation, they are fundamentally irrelevant to questions of what we should do the taxes in transfer payments. they are just irrelevant. >> before we go to the audience,

scott, you talked about the difference between what might be real changes in income versus just an artifact. and he said there might actually be a reduction in inequality because the rich are earning less. is that a good name? does that help the poor to have the rich are in last? >> so this is where you end up not making friends on the left because i've argued in several places that there's not actually very strong evidence that inequality -- that rising inequality increase we've seen at the top since 1980 has actually hurt anybody. so i don't think a reduction in inequality for its own sake makes much sense. if it could be shown that it actually did help people in the middle and bottom, then i think people will have different views where they stand. but it's pretty remarkable the extent to which the date

precedes because it's obvious producing inequality helps focus elsewhere. >> okay. let's go to questions that they are in the middle. we actually know his name already, but you can see where you work, scott. >> scott hodge at the tax foundation. he seems to me we are also overlooking a lot of demographic trends driving perceptions of inequality. in addition to changes in business income, support on tax returns, there's been other demographic changes that i think are driving some appearances of inequality. one is age. we have now the pick of the baby boomers going to the python by 70 million people nearing retirement. their peak in a earning potential. you have the right to do what earning couples are two earners. and then education as we all know, the returns of higher

education are greater than they ever have been. those are among some of the biggest changes that we are seeing in america today. and yet none of that has been accounted for in any of this data. can you speak to that at any point and how that might affect if we were to account for some of the in these measures of inequality? >> in some ways the question of inequality trends at the very top and the question of inequality within the 99%, if you will, are very different kettle stew fish. within the 99% come it is certainly true that increasing if you have more school and that there's more of a payoff to that and that is driving a lot of inequality within the 99%,

similarly things like family structure changes over time have become a lot more important. when you look at changes at the very top, insofar as we can tell, most of the research shows is not so much these demographic changes or changes in education, but more kind of about global -- global markets. so there is a bigger finance sector in investing your money well is increasingly important for the people who manage funds for large customers do a lot better than they used to. for the importance of having the best person is your ceo in your industry, that has risen quite a bit over time as global markets have increased. so from what i have read, people tend to look at these two phenomena has been pretty different. now that said, i did take a look -- i have another side that

i didn't present, which actually shows you can use survey data to look at the share of income received by the top 1% rather than the irs data that piketty and saez used. use a remarkable trend since the mid-1980s, which is as far back as you can go. i did that again, mopping off anyone who is over 60 years old i think in the survey data. and it wasn't really all that different than if i included them. you might argue the retirement is sort of this coming week and we will see it until 10 years from now. >> brian or allen. >> when we talk about rich and poor, we often talk about same people at different stages of life. as telling scott went over to ucla, to an animal hospital so i didn't have to pay rent. but i was acquiring human capital and the human capital

education would pay off over time and it has. and when you look at the composition of income groups at any moment in time, the top income group has so these two workers on average, sometimes more like two and a half, the top 10%, for example, where is the bottom 20% is less than a half orc or per household and that is usually part-time. there's very few full-time workers. i'm not saying they're lazy. i've seen many a retired to the many varied job, old, unemployed i can put you down for a while. and many of them may be students living at an animal hospital. i don't know. but it's certainly true that working people make more than people who don't work in terms of labor in and in two earner families make more than zero and their families. if that were the case, we would have much incentive to work. >> and they just make one point.

and that is what you describe would be hard for. how does education lifecycle feed into a quality, that's tough. it's too easy just to count pretax income. why don't we do what we can? why don't we take the piketty and saez subtexts and applied eti to it. that's something we can do. when the results you get a top line of the 20 century and a community basis for discussion. >> next question. right there. >> i'm an independent scholar. my teacher told me other things. i have two conclusions i draw images of the first conclusion for which wallace said. it seems to me the rich cannot be taxed. they cannot be taxed much because they will transfer their money around. maybe this whole kind of debate, not only in here, but in the

greater world is somewhat academic. i don't know. the second point is i'm glad that mr. reynolds brought up the gini index, gini coefficient. i think it's the best overall way of measuring inequality in a society. and the united states has the highest gini index and it has increased over the last 20 years, especially if you look at post come along with the first speakers, post-taxation gini indices. in the kinds of societies that hired him these are not the kinds of societies and most of us hate and want to live in. comments? >> is the u.s. turning into an oligarchy? >> i like both of those. and i both both of those? >> we've tried it. with that tax rates as high as 91% during the eisenhower years. the median tax braddon the percent of gdp.

and then cut rates across the board by 22% of the taken the top rate from 91 >> 70 and then 2214 in individual income tax broadband about 8.1% of gdp and eventually got around to taking the top rate down to 20 ursinus so brought in over 80% of gdp. on the face of it, yeah, high tax rates to work and that is why why i must every country has abandoned them. india cut the top rate from 60 back-to-back 30, 55 to 27.5. russia from 60 to 13. those are the brick countries and talking about and they all did pretty well after they did that, just as has happened many times in history. the international genius, be careful with those because they count income differently. what we know from the oecd publication, which i don't have the my fingertips, is the u.s. has the most progressive income

and payroll tax system in the oecd. the u.s. is quite a progressive tax system partly because of the refundable income tax credit. but those do not send it. period they won't appear in the data because they are not after-tax data. most other countries distribute welfare payments in cash. the u.s. has always been habituated to doing things like food stamps and medicaid and special benefits of that sort, energy subsidies and stuff like that doesn't show up in the data. so i don't think the international comparisons that exist are valid. that's a good area to explore, to do some better international comparisons that design and cad coming to after-tax and count income transfer payments. >> yeah, which is going to add that the oligarchy problem is more severe upon high taxes on

the rich because on two counts, the rich made their money privately. number two, they don't allocate resources for private purposes. they allocate to protect themselves. so the oligarchy is more severe. >> i mean, i guess two points. it's not dangerous, but it's misleading i think to worry too much about comparing countries gini indices. there maybe comparability issues, but fundamentally, the u.s. and india don't have the similar gini indices, but the poorest households in the u.s. are essentially richer than the richest households in india. that's actually true. we love off of that is actually crunched the numbers. so inequality is not the only thing that matters. the other point i want to make

is your absolute right to genies have increased over time at which points out other evidence that is not kind is subject to policies interpretation problems interpretation problems interpretation problems attic as the piketty and saez are. a rising inequality is something that's been going attic as the piketty and saez are. a rising inequality is something that's been going on in the u.s. we can come back to where his interesting. >> can i give him or piece of that. it would be quick. if we use the gini coefficient after tax, real income is a census bureau definition 14, it has been increased at all. looks like it increase in 93 because they started counting income differently and captured more high income. but basically 0.4 and 1994 and 0.4 in 2060.392 in 2008, 2009.

and as i mentioned, the ceo, which actually uses the tax base data for the top 1% commandeer gini is no higher than it was in the late 80s. of course that wasn't every session. rsa go up in the future by their measure. >> gentlemen out there in the green shirt. >> al milliken, a immediate. and response to the statement, we don't have data in the u.s. what other nations are doing a better job at providing data and what role does the u.s. census bureau play in gathering this data? >> ingathering inequality data? >> so the trick is to capture what's going on at the very top. so even within the top 1%, where the real action is is a high iraqi go. so really the top -- half of the top 1%.

within that it's even more dramatic if you look at the top 1% of the top 1%. the problem is to actually capture folks in the household survey at the census bureau may conduct has to be a huge survey because, you know, the top 1% of the top 1% is a small group. and that a site for the most part if you want to look at the very top, you're stuck with the irs data. it can survey of consumer finances come a small survey federal reserve board does does make a special effort to interview a lot of people at the very top and a that they actually getting tax return information for the irs. there are things you can do. i think it would be tough for the census bureau, which is the u.s. collects income a thing to do more about income. >> to many countries figure out ways of getting this data? >> i mean, a lot of countries for the state is much bigger

than in the u.s. and they do things that wouldn't fly in the u.s. so scandinavian countries have incredibly detailed data on everybody going back decades and they can do ridiculous things with their income data. i think there's privacy concerns and things like that in the u.s. that prevent that sort of thing. >> in norway, they put the amount of tax you pay online, which mitt romney might have some issues with. over there. >> edward roder, sunshine press. conservatives are fond of saying that if you tax them income that you will get less of it and if you cut taxes coming a bit more of it. why then is it good policy to tax work that such a higher rate than we tax rich people for being idle?

>> anybody? >> and here i am working, silly me. it's a practical issue. if you ask me, would it be fair to tax capital gains at this 35%? i don't know. maybe would be fair. i wouldn't realize any capital gains. nobody has to realize capital gains. the idea that even this notion -- never mind. the point has nobody has to hold dividend paying tax. you don't have to hold -- he can put the assassin and i agree we don't pay taxes on it. you don't have to sell. an unrealized gain is worth just as much as a relay sceme. so elasticity issues are practical importance.

there are some things you can't tax. which you can tax heavily and get away with is liquor and tobacco. i wonder what people tax liquor and tobacco. >> let me add that it's something of a myth that over the decades capital gains taxes have been lowered in income tax rates. you know, the capital gains rate in the 1970s was over 100% because inflation was running 10% per year. statutory 35%. the capital gains and high inflation which we've seen in the 20th century are nosebleed and it's the issuer. the burden. >> i have some data on this. when the top tax rate briefly 30%, before 1977, capital gains or 1.5% of gdp, very small. we cut to 20% from 87 to 96 summer 2.5% of gdp.

we cut to 20% and windows 15%, it was 5% of gdp. so we are now taxing twice as many genes at a lower rate. and that shows that because the rate is slower and more games are showing a they show up as increased income, when in fact you can see the income because somebody decides to sell some. if they had sold the company would be at. all this got his assets worth a lot of money. >> let's go up to steve. >> my name is steve. i have no affiliation. this is a fairly broad question, but what i thought originally were going to talk about is what do you mean by fairness when it comes to income inequality?

because to me, looking at in common equality, almost presumes that the income pie -- we have a fixed income pie and therefore the rich are getting income at the expense of the poor. and i would say for the most part that is not true. therefore, i don't really understand how the fact that a rich person makes billions of dollars is unfair to the poor person if there's an expanding tide and it has nothing to do with how much the rich person make some terms of the fairness of how much the poor person pays in taxes. >> all right. a nice broad philosophical question. when the bride james makes a lot of money, who loses?

>> you're absolutely right. a lot of literature about piketty and saez starts out by saying the top 1% to 20% of the time. actually they given how to% of their own income and that's the way naturally view it. i talk about some of these cases where there's really been high income, hedge fund managers. in some of those are pretty astronomical. they can throw your average numbers kukui and that is why i don't favor doing it that way. i use media numbers. the only person hurt by a hedge fund manager getting richer as their clients and they're not exactly poor people. you can be hedge fund client unless it's at least a million bucks to share and in case of the stock options were talking about, which proliferated not just the top 1%, but people like my daughter who is that aol at the time. so the stock options turns out to do well, the company does

well. and the person gets to cash out and becomes a microsoft millionaire were used to call them. who does that hurt? it hurts stockholders. since when do we start worrying about stockholders? they are not necessarily a poor bench either. and the whole concept, the zero-sum concept of begins at the top of the founders of apple or google or facebook make a lot of money, g that must have come from somebody. well sure, comes from the users of services, which i rather like. without google, i would be a much dumber per se and. >> we are in the shadow of the national gallery cato. me talk about andrew mellon's view. look, you want the rich to pick up the tab four a government. the rich can pay everything. keep taxes on the rich though when the government small. then the ritual manifested attacks and combat pay the

amount and be able to fund the government in its entirety. the problem is government gets big, taxes go up in the rich either incoming annika taxes it's not enough in the tax classes. you want to solve an equality come the government to pick up the entire tab? you find a way do so. >> right there. >> cheesed rosendahl, retired consultant -- washington consultant. i had two side notes. one on the gini index seems that if you don't normalize her age distribution come you automatically get a distortion. the other thing is i'm capital gains tax, it was my understanding that the reason it was done, has a lower rate is because it's derived from corporations profits in the 30 pentax ones.

so getting to the original question and maybe i don't quite understand this chart correctly, but dr. reynolds big blue chart here shows a decline of some sort and he's made a very strong point that this is pretax and not after disputes and. ..

>> corporate welfare and the electric system.

-- the cbo has said that the tax system is effectively progress in. there is a quote from 2009. the overall federal tax system is progressive. the effective rates generally rise with income. they have shown in four or five different reports over 10 years with the top 5% and the top 1%, with the effective average total federal rate is about 28% on over 250,000. the income under 250,000 is taxed at about 15 to 20%. the state and local is actually regressive, according to the

charts. since the federal is the bulk of it, the progress is somewhat 34% total on income over 250. about 25 to 28 with income under that. so the president and the democratic party and the media implying that there is not shared sacrifice is 100% erroneous. there is no equivocation on that whatsoever. also, it should be noted for the sake of completeness that there are indirect costs, which are the regulations, tax system externalities and excessive leadership costs. those are about 22% universal. and those are being progressively incurred as well. if you take 26 for that, added to the 34, you get into a 60% effective government related costs on that income over 250.

if you want to raise the top statutory rate by 4.6%, the cbo says that you get a 3.3% effective increase. you're talking about 63%. that is the democratic party's position. they give people -- they get them to believe this, half the people in the country believe that the tax system is somehow regressive. the top 400 have more assets in the bottom half of the country. well, each year we spend $5.6 trillion according to the dea. there is about 2.8 trillion of indirect cost by government. let's say 8 trillion of government related costs least year that is 54%, which is across the government testament

revised. and if you take 25% of that $8 trillion, which is waste, which i certainly believe that there is, that is to trillion dollars per year of waste, which is more in one year than the bottom 50% have in total accumulated assets. so for bernie sanders to be saying -- >> what is the question. >> i wanted to put that out there come you guys can comment on it. >> cannot get any responses? >> i'm going to say that i came to praise. they wrote a great people paper in 2006. the effect of income tax rate, the data was 30% in 1960 and 30% in 2005.

>> we have time for one last question right here. >> adam hall from the university of southern california. he said twice today that the real income of the rich has been flat for the 20th century. so are you saying that all of the growth and income in the united states over 100 years went to the non-rich? >> all i am saying is that we -- we have talked about the database and nine years of life. it is time to marry that with eti -- i have to admit that i do not know the answer is but i do know that it's going to be a lot flatter than this, you know, u-shaped thing. >> let me ask the final question for everybody. the one area i assume there would be universal agreement, as

it would be good to have policies that improve the living standards of the poor. if you identify 30 seconds of policy, what would everyone propose here? >> let's come down the table here. >> shrink the government and cut taxes and which will be able to pay for everything. and, you know, they will have no tax burden whatsoever. >> i'm surprised and speechless on that topic. there are many regulations such as minimum wage laws. welfare for the poor, that has been proven. it would put a requirement on it. i think that the best thing to help the poor would be to reduce the dependency, and we are not moving in that direction. we are saying, provided we don't work too hard or try to order go to school too long, we will pay for your food and your medical

care and give you a your chest and so on and so on. that just keeps you down at the bottom forever. it is all about incentives. high tech -- tax rates are bad expensive. >> i'm not very lucky, but i think i would do three things. i would try to change the aspirations of poor kids and their families. through a number of different -- we should try something to we get it right. one thing that is interesting to think about is that if you provided savings accounts to kids when they were born, potentially those that are internationally funded so that poor kids could know that they can get into a school and they can actually afford to years of it. through this savings account it

could shift them to aspire to do other things. also if we could reduce unplanned pregnancy, i think that is becoming a big problem among people who don't have a college degree out of wedlock birth, i think now, half of all births -- if i'm remembering right, and another thing i would do would be a grand bargain between the left and the right answer a lot more money at education in return for more accountability and more flexibility. >> with that, let me make a final announcement. lunch will be on the second level in the george yager conference center. it is up the spiral staircase on the way to the auditorium. there are restrooms on the second floor on your way to launch. look for the yellow wall. i assume it will be obvious once you get to the second second floor. i worked there and i should know that, but please join me in thanking our speakers.

[inaudible conversations] >> new jersey governor chris christie will be the keynote speaker at the republican national convention later this month in tampa, florida. it is a rule that has been used by others, including barack obama, to gain national exposure in advance of a presidential bid. any campaign was announced that mitt romney will be introduced at the convention by senator marco rubio. we will have live gavel to gavel coverage for the republican national convention, august 204 through 30th. in a few moments, former republican presidential candidate rick santorum takes to the young america's foundation annual student conference. in a little more than an hour, a discussion of activism and the

future of journalism. and after that, the cato institute forum on taxes and income inequality. all week at 6:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2, we are looking back at recent speakers from the national press club. we continue on wednesday with u.s. airways ceo doug parker on the airline business and his efforts to merge his company with american airlines. on thursday, jim can tour on his 25 years covering the weather. and jim burns talks about his documentary on prohibition on friday. we will also be airing a q&a segment on the military this week at 7:00 p.m. eastern. tomorrow, the former commander of the uss cole discusses front burner where he recounts the tap on his ship in yemen.

>> i was in a training program after i got out of "the wall street journal." >> this sunday on "q&a", the "washington post" column columnist talks about his various jobs as a journalist. his views on extravagant u.s. spending overseas, and his criticism of the defense department. >> it is about 40 people. he spent $4 million on an elementary school, that somebody would raise some questions. >> more will come on sunday night on c-span's "q&a." >> former senator and republican presidential candidate santorum says the obama administration is attacking religious liberty and american heritage. he spoke for a little more than an hour about three weeks ago at

the young america's foundation student conference. >> could we have your attention please, glad it started with the program. introducing our speakers, i would like to introduce jolie stuart-davis who is an activist and graduate from central washington university. while she was at her college, she was very active at her school. getting involved in organizing the 9/11 never forget project. she also launched eight chapter on campus. she will be starting a penn state law school in the pulpit. please welcome trend here. she'll be starting a penn state in the fall. please welcome trend too. thank you, i am also a an intern scholar for the summer and i've been so lucky that i have this

great opportunity. i'm very thankful for the foundation for giving me this opportunity. young america's foundation is committed to ensuring that an increasing number of young americans get to know the value of individual freedoms and a strong national defense and traditional values. the foundation introduces thousands of young americans to these principles. we publish our mission by providing essential conferences, seminars, educational materials, internships and speakers to young people across the country. you can learn more about us at our website at yaf.org. i am starting at penn state in the fall and i will be a proud nittany lion. and i would like to introduce rick santorum.

>> senator rick santorum served as a voice for conservatives everywhere. he served two terms in the u.s. house of representatives where he took on washington's special interest groups. he was elected to the u.s. senate in 1995 where senator santorum was a member of a group that exposed banking scandals. senator santorum was also the author and floor manager of the landmark welfare reform act, which empowered millions of americans to get off the role of welfare and get into the workforce. he wrote and championed legislation that outlines the heinous procedure known as partial-birth abortions, as well as the unborn victims of violence act and combating autism act. he believes that each and every individual has value in the most vulnerable of our society need to be protected. [applause]

senator santorum has fought to maintain fiscal sanity in washington. he has fought for balanced budget. he bravely proposed reforming entitlements, cutting spending and even developed a program that added up liberal amendments on spending bills. this record had made him one of the most conservative senators in pennsylvania's history. he believes passionately that we must repeal obamacare and replace it with a bottom-up patient and not government driven system. this june, senator santorum launched a grassroots online community of americans devoted to freedom and opportunity. senator santorum is the author of the 2005 bestseller it takes a family. would you all received earlier this evening. he is continuing the fight to

give every american a voice. ladies and gentlemen, please welcome rick santorum. [applause] >> thank you. thank you very much. thank you, transcend, i appreciate it. enjoy your time in happy valley. let me thank all of you for wonderful and kind words that so many of you gave me an opportunity to chat very briefly with everybody. i was very grateful for your support. another is a group of folks here, including jolie stuart-davis who helped us out on the campaign. i have to recognize one person who is here tonight. her father was her campaign manager come up in new hampshire and amanda was very active on

the campaign, too. i want to thank you for being here and thank your god for his great work. >> and thank you to all the other folks who volunteered and helped us out. it was an amazing journey running for president i can say in all candor that when i was asked by people, you know, when i was traveling around the country a year and half ago were two years ago, people would ask me, are you running for president and i would respond, no, i'm walking. that is pretty much what it was. what motivated you to run for president? the fact that you lost your last race by 18 points? was it that if you didn't have any money, was that they didn't have any major supporters were any real endorsements of any kind? what was it that motivated you to take the same position it can actually be a campaign of it

candidate for president, having been out of politics for 4.5 years and not having any money and having lost your last race. the answer was that i looked at the situation in this country. it is becoming clear to people. this is a landmark election. this is a turning point in american history. i know we hear politicians and those get up things like this all the time. i've never said that before, i've been involved in races for 22 years. my first race for congress back in 1990 at the ripe old age of

32. i never said this was the most important election and i was on the ballot. i went from election to election. things were bad, the economy in the early '90s, we had national security issues. around the events of 9/11. but i never felt that something fundamental was at a tipping point. and i believe that. i think barack obama has done a great thing for the country and they say that in all sincerity. for a long time in this country, we have been on a very slow road. we have been on a slow road to gradually giving our freedoms and edge. gradually believing the siren song of the government can do better for us than we can do for ourselves. it is inevitable.

our founders understood that. when they established freedom. many wrote that it was the easiest part in some respects to establish it. the hardest part would be to maintain it. over this corrosive thing in society called time. but the further away you are from a license to create this great country, the harder it is to have the zeal of the founders maintain the great principles upon which our country was founded. we have been blessed in this country with enormous success. let's just be honest, we changed the world, america changed the world. the time of our founding, life expectancy in the united states as it was in most of the world, was around 35 or 40 years. we were at an agrarian society.

just to give you is perspective on that, if you go back to the time of jesus christ, like expectancy was 35 or 40 years of age or has the world changed a lot since then? a little bit. but not that much. in 2000 years, after america did something truly revolutionary, he gave the world a document, and the template to transform society. something unheard of and unknown in the course of human history. something that we don't even talk about much in this country. we ignore and don't even teach it in most of our schools. this revolutionary document called, what? of the constitution. wrong answer. declaration of independence.

and i ask that question because i know that most of you would say the constitution. the constitution is a great document. it is the operator's manual of america. but it is not who we are. who we are is in the declaration of independence. what makes america special and different is in the declaration of independence. and these words, which we all know, the least we all used to know, we hold these truths to be self-evident -- certain inalienable rights, those are words that would roll off the tongue of every senior citizen that would be for decades. they were at the core of the understanding of what it meant to be an american being an

american is not like being french. and i am not poking the french. although i don't mind poking the french. it is not like being jewish or arabic. if you are an iranian or a syrian because of an ethnicity -- americans are not an ethnicity. we are all hyphenated american. my grandfather and father came to this country when they stepped on the shore of america.

because they believe a certain set of values. they speak beautiful friendship that you will never speak him you can be here for 30 seconds and be an american. that's what makes us different, because we are something different in the world. we are a country that has great ideals and principles. when people say that we want to change and transform america, that means that you are fundamentally taking away for a longer amount of time, was the corfu we are in the declaration. god-given rights.

there was another revolution that took place at the time of the american revolution. the french revolution. the american revolution. the french revolution was based on three principles. quality, pretty good. and we can talk about equality if you want to. the quality is good, but we can have excessive quality. and we can explain that in a minute because it is a very current and important topic in america today. the quality is good, liberty, good, absolutely. those are both of the founding documents that talk about in the phrase i just shared with you. the third word of the french revolution was fraternity. brotherhood.

in france there was an anti-clerical, anti-god revolution, that rights came from the consensus of the government. when they had that government formed, they ruled with radical attorney in the reign of terror. the marquis lafayette followed george washington during the revolution and returned to france, during the french revolution, had two frames hanging in his home area. one was a copy of the declaration of independence and the other frame to the day he died remained empty. he was looking for a similar document. to anchor the french constitution. something to put limits on the power of government. something that was a higher calling and a higher responsibility than the civil

law. the moral law. that is what the declaration has done for our country. our country, and the declaration of independence, god is mentioned four times come and greet her, divine providence, all of these things, they point to what? that america was founded as a great moral enterprise. these rights, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. life is the foundational right given to you by god. it cannot be denied.

there are those who will distort the true meaning of liberty as our founders understood it. liberty is not the freedom to do whatever you want to do. it is freedom from government telling you what to do but it is deeper than that. pursuit of happiness is the next words. life and liberty for what? to pursue happiness. as you know, some of the plus percent the time, i think it was in the virginia constitution, it was life, liberty and property. and they said that is

insufficient. property doesn't quite grasp what the purpose of america is. ..

after happiness comes from doing what got cause you to do. doing what you want to do will result in true happiness. no, it may not result in immediate pleasure, but our founders understood that the freedom was to pursue what you ought to do, not what you want to do. and in so doing you build a great society of virtuous people with limited government and the unlimited potential of the american public building a great and prosperous society from the bottom up, and that is exactly what happened. let expectancy has more than doubled. from an agrarian to industrial technology society. why? because government was limited and believe in you. that tamales and sentiment, more than any other issue is what has

shaken this election. it barack obama is reelected reelected-year that this great and noble experiment will be on its way to a close. today about 50 percent of americans pay income taxes and roughly a little less than 50 percent receive some sort of government benefit. when obamacare is implemented, ultimately 100 percent of people in america will be dependent upon the federal government for their benefits. and when that happens, as your friends in the u.k. you are here will tell you, maggie thatcher, as tough as she was, as reform-minded she was, she never was able. in fact, she campaigned she would not touch the british health care system. a sacred cow that you cannot touch. and she said in her waning days

after reagan went she was compared to reagan she said she was never able to accomplish what reagan accomplished in this country. she said the reason the british national health care system, once people are addicted to and dependent, it is very, very hard to take that away. we have to win this election because i believe the future of the republic is at stake. so that is why i decided to get out and run for president. and i decided to go out and tell people exactly what i just told you. here is why. and the amazing thing is, in spite of being outspent by i don't know how many multiples to one, in spite of getting absolutely no press coverage being out on the edge of these debates and, you know, they

throw me a question every now and then about abortion or gay rights or something like that, to reinforce the stereotype. let's talk about these things. in spite of that, when we went around the country and we talked about these core principles and values cannot talk about this election has to be who we are, they're much more foundational. they go to the core of who we are, and they go to the core of the family structure in america. and so we went out and talked about these things. amazingly people came. and we end up winning iowa and 11 other states. i would share with you that those of you out there on college campuses and think, it is hopeless on some many

campuses. when i went out and talked about the basic principles of who we are, go back to the declaration, ask them whether they agree with that. people say, we are so divided. no, we are not as divided as you think. we have just forgotten. so many have just not beanery anchored. you bring them back and re-enter them to something that we can start at and the starting point for what america is about and walked them forward. what does that mean? what is this whole idea? god-given rights and fundamental rights. where do those rights come from? when the government comes in and says we're going to give your right to use you what happens. they can tell you how to exercise those rights and is a clue what they're doing in the hhs rates and so many of the

things that they're now imposing their will on people against their fundamental freedoms. i am encouraged. i am greatly encouraged by what i saw across america. there is both a wellspring of people who see what this time in america is about, and they are anxious and willing, and they are stepping forward. i have no doubt whether it is this election or whether it is the next one or the ones in the future that the american dna -- and i think our dna is different. the vast majority of people came to this country came here because they wanted those things that i talked about. your ancestors, by and large, came here because they wanted those things. it is in your dna. they did not stay behind. i would encourage you to be

happy warriors, go out and talk about the greatness of our country, to remind people who we are and what we are about and how we transform this world and that if we are willing to go back to the pre-revolutionary days of being servants, subjects of the king, servants to the government, which is exactly what we were prior to 1776. and exactly where we are headed if we don't do something now. there is no one that will be affected by this more than the people in this room, the young people of america. you are seeing the effects with this economy, just struggling. why? because of this oppressive government. and increasingly aggressive regulatory scheme of taxes and

antipathy toward anybody who is successful, minimizing their accomplishments and celebrating the collective. this isn't america. i really do believe people are seeing it. i am optimistic about this election, but we have to be able to go out and communicate big things, big ideas, and fundamental principles. if you do, i am convinced, i am convinced that you can actually start changing hearts on college campuses. you can start changing hearts all over america. steady, be steep, understand who we are, we are about to. be not afraid to go out and

reach it at the mountain tops. i'll be happy to take your questions. [applause] >> no questions? thank you all very much. [laughter] yes, sir. >> senate -- university of arkansas, i was just wondering, you have been a huge defender of the unborn when you were in the senate, and i was just wondering what your high valuation of the pro-life movement is right now? there seems to be a lot of focus on national debt, national security, but i was just

wondering what you thought of the progress life movement. so, yeah. >> i don't want to be a pollyanna, up here, but i am very optimistic about the future of the pro-life movement of america. most of that optimism really centers around him people. you folks are very visual generation. you spend all your time underneath the screen. that is how you learn. that is -- it is a very -- you learn visually. that is to we are as americans, young americans right now, and that is a great thing because you look at that child in the womb, as all of you -- most of you, not all of you, have pictures of yourselves of you in the warm. your that generation that has the sonogram pictures of what you look like. right? how can you say that is not me? how can you say that is not a person. how can you say that is not a human life, love of tissue, how

can you look at these sonograms and say, yes, you can tell that child. you can look get their toes, their fingers. i will never forget, one of my favorite movies. you will find this weird. patrick coyle. i will never forget -- what surnamed? i remember her walking into the abortion clinic to get the abortion. that will grow who is a friend of hers from school of not knowing what to say to try to stop performing this abortion. had this very awkward conversation where they just avoided this discussion that this friend of hers who was walking into an abortion clinic to get an abortion. she did not know what to say. and as this little girl walked by this teenage girl walks by to get an abortion. she blurts out a fact, your baby has fingernails.

and ultimately the stock to for getting an abortion. the truth. the truth. you can avoid the truth of what abortion is. for some many years, you don't realize it to other generations after generations of americans were lied to. girls were lied to. gamine were lied to. of course, you can believe that because the supreme court says you can kill this child. it makes sense. now you have the reality of what life in the will mess, genetically human, just like each and everyone of us, metabolizing , therefore alive, a human life. what we have done in this country is draw between human life. we have drawn a line that some human lives are protected under our constitution and were envisioned to be protected under

our declaration and others are not. citizens and the men, once we create lines based on fiction, based on where you are, location we can draw the lines. and when five people in this country decide who lives into dice which is exactly where we are in america today, i believe the young people in this country are going to reject that. i think the understanding and knowledge of the gravity of the fact that one-third of you, a third of you're not here. over one in three pregnancies in america in an abortion. a third of this generation is not here. the consequences of that, the cures that are not created, the technologies that have not happen to, the works that inspire all of us that did not

occur because they just are not given a chance. i think we are better than that. at the your generation, as much as i'm sure you're criticized as being the entitlement generation , you're also the generation that is seeking purpose. purpose. you're the generation that, have you ever noticed, both of the advertisements on television when they go after young people don't talk about, it's cheaper. they try to appeal to your sensibilities that there is something good to be derived from participating or doing something with this product. they are appealing to your senses. there is something beyond just how much it cost, to value something. i think that is a good and noble thing that this generation is known for, and i think it will be one of the things that will transform the pro-life movement in this country. the other thing is, the pro-life movement has grown up and stop

pointing fingers at people and saying you are bad for doing these things. stop it altogether and set up crisis pregnancy centers around the country and said kamal we love you. we understand it is hard. we want to help you. whatever decision you make. the pro-life movement has been and must always be about love. it has to be about love for the mother, the father, the baby, all. and we are much more about that, and at think we will continue to be much more about that. and i think that, as always will transform. [applause] yes? >> you mentioned liberty in your remarks, and i just wanted to sort of gets your comment on what a common perception on that a lot of people have today which

is that, what people ought to do is to be able to make sure that all americans are able to do what they want to do. then again, so long as it does not hurt anyone. so, can you comment a bit more about how to counter that assertion which seems to be prevalent among young youth today. >> a growing understanding of liberty which is that it is a freedom from as opposed to a freedom for. and it is this, i think, very narrow view of liberty that everybody sort of should have their opportunity to do whatever they want to do as long as, you mentioned, it does not heard anybody. of course, what does that mean? what hurts people? i want to be able -- i mean, i drive up and i am late for something. i see a red light.

freedom from government oppression. right? of what the freedom from these unjust traffic laws. and so i just blow through. well, you know, you might not hurt anybody. coming across the intersection. maybe someone is. and so swell sometimes you may not hurt anybody, if you do not respect the laws, if you do not respect the natural order of things and you feel like you should be removed from the constraints, governments poses will -- imposes loss collectively based upon the collective will of the -- of the public as to what is right and what is wrong. and freedom from, you create a

society that is free from collective moral judgments. i want to use drugs, using in my own home. not going to hurt anybody. but you do hurt somebody. you heard somebody in everything from how those drugs are purveyed to hurting yourself, putting your own abilities to do things, hurting your family members. you hurt people in doing things that are wrong. and society then makes a judgment that we are going to put limits on those things. hair going to put laws in place. we are going to impose the values of our society, to allow liberty to occur. if there are at this sense of liberty there can be no liberty. for example, the red light. if there is not a constraint on

you crossing that intersection, then everybody will suffer. and so, the idea is that there has to be some objective for these lost other than just letting people do what they want to do because we cannot let everybody do what they want to do. the objective has to be a higher order, a moral order. and so that is the problem with this idea of, i don't want to call it libertarian as a bored everyone to call it that, you know, government is the problem, government is bad. people should be able to do what they want, and that is, simply cannot the american view of liberty. there must -- there has to be a constraint on freedom for freedom to exist. the question is, what is the basis of those constraints? the basis of constraints, by and large, and the founding of our country, based on just -- the judeo christian principles of right and wrong. and now we are seeing, on the

left, an attempt to change that, to project judeo-christian principles and replace it with, they say, nothing, but, of course, that is not true. you replace it with something, a different set of principles. an approach on the right that says, and for getting rid of these things, too, these artificial constraints because i simply want to deal to do. well, when you remove those constraints you replace it with something, even the absence of a constraint is a moral decision. and so that is why we need to think very carefully about some of the fundamental changes that are being talked about in our society and the consequences of those because they are not the absence of moral constraint or absence of legal parameters. they are an imposition of a different set of legal parameters. >> yes, sir. >> senator santorum, i want to

thank you for making. [indiscernible] cool again. >> thank you. >> my question for you is, -- washington state and along with a couple of other states have recently legalized same-sex marriage. this past week the democratic party made it part of their platform. the trend seems to be moving in that direction. what are your thoughts? are we on the wrong team? is it going the wrong way at this point? >> i would say this. i think it is 36, 37 states have voted for everything from maine to california on this issue. every time it has been voted, marriage is one. you say, well, how can that happen? how can the society where it seems, as i'm sure certainly your generation is just bombarded by the culture and

educational establishment and buy a lot of other places with one point of view on this issue. and as -- is clear that jagger people have a different point of view on the issue of a marriage then folks who are older. yet every time has been put up on the ballot it has lost. why? well, i say a couple of things. first off, americans generally speaking have the attitude, if it is not hurting me then what is wrong? what is the problem? the problem is, no one has really had -- until you have a vote, until you have something where you have to make a decision no one really thinks through what the consequences are of changing the marriage laws in this country. once we have a debate about it then people realize, hey, by the way, this does affect me. this will affect my marriage.

it will affect the country. it will affect my children. it will affect my church. and so we go through the debate and talk about how if you change the definition of marriage then if you seek to implement that, right, you, of course, that people marry. let's look at some of the other consequences. the educational curriculum look like with respect to marriage? and we see, and a lot of schools and states that have adopted it, you have textbooks now that reflect the fact that, you know, when you have stories about people you have stories about married people who are heterosexual unmarried people who are homosexual. so now that is being taught in our public school systems. being taught as normal and right and find irrespective of the beliefs of the parents who are

involved. you're going to see if the -- educational curriculum change in this country. you're going to see the impact on religious affiliated organizations. we are seeing it already in several states where not the church itself, but church-related institutions are denied tax status, a nonprofit status or denied, for example, in the state of boston, boston catholic church would not do same-sex adoptions, so they were told they could not do adoptions. it was the largest provider of adoptions in the state of massachusetts. you will see a whole variety of religious affiliated organizations to will be denied their nonprofit status or federal funds were to be able to participate. why? because we don't participate with organizations that are bigoted. that will be another common

phrase. bigoted. what will come next, you cannot speak about these things. now, i don't think -- i may have met one canadian. there was one young lady i met from vancouver. there she is. but there have been -- to marriage has been in canada for four or five years now and there is at least 200 cases of, you know, hate speech and other types of criminal and civil proceedings brought against people, including -- i'm trying to remember what diocese is bishop was, but sent out a pastoral letter talking about marriage and was told by the state he would be charged with a hate crime for preaching the gospel of jesus christ and the issue of marriage. you say, that can't happen in the united states. it will. we did not give nonprofit charitable deductions to bigoted

or it -- organizations. and when we transform what marriages in this country we will take everybody who is an orthodox believing christian and jew and turn them into hate speech purveyors and they will have to change the way they preach, not right away, but certainly the way they live there fadeout which goes back to this broader issue of an attack on religious liberty in this country. attack on religious liberty is not about what you can say in church. how many people believe that the free exercise of religion how you worship on sunday? no. because as believers we understand that our faith is more than what we do on sunday. it's so we do on monday, tuesday, wednesday, and thursday in our lives, our works, what we say outside a church and what we are seeing is an attack right

now by this administration, but we are seeing an attack by the left on religious liberty. and it is going to and will end up, like you will not believe, as this debate continues. this is a direct assault on our judeo-christian heritage. you say, it won't make any difference. how can you say that? it won't make any difference in the lives of children? how did you say that? one study just released to the other day, the best longitudinal study on the impact of children being raised in same-sex households. you know what happened? academia and the media went crazy and tried to throw this guy out of the university cannot deny him tenure, threaten his funding. why? because he wrote an academically bullet-proof study on this issue

, but it came out with a conclusion that the left did not like. the intimidation and intolerance is unbelievable. we see what is going on right now with chick-fil-a. can you imagine -- can you imagine the mayor of -- take a small town in, you know, louisiana and rural louisiana who said, we are not going to let somebody who says they are four gay marriage have a business in our town. can you imagine? we at gruntal at starbucks in our town because they support came marriage. can you imagine? what would happen? is okay for the mayor of boston and chicago. it is not a cake. this is what -- this is why i say it is not just about the economy in this election. there are a huge cultural, fundamental things that are at stake in the selection. you now have the democratic

party coming out and saying that they are for redefining the basic institution of our society you go down this street here in washington d.c., and you will find a place called the archives where you will find volumes and volumes -- i talk about this in my book -- of studies on environmental impact statements. if you want to do something to change the environment and ecology like building a bridge across the swamp you have to spend millions of dollars and prove to the federal government that what you're going to do is not a point to disturb the ecology or the environment that you are affecting buy that new structure. yet, we are now in this brave new world of fundamentally changing the basic foundation and premise of our society, the family. what evidence have you heard about why this is a good thing for society, other than the quality? equality is a good thing.

but it all depends. if the government is now in the business of equality of result, is that a good thing? everybody is the same. is that equality good? is everybody the same? of course not. of course not. none of us are the same. objectively false. so where does the quality come from? where does this term equality come from? we are equal in the eyes of god. that is where this term and his understanding in our society comes from. god sees gasol as his children and equal irrespective of our abilities. objectively we are not equal. some are smarter, stronger. so this idea that now who is going to determine the quality based upon what? it sounds good. but it is a false equality. certain things are not equal.

communism is not equal. some would say that communism and capitalism are equal. they're not. one is an abject failure for society. one promotes and is consistent with how societies work and how people function. and it is true with a lot of other things. be careful with equality. be careful to accept a false view of equality, a government-dictated view of equality that is not consistent with the nature of natural law. ..

they have not expected petition on a particular issue. this was odd and issue on the executive team at chick-fil-a to a religious publication, talking about his faith. everyone believes that ship away isn't a biblically-based company. they close on sunday. [laughter] but rational business -- [applause] surprise, chick-fil-a believes in christianity. i mean, this is the kind of, you know, so chick-fil-a is not going out there. i can assure you they are not

going out there trying to start this fight. they want to sell chicken sandwiches. and that's all they want to do. and by the way, they want to take the money for making this chicken sandwiches and they want to improve the quality of life of the associates who work at chick-fil-a, which they do and they want to take that money and put back into the community, which they do. they want to support aims that are the core basic value level of our country, which they do. i mean, it's a great company. so many ways, contributors all over this country. and yet, here what we see is the thought police coming in, saying that he will agree with us on this or we will sanction you. if people want to protest chick-fil-a because of what a member of their executive committee set, fine.

i have no problem with that. people can do what they want to do. if you want to show up at chick-fil-a tomorrow and buy a chicken sandwich, they can do that too. [cheers and applause] but the idea of the government, and that's, and that's where this happened, the government coming in is a bridge too far. and i would just say this, that mayor menino and mayor emmanuel of folkestone philadelphia to say the things they said, we don't want them in our city, yet they embrace barack obama who had the very same position as dan cathy up until a month ago. the very same position. we love him. vote for him. not only will they not be barack obama's position, they want him. so this is the hypocrisy you

see. emma, in some respects i'm glad the democratic party did what they did. this has certainly been a position they've held or if they didn't think it was the right time for them to come forward. now they've shown their true stripes like barack obama has and now the american republic can make a right choice for the american country. >> my name is scabby angela and i'm a student at oregon state. i've grown up in california my whole life and i can see that a lot of -- >> user, god bless you. amazing. >> my close friends will be voting for obama because that's the status quo in such a liberal state feared its disappointing because a lot of them will take time to learn about the position and watched the presidential debate over the summer. my question is what devices you give young voters who have practiced such ignorance. [laughter] >> well, look, i think it is incumbent upon every citizen to

vote and it's incumbent upon them to vote based upon as aggressive and comprehensive a review of the positions of the candidates as possible. that is how democracy works. unfortunately, that is not how elections are in this country. we have an imperfect system and a lot of folks who don't pay attention. and it's tragic. this is one of the great responsibilities you have is a citizen, particularly in the presidential election. this is, you know, dat or that people go into that voting booth as we see, not having any idea on any of the issues is disturbing. so many of those for one candidate or the affair, the

fact that you don't have that requisite information together to make those decisions is sad. i don't know how -- i don't know how you avoided though. particularly given social media, how do you not learn what these candidates believe? you folks are so connected. you get so much information thrown at you. you just buy asbestos have to pick up something because it's part of the general discussion, at least on a lot of social networking site. sir think it's probably -- it almost has to be by choice to ignore this or too sore to be in a cave for these types of elections. so just encourage them to give them -- i don't know if you're

on facebook page or file you on twitter so they can see what you say. say to me favor. when i post something, take a look at it. and just encourage them to engage. say i don't expect you to curse me, but i'd like to hear what you think and try to engage them in what is obviously an essential element for being a citizen of this country. the >> thank you. >> my name is at a talent from atlanta, georgia. i know in the past in the past you've helped reform health care and i feel like one of the biggest mistakes this administration made was taking the requirement of work to receive a welfare check. how do you feel that this will affect the lower middle class and the future of our society socially quite >> this is one of the greatest accomplishments of the republican revolution in 1994 as the passage of the 96 welfare reform act, which bill clinton signed against as well. he vetoed twice before he signed it.

and it did require work. why? well, we know people can't succeed in america without working. it's sort of obvious unless you are a trust fund baby, you're going to have to work to be able to provide for yourself. and as we saw, but these great society programs, you know, i am sure the people who put together these great society programs that they were doing people a favor, but they are not. it is not the responsibility of the government to provide for you. if the images here. and makes you dependent. you will struggle. it is just a different kind of struggle. remember i got criticized once and we had to debate about universal day care and i gave an example of someone who i hired off welfare. i have nine people when i worked in the united states senate and i talked about one of them was

working for me for a year was nursing her subsidized daycare because she couldn't find a spot for her two kids. she was going to have to quit because she couldn't make it work really daycare is too expensive in the town she was living. but she had a sister who is not working, was living at home and could've taken care of her children, but she didn't want to. she didn't have to. she was getting paid, get my check and she didn't need to. it would've been more of a hassle if she had to work. and ultimately, thankfully, the sister the last day she decided okay, i'll do it and she was able to keep her job. she got a college to create, graduate degree and is now teaching. i'm a sister, by the way, was not living a very good life according to my employee had been raising those children turn her life around.

if we'd universal day care, none of that would've happened. you could say well, we've avoided a struggle. life is a struggle. it's always a struggle whether the government provides or not. life is a struggle. there is always tough decisions, always sacrifices we have to make. the question is, what are we learning from the struggles we've engaged in? would make the argument that the more the government does for us, the smaller we become, the less capable become. the less self confident we become. i can't tell you the number of women i've talked to over the years i've worked on this bill who came up to me and said i didn't believe i was capable. i didn't believe in myself. you forced me to get out there and cast were quite enough confidence that i can do things. people at home receiving check struggle, folks. they struggle. maybe not to see where the next

sandwich come from or glass of milk comes from, but they struggle with who they are. and whether they are doing what god has called them to do. we are not doing him a favor. for not doing them a favor by having them become wards of our society, economically or otherwise. when president obama unilaterally win out and said we're going to repeal the workforce, this is what he did against the law, let me repeat that come against the laws. we specifically read the welfare bill to help try to make sure the president could not wave that provision because he thought of his foundation. and by the way, turned out to be true. a study done by the brookings institute. if you do three things in america, three, you will be guaranteed never to be in poverty. what are the three things? work, too, graduate from high

school, three, get married before you have children. you do those three things in america, people who have done has three things and that's in poverty 2% of the time. people who do those three things end up in the top half of income earners 75% of the time at some point in time in their lives. we know what works in america. we know what works. and by the way if you feel it is one of those things come to chants of be in poverty and sometime in your life, 74%. we know what works and yet the president of the united states of america assaults marriage. the size of union to deny people the opportunity to get a quality high school education and then says, no, you don't have to work. we know.

we know what will happen. artier mach's fundamental issues are dealing with. what we see is the last continuing -- as the value structure. i love her when they say we've got to get orality out of politics. well, they are. you could end up morale is the traditional values and replacing it with a different orality. so at the absence of orality, it's a different moral code.

and workers at the the heart of it. the attack on religion is at the heart of it. the attack on the families at the heart of a. when he came he talked about the greatness of america. what does he talk about? mediating institutions of our society, the family, churches, community organization, small business, people listed as an effort between individual individual and the government. that is that made americans successful. we had these rich media institutions that surrounded the individual and gave them the ability to rise. and this leftward march the we've seen, not just from this administration, but many come in many response to pulverize every one of those institutions. small businesses, civic and community organizations, churches and the family, get rid of them and then it's just you

in the public square, alone against the government. and they've got you. big things are at stake. you folks are going to be going to college is there going to be engaged in a battle for your survival. as a free people. i know all of your going to go back to school and be engaged and have good times. you've got two months to have an impact. and if it happened four years ago happens again on college campuses across this country, you can not a lot of explaining to do to your children and grandchildren about what you did when america's freedom is at stake, what you are willing to

sacrifice. our founders not declaration. what does it say in the end? we mutually pledge to each other our lives, fortunes and secret. they did. they gave it all because that freedom is worth that. [inaudible] >> at evening, senator. i think everyone in the stream can agree that in order for there to be true change in our government, we must return to our traditional values. you drive your traditional values from the bible and from the puritanical side of work at fix-it this country country was founded on. however in modern society, we turn to a jury relativistic nihilistic form of not true spirit can't because truth and can't be called morality. for now that this is permeating in our society, how do you suggest we return to those values when the majority of our society does need an elite

benefactors? how can there be true change? >> be not afraid. don't be afraid to stand up and proclaim the truth. stand up and proclaim that there is true and bewailing. look, you folks are here because you want to engage. you wouldn't be here. many times i talk to groups like this and people say you're preaching to the choir. that may be true. sometimes the choir has to go out and sing solos. [laughter] [applause] don't doubt your voice. don't doubt your voice. you watch the olympic games. use your these athletes they have you do a?

how do you keep your composure when you've got all this pressure? the sages practice so much i know this stuff. i know it. i can do it. the deep. the young america's foundation is providing you -- i saw a good speakers. i thought to my blog on this podium? amazing speakers. these are folks that i work for. learn from them, read their stuff. some of it may be tried. okay, i understand that, learn it. no better than the other folks. there's nothing better. you guys have all taken tests. you walk into that past and you know you haven't done your homework you do have a ten-year study in your nervous and it's horrible. but when you go into that last and you've got confidence,

really great prose, you know it. you need to know it. you can't be -- i don't know this young lady talked about are ignorant friends who don't know what's going on. you can't be like that. you can't be like well, i notionally think this is the right thing to do. look at some academic who doesn't know anything that can talk about it. last night so you need to know the truth. you need to understand. you need to drill down. if you do, you'll have that confidence. he appealed to speak, whether it's at the bar, or whether it's in the dorms or whatever it is, you'll be a litigious confidently communicate the

truth. and you know what? there is, when people hear the truth, don't know it. i can't tell you the responses i get from people when i go around and talk about the basic values of our country. they say you have, that sense. the styling ron earlier today. i went to some of the most liberal institutions in this country and by now. these are people protesting the outside and these radical commie hater, terrible guy. and yet you go out there and calm the present the truth. i can tell you the number of people who walk up and say i've never heard that before. you beat amazed the people who never heard what you know, never heard the truth and you just need to go out and teach it. teacher we are, how we got there and how our country is that the

precipice, whether they can make a difference. the greatest generation of america is the greatest generation because we look back and see what they accomplished holding off in fascist italy and say wow, they were amazing. they were no different than you. what they did that made them great was they were willing to stand up and fight to the bitter and. the lads are fortunate and sacred honor to win. they're willing to sacrifice at all to maintain freedom. no one's asking you to put uniform on come pick up a gun and go somewhere to defend us against an enemy from abroad. though thank god some do. but i am asking all of you to put on that cloak of citizenship do your duty as a citizen of this country.

know your staff and be not afraid to proclaim the truth. thank you. [applause] are not

>> as a community organizer journalist in new orleans, jordan flaherty at about six lakh teenagers, the so-called jena six. he's currently covert agent for al jazeera. in june, flaherty wrote to the world affairs council about digital activism in the future of journalism. this is an hour. >> introduced you tonight, flaherty. la mr. flaherty as a journalist and community organizer based in nee orleans. if he looks familiarw to you, he has ap has appeared on much of the national international media.nal he appeared on cnn, npr andd rer reverend jesse jackson. mr. flaherty was the first journalist to write for national

publication about substitute.t y you might remember threeears yes ago, during that two international attention. his post-katrina writing shared wr a journalism award from the american media for best katrina coverage in the ethnic press. two years produced al jazeeramow democracy now in other newsons, organizations with making him particularly qualified to discuss the topic tonight on tht title of which will be digital activism, resistance revolution in media from new orleans to teach it to occupy. mr. flaherty is the author of a new book, available over here fter your dinner, calledlle "floodlines: community and resistance from katrina to the jena six." six"

please join me in welcoming toei the world affairngs council, mr. jordan flaherty. [applause] >> thank you, everyone. be here in vato gastineau to i want to especially thank flora and thend rest of the board and staff ofsf the world affairs council for really making this happen.nci can people hear me okay? o i have a double microphone going on here. hopefully it's working. so i think it's so important that an organization like thisih exist to have these dialogs in the city as the previous speaker said. we have such an incredibly lively culture in the city that sometimes we don't get to think about the issues outside the c city announced that this country. so important at venues like this for the issues can be discussed.

think also the world outside new orleans needs to learn more about newle orleans. all of us as community membersr in the greater new orleans area contribute to creating thisrom u culture that i think people from around the country have a lot tl learnea from.who been so to everyone who has been herh and fighting through hurricaneit katrina and the bp drilling disaster and fighting to keep this culture alive, it is so good to be here with you on theo part of the community with you a all. i came into journalism and a different way than a lot of lo people. i didn't go to journalismourn school. i actually used to work as aorgr union organizer in a move to nee orleans a few years before ktr hurricane katrina. i think we have a littleg a feedback here.a w years a few years before hurricane katrina. evan hurricane katrina happened, was living in the tremaineying neighborhood, in mid city

actually. do i n do i need to back up?up? there. is that better? thank you, sorry.evacuatea few a i evacuated a few days after tho storm.rm i evacuated, what i saw of evat really affect me to this day,wa which was the way many people were treated upon evacuation,eaa especially african-americans from new orleans. and veryrue i went through very near here,r thee evacuee camp at icann in. causeway. saw hoen when i got outside the city and saw how the city wasdid beinge of new orleans for to pick treateda, so much is really missing from now. and so, i wrote a short article about the city i come to know in the previous few years and what a pain in those previous days as i evacuated. and that e-mail that i sent out

end up getting forwarded around and referrer data recorded in all smugness translated into several languages with published publications around the world, was on websites. and i started receiving feedback from people i respected here in new orleans that this is something i could do that would be useful to the city to try and tell the stories of people fighting for rebuilding, so over these past several years, and try to find a way to learn how to do journalism in a way useful to the people of new orleans and to communities in a way that is accountable to the truth and also accountable to this community i am from. this idea of accountability is some rain and members of journalism, but often misting in journalism today. this idea of being accountable to the truth and your community. that is something journalism needs to learn from and get in touch with. when i talk about media, people

talk about the mainstream media as opposed to alternative media. i think that those boundaries are less and less important today. you know, i think that right now sort of all media is mainstream media. you can be a 14-year-old with a blog and send me can be seen by millions of people. there's incredible level of distress of what is seen as the mainstream media today. for better or worse, these boundaries are breaking down. it is actually more useful to look at this label as some people use a corporate media versus non-corporate media because it's important to keep in mind what the media is accountable to. some media is accountable to the states that find it. you can someone say that about al jazeera and somewhat about the english-language russian channel, or the new english-language channel from

china. other media is more accountable to the advertisers, ultimately at the bottom line. again, it is not to build a value judgment against it. i think what we think about media, think about who the media is accountable to, without funding comes from and what that means. there's also a listener supported media, whether that's npr to a certain extent and other independent radio station. and so, these different brand names are something that's often not talked about. people talk about how many read it, is the mainstream? is a nonmainstream? there's other barriers in now. people talk about the new influence of bloggers, facebook, twitter, social media as an important force in world affairs today. people especially talk about the recent events in the middle east, arab spring, revolution

and each had. i was fortunate enough actually last year shortly after the revolution in egypt to speak to a lot of people on the ground, including bloggers have been active in organizing and getting the world. i asked them for their thoughts on the medium of grassroots had been in that struggle and a soda for a couple minutes am not that i want to read out because i thought it was really interesting in this context. i talked to a woman named brabant à la moxie, an activist and blogger they are. you know, i asked her what she thought of the importance of social media, facebook, twitter she said when people don't talk about is the importance of

soccer hooligans. all the people that get violent at soccer matches. they said you could light a fire in three sections which is staring them prices. they said they said police informants in the crowd and i was very helpful in people organizing police informants in the crowd and i was very helpful in people organizing interior square. this created a lot of pressure on the government. i think it's important to think about forces on the ground and every person i talked to any chipset, you know, one thing that was most important was tunisia and that often gets forgot about your disinformation at me shake it these moments in time, whether it's tunisia, each

at, occupy movement assert this really important function of breaking the spell. we are living at the end of history, this idea that change cannot happen, that we are stuck with whatever system we have, whatever leader we have. and the moments where the stylus broke and in a mass movement can change things. it creates this period of history that martin luther king is responsible for the civil rights movement. it ignores the masses of people. the fact there is no one person in a jet, no one person that we know of certain key figures in both those cases, but this idea there's a mass of people coming together.

it opens up to a different of history. there is another activist and blogger named hasan abdul lally and he made the point that there were 12 million protesters that were not online. they were coming up and didn't have internet. millions of people didn't have access. he said also people would post news about a protest in the newspapers and al jazeera tv would say these people posted on facebook. so i'll be sued for online, but we seen a are getting this report in an facebook gets the credit, but in roiling this traditional media that actually really got that word out through that our people. in general al jazeera was a force that is really important

in getting the word out. somewhere in breaking a certain silence in the medium and the middle east. going back to the u.s. and our crisis in media, we are at this really key time to talk about thinking in media here with the course announcements going down to three days a week. and you know of course i think probably none of us want to live in a city that doesn't have a daily paper and you know, what that means. we also ought to look at it in this longer chain of the fans of the fact that there used to be two newspapers and this can surely had four or five or six newspapers. and that collapses happen. also the collapse of a more

independent medium, especially in new orleans and around this country are really strong african american media. you know, i think those that are fighting right now that the chair for a long time in louisiana weekly slowly started losing all their staff and influence and ability and the new orleans tribune similarly lost that. i think we need to ask why because that has been so important. there is an article a few months ago and columbia journalism review talking about and the lack of diversity around the u.s. they give a history of talking about before 1968 and would be very hard to find any people of color reporters, steny are in the u.s.

and in this article they spoke to many of the longtime reporters at these papers. many said that they could remember the riots that caused them to be hired, sort of these rights in the late 60s and early 70s in various cities in almost every city and the newspaper would say, we don't understand what this right came from, but we better hire someone from this community to report on it and in many ways they were cut plan by these changes. that really says why we need this diversity in media. it is not just because it's the right thing to do, that the media cannot report correctly if it does not have voices from that committee. and columbia journalism review of an article that many newspapers in the country continued to have this issue of a lack of diversity on their staff. they interviewed one person who had just been in an editorial meeting at the "houston

chronicle." there was one person of color in that editorial meeting. so this is a problem continuing to plague these papers. in a city like new orleans is still african-american, we need to rlly fight or a media that represents the whole city again not just because of the right thing to do, but because it makes for better media. and i don't want to give the impression that identity is the only thing. you know, there's many, many clear examples of people not from a community able to do great reporting from that community, but it absolutely helps to have that representation from different communities and it does make the journalism stronger and the reporting stronger. ..

also in the context of some of these other post-katrina changes. people haven't talked about it in the context, for example, changes in the public school system, which some are very pro, some are against it without taking a position, these changes have been without really consulting the parents, the students, teachers, certainly in these changes happening. similar to public housing, people rembert congressman richard baker. we couldn't come at the it come explicitly saying at this moment >> we ha people in public housing notsin. been appalled gives the opportunity for this change. in both cases, this is invisible hand of the told it is an invisible hand of the market tt is goimake it was market said that the first 100%

premarket public education system in the country. and i think that this example gives a really good challenge to the market, that it will solve these problems are fundamental needs like health care and education and housing. here is this paper but all reports, it is the most profitable newspaper by the new health jane. it hasto, you know, it is something like penetration, thank you. penetration of the news daily. it has the lowest internet access of any cities in the country. and yet, if you ask, almost anybody in the city of new orleans, if they think that we should lose our daily paper, nobody thinks so, yet we don't have a say, ultimately and what happens in the daily paper. immediately people were saying, let us buy the paper but they

don't want to sell the paper for it is the most profitable paper they won to use this paper for this experiment in this experiment is about the bottom line and not about the community newspaper. when we are talking especially about love the fundamental needs, like information, like education, like health care and housing, it cannot just be about -- we need some sort of lever to make that happen. this process has to make it happen. i want to give one other example from a situation that i think is relevant to this diversity of media. and that is the case of the jena

six. it started after a year of when hurricane katrina occurred, in the small town of jena, about 80% white, a very small parish. they have the highest percentage for a particular candidate than any parish in the state. the first day of high school they are having an assembly. a school administrator asked student, does anyone have any further questions? one student said yes, i have a question. can anyone sit wherever they want in the schoolyard? >> and he was referring to the schoolyard of the jena high school, not by rule but by sedition had been divided by

race. white students sitting in one area and black students sitting in another person white students generally sat under this tree. in the school in minister said yes, anyone can sit where they want. the next day, there were nooses hanging from under the tree. the black students took this as a message from some white students, that they were not welcome to sit wherever they want or under that tree. then they acted in the old way of civil disobedience. they went as a group and gathered under that tree and there was commotion in the school, and the district attorney of the parish, the law officers were called in. the schoolyard was mostly divided by race. he said you need to stop making trouble, i can make your lives disappear with the stroke of my pen. what followed was several months

of racial tension in the school and in the town overall. and this feeling that black students were punished for things that white students were not punished for. there is an incident where some students were threatened with a shotgun and were charged with theft, while the owner of the gun faced no charges. a few days after that shocking incident, there was a fight in jena high school. a white student was badly beaten, and in fact, required medical attention. he was out at a ceremony later that night. he was brought to the hospital and he had serious injuries. six black students were charged with being part of that fight. there were six of the leaders in the protest. and they were charged with attempted murder for that school fight. they face life in prison. again, there is a feeling that

this was a fight between these students, this would not be charged. now, the parents of the students didn't know anything about media or organizing, but they knew they wanted that they wanted to stand up. and so they started having these protests in the town. at first it was just them and their friends and neighbors, beginning in late 2006 and early 2007, and they were coming out every week. they have never before held a press conference that they started holding press conferences and sending out notices to the media. sending letters to state legislators, senator mary landrieu, whoever they can think of. at first it was just one local newspaper that was covering it. the alexandria paper.

and then people from surrounding community communities, community television stations from lafayette, started coming up and covering the valleys and word started getting out and i actually heard from some people from new orleans who had heard about it. the juvenile justice project of louisiana had been involved because of the prison there. one of the lawyers sent out an e-mail to various people from legal and social justice communities in new orleans. more and more people. i went to the first one in may of 2007. they had been going for around six months with almost no attention outside of that town. but every week or every couple of weeks, continuing to come out and protest. i wrote the first article about that, it was for a national audience called the independents

in new york and in san francisco and a couple of other publications and also on the web. soon after, there was a bbc report, a "chicago tribune" report, associated press, reuters, it was bubbling beneath the surface. all were e-mailing the articles, people started posting it on my space, others have social networking sites. people had never been to jena and they were making youtube videos about it. it was really due to the grassroots. some of the most regular media coverage was from black radio stations around the south that were having the members call in and talk about the story. it was percolating like this for a while. in late june, i did a story on it for democracy now. that was a radio and tv show that circulated around the u.s.

that again is not seen as mainstream media. but the ship that happened after that report was remarkable. the families, for more than six months had illegal defense fund set up, a bank account, but there was virtually no money in it. within five days after that democracy now reports, there was about $40,000 in that account from viewers and listeners around the country. this nonmainstream media had really broke in and broken the story in a new way. the black independent owned newspaper did a story soon afterwards. two syndicated black radio shows, the steve harvey show and another show that was not generally known for their content politically, started talking about this regularly.

all of this combined ramp the story up to a new level. again, the mainstream, they were taking more of a look. it started becoming a big story. in late july, the family members call for another rally and 300 people came out that was the huge number at that time that anyone had heard of. a friend of mine who works for the newspaper said that we were out there and we started marching and jena was so small, we were marching and said no justice no peace, and then we marched the whole town and were gone. [laughter] it felt like a very large group. and the message was being sent to us. color of change did a petition. it was delivered on that day in july. then we looked at another

protest on september 20, 2007. michael basin and steve harvey seem to be talking about this at all points. people and communities around the country were organizing. jesse mohammed, who i mentioned before, part of a national conference call from student government associations, especially in schools throughout the south and historic black colleges and universities and they were organizing on how to come out. many students who had never before been to a protest were actually not only planning to go, but were organizing entire buses from their community or their school to go. on that day, september 20, it is estimated about 40,000 people came and marched in that town. soon after the charges against the youth were dropped, and those 69 men are now in college today instead of in jail.

that absolutely happened because of this national grassroots media that kept the story alive and these family members, they fought against this wall of official silence for months to make the story come out and fight the story to come out. it does remind me of what happened later with egypt or it these people have been protesting in numbers of five or 10 or 20 people, and immediately arrested. nobody knew of the protest movement really in egypt at that point. the muslim brotherhood at most. suddenly, millions of people were out and it happened instantly at this moment was broken. because people did not believe that we are at the end of history or that change is not possible and were not waiting for one single figure but realizing that many people had come together.

when i talk to families from jena, they are so glad that the children are free and in college, but more than that they want people around the country learned this lesson and to learn this lesson of building this struggle that many people of different talents and skills can get involved in. making youtube videos, organizing buses, some are on conference calls, some are lawyers, some are lobbyists. but all of them, under this vision of this change, in this case, the case of egypt or whatever, creating a revolution in changing the government, that many different people can come into this movement and it continues to struggle, it even after weeks and months and years of no one paying attention of it seemingly impossible with the knowledge that it could one day be not impossible and change can come.

moving forward, i think that we need to look at some of these heroes in the media that are not generally recognized. one person that has been a hero of mine is either the wells. a lot of people in this room have heard of her. i don't wells. her voice is sort of missing in journalism. ida b. wells. she made it her mission to uncover the story of lynchings in the south and to spread the word around the country about the lynchings were the young black men in the south. she was also, and a lot of people don't notice, in 1875, she was on a segregated railcar, and refused to get up. rosa parks considered the more

acts of disobedience. she was an activist and a journalist. this line of journalism, you can do both, i think journalism needs to be accountable to the truth. but i think we actually need to be honest about who the journalists are as individuals and we should not hide if they have an activist past or if they have police, but we should be honest about the people and transparency in journalism. so i just want to close with a quote from ida b. wells which sums up the passion that she had as an activist and journalist. sorry i do not have it memorized. it is better to live

anti-injustice than to die like a dog in the street. there is no educator to compare with the press. it is up to all of us as a community to shape that and to fight for a media that represents us and can make change possible and can give alive this idea the end of history and the change is not impossible. [applause] >> and now we have some time. i don't know if you need me to moderate with you, but if you have any questions, we can ask jordan in the next few minutes. >> [inaudible question]

>> you know, it's an interesting question. i think it -- by the way, did everyone hear that? she was saying -- in london, i believe it is the evening paper, it is free and so to advertise, it's paid for and it reaches a wider audience because it's free. >> [inaudible question] >> it is all over. the question is can new orleans do something like that. >> that's the thing. it is profitable. >> [inaudible question]

>> well, we are to have a lot of free papers here in new orleans, all of our weekly papers are free. actually, louisiana was -- [inaudible question] >> these papers. >> but these papers are not limited editions that have some amount of newsletter for you. i think that they have all tried some levels of giving out a certain amount of free papers. >> i think all these things are possible. money is not a problem. the problem is, i think, two different versions over the future of newspapers. i think that these owners have decided that the future of the newspapers is not in print. they have made that decision. and they have believed that they

could make more profit with this new model. people talk about how sometimes these venture capitalist firms or other owners will buy a factory or whatever and will sell it out piece by piece to make profit and then dump it at the end. there was an article the other day, i forget who wrote it, but they said that in some ways new house is selling goodwill but the commune has, by dropping it down to these limited things. they are sort of squeezing this money out in a shortsighted way, but maybe in the short term, they will make more money and then in the long long-term, they won't have to pay for it but whatever -- they will sell it off and do it. it is the short-term vision, partly because they have no stakes in new orleans. they are looking at this and saying, that's why i think again we need to look at how we can

just be about the market. we need to find other ways to support the media. not just with newspapers. but we are in a crisis of media in general in this country. and it's not just about media not making money but media not doing the hard work of investigating. media could all the powerful accountable. and we lack a vision in media and need to find a way to find a good and advertising will not necessarily fond of media these challenges. all of us need to think about how we can solve that question. there is no easy answer. >> the new nola.com will not, in its current model, ever touch this. >> as she said, nola.com will

not touch what they're trying to deliver. and i agree, nola.com reminds me of a 14-year-old my space page. >> [inaudible question] .. >> so her comment and i want to get other people involved, but the comment is rather but not a question. we believe more what we read in the newspaper than what we read online. it is a fair point. >> interested in your thoughts on how government tries to control the digital media there has been basically more activity by governments to control what gets out that country when there are problems.

the question was what i think about governments trying to crack down on social online media. i'm assuming you mean, for example, in egypt when the government actually tried to shut down internet. you know, i think -- china, for example, has been pretty successful at silencing online stuff. in egypt, it really backfired and made people more angry. you know, so i think it is not a surefire tactic for them to try. again, it can work for days or weeks, it can work for months or years. but the change can still come and that no matter what means, the government crackdown. the will to be free for people will overcome it. >> yes? >> although i like having a newspaper in general, if we feel like the news is one-sided,

acrylic i would almost rather have no newspaper than just one study on one side of the story. i mean, i think that it might help change, you know, what people see. you think it could be good as a chance for the inclusion. >> the question is, she does like the media in general -- that it didn't represent legit. she wonders at the times falls, maybe something will rise up in its place. is that a fair summary? >> or the people will have to go through multiple places to get what they need. >> okay, so maybe people go to multiple places instead of that one place and that will broaden what they do. it is possible, but i am very

skeptical. i think that we need the times to be better. i think losing the times is not the answer. you know, i think that even if we are we should fight for this for the two daily papers, fight for there to be changes in the system. you know, going to an annual gathering called the allied media gala, a gathering of people with various kinds of progressive media around the country. and lester i was speaking to a couple of people who were in mainstream media. and they were talking about those bad show that they had both women who worked in the media and they were talking about a very male workplace and they were dealing with. you know, one of the people i was talking about, she would

sneak out of the office to the back or cry because of this environment she's facing. we are talking about how regularly after work, she would have several drinks because of what she was facing. i think that people that are within this media that are trying to do good work are facing a really oftentimes dysfunctional environment. what i would call is a dual power movement outside the government to call for change within the government. the same is true for media. we need to build up our alternatives and fight for a strong robust alternative for corporate media. at the same time, we need to support, especially those voices within the mainstream media, those who are trying to do good work. a lot of brilliant reporters that are at "times picayune" and any other paper that you can talk about. we need to support those people

to let them stay in the network. in new orleans, people are getting their news from those websites. we can't say that we are going to ignore it and claps. >> getting back to egypt, can you tell us more about the independent media association that you encountered while working with egyptians and, you know, activists? >> the question was about media sources i encountered an egyptian activists. i don't want to present myself as an expert on egypt. i've spent a certain amount of time after the revolution. but i don't read arabic, so that is cutting me out of a lot of it. there were a lot of independent

bloggers and people who were doing organizing on facebook and i think, you know, some of the facebook organizing, they did it in a way that was really smart about bringing people into the process. they would not just say that there is a demonstration on this day, but they would say that this is a demonstration and we should all wear one color. what should we all wear. bringing people into the discussion and giving him some ownership over -- people felt this is my movement, too. i help decide what color were awkward to wear or whatever. people using media in a way that was interactive that really brought people in. and i think that that was helpful. >> i think that digital access is actually a very risky proposition for two reasons. one is i would like to know where we get the funding and the money to really fuel that machine. and second, the ability to

communicate, just like with any government, and we are born to shut that down any chance that we can. whether it's wiki leaks or things on the internet are things that you do. if we are going to have a free [inaudible] system, we have to find the money and we have to regulate those who make the laws. you can't. you need to find a way to make the internet impossible to shut down. how do you make it impossible to not censor the internet. we can't do that, if we can't do that, then this is actually not were not happen at all. >> okay, summing all that up, you are saying that this idea of what you call digital action is specifically digital online media, it is not a solution. that it is a risky path to take for any number of reasons,

being, you know, how do we know it is reliable, how is the system of accountability and how are we going to fund it, how will we be sure that the government does not shut us down. is that an accurate assumption? >> i think that all of that is very true. again, i think that as a wider community, we need to find an interest because i do think that the media is, it should be this basic kind of, you know, part of government. it could -- it should be something that we have. and i think whether we are talking about the so-called mainstream media or the digital online media, we need to talk about how it will be funded. so much of what is the online media is not journalism. it is not investigating. it is comments on other people's investigation. that commentary can be interesting. but you need somebody who is doing the actual investigation

and that is actually looking into that. that cannot be done for free. commentary is really easy to do for free. journalism is really not. and so we need to find a way to fund that. whether that is happening online or in print, it is not always something that advertisers are going to want to fund. we, as a people, need to find a solution. and the path forward. it is not an easy answer, but it will not come strictly from the market if that answers your question. >> [inaudible question] i think maybe it is a generational thing and i understand that it is embarrassing -- [inaudible] >> maybe we are also a little bit ahead of the curve. i think most people in their 20s don't really read the newspaper. i never read the newspaper, maybe i am at a point where my

phone customer service. isn't it possible that religious moving away from it and that is really okay? i think that all my sources are very legitimate. when i go online, do the same thing and i would be more likely to believe it on 20 sources been on one. is it possible that we are moving away from that? >> that's a very good question. for the folks who didn't hear, she was asking is this a generational thing. herself and people she knows and their 20s are not really concerned about reading the daily paper and maybe none of us should be concerned about it. maybe we don't need that because other sources can fill that need. you know, i think it is a fair point. it is interesting at the rally with "times picayune", there were several hundred people there and really only a handful were under 50 years old. only a handful were not white.

i think that that does beg some real legitimate questions. you know, i think it goes back again, what will take its place? i don't think that nola.com can take the place of "times picayune." i don't think it prioritizes importance. the multiple part series on incarceration around the state, and i think people that saw the paper, they saw that a type reference, but you could barely find on the website. it is possible that we are moving into an era beyond print. you know, i am amazed that we still have really great radio, you know? people are still doing radio. whatever it is, we need to find a way that we are going to

support good media and sport powerful media. i do believe that we should have a daily paper. but i hear what you're saying, and i definitely think it is not the only answer. if we do have a daily paper, we need one that will do a better job for all these things. and we do need to build up these alternatives, absolutely. >> wait for the microphone to get to you. >> i just want to comment on what you said. when i got out of college many years ago,. >> i have to move up here you. >> i lived in boston for two years. never read the boston globe once. i could care less about it. there was no internet. there was no npr i didn't care about the news. and i'm a college graduate, okay?

i moved to new york, occasionally i will read the sunday times. but i never subscribed. there was still no npr i didn't care about the news then. i really didn't. there were two good papers. after two years in new york, niners in seattle -- i started subscribing to the paper. i came to new orleans not have and i have been subscribing ever since i came here. what changed? i got older. okay? young people, college kids, they don't care about the paper. [inaudible conversations] >> i think that we should not get into a back-and-forth discussion. maybe you guys should move to another table.

>> the journal said how many of you read the "times picayune" and none of them said that they did. it surprised me because you're not reading the newspaper when you're studying in college. unless you want to know what is going on. but the thing that changed is that now i am a news junkie. i listen to npr,, you know, i watch news on tv and i read the paper. >> thank you for that. i'm just wondering if anything is different in college and journalism schools -- is there a different emphasis, i wonder if you can make a living and journalism in the way that maybe when i thought about going into

it about 30 years ago you thought about and whether that, for reasons that have been branded back-and-forth, kids still want to journalism school, and if they do, is it any different? you know, i would think it would have to be changes in how it's taught and what is taught and i was thinking it would be hard for someone like you do make a living. >> the question was are there changes happening in the journalism school with this changing environment. and he would think it would be hard for me to make a living, which is pretty true. >> you know, i don't know the ins and outs of what is happening in journalism school. you know, when i talk to young journalists, they are very scared about whether they are going to get a job and when i talk to journalists that are recent graduates, yeah, i think

they're all thinking in the back of their mind what profession would have to segue into. especially those working in print. those in tv maybe feel a little more secure, but those really doing the hard work of journalism. it is in crisis. and i have done a lot of my work and over the last decade or so, al jazeera has been expanding and we have a lot of critiques about this as well. it is not really advertising independent. we need to think about what media will look like in the new era. and every time the media has its problems and conflicts are, or where the funding comes from -- you know, we also question how

well can we do their job and how much can they do their job. it is somewhat of a crisis. i believe that you had a hand up right here. before you do, let them i can get you. >> "the new york times" has the perfect model for incorporating this into your website. i personally don't agree that young people don't value a newspaper. actually, they do. it is the message of delivery, it is going to radically change as we go forward with a new the new generation and we have to accept that to some degree. what is pen on paper has become an outmoded method of delivering the news. it is a new reality and one that we are going to have to accept to a certain degree. >> thank you. >> i think that where is the money going to come from to pay journalists to do some reporting

and not just individual -- [inaudible] [talking over each other] >> i did better reporting now than i ever did with print and print media. i believe any newspaper in the country any day, and i do believe that there will be a demand and a message to deliver it. >> i don't want to risk it too much back-and-forth, but it does show us that after the q&a, i think we will all be able to have a robust discussion. because this is something that we all have very passionate opinions on in a lot of different arguments on. i will just say one other thing to that. the issue of what will fund journalism and how we perceive it, speaking for myself, i am someone who likes to consume all kinds of media. i used to buy a lot of cds, i

don't really any more. used by magazines and under really do that. i think i pay less for teenage movies, and i think that we have all kind of become accustomed to this idea that the media is free. and i think that the corporations that deliver the media will always find a way to make profits off of the media. they will always find -- the will always have a part of the recording industry in crisis or the movie industry in crisis -- but they will always find a way to make profits. the people doing independent worker, and especially independent journalism, all kinds of independent media and arts, arts that makes the powerful uncomfortable, that is what will not necessarily be funded. i do encourage us to think about and encourage myself because i'm guilty of it, changing how we think about media. some media is worth paying for

and we need to find a way to pay for it, especially that media that challenges the powerful. that media that is not immediately practical. >> i see another hand of. >> [inaudible question] >> all right, do we have anyone else? >> more an observation than a question. something that is happening today, right now -- what we read and newspaper, we cannot ignore that aspect. >> i want to know what's going to happen. not two or three days ago. we have to keep that perspective in mind also. >> thank you, thank you. i think maybe this will be the last comment or question. >> [inaudible question]

>> the defense movement, what is the ability to mobilize the people. >> [inaudible] >> facebook and twitter and so on. that is why we need to look who the sources and the media. [inaudible] >> thank you. again, i just want to celebrate this organization that brings together these gatherings in these kinds of discussions. they are so important and really

i am honored and pleased to be part of it tonight. thank you all for inviting me and thank you all for

>> >> we are ready to start. is my honor and privilege to moderate the panel. both those of you in the audience and those watching on c-span. we are discussing the issue of inequality fed is behind almost all controversial economic issues we have today. it is a fundamentally the

issue if the pie gets bigger overtime then we get better off. if not then one part becomes wealthy the other part must become poor. you don't want to hear from me. i will introduce all three speakers the order they will speak. they would give their presentation hopefully 15 bit it's a or less each which leaves time for q&a and afterwards. we will start with brian he wrote a book called iconoclast. that is like a coming-of-age interest in public policy. his education from harvard and columbia. then alan reynolds a senior

fellow at the ku institute former director of research at the hudson institute and most importantly the author of income and wealth. then batting cleanup is scott and who is a fellow of economic studies at the brookings institution then research manager for fifth at the charitable trust before that and educated at harvard and a northwestern. so i will turn the program over to brian. >> thank you. is a great to be here which in my mind becomes more and more relevant with every

passing year. with all the challenges we face. four years into the failed recovery we now know with the 2012 election will be about. incredibly it will not be about the issue will be about economic fairness. not about recovery, growth for solving the problem which is the 800 pounded guerrilla but gdp expansion that this nation has been suffering since year-end this run of five straight down quarters. forget about those real concerns. the question at hand with the incumbent president's whether there are rich get more than their fair share.

until the republicans changes the terms of their debate to economic growth we're heading for referendum on a quality. in recent american applied lacklustre eight instead we talk about the academic research that is at the bottom of the consensus of any quality of the president's world view and the democrats expect the electorate to give it to them. the academic research of the obama first budget of 2009. it came so far out of the ivory tower eight gave the slogan to the occupy wall street movement. we are the 99%. that of the income

inequality put out by the french economist hot and one culled in done any quality, here it is. with the release they meant to a formidable challenge and relentless counter accounts of who gets what. they spared back-and-forth but who knew it would take on a life of its own after the recession making the security blanket of the most significant protest movement in the form of occupy wall street. because the research takes

over the social life i took it upon myself to add to the critique and emphasize his corrections in the paper just released for supply-side economics. my paper is sick with historical narrative how a quality has always been well understood actually bettors and today. in deed my paper points out the country was good long before the income-tax rolls around to kraft public policy make sure the baby was not thrown out with the bathwater. policy was constructed so growth was maximize. from the ratification the constitution to the foundation of the income tax we have 100