>> parents who are really involved. but, you know, in terms of health and wellness, this is a new venue for a lot of people. so my question to you is, for the parents who want to come together, have the abilities, the means, the resources to come together and do something, what kind of programs can a pta throw to help promote health and wellness as a key component of children's lives? um, regardless of age. >> go ahead, dr. meyers. >> okay. i don't want to take all the

time, but the national pta really has a lot of stuff of just ideas on their web site. and i highly recommend going there to look because not only -- but then there's another parent group that is affiliated with the pta. if you call the pta office and just say where else can i get some other ideas to work with parents, they'll put you in touch with this other parent coalition. and they've just got phenomenal resources out there to help parents of all communities and all kinds. so go there first. >> i would also recommend, um, going to nwf.org. they -- on our site we have an area called get outside, and under that is our be out there program which has lots of tips for parents and caregivers on different activities to do with kids, um, in the outdoors and

tips on recycling at home and composting and just getting overall healthy from, you know, from the household out into the community. >> and mr. jones, i know, you're not representing a national organization, but, um, as part of their curriculum at your school with the health involvement's focus, i understand parental involvement is a huge part of that, and what does that look like in texas? >> a part of our state's accreditation include a health and wellness program which we hired a fitness or health and wellness coach to actually monitor and manage that program for us. and a big part of that initiative is to engage parents. um, so we try to reach out to them often. we do at least one newsletter a month, and part of that newsletter is to find out in the community where they can get resources, where you can go and shop for fresh vegetables, fruits and vegetables. we try to do enough to engage

them and encourage them to also be a part of this initiative. but as, you know, my colleagues here, you know, there are a number of resources. i would research those resources and create an initiative within your school to say this is what we're going to work on, this is going to be our focus. because it takes a ground root effort in order to get those things up and running. a lot of time, again, the further you move away from the classroom and being able to deal with kids hands on, the more it becomes about numbers. and it's easy the lose that focus of what kids really need, and so i'm all about the holistic view of the kid x. so you have to reach down sometime and to go back into the communities, go back to those persons who are dealing with kids one-on-one to find out what are those needs. >> okay. well, that's -- >> we're going to leave the last few minutes of this q&a, you can find the rest online at c-span.org. we head to an obama

administration official from health and human services and an investigative reporter who studied the subject. >> we have a really great panel here today to talk about immigration enforcement and its effects on children, on families and on the communities they live in. today's event marks a new report by dr. dreby about how today's immigration enforcement impacts family and communities, and that can be found on our web site, americanprogress.org, as well as some copies on the back table in the back. this report is the third in our series, documenting the undocumented, which looks at aspects of life for unauthorized immigrants trying to turn a pot into light on -- spotlight that gets overlooked in conversations about numbers supported or numbers arising or kind of a larger policy discussion that leaves out the human element in the equation.

i think it's timely that we're having this conversation only a few days after the government began accepting applications for deferred action to grant reprieve from deportation and work authorization to dream act-eligible young people. what today's event really tells us why deferred action will go a long way to helping people, it's by no means a complete solution to the issue, at most a temporary fix. and it leaves out far more people than it actually helps, and we're going to be talking about a number of those people left out of this program today. so in terms of immigration enforcement over the last few years, the u.s. has supported an ever-increasing number of people averaging roughly 400,000 removals each year for the past four years, more than double the number that we deported a decade ago. and one of the stats that i think is most shocking for me is in the first half of 2011 alone, the u.s. deported over 46,000

parents of u.s. citizen children. we still tend to have this image certainly in the public's mind of unauthorized immigrants as largely young, single and male, but the truth is that most undocumented immigrants have been here for more than a decade, most live in the families, and almost half live in families with children. while there are 11.5 million unauthorized immigrants in the country today, there are more than 16.5 million people in mixed status families with at least one unauthorized immigrant and one citizen child. or citizen, i should say. in most cases this is undocumented parents and citizen children. we though as well that even being the sole provider for a u.s. citizen really is very little help when it comes to immigration enforcement. a recent report, for example, by new york university law school's immigrant rights clinic found that new york city between 2005 and 2010, 87% of cases where

there was a parent, an undocumented parent and a citizen-child ended up in the deportation of that parent. that's almost nine out of every ten cases ending up in family separation. that's major number. so while we need to think at least we can neatly separate out the authorized from the unauthorized and similarly focus on the latter group, the truth is that immigration enforcement effects a wide number of people and a wide watt of statuses. and it's at the level of the fam fam -- family and communities that enforcement decisions are most acutely felt. so this level of the family and community is really what we'll be talking about today. all right. so let me introduce our panel. first, all the way on my be right we have joanna dreby, assistant professor of sociology at the university of al baany and author of our new report. next to her ismy yum young -- miriam young. seth wessler is investigative reporter at the applied research

center, and finally, a.j. chaudhry is deputy assistant secretary for human services policy in the office of the assistant secretary at the u.s. department of health and human services. >> wow. >> did i get that right? >> you got that right. [laughter] >> good. joanna, let me start with you. tell us a bit about your research and what you found happened to families that experienced the deportation of a loved one. >> sure. i want to tell you i didn't anticipate writing about enforcement activities. i was really interested in integration and how children in mexican families integrated into very different environments, one in ohio and the other in central new jersey where there's a visible, concentrated member can community. so i went in, and i interviewed 110 children ages 5-15. 91 of tear parents, mostly their mothers. i also spent time in children's

schools and visiting with their families, and, um, the story that children had to tell me and their parents as well under this environment that you describe, one of increased deportations, was one of enforcement having both indirect and direct impacts on their family lives. so this is really the story of the children, it's not what i anticipated writing about. >> let's talk a little bit more about these effects. >> sure. they're both direct and indirect impacts, so i want to start with the direct impacts, what happens to children when a parent is detained or deported. and, actually, this was sort of a small group of families that experienced this in my sample. what happens to families, well, it's mostly men who are detained or deported. and so it's really a story of sudden single motherhood and women having to deal with the effects of suddenly, um, being the sole provider for their children, having no preparation to be the sole provider for

their children. so you see changes in things like childcare routines, housing insecurity and, of course, the economic difficulties of keeping everything together. one mother i interviewed, for example, in the three years after her husband was deported moved eight times with her two children. eight moves. pretty significant. if anybody moves -- i've just recently moved a year ago, and i'm still recovering. so eight moves in three years is a long time. there are also long-term consequences of these, um, separations, and i found that in many cases families are not able to reunite, especially if a father ends up in mexico. men cannot support their children from afar. they can't find work in mexico and are not able to maintain a relationship with their children. so men suffer not being able to have relationships with their children, and women suffer as single mothers for the long term, and children suffer, then becoming -- being raised in a fragile family. >> wow. that's really terrible.

um, and, you know, seth, to ask you to pick up on this, i know your work at the applied research center has found that there are an approximate 5900 -- tell us about how we get such high numbers in the first place. >> yes. so, um, for the better part of the last decade at the applied research center and at the color lines, we've heard stories about families where parents are detained or deported because of their immigration status, and children are in the child welfare system for one reason or another and face really significant barriers to reunifying with their parents. we heard these stories, um, over and over again, and it got to the point where we were quite sure that they were not anomalous outliers, and we decided to spend a significant amount of time digging into the extent to which this was happening. what we found is we built a really conservative estimate of

the total, that there are about 5,000, more than 5,000 children who are in the child welfare system around the country and who faced barriers to reunifying with their parents. now, you know, we're deporting, as you mentioned, 400,000 people a year, and based on data that was first released to us through a foia request, we found that 22% of those people are participants of united states citizen-kids. we don't know how many kids those are, but, um, the collateral effects of that kind of massive, you know, level of deportation are going to continue to grow, and one of the most troubling is the children are stuck in in the child welfare system. these cases and these families' lives are complicated, like most families' lives are complicated. kids are in the child welfare system for number of reasons. some of them are in foster care because their parents were detained, and there was nobody else to care for these children.

um, in other cases family had interactions with the child welfare system previously and were on their way to reunifying, um, which is sort of the goal of most child welfare cases. once the kid is in the child welfare system, the system switches into gear and starts trying to bring this family back together. and what we found was that when parents are detained, they're generally severed from these vital line of communication between families and children and families in the child welfare system necessary to bring families back together. so i interviewed, you know, dozens of parents inside of immigration detention centers around the country, and all of them said to me that they'd missed at least one of their hearings where there are, um, where decisions are made about what happens to their family. others never had contact with their children while they were detained, and what we found was that once these parents are deported, once they're sort of

removed from detention and deported, um, they are often treated by child welfare departments as if they've -- and i heard this repeated -- fallen off the face of the earth. and so reunification efforts too often cease for these families, and, um, in some instances child welfare departments really refuse to even consider reunifying these children with, um, with their parents in other countries. and so these families are, you know, at significant risk of being separated for extended periods of time, sometimes permanently separated. sometimes these children are adopted and never see their families again. >> wow. i mean, that -- to me, that strikes me as a real disconnect between the two systems. so why do you think there is that kind of a disconnect? >> well, i think that, um, in many ways neither system is functioning with the necessary degree of accountability to the

needs of these families. um, participants are detain -- parents are detained and lose access to their children. sometimes they're able to get on the telephone to be present at hearings, but they're being, um, separated from their kids which makes it very difficult to be involved with the case plan task. when a kid's in the child welfare zillion, the child welfare system assigns a task like participating class or drug and alcohol treatment, things like that. none of that exists for people in detention. people in immigration detention centers have no access to those kinds of services that are necessary to move forward with a reunification plan. and so while parents are detained, they're completely sort of severed from this process. and then once they're deported, um, child welfare systems are not sort of treating, um, these families -- and i suppose you could say in an equitable way in the same way they would others. though there is this commitment to reunification, it sometimes,

too often, goes out the door when parents are outside of the country. >> miriam, let me turn to you since i know you coordinate both the we belong together and the national coalition center of women's rights, so you've really been at the forefront of advocacy in this arena. tell us about the campaigns and some of the families that you've worked with that have been going through these accept eights. >> yeah. i want to, you know, say and back up a little bit that there's been a lot of work really trying to link the women's movement and the immigrant rights movement. the national coalition for immigrant women's rights which we co-convene with the national latino institute for reproductive health, has been operating since 2007 because we really saw, um, a lack of analysis that included women and families. and you really hit it on the nail when you did the intro talking about our image of immigrants are still kind of male and single, and we don't think about women and families. as a result, our policies are

completely incapable and our systems are completely incapable of handling the real-life situations that they get faced with like detention of parenting and pregnant women. what to do with women who are breast-feeding with small infants, you know? and some of those stories from the detention centers have been horrific, that the children have been ripped from their mother's breast, that there's no access to the kind of post-partum health care that women need. and so the nciwr has been doing this incredible work of trying to lift up the policy analysis along with a lot of other partners. i will also say there's been incredible organizing around, um, women who are survivors of domestic violence, right? and inclusion in the national network to end violence against women was an important part of that. so one of the latest efforts that we're working on is the we belong together campaign which we co-lead with the national domestic workers' alliance. and to borrow a phrase from the national domestic workers' alliance, they always say when

you see the world through a woman's eyes, you see the world more clearly. and partly the main goal of our work is really to get the world to see through the eyes of immigrant women more and more. and one of our core strategies of doing that is building stronger linkages and alliances between the women's rights movement and the immigrant rights movement by inviting prominent women leaders to what we call human rights delegations to states like georgia, alabama, arizona, where some of the harshest enforcement laws have been passed, and to really organize meetings and conversations with immigrant women who are living through those harsh conditions and hearing and listening to their stories. in georgia we, um, heard one story from a middle schoolgirl. her name is melanie. and this was right before h.b. 87 was going to be passed. and her family, about hearing this law, sat her down and said,

hey, listen, melanie be, you know, things are going to get really kind of hard and ugly here. we may have to leave and go back to mexico. and melanie grew up here. this is all she knows. georgia is her home and her life. and she took an action which inspired us all, which was she went to her girl scout troop and told them the situation. and with the help of their girl scout troop, wrote a letter to the governor asking the governor not to sign the law. now, i don't know if the letter got read, but that story was such a kind of impactful story about not just women and children being the victims in this story, but how they can also be the heroes. and so later that year, inspired by melanie, what we organized was a huge children letter-writing campaign across the nation. we asked young people who are in immigrant families and those who are allies to immigrant families, those who are friends of, in churches with, in schools with kids who are immigrants to write letters to congress and to

write letters to president obama. and last year we got 5,000, 5,000 of those letters. seth and i were in a little team that kind of dropped them off in those congressional offices. so we're going to repeat this wish for the holiday campaign this year. it's going to launch in september, and our goal this time around is 50,000 letters, and we actually invite all the viewers here today to help us participate in that. >> that's really amazing. where can they get more info? >> we belong together.org is the name of our campaign and also the web site. so webelongtogether.org. >> excellent. so, ajay, let me turn the you. you and hhs come to a difficult juncture, at the point where families and children are in the process of being separated or have been separated, and i also know you come from a deep research background on this issue having worked on these exact questions for the urban institute. so how do you and how does hhs approach these issues?

>> okay. well, phil, as you said, i've come at this issue, um, from two different directions, and spent much more of my time -- i joined the u.s. department of health and human services this past january, but for five or six years before that i was at the urban institute where we had, um, engaged in policy research on this topic of, um, children and families in communities and the impact of immigration enforcement on them. and so i have much more experience coming from that side which i've sort of tried to bring and brought that interest into the work that we're doing at hhs. but i do want to say engage anything terms of the research first, we looked at, um, about 200, um, children and 100 families across seven states, um x the impacts of immigration enforcement. i'm very encouraged with what joanna did, we never had the chance to talk to the children. i'm glad you were able to do that, but we did interview families both in the short term

and long term and really followed their stories in seven states across the country. and we also interviewed service providers and immigration enforcement officers, police officers, um, the entire sort of range of the sort of human services and enforcement, um, spectrum. and found many of the same things, um, that other people here have sort of raised. the largest impacts on families, um, immediately were parental separation and the deleterious effects that had on parent/child relationships, with family security, child well being and development. we also saw intensive, almost immediate effects on economic well being. again, the most prototypical effect was a father, um, being detained -- arrested, detained, um, deported, um, and a two-parent family becoming a one-parent family in the context where especially in these communities, the mothers may not have been working before and are

required to go to work almost immediately. and often are also themselves maybe unauthorized and have limited economic opportunities. so we saw, um, very high housing insecurity. so 42% of families moved within the first three months, um, had to move either doubling up or, um, facing other conditions. we also saw very high degrees of food insecurity. so we measured, um, we measured and tracked how families responded to the regular usda questions a around food and security and found a number that were really well off the chart in terms of both families' food and security and children's food and security. the other thing we looked at was the mental health impacts on children in terms of their behavior and health impacts and really on parents. and really also saw, again, using developmental scales, child behavior checklist scales, what the impacts were. very severe forms of depression, anxiety, ptsdt diagnoses among

the kids. so the consequences were definitely very great, and the disappointing part was when we went back a year later, on the behavioral checklist and the food insecurity, many of these things persisted for nearly a year and, certainly, the parental separation. o coming into, um, so coming in with that sort of background, um, into hhs, um, while my portfolio at hhs is really around human services more broadly and not necessarily on this particular issue and, obviously, immigration policy is not the domain of hhs, but the well being of children and families is so when i joined the administration earlier this year, there was already some sort of nascent interest among folks at hhs, i mean, in part because the relatively new acting assistant director for acf, george shell done, had come in as the former secretary for children and family services in florida and had seen some of these situations and was very concerned.

and other people had recently joined, joined as well. and so we came at this issue sort of saying, well, our mission at hhs is focusing on the health, development, well being of children and families, and this is a relatively large group as the numbers sort of indicated that are being affected. do we know if health and human services programs are able to identify or touch these families, um, and what do we know is sort of going on? really from the standpoint of what as a department do we and can we know? so the things we've been engaged in and, again, we're very early in our program, but we've begun conversations with the department of homeland security to understand the context of, um, enforcement, how it varies by different types of enforcement organizations and across the country, and that's been very helpful. we've engaged internally, especially at acf, with all of the different programs that intersect with children and families, so that includes head start, child care, child

support, anti-poverty organizations and others. and we've begun to make site visits to specific states to get a sense of what the variation is across states in what they're saying in particularly hhs programs. so we've been to four states so far. we actually just returned a couple weeks ago from texas, we've been to texas, georgia, north carolina and california. four very different states and very different in health and human services context. and where we've, you know, talked with a wide range of, um, providers in the community. and what we're, you know, it's still very early, and we haven't, um, we're planning to do more visits, um, but what we've sort of seen is that it just does vary a lot across the country, it varies a lot on the type of enforcement, based on the set of human services providers and sort of where families tend to go. but, um, two things that we probably are seeing is this, um,

there's just a great deal of fear in the commitment. so people may not come forward to health and human services programs. so we don'tty there's any -- don't think there's any one sort of magic human services program like headstart or anything else that reaches a great many of these families. probably the set of organizations -- and this confirmed what we found in our research before -- that has the greatest contact with these families are ngos, nongovernmental organizations, immigrant-serving organizations. sometimes they may provide other services, but they're sort of the trusted community, and they're locally-based. these are locally-based organizations. and churches and faith-based commitments. if families are going to reach out for assistance, that's usually the organizations they reach out to. but we do find that to some degree some human services programs do have contact with families, but it varies by place. so, you know, when we were in texas, we found that actually, um, local community health clinics because they're off the,

um, safety net and provider of last resort will know, and it's usually not because the family comes in and says, oh, you know, this is what happened, our family has been divided because enforcement, it's usually manifest symptoms that are apparent in the child, and the pediatrician or the physician will sort of diagnose a medical condition and say, what's going on, why is this sort of happening, and it's usually because, well, you know, the family's dealing with that. so like i said, we're still in the early stages, and it's -- but it's -- and the last thing i'll say in terms of what we're doing because it came up in our sort of preconversation, we are really encouraged by the fact that this conversation's happening, but also by the degree of research, but this is still, as i said, sort of a relatively unexamined area in large extent. so we have, um, we have sponsored research, so it'll be the first time as a department we are putting out rfp for

research on this issue. so we're hoping we'll be able to learn more as we coalong. >> that's really great, and it gives us a number of things to go off of. i want to talk a bit more about the consequences, ajay. you brought up the behavioral issues, some of the economic issues. let's talk a little bit more about this. what are the long-term consequences from family separation in the immigration context? >> okay. [laughter] well, um, i think there are severe long-term consequences that, as ajay pointed out, have yet to be explored from a research perspective and that we really need more information documenting it. but i don't think it's difficult to project a little bit based on some of what we do know about family separation. um, prior to doing this work i did work on family separation in families in which a parent had migrated voluntarily to the united states, and children remained in mexico.

and there's actually quite a large body of research on family separation from voluntary migration that shows extreme negative impacts for children over the long run. and this is when it's a family decision to do this, but parent separation is still very difficult for children due to the insecurities of immigration. so a lot of the research documents lower academic achievement, dropping out from children, and this occurs even postreunification. so often times children are left and then reunite with their parents, but you see this long-term consequence that lingers on. and i saw that in my interviews, because i interviewed families in which a child had been in mexico and then was reunited with their parents, and they still talked about the long-term impacts of that separation, um, on the family. so i think that we can extrapolate a little bit from that and then place it in a different context instead of it being a voluntary separation. this is one that's enforced by the state. so imagine how children will

feel about that in ten years when they know that their family was broken up not because, um, their parents were trying to get them a better life, but because the state intervened. >> i was really struck in reading your report, joanna -- if you don't mind me jumping in -- where you pointed out that young people saw the word "immigrant" as a dirty word. >> yeah. >> and this real suspicion and fear of authority, of the police not making distinctions between police and i.c.e.. and i just think about those long-term effects for our country. >> yeah. >> as we knit a more diverse tapestry in this country, what kind of message do we want to send young people about which families belong, you know, which families don't and whether they are going to fully trust our system of government. i think that's a really big question that we'll have to keep asking ourselves. ..

two years before they're reunified. we know from research that's been done in the context of child welfare that has really detrimental impacts on kids in every measure across the board. and i think that more, you

know, more investigation is needed into what those impacts are going to be but i actually think for the kids that we're talking about it's in some way sort of predictable. kids do better when they're with their families and so you know, detaining massive numbers of parents and deporting them makes that really difficult and makes that an impossiblety for some families. >> just to draw this out a little more, a lot of the restrictionist groups, in favor of less immigration, the answer is send them all back to mexico, send the parents back, send the children back. is this about family reunification or about keeping families together here? anybody? >> well i would certainly say that the earlier you can stop this kind of thing from happening the better, which means it is about keeping

families together. all of the families that i talked to said they wanted to be here with their kids. all the parents i talked to said that. and, and so, for the mothers and fathers in detention centers facing deportation it is absolutely their first desire. they want to stay here in their families in the homes they built. if that is it not going to happen, if parents, mothers and fathers are going to be deported, then, what seems clear from the work investigation that i did is that lots of these mothers and fathers aren't being give the choice. aren't included in the decision-making process what happens to their kids. and so decisions are being made about the future of their children without them. and, many, many parents decide that their kids will stay here if they're deported and they will stay here with other family

members. that is incredibly difficult but that is a choice some parents have. some parents don't have that choice. >> again, speaking probably solely from the vantage point of the research that i conducted because we, we did you know, follow families for at least a year out to see what they, you know, and in only 20 of the 100 cases was there sort of a resolution. in many cases these cases go on for a long time where a parent had been deported to see kids go back or do they not. in the end with all of this is a family's decision. we can't sort of design policy to encourage or discourage because these are, for the most part, the vast majority of over 80% are u.s. citizen kids. so they have every right to remain in the country and in fact the country needs them to down the line now and down the line and so what the impacts are, so, you know, in some cases i think

it was eight of the defend families returned en masse together. in other cases the child remained behind while the parent left. in some cases we saw some kids went and some kids stayed depending on you know, the situation. the inas of the children. the situation, whether the mother could handle both ad less ants and children depending on the parent. these become complicated. the main thing, and these are not, we actually up to 100 families that we followed and the seven sites we never came across a family that were interacting. these were families that faced broader set of implications we saw occurring and these are sort of very difficult. but i mean i think from a policy standpoint, you know, we have heard, about quote, self-deporting as sort of a policy option but that is not something you can, you know, probably suggest is

been the nature of policy because these are mixed status families. it is very complicated and this is a very, you know, and we interviewed families in the process of making this decision. not a decision i would ever, ever want to have to make myself. >> of 110 children i interviewed, over 70 were u.s. citizen children. so i think it is very important not to lose focus on the fact we're talking about u.s. citizen children, who, if they return to mexico are not being integrated into mexican society because they have been born and raised here. this is a very difficult problem. and the other issues is, that the most important finding from my research was that consequences, not necessarily u.s. citizen children are not only impacted when a parent is detained and deported but the message that these enforcements are sending to this generation of u.s. citizen children that is really the most devastating, i think, for the families that met and interviewed.

as miriam mentioned, the children who equate immigration with police. i had one girl, andrea, a 10-year-old in new jersey, she talked to he about the police i.c.e. that was her term. i'm afraid the police i.c.e. will come and get my parents. that is a very powerful term. another girl in ohio also, 10, referred to the police as the police who will come and take my parents away. there is equation between police and immigration that does or does not bear out at the local level depending where you are whether or not police are acting as immigration officials. so you see great fears of the police among u.s. citizen children. i think that is devastating over the long run. children are also misunderstanding who is an immigrant. so i interviewed children. young children are not the easiest people to interview. one of the things i asked them, do you know what an immigrant is? i was shocked because people would say yes.

i would say, what is an immigrant? somebody who crossed the border to work hire. there is equation of illegality with immigration is devastating over the long run. we're a country of immigrants. suddenly for this generation of u.s. citizen children, immigrant is dirty word and stigmatized. i think that is very devastating for the long run. >> i think the fight over rhetoric will be incredibly important and whether or not immigrant is a dirty word, without even the attachers of what kind of immigrant is a huge issue. i think we're not just fighting for reunification. i think this is a broader, broader conversation we need to have as a country about who is an american family. who do we consider americans? is the real issue at hand? there are even, you know, media portrayals of mixed status families. there was an episode in ugly b.e.t.ty. and those are the kind of

stories we need to tell more. this is a family living in queens that could be your neighbor. not some image that is painted by restrictionist rhetoric. >> let me take up on that as well, miriam. i know certainly a lot of the conversation, a lot of the discussion on enforcement as a whole focuses on latinos and especially focuses on u.s.-mexico issues but there are really lots of other groups that are involved. talk about how this impact the asian-american community or lgbt communities or other groups we don't normally think of. >> yeah. well i think, great, thank you for asking. asian-americans are affected by these immigration issues as much as any other community. the asian immigration community is largest proportion of foreign-born living in this country and about 10% are estimated to be undocumented. so immigration enforcement definitely affects our community in the same way. i think there is a natural

interesting link between this conversation about immigrants, lgbt and asian-pacific islanders. if you notice the numbers are kind of similar. there are about 16.1 million asian-pacific in the country and 16 million mixed status, and about half that lgbt americans in this country. there is a way in which our country, if you're under the 20 million mark, there gets a lot, there is a lot of mythology can be written about your community. which is why this research work is so important. painting the actual picture right? from a portait. not made up stereotyped stories. based in the worst of our fears but really taking a look at who we are. and that's why the work that we're doing when we go out together is important and serious change is about here are the stories of real-life

women and their children. they're not the scary image that you have in your head that you are going off of. i think that is an interesting link and on the needs that we have in all the communities for more accurate data and portrayal. i also think, the certainly lgbt communities have been faced with family separation for a long time. bi-national couples struggle with the same enforcement issues. there is a hopeful silver lining in what the lgbt community have been trying to grapple in this country what the idea is of family. revolutionizing how we think about family. that it is breaking down barriers of gender, gender identity and sexual orientation but also, at least i know, as someone who cut my teeth working during the aids crisis, when people were dying we took care of one another as a community. we're talking about folks who have been disowned by

their biological families for the most part. so we formed our own chosen families that were there for you in those toughest moments. and i think if we think about building strong american families, those are the ones who, regardless of biology, regardless of status, regardless of paperwork, those are the people you know who are going to be with you in your toughest times that is the kind of family we ought to be lifting up and supporting and strengthening. >> almost hard to follow that. i want to come back to the enforcement issue and ask a little bit about the major, one of the major movements over the last few years which the immigration bills, arizona 1070 and georgia's hb 87, alabama's h the b 596 sort of remaking the landscape of enforcement in terms of adding this other actor, the state in and not just the federal.

for the whole panel, how does it change between children and family interact and how we think about reunification? >> certainly in, in the conversations i was having with child welfare department caseworkers and all over the country and with parents the state level anti-immigrant laws like in arizona, alabama, and georgia and elsewhere, create a lot of fear, both for families in terms of what kind of services they think that they can access but also for service providers who don't know what they can do for families. don't know whether state agents, whether their own agencies may be in the business of engaging with i.c.e. i think that creates a great deal of confusion and a great deal of fear. i want to say that i think the state bills are absolutely changing the

terrain and but i think the thing that is, is fundamentally changing the terrain all over the country in terms of immigration enforcement is really the rapid expansion of locally-based immigration enforcement mechanisms, mainly secure communities. which uses local jails as the springboard for, for immigration enforcement, for deportation. and so whenever town jail in the country soon, most county jails in the country run immigration checks on anyone booked in the local jails, that will start having, it already has started to have a pretty significant impact, collateral effect on the people, the families of the people who are picked up. we found that in places where 287-g programs, which is an older program that deputizes local cops to act as i.c.e. agents, we found that in those places, in

those counties, the chances that kids in foster care would be detained and deported parents increased significantly and all reasoning suggest that is the similar things will pan out to be true about secure communities. often families who are, involved in the child welfare system involvement also have some kind of involvement with the criminal justice system. in an ideal scenario that shouldn't, involvement, parent involvement with the criminal justice system shouldn't end that family but when these parents are moved into the detention rapidly, possibilities for reunification go out the door. and so i think that we're seeing this intensification of local enforcement that really starts in washington changing the landscape. really as much as these local immigration, these state immigration bills. >> you know i picked the two communities that i wanted to do research in purposely

because neither of them had a poe lemmic, neither one was a 283 community, neither one declared themselves a sanctuary city. i think these state laws and local environments have a national impact because the children that i interviewed were aware of what's going on in other places at very young ages. i have a 9-year-old who i interviewed who i asked what do you think it is like to be an immigrant after i asked what an immigrant was. i think it is sad. why do you think it is sad? because i saw on tv that somebody was arrested and taken away and they left their daughter in the car. so i think that these local, state, and policies are having a huge impact on children in other locales where there isn't such a polemic local issue going on because children feel the trickle-down effects and are very aware of them.

>> i think there's a lens around racial justice and racial equity that gets maybe not talked directly about but when we look at the states with harshest enforcement laws and they're the ones with most complicated racial histories in the past and i think that is an important piece for us to think about and to kind of predict. in this country as we grow more racially diverse and trying to knit and heal, where is there still work to do in our country? who are the latest targets i think is the question. >> i think the only thing i would add, i mean i think the panelists sort of covered what are a lot of the impacts but something else that i think that these sort of sweepingly harsh legislation in states does create both a climate of fear among families, immigrant and nonimmigrant because obviously you can't

just tell by appearance whether someone is immigrant and or a not an immigrant, it also creates difficulties for health and human services programs that are trying to serve these families because people are much less, less willing to sort of come forward and apply for programs. sometimes legislation actually does implicate problems. i think the program providers are also not sure what to do. i wanted to echo that sentiment. so -- >> i think this is a good way to segue into, from harsh to solutions. so we heard a bit at the beginning. you talked about some of the ways hhs was studying the problem but what should we be doing to try to solve this problem and what are the barriers to effectively helping families reunify in immigration enforcement?

anybody? >> certainly in cases where children are in the child welfare system, that isn't just a piece of what we're talking about here obviously. the impacts of immigration enforcement are much broader than that. because in those cases by and large county, state and county child welfare departments really, generally lack clear policies and guidelines about what to do when parents are in immigration detention and or deport. so what happens in this vacuum of policy, i found that, you know, without any sort of clear structure, a whole, a set of biases start to come into play to essentially create their own policies. so, child welfare departments arguing in family courts that children will be better off in the u.s. with foster parents than reunified with their parents in another country. there needs to be clear policy that makes clear that

these families like all families deserve a chance, a real chance to be reunified, to come back together. and, you know, as is often the case when agencies, when government is not proactive about ensuring more equitable outcomes, more racially equitable out comes, in this case equitable outcomes across borders other sets of biases or and practices get to fill in those holes. it is really important that localities begin to take on this issue explicitly. try to explicitly make sure these families can be brought back together as well. >> i think it's clear that coordination of different systems, the child welfare, the criminal system, the immigration system is necessary but from the perspective of children and families that i interviewed, there are really only one or two things that must happen from my perspective. one, deportation of parents must stop.

children are afraid that their parents will be taken away because they are being taken away. that needs to cease. i think we need to focus our efforts on having those priorities of having parents of u.s. citizens not deported. that should be a focus. the second problem is, we are in a situation where there are, a lot of mixed status families. that is because there is no legalization program available to families. the families that i interviewed would become legal immigrants if they could. they described trying to come on visas from mexico multiple times and being denied. so, i think, all of the families would take advantage of an opportunity if it was available to many this. the problem is there is no legalization program. and that's a problem. >> if we are going to continue to do harsh detention and detainment, some common sense legislate tiff efforts would make sense for separated children and. i see some of my colleagues

works hard on the bill in the audience can be much more smartly on it. senator franken talks about 7-year-old walking a park aimlessly when both her parents got picked up in detention raid. that is inexcusable. not just to think about the terror in the young person's heart but what kind of society would let that happen, right? help separated children's act would put in some of the kind of safety measures that would allow parents to make determinations, at least make phone calls and make child care arrangements for their children if they happen to be detained or arrested. i think that is a good, common sense, humane stopgap measure. not a solution. >> so i think the only thing i would add, i can only comment on what we can do under health and human services side of it, we've seen some things that, you

know, we'll eventually want to figure out how to share because they're potentially practices other communities should be aware of. so in california we were in san diego and los angeles and both of those counties as well as other counties in california and some other states developed memorandums of understanding between foreign consulates, mostly the mexican consulate and the local, either the local or state child welfare system. again, child welfare policy is mostly a state domain. so it is not something that hhs can sort of say, this is what you should or shouldn't do but we can broadcast and provide information that this is what, this county does, this is model of what is done around mous to help facilitate either the reunification if parents are living in different countries or other things. similarly we were in, in the southeast. we heard about some head start programs where families were, because of fear, scared to even bring

their children into head start any longer that sort of expanded their transportation mechanisms to sort of pick up kid to bring them to the head start program because they were finding that attendance was going down, not by people directly affected but spillover effects in the community. there are things, these are all sort of relatively small in the scale of the issue but that can at least we can either provide some guidance or technical assistance or just broadcasting these practices to the degree that we can. >> all right. i think at this point we're going to, maybe my mic is not working. we'll open it up for questions now in the audience. yes. billy will come around with a microphone. say your name and your affiliation and ask your question. >> seems from what you just say that there is very little that the -- do to

alleviate some of these problems. first, i wanted to ask you, before the study that apparently is a year or less, that you started this study, you and you went into the states to find out this information about the situation and the effect of, to your knowledge was there any [inaudible] to look at the effect of the policy that has been in place, the deportation for four years where deportations have been doubled, and to your knowledge, has hhs done anything these study that you referring to, to look at that, at the crisis that was sure to happen because of the increased number of deportation, one? and you say that it is -- [inaudible] there is a lack of guidance, federal guidance in this

situation. there is also, part of question, there is also a crisis with a boss foster care. there is any crisis that study but that is evident and to try to, to solve or help in that situation. >> it isn't working. >> i should probably again clarify. what we been doing, at hhs, i wouldn't qualify as a study. we're trying to understand what the contact is with human services programs across different states and localities. i'm not sure what. hs was doing before this but, as i said, many of our, the issue for the department of health and human services on this issue is that many of

our programs are programs that sort of resource or fund states and or local entities like head start programs, community health centers, and provide funding to them but where we do not, child welfare, where we do not design or develop the actual policies and programs that those programs intersect. this vary as lot by programs. you will have something like child care which is the pure block grant to states and they design their systems. and you will have things like medicaid which is also a block grant but there is a little bit more prescription that's available in it. so from hhs's standpoint as opposed to sort of on immigration policy where the federal government has full domain over immigration policy and implements it, there is less room to potentially do that. which is one of the reasons, and as i also said we also from what we've been gathering find that families

don't often come forward to many of the health and human services programs so far we've found in any sort of consistent way across the board. so what we're trying to understand is, are there ways that current health and human service programs can either know this is something that is occurring and identify strategies for addressing those needs? and that's, and that's what we're doing. i mean, again, we have sort of a limited scope on this overall issue. >> yes, sir. >> al miliken, am media. does anyone have further to say about self-deportation, their experience with it and their belief about it? did anyone see the front page story today in the "washington post" deals with the church of latter-day saints and the leadership and support role mitt romney played with undocumented immigrants in his apparent willingness in his church to help with food, rent, health care but not legal

assistance? how would any of you compare that with your own experience with other religious organizations? >> well, in terms of self-deportation there's new research in mexico that shows what happens to children when they return with their families and shows there's a series of negative impacts for, for children. so u.s. citizen children who return to mexico with their parents are not likely to have a great time. the research shows that they have difficulty adjusting to school systems. are left behind perhaps a grade. their grades may be worse. depends on how long they were educated in u.s. schools. but children that return to mexico are not doing well. i can give you an example of one family i interviewed who

ended up back in mexico. everybody did. the father was first deported. then the mother was released to be with the kid but scrambled until her next court date to figure out what to do. she was afraid she would be deported before she could get her children passports. fortunately was able to get her children passports so she was able to take them all back to mexico with her. but what was the scenario in mexico they were facing? first off the father deported did not have a job. he had to live with his own parents. when this woman returned she couldn't live with her husband. so she moved in her parents in a community that she left because she had no work. her children, her youngest daughter was six and was receiving, had birth defects and was receiving care in the united states so that she was able to read and write in english. but spoke no spanish. and returning to a rural school situation, you can man what might happen to her. i think the situations of children who return to

mexico is not ideal. and it is basically exiling u.s. citizens. >> thank you. [inaudible] i want to come back to the question of civic engagement and -- [inaudible] to become eligible to vote and that is really exciting. but at same time many of these people have grown up in mixed status families. they may have been child wandering a a park who is parents got picked up. and you combine with voter suppression that is going after latinos in communities of color and latin americans and i think that is troubling and i would like to know what people on the panel are saying that. >> i glad you used the term, new american. i promised myself that i

would use those words. great reminder who are these folks and goes back to your question you asked earlier. new american families are new american families. they want to say here. they want to be here. they want to contribute. they want to grow their communities. and so when we buy into the self-deportation rhetoric it covers up immense, inhumane atrocities happening on the local level. self-deportation sounds nice and neat but what we're talking about homes that got their water cut off. schools that kick kids out of school. police harrassment setting up checkpoints. families that we talk to moms who have kids with a health issue who are afraid to drive their child to the hospital because then they might get picked up. we're talking about parents who make arrangements to never leave the house at the same time for fear that they might be both picked up at the same time and their kids will be left with no care. self-deportation sounds nice and neat but what we're

talking about is really ugly truths on the local ground. . . sometimes they have to leave. can i heard a member of stories from women inside of detention centers who i spoke to canned one case in texas a woman that left a small texas town because

of life had become so difficult with the police pulling her and her husband over regularly simply because they suspected that she and her husband were undocumented. they left the country after years of this kind of sort of systematic harassment by police and went back to mexico and when they got kicked a city that they are from ki with their children, this woman described being taken hostage by a criminal element in the city on having to come up with a whole lot of money and a skating in the coming back to the state. then the family members and being detained once she tried to cross to get back. a detention center several hundred miles from her children. this is public policy. it has this kind of effect on families it's a lesson with what are public policies are doing.

>> i think it's also important to point out of the research we've done in documenting and undocumented, self deportation is just not working so we have these policies that are making life more difficult for an authorized immigrant that is contributing to family separation, and yet if we look at the numbers, they are just not going backward to mexico on their own. so, i think that is a big part of it as well, not just recognizing there are policies that are destructive to families, but they are not even working in their intended really all of consequences. >> yes? >> i'm with the state. it's very clear that people are

all trying to live in the finest resources. to recognize that for years ago we should have human population numbers in balance with our resources for generations. we've not really paid much attention to that and you study the u.s. resources if we were to live within our own sovereign resources we can only support a couple hundred million people, so can know, nobody wants to have children suffered. but how do we deal with the reality that u.s. population growth is all about immigration these days? and if you recommend we stop deportations on the legalization programs, how are we going to deal with just the basic overload of population numbers on limited resources?

>> there are a lot of ways to refund and there are some that i think are purely spectacle in principle, and those may be sort of obvious but also, just to be clear, mass deportation of 12 million people wasn't going to happen. it's not something that many support, and the impact, this is from the resources if that is what we are talking about of deporting people and kill leaving families to struggle in need of services, and in significant talking about resources, if that is what we are talking about, i think etcoff families supporting families is probably a good way to save resources. >> talk about how the paper, talk about some of the linkages between the so-called environmental rights movements

because i would consider myself part of the environmental justice movement that has been making the nativist overpopulation claims and the linking it to ken migration. and it has the extreme affect to the women of reproductive age because if you look at the population this may be kind of a policy target kind of put on women, and even if we are -- there is -- there are environmental restraints, but we have to give a careful analysis that doesn't point fingers at one community or the other. we are not looking at the hundreds of millions of americans who consume resources the same way inject some people would argue those with more resources would consume more and that is a part of the problem. we drive expends if gas-guzzling cars and all of that. it seems like a sensible

reproductive health and rights and policies and justice policies would be a better way to address and helping women and their families control their facilities seems like a better way. >> ks surprising number i interview come from the rural areas in southern mexico that are mainly agricultural but could no longer sustain their way of life starting really in the 1990's before a while there wasn't as much migration international migration from those areas. so i think if we are talking about the environment, we can't think of just the united states environment. we have to think of the united states and the resources that are promoting immigration to the united states as well. >> great. i think we have time for one more question.

>> [inaudible] >> can use beagle little louder? >> the obama administration made a proposed rule making change for hardship waivers so this would make it possible for family members who are in the united states instead of having to leave the united states to be able to apply without leaving to have the three and ten year than wave. i am wondering if this seems like a small change if you can speak with the impact might have on this particular population of the undocumented parents of children here in the united states. >> i think it would have a huge untapped on the mexican community than i've worked with for now 15 years the implementation of the three and ten year barriers have been devastating to the family. lawyers i work with are not able to work on behalf of their clients because the partnership is so high, so all of the children that we are talking about wouldn't meet that borut hard shot, so i think it would

go a long way if it would filter down into the local communities and what is happening. >> why don't you join me in sinking the panel. [applause] >> dannel conversations costs [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

giving immigration advice to the candidates last week. you can find that conversation on line at a c-span video library, and see with the presidential candidates themselves have to say on immigration and other major issues at c-span.org/campaign2012. tests are underway already on the floor of the republican convention in tampa florida. it is the tampa bay for an arena that is usually used for heiss hockey and basketball games. new governor chris christi will be the speaker of the convention. florida senator marco rubio will introduce the candidate mitt romney and during the convention also hear from the new hampshire senator, the louisiana governor bobby jindal, virginia governor bob mcdonough and ohio senator robert portman. the convention gets underway in

tampa of one week from today in and the democratic national convention begins the following weekend

bouck to goods of the national character and leadership symposium. 20 years after his first campaign for president he talked

to them about lessons from his life and business in the military. he will hear stories from the medal of honor winners from viet nam and the treen war. this event is about 50 minutes focus. >> ladies and gentlemen, it is my privilege to introduce to you and exceptional leader of character and a great businessman and a man of integrity. he served in the navy after graduating from annapolis and has continued to serve our nation as a civilian leader character. he has received many honors and putting a medal for distinguished public service, the highest civilian honor and the department of defense and the eisenhower award for his more than 40 years of continuous service to the american armed forces. please come join me in welcoming mr. kim ross perot. [applause]

[applause] >> can you hear me all right? okay. this is all about general robbie. he's an incredible man. he can't be with us today because of severe health problems but he asked me to give each of you the highest re and to let you know how much he had my ears and respects you. he's from oklahoma and he flew the p38 in world war ii. he was selected by the air force to retrace the lindbergh drought and a jet across the atlantic after world war ii. that's a pretty neat trick. she was an ace and korea. he taught the dole. he met china's top ace in the air over korea. general macarthur cassette

this, that up. robbie decided in the middle of a fight to fight his opponent defensively because robbie had more fuel. his channel had to go back north that the river robbie decided instead of just sitting and down where he was he would go to the man's face and shoot him down in front of his own troops. [applause] just think about that. that would be the altar that loss to the top race. i just defined and that is exactly what he did. the yield on the runway and there were 19 on the ground. he did a giant free 60 and came back down and got 14 in one

pass. he shared out macarthur through the river. these are the details. there's not one black mark on his record. general macarthur to all of the heat. then robbie went on and i asked robbie how could you only hit 15 on the ground? [laughter] you can imagine the response i got from that. robbie went on to vietnam. he was on the cover of "time" magazine, ran his picture americas topics ace in vietnam cannot another pilot killed if they knew exactly who he had because the "time" magazine story they kept the box down for

five years. 140 degrees in the daytime. he never meant, he never broke. instead, she inspired prisoners, young officers and other prisoners to stay alive by tapping on the box with a tap code. okay? callis at fer leadership? how would you try to make inspirational speech to the tax code -- tap code? robbie did. they decided to let robbie out. it took him just a few weeks to regain his ability to walk and talk. he was a senior officer in the camp. he looked all around and realized they didn't have church services have. as the senior officer, he ordered the church service which was strictly forbidden the following sunday. he said we don't have any

admirals'. he said just write them out on paper. the only paper they had was toilet paper. they were singing onward christian soldiers enthusiastically in the chapel and the vietnamese storm then. chubb will surface. you can't go to church you take every risk in putting risking your life to practice your believes robbie of life. talk to any of the men that made it through and they will tell you what a hero he was and still is today. the vietnamese can then and declared robbie back into the box. they were having church services and they were singing the star spangled banner. and the prisoners who were

standing with him said proudly to honor robbie and sing the stokely forbiddens on the star spangled banner and all were brutally tortured for singing that song. years later when robbie came home i said robbie, what was going on in your mind when they drag you back in the box? he looked at me and his eyes twinkling. he said with those guys singing the star spangled banner, i was 9 feet tall kid i could go well to bear hunting with a sticker. [laughter] 9 feet tall with a but now you all know that and i am glad you do. when robbie came home yet and the air force base and was responsible for the thunderbirds and one of his highest priorities was to bring a south vietnamese fighter pilot who was imprisoned by men with the vietnamese years as a servant to

embarrass him by having him do all the dirty work around the prison. he used that opportunity to smuggle food and medicine to a man who were dying again and again and again. the highest priority of robbie's agenda was to bring max over in the united states. he was pulled over, honored in the u.s. and 14 basis and went back home. when saigon failed in 1975, robbie, the colonel and the navy captain for the first to go in to save him. they didn't forget max. can you imagine after five years going back in the box? to go back to pick of a vietnamese soldier. they did that come and he did the right thinking, and it takes a person with a lot of integrity

to do that, and obviously robbie has a lot of integrity. well, during this they were on the border, they were ready to go, and brent scowcroft, the general in the white house heard about this and said george pantry, one of the raiders over in a car and takes up -- picked up maps and family members to come to the air force to bring back to the state, took them in the trunk of the cars to the airport and he's in the united states today and we didn't leave our men behind. and that's mainly because of robbie reisner. i have a large canvas painting of him in his uniform standing next to his fighter jet placed in a leadership all to remind every cadat if this man is and his outstanding leadership. [applause]

and now i would like to tell you the story of lance, another big statue of finance and one of his family members is with us here tonight. thank you so much for being with us tonight. he graduated from the air force academy in 1965. he's the first one to win the congressional medal of honor karina and media -- then he began pilot training kit and after his service -- after his death frankly. after his pilot training, he was assigned to the city 366 fighter wing stationed in the air base, south vietnam as an f-4 phantom pilot. on the night of november 8, 1964, on his 52nd combat

mission, lance sijan was tasked with a bombing mission over north vietnam. his f-4 was engulfed in flames had plunged into the jungle. he ejected from the air force and suffered from a fractured skull, broken right hand, broken leg and a rough landing. he had no food and little water and no survival kit, but he key dated his enemy -- he avoided his enemy for 46 days. he was finally after divided the viet cong believe it or not christmas day, 1967. then after being captured and severely tortured, sijan, who lost 100 pounds from his 6-foot 2-inch frame, overpowered the guard kenny skate into the jungle before being recaptured several hours later. he was put in prison to capture, christoff in prison where all of the pows. at one time he was near death of

they were planning on an escape. sijan was lobbying merely unconscious in the same room and suddenly raised his head and said count me in. how was that for a great experience? unfortunately he passed away a few days later. we have a statue of lance sijan at the air force academy, and i hope that every cadet will be inspired to be the same caliber of military officer that lance sijan was. now i would like to talk about the marine lt. murphy he fought a long and difficult battle. many of them wounded and continued rescuing the wounded marines after he had come and finally the wounded and putting him were taken to a medical hospital. the lieutenant refused treatment until all of his men had been

cared for. that says a lot about his leadership as a military officer. freedom is pressure, freedom is fragile, and freedom must be protected. i hope that you'll live those words when principle is involved, the debt to expedia.com see you will be the leaders to protecting the nation. i know you will do a great standard of excellence. don't forget the sergeant's gordon and schumer who went in again and again to rescue the helicopter pilot for an officer michael duran in somalia. use of them dragged through the streets. they died to save durant. a guide to earn the medal and god bless them, they got it. i would like to talk about how john alexander hatel. he graduated from west point in 64. he wrote his own obituary, and

he says i've never looked at this obituary without thinking -- excuse me he said i wrote my own obituary because after all i'm the best fighting for my own life. [laughter] i never look at this obituary and think of the phrase duty on our country. it is printed in "the new york times" 1971. he graduated tenth in his class. he was a rhodes scholar. he learned to silver stars. he was killed in a helicopter crash on july 7th, 1970. and here are the words from his obituary. i'm writing my own obituary because i am the best authority on my own if i love the army. it nurtured me. it gave me the most satisfying years of my life. the army let me live in japan, germany and england with experiences in these places others could only dream of killed a scorpion in my tent.

i climbed mount fuji. heifetz's visited the ruins of athens to rome, went to the town of floridian and alexander challenged his destiny and earned a master's degree in a foreign university. i know what it is to be married to a fine and wonderful woman and to love her beyond knowledge that she loves me. about 20 years i had that in "the new york times" i had in my office i decided i should find his wife. i knew nothing about her. i found her. she is under sec. never had another date. i've talked to her. she said there could never be anyone else like alex. he would be the only man in my life you really love him as much today as when he was here. i want you to know i am very happy. i could never be happier.

if i could never have a better life. you would think she had just found a million dollars on the street, and that is quite a tribute both to alex and to her. alex wrote i commanded the company. father, a priest from income tax adviser, professor and judge for 200 men at one time. i played college football and rugby, one of the british national diving championship two years in a row. a box at oxford against cambridge only to get knocked out knocked out in the first round and played hard ball to destruction. i've been an exchange student at the german military academy and have gone to the german master school and have them parachute jumps from everything from a balloon in england to a jet at fort bragg. i experienced all these things because i was in the army. i never knew what it was to

fight. i never knew what it was to be too old or too tired to do anything. i didn't die for my country. i lived for my country and surely there is nothing worth fighting for there is nothing worth living for. so you imagine a better role model than alex hottell. here is the story of a little boy whose uncle decided to build his own airplane in the 1930's from a popular mechanics and drawing. build a wooden frame, and his grandmother who by the way -- his mother who was my grandmother helped him covered with cloth, and then he painted over it and finally she found an engine and attached it to the buttonhole. there were no reports, so he put it on the truck, to get out to pasture to test like even though

he'd never flown an airplane before. his mother went with him to the pasture and as he was getting in the airplane, she said can now henry, you fly low and slow. he took off and successfully fly the airplane. later he flew the same airplane from texas to alaska and back home. i still cannot figure out where he found airports to refuel and that sort of thing, but he did. later on, has a little boy grew up, this little boy spend hours sitting on his lap learning to fly. by the time the little boy had gone to college, she had learned to fly a single-engine helicopter. a few years later this little boy flew the helicopter are around the world, single-engine helicopters. think about it.

reflect for a moment how difficult it would be to find places -- if think about how to find places to refuel pity he made it home and it is on display at the smithsonian museum. this little boy replaced lindbergh as the youngest man to ever fly around the world. he later attended college, joined the rotc. upon completion of his degree, he joined the air force reserves and became a fighter pilot. kendal risner had known this little boy as he was growing up as he had come home from the experience. so he went to the ceremony where the little boy received his ear force wings, and certainly that is the day that this never boy would never forget. this little boy later worked as chairman of the committee to build the air force memorial.

if you have seen their air force memorial or at least pictures, right? that was a massive effort and he has gone on through his life to do a number of other great things, and i am sure much of the result of the success is the result of learning to fly at that early age and learning the principles of leadership while serving in the air force reserve. and he's been a very successful businessman. you are probably wondering who is this little boy? this little boy is my son, and i can't tell you how proud i am of him and all the wonderful things he's done this goes on today that i thought i would stop at the air force memorial. the first leadership is to treat people with dignity and respect the way you would like to be treated. this has been validated again and again over thousands of years. there is nothing more in the restatement of the golden rule. do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

principles of leadership are timeless because even in a rapidly changing world, human nature remains. consider the principles, a practice that and your chances of becoming a successful leader what improve dramatically. a scout is honest, trustworthy, loyal, friendly, courteous, kind, for half full, careful how, helps other people at all times pitted he promises to keep himself physically strong, then mentally alert and the street and the voice model is be prepared. think what a great country it would be if we were all prepared. consider the leadership principles born in the beginning of the fifth century by their own actions and not their words the leaders established the martelle, integrity and the sense of justice of their subordinate commanders. they cannot say one thing and do

another. don't talk out of both sides of your mouth. leaders of this publishing high spirit of mutual trust among the subordinates and with their peers and superiors. leaders must attach to the standards of performance and have no tolerance for the committee. leaders must expect continued improvement based on new knowledge and experiences carry all these things are absolutely relevant today for the world that you and i live. what they must encourage creativity, freedom of action and innovation among their subordinates. so long as these efforts are consistent with the gulf. they must provide the direction never letting them wonder, they must never misused power and bass v brazillian nomination they must be willing to make

personal sacrifices for the good kid they must not favor themselves on the supply. they must encourage healthy competition among other people that must containment when such becomes a definite. they must understand the spirit of lot is greater than its letter. chieftains must never settle, mr. ever shred the cloak of honor, from the and dignity. they must have a duty of all to leave public life made the point that the leadership are timeless because the rapidly changing world human nature remains a constant. always use the word leadership. never use the word management when referring to people. you manage inventories you lead and motivate people.

you must seeks -- set the example by being a strong effective leader who motivates his team to achieve the full potential of the entire being. you must have an atmosphere of mutual trust and respect otherwise nothing works. if they don't trust you, don't trust one another you don't have much you can do. you're in this trust and respect by treating others as you would like to be treated. trust and respect can be lost in an instant. you must have an environment where there is no penalty for honest mistakes. these are learning experiences. like a skinned knees they are painful but the he'll quickly. when a member of your team makes an honest mistake, he or she feels trouble. don't chew them out. tell them about your honest mistakes. put it behind them and move forward to constructive work. make sure they understand that you have not lost confidence in

them. in this environment, people will be open and candid. do not put people into categories. recognize there is something unique in every human being. i am unique. i am special. there is only one person in the world i need to do not treat me like a commodity. treat me like a human being and treated with dignity and respect. keep the person challenge, each person to challenge to achieve his or her own potential, yet never forget united teams win, divided teams lose and remember the model of the three musketeers? all for one and one for all. keep that in place and your team will be a ruling success. every part of your unit must be important. give your team strong intelligent leadership to be the person they can trust, rely on and respect.

it more information than you can get any of their way. tell them what they're doing right and what they're doing wrong. tell them how they can improve, and do not keep written records and evaluations. what you have done lately in camps. judge people by what they have done today later. they may have made a mistake 20 years ago but still contained in the file. the answers are obvious. be willing to live on the front lines to beat, live and fight alongside the troops. feed the hard times, feed the troops first and officers last. we must have strong principal leaders and the first principal of the troops -- the role of leadership is to treat other people with dignity and respect than you would like to be treated. this has been validated again and again and again over the last 2,000 years. it is nothing more than a restatement of the golden rule,

do unto others as you would have them do unto you. the principles of leadership are timeless because even in the rapidly changing world, human nature remains a constant. leadership goes back to the fifth century commencing with the knights of great britain. the principles were coming like this, always be ready. defend the poor and help those that cannot defend themselves. do nothing to hurt or defend anyone else. be prepared, that is where the model came from, be prepared. in ever greater promise. maintain your honor. chivalry requires doing good and to others and the principal of leadership included in the magna car the. they are no man shall be banished. no man shall be destroyed. millman should be held lot and we should deny it to no man justice and right. the pioneers that settled the country live many of these principles of leadership. they are honest, kind, generous and brave.

always ready to rescue a companion. always ready to risk their lives to helping strangers. they knew they had to take care of themselves hand of one another. the pioneers sums all. they never started but leaked out on the way and only the strong survive. we live in the greatest country in the history of man. our pioneers and founders made tremendous sacrifices. they came over on sailing ships. they wouldn't even go across the lake if you could see them today. they arrived on their own and they have no welfare and found work. they saved money. they found can't covered wagons. they headed west. there were no roads, no mcdonald's, the hunted for food and shared food with others in the wagons. why did they come? the came to be free and practice the religion of their choice. they fought for independence against overwhelming odds and a one. they didn't have the weapons, but they had the drive and the

will to do it, and they wanted to be free and they paid the price. i want you to never forget the founders of the declaration of independence paid dearly for signing the document and starting a independence. 56 men signed the declaration. 24 lawyers and juries, 11 or merchants, nine were farmers and marched, these four -- mnf means and well-educated and signed the declaration of the full well the penalty would be death if they were captured. standing tall, straight and unwavering, they pledged for the support of this declaration with firm reliance on the protection of the defined province lead mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our safety.

they were soft spoken of means and education. they valued liberty even more. the signers were captured by the british as traitors and tortured before they died. they had their transaction burned. two of them lost their son in the revolutionary war mike and the mother had their sons captured and they fought and died from wounds in the revolutionary war mackall. carter of virginia a wealthy planter and trader saw his ships struck from the sea by the british navy, sold his home to probably pay his debt. thomas mckean was so hounded and for the british she was forced to move his family almost constantly. he served in congress and his family was kept in hiding. his possessions were taken away from him and poverty was interwoven. thomas nelson, jr. voted that the british general cornwallis

had taken over the home from his headquarters. he quietly urged general washington to open fire and his home was destroyed and he died. john was given from his wife's bedside as she was dying. their 13 children fled for their lives. for more than a year they lived in caves returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished coming in a few weeks later he died a broken heart. in closing, i want all of you to remember that every day think about the last phrase of the first verse of the star spangled banner, because it is a question. does the star spangled banner yet wave over the land of the free and the home of the brave? that is a question. and the answer to that question

if we must have great leaders we must have great leaders like you defending the gates of freedom. we are so fortunate to have you with that mission. i know that he will continue to do great work and you will make our country better as it goes forward. i want to thank you for your service to the country. it's an honor and a privilege to be with you today. thank you very much. [applause] thank you very much. >> ladies and gentlemen, we now have the opportunity to have a personal list question and answer session with mr. perot. please take your seats. mr. perot, if you take your seat and we are going to ask some questions from the cadet wing and get to see another side. >> face, sergel here is your microphone. all right.

we will get that working. there you go. >> can you hear me? okay all right, sir. the first question, at your time in an ad listed you have any time when your character was tested and you had a difficult time making a decision? >> was one of the greatest experiences of my life. never seen the ocean, but i knew i wanted to go to the naval academy. took me a lot of time to get there. [applause] and finally i went. i cast everything except one little segment of the physical exam. i had a broken nose from breaking horses as of late and the doctor said you have to go and have your nose operated on. i said i can't do that because i can't afford the trip home. i can't afford the operation. he said come on i will fix it.

he never touched it so you still see a broken nose. i met people all 50 states just as you have been associated with so many wonderful people, i had the privilege to do a lot of interesting things while i was at the academy. i had no flag officers, was the vice president in my second class year and president of the class of the third and fourth year, and in the middle of all of this, the superintendent contacted me and asked me to take the full responsibility for creating a new honor code at the naval academy that i will mention it was their honor code. i went to every platoon and met with everybody can and worked a little over a year on that. but every single midshipmen on board, interestingly enough 1952 when it finally went into place. i graduated in 53.

that's still in place today and is completely irresponsible the midshipmen of a policy, and i just find it interesting that after all these years somebody would you like this is actually good. so far -- because the check. one of the things of the naval academy agreed to is we like to check to see if they felt everything about it was appropriate. it was the highest moral and ethical standards the midshipmen set, the superintendent, not me, not anyone else, that came straight from the troops. and that worked well. i've had a lot of great experiences in the navy, and i've talked about that. i would never have had the success in life i had if i hadn't had that experience in the navy and learned the leadership that i learned in that experience of the navy and it made all the difference. >> thank you, sir. the next question for you is who is your most influential role model in your life?

who have you looked to to gain these insights and taking you under their wing to help you be a great leadership? and a different people at different times. just to narrow it down to the person that has really captured my life from the time i first knew him was robert risner and i just wish that we could no robbie. he would give anything to be with us tonight, but he was just the epitome of everything a person should be in terms of a great leader and caring for his troops and putting others first. and i learned all of those lessons of the naval academy and had them reinforce in the navy. but then once i was involved in the prisoner of war project i got to meet robbie and all of the other pow him survived and was all because of the strength of the leadership. so, i would have to say there's

not a whole lot belli would change in what i said today. you heard just about everything i would have to say. >> yes, sir. my next question is when you are hiring people for the sector should the of leadership that is military civilian and would you look for in someone you are higher? >> this is interesting because i'm in the computer for decades and you've got a bunch of geeks and nerds. [laughter] [applause] from the time i started my copies i started training all of my engineers which had to because back then there were so few. just what the native atoka young people in the military only after they had decided the done their tour as listed where they decided to leave as officers and

train them and systems engineering. the was a piece of cake compared to the leadership they walked in the door with. i could tell you stories by the hour. for example, all of the people i hired into the company where enlisted men that left the service there were bright and talented they could have gone to mit. they had fought in the combat and had a leadership that the platoon level, they had one mission in life and was to get a college degree. they were determined to get a college degree you could get a college degree on three shifts. the computer centers never close carry as anyone of those three ships they could go to college first or second shift, but to make a long story short, we had the finest computer centers in the world and everybody the would visit us was just

overwhelmed these enlisted men were going through college. when they got their degree we trained them and systems engineering and many of them trained in kawlija and systems engineering, and if they were unbelievable in terms of letting your company grows successfully because the leadership leading a group under fire is a piece of cake compared. leading the technology group's they had been tested the way only a few people had and i can tell you stories by the hour of things they do all over the world for mission impossible that they did on their own because it was the right thing to do. taking care of one another. so that is one good example right there of the quality of the people that come out of the military and how unique and special you are and no one could never understand why i wanted

you've than people at mit and caltech and places like that. all they wanted to do is bring me a copy of it if they didn't want to go out. they were talented of the leadership level was about zero and we have a long way to go. so, it is a wonderful factor it's been wonderful to see the great things they have done and they've made the company's successful and have stock in the company. they are successful financially and on and on and was just a perfect example of the impact military experience can have on your life after you finish your career even if you stay 40 years or however long you stay, you are really a very special, unique person in terms of how to get that and how to lead the team and keep them excited and climbing. >> thank you, sir. the next question for you is you have a gigantic family.

five kids, 16 grand kids growing faster. we wonder what would you say is your legacy message that you would like to leave for them, circa? >> i don't know to be honest. tough, smart colored leadership, take responsibility for other people. help other people at all times and keep yourself physically strong, mentally alert and the street and so far i couldn't be more proud of them. my son is the best possible example i could give you because of all the work that he's done in his life, and of course i mentioned to you he was the air force as a fighter pilot reserves but imagine 15 years without a working heather nada the company is putting together the air force memorial he is a unique person and i can go through all the different family members. i have four daughters and they are perfect mother's and that

makes me very happy grandfather. and also a perfect wife. so why couldn't be more proud of my family. and i want to make sure we didn't spoil future generations have because they felt like welcome, we don't have to do anything. they understand they have to go out and rebuild -- build their own futures, and somehow it is just too good to be true and there is nothing that i enjoy more than seeing what they have just done. >> thank you pmi second last question i have for you. have you ever had to release an employee based on a character flaw or have the problem an employee he was doing something the was morally wrong that you had to fire them for? >> nope. if somebody is stealing something or doing something, don't ever get involved in the abuse of a woman. that is out the door now. we don't tolerate that at all.

people out here most people say that is a weird place i don't want to be around. that's fine with me. but the people we have are just so excellent and outstanding and highly motivated and committed to the company the members in the company go anywhere any time to help a team member that has a problem. >> thank you, sir. before you got a big swath of the leadership in america right now, do you have any final words of advice for them? >> i would say get up every morning, make things better, and no matter -- we've had 15 great successes that is all history. you don't even think about it. just go find a tall mountain and climate. the point being don't ever become a glacier. keep making things better kid it

is our great country has a lot of problems right now if we let people like you involved in all of that i think things would be a lot better. but the biggest problem in our country right now is to get it back on track and not just financial track obviously but also a strong ethical base and we have to have this sharing for one another in all these things i've mentioned and these are the things that made our country and the things we must have to move forward in the best years of your lifetime and that would be wonderful if all of you out there. thank you. >> thank you, sir. [applause]

somebody must have gotten the word that i would really value the -- rarely to people who have done great things. the last two people i gave the

sword excalibur to, remember that the sword excalibur only the -- the two men who did the job on bin laden. so that's -- [applause] [applause] this will be my best treasure and i thank you so much. more than anything else, i thank you for who you are, what you do, and what you're going do in the feature. keep it up! god bless you. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, he has allowed us to start asking questions. come up and meet us. he would love to meet you. line up on the right side of the stage. on my right side. form a line. otherwise there are buses moving

too and from fair child hall every twenty minutes. so thank you very much. [inaudible conversations]. >> one more thing, this is the book rob came back. i know, you have it in your library. it's the passing the night seven years of the prison of the north vietnam, read that and you will be inspired. thank you. [applause] and tonight on ""the communicators" here on c-span2 maryland attorney general he's the national association of attorney general and we talk about to him about the government role on privacy internet. it begins tonight at eastern. and the republican national committee begins in a week. the flat form party is working

on the priorities for the next five years. they'll be meeting in fifteen minutes. you watch it on c-span. they continue tomorrow morning we'll have more live coverage starting at 8:00 a.m. here on c-span2. [inaudible] i know there are those who criticize me for seeing complexities and i do. because some issues just aren't all that simple. seeing seeing there are weapons of mass destruction doesn't make it so. saying question caught a war on the chief doesn't make it so, and proclaiming mission accomplished doesn't doesn't make it though. three days after september the 11th, i stood where americans died in the ruins of the twin towers. workers in hard hats were shot shouting to me whatever it takes. a fellow grabbed my me by the

arm and said don't let me down. since that day, i wake up every morning thaingt how to better protect our country. i will never relent in defending america whatever it takes. [applause] >> c-span aired every minute of every major party convention since '84. it continues with a week to go with did the live gavel to gavel coverage of the rk republican national committee and democratic national convention. all starting monday with the g.o.p. convention with new jersey governor and the keynote address. 2008 presidential nominee senator mccain. plus first lady michelle obama and former president bill clinton. recently the failed vail

substitute head a state u.s. political system with remarks by stanford university political professor morris fiorina and harvey rosen. mr. rosin is the form. this is about an hour and thirty minutes. >> good morning and welcome back to the second day on our dysfunctional political system.- this is the 21st one of our vail valley institute programs and i don't remember being as excited by four speakers. we start this morning with harvey rosin, who is a ph.d. from harvard and academic with a deep involvement in public service. he's been a member of the department of economics atas bn

princeton since 1974 he was also serves as deputy of the u.s. treasury department and is deeply involved in public service and academia yew. he was very much involved in teaching and mentoring students at princeton. he's been the reyep sent ofa numberrous awards. with great pleasure i give you professor harvey rosen. roslause] >> thanks for that kind very invitation.nk you i've been friends with john and. lee for years. they've been telling me about how wonderful these events atbe vail are now that i've seen them firsthand. i know, what they mean.hey it's delightful to be here. the entire political system have indicated that the u.s. political setup is dysfunctional

and even pathological and i was asked to talk about that. and the first thing -- glass of a water. if you want to know whether something is dysfunctional, i think the first thing i better figure out what's the function. if it's dysfunctional. i'd like to know what the function is. i went into the originalist mode and checked the constitution, which said article i section eight. they have the provide common defense and general welfare of the united states. they should declare taxes. now the founders took these issues very seriously including the issue of death, george washington said as a important strength and security cherishgt public credit.. we may be cherishing it a little

too much. b's pretty clear that things aren't working.t a when youle look at the budgetary numbers, another indication thae aren't functional is theinditi complexity of the legislation that we've been producing. john adams said it will be a little -- little avail to the people that the laws are made by member of their own choice. if the laws be so ill lum us in they cannot read are so incoherent they cannot be understood. the most natural explanation for this washington, d.c., is too partisan and "the wall street journal" poll shows that 93% of americans believe there's too much fighting between the two political parties. an alternative view is that the congress is just as -- [inaudible] as it's always been. it is partisan by construction. congress is built to fight. think about it. every committee has an minority

staff, and a majority staff. it has a chair and a ranking member. it's aff feature of the systemm. not.a feat if that isur so, if we have thi, you know, we say descrap fight. thed aer have czarrial how doese anything get w done? in a generic way it is a question considered by economists back in the 1950s. he won the nobel prize for it. with a result called the impossibility theory which 5 stated in general it's hard for democracies to work it's hard tz get consensus, and but then he listed some circumstances under which it wouldn't be that hard. and one of them was not much disagreement. okay.woul if erin everyone agrees it won'a be a problem. today there's a m lot of disagreement. fundamental disagreements, but

we have to disagreements before how were they solved? this is a political issue on just our economists and on the bit of today -- getting into this in front of two s distinguished political scientists and one of the most thccessful governors in the living memory. a story about a guy who he survived the -- [inaudible] 1889 and the flood was really a remarkable event in his life. and he decided to spend the rester of his life studying floods. and which he did, and eventually he died, he went to heaven, and getting his orientation, you know, saint peter explained to them they had i guess they had conferences and, you know, they had

conferences on various topics of interests, and this guy said, well, you know, i happen to be an expert open floods. i'd be happy to give a talk. and saint peter said, you know, luckily weha have a whole in the discussion next week, we'll puti you in there. i'm sure it will be wellre. received. one of the people in the audience is going to be noaa. so here i go. the question was, politically ii had disagreement and it's hard to get the agreement when you do both common sense and how do you get it? one view is that only the white house has at leverage toik mack the system work.

the president has prestige. the president can bride members of congress. the president can say i'll put p dam here we'll have a subsidize for one of your constituents there. the president can provide cover to members of his own party. in this view, the dysfunction is due to the failure of presidential leadership and in this context would be george w.h bush. namely or talking to republicans. president obama talking mainly to democrats and opposed to other samples we can think 77 people who managed to get both parties to work together such as lyndon johnson. one caff yet caveat to the view of the same old same old is theg issue. it's -- i like this framingwork for thinking about it.. because jerry fits into the

framework very nicely. abo namely in this context, whatgern does jerry do? if you have a safe seat what does it mean in the terms the bribe you have paid in ordered for the president to bring you along? how many dam do you have to get or how many of your constituents bought off more and more of more of this context. you know, the, you know, -- you know, we may at least some nsf worst off than in the past because of the mandate. if we have the problem with functional and, you know, talking to eachal partiewhat can be done about it? tki it's natural for me to think about in terms of budgetary issues, but i think most of my discussion about these ideas is going to be framed that way. i'd like to talk about a few, you know, this one view that if we just pass the right set of

tles, we can fix things. just gheet the rules right. we can fix it up. and this is a mind set of -- mosters which whom our legislators are lawyers. pass a law and find the right law and fix things. i'd like to discuss a few of those proposals and why i'm not impressed. it reminds of me job of council economic adviser.s thone west wing in-house economic. and i -- someone characterized the job of the being the member the president council. it's flushing roaches down the drain. what happened there are roaches coming up, you know,ow to your sink. terrible idea. they come from everywhere. they can come from the congress, they can come from agency from administration, they can come from west wing colleagues andthe your job is to, you know, flush them down, you know, get them

out of the sink. ide then they come back up again and you flush them down and that's, you know, that, you know, that is your job when people say what did you accomplish in washington.d ou i flushed down, you know, down e e sink. flether some of these ideas that that i don't know i'm skeptical about. the first is caign finance reform. here's is the underlying theory much more too much money in tha politicking. they don't cofocus on thepoliti. underlying good. let me quote a person. tell me you his take on it. put simply the champions of theh idea think they government is awful.ple why democracy we should be thi t having a good government. the only explanation that people's political choices and judgment has been corrupted by political interest.wh why have officials gotten thinge one? one explanation that the voters

were mislead. conservatives see the liberal meze ya as a source of misinformation for liberal and money conservative politicalnfoi advertising. each side strongly believes in our democracy would better if the public heard a deal less from the other. goe source from much of the energy d between campaign finane reform is precisely a desire to restrict political speech that is taken to be misleading or otherwise [inaudible] by the voting public. now of course, there are thisabe raises all sorts of political legal issues which i won't get into. i w ranteds to, you know, dollar and cents kind of guy ask the question how do we know there's too much money?sk let me pose -- was spent billion in the 2010 cycle.

that is a lot of money. those elections put members in the house and senate. there is a sense of the scale of the 2011 super bowl advertising and how much was pent for 30 seconds. -- spent for 30 seconds. to me, that raises a problem why so much is put at stake.

does money matter very much anyway? it is convenient to blame the nation a's problem on a special problemss -- nation's on special interests. well, what about the correlation between dollars and winning? meg whitman. make wickma just because you see a positive correlation, that does not tell you much. 32 ad be that donors candidate could they see might

have a victory. -- to a candidate that ac could have a victory. there is a popular writer who ical research. a number like that gives a false sense of cynicism. the point is that it is not very obvious that this money is swinging elections. at the end of the day, common sense tells me that if you stayed too far from your constituents opinions, you will not get elected. there was a wonderful presentation given last night.

there is a disconnect between the elites and the normal people. i found that research compelling. on the other hand, mitch mcconnell is from kentucky. the constituents have a certain view and they are reflecting it. how about another idea? line item veto. the claim is that the ability to veto certain spending reduces undesirable expenditures. you need to give the president line item veto. ronald reagan asked for it. bill clinton asked for it. what do we think about that? the labs have been busy at work. a number of states have

implemented line item veto and have been doing so for many years. it remains to be seen if line item veto has much of an effect. it does not matter very much. anything that you care about is not seem to have much of an effect. it is not clear and here is why. the president and the congress are always bargaining with each other. they're not talking about building a new dam in alaska. there is abortion, you name it. all the line item veto does is strength in the president's and in promoting his own interest.

you might not care about having the salmon from alaska, but if the president wants to go back, what it does is alter the power within the government. another problem with this notion suggests that our main problem is entitlement. they did not appear in the line item budget. there are on autopilot. that is why it is called entitlement. ok. we have lawyers at work. maybe we need something tougher than a line item veto. if you do not like the deficit, what do you do? pass a law against the deficit.

if these targets were missed, across the board cuts would happen. that sounds scary. according to the senate republicans' top adviser when the bill was passed, the first thing we did was to ignore it. how do it up the ante? amend the constitution. we can have a balanced budget within the constitution. we can have a constitutional amendment.

i do not think that will work. let me give you a few reasons. last i heard, we do not have clairvoyance working in washington. forecast a performance -- if the have a lousy forecast, congress might be in violation of our constitution without even knowing it. i think in general that is true, but we cannot count on it. second, the amendment would hopefully be transparent and britain to it would be less than 2700 pages. at the end of the day, it would have to list domestic products. these are all a concept by using suitable conventions the congress could in the system.

the events of the past 48 hours -- what is the past? the supreme court provided an example for maine. -- me. what about loan guarantees? when the government retains a loan, how much? it depends on how much you are getting paid. is it controversial? yes. but it would have to get done. do we really want people from the supreme court arguing? here is another question -- what is the government?

the know why fannie mae is our protest? -- do you know why fannie mae is arbitrized? the state and local government uses dodd-frank all the time. their 40,000 of them. special bid checks are entity set up so that they can borrow -- special interests are entity set up so that they can borrow. what do we do? we roll our eyes. we shake our heads and we move on. what happens if there is an amendment? can they stop government activity? we want the courts more involved in policies?

i think it would be a problem. bottom line, and after which rule is adopted -- no matter which will is adopted, the problem is that all members of congress have strong incentives to spend more and to pass less. unless the political and economic environment in this. public sentiment is everything. with public sentiment, nothing can fail. if there were constitutional amendments, there would be endless amending of the rules. it would take a different form. another nobelist made a point i tried to make before with my

roach example. i think this applies to leftists on utopia. after i heard a story about budgetary issues. the organizer got up and said, i cannot take this anymore. i am opening up the bar right now. that might be the best advice i can offer. thank you. [applause] >> thank you. our next speaker is craig barnes. he has an impressive and intimidating background. he was an infantry officer. he was a trial lawyer.

he was an international mediator. he applied his work in many places. he was a founder of the colorado common cause. he is author of an incredible variety of intellectual pursuits, one of which is an example of the roles of women in theology. he has a trilogy of plays of elizabethan england and a passionate book called "democracy at the crossroads." craig barnes. [applause] >> thank you, governor.

nice to see everyone here. nice to be invited. it is a pleasure to be here. i appreciate the invitation. thank you to harvey for spelling out the most articulate and a persuasive argument i can imagine. [laughter] in a little part of my early career -- it is an honor to be on the same program. in my early career, i began traveling back and forth to moscow and negotiating nuclear issues with the academy of sciences. after that, i found myself in disputes in the war.

later i was a negotiator for the u.s. government and the dispute over international river's. i came home from these troubles a flaming patriotism for the rule of law and prepress. i had won some cases in american courts. i have lobbied in the courts and congress. i had a run for high office and affective introduced the sunshine contest. i new democracy firsthand and i thought i knew in deeply. i came home from these years of our experience events that the difference between u.s. politics and politics of either asia are russia was as wide as the grand canyon. the conclusions i share today, in part from the contrast

between what i consider to be very different cultures and the political experiment which we initiated on this continent in 1776. the most of history, wealth and power go together. as wealth grows, its owners tend to surround and invade government. with the help of garment, increase their position, thus concentrating the world even more -- with help of government, increase their position, thus constituting the world even more. it was too and to support the heavy crown and the whole thing toppled over. supporting the government at the apex, the ship of traditional governments around the world is the opposite. the wealth is at the top and the

rest of the bottom. think of a monster with the golden glow at the top. -- think of a mushroom with the golden glow at the top. think of "tale of two cities." theflorence. or as the crown grows fatter, marie antoinette retreated, and the presence drew restless. when people lose their belief, the stem of the mushroom

disintegrates and the crown falls over. that is what we saw in the air of spring and in france in 1789. -- that is what we saw in that arab spring and in france in 1789. john anger was burned. -- joan of arc was burned. in every case, the case was freethinking. the danger was not the thinking, but the erosion of power. and in the first half of 18th- century, the scottish began to see this pattern. luxury kills. but timing get to tom paine, he writes in "common sense" that we

should put all of the crowns in a bonfire and burn them. we should charge rent. here is moral sentiment- no moral sentiment in aristocracy. the republican would allow a portion do have influence. to some extent, madison succeeded. more people had access to education and participated to some degree in elections. madison and his fellows felt in some sense. the constitution treated a non- democratic supreme court.

they could exercise the power over rights to be a human being and for women opossum rights to vote and over taxation. -- for women at's power to vote and over taxation. in the process, they have corporations and unleashed sources, including the potential of any member of the russian mafia of the mexican drug cartel to influence the so-called election of ordinary americans. with some exceptions, the supreme court has been a tool. it has been a tool for wealth.

it has been in constant opposition to democracy. it is no coincidence that economic opportunity or due process are drawn by jury are not enforceable with this hypocrisy. they do not have a word to try to enforce their nests in russian court. the russian revolution changed the players, but did not change the culture. they have a government that reinforces inequality by sending challengers to siberia. in this factor, they are in tune with most of history. it is why that american

democratic experiment is such an anomaly. unfortunately, classic is autocracy has now someone emerge in american politics. it is reinforced by scientific ideology, drafted by ayn rand. this ideology is the cause of our current consumption, the subject of our discussion. when i grew up in the wheat fields in eastern colorado, we gathered together in the summer to help each other bring in hay and chase the cattle when they got out and driving together to the county fair. did did this store propagated however is that that there is no such thing as society.

that changes the american story from the common good and the community to one of individual freedom. contrast that to james madison and the federalist papers in 1788. we may define a republic to be a government which derives all of its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people. directly or indirectly from the great body of the people. that is the great body of society. not from a favored class of it. otherwise, a handful of tyrannical people would aspire to take over. a handful of tyrannical nobles might aspire to take over government. that is quite different from

what margaret thatcher said in that there is no society. if there is such a thing as society, margaret thatcher is contrary notwithstanding. madison favored class of tyrannical nobles. there is the responsibility for the general welfare or the common good. author of the constitution and soft as opposite of democracy. today, americans an demographic is that 400 people have as much wealth as 90 million americans. americans -- wall street ceo's in 2010 received bonuses of $90

million. it is an amount greater than the gdp of 23 countries. that creates an unmatchable gap. the rest of the american population is expanding foreclosure and job losses. the american people brought the bank's back up. no one learned very much. they went right on paying those extraordinary bonuses and not knowing that their support was shrinking. another stunning figure -- 6 wall street figures are richer than many americans. think of whathat.

literally unlimited resources, they can pick and choose when to fight it will pay for women to the supreme court. if they did that act down, they can turn their briberies to mexico and turn in illegal to the gulf. -- legal. luxury is the enemy of virtue. luxury is also the enemy of democracy. the u.s. chamber of commerce and the koch brothers plan to spend $1 billion in this year's elections. in last vegas casino owner said he would spend $100 million to do whatever it takes to beat barack obama.

and in washington, a rumor were circulating two weeks ago that these billions are being used to buy ads now. that means obama will not be able to advertise. does that seem like that destruction of free speech? you would be right. in 2005, dick cheney guided the oil and gas lobbyist who spent $750 million persuading congress are hydraulic fracking from the clean oil act. that seems like a massive amount of money. in 2009, in the fight of the health care bill, the health industry spent $4.1 million per

day in the first five months of lobbying against these health care reform bills. that seems like an amount of money available to patients for an elderly, uninsured, the port, or the small business, all who had a great interest in health care. there for, that amount of money overoverroad a normal per son's voice. that is the destruction of our democracy. and a 2011, at $62 million of an income pays taxes at 24% and mitt romney pays taxes at 15.9%. every school teacher and every part across america and pays as high as certify%.

-- 35%. if that seems to like a system that favors the wealthy in and disproportionately finances schools, libraries, and roads, as well.ight ont ha that as far as i can see, there is no sound economic reason whether the in europe and dignity and managing investments compares the dignity of teaching or nursing. this system shows countless years of countless lobbying, even to the point that lobbying

wants taxes on capital gains to be abolished altogether. corporations need more profit to invest more and create more jobs. why at this time when corporate profits or at record highs? eliminating capital gains would give them more profits and increase the bloglow on mushrooms. the hypocrisy is eroding democracy. we would be right on that count as well. the final analysis is my own experience in negotiating. the democracy -- those values we

should treasure mos to fast of e truth telling and non-violent and the opportunity. they're not written. they are fundamental for this democracy to succeed. imagine ithat your mother has a heart condition and is to go to the hospital and you have to negotiate to get her into the hospital. when she gets there, you have to negotiate with the doctor to get it taken care of. that is corruptive in a practical sense.

imagine if your scientific results, you cannot share with them with anyone. even falsify at and try to make up your report as they did in the soviet union. -- you could falsify it and try to make up your report, as they did in the civic union. what happens if the figures are fudged? you could be describing russian politics. you could be describing chinese politics. if it the common good depends -- the coming the depends on the integrity. the ultimate source of our

dysfunction in study after study is welt disparity. a huge wealth disparities. not just a little. i am not talking about the 1% of the 99%. there is a huge gap of what this party. the result of the population as a whole is raised in helplessness and mistrust. business does underlies the ability for people to participate in politics. that the mix the not want to participate in a boating. the gap is too -- elainvoting.

the gap is too great. it breeds obesity. it breeds lack of mobility. it means a limited life expectancy. there is a wealth gap. you will know where you stand compared to the rest of the developed countries. all you need to know is that where you are because the wealth gap undermines trust and its dysfunction. to restore things in the u.s., we need to return government to the whole of people. we need to get corporate money out of politics. we need to declare that

corporations are not people and that money is not speech. more significantly than any of daythese, we have to revise the understanding for the compassion and generosity that is part of our genetically programmed him and make up. we humans will survive together or we will not survive at all. it is participation by the greatest number that opportunities is spread and education for the greatest number that can turn history on its head as it can to do -- we attempted to do. they do not have a word for fair

in russian, but we do. democracy is flawed, but it is better. thank you. [applause] >> craig barnes, thank you. tom cronin is an acting president at colorado college, where he now holds a ph.d. at stanford and was a white house fellow. he is a much demand speaker and commentator. he wrote a very well received a

book on leadership. tom cronin. [applause] >> thank you. thank you for my inclusion in the vail valley institute seminar. thank you harvey and craig for those excellent opening remarks. i will talk about the american presidency and expectations that we have in a democracy. but me begin by saying the profits of gloom about the does functionality of our elections are the american constitutional system have been with us since the very beginning. let me share with you one

observation about the election of 1880. if thomas jefferson is elected, said a respected individual, the bible will be burned. we will see our wives and toghters of thsubject prosecution. that was said by a reverend. he talked about the horrible things that would happen if jefferson was elected. let's talk about the prospects of our political system. this was a presidential election. right now we are in the 57th presidential election. 21 times we have transferred

power from one political party to another. this is a singular achievement. no other nation that i know of has had regular elections and has figured out a way to transfer political power from one party to another. the presidential box congressional separation of power -- presidential- congressional separation of power is slow. it is slow to embrace certain things that many people think need to be increased more quickly. it has a tough time solving issues of inequality. it is a framework and a structure and a foundation rather than a document. we have to supply the values and

underline concerns and principles. we have campaigns that are very expensive. the amount of money for some campaigns seems rather small compared to advertising companies. there is a strange device that we would not have invented today. i know there were compromises made at the constitutional convention back and we designed our presidential-congressional separation policy. we need to take a moment to celebrate that it has worked on many occasions.

for a moment, i might sound like a chamber of commerce commercial, but looking back of the last 70 years, the system rose to the occasion in world war ii. old war ii was successfully executed and completed. -- world war ii was successfully ocompletedt competeand and won. there was a high rate system that we can be reminded about -- highway system that we can be reminded about. eisenhower and congress could to gather.

that is an incredible achievement. it took many years to be completed. it took a long while to get him in the final picture in this region. take the highway system as an example of the common good and doing something in a humanitarian way. there are other issues that are incredibly important. we have the clean air act and the china initiative. those are examples where congressional leaders and the president had the foresight to make our system work. the reagan era, tax reform of 1986. we look back and see it could have been better, but it was an achievement for democrats,

republicans, for them to work together. people thought it was impossible to get done. the artistry of politics is spirited debate and problem solving. the bush era and obamacare economics and the automobile industry -- those are examples where both parties worked. in the obama era and the affordable health care act of 2010 seems to have more legs under it than it did a few days ago. in a remarkable collaboration begin congress and the white house, but now the supreme court as the third branch.

it was a remarkable contribution. it is too early to digest what the role of it was. my point is let us remember that on occasion not every day and not every year and not every legislative -- usually there are two or three rather significant steps forward and are progressive and that serve the common interest. that does not mean that problems have been neglected that great, inequality, in particular. -- that to create inequality in particular.

we look at the opportunity. we tried to bring that about through legislation. we have a state legislator in the room from colorado. the person has been a fighter for minorities and immigrants. we salute him, michael johnson, for his work in that effort. the obama administration's made additional steps. i think both leaders are trying to figure out how to respond on immigration to make sure we can have people come to this country, but also have the opportunity to live a decent life. i want to say a word or two about the splendid talks that are given yesterday in.

>> he has several books. we are pioneering works in political science. he is largely correct that the american people have more in common about issues than many of the leaders in congress. there are issues that divide us. they get soft and we move onto other issues. a study that i have just completed in colorado politics, we found statewide respondents -- there are about 20% of what we call principal conservatives, who would never wrote for a democrat, tea party

conservatives. they are counterbalanced by maybe a dozen or 12% of what may be printable liberals. they rushed and listen to rachel m-- watch and listen to tachel rachel maddow. that is at most 20% on one side. most are pragmatic, pragmatic liberals, pragmatic conservatives or moderates who are willing to split the ticket and carefully make decisions. there is a large room in the middle. read the last three paragraphs of a book that is going to press in a week or two. it echoes a little bit of what

both the arenas of research find nationwide. the last paragraph says -- most people in colorado are not on the extreme right or left. they are not orthodox or rigid. they do not rule out of the views of good ideas that are held by other parties. some politicians may be polarized. most people from colorado are relatively small liv moderates. they understand politics is needed, and politicians bring about compromises. independent voters play a large role in a state like colorado. they agree on many more policy matters then there are

divisions. they want a better colorado. they want to come together to fight forest fires and to make for better roads and a better higher education system. the higher education system is embarrassingly starve to -- starved. person should is desirable. people have differing sensibilities as well as the views about the relative importance of liberty, equality, and social justice. politics comes about because society has to make choices about how to solve problems. there'll always be disagreement. humans could sharpened. most of colorado's political leaders will family debate about policy challenges without becoming disagreeable or mean-

spirited. there are some exceptions. for the most part, people are willing to talk and debate. politics in a spirited debate, compromise and problem-solving are the artistry in a constitutional to receive. we should cherish and celebrate, and we should shout out to those are effective artists. politics is a performing arts. when me add one other theory -- the change comes about in this country were often from the bottom up than from the top down. that is to say, when we want to have women's rights, very rarely is it to have an american president or majority leader in

congress lead the women's suffrage movement. it usually comes from the bottom up and takes decades and several elections. it usually takes some of agitators', who will star stuff up. people who could not get elected. this is to left and right. tax reform has come about often from angry people on the right who challenged things in california, like proposition 13, which captured the interest of governor reagan and brought about certain tax reform. issues of environmentalism. no president was a leader in the environmental movement. the only person who may have been in at one for act two leader -- if you see a gun in

the wall in act one, it will go off in act three. if you look hard, we should not give credit to most president for solving problems and saying lincoln sought slavery. lincoln did not believe in the abolitionist movement. he had 15 ideas about slavery. he was late when it came to what should be done. there are movements. mothers against drunk driving. that is not left or right. i do not necessarily agree with everything they believe in. it was a bottoms up movement -- one of her family members was

killed by a dui incident. she went to city hall, and got no response. she got to other people who were in office. they said, we take this very seriously. there was light sentencing. within a matter of -- she went from being an act one agitator to a woman who decided she would get other mothers and baulked. eventually, madd was -- if you were running for office in the 1970's or 1980's. there would always be a table of mothers against drunk driver with pictures of their relatives who have lost their lives and information about the white censusing -- light sentencing or

none. this issue got up to the white house to reagan, who was against federal regulations, except the mothers for truck driving -- drunk driving wanted to raise the drinking age. he tagged onto legislation. places like montana have to raise the drinking age to 21. he was nominally against regulation, responding to and ideologically neutral group that wanted to bring about some change. if we want to alter things, we need groups. before we can accept

act iii people to the front. repeople most of the time will respond if there is welling up from beneath. they are after a while the representatives of our system. i want to ask our guests to speak about the taxation -lements of the simpson bowles. a lot of people probably endorse the general concepts of a grand bargain or compromise and which spending and tax exemptions are brought to the table. this is something america is not good at.

our constitution is not good at focusing something as large as that. we tried that in the tax reform act of 1986. a compromise version commercial. it was a step forward. we are talking about something much more comprehensive and much more needed. i would love to hear about that. what is my time? five minutes? we expect a lot from american president. we force them into saying, i will be a united -- united, not divider. i will change the way washington works. i will change the way lobbying is done. when he gets going, he said he will change the way the world works. everyone who listened to the

rhetoric had to have an uneasy stomach. we knew enough about washington, d.c. to know that you're not one to change it very much. on day one, you're one, lobbying doubled in size. economic stimulus money became available. more people wanted more money. presidents often are very visible. we know we need hamiltonian energy in the american presidency to make our complicated system worked in a way to achieve resulting ends. we need hamilton energy. retried after watergate to have a weaker presidency. four years ago, this month,

watergate occurred. the presidency was bruised by a variety of crimes. there are efforts to rein in the american presidency. by a lot of noble people. it did not work. we knew that we need our system to work a presidency and a cabinet and some hierarchy that a emergencies.r version see we read strengthened the american presidency and had ignored a lot of constitutional constraints on budget matters as well as the war powers resolution of 1973 and similar efforts we are trying to force

president. that is not a happy story. president probably have too much power in the age of drones and secrecy. presidents are usually affected during crises, honeymoon years and when there is high popularity and prosperity. presidential popularity and the american people is fascinating. we lose confidence in president rapidly. truman lost 50% of support in public opinion over a three-year period. lyndon johnson lost 30%. nixon lost 40% over a two-year period. carter became unpopular in his last term. his own party challenged him. george hov bush-- h.w. bush, one

from 90% public approval to 35 per cent in one year. -- 35% and one-year perio. obama started off with 53%, but he began with 50 -- 65% during his honeymoon time. now he is at 38%. obama enjoys more public approval ask congress, more than the supreme court. more support than public schools, banks, and a slew of other institutions. why are we so tough on presidents?

we put on them would -- what we should be doing. we want them to unite us. it is a tough position to unite us. they have to make tough decisions on budgetary decisions. whoever gets elected in november will have to address the fiscal cliff and the economic decisions. well that made them popular? probably not in the short term. any time in natural disaster occurs or a recession occurs, or we do not like a war, as we did not like the vietnam war, who do we blame? we blame the person at the top of the pyramid, the american president. we are tough on president. we tire of presidents.

we are impatient. presidents will respond if we, the people, care about issues, the values we talked about earlier and to recognize that we have to help point the way. we want leaders to leave us in new directions. most of the gimmicks that are suggested to change the presidency or the election systems are liabilities. i agree with professor rosen, who suggested the proposed line item detail or for constitutional amendments are an illusion, just like the illusion of entitlements for -- term limits for congressmen. we have a term limit for the

american presidency. also, for the supreme court. term limits for congress to make no sense. we have term note now. the initial research evidence is power transfers to lobbyist, to the executive branch, to the governor. power moves. there are few reforms that i support. in anchorage -- in correct opening of the election process similar -- more people can vote. i am against the voter suppression. we should have a boat king holiday, voting by mail. -- bolting holiday, voting by

mail. i like the idea of we may have a filibuster percentage requirement lowered to 55. we lowered it from 67 to 60. it may help out. we could get a compromise on things of that order. most of the changes we need are changes in values. who are we as a people? what do we want to achieve? do we want to be an inclusive nation? what kind of tax reforms and entitlement reforms would be fair and balanced and makes sense for the kind of a country we aspire to be over the next century? thank you very much.

tom.hank you, a our last speaker is a professor of science at stanford and a senior fellow at the hoover institute. this is his second time with us. we were so impressed with him at the first time. we were compelled by his message. we cannot wait to get him back. he has been elected to be in national academy of sciences. his groundbreaking work brings him back again. his culture wars' made him a nationally recognized expert on politics. mo fiorino.

or.thank you, govern i had to wait to hear what people would be saying. i will try to draw some threat between this because we heard today. -- france between -- threads between the speakers with her today. most of these we have discussed have been disappointments. there is good literature on this that concludes they do not make much difference. in california, we have those kinds of things.

they are like keeping squirrels out of your house our garden, they will find a way in. they will find a way around these rules. if you have more competitive representatives, you will elect more moderate representatives. there is literature on this going back in time. if you are only having nine% choosing their nominees, you end up with the same kind of extreme candidates. it is one of these reforms that is good in and of itself. the notion that elected officials get to choose their own constituents is perverse.

we need to have a more nonpartisan-oriented mission. it will not have an impact on the problems we face. there is literature on term limits. you have to make judgments. that is a negative judgments. california, they move around. they go from the house to the senate, senate to the house. they are always running for reelection. they are always looking ahead. it has made depended on interest groups worse. money is the big one. the anecdote has been mentioned

a couple times. the precise picture -- picture -- procter and gamble spent more money advertising in the year than the entire electoral cycle. it is like how many people are watching rush limbaugh. harvey referred to the in dodge and 80 -- public interest groups as soon one way causation. the process is more complicated. after a congressional election, italic of the top 10 phrases in the house of representatives. in the top 10 races, several of the people lost the election. everyone else ones by about a

52%. -- everyone went by about a 52%. it is the anticipation of what will happen that make some raise money. donors give to people they expect to win. you do not have a lot of money -- you do not win because you have a lot of money. scott walker and -- the democratic party could have done more money into that race. they made a calculation they would not win. he had a lack of money because they expected him to lose. diminishing returns. the more you spend on something, the less impact he will kick if you go up. in these swing states, there

will be ads that say if obama and romney have a certain amount to run as, that will be affected. they are wasting a lot of the money they spend. the debate on the popular saw it presents the american public is stupid. children learn the difference between commercials and serious stuff when they are four years old. just because she won as, you will win an election is been customary to the american public. -- is on complementary to the american public. crack appealed to our emotions in a powerful way. craig appeal to our emotions

in a powerful way. spending so much time on a campaign funds is not the way to gut -- go in reform. equality is important. if i have been one of obama's political advisers, i would have said, the first thing you do is indict every wall street person you can. make the perp walks. the american public is upset. the people who played by the rules screwed. the people who screwed us are getting bonuses. from the political side a lot of the toxic attitude is americans

are convinced this whole catastrophe is the wrong people who were rewarded are the wrong people who got punished. i sympathize. the tax system -- harvey should address some of this later. labor is not mobile. they cannot take off and go to sweden. international -- we look at these issues. from an american parochial prescriptive -- perspective, we look at a problem and says what about the united states it that makes it a problem? it is crawling around the world. it is growing. globalization.

we tend to focus on things that are minor factors while ignoring the things that are bigger out there, some of which we can control or tried to ameliorate their impact. civil society. we do not have the kind of system that many of the screw up with where you had strong associations outside of government. we grew up -- every town had a rotary or farmers' association. these things have gone by the boards in most communities. we do not have this rich layer of civil society in between government and the ordinary people. many of these people think there

is a tension between governor -- government and civil society. in europe, they have never had this kind of infrastructure. the government are strong. people rely on governments to take care of the problems they face. in philanthropy -- americans give away more than your opinions do. europeans figure that is the government's job. you can criticize us in a lot of ways. the fact that we do not have a better government makes us more self-reliant. tom cronin is an optimist. i hope he is right. the darkest night is before the dawn. the words i feel, maybe that means the closer the turnaround is.

he talks about the presidency. those were a proper remarks. the disappointment people feel with the obama presidency is that expectations were set so high. there was the sense of turning the corner with change. we get the same old. i did not have enough time to get through the slides. there is period of indecision at the end of the 19th century. no party had full control of the government for more than two years for a 20-year period. when you look at these polls about presidents, the great ones were great during periods of unified control. often, 14 years, the party controlled everything. they usually come from that period of divided control.

were they pour presence because of the conditions -- poor presidents because of the conditions? we shall not lose track of the context. we are in a tough year. all governments have a tough time taking things away. it is good to give things away. how much? who gets it? when you have to take things away, all governments have trouble. it is happening everywhere. in europe, whether it is parliamentary. we are in a situation with entitlements, debts adn government have to take things away. we are in for tough times. i hope that is wrong and we have a sudden burst of economic

growth. i do not see it coming. we are in for tough times. >> this ends the part of this morning's program. we will have a dialogue between the speakers. thank the head of the republican national convention, the platform committee is working on the party's priorities for the next four years and they are meeting. you can watch that live on c-span. the republican national convention gets underway in tampa one week from today and the democratic national convention begins the following week in charlotte, north carolina. you can find live gavel-to-gavel coverage of both conventions on c-span, c-span radio and

streamed live on c-span.org. coming up on c-span2, former republican presidential candidate rick santorum. at 7:20 strength following nbc's the grio she talks about her role in on line news. the republican national convention, the platform committee working on the party's priorities for the next four years. meeting now, which you can watch live on c-span and our coverage continues tomorrow here on c-span2 starting at 8:00 a.m. eastern. president obama has -- is back on the campaign trail. he will be in reno nevada tomorrow at a trucking meadows community college. it's part of a two-day swing through nevada and ohio. you can watch live coverage from nevada on c-span at eight eastern.

former senator and republican presidential candidate rick santorum spoke to young conservatives at the young america foundation's annual national conference. following his remarks at former senator and republican presidential candidate took questions on a wide range of topics including same-sex marriage, welfare reform and the pro-life movement. his conversation was about an hour and 10 minutes. >> can we have your attention please? we would like to get started with the program. i would like to introduce our featured speaker tonight. i would like to introduce jolie, dedicated activist and graduate from central washington university. while she was in central washington she was active after school. getting involved in organizing the 9/11 never forget project, freedom week and the ads chapter on campus. now that she has graduated she

will be starting at penn state law school in the fall. please welcome her. [applause] >> thank you, pat. i am also an intern scholar for the summer and i've been so lucky for the great opportunity so i'm thankful to the foundation for giving me this opportunity. young america's foundation is committed to ensuring that increasing number of americans get to know the value of individual freedom, strong national defense, free enterprise and traditional values. as a principle outreach organization of the conservative movement, the foundation introduces thousands of young americans to these principles. we accomplish our mission by providing the essential conferences, seminars, educational materials, internships and speakers to young people across the country. you can learn more about the

foundation by visiting our web site at www.yas.org. i am going to penn state law this fall so it's an honor to introduce a former nittany lions, rick santorum. [applause] prior to running for president senator rick santorum served as a voice for conservatives everywhere. he served two terms in the u.s. house of representatives working -- where he took on special interest groups. he was elected to the u.s. senate in 1995, where he was a member of the notorious gang of seven that expose congressional banking and congressional post office 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 rolls of welfare and get into the workforce. he wrote and championed legislation that outlawed the heinous procedure known as

partial-birth abortion as well as born infant protection act, the unborn victims of violence act and combating -- act because he believes each and every individual has value and the most vulnerable in our society need to be protected. [applause] senator santorum has fought to maintain fiscal sanity in washington. he has fought for balanced budget and and and a line-item veto. he bravely propose reforming entitlement, cutting spending and even developed a spend-o-meter which added up the cost of liberal amendments on spending bills. his record is made in one of the most conservative senators in pennsylvania's history. he believes passionately that we must repeal obamacare and replace it with the bottom up patient, not government driven, system. this jim senators and harm launched a grassroots on line community of americans committed

to promoting faith, family and freedom and opportunity. senator santorum is the author of the 2005 "new york times" bestseller it takes a -- with you all received earlier this evening. of course he is not rocking the sweater vest tonight, but he is continuing the fight to give every american a voice so ladies and gentlemen please welcome, rick santorum. [applause] [applause] >> thank you. thank you very much. two standing ovations. i am about done. [laughter] thank you, i appreciate ant and enjoy your time at napa valley and let me thank all of you for a wonderful kind words that so many of you gave me and i had an

opportunity to check -- chat very briefly with everybody. i was very grateful for your support. i know they're a group of folks here include in jolie who helped us out on the campaign. i have to recognize one person who is here tonight, amanda. her father mike was her campaign manager from up in new hampshire and amanda was very active on the campaign so i want to thank you amanda for being here and thank you for this saying -- for. thanks to all the other folks who volunteered and help this 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 traveled around the country a year and a half or two years ago, people would always ask me well are you running for president? i would respond to them, no, i am walking. and that is pretty much what it was. what motivated you to run for president?

was at the fact that you lost your last race to the united states senate by 18 points? was? was it that he didn't have any money or was it that you didn't have any major supporters or any real endorsements of any kind? what was it that possibly motored abd to take the insane position that you could be a candidate for president having been out of politics for four nephews and and half years and not having any money and having lost your last race? and the answer was, i looked at the situation in this country, and maybe it was just clear to me -- clearer to me than others but i'm increasingly believing that others are seeing at the it the same way and it's becoming clearer. this is a landmark election. this is a turning point in american history. now i know you hear politicians and you hear you now, orators

get up and say rather dramatic and sweeping things like this all the time. i have never said that before. i have been involved in races for 22 years now. my first race for congress back in 1990 at the ripe old age of 32, and i never said this was the most important election. and i went from election to election. i never felt that things were -- i mean things were bad and difficult and the economy in the early '90s and we had difficulties with national security issues obviously and around the events of 9/11 but i never felt that something fundamental was at a tipping point. i believe that. i think barack obama has been -- done a great favor for the country and i say that in all sincerity. for a long time in this country

we have been on a very slow road as von hayek said, to serfdom. we have been on a slow road to gradually giving our freedoms away, gradually believing the song that 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 vote that it was the easiest part in some respects to establish freedom. the hardest would be to repeat it over this corrosive thing in society called time. that the farther away you are from a life that created this great country, the harder it is to have the zeal of the founders to 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. america changed the world. the time of our founding, life expectancy in the united states as in most of the world was around 35 to 40 years of age. we were an agrarian society. just to give you a perspective on that, if you go back to the time of jesus christ's life expect and see with 35 to 40 years of age. we were an agrarian society. has the world change much in 1776 years? a little, not much. in 200 years, after america did something truly revolutionary, gave the world a document, a 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, we don't even teach it in most of our schools any more. this revolutionary document called, what? not the constitution. wrong answer. [laughter] the declaration of independence. and i ask that question at you because they knew most of you would say the constitution. the constitution is a great document. if 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, different is the decoration of independence in these words which we all know, at least you all used to no, we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, but they are endowed by their

creator with certain inalienable rights among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. those are words that would roll off the tongue of every citizen in this country 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. [applause] and i'm not poking the french. although i don't mind poking the fringe, friends, i am not poking the french. it's not like being british. it's not like being italian. it's not like being jewish or arabic. if you are an iranian you were an iranian or a chaldean or -- because of an ethnicity.

america is not an ethnicity. we are all hyphenated americans. what makes you an american? my grandfather and father came to this country and when they stepped on the shore of america, they became an american. why? because they believed a certain set of values. american, being an american is about accepting a certain set of ideals. america is an ideal. you can go to france and spent six years in france and if you're not a french person you will never be french. you can speak beautiful french but you will never be french. you can be here for 30 seconds and be an american. that is what makes us different, because we are something different in the world. we are a country that is based upon a set of ideas and ideals and principles. when people say we want to change and transform america,

that means you are fundamentally taking away what for a long period of time is our country, the core of who we are and that is the declaration. god-given rights. there was another revolution that took place at the time of the american revolution, the french revolution. the french revolution and the american revolution. the french revolution was based on three principles, equality, pretty good, and begin talk about equality if you want to. e. quality is good but we can have access to the quality. we can explain that in a minute because it is very current and important topic in america today. e. quality is good. liberty, good, absolutely. those are both in the founding

document i just talked about with the phrase i just shared with you but the third word of the french revolution was fraternity. brotherhood as opposed to paternity, fatherhood. our rights come from god and in france it was in anticlerical anti-god revolution. the rights came from the consent of the government. and when they had that government formed, they ruled with radical tyranny in a reign of terror. the marquee -- marquee day lafayette who fought with george washington during the american revolution and returned to france during the french revolution, had two frames hanging in his home. one was a framed copy of the declaration of independence. the other frame to the day he

died remained empty. he was looking for a similar document, something to anchor the french constitution, something to put limits on the power of government, something that was a higher calling, a higher responsibility than civil law, the moral law. that is what the declaration has done for our country. our country four times in the declaration of independence the word god is mentioned. not the word god, but divine providence, supreme judge, creator. all of these things point to what? in america founded as a great moral enterprise. look at the three rights that they talk about. these rights including life, liberty and the pursuit of

happiness. life, the foundation of life, given to you by god. it cannot be denied. and we do in this country. liberty and i know there's a big movement articulate on a lot of college campuses now about liberty. we need to be very careful with what liberty really is because 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. yes it's freedom from government telling you how to live your life or what to do. but it is deeper than that. how do i know that? pursuit of happiness, the next

words. life and liberty for what? to pursue happiness. you know if you read the other philosophers of the time, the virginia constitution, it was life, liberty and property. but they said no, that is insufficient. property doesn't quite grasp what the purpose of america is. why we are declaring our dependence. so they put determined there happiness. now if you think about it, life is an important right. liberty follows, right? you can't have liberty without life so you put life first and liberty is clear. you have to have the freedom to pursue so government doesn't constrain you enforce your venture will so you can be free too -- to do what? today what is the definition of happiness? joy, pleasure, contentment,

right? if you want to define happiness that is pretty much what you would say. it is not what our founders would say. our founders understood happiness to be something different. if you go back and look up the first webster's dictionary, you will find a dictionary definition of happiness includes this basic sensible. true happiness comes from doing what god called you to do. doing what you ought to do will result in true happiness. 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 wanted 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 prosperous society from

the bottom-up and that is exactly what happens. in 235 years life expectancy is more than double. it went from an agrarian to industrial to a technology society. why? because government with limited. ladies and gentlemen more than any other issue in this election. if barack obama is reelected, i fear that this great noble experiment will be on its way to a close. today, about 50% of americans pay income taxes and roughly a little less than 50% receive some sort of government and if it. when obamacare is implemented ultimately 100% of people in america will be dependent upon the federal government for their benefits. and when that happens, it's your friends in the u.k. will tell you, maggie thatcher.

as tough as she was, as reform minded as she was she never was able, in fact she campaigned that she would not touch the health care system. it was a sacred cow that you cannot touch. and she said in her waning days after reagan, when she was compared to reagan she said she was never able to accomplish what ronald reagan accomplished in this country and she said the reason that ritter's national health care system. once people are addicted and dependent, it is very hard to take that away. we have to win this election. because i believe the future of republicans is at stake. and 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, i don't know how many multiples to one, in spite of getting absolutely no coverage being out there on the edge of these debates and you know they would throw me a question every now and then about abortion or or something like that, to reinforce the stereotype that he is some sort of the candidate that likes to talk about these things. in spite of that we went around the country and we talked about these core principles and core values. talks about this election has to be about who we are. the problems in this country yes they are economic, but they are much more foundational. they go to the core of who we are and they go to the core of family structure in america. and so we went out and talked about those things, and

amazingly, people came. and we ended up winning iowa and 11 other states. i would just share with you that those of you who are out there on college campuses and you think, it's hopeless on so many campuses, when i went out and talked about the basic principles of who we are, go back to the declaration. asked them whether they agree or not. people say we are so divided. no, we are not as divided as you think. we have just forgotten and have not been re-anchored. you bring them back and re-anchored to something we can start out at the starting point for what america is about and walk them forward. what does that mean?

what does this whole idea of god-given rights and fundamental rights really mean? where did those rights come from? when the government comes in and says we are going to give you a right, you see what happens. they can tell you how to exercise those rights. that's exactly what they are doing in the hhs ranks in so many other things they are imposing, there will on people. against their fundamental freedoms. ..

to remind people who we are and what we are about and how we have transformed this world and if we are willing to go backwards to the pre-revolutionary days of being servants, subjects of the king, servants to the government, which was exactly what we were prior to 1776 and exactly where we are headed if we don't do something now.

if there is no one that is going to 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 along. why? because of this oppressive government and the increasingly oppressive regulatory scheme and the antipathy towards anybody that is successful. minimizing celebrating the collective this isn't america. i really do people are seeing them. i am optimistic about this election, but we have to be able to go out and communicate big things, big ideas can the fundamental principles. if you do i am convinced you can

actually start changing hearts on college campuses and all over america study the steep understands who we are what we are about and we are not afraid to go and preach that the mountain tops. i would be glad to take your questions. at a loss [applause] caps before so much.

yes, sir. >> university of arkansas. i was just wondering you have been accused a defender of the unborn when you were in the senate and i was just wondering what your evaluation of the pro-life movement is right now. there seems to be a lot of focus on the national debt and national security, but i was just wondering what you thought of the pro-life movement, so, yeah. >> i don't want to be a pollyanna up here, but i'm optimistic about the future of the pro-life movement in america. and most of that optimism centers around young people. you folks are a very visual generation. you spend all your time looking at the screens. that's how you learn. that's how everything -- it's just a very -- you learn visually. that is who we are as america, young americans. and that's a great thing because you will get that child of the

womb as all of you, most of you not all of you have pictures of yourself can you have this sonogram pictures and what you look-alikes. how can you say that's not me that's not a person, how can you say that's not a human life, that that is a politician, how can you look at these sonograms and say yeah you can tell that child and you can get their toes and their fingers i will never forget one of my favorite movies, it's "juno." [laughter] but i will never forget -- what's her name, ellen -- page, yeah. i remember walking into the abortion clinic to get the abortion and that little girl who is a friend of hers had from school, not knowing what to say but to try to stop her from getting this abortion the head is very awkward conversation they just avoided the

discussion. the fact that this friend of hers she knew from school was actually walking into an abortion clinic and getting an abortion and she just didn't 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 that stop her from getting an abortion. what stopped her whacks the truth. the truth. you can't avoid the truth of what abortion is. for so many years you don't realize, but generations after generations of americans were white to. they were lied to. the girls were lied to. you can believe that because the supreme court said you can tell this child. it must all make sense. but now you have the reality of what life of the womb is. it is genetically human just

like each and everyone of us is metabolizing therefore why it is a human life we have drawn a line between human life and personhood some human lives are protected under our constitution and we are under the declaration mothers were not. ladies and gentleman once we created the lions based on fiction, based on where you are, location, then we control other lines. when five people in this country decide who lives and who dies, which is exactly where we are in america today for a i believe the young people in this country are going to reject understanding the knowledge of the gravity of the fact that a third a few, if you are not

here. one of three pregnancies in america in the abortion a third of this generation is not your can they haven't been created. the technology that happens. the works that inspire all of us. it didn't occur because they were not given a chance. i think we are better than that. i think your generation is as much ensure you are criticized as being the entitlement generation. you are also the generation that is seeking purpose. purpose for a generation if you ever notice. they tried to appeal to your sensibilities firm something good to be derived from participating and doing something with this product. your feelings and your senses

pocket, but there is something beyond just how much it costs to value. and i think that's a good and noble thing this generation is known for, and i think it will be one of the things that will transform the pro-life movement in the country and it's grown up. it's stopped pointing the fingers of people and saying you are bad for doing these things and stops it all together to set up the crisis pregnancy centers around the country and said we love you. we understand it's hard we want to help you whatever decision you make. the pro-life movement has been and must always be about love. has to be about love for the mother for the fall there can we are much more about that and we will continue to be much more about that, and i think that as always will transform. [applause]

>> you mentioned liberty in your remarks, and i just wanted to sort of get your comment on what a common perception that a lot of you have today which is that what people what to do is make sure that all americans are able to do what they want to do, then of course so long as it doesn't hurt anyone. can you comment a bit more on how to counter that assertion which seems to be prevalent today? >> it's a growing understanding of liberty and that it is a freedom as opposed to a freedom for coming and it's this very narrow view of liberty that

everybody should have their opportunity to do what ever they want to do as long as you mention it doesn't hurt anybody. but of course, what does that mean? what hurts people? i see a red light. freedom from government oppression kidcare it all right? i want the freedom from these unjust traffic police, so i just blow through them. maybe someone is. sometimes you may not hurt anyone. if you don't respect the laws, the natural order of things, and you feel like you should be removed from that constrained,

government imposes the law, collectively based upon the collective will of the public as to what is right and what is wrong. freedom from without hurting anybody you create a society that is free from collective moral judgments. i want to use drugs in my own home. not going to hurt anybody. but you do hurt somebody. he will hurt somebody in everything from how they are pervade to hurting yourself, hurting your own ability to do things, hurting your family members you hurt people in doing things that are wrong coming in a society that makes a judgment that we are going to put limits

on those things. we are going to put law in place. we are going to impose the value of our society to ll liberty to occur. if there are not constraints there can be no liberty. for example the red light. if there is a constraint on you crossing the intersection, then everybody will suffer. and so the idea is that there has to be some objective for the law other than just letting people do what they wanted because we can't just let everybody do what they want to do. so the object of has to be a high year or and so that is the sort of problem with this idea i don't want to call what libertarianism, but the government is a problem, government is bad, people should be doubled to do whenever they want, and that is simply not the american view of liberty.

there has to be a constraint on freedom for freedom to excess. and the question is what is the basis of the constraints? the basis of the constraints by and large in the founding of the country were based on the judeo-christian principles of right and wrong. now we are seeing on the left an attempt to change that, to reject the judeo-christian principles, and replace it with they say nothing but of course that's not true you are replacing it with something, a different set of principles. i'm forgetting these things, too, these artificial constraints because i want to be able to do. well, when you remove those constraints, you replace it with something even the absence of a constraint is a moral decision sets why we need to think

carefully about some of the fundamental changes that were being talked about in our society and the consequences of those because they are not the absence of the moral constraint or absence of legal parameters there of a different set. >> senator santorum, first of what you think you for making the school again. my question for you is coming from the state of branson, which originally from seattle. washington state along with a couple other states i believe was recently legalized same-sex marriage. the democratic party was made a part of the platform. the trend seems to be moving in that direction. what are your thoughts? is it going the wrong way at this point? >> i would say i think it is a 36 come of 37 states or something like that has voted

everything from maine to california on this issue and every time it's been voted, marriage has one akaka. how can that happen? how can a society can where i am sure certainly your generation is bombarded by the culture and the educational establishment and by a lot of other places with one point of view on this issue and is clear the younger people have a different point of view on the issue of marriage than folks who are older, yet every time it's been put up on the ballot it's lost. why? well, i would say a couple things. first off, americans generally speaking have the attitude it's not hurting me then what's wrong, what's the problem. the problem is no one has had until you have a vote until you

have a something you have to make a decision no one really thinks through the consequences are changing the marriage of laws in this country and once we have a debate about that people realize this does affect me, this will affect my marriage. it will affect my church. we changed the definition of marriage, then if you seek to implement that, of course you let people get married, but let's look at some of the other consequences. what is the education of curriculum in the country look like with respect to marriage? we see a lot of schools in the state's you have textbooks now

that care are like the fact you have stories about people, you have stories about married people who are heterosexual and people better homosexual. so that is being taught in the public school systems is normal and right and a fine irrespective of the believe some of the parents who are involved. you will see education curriculum change because. you are going to see the impact on religious affiliated organizations we're seeing it already, seen in several states where not the church itself, but church related institutions are denied tax status, non-profit status are denied a flexible in the case of boston, the boston catholic church wouldn't do same-sex adoptions so there were told they couldn't do adoptions. was the largest in the state of

massachusetts. so you will see a whole variety of religious affiliated organizations who will be denied their 501c37 or denied federal funds for beagle to purchase of a widely because we don't participate with organizations that are bigoted, and that'll be another common phrase and what will come next is pete speech will leave that you can't speak about these things. i may have one canadian i met from vancouver. there she is. but there have been, a marriage has been in canada for four or five years now, and there's at least 200 cases of heat speech and other types of criminal and civil proceedings brought against people including i'm trying to remember what a guy

dias it was he was told he would be charged with a hate crime. preaching the gospel of jesus christ on the issue of marriage. you say that can happen in the united states. it will happen. we do not give a 501 c3 to the organizations and when we transform what marriage is in this country, we will take everybody who is an orthodox believing christian and jew can't turn them into hate speech purveyors and they will have to change the way they live their faith out, which goes back to this broad issue of an attack on religious liberty in this country. attack on religious liberty is not just about what you can say in church. how many people believe the free exercise of religion and how you

worship on sunday? as believers, we understand our faith is more than what we do on sunday. it's what we do one tuesday, wednesday and thursday in our lives and in our work. and what we say outside a church. and what we're seeing is an attack right now by this administration. we are seeing an attack on the left by religious liberty, and it is going to and will an bup like you will not believe can after the debate continues. this is a direct assault on your judeo-christian heritage. it won't make any difference. how can you say that? it wants to make any difference in the lives of children. how can you say that? there was a study that was released the other day who was the best longitudinal study on the impact of children being

raised in the same sex households. and you know what happened? academia and the media went crazy. they tried to throw him out of the university, denied tenure, threat and his oncoming car. why? because he wrote an academically bulletproof study on this issue but it came out with a conclusion the left didn't like. the intimidation and the intolerance is unbelievable. you see what is going on right now live chik-fil-a. can you imagine the mayor of a small town of and roll hall louisiana who said we are not going to let somebody who is who says they are for a marriage of a business in our town or a huge

fundamental cultural things that are at stake in this election. you now have the democratic party coming out and saying they are for redefining the basic institution of our society. you go down the street in washington, d.c. and you will find a place called the archives where you will see volumes and volumes and i talk about this in my book of studies called environmental impact stings. if you want to do something to change the environment antics things like building a bridge across the swamp, you've got to spend millions of dollars and prove to the federal government what you are going to do is not to serve the ecology or the environment that you are affecting buy that new

structure. yet, we are now in this brave new world of the fundamentally changing basic foundation of promise of our society. the family. this is a good thing for society other than the quality. that's why i got back. a quality is a good thing. but it all depends. if the government is in the business of the quality is that a good thing? that everybody is the same? is that a quality good? how is everybody the same? of course not. of course moltke. none of us are the same. objectively false. where does the quality come from, this term we are equal in the eyes of god. that's where this term and understanding our society comes from that god sees us as his children in respect of our of

devotee but objectively we are not equal. some are smart and some are strong. this idea who will serve a quality based upon what? it sounds good, but it is a false a quality. certain things are not equal. communism is not equal. some would say they are. they are not. one is an abject failure for society and one promotes and is consistent with hal the society works and people function and it's true with a lot of other things. be careful with the quality. be careful to accept a false view of equality, a government dictated a few of the quality that is not consistent with the nature of the national wolcott

law. >> i am from brandeis. i just want to say one quick thing. i'm sorry but you touched on everything i was going to ask so once you answered it i felt what am i going to ask. as a real ardent and practicing catholic i will often say my favorite forums my region and my logic, but i don't get this. why do you think every country of the company like chik-fil-a, starbucks, oreo, why do they have to have an opinion on political issues? why do you think that? >> if you asked the folks at chik-fil-a, they haven't expressed views on a particular issue. this all started with an interview done by a member of the executive team of chick-fil-a trade publication talking about his face. if anybody believes that chick-fil-a isn't a biblical company they close on sunday.

what rational business -- [applause] surprise, chick-fil-a believes in christianity. [laughter] this is the kind of -- so, chick-fil-a isn't going out there i can assure you they are not going out there trying to start this fight. look, they want to sell chicken sandwiches. and that's all they want to do is sell chicken -- and by the way, they want to take the money from selling those chicken sandwiches, and they want to improve the quality-of-life of the associates who worked at chick-fil-a, which they do, and they want to take that money and put it back into the community, which they do. they want to support things that are at the core of basic values level of the country, which they do. i mean, this -- it is a great company. it's -- in so many ways it is a great contributor to the communities all over this

country. and yet, here we see are the police coming in saying you 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 said, fine, i have no problem with that. people can do whatever they want. if you go out to chick-fil-a tomorrow and buy a chicken sandwich, they can do that, too. [applause] but the idea of the government -- and that's where this happened -- the government coming in is a bridge too far, and i would say this, that for the mayor manuel and folks in philadelphia to say the things they said they don't want them in our city yet they embrace barack obama that had the very same position as the and kathy until the month ago the very

same decision if they wanted to be president of the united states and have that position. so this is the hypocrisy that you seek. in some respects i'm glad the democratic party did what they did. this has been a position they felt they just haven't had, they didn't think it was the right time for them to come forward and now they've shown their true stripes just like barack obama and now the american public can make choices as to the right course's. i am a student at oregon state and i've grown up in california my whole life, and i can see that -- >> god bless you. >> there will be voting for obama because that is a status quo in a liberal state.

deutsch the presidential debate over the summer my question for you is what advice would you give these young voters that practice such ignorance? >> welcome a look, i think it is incumbent upon every citizen to vote, and it's incumbent upon them to vote based upon age. as aggressive and as comprehensive a preview of the positions of the candidates. that is how democracy works. unfortunately, that is not how the elections are in this country. we have an imperfect system and a lot of folks who don't pay attention, and it's tragic and one of the great responsibilities particularly in

the presidential election and this is the idea that people that go into that voting booth as we see do not have any idea what the positions are on any of the issues is to serve it from both sides somebody votes for one candidate or the other is the fact you don't have that requisite information to be able to make those decisions. i don't know how you avoided it though. particularly given the social media. how do you not learn what these candidates believe? you are so connected you get so much information thrown at you just by osmosis you have to pick up something because it's a part of the general discussion at least on a lot of social networking sites. so, i think it is probably -- it

almost has to be by choice to ignore this or to sort of be in a cave for these types of elections so i would just encourage them -- i don't know if you have your ownfacebook page or fallujah on twitter or something like that so they can see what you say to say give me a favor. when i posed something, take a look at it. just encourage them to engage. i would like to hear what you think. and try to engage them in what is obviously in the central element of being citizens of this country. >> thank you. >> line from a land of georgia. i know in the past you have health reform health care and i feel like one of the biggest mistakes in the administration was taking the requirement of the war to receive the welfare.

cal do you feel this will affect the lower class and socially? >> it is the accomplishment of the republican revolution in 1994 was the passage of the 96 welfare reform act bill clinton signed against his will, really. he vetoed it twice before he signed it, and it did require work. why? because we know people can succeed without work, and it's sort of obvious unless your kid a trust fund bb -- baby you have to work to provide for yourself. what we saw in the great society programs of ensure the people that have these great society programs fothen they were doing people a favor, but they are not. it is not the responsibility of the government to provide for you. it damages you. it makes you dependent.

he will struggle it is just a different kind of struggle. i got criticized having a debate about universal daycare in the senate and i gave an example of someone that i hired off of welfare. i hired nine people off, and i talk about one of them who was working for a year. she couldn't find a slot for her two kids, and she had to quit because she couldn't make it work. it was expensive and the town she was living. but she had a sister who was not working, was living at home and could have taken care of her children. but she didn't have to. she was getting paid, she was getting a check and she didn't need to. it would have been more of a hassle. and ultimately, thankfully, the sister had the last day,

literally the last day she decided okay, i will do it and she was able to keep her job. she had a college degree, a graduate degree and she is now teaching. and the sister, by the way, who wasn't living a very good life according to my employee, having raised those children turned her life around. now, if we had universal daycare none of that would have happened. you can say we have avoided a struggle. life is a struggle. it's always a struggle. with the government provides for you or not, life is a struggle. there's always tough decisions we have to make and sacrifices we have to make. the question is what are we learning from the struggles that we are engaged in and i would make the argument the more the government does for us, the smaller we become. the less capable we become. the less self confident we become. can't tell you the number of women i talked to who over the years after i passed and worked

on this bill came up to me and said i didn't believe i was capable. i didn't believe in myself. he forced me to get out there and guess what? i now have confidence i can do things. people at home receiving checks struggle. they struggle. maybe not to see where the next sandwich comes from or a 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 them a favor. we are not doing a favor by having them become words of our society. physically, mentally or otherwise. and so, when president obama unilaterally went out and said we are going to free people to work which is what he did against oh-la-la, recently wrote the welfare bill i helped write. to make sure the president could not waive that provision because

we felt that it was foundation. and by the become it has turned out to be true. there was a study done by the brookings institute i talk about this during the campaign that if you do three things in america, three kimmage you will begin keeping could be guaranteed never to be in poverty. what are those three things? work. number two, graduate from high school. three, get married before you have children. you do those three things in america, people have done those three things in that in poverty 2% of the time. people that do those three things and up in the top half of income earners 75% of the time that some plant in time of their life. we know what works in america. we know what works. by the way, if you fail to do just one of those things, the chances you'll be in poverty at some time of your life, 74%. we know what works, and yet the

president of the united states of america assaults marriage. sides with the teachers' union to deny people the opportunity to get a call the high school education and then says no, you don't have to work. we know. we know what will happen. they will vote for the people that gave them the money. the most important election the big fundamental issues that we are dealing with. to promote a value structure. i love when they say we've got to get morality out of politics.

well, they are. they are getting the morality of the traditional bell use of this country but the judeo-christian and replacing it with a different morality. so the absence of morality is a different code can't work is at the heart to rid the attack on religion is at the heart. the attack on the family is at the heart. they can to the country in the 1830's and taught at the greatness of america and what did they talk about? mediating the institutions of the society, the families, the churches of the small businesses, the people that stood as a buffer between the individual and the government. that is what made america successful. we have these rich institutions that surrounded the individual and gave them the ability to

rise. and this leftward march that we have seen not just from this administration but for many years wants to pulverize every one of those institutions, small businesses, civic and community organizations, churches and the family. get rid of them and then it is just you in the naked a public square can against the government. big if things are at stake. you folks are going to be going to your colleges and you are 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 you are going to be engaged and have good times. you've got two months to have an impact, and if i haven't for years ago happens again mark

kantrowitz on college campuses across this country, you are going to have a lot of explaining to do to your children and grandchildren about what he did when america's freedom was at stake. what you were willing to sacrifice. our founders in that declaration. what does it say at the end? we mutually pledge to each other our lives and fortune and sacred and they did. they did. they gave it all because the freedom is worth it. >> good evening, senator. i think everybody in this room can agree to in order for there to be true changes on government, we must return to our traditional values. que deride your traditional dahlias from the bible and from it puritanical set of work ethics that this country was

founded on. however in modern society, we turn to a very relativistic a nihilistic form of not truth. it can't be called truth and it can't be called morality. now that this is permeating in our society, how do you said just that we return to those values lamb the majority of our society doesn't even believe in a sad truth? how can there be true change? >> be not afraid. don't be afraid to stand up and proclaim the truth. stand up and proclaim there is truth and be willing. look, you are here because you want to engage you wouldn't be here i talked to groups like this and people say you know you are preaching to the choir. that may be true. but sometimes the choir has to go out and sing solo.

[applause] don't doubt your voice. don't doubt your voice. how can you do this when you have all this pressure? they said practice so much i know this stuff. i know it. i can do it. dig deep. you've got the young america's foundation that is providing you -- i saw the area of speakers and i felt like i belong at this podium. these are amazing speakers and some of the speakers are folks that i work for, learn from them. read their stuff. some of it may be dried i understand that. learn it, know it better than the other folks care is nothing

better you have a test, you walk into that test and you know you haven't done your homework and you are nervous and you feel like it is horrible. but when you go in to that test and you've got confidence, you know it. you need to know if. you can't be as smart -- this lady talked her ignorant friends that don't know what is going on. you can't be lightfast. i think this is the right thing to do. you are going to get your lunch eaten by some academics who doesn't know anything that can talk about it. [laughter] so, you need to know the truth. you need to understand from where we came kiryat remember,

you need to drill down, and if you do, you will have that confidence. you will be able to speak whether it is at the bar or the door or wherever it is, you will be able to just confidently communicate the truth. and you know what? when people hear the truth and they will know it. the responses i get from people when they talk about the basic value of the country they hear it and they say okay. that makes sense. i went to some of the more liberal institutions in this country, and these are people they were not protesting the outside and this radical terrible guy come in yet you go out there and you call only present the truth.

and people walk up and i've never heard that before. you'd be amazed how many people never heard what you know. never heard the truth. you need to go out and teach it, teach who we are, how we got here and how our country is oppressiveness that they can make a difference. i always remind everybody the greatest generation of america is the greatest generation because we look back and see what they accomplished holding of nazi germany and japan and fascist italy. wow, they were amazing. they were no different than you. but what they did that made it a great was they were willing to stand up and fight to the bitter end their lives are fortunate in sacred honor to win. they are willing to sacrifice it to make freedom.

no one is asking you to put a uniform on or pick up a gun and go somewhere to defend us against an enemy from abroad. some do. but i am asking all of you to put on the cloak of citizenship. do your duty as a citizen of the country, know your stuff and be not afraid to proclaim the truth. thank you and god bless. [applause]

ethnics daniel has been security forum in late july this runs for

an hour and ten minutes. >> thank you, clark, and good morning. and i would begin by saying thank you for your service, becausanek i think as someone n your possession probably doesn't hear that a lot partly because of bucks feelings that clark was describing the general public and we will get to that. let's talk about aviationt security. the big question. we can break it down from there. how safe are we when we fly? how do you assess the threats? what keeps you up at night? >> thank you. thank you for having us here today. for everybody else. i think the context for what we do is importantth. the tsa was created in the aftermath of 9/11. we are safer now than we have ever been.

we are part of a global supply chain. i will talk about cargo a little later. passenger security is what most people care about. how we engage with our partners throughout the continuum for national security. i see tsa as part of a national security mission. we have heard about the last couple of days, the cia, and the intel and law enforcement services in forming what we do on a daily basis. locally with the fbi. the law enforcement officers and sheriff's deputies. all of that information comes in. it comes into tsa every day as far as the classified grief that i get. we take that information and

translate it into something that we can help prevent the next possible attack. we are at the other end of a continuum. all of the great work we have heard about in terms of dod, removing safe havens, all of that. the things that have been contributed to the place where we are today. we can talk more about that. we know we face an adversary regardless of how much they have been affected through the dod and other actions. we know they are continuing to try to come up with innovative designs, concealment, and deployment techniques. >> they are still very keen on airlines. it is such a spectacle. 9/11 had such a demonstration affect. let's talk about those threats.

what does keep you up? what kind of threat of a most concerned about? >> the focus is domestically from the standpoint of the workforce. people v meet -- who you meet. there are 275 airports around the world to have nonstop flights to the u.s. we check the standards for all of those airports. a minimum they have to have before we will allow passengers and cargo to come to the u.s. we make sure that is passing. one of the challenges and one of my concerns is that sometimes, for whatever reason, it could be something like negligence, or as bad as an insider. someone who may be taking a pay off. they except drug shipments to come through. they think they are allowing a drug shipment to come through. that is what i am concerned

about. you focus on aviation. the interest in trying to do something in a plane, whether it is a passenger, whether it is cargo, if they can achieve that, all the billions of dollars, whatever we have spent it just in the u.s. in the industry in terms of trying to raise the bar to detect and deter terror, they will have succeeded. we saw from the magazine after the human cargo plot, they said, it only cost them $4,000 to devise and chips those devices -- ship those devices. the u.s. government and the

industry spent a lot of money to try to make sure that they were not successful another time. >> that is a pretty good return on the investment. having them spend that money. let me ask you about how tsa has responded to these threats. i wonder if i can put the question this way -- there is a public confidence and public appreciation problem for tsa. i wonder if part of that is because the public might get the sense that you are primarily a reactive agency. they have the printer cartridges. someone tries to like a shoe on fire, we have to take off our shoes. there is a liquid threat, and we have to take our liquids out. it seems like we are one step behind. is that fair? >> i think it is in the 10 year history from the standpoint of trying to develop the predicted intelligence we did not have on

9/11 where actions could be taken to detect and deter. >> do you net? >> we are much better situated. there is no guarantee. in terms, there is no 100% guarantee. i am a strong proponent of that. a risk-based intelligence approach to aviation security. to that point, i think we have to focus on how we can take the intelligence that is so much more robust and with improvements in technology, how can we make better decisions in terms of pre-screening people so we can expedite their physical screenings? i think the one size fits all construct after 9/11, we have to

treat everyone as a possible terrorist. we have progressed with the technology and intelligent. we have moved away from the one- size-fits-all construct. we saw the two million passenger who has gone through a project. -- pre-check. we can pre-screen them. we are operational in 19 airports. 35 by the end of the year. i know some people have been through the pre -check. i think it is helping redefine the image of tsa. a number of other things we're doing internally. to move away from the one-size- fits-all construct. >> i want to take a step away from aviation security and asked

about the procedure. most people in this room travel a lot. they would eventually qualify. if we were to look around, we are a pretty much in the script. i wonder if -- a pretty homogenous group. i wonder if you are concerned about a two-tiered system exacerbating what we have in this country, the sense that the insiders have the game rigged. that there are two systems and that is hurting confidence in institutions. >> only slightly. i am focused on how we can do it in the most efficient way. the focus is, how can we make

sure that everybody has the highest level of confidence that when they get on a plane, there is not a suicide bomber or something in a checked bag that could bring the plane down. most people look at the aviation security and have high confidence. everybody agrees on that. that is a goal we need to focus on. the question is, how do we best execute on that mission? i have heard a lot of opinions of -- from a lot of people on how to do that. there are some great ideas. i welcome those ideas. it really gets to, we have differentiated between passengers for a long time. when i traveled, i would go to the ticket counter and show my credentials. they would give me a form to fill out. i would philip outcome but it would sign it. i would take it to the exit leg. -- i would fill it out. they would sign it.

i would take it to the exit leg. i would get on the plane armed. i thought, it cannot expand that? we started with the airlines. if you have been flying for years, it is possible you are a terrorist. it is much less likely. we are not in the business of eliminating all risk. we are in the business of managing risk. as we try to do that, the more we can learn about somebody ahead of time. what that allows us to do is spend more time on those who are selected. as others have mentioned, it is the unknown. we know everybody's name, date of birth, and gender. beyond that, not much.

and that you are not on the watch list. i want to make sure that we can focus on the unknown. while improving the physical screening experience for the passengers while expediting their screening. >> we will let the chips fall where they may. let me come back out of left field and ask you on the other side, as part of the risk-based security intelligence, do you profile on the basis of ethnicity, country of origin, religion? if not, why not? >> the short answer is, no. we do not do that. >> why not? >> we try to determine everything about a person as possible based on their willingness to share. because of the constitutional system, we do not do that. system, we do not do that.