handle, democracy now.org is her web site. thanks for being 0 book tv. >> guest: thank you so much. it's been a privilege. ... >> now, our beloved president ronald reagan passed away almost ten years ago. but as many in this audience know, it seems nearly impossible to follow political news without hearing some reference to our 40th president.

his memory, his name and, fortunately, his legacy seem to be ubiquitous as our country grapples with the challenges of our time. for many years, probably starting with the day after president reagan left office in 1989, there's been a famous question often asked when there's a particularly vexing problem facing our country. you've likely heard it before. we, the questioners often ask, well, what would reagan do? it's a good question to ask, because while times and technology and many faces have changed since president reagan was in office, some important fundamentals -- those that speak to who we are as americans -- have not. i believe that our guest today, governor jeb bush, understands this. and it's one of the reasons that after having left office just about six years ago, he remains

an extremely important national voice in the republican party. as we prepare to welcome the governor to the stage, let's first take stock if a handful of -- in a handful of issues that we know were of vital importance to ronald reagan and square them up against the words and deeds of jeb bush on those same critical topics today. so what are the fundamental issues? well, let's begin with taxes. we know ronald reagan spent much of his life trying to cut them for the average american. he was convinced that it was the man or woman on the street who knew how to spend their dollar more wisely than a distant federal government, and he did all in his power to prove it by cutting taxes. when governor bush was in office, he cut taxes on floridians by $20 billion. let's talk about the size of government. when ronald reagan was in the white house, he dramatically reduced the rate of growth in federal spending and strove to

reduce the size of the federal government. when governor bush was in office, he vetoed more than $2.3 billion many earmarks for higher state spending and reduced the size of the state's government payroll by 13,000 people. when ronald reagan cut taxes and reduced the size of the government on the national level, he did it with a purpose in mind. it was to spur the free market, create opportunity and provide incentives for businesses to grow. in his years in office, over 20 million new jobs were created. in governor bush's state of florida, his similar philosophy and economic programs created a thriving state economy where 1.4 million new net jobs were added during his time in office. there are other fundamentally important issues where the two men match; stemming the rise of health care, improving education through accountability and school choice, and as i'm sure

we'll hear some more this morning, addressing the vital issues involving immigration that affect all of us. these are all issues addressed by ronald reagan years ago that continue to resonate as important topics in our lives. ones in which governor bush has demonstrated much-needed leadership today. it is for these and many other reasons that jeb bush stands as the only republican governor in the history of the state of florida to be reelected to office. he hails from a family that has gone out of their way to extend warmth and support to mrs. reagan, and all of us at the reagan library over the years. let us extend that warmth to him. ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming governor jeb bush. [applause] >> very kind. really honored to be here. whoo, thank you. thank you all so much.

ambassador, great seeing you. thank you sop. it is an incredible honor to be in this beautiful place. i am, i'm just in awe of what you all have done here and truly privileged and honored to be here. i thought i would start my remarks by giving you a quick bush family update. first, i want to thank everybody for their thoughts and prayers for my dad. as he said, put the harps back in the closet, it wasn't time to go. [laughter] he's always had a pretty good sense of humor, and thank goodness he was right about that, and the harps are back in the closet. that's the good news. he's out of the hospital and regaining his strength little by little. yesterday he was at his library, in fact, with prime minister mull roney, and he's been there at texas a&m now twice in the last two weeks which is a good sign that he is regaining his strength. that's the good news. the bad news -- [applause]

the bad news is he's not going to be pampered anymore like he was in the hospital. he has a new care jr. -- caregiver. her name is barbara bush, and she's pretty tough. [laughter] so i'm always asked about my brother. you haven't seen much about him in the last several months. he's been kind of out of the limelight for a while. so since you asked -- [laughter] marvin is doing really well. [laughter] thanks for asking. seriously, my brother george and laura have laid low in the last four years. they've maintained, i think, a tradition that is something pretty noble in our country which is when you leave the stage, you leave the stage. you stop chirping about what's going on even if the guy that precedes you -- now, i can say this as a son, a brother, excuse me -- even if he uses you as a prop to lower the expectations to make everything look better during your time. my brother, i think, has maintained this tradition that president reagan did, certainly,

and my daddied after him -- dad did after him, and that's leaving the stage. they had the chance to serb, and i'm proud of my brother for showing the self-restraint that i could never have. [laughter] [applause] two other quick family updates. my son, george p., is proving that it's either genetics or social upbringing, but something compels a bush to run for office generation after generation. he's running for statewide office in texas, and i'm really proud of him. now i know what it's like, just thinking about it i get emotional, when my dad was asked about what it was like for his sons to run for office and how he could almost barely complete a sentence. i'm in that same stage now of life, and so he may be crazy for running, but i'm proud of him for doing it, and he's a great guy. and then the last thing i've got to tell you about in the bush family is something that, um, i, you know, i was -- i wasn't a

grandfather for way too long. and all the grandfathers and grandmothers of the world would always share their pictures, have you had that experience? [laughter] now, i'm the worst culprit. i was thinking about pulling out my phone to show you georgia helena walker bush. [applause] you think about her name -- this could be a place that would get that right away. i speak in some places, and i mention her name and her initials, not everybody gets it, but here, of course, you would. she is the love of our life, and a couple things about georgia. if there are any grandparents in the room, i find it amazing that we brought up our children, you know, whether it was through trial and error, it wasn't always perfect, right? we brought up our children. it's a little bit of a training program to take care of grandchildren, you would think. but once you get grandchildren, your children make you go through another training process to be able to babysit. [laughter] so we've got to do it once,

twice now. she's 18 months old. my hope is we can start doing this on a more regular basis. and when i'm alone with her, her nickname is 41. [laughter] one final thing about georgia that i think relates to some of the subject matter that i'm going to talk about tonight, today, her -- she would be what you would call, i guess, in the politically collect world of politics, she would be a quad rah hyphenated american. so she is an iraqi/canadian/tex san/mexican-american. she's got a lot of diversity which is the forward-leaning nature of our country, and 20 years from now when she pulls out the census form, she'll say not applicable. [laughter] and that's the way it should be, i think, in our country where we take away identity politics and focus on the shared values that

we have irrespective of where we come from. my little precious georgia may be a leading indicator of things to come in our country, and i hope that's right. [applause] as i said, it is an incredible honor to be with you all today. my first experience with ronald reagan was in bismarck, north dakota, believe it or not. and it was at the state party convention in 1980. it was in the late spring. andrea, you may have been there doing advance work. and i was the sur date for the guy who was -- surrogate for the guy who was kind of in second place in that process. and i walk into this place, there are 4,000 people, and bismarck, north dakota, in 1980. i'm telling you, this was, like, half the town. [laughter] half of north dakota, i think, at that time was there. [laughter] and i for the first time heard then-governor reagan speak, and he spoke in such inspirational and aspirational terms that i first was, like, totally, you

know, i'm all in. i mean, this was like exactly the kind of message that, what got a 27-year-old guy really excited. and then i realize, i'm speaking next. [laughter] and that was a little nerve-wracking, to tell you the truth, because there was no way that i could compare to the awesome speech that governor reagan gave. and so right before i'm getting on the stage, he'd completed his speech. he asked for me. and i went back and said hello, and he said this is a fairly heated primary, not like we have now where they're like bloodbaths and babies are dying in the streets and campaigns now. but by its definition it was a pretty heated primary, and governor reagan said i just wanted to meet you, and you could pat -- i just want to tell you how much i respect your dad. wow. so i'm hooked for life after that. [laughter] i am totally on the reagan team from that moment on. what an incredibly generous man. so then i go out to speak, and

the good news is i was still pretty nervous, but he lessened by nervousness quite a bit. the good news was that of the 4,000 people that came to hear the next president of the united states speak, only 400 of them stuck around to hear me speak. [laughter] so it got back down to its proper level, and all was well. [laughter] you know, the election's over, and the president has been reelected, and the new congress has been sworn in. and we have, basically, what we had before. other than the fact we isn't $4 billion to have a president be reelected, the senate remain in one party's hand and the house remain in the republicans' hands. we have, we have effectively, we have gridlock. we have now, we have variations on these new terms like sequester. and so last week in washington they called the snow that never same the snowquester. we have things like the fiscal cliff that we would have thought you jump off and die, and now it's just related to the

inability to find common ground on the budget. so we're going from crisis to crisis, and nothing in the election really changed that. because our beloved nation is divided, the direction we should take is undecided as well, and meanwhile, the power of compounding is not our friend. our recovery is the weakest it's been in modern times, our entitlement programs, everybody recognizes, are unsustainable, literally unsustainable, and grow in magnitude without change. our regulations are outdated, they're complex, they're costly, and they're certainly creating way too much uncertainty. our education system does not help enough young people gain the power of knowledge to be able to pursue their dreams as they see fit. our debt levels are way too high, and they're rising rather than declining. our tax policy has gotten way too complicated, and it punishes savings and success. and our social and economic mobility, something that used to define america, something that we've been proud of for

legitimate reasons that irrespective of where you start, if you work hard and play by the rules, you can achieve great things, that has diminished. we, in fact, amongst the developed countries of the world, we are least, we're the least economically mobile now. our country has changed, and our political system -- which is so important for us to begin to break think -- is not capable right yet at least of being able to solve these problems. so what should we do? first, i think we need to create a bipartisan path to high-sustained economic growth and desperately, as americans irrespective of whether we've got an r or d by our name, we should demand respectfully and with civility, we should demand leadership. we should demand public leadership. high growth -- [applause] high economic growth creates more revenue for more people and for government than any creative idea to redistribute wealth or

to tax people. high growth exponentially increases revenue. we saw that in the '80s, we saw it in the early 2000s, and it is absolutely true. low growth or no growth, which is what we have had now for four years after the so-called great recession, shrinks revenue collection and increases demands on government. think of the growth of medicaid or food stamps which has gone from 32 million to 47 million in four years, or unemployment compensation that's gone through the ceiling. and many other elements where the demands on government grow. and so not only are we not getting the kind of revenue we need for government, we're also dramatically expanding the costs of government. the power of compounding can be your friend, or it can be your enemy. right now it is our enemy. by inaction, we put ourselves in peril of really making it harder for the next generation to be successful. the debt loads and our inability to structurally change is now at a point where we have to change

it. on the other hand, if we decided as a nation that high economic growth was something that we should aspire to again, just to put it in perspective, a 2% increase in real economic growth compounded over ten years, do the math on that. you would think that's not that big of a deal. but in the tenth year, it incrementally creates a germany. it creates $4 trillion of additional economic activity. it creates millions of jobs. and trust me, it creates enough revenue to be able to fund the things that we need government to do. it would, under the current effective tax rates in our country, it would create a trillion dollars of additional, of additional recurring revenue for state, local and federal governments. it seems to me that we could put aside our partisan differences, and try to find common ground to be able to go back to the days where 3.5% or 4% growth was what we aspired to and what we tried to create policies to make happen. that's $4 trillion of economic

activity that would lift our spirits as well. our country has always been a positive place, and president reagan, i think, exemplified this more than any other elected official. he always believed that the next generation would have more opportunities. he always believed in the american spirit, people interacting amongst themselves, that we could create a better day. and by having that kind of growth, my guess is that our spirits as a country collectively would be uplifted again. the best deficit reduction program is a growing economy, and strangely, if you see the debate in washington today, very little of it is about economic growth, and a lot of it is about what my dad would say, eat your broccoli, you know? it's about the austerity, it's about the tough things that have to get done, don't get me wrong, but they're much easier to get done in the context of high sustained growth where jobs are being created, where jobs are a purpose and a value for people to be able to pursue their dreams. i have three suggestions that i don't think are that partisan.

they're not necessarily ideological, but if we just paused and said we'll have the food fight on all the other stuff -- and there's some good things to fight about, trust me -- that we could get to the point where we could have higher sustained growth. one would be to create a patriotic energy policy based on american ingenuity and innovation and north american resources. second, to reform our immigration system and move it towards something that would be part of a high-growth economic strategy, true to our heritage, respecting the rule of law but moving it to the 21st century where our brand, which is not tarnished around the world, would allow high achieving people to come and create opportunities for all of us. and then, third, we need stem to stern transformation. not reform anymore, but real transformation of our education system so that more and more children can gain the power of knowledge and be successful in life. [applause]

we're the most energy abundant country in the world. ten years ago or twelve years ago, we were about no longerer ready to have natural gas. people were building billion dollar hasn'ts to import liquified natural gas, and today we have so much gas we don't know what to do with it. that's because of american ingenuity and technology. a greek immigrant combining two existing technologies, hydraulic fracking and horizontal drilling, created the greatest explosion of innovation in the last decade at times, certainly competing with the commercialization of the internet. there should be bands and parades celebrating this incredible thing that we are now on the precipice of being energy secure, and all the benefits that has. but unfortunately, i guess, because much of this has taken place in west texas and north dakota, it's not cool. the people, i don't know who, there's a little secret committee that decides what's cool and what isn't.

this is not cool, and so there isn't the celebrations, but there should be. there should be because this is something that opens up the door for tremendous benefits for our country. last year $300 billion -- [applause] last year $300 billion went out of the coffers of the united states without any economic benefit. much of this dose to countries -- goes to countries that hate us today or are unstable and could quickly learn to hate us immediately after there might be regime change. this is not an effective national security policy where we take the patrimony of our own country to support regimes that don't have the institutions of, democratic institutions in place that bring stability for its people. the great news is that we could become the largest producer of oil and gas in the world within a short period of time. and it's something that we should put aside the differences

and apply with enthusiasm, create a strategy that would make that happen. and if it did, imagine the benefits. we would be, we would have the lowest cost energy source in the world to reindustrialize our country. it would lessen greenhouse gas emissions as more power is generated with natural gas and less from coal. it would save, and it is saving, consumers billions of dollars on their utility bills. it would create hundreds of thousands of high-wage jobs and literally hundreds of billions of dollars of investment in the infrastructure for our own country rather hand just ship the transfer payment out like we did last year of $300 billion. what should we do? well, first i would think it's a no-brainer to approve the keystone pipeline, for starters. [applause] the simple fact is that that oil is either heading west to a port to go to asia, or it's coming south to build the infrastructure that allows us to create jobs and opportunity in our own country and to enhance

our own national security. we should have rational regulation for fracking, to make sure that it's done responsibly, but it should not be paralyzed. for some odd reason today, we have a hard time applying 21st century rules and regulations on top of economic activity. we apply 1975 rules and make them even more complex and think that that's the best path to do. my guess is to make this industry a permanent part of our high-growth strategy that we can use 21st century solutions to make this viable and have proper rules around it. we should open up federal lands and waters for drilling, and we should allow the drilling to take place. i don't know if you saw the news today, there's been a pretty serious decline in the last three years of oil and gas produced on federal lands. if we want to become energy secure, then we should use those resources for proven reserves that exist. we should create incentives for using natural gas for transportation. it just cries out for,

logically, the price of natural gas per unit of energy is one-half or even less than it is for diesel, and the technology exists to be able to expand natural gas, you could save 1.5 million barrels per day of imported oil and expand our own energy to be able to create a more competitive trucking situation. we ought to have incentives for conservation in our homes, in our cars, in our businesses. we should continue, as we have been doing, to consume heads. the simple fact is that conservation is the cheapest energy policy that we can get. the energy we don't use is the best ones, is the best means by which we can create a comprehensive strategy. we should let market forces decide where to invest. we should not resort to government venture capital. it's an oxymoron. it doesn't work. [applause] it's been tried. it's failed.

let's move on, and let's trust the interaction of people in their garages, in their labs, in pursuit of their own dreams creating disruptive technologies that lower the cost of energy for renewables rather than having people in some bowels of the department of energy thinking that they know best. that is the path to a brighter future, and that is the path of getting at least 1% growth per year over the next ten years. so by the tenth year, we're half of a germany of incremental economic activity if we embrace this energy policy which is there for the government to embrace. they don't have to create the policies, it is happening. we just have to eliminate the barriers to accelerate the use of natural gas in our economy. demography is destiny. i have a question for you all. ten years from now you're going to be ten years older, right? and everybody wants to be here, i hope. [laughter] the simple fact is that we're all getting older together, and we're not the same -- our fertility rates have dropped

dramatically, and we're beginning to have an inverted pyramid that does not -- it makes our challenges as it relates to entitlements and social security even greater. slow-growing developing countries have had for decades lower fertility rates, japan and europe particularly and russia, and now china's starting to feel the impact of its one-child policy. we're better off than the rest of the developed world, but our fertility rate has dropped to below break even to 1.8, the lowest drop in the last three years in recorded history. and unlike most of the world, though, we have a tried and true way to deal with this demographic time bomb. demography does not have to be destiny if you change course. and the path that we could take is to allow for a strategic reform of our immigration laws so that we can bring young, aspirational people that will rebuild the demographic pyramid to make our entitlement system secure and jump-start our economy in a way that will

create an uplifting of our hopes and dreams, but also directly impact, immediately impact economic growth. no country, no country can do it like america. our national identity is based on a set of shared values, and is i'm so pleased that the reagan library in this effort here is focused on civic education to remind us of what those shared values are. whether we're native born or not, they are essential for our success as a nation. in america race is not an identifier of national identity, nor is some exclusionary policy. it is focused on a set of values. it's what sets us apart from the rest of the world. it is our immigrant her taming that has -- heritage that has created more dynamism and innovation than any other country on the face of the earth. and at a time when we desperately need to reengage and to grow and to be optimistic and prosperous, it seems to me we cannot put aside this huge powerful catalytic converter for continued progress as we have

done over the last decade of time. i believe that people that want to come to this country, they energize native-born americans like myself, and if they embrace the values of learning our history, of learning english, they will be a major contributor to our, to our economic vitality. the number of businesses started by native-born americans has declined from 1996 to 2011, it's actually declined. the number of business start-ups amongst immigrants in that same period has grown by 50%. in 1999 american-born scientists were granted 90,000 patents compared to 70,000 patents in the united states from scientists that were born in other countries. by 2009, the ten years later, more patents were granted to foreign-born scientists in the united states than native-born scientists. both parties, i think, are to blame on this. on the one hand, i think the democrats have seen this as a wedge political issue, hoping it doesn't get solved pause they think they win general elections.

on the other hand, sadly, my party -- and many of you are republicans -- view this as a primary election where we have fights about this in the primary to show who's the strongest in terms of border control, and the net effect is politics has been driving the immigration conversation, and i'm so happy today to tell you that that is changing in washington, d.c., was we desperately -- because we desperately need reform. we need to continue to improve border security and tracking down 40% of the people that come illegally, come with a legal visa and they just overstay their time. we need to be able to have technology to be able to track those folks and politely ask them to leave when their legal visa expires. we should do what we can to make it easier for people to come legally than to come illegally. the great majority of people that come here come for good reasons. they come to provide for their families. they come because their children are hungry. they come because they want a better life for their families, but they can't come legally

because our system has been overwhelmed, and it is not working. so a system going forward must say that it is harder to come illegally and that there's a price higher to come illegally than actually having a chance to come legally. if we had -- [applause] we immediate to move -- we need to move to family-based immigration which should be narrowed back to where it was 40 or 50 years ago to reuniting spouses and their minor children. the change has allowed for adults to claim their brothers and sisters and their elder parents, and then they get to make the same claims once they get a green card, and we've created what is called chain migration that has clogged our immigration system and made it harder for economic immigrants to come to our country. work-based visas should be increased based on need. graduates of s.t.e.m. fields should stay if they have a job or start a business. we only need to look north, i

think, to find a better way. at the same time the united states' share of economic immigrants has dropped from 18% to 13% between 1991 and 2011, it soared in canada from 18% to 67%. indeed, even though canada has one-tenth of our population, they have more economic immigrants, because they've developed a strategy to make this part of their economic growth, and the united states could do the exact same thing. h-1b visas should be expanded, and a path of residency should be made for them easier. in 2007 there was a million h-1b visa holders that were trying to get 144,000, i believe, green cards that are given annually. there's a term to this. so what we're doing is training people with high skills that could be the next generation of innovators that allow us to be competitive and successful. we're training them, we're giving them hope that they can

stay, and then they leave. and where do they go? they go to the countries that are competing against us for the creation of high wage jobs. this is madness. we need to change the system so part of our economic interests to allow these dreamers and people of great talent to stay in our country and make a difference here. we need a guest worker program to help sustain industries like tourism and agriculture. with better technology and more sophisticated enforcement, i think we need to expand dramatically tourist visas because of its huge impact. now, that may be because i'm from florida. i guess i'm biased in that regard. but why wouldn't you want to have visitors come and spend their, all the money they want to in disneyland or disney world or some other places to be able to create immediate economic activity for our country? and for the millions who are here illegally -- [applause] there needs to be a path to legal status achieved by paying a fine, learning english, not

violating the laws over an expended period of time. it is not the -- extended period of time. it is not the american way to keep people languishing in the shadows. ronald reagan would not approve of this. what would reagan do? he would work for comprehensive immigration reform to give people a chance of living a life of dignity outside the shadows where they can make a full contribution to the success of our nation. and then finally, if we're to get this right, we need to have civics education elevated not just for immigrants, although certainly that is important -- [applause] but for all of us. all of us. we cannot have an immigration policy where multiculturalism is the core kind of ground, foundation of our nation. we have to have shared values, and the only way to have shared values is for people to embrace them, to understand them, to appreciate them, and that should not just be for immigrants, it should be for all of us. it is maddening to see these polls that show --

[applause] that people don't know their three branches of government or that the constitution, you know, they confuse the constitution with the declaration of independence or all the things that we see. it's because our schools have not had the incisive focus on restoring civic education to education, and that should be part of any immigration strategy. so if we -- [applause] if we do these two things, an economically-driven immigration strategy, a patriotic energy strategy, my depress is we're getting pretty close to that 2% incremental growth that creates a rebirth of our country. but the way to sustain it is to assure that every child gets the kind of education that allows them to be successful in the pursuit of their own dreams. and sadly, today the greatest country on the face of this earth has more or less the following results. after spending more per student than any country in the world, a third of our kids are college

and/or career ready by the time they complete their journey through 12th grade. a third get a piece of paper that says you're a high school graduate, but if they go to a community college or a four-year university, they're going to have to take remedial courses. they're going to have to redo english and math. so they've got something that says they have something of value, but in effect, they have to redo what they didn't quite learn the first time. and then a third more or less depending on the state, dropout. that is not acceptable for a country that wants to aspire to economic opportunity for even. it is why we have less social mobility and economic mobility today. it is why we're creating a permanent group of people who are stuck in poverty. they don't want to be there. they don't want their children to be there. we have to figure out a way to transform our education system so irrespective if you're from a barrio or from urban core los angeles or if you're living wherever you live and your

children and your family comes from low income, it doesn't matter. because you're going to get the same quality expectation, we're going to have the same expectations for every person in the system and every child to assure that we get the kind of learning gains that breaks this cycle of despair and poverty that exists today. this, perhaps, is the highest national priority for our country. [applause] i am tired, i am tired, i fought in this fight as governor for eight years, and i continue to fight it within the realm, the game you're supposed to play, but i am tired of hearing people say it's not fair to have high expectations and robust accountability because it's not fair because of broken homes, or it's not fair because children come from poverty, it's not fair to teachers, it's not fair when, in fact, what's not fair is to have two-thirds of those children after spending more per student than any country in the world not be able to be college or career ready when they get

through 12th grade if they make it at all. that's what's not fair. [applause] so in florida we graded schools a, b, c, d and f, 100% based on student learning. the transparency was incredible. people knew what an f was and knew what an a was. they didn't like fs, they wanted as, and the system began to move. we created -- we ended social promotion in third grade for functionally-illiterate readers, which california ought to consider doing -- [applause] so you intervene, we intervene early to make sure that the gaps don't grow so big that kids lose hope. we focused on early childhood literacy, and we put reading coaches in every school to teach teachers how to teach reading, because our schools of education don't do a great job on that. we embarked on the biggest set of school choice programs both public and private in the country, now being emulated by other states, to put pressure on the system and empower parents,

particularly low-income parents, to have the choices that people who live in affluence have. and the results were that florida, which was at the bottom of the pack in 1997 based on the nation's report card, has moved up dramatically above the national average to the extent, by the way, that low-income hispanic kids in florida on the fourth grate reading test do better than the california average. i am not, i am proud of the gains that florida's made, but there's a lot of work that needs to get done. and it is shameful that we allow a system that casts away an entire generation. it can change, and in florida's case we moved the needle to put us in a place for continued, continued improvement. my hope is that people realize while this is not necessarily a federal issue, this is something that should be of national purpose. a little bit of our time and energy ought to be to challenge the system that has created these kinds of abysmal results before it's too late. and if we do those three things, we'll still have the fights on

the size and scope of government, the level of taxation, whether there's equity in the tax policy and all that. that's fair game. but those three things would create a greater chance of sustained economic growth, and my guess is that the great divide that appears to exist right now might begin to narrow, that our issues, the differences might not look as deep as they are today. but all of this is going to require leadership. this does not happen by osmosis. you don't change the path you're on without public leadership changing directions. too many people in public life, i think, try to follow what the polls say. and then kind of mirror back what people are thinking at any given time. that is not leadership, and that certainly won't change the direction that the country is taking, is on. leadership is hard to define, but americans pretty much get it when they see it. we see it when someone thinks first of the greater good. what does the nation need to do,

and what does it -- where does it need to go. to a great leader, everything else comes second. like i said, politics, the polls, financial success and even friends sometimes. leaders are sometimes forged in crisis, sometimes they do their best work when nobody's noticing. but we always see the results. it takes strong leadership to produce bold results. we've seen that time and time again in recent history. and it is certainly a lesson to remember as we look to the daunting challenges we face in the near future for our country. effective leadership comes in many forms and from both political parties. president kennedy led us through vision and inspiration when he challenged america to land a man on the moon. he led. lyndon johnson used forceful hands-on leadership that produced historic civil rights legislation and a 25% across-the-board income tax cut in just six weeks after the assassination of president kennedy. he cajoled, he hugged, he

begged, he threatened, he praised, he did what a hands-on leader does, and his hands were huge. and the stories about johnson grabbing people by the shoulder and just getting right in their, right in their grill to make them realize how important it was to get things done was a sign of leadership that we need today. he led. or how about my dad and the managing of the fall of the iron curtain? as the soviet empire was collapsing, there were significant dangers that there would be violence of epic proportions. the united states could have justifiably done a victory dance over the soviets, particularly, for example, when the berlin wall fell. i'll never forget watching my dad on tv and critics, the pundits were all saying, well, he should go over there and celebrate with the german people. had my dad done what the people of the here and now wanted him to do rather than be a leader, it could have created greater vulnerabilities for gorbachev to be able to create an orderly

transfer without bloodshed. amazingly so. a dictatorship of epic proportions in the 20th century without a drop of blood. it was an amazing feat thanks to the fantastic leadership of ronald reagan, and then the humility of george h.w. bush to do the right thing rather than do the thing that might make him look popular. these are the kind of leadership skills that are necessary today for our country. to be effective, a strong leader must adhere to basic principles and be humble and accommodating in pursuit of them. there is no greater example of that than the man for whom this library is named. almost six years ago -- [applause] almost six years ago, senator ted kennedy stood here and praised the former president with whom he had engaged in so many political battles. he called ronald reagan a good friend and a gracious foe. he wanted to defeat his opponents, but he didn't want to destroy them.

president reagan took office with two evil empires in his sights. one was the soviet union, and the other was a federal government intruding ever more into the lives of its citizens. he brought down the former and helped rein in the latter by doing what might be considered unthinkable today. he embraced his adversaries. two people can disagree. in fact, they can disagree vehemently. but if they see in each other an honest broker motivated by good intentions and sincere beliefs, they can find accommodation. that was the secret president reagan's success. he was considered the most bellicose of cold warriors, but forged the most productive working relationship ever between an american president and a soviet premier. together he and gorbachev signed the first treaty eliminating an entire class of nuclear weapons. president reagan envisioned the day that all nuclear weapons would be eliminated. he was portrayed by the press and by adversaries as a reckless

hawk, but at his core he was the most optimistic dove during his time. for him the american deem was not -- dream was not just rhetoric, said gorbachev, it was something he felt in his heart. president reagan and tip o'neill were polar opposite. they clashed often and, yes, even sniped at each other from time to time in the press. but to quote tip's son, thomas, what both men deplored more than anything -- excuse me, more than the other political philosophy was stalemate. and a country that was so polarized by ideology party politics that it could not move forward. that's pretty refreshing if you think about it in the context of today. [applause] so they talked often. they talked often. they had lunch, they shared irish stories. they might have had a pop or two in the evening, not during the day, for sure. [laughter] and together through this bond, a personal relationship -- even though they had disparate views about the size and scope of

government -- they saved social security for a generation and passed the greatest overhaul of our tax code in a generation of time. president reagan had countless sessions with both democrats and republicans. and it seems that today whenever such a meeting occurs, it always -- the precursor to it is the press conference where, you know, someone is like beating up the poor person that's going to show up to meet privately before the meeting even begins, which is why i'm excited that president obama seems to have changed course in the last three days. let's see -- [laughter] i'm sincere about this. [laughter] it seems now he's invited republicans for the first time to dinner, 12 senators and the president discussing without press conferences before, without much comment afterwards to see what even side has in terms of what their aspirations are. he had lunch with paul ryan yesterday. this is a change that i think we should encourage whether it's

motivated for all sorts of reasons that we don't understand or not, ronald reagan would have done that. george bush would have done that. and for our country to be successful, we have to put aside some of this vitriol that exists and begin to recognize that just because the other side doesn't have our views, it does not mean that they're not motivated for love of country. we have to get to a different place where we can find broader consensus based on principles. that's how we will win. so ronald reagan, for me, is someone who was a role model not because of his great success. he's certainly thatment but he's also a role model for the political system that we have today. imagine a country with the energy resources that we have, with the immigrant heritage that we have that has been our blessing, with the ability to solve the problems that seem intractable today, this country will take off. this country will be the inspiration for the rest of the world. we will regain our footing, and we will rebuild the greatest country on the face of this

earth. and it requires the kind of leadership that ronald reagan showed each and every day, and that is why i'm honored to be here. thank you all very much. [applause] thank you, guys. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> thank you so much, governor. we've got six minutes of time -- [laughter] to take just a couple of questions. if you have a question, you can raise your hand and two things, just wait til we put a microphone in it and, second, if you could tell us who you are. so we'll start, um, right over here.

>> peggy sat turn. governor bush, thank you so much for your wonderful talk. i was curious when you, with your great results in education in florida, did you have to deal with a difficult teachers' union? [laughter] >> we -- it's not cta, congressman. but it's the fea. i'd say the teachers' union is one of the more powerful political forces in florida. i wouldn't, i hope it's not as powerful as your teachers' union here. but we, i wish i could tell you that we found accommodation, but the reality is if you're advocating reforms that change the system, people that are organized around the economic interests of the adults, that's their job. their job is to collectively bargain for the adults. in the case of florida, the teachers' union represents teachers, of course, and they also represent other mix school

employees -- public school employees. they do it well. but to expect them to embrace school choice or higher accountability or the kinds of things that we did, i didn't expect it, and i didn't want get it. and so -- and i didn't get it. and so it was a political fight. it required staying the course. it required faithful execution on the laws that the legislature passed. we were all in for eight long years to kind of get the results that we had. teachers generally, i think, move towards seeing the benefits of this new system. the union itself didn't. and they still to this day are opposed to most substantive reforms not just in florida, but around the country. i wish it was different, but it's part of the process of the fight. and sometimes you have to fight. sometimes you find a way to find common ground, but when you don't, you've got to sort it out politically, and in my case that's what we did. i ran for re-election on these reforms, i got elected which gave me a path to continue to do what i was doing.

and apart from being a joy to serve, it also allowed us to have enough time to show the kind of gains that we got. and now other states are emulating that around the cup. >> over here. >> my name is ellen parker. >> hello. >> hi. i asked you when you were signing if you were going to save us. [laughter] >> that's a question. [laughter] i guess. i am optimistic that there is a growing consensus pushed -- people's views of the political system are so, um, people are angry and us from frustrated that i think it's beginning to change the system. and i think the republican party has seen the need for a more positive, proactive message. not just to be against things,

but to go back to the days of being the place where the interesting ideas were developed and advocated, where reform was at the heart of what we believed. and if we do that part, then the country's going to be saved by the american people. not by, you know, aspiring elected official or one that might ponder it later on. we can't wait -- [laughter] we can't wait til 2016 to begin to change the direction of the country. it has to start now. [applause] and that's the, that's the message. [applause] >> we've got time for just one more question. we'll go right up here on the balcony, governor. >> oh. >> hi. fred, i'm from royal high. >> hey, how you doing? >> good. um, i'm a recent immigrant here. >> where you from? >> philippines. >> excellent. [applause] >> round of applause. i was wondering if what if chirp

was, like the illegal parents -- >> yep. >> -- came here with their child -- >> yep. >> and what if they grow up and stayed and then learned their full education throughout high school, finished their education and then, um, do they stay here, or do they leave? >> so the law right now is in limbo. the president has, i'm not sure he has this executive power, but no one -- it's in the process of being challenged and, you know, this is the problem, our courts take so long. but he, either unilaterally or by delegated authority, extended the period of time for the so-called dream act of students who you're describing to stay in the country for two years. it doesn't offer a permanent solution to this. in the book that i've written called "immigration wars," we propose a path to legalization for adults, a path to citizenship for their children under the here to are ri that

the sins the theory that the sins -- if this is a sin, that's not the right term -- but if illegal immigrants break the law, their children should not be penalized for that. so in your scenario -- i'm not sure you're talking about anybody you know -- [laughter] we'll just leave it at that. you would be under the suggestions that are being discussed right now in washington to reform immigration and what clint and i who wrote this book believe that you would be given -- not you, excuse me, the person that you described would be given a path to citizenship over time. and you would have to, one would have to get a ged or graduate from high school or enlist in the military. does that answer your question in. >> yes. thank you. >> okay. good luck. [laughter] [applause] >> governor, on behalf of

everyone here, we just warrant to thank you so much for your -- want to thank you so much for your presentation. >> thank you all. [applause] >> last month booktv launched our online book club with a discussion of michelle alexander's book, "the new jim crow: mass incarceration in the age of color blindness." and all month long you posted your comments on our facebook page and twitter which culminated in a live moderated discussion. here's what some of you had to say. diane r. williams 2 said whole building of argument brilliant. in so many places i gained new insights; constitution, civil rights history, war on drugs. and at the very least mass incarceration for nonviolent drug offenses is a national disgrace. on our facebook page, janet posted: the only disagreement, if you can call it that, is when

alexander calls white prisoners collateral damage. i think they're more an expansion of the prison industrial complex that needs more bodies to keep itself growing. join us this week as we read jeb bush's book, "immigration wars: forging an american solution." and as you read, post your thoughts on twitter @booktv using the hash tag booktv book club and at facebook.com/booktv. you can also watch jeb bush's recent appearance on booktv by visiting booktv.org, and then join us on tuesday, april 30th, at 9 p.m. eastern for a live, moderated discussion on twitter and facebook. >> donald fixico gives the history of indian gaming and its impact on the community. he's a local mesa, arizona, author who sat down with us on a recent visit to the city with the help of our cable partner, cox communications. >> the reason for this book kind

of came about, i was actually on this reservation in a conference, and there were like 20 of us from arizona state university, administrators and mostly faculty, sitting there in the meeting, and one side of the wall was really glass. i was looking out and really looking out and kind of just zoning out because it was a long meeting, and what i say was an armored car leaving the reservation. and you can imagine that it was coming from the tribal casino going to a bank. and i thought, how ironic, as i sat there and began to ponder that. if you imagine a hundred years ago, a hundred years, maybe a little more, in the late 1800s when indians in population had dropped below 238,000. it was thought that indian reservations and indians, too, were going to vanish. we were called the vanishing race. so it was the wagons that brought food and supplies onto

the reservation, and a hundred years ago brought food and supplies to this reservation right here, and a hundred years later in 2013, you see now armored cars leaving the reservation. so the wagon, the vehicle is as really kind of literally turned 180 degrees around. you can imagine. and so, indeed, it is one of rebuilding, but strategically doing that. and so it's been quite a, quite a chore for the indian reservation community and other indian nations, too, who have gone into the indian gaming operations. here in the native american community, and there are a lot of native commitments here, in fact, there are 22 different indian tribes, indian nations in arizona, and arizona's quite a large state because arizona in all of its vastness, there's actually the percentage is like 28% of the total land of the state of arizona belongs to indian tribes. so you can imagine that, you know, the southwest, it's a very

difficult place to live as you can see. there's a lot of desert. a very harsh, demanding land. and interesting part is that native people have learned how to survive in this area. the first part of it is is really the natural resources, water in particular, but coal, uranium, oil is under their lands. and so in developing their lands -- and it was really a difficult decision because the tribes were faced with, well, how do you and why should you harvest the natural resources of mother earth? so it went against really against must have of their philosophies and the relationship with the earth because they learn to adjust and see themselves as products and coming from the earth like a mother in that sense. well, very strategically and good marketing organization, good leadership, very effective leadership, then they were able to manage their resources, and then you had something else that kind of comes along in the beginning of the 970s. and interestingly, beginning

with the florida seminoles, the florida seminoles were the first to come up with unregulated indian gaming. and what that meant was that as other tribes saw them, in particular those of connecticut, then they actually traveled to florida to see and to watch and to learn from the seminoles how did you guys do that in starting an end can gaming operation which was actually bingo at the time. well, they took these ideas and suggestions back to connecticut, became a recognized tribe, obtained trust land which was the former reservation, had it put into trust status and then began to build a gaming operation which has since developed into foxwoods, the largest gaming operation in the byer world. entire world. so from that you have other tribes imitating and using the example of the florida seminoles in foxwoods, and you have something what you see behind me, is a tribal casino.

now, the interesting part of this is in rebuilding of indian nations is that most tribes who enter indian gaming operations do not succeed. in fact, about 20% of those who go into the indian gaming operations actually succeed, and out of that 20% not that many, but several, have done quite well like the indian reservation here. so it's really kind of good management, very effective leadership and really kind of knowing what you're doing in a very different world. in order to start something like this, indian communities have to actually have trust land. so normally they have reservations, so they have to have a site on the reservation, but sometimes they build off, off the reservation. but that has to be land in trust status, so you have to have that, that's the first step. and trying to obtain land and put it into trust status is a very long, drawn out process, and sometimes it's opposed by communities, sometimes it's

opposed by even other indian tribes. ..

making this up the like this, something like this would have taken years to develop just in design and planning and starting on of smaller scale and building another casino that is even larger. but we have now in 2013 is actually kind of indian gaming in the second era. so the smaller, you don't see them anymore and you're now seeing larger resorts. the interesting part of this is the tribes are thinking and have these machines -- casino conventions but have to go into an electric gaming. people are now wanting to do gambling into three different ways at once. that way they can do two or three things, to three football and basketball again to the same time. so gaming in itself is kind of gone into another kind of style a way of gaming and tribes are

looking at that at the same time the profits that are made when they realize the profits, tribes usually have two things that they can do any kind of one where the other. one of them is really kind of have payments and a monthly payment. depends on how many tribal members that they have witches were a lot of people when they're being members of tribes in temecula. or they can do it in quarters. quarters of the year that make it every three months. the per capita payment might be made to travel ever. that is one way. the other way is that a lot of the tribes who are successful at gaming take that revenue and invested back into the tribe. education is key to the future. they do quite a bit.

all kind of things like that, sometimes going into hotels, the florida seminoles have actually purchased the cain of hard rock cafe, except for two franchises of a -- i mean, two sites of it. one is in london that they don't and another i don't recall. they actually own the entire chain. looking ahead and seeing this profitable. and this is indian capitalism. in a very different way from a string capitalism because it is still kind of part of the moral economy idea, and the moral economy as a conflict, one of taking care of the community. everyone knew was a member of the tribe, lives in the community, after making sure that the native people who belong to this community had services, health, dental,

educational opportunities and a taking care of the people, it's much like that state of arizona and other states, corporation the you work for. so the tribes were successful. then, in trying to provide benefits to the people and take care of in the way there is always controversy surrounding indian gaming and really i think facing that question another way there is always some type of suspected controversy around in the type of gaming. a lot of the criticism is tribes are making money, but they're making it a bad way. making it at the expense of people who cannot afford to gamble. you look at that you can ask the same thing a las vegas or atlantic city or any other place that has legalized gambling. so there's always that type of controversy. there are also rumors that there is organized crime involved in indian gaming. really, that has been studied and proven that it's not.

that is not to say that there couldn't be, but it has been proven largely that is a false rumor. in the gaming does have its criticisms. you think about it anything that is a plus for an organization as a province or even an individual , there will always be rumors are criticisms of people who do, in fact. when people read this book what i wanted to see is, look at the glass being half full. have full and not the bottom half, but the top half of optimism. look at the success of tribes and rebuilding nations. but more than that because if you look at the metaphor of the glass, being careful, let's move it to an indigenous context, an indian environment, like a water gourd. so the water gourd in which, you know, that was a drinking vessel long time ago for a lot of tribes of indian people, then

let's look at that being a full. look at the optimism and all of the positive things that rebuilding oho the triumph. he see that. you can also look at some reservations you have not done well. but so often america has looked at the reservations and from the historic stereotypes that 34 stereotypes about american indians when i think about the history of the united states and that indian tribes, it is one in which people came here from europe in different parts of the world and colonized and tried to vanquish native people who are fighting pitch radically. there were not resisting, resisting what? resisting colonization? that is something positive?

no, there were pitch ready to try to defend their homeland. depends on how you looked at the question. so and try to defend their homeland to the very picture added weight then, of course, there was conflict and people about the history. so that is one of the reasons. up next, we sit down in the book examining civilians. foreign and domestic policy. >> what role did civilians play in domestic in excess of policy. >> well, for advising purposes for presidents, an important role. and i think that eisenhower, president eisenhower did an excellent job in utilizing the

resources of civilian advisers. the 1950's was a time of tremendous technical change. the had to rely on that expert government and politics to come together and get him some recommendations as to how they develop a strong national defense because, quite frankly, the united states was a new -- in the territory at this point in the cold war. what resources do we have. well, we don't have to tax the american people. so what eisenhower did was he used one of the best ones in president of mit and caltech and bar state department and so on and so forth in order to give him recommendations as to how to proceed. in doing that, an ad hoc

committee, they don't have a political stake. the republicans and democrats in forming a particular person but all of the best interest of the nation. he can ultimately affect his own decisions. in having these civilian ad hoc committees of inform him he was able to get by in from a lot of people. and have some humility that he did not know everything in an age where technology was changing so rapidly. a lot of these people have worked together on various other organizations and committees and groups, a lot of income from world war ii. of the that sits utilize some of the bigger engineering schools for the manhattan project, the laboratory. and so it is a network of people who have experienced. so in his national security adviser was very well-connected

and able to craft related committees. perhaps the most important would be one that happened in the mid part of his tenure as president. technically the technological capability. two things i came out of that committee was an emphasis on intercontinental ballistic military technology. what eisenhower would call bigger bang for your buck. and probably what the audience is most familiar weather as the main recognition with is the reconnaissance played with the united states was able to do these overt site, some members of the audience may remember the cuban missile crisis, and it was being first brought back, photographic evidence of the soviet union placing missiles in cuba. so that program came from one of the civilian ad hoc committees that eisenhower had convened.

>> out of these committees get along with the actual administration? >> it depended upon the committee. the first two committees that i looked at in my book, along very well. eisenhower had a lot of oversight in picking the committee members and having the members. the third committee came to him from some political pressure. the third committee was looking at whether or not the united states federal government should allocate resources for fallout shelters for a massive national fog shelter. eisenhower did not believe that the nest is shared, without resource, that money should be used for active defense, not a passive defense. he was also concerned with the kind of message it would send to both our allies and the soviet union if we embark on this massive fallout shelter program. and so that committee disagreed with eisenhower.

in many of the members leaked information to the press which indicated the netting states was in the greatest danger. eisenhower had not prepared yes. our defenses were weak. that did not go over well with eisenhower, and we can look at that committee as really the end point of the civilian ad hoc committee. my interest in this topic when i was a graduate student, in fact commence this stemmed from my interest in science and technology. as used by presidents, and then as i was revising my dissertation for the manuscript the war on terror had just begun. i started to see a lot of parallels between the cold war and the war on terror and the challenges that george w. bush faced in terms of preparing for the long haul, something that eisenhower spoke a lot of. and so i began to look at the world civilians being played out

in presidency's after eisenhower and my conclusion was that each president use them differently. the committees were a reflection of presidential style. that came back to his early days at west point. he really was personable really felt they're listening to you. he would consider those ideas even if he had mind what he was really going to do. he really created a team spirit where everybody felt like they were contributing to his presidency. and that harkens back to his lead as a general, sure, but i was really surprised at how much effort and conscious effort at that to make everybody feel like

they were part of the single. the book titled is eisenhower's fine group of fellows, but national security policy being crafted that adhered to the great equation. so what i wanted the leaders to come away with is an understanding of how important the great equation is to any presidency command a great equation is we need a high morale. we cannot be scared to death. we cannot tower inside the threat of the attack, but we have to make sure our finances are in order. we cannot over burden the american people paying for a heavy defense program. and then finally, we do have to make sure that our national security is secure, that we do have what we need without having the overkill. and for that it is a great equation and difficulty for the president to make sure that we balance that high spiritual