research. have you ever thought about doing any documentaries are making a movie possibly? >> it's a great question. i've been involved in some documentadocumenta ries. there is a documentary here that is the foundation has available. i don't know if you have seen it. it's called the conservatives which talks about conservative philosophy. there's also a documentary that i was involved in called in the face of evil which is about reagan's successful is just -- execution of winning the cold war which i think the foundation may have copies or they may -- [inaudible] >> on campaign finance. i have not done that recently. i have done certainly some things with that but in terms of the documentary myself, know i have not. it's a very good idea. >> my name is jared eckert and i'm from hillsdale college. i just wanted to know, you mentioned all this stuff going on, all the corruption so to

speak. why hasn't the media exposed it or has it and what are the people doing to respond to this? you have written books on these and it's making people upset. angry and frustrated and reasonably so so why isn't the media covering it and if they were with the people be responsive enough to ensure that it wouldn't happen? >> that's a great question. there are some people that get the recovering aspects of this but i think there are a couple of things that are working against them. one is that you know there is very much a cultural mindset in d.c.. if you are in the media there are a couple of hurdles you have to get over. one of them is you are so much involved in the immediacy of what's going on in that day it's hard to step back sometimes into the larger forest and this is kind of a forest story. you need to be able to think through and look at all the different trees and branches and

flesh it out. that just takes time and a lot of the reporters in d.c. just don't have time to do that because they are chasing the story of that day. the second problem is some journalists rely on people in powerful positions for their stories. that is where they get their leaks. that is where they get their interviews. they don't want to offend people in power because they might not get that exclusive interview that's going to help their position so it basically terms terms -- changes them from watchdogs into lap dogs. they don't want to offend people for fear of doing this. and then i think the third part of it is cultural. there is a gentleman who, and i won't give the name. he probably wouldn't mind if i did but i just won't. i had a conversation with somebody who was on television very frequently and lives in washington d.c.. i was talking to him about a year ago. he said i love your books but i could never write those kinds of looks. he said these people are my neighbors.

my kids hang out with their kids. i couldn't write a book like that. so if you are part of the washington culture gets very very hard to do that. i think those are all factors that have sort of let the media to yes they nibble around the edges and there are some very very good reporters out there but they don't have an opportunity to drill down in a way that i enjoy doing so much. yes. >> i am eric from usc here. hello. it's good to see you. thank you for speaking. i have a quick question for you. building off of what he said, in general, as we have seen in the last couple of years with congresspeople voting to increase their salaries and then if it's an all kinds of very ethical and wonderful things that make us all smile at the end of the day and take a vacation, i have a question for

you and that is on a large scale how do we find ways for the people and other agencies within the government legally to hold people accountable for those actions? not only just what you are talking about in your speech in regards to things such as good fund-raising at different periods of time and having things that are more straightforward but also getting to a point where we actually have agencies or you know people in the media or some facet that has not been tapped into that are addressing keeping these people accountable. it almost seems we are at a point now where there is a lot of people in this country, and maybe not in this room or may not agree with all of our ideals but who will agree with us on the fact that there's a lot of unethical behavior and if they hear that we can inspire them to realize that these people are exactly as beautiful as they may

seem. my question really is how do we keep that in check for future generations and decades with politicians as they come into office that we don't have to keep reinventing the wheel and trying to solve problems that we have already solved? >> that's a very good question. you know i think our focus really needs to be on where washington d.c. is in terms of the size and scope. i know i keep returning to that but i've really do think that central. i take the view of the human nature that is pretty basic and that is that people are people. there are good people and that people that operate in the year that operating governments let you know if you create opportunities for people to self enrich themselves or throw their weight around to gain benefit, people are going to do that. it's just going to be a problem so i focus less on this person is bad in that person is bad and focus on the fact that the notion of having a large powerful and intrusive

government, you are asking for trouble. people are schizophrenic on this. i mean it mystifies me. i will just give an example of something that absolutely mystifies me. over the last six months and i think legitimately so, there has been a lot of criticism from you no civil libertarians and people on the left about the national security agency and phone records and spying on americans and having all this information on private phone records in the left has been very agitated about that. and i share that agitation. the same people are enthusiastic and excited about hanging there there -- handing their medical records over to the government. there is a schizophrenia there and i think what we have to get back to again and again is you know government is going to function in a certain way. it's run by flawed individuals and so i think what we need to do is continue to in courage the message of limited governance

and we need to make that appeal not just in terms of a political philosophy because most american people are pretty pragmatic. they don't think in terms of philosophy. we need to make the appeal in terms of corruption and common sense and the bigger and more powerful government is the more corrupt is going to be. that has been our experience and that is the way it's going to continue to be. that is how i would push that. >> thank you. >> yes, sir. >> my name is joel sumner from you see merced. in one of your solutions would be to not allow them to. stocks on the committee they are on but a follow-up for that with e. they could. information with one other person so one is on health care and the other is on services and they could. that information and profit off of each other's information. is there any possible way that we could mitigate that? >> that's a very good point

rated there are a couple of proposals that i mentioned and that is certainly one of them. the other one that i proposed is why not have members of congress but there assets in a blind trust? a lot of people publicly said and i'm thinking in this case senator john kerry. one might look came out i noted that kerry who was intimately involved in a erecting the affordable care at, and regulating and redefining this large part of our economy, the health care sector and at the same time he was doing that his stock portfolio was flipping health care stops in hundreds of millions of dollars. kerry's's office has said their assets were in a blind trust that they were not in a blind trust. one solution would be to simply ask politicians bertell politician jacked up your in a blind trust. again that's not perfect and there are ways around that and again i think what we have to realize is that there is not

going to be any solution that is going to work perfect. you are quite right that people could exchange information based on committee assignments but i think we have to look for ways to make it more difficult for people to engage in this kind of self-enrichment. i mean, it's a mystery to a lot of people but we are starting to understand why is it you got some individuals who come in to politics and they are middle-class and after 15 years of public service they are multimillionaires. i mean how did that happen? it happens because they come up with very creative ways to make use of the power and influence they have to serve their own -- we are not going to change human nature but we can always try to change policies to where we make that a lot more difficult. with that i will say thank you and enjoy your weekend. [applause]

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