spending restraints. the so-called quest was not a perfect policy by any means, but it was a way to force congress to restrain spending growth. with the recent budget agreement, it looks like congress is back to its old game of increasing spending in the short term with promises of cuts later on that never seemed to materialize. ..

we have a pretty clear diagnosis of the problem. so what's the cure? well, we're used to thinking about ourselves as exceptional and not exceptional in the way that greeks think that greece is exceptional. we think we're truly exceptional for worldwide economic freedom. not that we're the most powerful nation with the highest gdp or the most powerful army. after all those things haven't been true for all of our history. instead our history itself is what makes us exceptional. we whether conceived in liberty as lincoln put it. our declaration of independence makes it clear our rights come from a creator and it is the job of government to secure those rights. if come from government, they can be taken by government. the concept of law is king originated in the establishment and enlightenment rather but especially took hold here in the united states. our constitution is the supreme

law of the land. today officials in all three branches of federal government and every state government official must by oath or affirmation support the constitution and so must our most recent americans, those who are naturalized. it is our constitution that binds our nation together. it is not special that we have a constitution. many many nations around the globe have one. what is special we have historically had a respect for the rule of law. as a result, a sense of trust developed among the people that government is fair and impartial. we seem to be losing that. we've gone from 73% trust in government during the eisenhower era, to just 19% today. putting aside for a minute your view of the underlying policies that i'm about to catalog think about what government has been up to lately. president obama's administration essentially rewrites the affordable care act on an ongoing basis.

eroding the trust and the rule of law. trust also weakened when president obama snide decided not to enforce immigration law with respect to hundred of thousands of people. recently the president decided he wouldn't enforce federal drug laws in states that legalize them. when congress refused to pass cap and change legislation under under democrat control the president decided would use executive power to do it. today's administration is essentially threatening states to impose cap-and-trade on his terms or see the environmental protection agency impose it on its term. ordinarily these measures would take an act of congress but presidential overreach does not enhance the rule of law or fairness. instead to restore trust in government we need to end special bailouts and special treatment like union exemptions from obamacare. congress should end forever the practice of passing earmarks. government should stop playing favorites in energy with

subsidies and special tax loopholes. these policies have at least the appearance of cronyism and favoritism. another glaring example of special interest politics is the farm bill. we've made progress, cracking the unholy alliance between big city democrats who want food stamps and rural republican who is want farm subsidies. passing the bills separately must lead to real reform like work requirements and real savings for taxpayers. truly free economies do not subsidize industries, including farming. our domestic agenda highlights a need for elimination of fannie mae and freddie mac. a free economy should not have a firm with i am police at this time backing of government -- implicit. when government grants advantage to one firm, that firm inevitably lobbies government to keep its privileged status, shutting out healthy competition. even worse the firm could make poor decisions and cost taxpayers billions of dollars. in the area of regulatory

efficiency pair haj would start with repeal of obamacare and unwanted parts of dodd-frank. that sound too radical? how about base being reforms about sunsetting regulation so congress reviews them every pass every few years. or pass something like the raines act where officials in congress have to approve regulation instead of unaccountable bureaucrats. right to work from coast to coast would be a step forward for labor freedom, another element examined in the index of economic freedom. even michigan has done so. common sense labor reform, the rays act would allow people to get bonuses based on performance without interference from union bosses. ideas like this need to be considered. finally no reform agenda would be complete without discussing taxes and spending. a fat tax and balanced budget would supercharge america's score on the index, there is no doubt about that. short of that, reforms making

entitlement spending come on to budget makes a lot of sense. right now on autopilot to an unsustainable future. by the time my 4-year-old matthew graduates high school, just three programs, medicare, medicaid, social security and interest on our debt will take 100% of projected government revenue. these measures make sense and heritage will continue to advocate for them. we'll also battle the threat of regulating and taxing the internet, one of the freest areas in the world today. all the while we'll keep watchful eye on the federal reserve to be sure we have a sound monetary policy. here at heritage we defend freedom because freedom leads to prosperity. it is not just that we love these ideas like an art lover love as da vinci painting. it is not wrong to appreciate what the founders accomplished in philadelphia above all we love these ideas because they lead to a better life for more americans. we love these principles because the free enterprise system has

done far more good for more people than any government program. the data in the index over the years has shown this to be true. with economic freedom in severe decline, it is our responsibility to secure liberty for future generations. we must insist on the rule of law, not acquiesce to rule by exemption. we will encourage competition, not become complacent with cronyism. and we will fight for a government that lives within its means and does not spend the next generation's inheritance. following common sense prescriptions we can reverse the recent decline in freedom and restore america to its rightful place. thank you very much. [applause] >> good morning. it's a privilege to be here. kim, congratulations on 20 years. i was cheered when i read this report to know that we are ranking still ahead of bahrain.

that is very good news. but this is quite a sobering report, it really is, to see we dropped out of the top 10 of economic freedom. "the wall street journal," the partner of this great report, the theme of the journal for the last 75 years has been free minds, free markets and free people. so this report fits so well with that slogan of "the wall street journal." i wanted to try to connect some of the dots of kind of what is going on today with some of the sobering results of this report and let me start about what is going on right now with the u.s. economy. you all know that this is a, this is actually the fifth year, believe it or not, of an economic recovery. the economic recovery officially began in june of 2009. so this is four 1/2 years into a recovery and, as everyone knows this has been a recovery that for millions of americans, millions of americans has been no recovery at all. we have, at best, this recovery

has been half-paced. we've created about half the number of job that is we normally get during a recovery period. the growth rate has been less than half of the normal pace. we saw the numbers that came out just friday about the lousy job numbers. they are just reinforcing this message. incomes have also stagnated in this recovery, which is really unusual. we're in the fifth year of a recovery and average middle class family in america today has $2,000 less purchasing power than they did when the recovery began. i'm not talking about the income that is people lost during the recession. i'm saying that people have lost income even as this recovery has transpired. that's really terrible news. i call this a half-sized recovery because that's essentially the pace of the recovery. then the question of course is why? why aren't we seeing anything like in this recovery what we would normally expect and what the american people demand?

i would make the case that the answer is contained right in this index. that if you look at what's happened in the last six or seven years. and by the way, this started under the bush administration and it has accelerated under the obama administration so i don't think any of us are making a partisan point here but the policies have been almost universally in the wrong direction, certainly since the recession began. and you can start with the bailouts that derrick talked about. about the giant tax increases, the massive increase in spending and debt. ideas have consequences. ideas have consequences and those ideas, those wrong-headed ideas that move in the wrong direction of economic freedom have made america poorer and i would simply make the case to you all if you are, as every american is wondering why isn't this american economy supercharged like it should be at this stage of recovery, i think report really underscores why we're not performing like we should. if you look, as, you know,

looking at job numbers that just came out on friday, 75,000 jobs or something, in the 70,000 range. you know in the reagan recovery, we had months where the u.s. economy created one million jobs in one month. so we are so far behind our potential where we should be. that is point number one, that almost everything we have done in the last six years has been in the wrong direction. my colleague dan henninger was asked about a exactly a year ago when president obama was going to give his state of the union for the start of his second term, he said, what advice would you give president obama? i thought he put it so well. dan wrote, what i would advise president obama to do, look everything you did on the economy in the first term and do just exactly the opposite in the second term and there's a lot of truth to that. second point i wanted to make was with respect to the current, how this report dovetails into the whole debate that's boeing on right now about inequality

and poverty and what we can do to move 50 million americans that are poorer today out of poverty and we've seen just, you know, horrendous increases in poverty. it is one of the great challenges that we have as a nation now. is how do we lift the people at the very bottom up. we have, a president and many in congress are promoting many policies that i would argue and i think, my panelists here would agree, these actually would move news the opposite direction of economic freedom. let me go through some of these. we're having a big debate right now about extending unemployment insurance. we should be asking the question every policymaker should be asking the question, if we do this, will it make america more free or less free? will we move up the index or down? i think it is pretty clear when you extend unemployment insurance for two years and pay people not to work that is moving against economic freedom. second one to think about,

minimum wage. everyone in this room, certainly everyone on this panel we want american workers to the have highest wages possible, no question about it. this is route to vibrant middle class to have rising wages. this isn't about rising wages, of course we do, it is question how we get there. raising minimum wage destroys jobs that is absolutely clear. kim, i make the case that moves against economic freedom and make americans poorer. expanding food stamps example of increasing welfare in a way that won't increase economic freedom. the last one i mentioned you mentioned derrick, which forget about at start of this year we raised tax rates across the board. we raised tax rates on capital on labor, we raised capital-gains tax, we raised dividend tax, we raised the small business tax. for folks on other side of the street here on capitol hill, i would simply ask them, how are you going to get more jobs if you tax the people who create the jobs?

right? just doesn't make a lot of sense. i think derrick is exactly right. one of the reasons we haven't had the kind of growth this year we would expect is because of those dim-witted tax increases. now the point i'm trying to make though is this, about this inequality issue. one of the things i found interesting reading the report if you look at poverty, you know the people at the very bottom, poverty is in most severe in countries who do not have economic freedom, right? i would make the case, kim and derrick, if we actually adopt all the policies being debated right now, minimum wage, unemployment insurance, higher tax rates and so on it will make the poor worse off, not better off. in fact poverty rates are substantially higher as countries become less free. so we are going to make our poor worse off by moving against economic freedom. and i would also make the case that inequality in this country will actually rise if we move

away from economic freedom. look, i'm a believer economic freedom is the great equalizer, right? because it provides everyone with an economic opportunity and that's what we are tragically moving away from. it's not a coincidence in my opinion that if you, if you look at the last 30 years or so, it is, it is wrong that inequality, that the middle class has been on treadmill and poor have gotten poorer. actually in the 1980s and 1990s the big story of the american economy as economic freedom expanded we had upward economic mobility in this country. people moved out of the lower class moved into the middle class. people in the middle class moved into the upper class. not everybody did but the elevator moved up for the vast majority of people. that has stalled out the last four years, it has. we haven't seen that mobility rising that much and inequality has risen the last four years. would i make the case that is because we moved away from economic freedom, we dropped

down the scale and made the poor worse off. last point i would like to make, derrick touched on this and i want to reinforce it because it is such an important point, i give a lot of lectures around the country to college, on college campuses to students from ivy league schools to some of the, you know, even the junior colleges and so on. i love to talk to the kids and i always present them with this one question about the economy. and it is something that kind of puzzles them. they don't have a good answer for. we should all have the answer for it. the question simply this, why is america the richest country in the world? what made america the most prosperous place in the history of the planet? and i'm always struck by the answer that is i get from the students. we have all these natural resources and we exploited our natural resources. we took money from other countries or we have better weather or these kind of things. it is interesting so few of them can come up with the answer. by the way, this is one of my pet peeves. natural resources is not the reason that america became rich. the richest, the most free

country in the world, right, in thin decks and one of the richest countries in the world is hong kong. and hong kong has no natural resources. it is the last place you would expect to be rich and free. then you look at countries likes russia and china. russia and china are resource rich but yet they're still well behind where we are. it is not natural resources although we are greatly endowed with a nation with natural resources and certainly should exploit them especially in the energy area. but it is economic freedom. this is the answer. this is why, the way i like to put it, derrick, that economic freedom is the goose that lays the golden eggs and this is the enduring lesson of not just the last 100 years but the last one thousand years. we're risking that with moving in the wrong direction. i want to end on a positive note. i'm an optimist. i've always been an optimist. i believe this is the furtherrest we've fallen. i believe as you do the report in the years to come i think the

united states will get back in the top 10 for a couple of reasons. i just believe freedom and liberty are kind of in our dna as a nation, i really do. i don't think the american people will continue to tolerate the united states moving away from this. that is why you're seeing this rebellion against obamacare. not just because it is not working but americans realize there is kind of fundamental freedom they're giving up with obamacare. i am optimistic about the country. think 2014 will have a good year and i think economy will expand because a lot of these dumb ideas i think will be held back and i think we'll start moving in the right direction and really most optimistic thing is the kind, everything that you said, derrick, is so right about the formula for competenting back on the right track and it is so obvious, it is so obvious. not like we have to say, gee, what do we do? we know what we have to do. repeal obamacare. go to flat tax. get rid of financial regulations

strangling the banking system. have to fix the litigation system and all these things and strangulation to regulation. once we do that i think america will move back in the top 10, if not the top five. i think you will see the biggest boom you ever saw. thank you. [applause] >> i was asked to talk about economic freedom and trade freedom and the importance of free trade. before i wanted to do that i want to make sure you all knew that you could go to our website, heritage.org/index. you can look to specifics of countries you're interested in. you can download data for each of our 10 different factors we measure and you can compare them. i say that for your benefit and also for mind. kim, inevitably someone will ask

the question what was canada's investment score in two thousand three. i don't necessarily have all 186 countries memorized. we make sure the data is there for anybody to access in transparent data if you wish and see how we come up with the scores used to grade various countries. with respect to trade freedom, it occurred to me this is the 20th year anniversary of the index of economic freedom but the 20th anniversary of the north american free trade agreement, nafta. i don't know what you agree of when you hear nafta. i hear of ross perot and the giant sucking sound. whenever i read about nafta still, talking about how many jobs we lost because of free trade and because of the north american free-trade agreement. so yesterday i got on the internet and went to the bureau of labor statistics. i looked how many jobs we had in the united states 20 years ago when nafta was enacted. we had about 97 million jobs in

the private sector. i looked up how many jobs we have now. we have about 115 million jobs. from 97 million to 115 million. to argue that we have lost jobs your math skills have got to be highly suspicious, even by washington, d.c. standards. certainly we've lost some jobs whenever we trade with other countries just as we do when we introduce new technologies but the overall trend is to have more jobs and better jobs and it is not just in the united states. when we look at countries around the world, countries with the best trade freedom scores, meaning low non-tariff barriers and both tariff barriers and just as a definition, tariff is a tax on imports. the country that is remove the taxes, give people freedom to trade, not just have higher living standards, they have lower poverty rates. they have cleaner environments. they have all the kinds of things we hope to have here in the united states.

when nafta was being debated, james glassman at the time wrote, this really should be called the north american free trade and cancer reduction agreement and i looked at that over the weekend and tried to recall what he was talking about and there was a big photograph of all the fresh fruits and vegetable that is we have access to in the united states whether from mexico or colombia and other countries. when you go to the grocery store in the middle of january, those strawberries probably weren't produced in new jersey. there was an npr story recently which quoted one importer as saying, we should be teaching our children that nowadays you're able to enjoy strawberries even though you're in the dead of winter in january thanks to nafta. those are kinds of benefits that many of just take for granted. or here in about a month, it will be valentine's day. most flowers in the united states come from colombia. as a result of new technologies,

the internet, foreign direct investment, free trade with colombia, if you want to buy flowers for your loved one, go online or call 1-800 flowers or wherever you go to or go to the grocery store and within two days you could have fresh flowers delivered from colombia, typically shipped through miami creating jobs in the united states. typically delivered by ups or fedex creating jobs in the united states that benefits americans because we have fresh, long-lasting, low-priced plowers. look at people in colombia. most of the colombia flower producers are females. most of them are single heads of households. most of them we know because we've asked them, used to be maids, used to live on subsistence farms hoping to have enough food to get to one month from the next. they have a quality of life as a result of international trade that is much better than they

would otherwise have. the last story i wanted to tell relates to a woman named jasmine from bangladesh which has really ramped up its production of textiles. jasmine would have been about 4 years old when we started producing the index of economic freedom. her older sister to get married their family paid a dowry to another man to get him to marry the older sister. the family went into debt. every month somebody would come around asking mon he any to collect the debt and younger sister jasmine got frustrated and said i would go to the city to get a job and do something to better myself and my family and paid off the debt. has a life-style that be honest i wouldn't want to trade places with her but it is much better than she had in the past. somebody like jasmine, multiply

her times a billion, or how many people have been lifted out of poverty over the last 20 years according to recent report in the conn mist. based on world bank data. they're looking at the lowest levels of poverty, people earning a $1.50 or less. people have been lifted out of poverty largely due to more international trade, more globalization and more economic freedom as kim pointed out in the introduction. we have globally the highest levels of economic freedom in history. a long way to go but we've certainly made great proges guess. with respect trade policy worldwide trade barriers have fallen roughly in half and global trade volume as tripled. those are the kind of trends we need to encourage in the united states in order to lift another billion people out of poverty over the next 20 years. i will wrap up there. we have plenty of time for questions it sound like and kim, i will turn it over to you.

thank you. >> thank you, bryan. >> gentlemen, thank you very much. get us off to a good start. i believe we have people with microphones on both side, yeah, we do, over here and over here. so if you have a question or a dom meant just -- comment, just raise your hand and if you could identify yourself and that would be very helpful. so who wants to go first? >> thank you, preston, tradition common property. in the beginning when senator demint and senator rand paul spoke about rule of law issues and crony capitalism and the breakdown of the rule of law in our country coming from apparently not just the administration but elsewhere, this seems to me to be a cancer on our system and for, for the economic situation to really

improve in our country seems to me rule of law needs to be enhanced and not constantly being hurt by incessant executive orders and regulations from unelected bureaucrats you spoke of. could you address that, please? >> i will start us off on that one. i think it is an incredibly important issue. you know, in the economy we need to have confidence that we're part of a civil that's fair and impartial and i think that is reflected very much in the index. we've got a score for rule of law right in here. of course one of the most important is private property rights, things that don't exist at all in places like north korea and in that, we've seen that even in the communist world when china did modernization there and went away from pure state-owned property to some private property, it enhanced their freedom as well. here in the united states we're not in danger, thankfully at the moment of mass confiscation of

property but every little bit of our rule of law that is eroded is an incredible threat. you see it in things like bailouts. even just the perception when you have companies that are well-connected that get treated with a bailout, for example. you think of the automakers and so forth. and, you think of, for example, james shirk at heritage wrote about the bailout of the auto companies and the delphi workers in michigan that were left out. why were they left out? well, there is not really a good, and impartial reason for that. they just were. they didn't have political strength. anytime you have to jockey for political strength to protect your business or grow your business, look at lobbying in the nation's capitol. it's a huge growth industry. a reason why seven of the 10 richest counties in america are in the washington, d.c. area. government is booming. in lobbying government is booming and working regulations. all of that is booming. that's not something that long

term is going to be healthy for our country. >> you know, it is, normally when we talk about, what's happening with the rule of law and executive orders and, and some of the breaking of the rules of precedence that we saw, for example, in the senate, "the nuclear option" of government appoint east, the recess appointments controversy, apparently going to go to the supreme court when, we talk about the rule of law, i think we rightly do talk about the law and we rightly talk about the constitution because that's properly what we should be talking about. but there is i think there is political and even cultural background, maybe it's noise, maybe it's music, it is something in the back of the culture and also the political culture is changing over the last five or six years that we have to be mindful of and that is, broadly speaking a sort of the idea that the ends justify the means. and that there's a short-term political gain that can be had, even if it is changing long-term

precedent in the senate rules for example. it is considered to be acceptable. and that's what has changed. and it is happening from the liberal side of the spectrum. sort of illiberal methods being applied by people normally consider themselves to be liberal. this is a change in the mind set that perhaps is not idealogically so much a change. . .

my question is for anyone of the panelists and do you think policies of excessive low-interest rates, low asset purchases, expansion of the military base are hiding economic freedom and hampering function of financial markets? >> i didn't quite make that out. can you repeat the question? you are asking the federal reserve policies of perpetual low interest rates and by deck programs, quantitative easing, what threat is that to our economic freedom? we are in the midst of an experiment in the united states that we have never seen before and this is uncharted territory. $4 trillion asset purchases, $1 trillion of 30 year treasury

bills, $32 trillion of toxic mortgages, this is first of all in terms of the issue of -- you have to ask where does that have the authority to do these things? it is a very dangerous situation. as everyone in this room knows it is easy for the fed to print money and purchase assets with that money, not so easy as we learned from history to put the genie back in the bottle and that keeps the economists up at night whether they will be able to pull this off. i am nervous about it. i think everyone is. one of the principles of economic freedom is a strong and stable currency. that is why you have currency. if we run up in inflation, that would in my opinion cut against economic freedom, would reduce -- inflation is a form of taxation, makes every dollar you

had in your pocket book worth less. it is a good point to make. i am nervous about it. if i knew how this was going to turn out i would be a multimillionaire because nobody really knows and it is extremely troubling that the fed has moved in this incredible -- if you look at a chart of the money creation of the last 50 years we have never seen anything like this before. i pray at night that janet yellen can pull this off for the good of our country but we will see. >> in addition, we have got to make it more attractive to invest in the united states. we have low interest rates but the lack of investment schemes to be there from the data, and tax rates, confidence if you are a medical company, even a pharmaceutical company, owning hospitals or in a doctor's

practice how will you plan when the rules of obamacare keep changing month by month, hard to plan and hard to invest so we have to fix those factors to unleash that. >> one thing i should have sent. what we really want from our monetary authorities is rules. what are the rules, not everyone is trying to guess what the fed is going to do next and from the standpoint of an economist if there were clear-cut rules then all of this guess work would be, you create an environment of certainty and that leads to more investment as well. >> over there this time, let's go over here. >> i have a question with regard to the regional findings, you mentioned in georgia for instance of all countries economic freedom was advancing

and at the same time there is a mention in the report that georgia is suffering from basically russian developments, economic freedom was in danger so i am wondering what your thoughts are, on your region and journal, thank you. >> you talk about the eurasian region in general you mean russia. georgia itself, i was as you were talking i was looking up in our sheet here and it is very interesting that you have trends going in opposite directions. on the one and investment policies, banking regulations are improving, property rights are propping significantly and usually when you see problems with property rights you are seeing problems with the rule of law being applied either

arbitrarily, for political purposes and the like, but even though that is the case georgia in terms of the region is doing quite well in business freedom and the labor freedom in other areas, there may be 92 in the world that they are ranked eleventhin the region. the question is what about russia? rather than getting in details, russia is clearly trying to do an experiment of authoritarian style capitalism, which is high regulated and controlled by the state through private and public political control, mainly controlled by the kremlin and various apparatus president putin has through his party and government control. and we are very careful to measure when we talk about russia or china that when you

see these mercantile top-down authoritarian control systems that you can give spurts to the economy particularly if there are large resources coming from energy, what sustain's russia's economy and without that all the problems you would see in a mostly unfree economy would come to the fore, was of major things that contributed to the collapse of the soviet union in the late 80s, that system combined with the inefficiencies of the economy, up with it and when you have rising prices of energy it covers for it. my point is that is not a formula for the future, that is not a formula for success, russia always seems to get by with energy prices and i cannot for the life of me see how georgia or anyone else received that as a model to follow not only because of the pervasiveness of political corruption and the model they have but how it is based on

energy resources. >> one thing georgia did specifically was open their economy to the investments and trade. a lot of countries like to maintain high trade barriers as a tool with which to negotiate with other countries and tried to negotiate them down georgia set of lower trade barriers we will have more access to our materials, we will better track for investment and that is something specific. >> let's go into the middle right here. >> you mentioned russia is not a model to be followed but countries like georgia in the middle, the european union, they are of course regulation producing super power to rival the united states. this option affects the member

countries. >> the european union model as well as even the swedish model, sweden has been improving dramatically in economic freedom and normally sweden at least the united states considered to be that kind of model but that is what they have been doing and one of the ways they do this, sweden and the european union is they would have very low scores and a lot of economic freedom in certain categories of the economy like trade, a free-trade zone in the european union and particularly in some countries like germany and sweden all have pro-business and very stable labour market policies so some areas they can do really well but the bargain they are making is that this will give them, you mentioned this will produce enough economic growth that we can have really high taxes to fund a welfare state so very high government spending and high taxes so long as the economic growth is there.

like a treadmill in the sense that at some point you have the economy working against one another. can you imagine how well it would work if you didn't have the opposite pressure you see in countries that score really well like hong kong who do right across ten factors and that to me is the lesson. the europeans do some things really well and other areas they don't. >> one thing about europe that they have done over the last 15 years is most of the european countries have cut their corporate tax rates as a way to attract capital and it has been a fairly effective strategy and i only mention that because as an economist if you asked me what is the one no-brainer thing you ask right away to increase our economic freedom but also make america a more attractive place, it is a complete no-brainer we should cut our corporate tax rate at least to the international average where including state and local taxes,

the rest around 25 to 30, if we cut corporate tax rate to 35% don't think, there is an effect will you get much more capital, you wouldn't lose any revenue, might gain revenue. that would make -- i called america's corporate income tax system of head start program for every other country we compete with because we are putting every country at 10% advantage so to me that would be a simple thing and with that increase to our economic freedom we have the rate down to 25% or so. >> yes it would. let's go back over there. >> london daily telegraph. you mentioned the u.k. falling down the list. we consider ourselves competitors in the free-market. very upset to hear that. can you explain why, what has

gone wrong and what needs to change? >> before we get into that i want to say in general i had the opportunity to visit london for the first time this summer and representatives from different countries around e.u. and the same thing happened if that happens when representatives met to talk about the index. if they are from the government they talk about what a great job they are doing and how hard they are and they will be implementing these great proposals and we need to rank them higher. if they are from the private sector as this group was, you have no idea how bad things are. that is true of almost regardless of where they come from but in the u.k. lots of discussion with respect to the potential costs and benefits of the e.u. free trade aspects, the cost of e.u. regulations has

been harmful, something we are following closely in the united states as we are looking at a possible trade, bigger agreement with the e.u. kept, may have some lessons to learn from the u.k.'s experience. >> even though the score dropped, it was a very small measure and after all the u.k. has a very high rank, fourteenth in the world sometimes trying to capture these differences become quite marginal. looking at the score there was a slight downturn, freedom from corruption, and business freedom but overall, the two categories with the u. k scoring the worst absolutely rather than trends going one way or the others taxes and government spending. >> let's go back over here. >> boys of america. can we talk a little bit about

south central america, what is working and not working in the region, and if we could specify in colombia doing really well and venezuela not doing so great. thank you. >> two clear differences, the chilean approach which has been to embrace market economy is not just through what we call in the united states conservative government but more liberal or left-wing governments. chile has maintained the market policies for the most part that have been adopted in the past whereas countries like venezuela have moved in the opposite direction and the hope and one reason we produce the index is countries will look at what works and the hope is they will look at chilly and the country like colombia will say let's move in that direction and let's not move in that direction like

venezuela. i think people in venezuela and the united states and colombia want the same thing, better lives for our kids, good education, better health care system. the question is how you get there and countries like colombia and to some extent mexico are moving in the direction of schile and other countries clearly -- >> after 20 years of doing the index, we have accumulated a lot of data and a lot of economists, nobel peace prize economists look at the data and do analysis comparing scores with gdp growth, per-capita growth and other ways of measuring economic growth over time, and the findings shows that the statistical correlation between economic growth over time and index scores is extremely high.

almost 98%, 99% in terms of the correlation. there are other indices like the ones done by kato similar to ours that come up with similar results even though the methodology is different from the detail. my point is i would think we are on to something here, that is not just a matter of opinion but there is something going on and the behavior of people we should pay attention to if we want to see economies grow over time. >> you have so many voices reporting here. you mentioned in your speech, the washington conference, a model.

china model, something, the chinese new government pledged they will give the country more freedom in economic terms. in economic terms in the future. and the hong kong success has to do with china. >> the short answer is no. and with the association of china, they continue to score and maintain the system they had before. there's also a lesson there. china's 137 ranked regionally, 29, its score, and internally, ten factors there have been some

changes, commonly account for the chinese economy, trade freedom improved by 50 points. it shows you in some areas there liberalizing and property rights, control of government spending, numbers going the opposite direction. when you have these factors see how they match up by doing this. this way, and china is a mixed bag. when they seem to be getting worse there's freedom from corruption if you follow stories in china, a big surprise. investment freedom a little better in monetary and business freedom so it is a mixed bag so to answer your first question is this a model? i don't think it is a model.

the real thing is the model. if you want to do it right do it right. that is what the data shows, china is a particular case not only politically but historically, has unique factors going on that i think also would be hard to replicate even culturally and politically as a model for others and i am not necessarily mentioning or having in mind the idea of democracy as part of it that could be it but this also even political culture of china and 1-party state and authoritarian political culture is not something that seems to be not only in favor of freedom but also the future for the rest of the people who enjoy more freedom, not just economic but political. any others? >> thank you. i am just a private citizen not

representing anybody. it seems to me that the increased economic freedom, the ties that lifts up everyone, why is there still such a wide perception that conservative policies and by mean-spirited people who only want to help rich people stepping over the backs of the port, and how do we shift that, we are really interested in helping people and these policies are looking at cheese. how do we change that perception? >> the first thing, teddy roosevelt first said it. despite that i am going to use it. before people -- they don't care how much you know until you know how much they care and that has got to be more part of the of conservative mexican and i mentioned that in my remarks as well. not just the will of freedom, it works out for us personally, we also love freedom because it works out best for the most people as well.

in fact, ryan beautifully talked about the benefits of free trade and that is true inside borders as well. when you have two parties that are able to come to an agreement on their own and agree on a price on a product they both come away better off. you multiplies that trillions of times you have a free economy where people are better off, people can invent new products and the opposite of that is cronyism. you see that in communist countries, the politburo that controls everything, you see it in other forms of government as well where you have a small group of people where a free economy wouldn't work better for them because when you have a monopoly, when you have that control it works out better for that group of people but not everyone and the same is true on the domestic side and as conservative as we need to be clear when people that are normally our friends are drifting off course.

i mentioned the farm bill for example, a subsidy for farmers that makes $200,000 a year, what sense does that make. you need to be firm on those cases as well but a matter of being consistent in our message and starting with the fact the we want to help people improve their lives to improve all our lives. >> this is the point i was trying to make. we believe, as conservatives and equality of opportunity, not quality of outcomes, the president has that. we don't do as well as we should in terms of the quality and opportunity, it gets on the streets, schools that don't teach much is just an abomination so there's a lot of work to be done in that regard. if you look at the evidence of the 80s and 90s, not completely right but major adjustments in the right direction. it was one of mobility. people moved up and so one statistic i love to use, a poor

person who started in the 1980s, 1990s that poor family was likely to be in the richest category of income and still be for. that doesn't happen in a lot of places but happens in america all the time but contrast that in answer to your question, contrast that with performance of the last five years with no mobility, all the gains are at the top, the middle-income people are losing incomes and the poor are really struggling. at has to be the message of how to increase opportunity for everyone and perfect that bill gates and warren buffett and tiger woods are making all this money doesn't hold back anyone that they are producers. >> right here. >> barry miller. we heard a lot about the volcker rule is confusing and arbitrary

way to reintroduce glass-steagall. think about the broad principle of glass-steagall which is an impingement of economic freedom do you believe that is the native thing for the economy or positive thing for the economy? >> i am not an expert on glass-steagall so i will answer this and abroad point of view and it gets to what you were talking about. the rule of law and we don't confiscate wealth. what you were saying, the banking area we have been doing that. look at the way federal regulators have been going after the banks, plundering them. not even wrongdoing. these banks have surrendered tens of billions of dollars to the federal treasury for activities that isn't even illegal. that is one thing that is troubling to me. when you talk about we don't confiscate wealth, we don't. that is an important principle but sometimes you see the

federal government doing that and they do that through strongarm tactics of using reco statutes and the banks have no other choice but to fork over this money. glass-steagall, i don't know if you have that. it is a tough one. >> not sure the wings are going on. right here. >> i am just a private citizen. i don't know if it is part of your index but i wonder if you could comment, the countries at the top of your list and if you could comment on what effect maybe their educational system, the size of their middle class, their immigration policies have on the fact they are at the top of your index.

thank you. >> every year we look at a lot of different factors and i am really excited about the author's we have that have contributed. we have different authors who look at different aspects of our index. of the ten factors that we rank we don't specifically include those policies but we have had writers who have delved into those specific issues in the past. one thing that we hope is that people will be able to use these statistics independently to do research on issues like that, how the educational systems factor into the various outcomes, i can't recall some of the other -- [inaudible] >> one of the interesting things to me is you look at countries that ranked high, they have a lot of things in common.

sometimes we specifically look at economic freedom. other groups look at different kinds of freedom or look at how clean the environment is or poverty, and it is easy to do correlations between those two. sometimes it is more difficult to prove causation. the strong economy resulting struggle middle-class or does the strong upper-middle-class result in us stronger economy but certainly we can look at things like inequality and poverty and shows that more economic freedom has a positive impact in that regard. >> if you look at the top 10 most of them are very wealthy countries and most of them have a very large and wealthy middle class. this is not something we measured directly. i say this with some hesitation but informally if you look at the education systems and other

policies that are not directly related to economics and the consequences of well over time growing, environmental policy, and other indices of human development there's positive correlation between them and it is a common sense explanation for that. if an economy over time develops a very wealthy economy and you have a large middle class there is enough money around to invest in schools and other things and if you look at environmental policies for example, some of the worst environmental policies, environmental situations are in a country where you have the least economic freedom. >> i can take that one if you want. if you look at the top six, australia, new zealand and canada moving in their immigration policies towards more skilled based approach,

trying to compete for the so-called best and brightest are brown world, highly educated folks who come to study or otherwise and those three have been held up as models so that will be an interesting place for more research to incorporate that and see if there's a connection, but bringing in the best and brightest immigrants is something those three do particularly well. in the united states we bring in more immigrants legally with a clear path to full citizenship than the rest of the world combined. united states is an immigrant loving country as well and these two countries have done -- i would say in some way leading the way to try to compete over the world's ph.d.s, engineers and so forth. an interesting correlation to think about. >> we have reached the end of our time, i think the panelists for excellent presentation, thank you for being here today,

thank you also for your excellent questions and comments. they were right on the mark. i hope to be able to see all of you here again in 2015. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> today former fcc chairman discussed proposed changes to the federal communications act which sets rules for broadcasters in areas such as media ownership, internet infrastructure and decency stated. it was last revised in 1996, we have live coverage of the hearing at 10:00 a.m. eastern time on c-span3 and c-span.org.

>> as the president stated in march and reemphasized tuesday night the goal in the united states and afghanistan and pakistan to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al qaeda and its extremist allies and to prevent its return to both countries. the international military effort to stabilize afghanistan to achieve this overarching goal. >> robert deter served two presidents as defense secretary 32006-2011 and cia director nearly 90s. friday at 6:30 p.m. eastern on c-span2 a live booktv event, secretary gates talks about his management of the war in iraq and afghanistan and his relationship with the white house in congress and in a few weeks look for women's history with bonnie morris. he she will look for questions and comments on in depth at noon

eastern. go to booktv.org to enter the chat. >> you are watching c-span2 with politics, public affairs weekdays featuring live coverage of the u.s. senate. weeknights watch the public policy events and every weekend in the latest nonfiction authors and books on booktv, you can see past programs and get our schedules on our web site and join the conversation on social media sites. >> in a visit to washington, iraq's deputy prime minister discussed ongoing violence in his country and accused syria and iran of undermining efforts to create stable institutions. he spoke at the u.s. institute of peace on tuesday. this is an hour.

[speaking in native tongue] >> translator: my honor to be among you today. to talk about decisions on how to deal with the situation in iraq. the middle east now is in a very difficult time and iraq is part of that region. as we said before to our brothers in neighboring countries, don't get so excited in iraq, because if it comes across to your countries, it will cut you apart. we are so happy now. which iraq prior to that. and 8 >> translator: iraq is not the

only country suffering from terrorism the iraqis combat terrorism. and terrorism, violence, blood and killing and abuse and miserable life for people. few of them listen to us. but others did not care and now everybody is paying the price. today, everybody will get to it, their policies, the terrorism, we can play an important role to get rid of terrorism that we all

suffer from, likewise, iraq has paid a high price to fight terrorism. as you all know. iraq is -- paid a huge price and sacrifices for kick al qaeda out of iraq. it was really an expensive price to pay. cruelty and abuse and marginal isas asian -- marginalization, and that is why al qaeda is growing again in iraq and now we need to all the efforts to come together to help iraq get rid of that danger in the region, like

to emphasize that sudanese, kurds and arabs are quite , kurds and arabs are quiand arab to clean the country and they really need your help and i am quite sure at the end they will defeat terrorism in iraq. need help from the united states and the rest of the country to fight terrorism in iraq, likely needed. the day we need to help also to advise given advice to friends in iraq, the head of political groups to have something in the country. we believe that iraq is in not

enough by itself because there is a society, cohesive society needed to fight terrorism and if you don't have these two factors things will be really difficult and as you know, the american army with its might could not defeat al qaeda unless they had the cooperation of the local people. that is why try to lift cruelty and be fair citizen of the regions and this is what we need to again so i would like -- arming iraq is important to have a national -- also has important. we are about to have a mission in iraq. we only have a short time to for

elections to take place. it is going to be an important day in the history of iraq. we need free elections to take place in iraq with a lot of transparency, monitoring, international monitoring, we are a civil society from the international community to take part, week needs elections where you don't have curfew imposed on the people because as you know these two things don't go to gather people want to go to the polls to vote. so this curfew would be an attempt to marginalize some party not to be part of the elections or defraud the process. we know this happened in council of relations when some

neighborhoods were forbidden to participate by imposing a curfew, the participation rates were very low and i think this is very dangerous and the political representation would not respect the quality and it will put obstacles on the way of the political process in iraq. it is really a dangerous threat in iraq. i would say it is more important than terrorism because it is the base for terrorism. now hearing some loud voice, sectarian voice, just a way to undermine the efforts for free and good relations and it will harm the country greatly.

and i wish you to give advice to all of your friends, people you know, not to escalate sectarianism in iraq before or after the election and it is the kind of fever for escalation taking place in iraq and this is very dangerous and also some people using some of these problems and exaggerating them, also help sectarianism to go bigger and i wish for everybody to distance themselves from that topic because it represents the great danger in our country and our democracy. i have other commitments and might not be able to spend much time so let's go for questions and answers and if there's something you would like to ask me i will be glad to answer and if you don't have any questions,

i will expand more. [applause] >> deputy prime minister, thank you very much for those remarks. i am very pleased that you were able to take the opportunity. we noticed that you also wrote these words down this morning and they appeared in the wall street journal editorial op-ed in that paper where you laid out some of those issues as well. you come from anbar. can you give us a little sense of the issues that you spoke about just now so eloquently in

terms of sectarianism and the situation on the ground in volusia and run body. dimension al qaeda, sectarianism as a threat even larger than terrorism. could you elaborate on that little bit please? [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: i am in continuous contact with what is taking place in anbar and in anbar and even other southern provinces. but i think they have greater presence now in the last few months. they represent a danger.

the greater danger is -- [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: the greater danger is when society doesn't step aside in fighting terrorism and fighting al qaeda. this is exactly what iraq has taken place in volusia and run body and also the uprise taking place, those people who are uprisings are above former offense soldiers, some of them -- pablo of people demonstration for a whole lot of years,

constitutional rights, not complying with their demand, people's demand, would cost them and pushed them to gain their demand in a different way. and democratically within a year, going to use the other alternative. we talked to everybody, disappoint the demonstrators, pushing them to be extremely -- and give them the space to express themselves peacefully in a democratic way, the army went

there to fight al qaeda in anbar, on the same side. to be derailed instead of against the demonstrators, people had a change of heart and started to demonstrate differently. it is important to say iraq is unified to fight terrorism, don't separate marginalized people because separate them or isolating them would undermine military efforts to fight terrorism. the iraqi army, apparently will

want to have people have the satisfaction that they want to fight terrorism as well with the people with the army's too. this way iraq will be unified against -- don't make these problemss in the region to be incubated for al qaeda. because they would feel that their dignity is hurt and they will turn back to you and won't fight al qaeda, a great danger. we need the people to fight terrorism and sectarianism and unify the army in the same direction to fight these two.

people have some feelings that some people have had feelings of being marginalized and they're not getting their rights so this is one country and you have to get everybody their rights, there is no stability, no department, no one would be happy to see iraq under these circumstances, and everybody around the world. is important for everybody to cooperate to stabilize the country, stable country, not fighting sectarianism, somebody would be given the chance as well and we want for all our sakes to have a role in that society. we know in the leadership of the army of iraq, does not have a realistic representation or composition of the iraqi

population. and something is wrong when the state is in balance and we need to stabilize against or people will have -- be the if their leadership is representing everybody equally and when people feel they are equal to the other they don't mind when the prime minister is from this sector or another as long as they are doing their goals. >> let's stay on anbar just for a moment. if i understand you correctly it would be possible for the people of anbar, the iraqis to unite, to oppose al qaeda, and weapons from the united states and recognition of the importance of dignity of the people of anbar and iraq more broadly, that

combination in parallel, the support of the united states on the military side as well as encouraging this dialogue, national reconciliation. the weapons would be part of that but not the only part. >> exactly. weapons alone cannot do the job. it is important but cannot do the job. we have to go in parallel. the iraqi army, creating equalization in the country and giving lives to people who ask for them. >> you mentioned the elections. elections coming up. you had several qualifications and several concerns about the conduct of those elections and the ability of all iraqis to

participate in those elections. if there are free and fair elections what do you see coming out of those? more stability? ability of government to come together, named more quickly than last time? coalition's forming? if the elections are well conducted freely and fairly, what kind of iraqi government would you like to see coming out of those elections? >> the mistake which happened in the last election pablo the chance to form the government, 190, against 89 seats. but because of the pressure put on iran and because the united states did not act in a strong way, things went the other way.

and my feeling, without finding a national project, a national coalition which will be away from sectarianism, this country would not be civilized and it would not be united. if there is a transparent election and fair election which i can now see, i think there will be fair representation of the people. but there will be a curfew during the election. people will be prevented from going to the election. if the sectarian speech will continue, the result will be not promising either for iraqis nor

for those who like iraq. >> in the last election, as you say, there were several, one you mentioned was nonsectarian, multi sectarian. do you see that? will that happen again in this election? >> i i think the sectarian party, they are split now. there is a possibility of of semi nationalist in the future providing again the election will go in a fair manner and there is a supervision on this election. >> one of the questions from the audience asks about the government formation following an election.

this is from mark weaver. is it likely that government information will take as long as it did the last time and if so, what are the implications for the security of iraq during that period of government formation? >> i cannot have predicted but more likely it will take time. it will take some time. >> staying on elections another question from the audience. how much of a role is foreign funding playing in iraqi politics leading up to the election today? >> i think one of the problems we are facing now is corruption in the country and also fraud,

results of the election, i hope this will not be as much as people were expecting, in a given election it played, so this time it will play a role but to which extend i hope it will not be that much but corruption is very high in this country and it will affect the results. >> you mentioned both in the wall street journal piece as well as your remarks, al qaeda. what are the dynamics in anbar, the dynamics with syria that lead to the resurgence of al qaeda in iraq at this point?

>> the elements of al qaeda are moving from one place to another. definitely the problem of syria, its effect in iraq. we cannot wait until that time. i am sure the people of anbar by help of the anbar people, a guarantee that they are going to be supported, they are able to remove al qaeda. but again if justice is not going to to be there, there is a threat of violence everywhere in iraq and i just want my friends in anbar to remember the violence is not only in anbar. the problem is about anbar there

are people being displaced to other areas and that is in continuous way. what is happening will be reflected to anbar, a to one or the other and what you see in baghdad is a huge problem. not less or higher than what is happening in anbar. we should create stability. if we create stability we will find the government, we will find jobs for the people. this will continue and if we defeat al qaeda then we will face al qaeda somewhere else. we need to a complete solution. solution in which all the iraqis will get up together, by

gathering their politicians and the problem is not with the iraqis themselves but between the politicians of iraq. i cannot see differences between the shiites and sunnis if they fight each other but the problems between politicians and the politicians that use sectarianism before the election in order to get votes, this is dangerous to the country if we use it and we're using that and the general election we are using that. every two years, sectarianism again. >> do the people of iraq support that sectarianism? do the people of iraq want to see that kind of conflict among their leaders or are the leaders misjudging the iraqis and their appeal to sectarianism in preparation for elections, leading up to elections?

>> sectarianism is not among the iraqis, it is among the politicians. they use it to educate people by creating some problems, just before the election to rule the people emotionally. >> if the iraqi politicians running for office perceived their constituents, whether they are sunni, shiite, kurdish, would support multi sectarian party or reject more broadly the sectarian, would that lead them, a government resulting from that kind of election be able to pull iraq together? >> nehr will be a fair election, there will be enough contribution from all sections

of the country. i think we might have a national project, but oppression on specific constituents not to move to the election, then this will create more imbalance in the political system and more damage and more sectarianism. .. >> but they cannot govern. they cannot run the country in a proper way.

they cannot run a country with such kind of governance. >> there are implications that you already indicated about the syrian conflict for terrorism, al qaeda support in iraq. we are approaching the geneva ii conference. iraqis have a great interest, i would imagine, in the resolution. what advice, what guidance, what would you like to see coming out of the geneva discussions? >> well of course what's happening in syria is annoying everybody. that's a disastrous way, if you consider how many people are being killed, how many people are being displaced. it's a disaster.

so i would like to see the opposition will be more reasonable, come and sit down, create a dialogue and get out of the situation with the minimum damage that might happen to the country. i would also like to see the russian and the americans will come to agreement before they go there. because i think complication, you know, and outside. some of the opposition are giving support and advice from foreign countries. and also the complication between the russian position and the american position is making the whole situation more complicated. >> dr. mutlaq, another question here on the criticism of iraq.

alex asks the kurdistan, safe, secure and prosperous and has been spared from the violence by and large. what role can the kurds play in combating the isis in anbar province? >> the kurds are doing a good job in combating al qaeda, and the region but they're not doing much in the other regions of iraq. all of us would expect some more help from the kurdish area to stop the infiltration of al qaeda inside iraq and also to take some measure to stop them from coming there. but their main concern now is the region. i don't think they are playing a role in defeating of al qaeda.

>> sam at csis asks the question about history. you asked for america's help to fight resistance. last year prime minister al-maliki visited washington, sat right here where you are sitting, and made a similar request. iit america's assistance is so central to iraq's efforts against extremism, why was the status of forces agreement not extended at the end of 2011? this is a historical question i think. >> it happened. >> it did. >> and happened. [laughter] so, now are you responsible about -- do you want to feel that you have to participate, or do we just say okay, you didn't want us there, we are out and we are not responsible anymore?

i think you have a legal and moral responsibility towards iraq because iraq was a united country. you came to remove the regime, a dictatorship regime to a democracy. in fact, instead of doing that you destroyed a country. not all the regime, not all the regime -- [inaudible] so, therefore, iraq, in my opinion, will stand up at some time and get rid of what's going on now. but from the world come in general, is to help iraq to stand as soon as possible, in a shorter time so that the damages will be less.

and again, i feel it is the responsibility of the world who decided to invade iraq at the time to stand for iraq and help iraq in such a moment. and at least by the advice -- to tell them, look, we are being blamed for changing the regime there. we want real democracy to be a established there. not the democracy we see no. so work together, and for those whom you have given them more than what they should get, we should tell them no that went too far -- and solve the problem in a peaceful way. otherwise, if the critics -- kurdish parties will expand, and

the other will extend from other sites. then by that way the problem is not going to be solved. what happened in iraq was done by -- [inaudible] and i think the extent of power is still needed to rearrange things, especially for those whom you have given more than they should get. >> so this is a good question for all of us here in washington. the kinds of support that you are looking for from the united states, you've already mentioned sale of weapons, not by themselves but certainly the sale of the weapons, advice to the government on an inclusive, advice and expectation of free and fair elections. what other advice would you give

us? what other requests would you make of the united states, of the u.s. government? >> look, there are weapons -- because again, i don't think the weapons alone can solve the problem. the major problem is that there is no reconciliation in the country. if there's reconciliation, maybe we need weapons but the weapon we need maybe much less than we need them. do not neglect the other aspect. because until i think an inclusive government, fair and sharing of power in this government. and include, you know, the presence of all the components, and the security decision and

the security organization is a must. now, the whole security issue is linked to one party, and this should stop. and there should be an organization which runs the security department, not a party. your president is the command general of the army, isn't spent commander-in-chief, yes. >> but he does not make the decision alone. there are organizations to tell him, okay, this should be done. we need to tell our organization. >> deputy prime minister, npc korea asks a question, do you think live under prime minister maliki is better than life under saddam hussein? if so, what are the grounds that

she would place on its? >> well, this flies in a democratic system, that are than life in the case of dictatorship system. but will you tell me that life now is prosperous and good? i tell you know. >> turn four, that brings us around to some questions of economics -- dr. mutlaq, that brings us around to some questions of economics. one question here is the energy relations between baghdad and -- have been the source of some concern, some interest on the part of your neighbors. how would you describe those energy relations between baghdad and the kurdish republic? >> i do not agree with any decision which is going to be taken or taken now to export oil

without the agreement of the central government. because this will send a great -- disintegrate iraq. >> there is a question here that has to do with a law that was recently passed that would have the effect of changing the way that your government is organized. are there constitutional changes that need to be made? you know the history of the constitution, and there have been suggestions that the constitution ought to be changed. what kind of changes and how would those changes come across? >> well, our constitution was written in three months time, and that was a mistake.

and during that time we thought against that and we stood against that, and our friend -- [laughter] i think he remembers. >> he remembers very well. >> one day we sat together and he said look, we have changed the constitution and we added the article 142, which is that there will be amendment for the constitution, in four months time. okay, this is a fair, then we thought it would be a challenge to amend the constitution we would amend the third one. but -- there is a phrase written that says the referendum, okay, but also there is no rejection from -- [inaudible] i saw my friend and said look,

this means there is no amendment for the constitution. because the constitution was written for the benefit of specific region. that's widely clear. and these would reject any changes in the constitution, so it means this is a dead constitution. we cannot change it. then it was established after some time, for almost more than six years now. no. eight years. know, six years -- eight years, yes. nothing has changed the constitution. so unless this is going to be changed, amended, we have a problem. now, there's a disagreement between the central government and any region, the decision is for the region.

that means there's no united country. so unless this and other -- are going to be amended, we still have a problem. there are some, some matters in the constitution that is not clear. people, someone understand it in a way, another wants understand in another way so it's always making conflict. we work against the constitution. we collected at that time 5 million people, signatures to vote against the constitution. but the constitution past. and now if you ask mr. maliki, the agree with his constitution? do you want it? he will say no. this constitution is a problem. if you ask the of the

politicians, except the kurds, they will say yes, this constitution has to be changed, but how can we change it? again, this is the influence of your politicians, to tell those whom you held at the time for some reason that, look, the only way to sit with you, your brothers in the country and to rearrange things again because you have taken more than you should have some time. there was alliance, you moved more than that. this is a problem also. you have to solve it with your own country. >> dr. mutlaq, joseph from -- asked this question, speaking of laws. of revised law 21, passed with much stronger language to support decentralization.

were the minister ministers mind have you seen in taking practical steps forward since its passage? >> there is a conflict towards 21 and maybe it will be revised again. because it gave too much authority to the government, too much decentralization, while these governors, probably they are not ready for that. they are not, you know, equipped with enough professional of people to run the government at this time. at least sometimes before we go -- [inaudible] but the law is still there. >> another set of negotiations, we talked about the geneva negotiations.

the negotiations on iranian policy, on iranian nuclear policy has moved a long. we are not into the implementation phase of that interim agreement. do you see any changes, any strategic changes, in the approach that the iranian government is taking toward foreign policy, international relations, dealing with their neighbors in particular with iraq? do you see any of that kind of change? >> well, i think the negotiations is going on. if you ask me do you see any changes in the way the iranian regime are dealing with iraq, something different from last year our previous time? no, i don't see any change.

>> so no recalibration, no new structure, no new policies that would affect -- >> no. >> okay. starting with the broader discussions, development and the wider region, in egypt, in libya, in tunisia. these arabs brings that some, like in tunisia seem to be still on track. others like in egypt seem to be off-track. libya is still working. how does this affect iraq? what do iraqis think about the? >> we in iraq -- the liberals, the nationals people in iraq are very happy about what's happened in egypt. and we think that the egyptians, they awaken in a shorter time otherwise they would have -- [inaudible]

because we have the experience in iraq that islamist movement will never create stability in any country. definitely lead to sectarianism and sectarianism will disintegrate any country that exist in. and we hope to move forward and egyptian will win this time, and i think they will win. i think this would reflect itself on the other arab countries. >> egypt will have a big effect on others in the region? on iran, general chandler asked, if iran has a nuclear bomb, will that be an arms race? will saudi arabia pursue a

nuclear weapon? >> well, if iran is going to have atomic bomb, then why shouldn't saudi arabia? definitely, again there will be a struggle in the area and we want to clean the area. we don't want to go towards that kind of -- [inaudible] >> brian humphrey's from rutgers university asks this question. does the iraqi army have legitimacy in anbar? prickle you hear it referred to as a molecule forces. -- frequently you refer to as maliki forces. >> cannot be defeated without the help of the people in anbar. no matter how big the army is. there must be a cooperation between the people of anbar and

other provinces and the army. if you ask me is very good sense now between the arm army and the people, i would say yes. and i hope this will be shortened as soon as possible. >> a friend of yours, mark, asks this question. how much of the violence sponsored by regional neighbors fighting a proxy war, how much is the violence from lack of reconciliation? >> if i have information that was happening in iraq is being supported by foreign countries, i would tell you. i don't have any information of that. but definitely the lack of reconciliation is a problem. of an increasing, existence our presence in iraq.

>> deputy prime minister, several people are asking about sectarianism to you've made some very strong statements. or statements on that. but beyond sectarianism, aqi, isis, beyond those issues, what would be on your platform for this election coming up, your policy, your policy agenda for the block that you would put together? >> i would find sectarianism and isi and al qaeda, at the same time to sectarianism and al qaeda are both a danger to iraq, into the region. and it has to be thought by every honest and decent person. >> and that's the main issue for you in these upcoming elections? are there other issues of --

>> no. i would ask also for amendments of the constitution. i would ask for more inclusive government. i would ask for justice in the coming government, in the country. >> when you have justice, i think the iraqis could live together in a proper way. >> what do you think of the religious parties in iraq? do you believe in separation of religion and policy, or the religion and the state? >> of course. this is -- >> do you like these easy questions? [laughter] >> you like easy questions. spent with welsh, retired military -- is a your? i'm sure he is here. he wrote -- yes, there he is.

what is needed internally to move iraq towards genuine national reconciliation? we've had some of this discussion already. what can the u.s. do to help that general national reconciliation? and what legal obligations do you believe the united states has to iraq? you have raised this issue as well, but rick asks that question again. >> i think he was in this -- [inaudible] he knows what is needed in iraq and he knows that there is an obligation. he studied law i think. he knows there's an obligation, a legal obligation for the americans towards iraq. now it will be -- i hope it will not go to that extent. i hope that the cooperation between america and iraq will continue in order to solve the

problem that's been created. we don't want to go to the past. let us look for the future and how could america and iraq work together to stop the violence, to make an inclusive government, to make a fair and just iraq. and i know that your rule -- is different. i know you're limited in your power towards the government. and the politicians. you have a relation with some of your partners that you worked with for such a long time. they need you and you need them, and you can form a source of cooperation in order to fix the problems we're talking about. and fixing those problems have a big issue actually. if i am in the other's position, i would do it right away. i would do nothing.

i would keep myself empower that i would let the other people -- [inaudible] nothing is going to be lost. >> nothing lost. you mentioned weapons play an important role, and he emphasized not the only well. how with the government of iraq deploy these weapons without further aggravating sectarian divide? that is, do you have any concerns about the use of these weapons that the united states might provide? >> weapon is being used before, united states has supplied the weapon. this has to be stopped right away. weapon has to be used against civilian, and this has to be forbidden. >> michael of the library of congress asks this question.

does the road to reconciliation lead through iran? >> who asked this question? [laughter] >> michael. where is michael? michael is there. >> michael, you know the answer. [laughter] >> next question, i take it. a hub -- ask this question. would you approve worldwide sanctions on the iraqi government due to corruption leading, that leads to terrorism? >> we suffered a lot from the sanctions, so i don't want -- we iraqis have suffered a lot from the sanctions. i don't want to see that on the rack but i think this question is a very important one.

i need the voices to be raised, to all politicians in iraq, to sit down and make reconciliation. otherwise steps will be taken. >> unspecified steps but there should be consequences to? >> i cannot say which steps now will be taken, but i would say that some measures are going to be taken, because the absence of reconciliation in the country would affect not only iraq, to extend to the other regions. >> deputy prime minister, let me ask you the last question, or give you an opportunity at the end here, you have been very generous with your time and i know you've got appointments on capitol hill, and those are very important. don't want to keep you from that, but when you look out, you see the elections coming up.

let's assume you are good ones in the way you've described. what kind of an iraq, what does your country look like in two, three, four years if you can look that far and make -- not necessary a prediction but even a hope, and expectation? >> well, i always hope my country will be kept united, and that the people of iraq will live together in a peaceful way. as we always lived. >> we are leaving the last minute or so of this discussion but a reminder you can watch it anytime if you go to our website, c-span.org. we'll go live now to the u.s. senate followed a period of general speeches. at noon eastern the chamber will take up the consideration of the house passed agreement that would fund the federal government through saturday. current funding runs out tonight tfor a final vote is scheduled

for 12:15 p.m. eastern. that allows both the house and the senate to consider and longer-term spending bill that would fund the government through the end of the fiscal year in september. the house is voting on the measure this afternoon. if it passes, the senate likely will begin consideration of the measure later today. and now live to the floor of the u.s. senate here on c-span2. the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the chaplain, dr. barry black, will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. eternal god, our hearts are steadfast toward you. lead us safely to the refuge of your choosing, for you desire to give us a future and a hope. today, give our senators the power to do your will, as they