technological distractions can lead to tragedy. and four women are profiled that served in the civil war.

cows in the morning. my parented moved in and there was no running water or indoor baath room. the cows got running water before the house because it was more important for the barn to have it. through education i attended public high school and public

universities. i spent 26 years teaching political science at brown university and met my first billionaire. eventually i came to washington, d.c. and now work as the vice president at the leading think tank in the world. we are now seeing billionaires becoming more active in influencing the election process and spending tens or hundreds of millions of dollars pursuing their own objectives often in secret from the american public. it is the combination of wealth and secrecy that most problematic about the period. i wrote the book to provide a much better understanding of who these people are and how they are using their money in the political process.

the challenge of having bill billon -- billionaires is they are able to influence elections in secret. i was talking with the wealthy individual who described what he called a get a senator strategy. if you can get one senator to basically put a hold on an appoi appointment you don't like or stop a bill you don't want that can be a powerful way to a affect the political process. the supreme court decision put loop holes in the campaign finance laws. there used to be more required disclosure. now wealthy people can spend tens or hundreds of millions in

secret and no one else knows about it. wealthy people have the right to influence the process in the same way that every other american does but we need to know how the big money is coming into the political process. >> okay. so i would like to thank george, christen jacobs and the video team at brookings for producing thad video. i wrote this book because i was curious about billionaires and wanted to know who they are, how they got rich and watt they are doing with their wealth. i wanted to know what they are like as individuals. between teaching at brown for 26 years and being at brookings for six years i have had encontenters with a number of billionaires.

my experiences revealed tidbits about their mentality and viewpoints. i was visiting a friend in palm beach and one morning we were sitting on the patio overlooking the water when a helicopter through down the coast and ruined the serenity of the morning. a friend rolled his eyes and said that is my neighbor. it turned out instead of driving his car two miles down the road to go to the golf course he flew down there. this is an example of billionaires annoying other billionaires. in 2012, i had the experience of billionaire annoying me. i was asked about the possibility of donald trump

speaking at the republican national convention and i joked into the article that republicans should send him on an all expensive trip around the world because if he spoke at the convention he would bring problem. but the morning it appeared in the paper i got a call from trump's assistant requesting my e-mail and shortly after i got got an angry message from the billionaire himself. he posted my comment into the body of the e-mail and wrote in big black letters. you a fool, best wishes, donald trump. i appreciated the best wishes. i have this note framed in my office. the only thing i didn't under is he put air quotes around fool and that made me think i was actually being more stupid than a typical fool.

and you know, prior to that interaction i had not realize there were gradations in being a fool. and that is the note that he sent. but it was the first billionaire that i met at brown university who propelled this book and that is ted turner. about 20 years ago, ted turner came to brown to give a lecture. he was kicked out of brown for disciplinary code violations mainly involving wine and women and i am not sure if it involved that order or not. he came with his then-wife james fonda. he gave a speech saying his favorite thing about having a ranch out west because being able to urinate off the front

porch. he said the first million is the hardest and after that money is money and everything else is easier. wealthy people have social, economic and political connections and it makes it much easier to make money. i thought a lot about the comment during the 2012 elections. we saw a number of super wealthy individuals poor money into the campaign. the most famous ones were the koch brothers who spent millions trying to beat obama and now involved in this campaign coming up. it turns out these are not only billionaires active. michael bloomberg put $50 million into fighting gun violence and is active in

promoting immigration reform. george sorro supports a number of grassroots organization. tom styer is one of the less known of the politically active billionaires but he pledged a hundred million to raise public aware ness about the climate change. in researching this i realized it isn't just america. it is a global development. billionaires have run for office in 12 countries around the world and most of the time they end up winning. the most famous is a county in italy but we have the case of the new president of ukraine now. the political activism of these and other billionaires raises question about excessive political interest, conflict of

interest. we are seeing the wealthification of politics in society at many different levels. i wanted to look at the political impact of this. there are 1650 billionaires and 492 live in the united states. is important to understand the impact they have on the political process. there are several aspects i think are important in terms of the context in which this activism is taking place. one is the high level of income concentration we are seeing. it shows the rise between 1913 and 2012. it reached a high among the top 1% in terms of the percent of the income that they earned.

in 1928, it reached a high point of 21%. then you can see n years after world war ii the income c concentration dropped and reached a low point of 18% in 1976. american history shows it fluxating and policies make a difference. we are seeing this come back up and it is now back to about 20%. the top 1% have a distinct political views. ben page and larry bartell and jason seewright did a study comparing the political views of the top 1% versus the general

public. they asked identical questions and asked a battery to each and compared the rul results. this is views about medicare, schools and health care. the top 1% have views on these issue and prefer a more limited role of government. 87% favor cuts in medicare in order to reduce budget deficits. in regard to schools, 35% of the rich think government should spend whatever is necessary to make sure children have a good education compared to 87%. and on health care 41% of the wealthy say they are willing to pay more in taxes for health care for all compared to 50% of the general public.

the rich is active, has a lot of money and distinctive views. one person described the get a senator strategy. and what the individual said about this is there is some wealthy individuals who practice this strategy. we see congressional gridlock, the polarization and the extreme partisanship that a afflicts the process. wealthy people have discovered the way to stop the legislation is to find a sympathetic senator and get him or her to use obstructionist tactics. this includes placing holds on appointments you don't want. and they are generally secret

holds. we don't know who is behind it or the particular reason. but we can see they languish without movement. you can filibuster to stop the legislation. "the new york times" had a very interesting story about this involving the wall street and their campaign against herbal life. he has been on the campaign and lots of complaints about the business model and has shorted the stock. he was able to get massachusetts senator ed marquee to write letters to the insurance exchange and federal trade commission demanding an investigation into the company. the day that investigation became public the stockmarket fell which was a help to mr. akron.

it is similar to a cartoon you may have seen showing as a wealthy man in a nice office with windows saying i own one plane, two yachts, five houses and 20 politicians. ...

that number had dropped to 468. by 2009 which is the last year in which they had done the survey, that number was down to 355. i think most of the people i talked to think if you did the survey today that number would be less than the 355. and so, as a result, both the opportunities and the lack of oversight some have shipped a lot of money into state referendum and a state policy advocacy knowing that there is actually a lot less oversight than what we see here in our nation's capital. so, we have seen people get very

involved in same-sex marriage, marijuana legalization, immigration, tension reform, obamacare reform, you name the issue. there often is big money behind this. so, the problem that i see see him thinking about this whole topic of money and politics especially when it comes to billionaires is a lot of people suffer from ideological blinders. when i talk to liberals they love it when they spring into action and to spend a lot of money and if you support the reform you think it is great that michael bloomberg is investing a lot of money and if you worry about gun violence that is a good thing. conservatives love it when they're rich people do the same thing but i think with all of us need to do is really step back and think about the system as a whole. we need to think about the impact of the well-funded government, on society, and on economic opportunity.

in the conclusion of my book i argue that we need policies that promote better transparency and promote broad economic opportunity. henry ford was someone who understood the value of reasonably paid employees. here's a picture of him. he was famous for paying his factory workers doubled the going rate and when people asked him about it he said look i need customers to buy my product. it's in my self-interest for me as a factory owner to pay my workers a good share not only because it helps them live, but they then can purchase mine. so businesses need workers in order to thrive and to be successful. so, i suggest that we need more equitable tax policy and public investments in education and healthcare, and i closed the book with a personal story saying that i am living proof of this argument because in the

last chapter i tell the story about told the story about being a young kid that woke up one day with sybil and joins, a sore throat and a high fever. a doctor looked at my symptoms and immediately sent me to the hospital. i have developed a fever that was a bacterial disease that attacks the joints and hard fouls. at age 11 i had this feature. today nobody in america gets that disease. it's a developing world illness. there are still many kids in africa who get this and they don't have access to antibiotics many people who get this today and dying by that dying by age 20. the 1966 i was fortunate that there was a miracle cure penicillin that have gone on the market a few decades earlier. through the publicly funded hospital i was cured and i went

on to a productive life and i went to a public university, got a graduate degree, taught in the ivy league for 26 years and then ended up teaching at wide view of the world's top think tank. so i won the lottery in terms of life fortunes. dale who was also shown in the picture was not quite as fortunate as i was. after the picture was taken, he was in an accident and lost his big toe and he never got much of an education. he struggled economically his entire life and he died last year. so, we have to young boys who grew up in the same area, two very different outcomes. obviously there are many things that go into the fortunes and explain my some people have an easier time than others. but we need public policies that keep the american dream alive for the next generation of younger kids. thank you very much. [applause]

i would like to invite the panelists up and we will continue our conversation.

>> i would like to welcome our distinguished visitors today. all these individuals have a great experience and various aspects of politics and they reported on many of the controversies in the field. peter is the power, money and influence correspondent correspondent of the national public radio. i do have to say i like that title a lot. i'm sure many of you have heard peter on the radio. he's done npr since 19 -- the newt gingrich funding issues, bill clinton's problems, soft

money the passage of mccain-feingold, the scandal in this opinion court decisions, citizens united and then the recent rise of the super packs. he has won several awards such as the columbia and the radio television correspondents association annual award for excellence. marcus is a columnist and editorial writer at the "washington post" and focuses on american politics and domestic policy and has been with the post since 1984 and joined the national staff in 1986 and covered a wide variety of issues including campaign finance, the justice department, the supreme court and the white house. she joined the editorial board in 2003 and begin writing a regular column in 2006. john harwood is the chief washington correspondent for cnbc and was also a political writer for "the new york times" and writes a weekly column, the political memo for the paper and

in addition to cnbc, john offers quick analysis on meet the press and also the washington weekend review of on other television and radio programs. the reporter for "the wall street journal" based in dc and in that position, he covers business, lobbying and campaign finance. he starts his career at the national journal "congressdaily" and later rollcall where he covered congress and well-being. he is twice won the everett mckinley dirksen award for distinguished reporting on congress and he also won the george polk award and received an award from the national press club for the best political reporter under the age of 33. so, i want to start with that. [laughter] >> it's still a great way to start your career. i'm going to start with peter. you have great expertise in money and politics. what did you see the impact of

billionaires and has their influence changed over time click >> billionaires includes changeover time just because when you start looking at a certain money in politics but there's always been big money in politics since that is a given in america. one example is eugene mccarthy's campaign in 1968 which basically financed so you have that history but what you have now is after a period of more disclosure and openness and campaign contribution limits, you have a rise in the contributions and rise in non- disclosed money being prominent in the political system.

the five o. one c. -- 501(c)4 if you talk about the finite number of billionaires in this country. we don't know how many of them are active in politics. we know george soros and others but most of the people we don't know if they are politically active or not and if they are active in the 501(c)4 we don't know unless it's the, and if so, you know there is an undefined -- it is not an answerable question. >> but you have to answer by definition. [laughter] >> that's actually very helpful. what do you see as the political impact click

>> in some ways you could go to the history and say even leaving aside the inflation point, the millionaire was a big deal the capacity that used to start with them and got the capacity of the big money to influence politics has always been there to go back to robert baer in or go back to the modern era. citizens united to some extent has their genesis in buckley and the capacity of the individual will billionaires to spend the billions and billions that they want by themselves in the politics has been there since 1974 and one question that we can ask is not why is this

happening now, but why wasn't it happening previously because it puts limits on individual spending and independent expenditures have never been in place. i do think it is fascinating to think about that question because there has been a change in the culture where there seems to be more willingness on both sides of the political spectrum. but to spend millions and be kind of proud of it i couldn't agree more with the questions and issues and concerns that darrell and peter have raised about secrecy because it is in fact the toxic axis. it was the scariest, the unknown figure in your presentation is the number of reporters because

when you take the big money and you take the secrecy and the coverage, you have a huge problem. about that said, the willingness of the billionaires to be kind of unabashed about their desire to influence the political process is to some extent we know a lot about the spending because he was proud to tell us about it. those that used to operate an even more secrecy have just decided to embrace it. they kind of want the coverage. it's fascinating maybe to have the capacity to have that ego to spend it, but in some ways in addition to the troubling development i think that is a kind of interesting one.

>> so you focus on business lobbying and campaign finance. what do you see in this area click >> first i want to say my billionaire, rupert murdoch was a really good guy. [laughter] just trying to help the country. [laughter] but i think -- [inaudible] [laughter] so i think that part of the way the system has been developed now as of the unintended consequence that came from the 2002 campaign-finance reform legislation where at the time the businesses and unions and billionaires could give unlimited sums of money to the political parties at the time everyone thought that was a bad thing. and so, we have had legislation

to ban these unlimited contributions in the political party and a few years later that money wasn't able to get into the other party and started going to these outside groups. and it took a few years to get to the system that we are now but basically where they used to have more people to give million-dollar donations to the republican party or democratic party and it was disclosed and we knew who was given the money and it went to the different sector forces that were bringing the politics together and we had the time southern democrats, we had republicans in new england, we had people who were all across the spectrum in both political parties. they came to washington and a compromise because people from different parts of the country agreed with each other whether republicans or democrats. and now you've taken that money that you can't go to the political party. it goes to now these outside groups, which are for the most part pretty extreme area to succumb and you don't have the

candidates coming to washington who are supported by the groups. instead, you have the candidates that come to washington who are in general more extreme. you have no democrats in the south, california is almost all republicans, and for a committed because of the coast and in other countries, republicans and so you come to washington and people can't compromise and i think that is really all affect an unintended consequence of the 2002 reform. >> what is your political impact click >> first of all we would would would have been interesting controlled experiment of the sales if the sales of the book make you a billionaire we would find out. the topics like the affect of billionaires a little bit like i think the topic of media bias

which the conservatives complain about, true it is a factor but i tend to think it is not as large a factor independently as the critics fear it is. so is that prove that money doesn't determine election outcomes? >> i think it doesn't. it influences them, but it is one of a number of factors. he was describing the structural topics that to me are the greatest determinant of election outcomes and those have been going on for sometime. i also think that if you look at it more broadly, you can make an argument that the real problem

is not -- the problem with money and politics is much bigger than the 1%. maybe it is the 15% because the way that we have had a divergence of life fortunes and economic success in our country you could say public policy is made for the upper interest and not necessarily the billionaires only because of the rise of income inequality and the stratification of society in the way that perpetuates themselves through our education system and many other issues. so, i think that it matters. i think that money tends to balance out whether it is billionaire money or billionaire to online money. i was so struck in 2004 when howard dean and a phenomenon that had nothing to do with billionaires i believe it was

the third quarter of 2003 raised more money in that quarter than bill clinton had raised in any quarter when he was running for the election as president of the united states, so the technology and the information infrastructure that we have makes it possible to innovate and figure out new ways of balancing the ethics of people like the coke brothers or george soros. >> john was mentioning the impact of 2012. i want to answer that so harry reid is of course regularly attacking the coke brothers and the next agenda super pack is run as talking the coke brothers. i think that is risky myself at the crossroads gps has attacked the california billionaire who stands to profit from blocking the key like delete cookies the pipeline.

how is all of this activity going to affect the 2014 elections if at all? >> actually, i think i would argue not very much at all. we saw this when senator reid was having his kind of daily attacks on the coke brothers. so to say what is this about coming in really what it's about to me, not to sound too cynical, they don't have anything else to talk about on both sides and where better to be cynical than on this panel that's true. i just want to stake out a cynicism portfolio. i think that it's a little bit on both sides of the base mechanism but i don't think that it is one that resonates with most voters should say.

what gets me is the -- >> you thought that things would work themselves out. it's about the powerful impact of the internet advertising somewhat leveling the playing field. how do you stake that assertion and again, the troubling differentials in the chart about attitudes of the fees weren't billionaires but they were critical and different in the population that definitely tilted in the right direction, the rightward direction. >> do you want to respond to

that? >> we are talking about the disparity in the interest of the political views of billionaires versus everybody else. >> i think it might end up being the same question. if you are a billionaire and you think that there should be less spending on government health care and on education, you're going to probably gravitate towards one political party rather than another. >> yes, the couple of things that is also in the service of the point that i was making more broadly about people with money, not to billionaires but people with money. they care a lot more about the deficit reduction and ordinary people do. so, to some extent it isn't a function of billionaires it is of the income inequality and different ways of looking at the world. but you also have asked that she mccarthy story indicated that

peter mentioned, you've got billionaires willing to spend money in the service of the values that are out of step with their class. and in fact the democrats approve meant politically speaking of people with money is an important factor in in leveling what you're talking about. we are talking about. democrats are doing a lot better with people with postgraduate education and successful baby-boom liberals who go into business and that gives them the capacity to respond to the libertarian government kind of worldview. maybe not in a dollar for dollar way but in a way that is

sufficient to the advanced competing arguments. >> how do you see the money playing out in the 2014 elections? >> i think that we see hints that it was a date with voters. i just did a story last week about commit to mention the senate race in michigan where they had just run an ad tying the republican candidates to the coke brothers and thus avoid university pollsters just as it was ending they get to the question what's the first thing you think of when i say the see the name of the candidate.

and that is a significant number i think it was 4% of the respondents said the first thing they thought of when her name was mentioned as the coke brothers big business. that's basically that phrase. so, you know, just the stick until that election but the fact that it's registering at all that way i think goes back basically to kerry reid is setting the stage for the democrats to do this kind of advertising. and if i think that just plays into it. >> do you think these attacks are going to make a difference? >> it's hard to say. stepping back a little bit we but we are still in a period

where most of the money is being spent by the parties in the old system and the money being spent by the outside groups and donated by the billionaires is still not a majority of the amount of money being spent and obviously you are putting a lot of money out there but so far they are "-begin-double-quote the way we want them to be battled which is by candidate. that is going to quickly change created this may be the tipping point where outside groups into billionaires and millionaires spend money more than the candidates themselves. and if we keep going and mr. action we will get to 2016 and beyond where all of a sudden the candidates are not able to get their own messages out because they are battling about their own campaign and i think that is getting to the point where it is dangerous for the democracy when the candidates who are running for office are not even allowed to control their own message. and we are not there yet. but we are heading there and there is no sign of the legislation to change anything

and i think that will be pretty scary if it comes to this election and the one after. >> we have to remember that the ads matter less and messages matter less than they did before. so much of our politics is structural. and it is well-known to the vast majority of the voters what team they are on. and the cultural identification, people who care about the environment and income inequality and don't like the prevalence of guns in our society and know what team they are on and which don't have the same is true for people on the other side. you've got increasing strength as a symbol to the -- stratification for the republican candidates and blacks and increasingly hispanics are locked down for democrats and

sosa influence over the attack ad in other campaign materials i think it's on a pretty narrow band of brothers. >> but when we look ahead to 2016 what strikes me as the democrats have not quite decided how they feel or what they want to do because the one hand you have kerry reid and then you have this ready for hillary super pack which isn't quite her super pack -- >> it's ready to be. >> yes, signing up the billionaires and i think they can't decide whether they should fight, or join them. as we look ahead, how do you see this whole thing evil -- evolving? >> one thing that we are seeing already is the koch brothers the

billionaires are building their own ground organizations which you do tv ads, ground organizations, the koch network has its own database just like a political party. where is the line between the political party and the network? i'm not saying that it is a political party that they are doing a lot of the same things a political party does. >> you mentioned super tax and that is really important to continue to distinguish between the kind of billionaires in the network that we are talking about because we can lament or discuss the rise of the super pack as the force in american politics but at least we know through super packs would

billionaires are millionaires or the rest of us are contributing and spending and i think that my bigger worry is not billionaires banding together and the super pack. to that extent i would argue it's in the rules that we have allowed to be written that allow them to operate without any sunshine on them. the fact that we have a tax code that doesn't -- that allows the tax exempt organizations to engage in what anybody out there from the first grade on understands as political activity is a criminal public policy. they need to get themselves out of the business politics and

everybody would be better off and they need to get themselves into the business of these things but we either need a regulatory changes or that legislation to make that happen and i think that we all understand the interest of that work against us. so, this leads to a 2016 set up and the continuing rise of the spending that is not disclosed. >> i couldn't agree more. as reporters we are going to be in favor of disclosure of the problem now is a lot of times we don't know who is spending money. so, ten years ago if we were able to sit down and come up with the worst possible system for the campaigns we wind up with what we have now where people can spend as much money as they want to and they don't have to disclose and they don't control the message and that's where we are now into the

disclosure part i think is worse. >> to pick up on your point about ready for hillary i don't think that they are ambivalent about how they feel about the billionaires. i think every single one would be welcome if they showed themselves to be on the democratic team and bring their checkbook. it is not a -- it is not a disqualification for the democratic party as long as you are on their side and they've got some hand they will use them as best they can. and again, the influence of the super wealthy spenders i think back to sheldon abelson. he has his money on newt gingrich. how effective is that? where did that go and you have another one i forget his name but he invested very heavily in rick santorum and i'm sure any

democrat would be delighted if he spends a billion dollars on rick santorum in the next primary election, but there is only -- you can make a difference but there is only so much of a difference. >> light of the open before to questions from the audience. there is a gentleman gentleman in the very back with his hand out. we have a microphone that will come back to you. if you can give your name and organization and those of you watching the webcast if you would like to submit questions you can do so through hash tag of billionaires. after 30 years ago at 30 years ago i was a guest scholar here at brookings. i come back as often as i can. i wanted to think the panelists. wonderful discussion and lots of questions i could ask as an attorney that helps break up at&t. i want to try to make it easy. i am from virginia and there was

a federal trial in richmond recently. $177,000 but some favors. can you please comment on that? >> that you be more specific? >> i think in about three years ago the supreme court decision called marine -- mcdonald, i'm sorry or vice versa mcdonald versus u.s.. so how does that play out into the consciousness of the voter today and i can give you the sort of other side of the claim. there is a new populism going on in the united states. one is the tea party and the other is the left wing of the democratic party, the senator from ohio and the senator from massachusetts that represent them. what else is out there that is happening that is illustrated

with that you would interpret or comment on from these two phenomena, new the new populism, )-right-paren democrat, republican and the conviction in richmond about two weeks ago. >> about to make the -- about the mcdonald i would say on the outside of the cynical voter, the corruption that was disclosed and that the jury decided was criminal behavior ratified with the voters think is business as usual. the degree to which the voters actually think that whole system is so much more corrupt than it actually is and that there are lobbyists coming with bags of money and plotting and applauding them onto the desks of lawmakers for their own personal use. what is really interesting about

-- if he was dealing with a campaign donor and getting the campaign contributions that were disclosed and he was simultaneously doing relatively minor official acts would there be a criminal case there at all? probably not. the benefits were going to him personally and that really transformed it. but i think from the point of view of the voters it is probably all a piece of this massive that they think of as washington and politics. >> i think the public doesn't recognize the distinction that washington runs on the campaign contribution.

>> i would say elements of the left and right populism that you refer to are from the same source which is the system economy is not delivering the rising incomes in the way and i think that engenders people get different notions of why that's true and some of it could come from the corruption system and and some of it could flow from immigration, some of it could flow from the wealth of the 1% and they tilt the playing field. but all of those things i think the undermining fact is that people are anxious and scared about their economic futures in the political process. >> christian has a question from

the webcast audience. >> you touched on a little bit with your remarks earlier but for the larger panel, can you go to your perspective on the psychology of billionaires, what drives them and makes them tick and who are these people? >> great question. >> i would say i don't think i have any friends that are billionaires but i have a friend who might be close to that and i think that i'm struck in talking to him that the way in which oddly in my opinion he seems besieged by the political system and this whole notion of, you know, pitchforks and people coming after people with money that engenders a sort of

attitude of trying to push back really hard. remember how the conversation started in the college reunion before the 2012 election he was asking me i didn't know how to answer it because it seems like a crazy question. but there is the sense i don't know if there is a psychological part goat or if it is simply adult protection but there is a sense of everyone else that is into doing so well being after them and all of the comical from my way of thinking that's the only exposure i've had to what i think might be.

>> i don't know billionaires or i didn't until i met darrell. >> i like your optimism by the way. >> of this is counterintuitive, but i don't think that the billionaires spent all this money for the pure business point of view. i don't think the koch brothers state when he did change the policies to make more money. it's how we deal ideologically on the right or the left. i could be wrong but they make billions of dollars a year and the only spent $100 million they think that it will affect their business and they spend more money if they thought that this went to the bottom-line? so i don't think that he is spending money on the casino regulations but on other policies that he has. >> i just don't think that a lot of these people -- said they would spend more money. it's ideological.

>> that adelson seems to want to see a person of color in the conservative movement. he threw away his money on gingrich but the result of that is that all the candidates are coming to him saying how about me? so she likes to be in the position of power and his spending in the 2012 cycle helped establish him that way. >> one thing we haven't touched on is interesting and it kind of goes to what are they motivated by and are they simply trying to protect and promote their worldview. one of the things that is an

interesting distinction is the difference between billionaires spending their money on candidates and billionaires spending their money on causes and it strikes me in part because the countervailing influence of the individual donations through the internet that billionaires spending the money and you write about this darrell it could actually be a more powerful depending what your position is and more pernicious role in terms of "bubba state referenda by the billionaires. i don't know if he thinks of himself that way but -- >> you have and to get quite a few. [laughter] >> and there you go. i am done. there's not enough caffeine this morning. my billionaires spent a lot of money on the referendum in

washington state on marriage a quality which passed. i would venture to guess that the 1.5 million was a lot better return on investment and the 2.5 million on newt gingrich or whoever his individual candidate of choice might have been and so i think that is a really interesting distinction for the billionaire incentive to be involved in this and the psychology of the involvement. >> i think that is an important point that we are seeing especially around the referendum policy ideas and so on. the thing is if you think about kind of two or three or $5 million going into a medium-sized state like if you want to talk about how you could have an impact, so in some of

the campaigns you end up with the one-sided campaigns and if you have a weak media role that could be a bad combination. there's a lot of competition into the fair campaign. >> it's coming up from behind you. >> thank you. retired from brookings. i am struck at the moderation of the panel on this issue. money is always influence on the u.s. politics. it's not new. there's democrats, republicans, so it's on both sides and i think this is a much more various issue development and the panel seems to be lead and

let me throw to thought thoughts out and get your feedback, negative thoughts. one is the rising public opinion polls that show the american public thinks the system could be bought high here in a higher percentage is i think it is in the mid-80s or something and when the public has such a negative view of the influence of money that's terrible for the whole system. the second negative impact is in the past a worthy candidate needed to develop a broad-based financial support to get lots of contributors to run. now all you need is one billionaire. you don't need to develop any message that affects the broad swath of the people. the billionaires on money

reaction. >> they didn't win the nomination when obama was reelected. as the surface level response, i think the first that first of all i don't think it is the case that you look back and candidates in the past didn't have wealthy patrons who are making it happen. ronald reagan had a group of -- richard nixon, gene mccarthy. i don't think it is that's radically different and i don't think it is bad much a guarantee of success. >> i do think it is corrosive but people beneath the system is corrupt. but again i think a lot of that flows from their feelings about their own economic prospects and

what they are getting. >> he wanted to jump in on that? >> what i was trying to see earlier is how the money is being spent is no longer being run through the parties that bring the candidates together being run by the unaccountable outside groups who don't need to disclose the sources of money or who they are spending money for. that is the problem that you end up having the candidates come to washington who are beholden to the extremes of either party and not candidates that come to washington to. when you start looking at what's happening these people are in office and the plaintiff peter raises of up about the public

cynicism in all these countries there are always charges of interest and insider dealings and you can kind of look at italy, thailand, georgia where there's been a lot of evidence of this. of course in the developing world they don't have the rule of law that we have for the economic opportunities. in many of the countries they have a small number of billionaires. the thing that makes it most optimistic in terms of the future is the fact that we have 500 billionaires and on most issues, there's some diversity of the viewpoints among them that you go into other countries into there maybe three or five or seven billionaires and they always have close relationships with the people in government and that is what leads to the massive public cynicism. >> and perhaps even less effective regulation disclosure than what we have. >> absolutely.

i'm working on the international entrepreneurship as a foreign-policy tool. the point that was made about the effect of all of this is an important one because it is one of the reasons there is so much excitement about your book. we all know this is happening and here is a book that is talking about it. one of the things that i thought was interesting as the is the under the radar resolutions that you made. we all know about the few few households main billionaires and the candidates they've supported. what we don't know is what we don't know. so when you match that with the charts that you showed up at the decline in the investigative journalism which is why i wanted to ask the question of this panel of journalists you have a very nervous situation so it

seems there are two answers and i would like to hear your ideas about which of these is the most realistic to happen. >> first is how to we increase the transparency given the numbers you showed of the journalists declined or second option is campaign finance reform. >> i can say something optimistic for a change. there's actually more resources dedicated to covering money in politics now than when i started in 1995, 96. we learned after the 1996 fund-raising scandal that was worth paying a lot of resources

and attention to and i think that there is much -- without the reporter dedicated i venture to guess. there isn't a counterbalance in these organizations to have the local and state level reporters to the congressional delegation. think about the corruption that was looking at the financial disclosure, you went to look at the properties and it was evident on his face it took supporting to bring that to light. on the broad question on the prospects for campaign finance reform, you know what they are. >> i will sign a note -- >> about the state level journalism when i was in the

tallahassee bureau in the times between 83 and 84, we were engaged in a process called a greeting of the legislature and it was staff intensive and we have several people working on it. we had every single action or vote that was taken in the legislature. we associated the money with with the legislatures and how they voted and that was the theme of our coverage. find his paper announced pay cuts for every single person that worked there and warned of impending layoffs picture has shown dramatically from the size that it had, so has the miami herald in fact they struck even more and so that is just an

emblem of the data that deed of that you saw in the presentation of the shrinking number of people covering state legislators on this topic and every other topic. >> this gentleman right here. >> i'm a reporter at the center for public integrity on the money and the politics. going back to 96 and in 2000 and 2002 the last round of campaign finance reform came out of the scandals and i was curious if you thought attitude towards both candidate when he changed since then and if people were wrong to be outraged by those things and if we were about to give more money to the parties directly if it was a sort of situation where bush or obama

have guests coming back to the lincoln bedroom. so some small dollar donors would get to go and what does it take to have a scandal that would affect things these days. >> the business of the political fund raising is much more out in the open -- it used to be a. of the baseline level of cynicism is a lot higher. when i started on this, campaigns didn't want to talk about their fund raising, lobbyists didn't like to talk about lobbying and now they brag about how much money they raise and the parties are bragging about it. the only people who aren't hard to see for.

>> and some of them are bragging. it's a lot more out in the open, therefore i think that the potential for the scandals is greater because it's more generally understood what's going on. you know, what the norms are and when you go past those norms it easier to tell the story for the billionaires involved. so maybe we are on a train headed down the tracks -- they

are made by people who win and the people who win are the people that do well on the system so they have no intent to come to washington and change the rules so some other guy can win on the road. that's why in the campaign-finance and ethics reform nothing happens to tell the scandal that's how we got the campaign-finance in the first place. so, it really will take a scandal for there to be some sort of change. >> i'm going to say the capacity for scandal may be greater but the capacity to respond to the scandal is less. i think back to the 2000 campaign there was a group that passed out and i'm not remembering his name but there was a 527 organization which is a political organization that it wasn't -- back then it didn't have to disclose its donors.

it was spending a non- believable sum that was two to 3 million during the republican primary campaign. i think that it was in support of -- i can't remember if it was in support of john mccain or george w. bush. somebody else here that has a less creaky memory than i am. i was going to say that it was the widely brothers by not sure if they were attacking were supporting him in favor of bush. but all of a sudden this pops up on the verizon. i was an editor at the time and buying reporter went out and basically just came forward and had no responsibility to disclose the 527. well, within a few months, congress actually passed and mccain pushed because back in the days when mccain cared about

campaign-finance reform, they pushed and congress passed legislation that's still on the books that requires the 527 groups that are operating outside of the regular political committees to disclose their campaign spending and donations that happened within the election cycle and the capacity to respond in that same cycle or in anticipation of the next election cycle seems in response to a similar scandal to be vastly reduced. >> we probably should in the spirit of full disclosure in the 1996 clinton fund-raising scandals in 1997 republicans were investigating and fred thompson had a committee and i got a call one day from an investigative reporter at the "boston globe" who also happened to be a friend of mine who said i want to know why you attended

one of the clinton fund-raising copies and it didn't do the readers of "the wall street journal." i said what are you talking about? of course i didn't go to the clinton fund-raising coffee and he said i have a document that says you did. ..

>> the emerging elites are going to be socially liberal. i think generally speaking it is going to be a more democratic group than had older mun egro egroup -- money group we are talking about. >> more libertarian and more marriage quality and reproductive rights and focused on environmental issues. >> what happens when the current billionaires start passing away is interesting.

they often have children or grandchildren that don't share share viewpoints. the billionaire who passed away last year, some of this mun ay -- money went to his two doctors that supported hilary clinton and obama and their father said president obama was the most dangerous man in politics. tom, you have a question? we have mike coming up to you. one comment about the parties versus the outside group. i think it mischaracterizes how the politics advised.

if you look at the parties and how they are in an election or a swing election they have never held as much influence than they do today. even the super pacs are attached to the party so we have two big team operations and all of the emphasis on what is the champbe doing to support the establishment is a pittance of what is going on. the parties are polarized and finding their allies among billionaires and others. that is where the game is. having the money coming directly to them wouldn't make much difference electoral but might make the donors more influential

than they now. we have a movement among some billionaires a campaign to give back half. i am curious if outside of the immediate political arena what can you say about what is happening in the billionaire community? beyond referendum and issues in big things. >> a number of the billionaires i looked at are forward thinking in their policy agenda. they are thinking about the robotics that impact. offshore communities and research on stem cell research. these individuals areivati visi and that is how they made their

money. they saw something happening and saw a niche and made money on it. as you point out, bill gates and warren buffet proposed the giving pledge and they give away half of their money. slightly less than 10% of the billionaires signed up for this. many are in the united states. there is not much interest outside of the united states. i know they actually went to china to try to sign up chinese billionaires for the giving pledge, had a big dinner and at the end of the dinner no one signed up. but ali baba went public with this this week where the leader behind the firm is starting to do work inside china. he is worried about air pollution and focused on the environment.

he is aware of billionaire activism can get you in trouble in your home government so he is telling the government officials i want to work with you. i am not working against you on this issue. so lots of interesting things in that area. we are out of time but i want to thank our parliamenelist. i think your comments added a lot and i appreciate your insight. if you want a book, we have them in the hallway. thank you very much for coming. [applause] >> booktv is on twitter and facebook. tweet us