it gets over 5% of the portland. if he gets 10% a gets 10% of the parliament. if it gets 3% it doesn't do anything. the cut off is five. what do you think the cut off is here? you get 49%. if your opponent is 51, all the votes for the 49% don't count. so proportional representation. that's one reason why that the bigger voter turnout in other countries. i would also have voting as a universal duty. there's a whole bill of rights, no duty in the constitution except the seventh amendment, jury duty. i think if you're going to have to be a lot of laws legislated by a lot of lawmakers, you should have a role in choosing those lawmakers. some say that's a violation of my civil liberties. no, it isn't. not if you can pick none of the above. if you have a none of the above choice, which means i do want any of them, i'm going to a protest vote and it is binding and wins, it canceled the

election and the candidates and genuine elections in 30 days with new candidates. that comes in at about 85-90%. people will not stay home with the don't count. half of them stay home, two-thirds of the primary stay home. they can vote none of the above. if you don't like that you have to write in vote, you can write your own name and. that takes care of that. in terms of more fundamental things, system of government, parliamentary governments do not gridlock because in effect the executive and the legislative are one. soviet neighbors of parliament that are ministers of foreign affairs, ministers of the environment. if they when they can get things done. in our country is a good person wins the presidency can block by the senate or the house and the filibuster, and critical issues are no longer treated with any measure of human time.

a system that we have now is becoming more and more destructive of our democratic process and the ability to make government work. in the 1840s when it was the federal government was your post than, maybe it wasn't that serious. now it's extremely serious. especially when the congressional branch to give up its right to declare war and to propose budgets initially, and to the duties under the constitution, and get away with it. next question is are there any statutory regulatory protections for whistleblowers after they've made their disclosure? support and finance or the west of finding new employment with back pay benefits, other remedies? sometimes when they win the case they've been in file for back pay. and sometimes they get a portion of the wind, the bounty that you heard about from professor

vaughn, a percentage of the recovery of the fraud that the corporation inflicted on say the department of defense. and other times they are cast aside. it's a status, saddest situation you could ever see. you see whistleblowers saved lives, save money. they were right in their throat aside like floats in the jettisoned the that's why there are some groups now working on this. i don't know their names, to help people after they've taken their conscience to work, blow the whistle, done what they were paid to do and then left without any job and stigmatized. what would you say to the claim that racial equality and police violence is more important than class action lawsuits to compel corporations to produce safe products that why do we have to choose? it so happened street crime including police violence is a fraction of the number of

preventable deaths and injuries and diseases of corporations inflict on people. i mentioned some earlier. you can see hundreds of thousands of people are dying due to violated standards and hospitals, air pollution, product defects, occupational diseases. so we have to do both. but it's a good idea to sensitize people to the reality. silent forms of violence end up in cancer and respiratory diseases, ar are given a fractin of the attention by the media. that street crime is given. on the very day that the bomber put the bombs in the trashcan or whatever in new york, it was blanket 100% coverage on the tv. for two days. there were 29 people injured, none serious, that could this. in those two days in the new

york area, 60 people died from preventable malpractice or hospital induced infections. nobody writes about that. politicians are not asked to talk about it. eight daily, the question is i get solicitations from organizations begins citizens united. please speak to the dilution of united movement to get big money out of politics and democracy reform in general. i don't think it's diluted. i haven't been in thrall but all these groups to get together and form one giant group. that creates bureaucracy. stifles initiative. what i do want is to see these groups get mass media. the id we've given up 24 hours of public airwaves largely to

advertisements, comedic shows, sensational news, partially, and junk programs, which all these activities of citizens are engaged in all of the country to go the way can get through people is c-span. c-span only as so many cameras and so much time. and so we have to be far more demanding of controlling what we found. we on these assets but i think you should conform subcode your friends and neighbors answered what you doing on saturday afternoon? nothing much. would give them a quick let's turn on the network and see how they are using a property and when you meet people is t testig hello, how are you? okay. sometimes you're not okay but you say fine, why don't you ask them how they should civic life? [laughter] and soon, and teachers should say to the students, can you write a 1000 year essay under

socialized? sure. tenuate 1000 word essay on academic life? sure. tenuate 1000 word essays on your athletic life or life -- lack thereof? sure. let's start with 1000 word essay on your civic life. can you do that? very few can do that. teaching is a wonderful accordion. the more you expand it and squeeze it, the more delightful is the music. we have to expect our teachers to do that through strong parent teacher organizations. last question. if we are so united on issues why we so divided on the policies and politicians? we vote for gridlock and what to do about it? >> first of all you don't have enough choice on the ballot. in most districts, state and congressional, there's really

one incumbent, and the other is flailing away are not even on the ballot of the two-party. that's called gerrymandering. the politicians now in the great republic of the united states of america, land of the free, home of the brave, pick the voters. and get away with it. i mean, i think voters are entitled to be a little indignant. what you talking about? we are supposed to take you. we are supposed of choice. natchez tweedledum, twiddle dee on military issues that wall street and on campaign funding. even though you may be a little different on social network issues. we got to be more demanding. it's amazing how people can get really upset about small things, and be completely oblivious to the big things. because they don't feel they can affect the big things. that's where the civic self-confidence, the sense of

leadership comes in. so what can we do about it? every time we want to meet a politician, it only takes 300 people on a petition to get a standard to come to your community. that so few people turned out. wow, 300 people. then you tell them with a ps in your letter of invitation, the u.s. 600? we will do it. that would really freak them out. and then you set the agenda. you are up here and they are there listening to you. can anybody stop you from doing that? whenever any people say the powers that be, the big boys of control, that the corporations. ask yourself what you can do to start counteracting them that no one can stop you from doing. like so many of your members of congress or state legislatures to your own town meetings. who can stop you from doing that? there are all kinds of things. nobody can stop you from doing, to get the ball rolling until

you become a critical mass. i have a question to ask the audience. everything starts with knowing about the problem in your head, and having the requisite moral indignation to be your engine of action. so there's and old chinese saying, 14 century ming dynasty, when you hear it you will not forget it. it is. quote, to know and not to do is not to know, end quote. to know and not to do is not to know. couple that with this is a row saying freedom is participation and powers as i noted earlier. you've got a pretty good formula. couple that with the own self-respect and as that of insignificance making this world better from the neighborhood to the international sphere.

and you will get the requisite moral indignation. such as what ask you for my own information base, how many people in this audience now are more morally indignant then when they came in this morning? [applause] >> you've got a fire in your belly to make the difference. and the fact that even showed up tells me that you're a special audience. and i hope you will come in the next three days and you will call people and say come to these convocations. they are not put together like this very often, and we want to see people hear as well as through c-span and through live stream. if you want more information on how to come to these convocations, go to breakingthroughpower.org, all of those of you around the country, or go directly to ticketmaster

if you're in the general d.c. population area. let's see more of you in the next three days. thank you very much. [applause] >> we have to go to the white house defense coming up today. mike pence will be in charlotte, north carolina, speaking to supporters at a rally at 1 p.m. eastern. live coverage on c-span. hillary clinton will be campaigning at wayne state university in detroit live on c-span2 at startup to fortify pb2 and donald trump speaking to supporters in pennsylvania. he speaking to faculty and students at a local high school and there will be five at 3:30 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> our campaign 2016 coverage continues on c-span with live debates for u.s. house, senate and governor's races.

>> coming up next on c-span2 assure the recent missouri governors debate and with "the associated press" has to say about this particular race. two years later the fatal police shooting of michael brown in ferguson remains a politically sensitive it's been ejected into missouri's troubadour campaign. at issue is whether democratic missouri attorney general chris koster who is now running for governor pushed for the ouster of karen wilson, the officer who shot mr. brown before the facts were in. republican candidate tracking has accused chris koster of time to get mr. wilson fired soon after the august 2014 shooting. choose to the figures in ferguson told the ap inseparable interviews that chris koster called for officer wilson fired or forced resignation industries of closed-door meetings

involving out of state and st. louis regional leaders in the weeks after the shooting. chris koster denies the charge. is a look at that debate from last week which also includes other candidates to talk about focusing on education, infrastructure spending, right to work legislation and religious freedom. >> moderator: thank you. again welcome to the 2016 candidate forums hosted by the missouri press association. earlier today candidates in two numbers to determine the order in which they will be making opening remarks your closing remarks will be made in reverse order. i am going to introduce of the candidates to you in the order of the opening remarks. first, independent candidate lester turilli. green party candidate don fitz. democrat chris koster.

republican eric greitens. [applause] and libertarian cisse spragins. [applause] >> after the opening statements i will ask the first question and then we will proceed to questions from our three panelists. our three panels today seat in front our cam newton of the st. joseph news press, carol stark of the joplin globe and bill miller of the washington missouri and. candidates will have one minute to answer each question, after each has had to turn come an additional i will decide if any rebuttal time is necessary and if so they will have an additional 30 seconds. rebuttals will be reserved only for those particular candidates involved in an attack. if a candidate fails to answer a question, i also reserve the right to prompt them to try again. signed to be held up in the front row showing the time remaining during remarks.

candidates, please adhere to the stop sign, and audience, please hold your applause until the event is over. with that, let's begin. earlier this year as we drew national attention for legislation that would have barred government penalties against certain institutions and businesses that cite religious police while declining to provide wedding related services to same-sex couples. that issue is likely to be back again on the legislative agenda in january. spent david, are we doing opening statements? >> i thought i would skip those today. [laughter] let's do that. what's a good debate without a prompt by the moderator? lester, you're up first. >> thank you. it's a privilege to speak for this pointer my name is lester turilli and i am the only

independent on this date i have no party affiliation. i have no special endorsements, or special interests. i'm not a politician. i'm a family man. i'm a businessman. my family business is meramec caverns to my great grandfather started out 83 years ago. i've been an executive there for the last 25 years. during that time i've employed thousands of missourians. i have the past and the present experience to govern the state. part of the reason i'm writing is because i'm concerned for the future of our state and our kids. my hearts desire is to serve god and to serve the people of missouri, and that's why i'm running for governor. thank you. >> i want to thank the press association for inviting all candidates difference is that in the form and not just the two candidates of the big money party.

there are important issues which hope that this discussion will focus on. issues such as we need to have clean air and water standards in missouri that are stricter than federal guidelines. we need to replace nuclear and coal power with wind and solar power. we must repeal the misnamed right to farm commitment and instead we must encourage farmers to use, to produce products that are free of herbicide, pesticides and genetically in essence, gmos. we must reserve the right to have guns but we must have permits after training for those guns and we must have a ban on assault weapons. we must into mass incarceration good we must be in the death penalty and we must end extrajudicial executions by police officers. >> i hope we can set aside political rhetoric today and talk about what we can accomplish if we work together over the next four years.

my hope is we can create a funding plan for the missouri department of transportation so the 34,000 miles of roads stop crumbling and we put 681 bridges, many of them in -- were missouri back into commission. we want to keep the promise that we have made to missouri schoolchildren and in this era of underfunding public education across missouri. we want to bring economic development incentives back online to recruit light manufacturing companies to urban centers in rural missouri alike. opeopen international trade offs so farmers have foreign markets to sell their goods into. and give police the tools they need to clean up the streets. i know these two political parties perhaps as well as any person in the state of missouri. i look forward to working cooperatively and respectfully across party lines to bring progress to missouri. >> on eric greitens. i've never run for political office. simon navy s.e.a.l. entrepreneur and a husband and father.

when i came home from serving in iraq i saw problems. a generation of veterans being broken and mistreated. these brave men and women have gone overseas for us. many came home wounded and disabled. what happened is that too often the government had a disability check and forgot about them. i saw the potential that these men and women have signed donated my comp at a resort an organization, the mission continues to upon returning veterans come home and get quality private sector jobs to start and run their own businesses and to serve again here at home. we transform thousands of lives and today veterans who often have trouble getting out of bed are now caring for their children and leaving again in our communities. i'm running because missouri is a great state full of promise and potential but we are being held back by career politicians who because of their cowardice and their corruption shrink from facing the hard problems that are all around us.

my opponent chris koster has been in office for more than 20 years. we've all seen what's happened. under his leadership missouri has become a state known for pseudo-corruption, national embarrassment and epic failure to resolve the violence and lawlessness in ferguson. i think we had to minister opening statements? >> it is -- >> i know we can do better than what we had and i'm excited to bring more jobs, higher pay, safer streets and better schools to the people of missouri. >> i would also like to thank the press association for inviting all the candidates on the ballot. a little bit about my background i grew up on a farm in west tennessee and a steady chemistry and physics and ultimate got a ph.d in physics from the university of wisconsin-madison. in 1998 i moved to minneapolis and i started a manufacturing company making pest control products. in that this is my major competitors are all like

multi-corporations was similar to running for office as a libertarian. in 1984 i supported jesse jackson -- sorry, i supported ronald reagan. in 1980 i supported jesse jackson but a british i've always been a libertarian. personal choice and personal responsibility have always made sense to me. government has become too large and too interested in our lives. if we don't change course radically we will have the first generation of americans that leads this country and greater opportunity for elsewhere. >> now we will go to questions. united preview earlier your earlier this year as director national attention for legislation that would've barred government penalties against certain institutions and businesses that fight religious beliefs while declining to provide wedding related services to same-sex couples. that issue is likely to be back on the legislative agenda in january. do you support such legislation,

or do you support efforts by others to add sexual orientation and gender identity to missouri's nondiscrimination laws? this question goes first to you, lester turilli. >> that's the big question. i do support that litigation. i do believe that religious institutions are separate. as such, they should be able to speak and perform duties that are in a to that particular denomination or religion. and if you're asking for a solution to that problem, we need to allow those marriages, those were seeking those, to go to places that are neutral and that it doesn't violate the principles of the religious organization. as far as pashtun what was the

second half of the question? i'm sorry. >> adding gender identity and such or in addition to nondiscrimination laws. >> i would advocate against that simply because i think if that was brought to our legislator as the way it sets, we would probably make more discrimination prevalent in our state. >> moderator: don fitz. >> there's been entirely too much hate in missouri politics in the united states politics over the last several years. there's been hate directed at people because of their gender preference and their sexual orientation. there's been a director people because they're muslim. hate directed people because they flee the nest is looking for better jobs in mexico. does not indicate against people coming from canada looking for jobs in the united states because their skin color happens to be white. instead of brown. any sort of law that would discriminate or allow discrimination to somebody because of their sexual preference or sexual orientation is something which would

absolutely be banned in missouri. there's absolutely no question that we should amend nondiscrimination in order to include sexual preference and gender orientation. >> moderator: chris koster speak was obvious on passes of missouri noticed commission at the eye of a policy like that in my office. if it is not passed, i will continue governor nixon's executive order in favor of nondiscrimination as governor. i believe missouri should protect religious leaders from having to participate in ceremonies that against their te faith, but beyond that i do not think that a state can fly a flag of discrimination over the business community. states that have engaged in this or flirted with it like indiana, south carolina, have seen not only a national -- placed upon them, they focusing hundreds of millions of dollars of economic decline. a convention is that is left, headquarters of the left.

i believe economic growth in the future of this country is correlated with cultural openness and economic decline is correlated with stagnation and prejudice. >> moderator: eric greitens? >> look, i served as a u.s. navy seal in the military in which we are able to protect everyone's religious freedoms while at the same time ensuring nondiscrimination. it's pretty common sense i think the people of missouri agree that no pastor, no preach, no rabbi should ever be forced to participate in a ceremony that they disagree with. make sure we're protecting religious freedom was the same time ensuring non-this commission. and we do have to have leaders in missouri willing to stand up for people who need protection. unfortunate my opponent chris koster was one of only four senators who voted against a bill that would've protected the privacy of rape victims so they could be, maintain the privacy cannot be found either abuses. he is one of only four senators

who voted for the bill which would've made rape victims pay for their own rape kits. we need o to have leaders willig to stand up and protect people are chris and i think you should explain to the women of missouri and to the families of missouri why you believe a woman has been raped has to pay for her own rape kits. >> moderator: cisse spragins? >> i support the american values of freedom of association and the separation of church and state. so now i don't think that a pastor should have to perform a ceremony for a gay couple if that's not their belief, nor do i think a bakery should have to bake a cake for a gay wedding if that's not to believe. freedom of association actually creates harmony. it helps to notify people of who the bigots are, quite frankly. i have nothing against gave people. i live in a neighborhood with lots of them actually. but the point is when you try to shove their values down someone else's throat it creates a hate

that don fitz was referring to the west of the all except our own vows and don't try to force them on of the people we are going to have peace is what libertarians seek. >> moderator: i will give 32nd rebuttal time to chris koster on the topic of that vote of rape legislation. >> i wonder whether my colleague to my left has read the bill, section 217 of the bill allows the possibility of killers have been put behind bars for life without parole to be let out potentially on manufactured evidence. that is why i voted against the bill. i think it is also why your lieutenant governor candidate mike parson voted against the bill. i think it might have something to do with the reason the fraternal order of police have endorsed me and your lieutenant governor candidate. >> i did read the bill, chris come and go like about what's in the bill. ..

against their abusers and killed them and after 15 years they would have the opportunity to be eligible for probation. your record, you need to apologize to the women of missouri. >> we have to move on to question two. that comes from ken newton. >> thank you for all the candidates that have taken part here today. many nationally say this ranks with a right to work state. the governor at the legislature sends to your desk a right to work bill, what will you do. >> this answer goes first to don fitz. >> i would absolutely veto anything that is a right to work bill. however, we need to go beyond

that in terms of defending labor rights but we need to make sure we have a $15. hour minimum wage that applies to restaurant workers and agricultural workers. we need a whole series of labor legislation to protect workers in addition to the rights work. we also need to be very conscience of candidates like chris koster who said he's against the work to -- against the right to work. it destroys the rights of american farmers and within the constitution, and enterprise of business as a corporation, as a business business and that's why it's very important to repeal that. >> i would veto a right to work bill. there are a very wealthy folks who approach me around the state of missouri and tell me they think the state would be a better place if folks who got paid by the hour actually made less money. when i talked to the woman at the grocery store who stocks the

shelves and she's making $11 an hour, she tells me the life would be harder to put food on the table if she made $9.50. hour. no hour. no matter how you slice it, right to work states earn 15% less. missouri's income last year rose by about 3.8%. the average of right to work states across the country was three-point to percent. 15% less. in 2014, the state of iowa, indiana all grew more slowly. i'm running for governor to fight for working people in the state, not against them. >> i'm an assigned work to write legislation. i will tell you why. as governor, we need more jobs and higher pay. it's very clear that right to work leads to more jobs. if you look over the course of

the last while, states that had right to work legislation grew job 68% more. our midwestern states like indiana and michigan defined right to work and are leading the country number one and number two in factory job growth. tennessee has twice as many new manufacturing jobs as we do here in the state of missouri. i'm going to sign right to work legislation because it's good for missouri families. we need to have leaders who are willing to do that. my opponent chris koster is taking over $8 million from union bosses. that's what is driving his economic plan. i know from having started and run my own business, from having worked with veterans that they come home both in missouri and around the country that we have to turn missouri's economy around and that's what i'm going to do when i'm governor. >> i support the right to work for any individual for themselves or any business that

wishes to hire them. i am in favor of voluntary human trade, human contracting and human interaction. human interaction should be voluntary. if people businesses want to hire people, they should and if they don't want to they shouldn't. conversely, if an employee wants to work for a business a business they should and if they don't wish to they shouldn't. businesses should be free to contact contract with employees without interference. the right to work legislation basically says it prohibits employers from charging union dues to employees that have a union hurt i support employees building a union and i also support businesses. their contracting with one another, not by government source. >> the right to work divides our state. we have the right over here

wanting to pass it and we have the left holding blue. here's the solution grandfather in all current businesses that are union labor forces right now. let our labor unions keep working in missouri. any new business that wants to come to missouri starting in 2017, they can be right to work. it solves both sides of the equation. thank you. >> the nest question comes from carol stark. >> good afternoon. thank you for being with us today. i want to talk to -- the last couple years our legislature has turned down federal dollars when it comes to medicaid expansion. the reason that they give is in the future our budget will not be able to pay for the state's share of that. do you think that is a valid

reason or at legitimate reason to continue to turn down federal dollars and not expand medicaid in the state of missouri? why or why not. >> this goes to chris koster. >> thank you. the state of missouri is losing a rural hospital in our state for every eight months and has been for the last eight and half years. we lost hospital at mount vernon commas bring field, and others. it's because the economics have changed. unless we adapt to the new reality we will continue to lose ground in rural health care across the state. the federal government is trying to send missourians back money that we have sent to them, $2 billion a year. year. this $2 billion would be invested in not only the large cities but across the state in places where we have difficulty getting money and it would

create 40000 new jobs and improve the health care of missouri. i would like to find a solution to bring this $2 billion into our healthcare system. >> eric. >> chris is a career politician who spent over 20 years in politics and he's not telling you the truth about obamacare. obamacare is a broken program full of broken promises. they told you you could keep your doctor, you couldn't. they told you premiums would go down and they didn't. they're actually going bankrupt. they've promised the people of ohio that expanding obamacare would cost $3.8 billion it cost $6.9 billion actually. in the state of washington $2.3 billion in the biennial budget. these dates are going bankrupt. this is a very clear choice in the selection. if you support obamacare, if you

want more obamacare and if you want, as chris koster said his top priority is expanding obamacare, you should vote for him and hillary clinton. if you're opposed to obamacare, i'm here to earn your vote. >> we need a free market and medical care. we need to reduce the cost not by stealing money from one group of people to give it to another to create faulty jobs, but whether to encourage innovation and eliminate certificate of need for this construction of new hospitals that is a current missouri requirement. to eliminate the problem where businesses can't buy insurance across state lines. we need to deregulate health care and remove licensing requirements to allow more people to practice medical care and allow consumers to choose medical care that is their choice, not what they decide constitutes medical care. we all know obamacare is a disaster. you just have to look at your

health insurance premiums. i pay health insurance and those have gone up by a factor but clearly what were doing is not working and were just taking money from the federal government that we won't be able to sustain down the road and that's not the answer. >> i am fiscally conservative but i have a heart for people. there is a funding gap between obamacare and medicaid and that's what were talking about. i do believe in expanding medicaid to cover those folks. i do believe we should take advantage of some of the federal money for the time being as long as it's in place, to help our people. chris has a misrepresentation of facts. it would create about 4000 jobs. you can go to families usa.org for a fact check on that. i do agree, it would help our economy but more importantly this is about people.

>> absolutely, we must expand medicaid. family income for family farmers have fallen by half. many armors are on the level of poverty because of this falling income. expanding medicaid is not enough. we must have medicaid for all. our plan will soon be on our website which explains how medicare for all programs would work in missouri. one thing you need to realize is if certain are not going to save money, that's only going to give insurance companies a cut of the money, by having medicare for all, we will actually lower health costs while providing more healthcare. over 90% of families are only one health disaster away from

poverty. expanding medicaid in creating medicare for all will solve that >> next question from bill muller. >> thank you to all of you for being here today. great see her smiling faces. my question has to do with transportation. i think most missouri realize that our transportation infrastructure has fallen behind. i would like to hear from you what plan you have to do something about that, funding plan and how you would tackle it. >> this question goes first to eric. >> we've got a major problem here in the state of missouri. we have 3500 bridges that are structurally deficient. when you travel around, everybody recognizes that we need to be investing more money in our roads, in our bridges, in our courts. when you travel around the state of missouri, you asked people, should be we be investing more money and everybody says yes.

you trust the government of the state of missouri and career politicians to invest your money wisely and they all say no. they don't trust what's going in government. we need to reestablish trust in government. that's why absent from the beginning, when i'm governor i will ban gifts to lobbyists, closing the door between special interest and put in place term limits. we will build the budget that meets the needs of the people of missouri and that includes investing in infrastructure. my opponent was on the front page of the new york times as one of the most corrupt attorney generals in the country. the people of missouri do not trust career crooked politicians and they're not going to trust them to invest their tax dollars wisely. we need to reestablish trust in government and that's our priorities and that includes infrastructure. >> if we look at every problem area in society, whether it's transportation or schools or whatever, you find that it's an area that has been monopolized by government. navy we should begin to

recognize that trend and realize that government monopoly is not working and do something differently. i agree that yes people don't trust politicians to spend money appropriately and that's been demonstrated time and time again. if you concentrate too much power in the hands of government , it's going to be corrupt. that's why you have lobbyists. you have to look at new ideas with infrastructure and privatize these areas and bring the free market solution that will bring prosperity to our state. >> roads and bridges is a tough topic. most missourians want to change but they're not willing to go forward with the expense that is required to fix our roads and

bridges. when i'm riding my harley davison, i'm watching out for potholes. it will have to be done through a couple ways. it will have to take place through gas tax, it will have to be temporary and minimal. that minimal money will have to be directly appropriated to the roads and bridges for that season. when that's done, you remove the gas tax. the other way we can do it is through an entry toll in the state of missouri. we would do that on out-of-state vehicles only for a very short toll road, just a few miles from us in the rollover money that we accumulate from that could be put into other roads and bridges >> i think a lot of us know that it's the department of transportation that's in newspaper after newspaper for wasting $7 million on taxpayer money. that does not have enough funds available to prepare the bridges

which are desperately in need of repair. i am totally against having a gas tax which only hurts the poorest residents, a greater portion of their funds would be spent. instead, i would propose a graduated increase in income tax the question of how transportation is approached is much bigger. in the urban centers of missouri, we must be looking for other modes of transportation. we need to redesign the urban core so people can make the overwhelming majority of their trips by walking, bicycling and using mass transportation. you need to work with engineers to be able to make those changes possible. >> one of the dangers of electing an inexperienced governor is that not only might they not understand the solution, they oftentimes don't

understand the question. the department of transportation for the past two years has been downsizing, preparing for this day. they know they have laid off 1200 missouri workers. they have sold over 700 pieces of pieces of large equipment enclosed 124 maintenance barns and shutdown three large division offices in macon and willow springs and joplin. all of those have commented they are in rural missouri. as soon as the selection is over, there will need to be a bipartisan funding solution with knowledgeable members of both parties. the leaders of the senate and the house must come together and fill the 200 - $500 million hole that has accumulated in the state annually and i look forward to working respectfully with these leaders to accomplish that. >> can i just say, i'll give you 30 seconds rebuttal if you need that.

>> chris says i don't get it. the fact is you don't get it. what you don't get is that government isn't working. it's not working for the people of missouri. it might be working for you and the special interests but it's not working for the people of missouri. when they see it career politician, they know your priorities are not the priorities of missouri. people want a leader who is willing to step forward and address these problems and that's what i'm going to do when i'm governor. >> you have 30 seconds. >> thank you. this issue of redecorating the office, he's talking about a building that i do not work in. the carpet in my office was picked out about 20 years ago and you're welcome to come by. my office looks like the green bay packer locker room. we tore abscessed this out.

the vote was unanimous within the missouri legislature of the state to fix a building that was part of the aging infrastructure of jefferson city. >> we need to move to the next question. cam newton, that comes from you. >> many of the national rankings have missouri in the 30s or lower among states in education funding k-12 achievement and many other categories. what would you do to raise educational opportunities above ac grade? >> we currently at the state level spend about five and half or more on education when we collect another 4 billion in taxes for local schools. we're basically paying about 2000 bureaucrats to do a lot of stuff that hasn't contributed to

improving education. if we want to do something for the children of the state we shouldn't bankrupt them for the future and destroy their opportunity for prosperity. we need to return education to local control and get out of federal programs. we should not be receiving federal dollars on all the caveats. we need parental control so people can educate their children in the manner they see fit. >> i would like to say something about my office, if if i may. my business was flooded this year and i had 5-foot of floodwater in my office and i'm operating off a three by six table. i want to fund those schools. it's important that my wife is a teacher. i have unique perspective on the school system. i'm a parent. i have three children. my oldest is an adult.

i have two teenagers. it is vital that we give our teachers 100% of what they need. they are on the front lines of their kids. i believe giving our local school districts the ability to pick and choose the curriculum as long as the state guidelines. i also want to copy school districts that are performing well and implement those into the ones that are suffering. >> i have mentioned before there is plenty of money available to improve the school if we have graduated income tax. i think the question is much deeper, how do we improve education and misery in general. one thing we need to do is stop the standardized tests where children spend day after day performing on standardized test. we need to abolish that from kindergarten through the first trade and through the high school years there should be no more than one day devoted for standardized test.

i'm a product of the public school system and i spent my years in public schools. we need to abolish charter schools and make sure schools are not privatized. we need to make sure they are have guaranteed jobs when they get out of school. a lot of what we see from low income areas, why should i get an education if i'm not going to have a job afterward? we need to have guarantees of those jobs who graduate from the 12th grade. number one on my agenda is making sure we keep the promise to the schoolchildren by founding funding the foundation. number two, we have 18 school districts but i only attend classes for days a week. they to school monday through thursday. forty schools, 10000 children in

the state. if i'm governor, every child to go to school five days. week. we will raise salaries and quality at the same time so we put in standers that the best and the brightest are in our schools teaching children. finally i want to give flexibility to districts. i want them to be able to go above the school day limit. we will have one of this shortest school years in the nation. if they choose to go above the 174 day limit is something i would support. >> big government liberals think the answer to everything is spending more money. missouri spends the national average on our kids in school but we are 40th and teacher pay and 47th and starting teacher pay. we need to make sure that money actually makes it to the

teachers and the kids and it makes it into the classroom. because of the government policies, we have seen the failure in missouri schools. only 2.7% of african-american kids in missouri graduate from high school having one advanced placement class. it's the nerd worst in the. we have 276 of our school districts were last year not a single kid placed advanced placement class. only art reading at proficiency. we have to put power in the hands of teachers empower parents. my mom was an early childhood education teacher. i saw her work with kids went down syndrome, asked burgers, severe disabilities. those kids deserve a fair chance at the american dream and we need make sure we put power in the hands of their parents so they can make sure they design an education system that works for them.

>> next question from carol stark. >> one of you will be our next governor and as such, one of your primary tasks as making sure that missouri has a balanced budget. we've talked a lot about the challenges ahead of us, but can you cite some of them that may not be so obvious to all of us. >> this question goes first to lester. >> as a businessman operating in the business world for the past 30 years of my life and operating in several different businesses, i know what it takes to balance the budget. if you don't balanced budget as a small business owner you're not going to be in operation the next year or you operate as a deficit. i think balancing the budget is not a very difficult issue. it will take working with the

house and the senate to make sure we are on the same lines in different areas. one area i would like to increase a little funding would be the department of mental health. we are suffering in that area, but there are some different areas that working with the legislatures that we could come to an agreement. >> as a very mentioned, there are ways that money is being wasted in the state of missouri, especially by the department of transportation to the tune of $7 million. another area is that missouri is dedicated to mass incarceration to arrest huge numbers of people for the crime of driving while barred or smoking a little bit of marijuana. we could empty out huge numbers of missouri prisons and it's much less costly to treat people in the community for drug offenses than it is to build more and more prisons to treat

them there. for mental health offenders, a lot of training about how to deal with mental health issues would help them from going to jail. the issues that we really need to look at very closely our taxes. there are two problems with taxes. one is we need to eliminate the sales tax. there should be no sales tax. another problem is that the income tax really needs to be graduated very sharply, less than 1%. >> perhaps the biggest economic challenge of the state faces at this moment is the current state of budget itself. the consensus revenue estimate last year was for 4% growth but we didn't start the year where we thought. asher didn't end as well as we had hoped. to make all the budget reach the same place, we have to travel 6%

of growth. right now at the end of the first quarter, we at about a 2% pace. governor nixon has withheld but he is prudent in his judgment on this. the hope is the economy will pick up. if the economy does not pick up, the next governor, whoever that is on the stage will be looking at the potential for additional withholds. that is before we go to january and look at the supplemental request. i think it is prudent for every missouri to recognize that. >> here's the problem politicians have put us in. we have a $27 billion budget in the state of missouri. $27 billion. when you when you look through that entire budget, there are no measurements for performance and account ability. we need to have a governor who insists on accountability and results in every department of government.

other states have done this. indiana actually went through and cleaned out all of their roles so they stopped paying unemployment people who were in jail. ohio instituted a program where they were able to reduce the amount of time it took in the procurement process for the ohio turnpike authority from 90 days down to five days. it isn't magic but you need a leader who is willing to insist on results and accountability at every level of government. let me be clear. when i'm government i will bring with me a team of people who have also successfully run businesses, hospitals, universities. we will appoint a chief operating officer who every day is going to wake up and make sure that we are running an efficient government with a focus on results and account ability. that's the kind of leadership that we need in the state of missouri. >> first i would like to point out that i'm very happy that the state can't print money the way

the federal government does so that simplifies the equation. i agree with mr. fitz with regard to letting people out of prison. i don't agree with much else he said but i do agree we should pardon nonviolent drug offenders and anyone else that's incarcerated for a victimless crime in the state. that would save money. otherwise, in order to solve budgetary problems, we basically have to increase freedom. government does too much they control too much, government grows every year and every year we hear about how government doesn't have enough money to do this for that. perhaps the government should be doing less versus getting to the point where there is no way that you will ever have any governor official ever say they have enough money. derek introduced the topic of budgeting. would you like 30 seconds on that? >> it was just articulated that he wants to hire a chief operating officer. that's you.

that's what they are trying to hire. that's the person who runs the budget. if you don't know enough to operate the state of missouri you should be applying for the job my friend. >> chris is a deeply confused career politician who does not understand the difference between a ceo and a chief operating officer. i run a business, you haven't. in a business one of the things you do is you have somebody who is looking every single day and how you drive efficiency. as governor i will also be, as the ceo, cleaning, cleaning up some of the big problems you have created like those in public safety. there's a difference between a ceo and a coo and the fact that you don't know what chris, the fact that you don't understand what it actually takes to run a business or an enterprise is one of the reasons why people missouri cannot elect another cricket career politician.

>> ready to go to the next question. that comes from bill muller. >> i have listened to several of you speak and in one talk, he said government is broken at all levels. some of the hard-working volunteer public servants have told me they thought that was somewhat insulting i would like to no, do all of you feel government at every level is broken. >> absolutely, government at all levels broken. they believe that the way to go out and solve your political problems is to go out and kill

someone. that is really not a good message to give to young people. we need to have a challenge of moral standard for people who run for public office and neither the democrats or the republicans are willing to do that. michael brown was killed in ferguson and there were riots people who were appalled at the level of racism. they said missouri should be in the top rank of killing people if they help advance their political career. we have politicians who do things like this and you cannot have trust in the morality of the government. >> i believe what we need to do to improve government that can be improved is to make sure that is what's inherently in the dna of the state which a small conservative government with low taxation and business friendly

regulation and a aaa bond rating remains intact. what hasn't been done over the past 15 years as the other aspects that bring balance to government. we haven't been investing in our workforce. in the world of economic development we call it workforce development but in the real world we just call it education. high-level education has been cut by 40% in the k-12 budget has seen a 25% decline. we also have failed to make investments in the infrastructure on which our economy runs. new investment, we talked about in transportation and healthcare there was a new energy grid that will bring new lines and resources to the state are things that the next ministration should be investing in. >> bill, if you had seen what happened to my friends who served in iraq and afghanistan and they came home and the treatment that they got, you

would recognize the governments broken. when you see the people of missouri see what happens in ferguson, you realize the government is broken. one of the reasons government is broken is because we have career politicians were always putting politics first. chris is our attorney general. the chief law enforcement officer of our state. when he showed up at ferguson, one of of the first things that he did was he said can we fire darren wilson. he did this before he knew the facts and he did it because it was politically convenient for him. the fact is, now i am law enforcement officers and first responders across the state and everybody who cares about the safety of our communities and the integrity of our community, we are going to see that on november 8, we are going to fire you. >> the whole concept of government is broken when it goes beyond its only legitimate function which is to protect

people's rights and their life and liberty. that's what government is supposed to do. government has expanded to be something completely unrecognizable from that point and by nature it will be broken. it doesn't mean that the people in the system are bad. it means that the incentives in the system reward bad behavior. , human nature has good things and bad things. the political system rewards bad things in human nature. our free market rewards good thing in human nature. the nature of government work has gone to the point where controls way too much of our lives is inherently broken, but that's not a function just to the people in the system. is not going to change if we just get the guys in as long as government has power over our lives. >> answer to your question bill, no. our government is broken up top level.

the top echelon, the elected leaders. there lies the problem. the tens of thousands of good missourians who work hard every seal day, they're doing their job. they're doing what they're instructed to do. what we need to do is clean house. we need to get people genuinely interested in the state of missouri in helping out. i'm coming forward boldly speaking. i've never run for politics before. i encourage others that reach her papers to do the same thing. >> we have a new topic introduced and that was ferguson and that was mentioned by don and eric. since we are about out of time. what will do on this, we will give everybody a 32nd 32nd rebuttal on the topic of ferguson. don, you introduced it but i'll let you go in first and most in the same order we were on.

>> what i did not mention is that the man was put to death was a black man convicted by an all-white jury. in that particular case, there was an accomplice to the crime who did not receive murder. the death penalty is a horrible inequitable situation. it is systemic of the racism that permeates the criminal justice system. the black people are more likely to be stopped by the police and be incarcerated and receive lower sentences. we are not dealing with criminal justice in missouri. >> chris you are next. >> he has repeatedly made the statement that he would have brought peace by the second day if only he had waved his magic wand but it's an insult to the thousands of law-enforcement officers who put their life on the line. >> i was in the federal courts

of the state fighting against the aclu and protecting the police on the staging area of law and the teargas rule, on on the five minute rule, protecting police and that is why the police of the state have endorsed my campaign for governor and not yours. >> look, the four knew any facts, you came to for griffin and when the law-enforcement officers expected you to have their back you said can we fire darren wilson. you need to be someone who has the back of the people who are counting on you. our police officers and law-enforcement officers and first responders were counting on you. you want to hide behind the endorsement of the union, i will tell you the spirit i have law-enforcement officers, first responders and their families all over the state of missouri who will see that your days in politics are over on november the eighth. >> we need to get to the root of the issue. there's not a band-aid solution

for ferguson. one of the biggest problem in the state or in the country is the fact that we have victimless crime that turn everyone into a suspect. everybody in the country is a suspect on a victimless crime because the police do not know where to look. basically they use racial profiling to decide who they're going to stop and frisk and this has created a huge amount of distrust between the police that are supposed to serve the public when somebody steals from you or takes your stuff for her to and being incarcerated or chased down for smoking marijuana. >> ferguson was a tragedy. first time around, i don't know if much can change. the second time around, that he should've been of been big changes. it's a lack of leadership. my son was trapped in ferguson. i understand the realness of the situation. what should have been done the second time around was to mobilize police and set up two

fronts, mobilize them in front of the public places of business and homes, give them instruction and authority to do their job, what we also need is racial unity. >> it is now time for our closing statements and the first to deliver their closing remarks >> libertarian party is the third-largest party in the country. we been around since 1971. people have come around to realize that we are growing at an unprecedented rate and that is because people are seeing what the welfare and warfare policies of the older parties have created. we need to and victimless crimes in and the state income tax. we need to get rid of regulations on business and personal behavior, we need to get government out of marriage, we need to get government out of reproductive decisions, we need to get government out of the

lives of individuals beyond protecting their people and property. the people of missouri have a choice. you can basically keep doing what you're doing or you can actually vote libertarian and after four years you don't like it then you can vote tierney back into office again. >> look, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. chris has been in politics for over 20 years. we have all seen his record. we have seen what it has led to. we saw the failure in ferguson. we saw the guy who showed up on the front page of the new york times is the most corrupt attorney general in the country. you've heard today about his tremendous support for obama care, he said it's his top priority for the state of missouri. chris has been in politics for over 20 years. if he was going to make a difference, he would have done so already, but he hasn't and he won't. together we can build a missouri where every kid who got on the school bus this morning shows they have a fair shot at the

american dream. we can build a missouri where moms were working harder and longer to support their families are doing so with better pay. we can make sure that when grandparents and their grandkids out to play, they know they will be safe in the neighborhood. we can build a missouri where no one is left behind and everyone had a chance. i would be honored to earn your vote for the election on november 8. >> the republican nominee introduced himself to the state five months ago with a machine gun saying he knows how to blowup government. i have little doubt that he knows how to blowup government. i have a lot of doubt to whether he knows anything about this to continue. this is why i think he needs training wheels and a ceo and attainment people to come in and show him how to do the job that a governor who are supposed to know how to do. this came pain has brought together historic coalition. the national rifle association,

police, firefighters, first responders, teachers who have come together because they are frustrated with partisanship and want to see progress in jefferson city. i have spent the entirety of my career trying to build majority in the middle. missourians who have watch my career know that. as governor i will work respectively across party lines to bring progress to our state. >> for over 100 years democrats and republicans have entered into conspiracy to drive every party out of politics by passing laws for themselves. i want to thank them for opening discussions to everybody who will be on the ballot in november. unfortunately, one thing we did not get a chance to cover was how to make jobs from missouri and i will cover that now. the only candidate who advocates

so that we can have job for all. i'm the only candidate who advocate three building impoverished areas of missouri and the urban core of the big cities with clean jobs. i think i'm the only candidate who recognizes the fact that many people have full-time jobs would gladly switch to part-time jobs if they could but they're afraid of losing their benefits. you must have medicare for all so that everybody has to entertain medicare and you must expand social security benefits. full-time workers who want to go into part-time work would have no jobs for everybody in missouri. >> on october 8, a week from tomorrow, from 3:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m., i would like to invite all of you to bring your family. we will have a meet the candidate and free tours and hot dogs and soda so come on down. now, here's the deal. you've heard a lot of rhetoric appear.

what is there mount motivation? my motivation is my heart. what made america great was her dependence upon god and the freedom that came from that. if we want a future for the state of missouri, we have to put investments back into safe and in family and faith. my name is lester torelli. some people call me les. my motto is less is more. i believe government, less is more. taxes, less is more. once again i would like to thank you for your hospitality and your invitation to -- invitation to all the candidate. >> that concludes the foreman now would be the appropriate time to applaud.

[applause] we have several road to the white house events today. one is happening right now in charlotte north carolina. mike pence is holding a rally and they are caring that live on our companion network. we will take a quick look at that event as he is answering audience questions. >> my grandfather immigrated from ireland when he was about my son's age. donald trumps father immigrated they both came through ellis island.

he built a business with his bear hands. he built everything that matters. the family in the business and a good name. my dad ran gas stations in a small town in southern indiana. >> again that's live right now on c-span. it's also available on c-span .org. hillary clinton is campaigning at wiens university in detroit. today. they'll be live at 245 eastern here on c-span2. donald trump has a rally in pennsylvania. he will be speaking to faculty and students. live coverage of that on c-span this afternoon. >> our campaign 2016 coverage continues on c-span with five debates for u.s. house, senate and governors races. tonight at eight eastern, utah fourth congressional debate between mia love and dug a one followed at ten by the arizona contest between john mccain and democratic congresswoman and kirkpatrick.

on tuesday evening, north carolina's governor debate between republican governor and democrat roy cooper. at eight eastern, republican senator mike lee and misty snow debate for the utah u.s. senate. on thursday, just after noon, the eighth district between brian fitzpatrick. at seven, republican senator debate for the north carolina senate. on friday night at 8:00 eastern, the wisconsin u.s. senate debate between republican ron johnson and former democrat. that is followed at ten democrat debating for the u.s. senate. watch our complete campaign 2015 coverage on c-span and at c-span.org. >> on the communicators, tonight, we are talking with

roche, professor of electrical and computer university about self driving cars. >> the cadillac that you see behind me, the next generation is focusing on used automotive technology. there will be a lot more scenarios on growth and they should also. [inaudible] >> watch the communicators tonight at eight eastern on c-span2. join us next week on the communicators with cars that talk with each other and the road. >> in an article from political today, house speaker paul ryan told republicans on a conference call today that he is done defending donald trump.

he is going to focus on keeping an increasingly parol house majority. speaker ryan said he will not defend donald trump and he has no plans to campaign with the nominee before election day according to sources on the call. the speaker did not formally revoke his endorsement of donald trump. you can read more on the story at politico.com. now current and former cabinet members on their experience during presidential transition. the differences between managing private sector organizations and a federal agency. they are hiring policies and what the public and private sectors can learn from each other. >> good morning everybody. how are you. we are starting a little late because we were missing one of our key participants who is stuck in a tunnel. that is the secretary and she is on her way. i'm going to begin my

introduction and we will hope she finds her way here, which i think she will and we will carry on with panel conversation. my name is max and i'm the president and ceo of the partnership for public service. we are nonpartisan nonprofit organization dedicated to making our federal government more effective. we do that in a variety of ways including focusing on our best place to work ranking so we look to employee engagement across the agencies and against their. agencies and the private sector. we do a lot of leadership training and we work on getting talented government. we are looking to improve government. final piece that we focus on is examining how we can create a constituency support for government on the outside. one of the great challenges that we see for the federal government is that we have a leadership group that comes in for 18 months or two years and a

lot of them are not committed to the long-term commitments. they are focused on crisis management and policy development but not fundamentally making the organization they run more effective. that's related to the conversation we are having today but our goal is really to promote recognition and key stakeholder areas, nonprofits to understand that whatever their policy views are, they have something real at stake in seeing that the government functions more effectively. if they did that, we would have a better government. one element that is newer for us as an organization, as we have launched a tenor on transition, one of the things that we recognize about eight or nine years ago is that one of the difficulties for the government is the transition process. it's an irony that it's

peaceful, but it's ugly. our goal was to change that in that transition is really focused on trying to create a learning system such that the transition teams can actually build off the best practices of the past rather than going to a groundhog day exercise which has been the historic norm. we collected information from the romney team and the obama team and made that available to the new teams that are now operating today. we are trying to make that process better from an operational perspective and the rules of the road legislatively. you are seeing more progress in that respect. it's fascinating to me, when you think about the transition itself because if you think about the federal government, it's it's the largest most complex important organization on the planet and frankly in history. if you look at the size, $4 $4 trillion, 4 million employees, hundreds of different operating units and it's vital

that you start earlier than inauguration and election day if you're going to be able to take over. if you think about the largest private sector organization, it would be walmart and the has over 2 million employees. rather than 535 that the government has to deal with. it's pretty but different. i'm very excited that i think we have the key people that i no longer have to tap dance any longer. i think it's way to be a great conversation so i thought it would be a little bit provocative and start, or and my comments on pointing out a quote from carly fiorina that she made in 2008. she was quoted saying i don't think john mccain could run a major corporation.

i don't think brock obama could. i don't think joe biden could run a major corporation. now, obviously she was trying to make a political point. i think the question, comparing leadership of large private sector organizations and large governmental organizations is a very important person to make. we need to learn what similar and what's different if we are to see our government work more effectively. we have two extraordinary people who have done effective leadership in both sectors to hear from a wonderful moderator as well. before turning to them, i want to point out one person on the partnership team who hopefully is here. i want to do that because this event, for five months ago, she has made it happen. thank. thank you for your great work. with that i'm going to introduce our panel for the conversation today. we have an amazing facilitator here, a student of government

and of business. he's a prize-winning journalist who writes on business for the washington post and serves as public affairs at the university. we also have a phenomenal public servant and private sector leader who is currently the secretary of commerce. she manages a 35000 person agency and a $9.8 billion budget. she budget. she has been in the possession since 2013 following her cochair of obama for america 2012. she is founded and led private enterprises, and spoke real estate group and others. joining her will be steve preston who is here, he served as a 14 secretary of the u.s. department of housing and urban development and the 22nd administrator of the u.s. business administration under president bush. he enacted reforms and let an agency with nearly $39 million

budget before entering public service he spent 25 years and operational leadership and return to the private sector after his tenure in washington and currently is the ceo of livingston international, north america's largest provider of integrated services and i can't help but closing on the note that he is also serves on the partnership for public services board, a challenge in and of itself that hopefully we won't talk about today. with that, we will have our panels come up and thank you for your support. [applause] >> that morning. let's get right to it.

the common refrain you hear as part of a standard speech to any chamber of commerce, government should be able to elect private enterprise. it sounds good, but is it realistic? >> i think there are things in public service that we can learn from the private sector and i think there are differences that need to be noted. in terms of, from my standpoint, paces different in government. >> slower. >> it's slower and faster in a funny way. trying to get things done and moved through the system is more difficult, but you have to acknowledge there is more stakeholders. in some respect, maybe we don't

want government to move as fast as other types of organizations and because we have checks and balances, we have more people, members of congress, the administration, all these various players who have to come forward to say this is the path that we are actually going to proceed on. : hiring in federal government is so complicated and even after

three and a half years i have not mastered that at all. i think we make it too difficult. part of the challenge is the fear of mistakes or the intolerance of mistakes or the repercussions that come from mistakes, and i don't know any manager who doesn't make mistakes. so, this balancing act between overscrutinizing something so that everybody is on board, even if it's wrong, that we're all going to make mistakes together, who could be mad at you, versus we're going to give managers more authority. that's the balancing act and that's the difference in government. >> you think the balance is right now -- we have gone too far in the direction of no

mistakes no fault, low tolerance? >> i think that we should have more latitude and flexibility. as manager i certainly see the challenges with that. so, take, for example, cyber security. huge priority of this administration. huge priority for the country that we address cyber security elm we can't get the people in to fill the positions, and don't have both the flexibility in how to fire, dee we don't have the flex inability terms of paying because we're competing with the private sector, and there's 200 -- a shortan of 200,000 cyber security experts in the united states and we're competing with every company in america to try to attract talents and trying to protect the federal government.

there needs to be provisions, in my opinion, or changes that would allow you to address what is, frankly in my mind, crisis. >> i'll come back to that. steve, is it oversimply identified and overstated to say to government should run more like business? >> i don't think it's overstate. when you're going through the list i remembered going through the things at the hiring and procurement. you have a much more complex stakeholder group for a reason, congressional oversight. i had 20 congressional hearings my first 15 months in the job, a little bit more than i wanted but there is a reason for that. i would say on the other side, sometimes things are just too difficult to get done was the system is riddle ode with old

regulations or there's not sort of a construct that enables reasonably fast decisionmaking. can't tell you how many times we're trying to get something done and i would talk to the staff and they would explain the steps we had to go through. would say that can't possibly be the case. there's nothing intuitive about that but frequently the answer was there was this regulation put on the books 20 years ago and requires us to do this, and it seems crazy. and what i used to tell people is, if i need a new law, need legislation to get something done, it's a crap shoot. don't know if you'll get it or not. if i need a regulatory change it's a very long, very complex process. ironically, if i had the budget to make an operation -- if i had an operational change i need to make and had the budget, i had almost no oversight. i actually could work like a rowe ceo in those situations. what i did find -- it's

important to understand this. many government agencies have the very large businesses within them. so when i was leading hud, we had what now is a trillion dollar mortgage guarantee business and it was secure securitize. we had government guarantee programs. all businesses within them. and what i found is in many cases we didn't have the skills to drive change to drive improvements. there wasn't the expectation that we achieve a particular outcome on the other end, and when we came in to the small business administration, year after katrina, and the federal -- the direct loan process to homeowneres had shut down. sba actually makes home loans to people who lost or had their homes damaged in a disaster, and it was almost -- after katrina very few people had gotten their

loopses and the whole system collapsed. we came in with teams and brought in some process design experts, engaged or teams together. look at the issues, updated technology and in six months we have -- and six months with had money in people's hands. people thought we were magic. we didn't do anything that, like, people with good business skills good, process skills wouldn't have done in a business. so what i found on the business side is a lot of the people -- a lot of the leadership didn't have the tools to think that way. they were terrific leaders in many other ways but didn't have the tools to say i've got to get these lions out the door and anyway have to be accurate. and then a lot of the people in the agency didn't have the skills to work through the

issues and didn't have processes in place that looked at effectiveness or efficiency. >> how did you do it. >> we brought in people with the skills supported them. >> you brought in people. you were able to do that quickly? >> well, the sba oversees a lot of federal contracting programs so i had a lot of people on my staff who had terrific expertise how to do contracting efficiently. we were able to bring in some small teams to help but what we were able to do was take the career work force that saw all the issues at the front line and understood what was going on in the mix, and pair them with people that had skills to basically redesign processes. we worked with them. to help them be more effective and put in place new organizational structures that

helped them be more effective and help them win. and it was -- in defense get a lot of bad press. we had at both agencies such incredible success working with people in the career work force who cared deeply about what they did, wanted nothing more than to win every day and serve the american people. and -- but a lot of time is felt like their able to do that is blocked because we didn't have a lot of their competencies paired with traditional business come ten si. >> one of the things we're doing at the department of commerce and allen herbst is leading this, put in shared services on procurement, hr, it. >> shared services? >> our ability to process, let's say, procurements or process

human resources -- new people that were bringing onboard, and this is -- but to do that you have to reprogram money, you have to get the approval of congress and you have to say ex-want to run ourselves better. so we have 12 different agencies, and 47,000 people, and we've got many services that we provide to the private sector and to others, and so for us, to be more effective and more flexible in terms of adjusting as the services that we're providing, which is what you're talking about, we need -- we're trying to take a page from the private sector and really bring in the capacity to have more shared services in specific functions within our organization, within the department of commerce. and we're quite excited about

that as a way to facilitate greater ability to address more quickly the challenges that we're facing. >> so if the new president were to call you up and say, my instinct is to say, i want someone with both significant public and private experience to be a cabinet officer, and maybe state department, maybe not. wherever management is important and relevant. and more generalizable. would you agree -- would you recommend that or say that you can imagine that lifelong public servants can be just as good a cabinet officer as someone who has no experience? >> from my standpoint, i think that it's all about the team. right? and it's the team that you put together.

and i think you want -- you need folks who have absolutely -- who are wired on the hill, who understand the politics, folks 0 who have subject matter expertise that can give us a particular department. you need folks who can manage well. you need folks who can help problem-solve and you need ability to do communications as an extremely significant part. so building a team with -- and the people that make up that team, you need -- some could have a life-long career in the federal government, and be absolutely assets to the team, and some have mix and some could be from the private sector. what i learned, this is my first federal job. it would be a disaster irall i had were people from the private sect -- all i had were people

from the private sector. >> so you fill in with a team or -- but you can also argue -- let me push back. people aren't happy the way the government is working and if the person at the top is a life-long washington person, they will never understand the urgency or the attitude the public has is we want you to do it differently and you're too much part of the system, and if i were president i would say i have people who have experiences outside this little bubble here called washington. >> so, i was actually going to -- i agree 100%. it is -- i was going to say the same thing. you need competent parity, not only with different skill sets but who look at problems differently. and it's the same thing if you're putting together a board, leadership team, anything else. if you're dealing with -- and

also depends on what the agency's mandate is. if you're in the department of commerce and looking how to advance trade and teal with a lot of issues with trade you need both people who can look at the policy issues, because they're highly complex, and i'm probably going to get out move depth pretty soon. but also people who-negotiate effectively and you got large programs within the department. so you need people who can run those. i was very involved with transitioning both my agencies in the case of hud, sean don donovan and sba. the recommendation i give to them -- we knew sean was going into hud. recommendation i gave to both of them was when you put together your team, make sure if you're heavy on policy and in some areas, that your depth set is a

great business person. so sean came out of the new york housing authority. very, very deep knowledge on housing issues, public housing, and that agency needs somebody who could can run these complicated programs in mortgage finance and other areas. so you really need complimentary parity at the top. if you're dealing with healthcare policy for the country, you don't need -- that's not necessarily a person that needs to under the medicare program but. so it's an unand down organization and not the leader at top is going to drive that. >> if agree from that standpoint you need a team to drive the implementation but you need sensitivity at the top that these departments need to be run and you need some capacity in the cabinet member to lead and

drive strong management. they don't have to execute on a di-to-day basis. may eave a chief administrative officer, multiple ways to address that. you may have really strong heads of your different agencies. but my experience has been that management skills -- every one of the management skill is ever learned in my life i've had to use in this job, and in addition to developing policy skills and other skills i didn't have, because these departments are huge. they're huge. they're tens of thousands of people and some instances much bigger than that. and your budgets are very significant, and the other thing that is -- i would say that someone coming from both the public and private sector to run a new -- to run a department or

new cabinet secretary you want to dive into your budget before you start or the minute you rave, because your budget becomes your policy. and your ability to actually eeffect -- effectuate -- you need -- and congressional oversight more and more in the details, that you -- that means you need buy-in to the things you want to do, and if you don't have that kind of buy-in it's hard to effectuate the kind of programs and policies that you want to. and so there's some flexibility but there's not as much as you would think, and so the budget becomes your policy. >> it's also really important in that whole mix -- this is where

i think every -- the last three presidents have all attempted to have some form of management agenda. typically through omb. it's not that the administrations have not focused on this issue. a lot of them have. but it's very important to have a clear perspective on the outcomes you're trying to drive in the programs you lead through your agency, what is the current state, where do you want to get, how are you going to get there and what defines success and then take your organization there. and what we found is in a lot of cases it was challenging either to say, this is what good looks like and this is what good feels like to the citizens who are benefiting from those programs and this is the pathway to get there, and this how we'll lead the way there. and one thing we did at both agencies is we went through a very extensive engagement

process where we would pull leads over the offices to really understand where they saw opportunity, where they always wanted to get if they had a view that the program could get significantly better if only we could do a couple of things. we then turn those into very specific management agendas with goals, with score cards. we communicated across the age and it became a full agency engagement process, and i would do town halls and say, this project is rated green, and we're on track. this is how we're helping people. this is red. we're not doing what the without we we have these challenges. it was a great tool too engage the agency, but also to then have them participate in business tools because many of them on the teams in these sessions.

they never used before. and we used that as a process to train them on a lot of the tools so that going forward if they had smaller projects or other issues they had sort of a tool and templates they can use. >> let me talk to steve about something -- applies to both of you but particularly sba in business it is said if you keep a relentless customer focus, everything else takes care of itself. shareholders are happy. public is happy. everyone is happy if you have a relentless focus on your customer. at the sba is your customer the people who -- small beens who get loans, advice, or is your customer the taxpayer? or is your customer the white house that has a certain political agenda? >> your custom ever is either the recipient of a disaster loan or recipient of a small business loan. your distribution force is the

banking network, and there are many policy issues that come through there. let me give you an example on -- of the customer and what it meant for us. because i think often in these large agencies, in a business i can go over my customer service managers and save what are you hearing from the customers or can i listen to the call or get the metrics and always this sensibility around are we effective or not efolktive and what are we hearing back. win we were are are were trying to fix the disaster relief program, if you were no new orleans and trying to get a loan you sent your documents into a po box and got a alert letter back and get a number to call. as a customer, all you saw was this big government thing. if your were in at the processing center and not getting the loans out in time

and had issues you feet like you were failing. we blew up the whole process and put people in client service teams. we used to have lawyers over here, financial people over here, and the call center. every american gets a client service representative with a name, with a direct phone number, and that person has goals to get these loans completed. goals to make new loans because that would have had negative financial incentives. once somebody was approved you have to get the loan out, and what we learned was by giving our people a direct link to the people they were serving, and giving americans who were in need a direct name, we got this really productive interchange going. we started seeing, where are people having problems what they needed to get their loans done? what were the impediments. a custom service agent turn to the attorneys and say she's

supposed be closing on a house in two weeks and she's not going to get her house if we don't get this done. and it just -- to the whole sense about what people were doing and their ability to serve people in need was completely transformed. but it was because the customer is no longer theoretical and there was a tremendous amount of chatter across the agency about this. then i was able to then use the customer service reps to send my daily information on what we were hearing. and we were able to start fictioning other problems. so the client is very important, especially in government. so often you're dealing with people in need that have no other place to go, and by making that desk it's a -- connection it's a very powerful thing. >> madam secretary, picking cabinet secretaries, what the most overrated criteria and what's the most underrated criteria? that presidents tend to have?

>> i have no idea. i think that -- i think in picking cabinet secretaries, my advice to a president would be, you need this balance between someone who can be a messenger, as part of your job, be a negotiator as part of your job, and be a manager as part of your job, and so you're looking for people who can assemble -- eeffectate that and assemble teams. >> do presidents let people assemble teams or sents them a list of people who worked on the

campaign and are somehow associated with the administration in some way and say here's a list of people. you pick for assistant secretary and does that hamper your ability to put together -- >> my experience of -- i was given the flexibility to -- written certain parameters assemble the team we wanted and needed. >> certain parameters being what? >> making sure that we had good gender balance, good diverse di, things like that. -- diversity and which was actually to the benefit of our department. so those were parameters i was very comfortable with. but i felt i had a lot of flexibility to assemble the team we needed. the thing about hiring is that sometimes it's hard to get it right, particularly when you're hiring -- when i came in we had 80% of the leadership of the department of the secretary vacant, and of our probably 15

of our 22 senate confirmed positions were either vacant or becoming vacant. when you hire that many peoplety at the same time, that is an enormous undertaking in a short period of time. you can't always get it all right. so having the flexibility to say, gee, i made a mistake here, that's hard, or to do you'd be better in this job than that job. that kind of flexibility you don't have as much of. >> let me be a little skeptical about this. i have not observed, at least as a -- on the basis of the results, looking back, that if you were at hyatt and you had 15 positions to fill, my guess is you would have looked across the world for the best people you can get, drive to recruit them and hire them. my observation is that in the federal government, secretaries or white house personnel office

do not say, i have an assistant secretary position here. want to look across the united states and find the very best person in world and recruit and hire that person. >> you only have available to whether it's in the company or government, people who want to be in those positions and there's -- in the federal government, we have to pick among the people who want to serve in to federal government. you're not necessarily able to go get anybody from anywhere around the world. that's not possible. >> you can find anyone from the united states -- >> my experience was, i wasn't hampered by the administration in terms of the ability to hire or hampered by the reality of who wants to come into government and who wants to serve, and given the limitations of that. and who wants to go through confirmation, and --

>> kitchen steve, do you think we cast as wide a net for those key subcabinet positions as we can and we should? >> i think we could cast a wider net, especially for some of the special positions. my experience was similar to secretary pritzker. i think the office of personnel in the white house, i always thought did a great job of screening candidates, giving me a lot of candidates to look at, following my guidance in terms of what i thought would be effective, listening to me when i said i need somebody with these skills. the mechanism to find people is just -- it's just different. and if -- >> why does it have to be different? >> if think the positions are kind of different. >> we didn't find -- we didn't always find our candidates through the list that we were given by the ppo.

>> ppo -- >> the -- >> office of presidential personnel. >> we were looking for -- obviously ultimately if you found somebody who wanted to go into a position, they had to have the same screening and the same vetting process, but we were -- i found one of the greatest assets was the network of the people who were working with us. who they knew other folks who might want to come in and so we were triangulating, trying to figure out what their skill sets we need who wants to come in and serve. i don't think -- definitely we don't have the world to choose from. but you have the people who are interested in serving and then trying to attract the best into those positions that are available to you. >> i felt like i saw candidate lists faster than i would have in the private sector in many

cases because in many cases -- >> did the lest come from. >> ppo but it wasn't the kind of thing where they said, these people worked on campaigns. needed a general counsel at sba and the found a senior attorney who walked into the door and understood the issues. also similar to your experience i was able to hire people i had experience with in private sector. this person is open for looking at new role. fits the role perfectly would you please look at them? and i didn't have any problem with that. >> when you got your agencies did you find that the top civil servants were primary live top notch or were they very uneven? >> i thought they were uneven.

i thought they were across the board extremely knowledgeable in their area. and they were across the board great resources. but i will tell you, some of the most remarkable things we got done were because people in those levels had an idea and had a passion and we were able to knock down the walls and support them being able to do that. let me give you two examples. i was --... we were looking at vacant land

and no path to get there. this woman said look, i can see how we can get these out of the ground. within a very short period of time we worked with her, several other federal agencies, supported her. we got two of those developmen developments, ground broken on two of them. when the new administration came in and worked with the new traffic secretary to basically say this is where we are, we care about them a lot. he was terrific. what we handed over to wasn't as 80%, it was more 20% in some cases. he got how to get her a line, and i'm a slayer he said we broke ground on the fourth. that was a career civil servant activation that we could get it done if we could just supporter in the right way. those are for working are based in new orleans that are beautiful.