tv [untitled] March 22, 2012 8:30pm-9:00pm EDT
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money for water, utility ratepayers by reducing construction costs and energy bills. will you continue to advocate for the set asides and ensure that epa provides appropriate guidance to states on how to implement them? >> yes, sir, i am a very strong supporter and so are, by the way, mayors and local communities who get win-win results. >> and i know many of our mayors are very involved in this and very supportive of it. u.s. water utilities waste an estimated seven billion gallons of treated water through ruptures. does epa plan to become more involved in in promoting losses, energy use, and contamination? >> yes. we're happy to be supported both through the funding wise through the state revoluming funds and
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both with the states and local governments. there is such a need out there that we do prioritize with the states where we can be financially supported. >> thank you, administrator jackson. i know that you have a very good, solid professional staff at the ep and we very much approve all their hard work. thank you, madam chair. >> i thank you so much for your patience in sitting through and answering such good questions. we really do appreciate you so much. because everybody is counting on you. the little kids, the kids soon to be born and our families. thank you very much. we stand adjourned.
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up next on c-span 3, a conversation with arlen specter later, from the national press foundation, we'll hear from eric schmidt of google. next week the supreme court signs and the constitutionality of the laws requirement that people purchase health coverage by 2014. tomorrow, the kato institute will preview the case. live coverage at 10:45 eastern here on c-span 3.
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the court will hear three days of argument. and here on c-span 3, c-span radio, and c-span.org. >> starting april 1st, on the theme the constitution and you. middle and high school students show which part of the constitution is important to them and why. meet the students who feature them. and for everyone participated in this year's competition significance. >> former pennsylvania senator arlen specter talks about the
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current health care debate and his new book. this is an hour. >> arlen specter, republican of pennsylvania, was switched to democrat, wrote a book, life among the cannibals. how did you come up with this title and for the united state senate, customers make a farewell address. i made what i called a closing argument and the fact that they were cannibals were in operation, can anybody baizing other senators. i wanted the title to be cannibals devouring senators and
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she said it's not too stark for what goes on in the senate but situations like senator bob bennett from utah with 93% conservative rating because of one vote, supporting the bailout of the auto industry which was really very important and you have lisa murkowski in alaska being beaten in a primary by the tea party and my own situation, i voted for the stimulus package. one vote out of 10,000 and that created irreconcilable differences between the republican party and and joe
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biden and governor ed rendell but the significant part of the problems and the united states senate today is a fact that cannibals are at work. >> who are the cannibals? the republican party? >> well, senator demint and he has a lot of people helping him. he announced publicly recently that he was going to change his ways and not support people against the party he fought lisa murkowski in alaska and instead
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the club for growth is another organization. one of the very best, if not the best united states senator today and will not change his strive and bend to the far right, primary contests are knuckling. olympic snow is leaving the senate because she's tired of fighting cannibals. >> i don't know enough about them. >> tea party group led by dick armey? >> well, the tea party group, that's another cannibal game. >> dick armey freedom works leader writes yesterday in the
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wall street journal this. a strategist have always relied on conventional thinking when it comes to voter turnout. that was the logic that saved arlen specter in 2004 sick years later they provide the 60th vote for obamacare. >> well, one of the state in the republican party but only if i could vote my conscience and when we were heading for a depression, i felt it was necessary to support the stimulus package and took the lead role in getting that passed. and the right wing was outraged. they have never been very happy with me. i have a tough race in 2004, as
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you just quoted but i wasn't sent to congress to vote simply to preserve my seat. listen, i was a child during the depression in the 1930s and i remember as it was my family lived in wichita kansas and we packed -- my dad had a pickup truck, put the four kids in the back of the pickup truck, a rough ride from wichita to live with the family. that's where we're headed and it's pretty much conceded. but the right wing, the extremist, did not look like the bush bail out of the auto industry. >> the t.a.r.p. growth? >> the t.a.r.p. growth. and dick cheney came and talked
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to the republican caucus in early october 2008. the house of representatives had defeated t.a.r.p., the auto bailout. and dick cheney, you know that wild-eyed liberal, talked to the republican caucus and said, if you don't support this measure, you'll turn george w. bush into a modern her bert hoover. and 25 of us defeated that. the twin brother of t.a.r.p., the auto bailout, was the stimulus package and that's what i supported and the can any balances were up in arms. >> when you voted for the 2009 stimulus bill where you ran into bob bennett and he said what to
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you about that vote? >> he said, arlen, i'm proud of you. >> i said, thanks, will you vote with me? that will bring me a primary fight the key is for the senators to vote their conscience and this is a theme that i had been developing for years. in 2005 the senate was fill lee bustering the nuclear option or constitutional option to by trickery change the rules of
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fi filibuster. and i talked to my republican colleagues and they don't like the nuclear option but they feel they have to back the party line. i've talked to democrats and they don't like the filibuster. as they were then and democrats don't like that. i was a member of that group when i was in the senate and i carried that theme forward. there's a lot of wisdom in the senate. if it would be exercised to vote their conscience and not follow the party line but the reality is that members are terrified by
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a primary challenge. senator joe lieberman couldn't win a republican primary and i couldn't win a democrat primary. >> let's go to 2012. will you endorse president obama for re-election? >> i'm going to wait to see how the campaign evolves. i am now in a different position. i am now citizen arlen specter. >> when will you decide? >> i think i'll decide about october 25th at high noon. >> well, would you vote for a republican then ? >> absolutely. absolutely. i'm going to vote for the better man, in my opinion. i'm not going to be bound by party -- by party loyalty. >> you write in the book about part of the reason that you lost your primary in 2010 was that president obama did not campaign for you as much as he promised
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to do so and democratic leadership in the senate. are you holding out your vote for president obama, your support for him, because he didn't follow through on what he promised? >> no. i am not doing that. all of that is yesterday. i intend to make an evaluation of the nominees. i want to see who the republican is, presumably it will be romney. i'm not very happy with romney. frankly, i'm not happy with president obama. i think his policy in afghanistan is dead wrong. i said so in the senate. i opposed his 30,000 additional troops in the senate i think it was a colossal mistake to extend the tax breaks to the 1%. you have this big battle 99% versus 1%. they were going to expire the end of 2010. they should not have been extended. i think there are a lot of issues now on economic growth. but i do understand that i have
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to make a selection between the alternatives. i ran for the republican nomination. it was a well-kept secret, the nomination back in 1996. i had no admissions -- >> you were quoted that santorum is not up to being president, not mitt romney either. >> no, i didn't say mitt romney wasn't. i said not sure. >> you're right. >> that's a big difference in what i said about romney and santorum. >> then why the difference? explain the difference? >> well, the difference is i know rick santorum very well. i worked for him 12 years in the senate. i helped him win the election back in 1994 in august his campaign was in the dumps and i gave him my organization.
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i gave him my people, campaigned for them and helped him win. we had a collegial relationship. i worked together for pennsylvania which is very important. the two senators do that. but when he's trying for president, it's a different matter. here you have his views. he doesn't believe that women belong in the workforce. he doesn't believe in contraception. he thinks that in the gay issue that it's man on dog. he talks about beastiality. he criticizes very harshly the speech in houston, separation of church and state, which the foundation of america, next to santorum's likely to attack jefferson. who knows what comes next. i urged rick to have some unexpressed ideas.
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but he's very dedicated to and i don't think it's great for america. romney, where does he stand? yesterday his chief adviser talked about a restart button after the primaries, etch-a-sketch. it's a tool, you jumble it up and have a new sketch. what's romney going to do next? bill maher had a great line for romney which i think is okay for c-span. maher said that romney changes positions more often than a pornographic movie queen. so where's he going to be next? that's why i'm not sure about the romney. i am sure about santorum. >> and newt gingrich, you're quoted in there saying wa about
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newt gingrich? >> well, i'm quoted in there saying that he has a great resume and credentials. >> so if it was romney versus gingrich, would you vote for gingrich? >> well, gingrich has a lot of qualifications. i've taken to a stand-up and i was five years ago in the celebrity comedy and decided to have an open mike in philadelphia and the spirit of the season i decided to go back and i was well received and i was invited to go to carolines in new york on broadway, 49th. and since i'm going to be in new york next week promoting my book, we've got to show this
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book more. >> and i'm going to be promoting next week, "life among the cannibals." anyhow, back to gingrich. he's part of my routine and newt and i came to the capital at the same time. newt was elected in '78, '79, '80. i've known newt so long i knew him when he was skinny. as a matter of fact, i even knew newt's first wife and most of his girlfriends. >> okay, on that -- >> there's more. >> i bet. >> okay. go ahead. >> caller: good morning. unfortunately, not a lot of people have a chance to change their stripes like senator specter. >> i didn't change my stripes,
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mister. >> caller: can you let me ask a question? >> if you talk too. >> can i finish my point? i have a limited amount of time. >> go ahead, edward. >> i want to finish my point. >> it's 1200 days since the democrats have been in control of the senate, and they have not passed any budget bill at all. i think that's something that is worth to talk about, and all these cannibal organizations you're talking about is all conservative. none of your viewing artists have heard you mention any left liberal organizations. they're all conservatives. and the last thing i want to say is this right here there is 50 million americans who doesn't pay any scheduled income tax. the u.s. has the highest corporate tax rate in the world. the top 10% of the wage earners in this country pay 65% of the federal receipts going to paying taxes. and the health care bill that you passed, 26 states are objecting to it, and all the
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unions that support it have now asked for a waiver. >> i'm going to leave it there. there is a lot there for the senator to respond to. >> well, when you say that i haven't commented about the democrats, you're not listening very closely, mister. i said the democrats wouldn't elect a very able senator like joe lieberman, that there are cannibals in both parties. that's what i said just a few minutes ago. when you complain about the tax structure, i think you've got a good point. i made that point earlier that i disagreed with president obama when he extended the tax cuts for the wealthy. i think our tax code needs to be changed. when i was in the senate, i introduced legislation for the flat tax. >> he also talked about the health care law. the oral arguments start next week before the supreme court. is the health care law constitutional? >> yes. >> why? >> because it's legitimate exercise of congress's authority under the commerce clause.
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>> you're teaching a class at university of pennsylvania law school right now talking about the separation between congress and the supreme court. so is that what you're telling your students? >> yes. i'm telling them the same thing i'm telling you, greta. >> so how do you think the justices -- you've studied these guys. you've voted for many of these justices during your career. >> not many, all of them. all of them who are sitting now. >> and a lot more. >> no. i didn't vote for marshall. >> how do you think these current justices are going to vote? >> well, the conventional wisdom greta is that they're declared unconstitutional because we have gotten an ideological core. we have a court which is divided very sharply on ideological lines. bush versus gore, the supreme court elected george bush by one vote on a very far-fetched theory of irreparable harm that
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justice scalia had. and citizens united, again, you had a very badly polarized ideological core. justice kennedy is in the center, and i think he enjoys being unpredictable. he'd like to call it the kennedy court, and he took another step yesterday when he was the swing vote on giving counsel to defendants on plea bargain cases. but the conventional wisdom is that the court is going to >> kennedy will vote with the conservative. >> that's the conventional wisdom. but he probably watches c-span, and i would urge him to follow the facts. a big point in these issues is whether congress has established a sufficient factual basis for the legislation which is followed. and when chief justice roberts
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response to my questions, he said that it was congress's job to establish the facts. and that if the supreme court deviated from what congress had followed, found, that it was really legislating and it was not an appropriate judicial function, but in citizens was 1f congressional fact finding. and chief justice roberts and justice scalia did a 180-degree u-turn on their confirmation testimony. but if the supreme court looks at the factual basis for what we did in enacting that legislation, they will uphold it. >> democratic caller in round rock, texas. you're on the air. >> caller: good morning, senator specter. >> good morning. >> i would like to thank you for your service. i'm a vietnam vet, and i really appreciate a senator that thinks before he votes. i have two questions for you.
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the first one, what do you think about the gop's attack on voting rights? you know, they say that the voter rights bill is because there is so much wrong in voting. but in mississippi, they just had their vote for the gop candidates, and the bill was passed in november of last year, yet they didn't put the bill in for the votes that they just had. and it was 97% white people that voted for the gop. but they're going to start the vote in november when the vote which really hinders minorities, elderly, and hispanic -- >> okay, caller, let me get the senator's response. >> you raise a very good point. and the department of justice has moved in to many of those
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situations on voter id, for example. the department of justice has found that it's discriminatory against blacks, against african-americans. in the rebeen challenges that i tilted, especially in the south. there has to be clearance. and the voting rights act was passed to give equal standing to every citizen. we reauthorized the voting rights act during my tenure as chairman of the judiciary committee, and the department of justice is enforcing it. but it's very hard to keep up with all of the maneuvers which were made in the southern states which tend to exclude african-americans. >> we'll go next to -- next phone call is from columbia. maryland, caller, go ahead. >> caller: good morning. >> morning.
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>> caller: i wanted to talk to you. i have a question based on a hypothetical scenario, if i can. let's say there was a republican-brokered convention and they actually drafted you, and you became the republican nominee. what would you have for your top few planks in your presidential, you know, campaign? >> my top two planks would be to disengage in afghanistan. al qaeda is not there. we have no quarrel with the taliban. i would fight al qaeda, but i wouldn't spend time in afghanistan on foreign policy. i would be much more into diplomacy during my tenure in the senate where i chaired the intelligence committee. i visited with saddam hussein. i think we had a chance to use diplomatic pressure on him.
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mubarak, assad, we had an opening with iran back in 2003 and didn't really take it. we need to treat foreign countries, foreign leaders with more dignity and respect. we're known around the world as the ugly americans and for good cause. that's one item that i would emphasize very strongly. and i would restructure our tax laws so with some teeth so that the 1% who are not shielded on what is happening in the economy and what is going on in wall street is not countenanced. you have the recent disclosure from goldman sachs of one of their key people quitting in disgust because of what goes on. you had the collapse of the economy triggered significantly by the bubble on housing. they took all of these mortgages, which were vastly
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overvalued. they wrapped them up in securities and they sold them. and on the same day that they sold these securities to investors to a lot of pension funds, the brokerage firm on wall street was betting against them, selling them short. that is had the opinion that they were going to go down. and if they went down, the brokerage firms will make money. well, that's fraud. i used to be the d.a. of philadelphia, and that ought to be prosecuted. and that would be one step on some real efforts to put people back to work. >> ben, a republican in turlock, california. you're up next for the former senator from pennsylvania, senator arlen specter. go ahead. >> caller: hi. how are you doing? >> morning. >> caller: by the way, i think the host always looks lovely, and that's a good thing. but mr. specter, as far as politics goes, i wanted to kind of go off the subject. but cannibalism is a part of
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