us or for us, you have to go to what is called a black leader. there are no -- i'm sure there are irish, french descendants here, italian decent here, scandinavian decent. there are no irish leaders, no english leaders in this room. you know, you don't look to al sharpton or jesse jackson. the old saying was years ago that king had a dream, jesse had a scheme. and jesse has been very, very good at perpetrating his scheme of extortion on this country. he's in the film, be sure to see the film. al sharpton's in the film. i was told by dick gregory t comedian, i was told to my face, i was told that black conservatives don't exist. there i was a figment of my own imagination standing there.

and so they have been thoroughly, thoroughly brain washed. the leaders because of the government cheese, because of the welfare programs, because of all of those things and we deal with this in the film, we're going to deal directly with your question in this movie, but because they have been led to a certain place in their thinking, and because roosevelt, even truman was instrumental in solidifying this image of a democrat superiority or better than republican party, they have failed to see historically the fallacy in their beliefs. yes, sir. >> good morning cl.

centennial colorado. thank you for your inspirational speech and presentation today. >> thank you. >> i have one comment and a challenge, actually. the comment is, here's a." america will not fall from a foreign aggressor but will fall from within without a shot being fired. >> khrushchev. >> to take your children and yourselves and arrange for field trips to go see this film. if we can have the liberal left have an inconvenient truth shown in our schools we should have this man's movie shown in there every day. >> thank you, jeff. thank you. >> thank you for your work. >> thank you, jeff. thank you so much. yes, ma'am. >> sue johnson, i'm from denver, colorado, i'm active in the republican party there. i'm also a former software engineer and current engineering

computer science teacher in boulder valley school district. my comment is this. being a teacher since 9/11, i'm not afraid of the liberal left. what i do is i hit it head on. my comment would be is why don't people like you develop more programs for inner city kids to understanding your ideas because the liberal left is doing dances around you. so i think that you have a huge opportunity with leadership program of something or another and go straight in against them. >> the book that -- >> i can recommend my kids to you. >> the book that i have written, we had it, we had it delivered here. we don't know what happened to it. but i had -- we will be taking orders for it. al sharpton took it. joseph downs, the young man here, will make arrangements, crystal will make arrangements

for you to secure the book and my signature on it. matt and i are working on that very end. whether we win or lose the white house in this coming election, it will be necessary for us to spread our conservative message throughout all the land. listen, god bless you, god keep you. thank you so much. [ applause ] >> republican presidential candidate mitt romney is in southeast virginia today in the city of portsmouth. joined by bob mcdonnell. we'll bring you their remarks at 1:15 eastern. former republican candidate and minnesota congresswoman michele bachmann will reportedly endorse mitt romney at this event. that will be live on c-span. the libertarian party will select their presidential

nominee this weekend at the 2012 libertarian national convention in las vegas. 40th anniversary this year. our live coverage of the convention from the red rock resort starts tomorrow at 9:00 eastern with a two-hour debate including former new mexico governor and republican presidential candidate gary johnson. live coverage will continue saturday at noon eastern with the presidential selection process. convention delegates will hear speeches by the candidates and then vote for their party's nominee. that's all live on c-span. >> spend the weekend in oklahoma city with book tv and american history tv. saturday at noon eastern check in on literary life with boorks tv on c-span2 including must read political works, former senator david boren, also rare books, from the history of science collection, and sunday at 5:00 p.m. eastern, oklahoma

history on american history tv on c-span3. tour the oklahoma city bombing memorial with the co-designer. plus a look into african-american life in 1920s oklahoma. and native american artifacts from the collections at the oklahoma history center. once a month c-span investigates cities across america. this weekend from oklahoma city, on c-span2 and 3. >> now from the bloomberg summit on the economy, economists give their assessments of the fiscal state of the country calling on congress to address the debt and the deficit. this includes former fed vice chair and chris van hollen who criticized the budget put forward by house republicans. this is just over an hour. >> great discussion that teases up for the next conversation. and for me that means i get to be part of this panel so i'm looking forward to it. i'm going to invite the

panelists for this next conversation as we get the chairs situated. we're talking about the legacy of the financial crisis and ensuring against a repeat of the financial crisis. our guests as they step on stage, i think we lost one, i'm sorry to say carmen ryan heart arrived from a flight from china early this morning, is not going to make it today. so but we do have congressman scott garrett, the chairman of the subcommittee on capital markets and the house financial services committee, a member of the budget committee. we have in the middle neil wolen t deputy treasury secretary of the united states and the administration's point man on all things dodd frank. we thank secretary wolen. and we have arthur levitt, a senior advise tear the carlyle group, a man who has worn many hats in financial markets and in government. we thank you all for being here and i appreciate you all taking part in this conversation. congressman garrett, i thought i

would begin with you. i'm going to take you back to 2008, the financial crisis kicking in and the period after that. you voted against the tarp legislation, later opposed the stimulus, you opposed the dodd frank legislation. how would the world look today if those things had not happened if your way prevailed? >> couldn't be much worse. i guess after all of those situations went through. i guess the term that barney frank always used at the time when we were saying why don't we do this, after the fact, he said well, those are all counterfactuals and you can never go back to anticipate what would have occurred. but certainly with regard to two or three of those points you raise, the stimulus, had we not misspent over $800 billion, we would not be looking at the deficit level as there we're doing right now. certainly if we had not advocated our constitutional responsibilities as members of

congress to be having control of the power of the purse and abdicate that to the administration and the fed, we would not be in the situation where we are today where we have created i an essence after moral hazard in the market place which any one up here or any of the panelists can put a price tag on and how we're going to dig ourselves out of that abyss. so in many ways would have been a much worse in a different climate we're in today. >> i'll let you tackle the same question. how would the world look if government had not responded. >> i think it's an important question. i think we forget oftentime what is the world felt like in the last part of 2008 and early 2009. our financial markets were completely frozen. banks were failing at a record pace. people were losing their jobs and their homes in record numbers and we really felt as a country i think and certainly we at the treasury like we were looking over the cliff and into the abyss.

i think it was critical that congress put forward a plan that helped bring the financial markets back to health which was an important aspect of getting our economy back in gear. if you look at the recovery act i think the evidence is dead clear that it was an important part of getting our economy back to positive developments and growth. if you look over the last 26 months we've created more than 4 million private sector jobs and i think important to that was the government both through spending and through tax stimulus making sure that it played its part in helping the private sector begin to unravel from the horrible stress that it was in. of course we put together critically important financial reform package that meant that we as a country could have a financial system as a basis of strong economy that was stronger and safer and better protected than it obviously was when we were suffering all of these

horrible dislocations. i think all three of those things, which all enjoyed important bipartisan support, were important critical elements in getting us to a place where we are now where we're growing albeit not as fast as we'd like but with financial markets that are very importantly working and economy that is creating jobs and has grown 11 quarters in a row. >> i'll put that same question to you and add to it, could we have it happen again tomorrow? are we in a better position today than we were back in 2008? >> yes, i think we are in a better position. i think that for a combination of reasons. i think that secretary of the treasury paulson was a real hero. he made a tough decision, made a right decision. the president followed with a

stimulus program that i wish had gone further. the economy had led up to this tragic event as a result of, in my judgment, the failures of a deregulatory congress which so hampered the regulatory mechanism, so distorted our capital markets by the manner in which they did away with glass/stiegel, that kind of event, that kind of near catastrophe was predictable, inevitable, and once again we see the efforts at regulation including dodd frank and almost everything that surrounds it, so harassed and hampered and bitten away by a congress that i

believe is shirking their responsibility, that it absolutely could happen again. not precisely the same way, but in other ways. i think that the capstone of all of this was a bipartisan effort to create a bill called a jobs bill which i believe is the most investor unfriendly bill in the history of america. >> a bipartisan bill? >> a bipartisan bill supported by members of both party and hailed as a means of creating jobs, and i would argue with you that it is going to destroy jobs and every member of congress that voted for that bill within two years will regret that vote. either secretly, openly, or publicly as the case may be. >> we happen to have a member of congress right here with us, let me get your take on the jobs

act. see if you have regrets. >> give him a couple of years. >> i have some regrets. that is not one of the regretings i had in my term in congress, when you mentioned members of congress who are shirking their responsibilities with regard to reform, i assume you're talking about the senate who basically has not had a meeting there in the last 14 months to deal with any of the reforms that both sides of the aisle says we should be doing with regard to dodd frank. >> i'm talking about the house. >> i mistook that. maybe talking about us. >> then cut their budget by 30%. >> well, that's not quite the way, as paul harvey used to say there's the rest of the story on some of these things. when it came to dodd frank, which was a third part of your opening question is how things could have been different, if there was some degree of certainty in the marketplace today. if the person who you say the one of your heroes with regard to the eclipse that we came to

the edge of the cliff i was going to say, he was one of the leaders even of our own party he was one of the leaders that led to the uncertainty. why did we have the situation back then, was because wall street, the businesses across the country during just up to '08 saying what is washington going to do? and there we had hank paulson come to the forefront and said we're going in this direction. shortly after he said no, we're going 180 degrees in this direction. so what was wall street going to do when the hero of washington is coming out saying we're not sure where washington is going in this direction. >> let me let neil weigh in. you weren't there when hank paulson was there but since tim geithner has been secretary. what about the question of moral hazard, the uncertainty if a bank were to fail like lehman brothers today, would things be different? >> i think there is no question about it, peter. there is a lot of talk about uncertainty. i think the worst uncertainty is when we were back in '08 and '09 and had a financial crisis and

rules that were manifestly inadequate. congress passed this statute with a lot of detail that strengthens up our oversight of financial sector, closes loopho loopholes, banks need to be better buffered for risk and better protected from the rest of the economy so we don't all suffer when a financial institution fails. i think every day as the implementation of dodd frank proceeds it's clear what our new financial structure looks like. it's also clear our financial system now is much safer, much stronger, much more resilient and capable of being buffered from stress than it has been in a long, long time. on the one hand critics of this statute say you know, it's very uncertain. we don'ts know what the rules are. we should -- we need to put the rules in so people understand what to do and how to run their businesses. on the other hand, all over the

congress there are people trying to delay and slow down and roll back elements of dodd frank which can only mean more uncertainty. >> what pieces do you think will be enacted? if you have to pick a percentage. >> i think the whole thing will be implemented before we're done. i think there are efforts in congress to roll back and delay and i don't think that they are likely to succeed. i think what they do is to create uncertainty. just last week the house financial services committee passed an amendment that would eliminate title 2 t liquidation authority of dodd frank and leave wisconsin the great uncertainty that we had before which is if a bank fails, we have the unhappy choice of either bailing it out, we had the unhappy choice of bailing it out with public funds or not bailing it out and let the rest of the economy suffer the consequences. what dodd frank did, and i think importantly, was to make sure

when a bank fails, it's much less likely with the higher standards and greater capital buffers and the living wills that these firms have to file, that they will be insulated or the economy, rather, will be insulated from that failure in an orderly way. to make sure when firms fail they fail and the management and the owners pay the price but the rest of us, taxpayers, the broader american economy, do not suffer the consequences. i think if we go back to the old days we'll not have that and that is a problem. >> i wish it were certain that we had the new days. if a lot of this happens, i probably would agree with you. if i had to put a number on how much of dodd frank will see the light of day i would say it would be south of 50%. >> i would say that if you look for example at these provisions, the liquidation provisions, the so-called too big to fail progression tfica has gone a

long way. the rest is coming into play. there's still of course lots of work to be done and we would like to be able to get on with completing that work without, you know, all kinds of interference. i think that we'll get there. >> what are your concerns about those wind down conditions? he thought the congress could go even further in this area. what are your concerns specifically and wouldn't undoing that in fact make the chances for government intervention even greater in the future? >> no. that basically goes to your opening question would things be worse off or not. what you have done, not my words, other economists who said we have sort of double down on the situation where we are from where we were before. so you had this much of a market place, you have a consolidation in the industry, that you had not had so we doubled down as far as that is concerned. you have the fact that now we basically have codified

government intervention into the marketplace. before 08 maybe the market was unclear where the federal government would come involve itself into the financial markets whether it's in housing, wall it's in housing, wall street, the bank. now we pass a 2,300-page bill and we basically have codified it and say these institutions are too big to fail. yes, we're going to have the wind-down provisions, what have you. we had solutions to these problems. we had answers to these problems. we had proffered them to the administration before the administration did. if you recall, back in '08, we were waiting for secretary geithner to come forward with his white paper. he was going to do it one month, and put it off, put it off again. we came up with our proposal on this. we understand that there is a problem in there. but in essence what we were talking about the solution being is an elaboration or explanation or enhancement of the bankruptcy provisions in this country to deal with those institutions and

also by doing so you would be codifying and maintaining the existing rule of law in this country as opposed to the direction we've gone into in the last year and a half, where the business community has to believe that if they fall into certain categories, it is merely the political whim of the time as to whether or not the federal government will intercede in a certain matter or not, whether they're in a preferred industry such as the auto industry or some other industry, in a preferred class such as union or not in a unionized class. that creates more uncertainty. >> i think arthur eager to weigh in here. neil, you first, then arthur. >> look, peter, the law of the land is when firms fail, they will fail. the government will not bail them out, their management will be removed. the key feature of the new statute is the government now has tools to help make sure that that failure, you know, very

market oriented, if you fail, you fail, does not affect the broader economy and the broader financial system. that is incredibly important point because unless we have the capacity to let firms fail without taking the rest of the economy with us, then we will never let firms fail. that was the old days. we now have a system, and it's been overwhelmingly implemented by the fdic, that allows firms to fail and guarantees that we will not be there to pick up the pieces and put humpty-dumpty back together again. >> arthur, does that prove the point? >> i don't think you can will formu formulaic about this. we have a plan that we didn't have before. we have the ability to respond quickly to situations which are unpredictable. i think that the savior of the automobile business was one of the high points of the economic history of america. and i think we're better

prepared today than we were then, but there are structural problems that lead me to believe that we could once again see the problems that we saw several years ago. we are by no means out of the woods. >> what about the notion, arthur, we've heard it from the banking sector, that the regulatory pendulum has swung too far to one side again, that these rules, whether it's the volcker rule, whether it's new rules about counterparty risk, that it's simply too onerous right now in an economy that's struggling, that it's holding back the u.s. economy and to some extent american banks may be losing out to international competitors? what do you make of those arguments? >> you know, once again, the principal argument put forth by the anti- -- the deregulatory forces give us cost evaluations. and on this jobs bill, again, where are the cost evaluations of what that bill would cost?

i don't buy that. i think that the lobbying pressure on congress to emasculate the principal regulators is so great that they have grievously heard agencies such as the s.e.c. and the cftc on issues which are terribly important in terms of systemic risk. i think the key issue here, who's sitting in the desk? who are the people -- with the cftc or with the s.e.c. or any of these agencies, a good leader can make an enormous amount of difference. >> a leader can make a lot of difference, but again, it goes back to the uncertainty. i think dense ler is a great guy and -- >> the chairman of the cftc? >> very dedicated, but the fact you have rules promulgated first and definitions coming out after the fact raises a lot of question marks for some people.

how can you prom um gait rules and the industry know what they're going to be dealing with if that is the course of events? yes, the pendulum has gone too far. it is typical of washington during these times. sometimes i would swings back too far the other way. case in point is what led up to this, is that the reasons that we got to '08 was two or threefold, one of course we touched on already, and that is for the government intrusion into the various marketplace, iner issings of capital and intrusion into the housing market and such, as much as through fannie mae and freddie m mac, but the other was the failure of the government regulators themselves. >> i would argue the rule we have gone too far in terms of choking the regulators and giving them responsibilities and then denying them the funding to carry out those responsibilities. i think the interference from congress with the regulatory system has clogged our economy, has impeded it, and has hurt the

ability to create jobs and restore us to markets the public can have trust in. >> let me get you to respond to that question, the budget question. dodd/frank is the law of the land, although you and a lot of republicans voted against it. should those agencies be fully implemented to -- >> ask him if he's going to vote to repeal. >> go ahead. >> will you vote to repeal dodd/frank? >> what we have tried to do in a thoughtful manner is look at it and realize which portions need to be modified, changed or improved upon, reformed, if you will, and do so in a bipartisan manner. your opening comment with regard to the jobs bill was a case in point. it wasn't a republican initiative alone. it was the senate, the house, and the president of the united states. that included portions of dodd/frank. anyone who believes that 2,300-page bill that was rushed through and the derivative sections added literally at 3:00

in the morning, because i was on the conference committee, su sau it go through, believes that bill is perfect and should not be reformed i think it would be remiss in understanding how the legislative process works and what is good for the marketplace. >> would you vote to repeal it, though? >> i would repeal parts of it that are doing damage to the economy and incurring uncertainty in the marketplace, parts of it also that have nothing do with what brought us this situation. you talked about the volcker rule. i don't know where anyone made the argument that proprietary trading was the cause of '08. i don't have an expert that said the lack of registration of hedge funds was a cause of '08. the i have not heard any expert come to the panel and said the fact we don't have more consumer protection through another agency was the reason we went through '08. these were all things that were out there, on a wish list of other people that said how can we add it to a bill, and they threw it into a 2,300-page bill that from members of the committee -- >> but the fact -- >> secretary, jump in.

>> a couple things. first of all, i think, as we said, the committee last week voted to repeal title 2, which is the order and liquidation authority. if that's not core to what we just experienced in '08 and '09 and not a critical reform, i'm not sure what is. if you're talking act uncertainty and the question of what will come out in all the implementation, then starving the regulators that have to do the implementing and have to write the rules and have been given lots of additional critically important work that is about closing loopholes and looking at the things that have not been looked after, strikes me as not a way to enhance certainty. i think, you know, we forget where we were in '08-'09. peter, this idea you asked about earlier about whether the regulatory environment is choking off growth, i think there is absolutely no evidence in the financial services sector that that's the case.

there is no evidence. the markets are back. they are strong. these firms are -- >> it goes back, you believe? >> i think across the financial services markets you have much stronger, much more active markets than before dodd/frank. and i think, you know, people talk about the cost of regulation, they forget what the cost of having insufficient regulation was, which was trillions of dollars of lost wealth, enormous numbers of lost homes and jobs and an economy that was was brought to its heel. i guess the last point i'd make in response to the congressman is i think the consumer protection pieces of this legislation were core because, you know, the causes of the crisis were multifactoral but one was millions of americans taking on credit burdens that they didn't understand, that they didn't have fair disclosure around, where they didn't understand