a weapon. what can we do? planning for military action. that means planning in conunderkconjun k conjunction with the other nations. become is a technical point. any president would essentially be working with his defense and intelligence establishnment as o what to do. i do think bill has a good point. it is unfair for is reyl rael t on this burden. one thing we learned from the wikileaks cables, an abuse and putting people in danger, what we learned how scared arab states are of iran. this, this fear of iran. and this wish that somebody would do something about iran goes far beyond the israelis. it would be unfair to put the burden on israel now. >> thank you, barny. we picked that up in many conversations around the arab world as well. let me turn to, a nonforeign policy question. at ajc we have been encouraging

energy independence since the 1970s. better for the environment, economy and national security. if we end our dependence on petroleum supplies from hostile states, is that a goal that is shared by president obama and governor romney? and how can we best advance towards that goal? bill. want to start? >> i think full independence is not realistic. there is no problem importing energy from reliable, neighboring nations including canada where we have a very easy opportunity to build a pipeline which, most, most people including an awful lot of labor union members are for. the obama administration is stopping on environmental grouvenltdz grounds. if independence is good and environment is good and no tension between them. i don't know that environmental concerns are legitimate. i would argue they're overblown. to the degree that environmentalists believe they're legitimate and the environmentalists are a powerful

force within the obama administration they're obstructing energy development, there is no serious question about that. whether offshore, on government lands. one of the great things that happened is natural gas break throughs, in north dakota, south texas much more would be happening developing oil and natural gas in this country if we didn't have excessive environmental regulations which the obama administration has consistently come down on the side of the, what i would call the pretty extreme environmentalists against nose who would look us to develop more energy here. >> barney frank. >> we tend to be too negative. we have been making progress. the dependence on foreign oil has dropped some. bill is right, the question is not that everything has to be produced internally. we have mexico. we have canada. we have others. there are of course, there is more drilling going on. more production going on right now. than there has been. not on government lands. but of the overall total is up. obviously, alternatives are a

parpt part of this. one thing i want to say, we can be too nervous. there is this notion that the fact that we have to import oil from the middle east, constrains our foreign policy. i haven't seen any evidence s of that. and in fact, and one criticism i have of some of my colleague whose want to bomb iran immediately, there is no question, the fact that it is american policy contemplating a military attack on iran nuclear facilities and the fact that american policy has been tough on sanctions is a contribute factor to the increase in the price of the oil and irresponsible not to understand that. not the hugest factor. there are others. but, i think the good news is, thame that the fact that, what we are doing with regard to iran has some upward pressure on oil prices has not deterred any significant political faction in america from going forward with it. yeah, good to reduce it. i think we have -- overestimated

the extent to which that has been a constraint on foreign policy. >> thank you. before we go to your closing remarks. let me ask you a question that came from the audience. it really comes to a question of america's role in the world, america's responsibility in the world. over the last few years against the background of war in afghanistan, and iraq, we have seen a resurgence of feeling of both major maerts parties to tu attention home ward fall back from foreign troubles and commitments what are the reasons strategic and moral that would justify continued american efforts to remain the world's greatest s power? and what do you both say to those who will go to the polls this november with the belief that fixing our own problems is our first priority? >> i'll start. i think they should be equal priorities. i am one who believes we can substantially reduce a worldwide military expenditures at no cost s to our security. there is an element of people, argument for maintaining status quo and as the republicans would

do going beyond increasing military spending unlike what we have now agreed to try to restrain it, i would look to restrain it more. what we have is the notion that it is part of america's purpose that america sthuhouldn't be a nation of shop keepers, we have a moral responsibility to be the leaders of the world. i think we overestimate the ability we have to do that. i would be morally conflicted, i don't think we should be trying to build an afghanistan in iraq, a good democratic tolerant societies because i don't think you can do that with the military. i think we have a military that is very good at stopping bad things. it's not a good instrument for making good things happen in a socially complex way. i think those things are overdone. secondly, you have this -- reliance s by allies on us. there is a much greater role to be played.

libya was a good example. you got the european state to leave. they did a bad job. they needed more from us. we need to insist that for example in the mediterranean there isn't any reason why france, germany, england, spain, can't play a more aggressive role. the french have done some of that in africa. we need to pay more attention to home. reduce the deficit. we have to -- we have to curtail military spending some. increase taxes. particularly on wealthy people. and cut domestically. and that is the difference between the ic position. republicans, forget tax increases on wealthy people, forget the military, you have to spend more. take it all out of programs that enhance the quality of life here. i think that is a very grave error. >> some of the countries that we want perhaps to assume a greater role in, in defense responsibility are a little strapped themselves however. >> yeah. but -- we're also strapped. it's their defense.

we're, not talking about, poor countries. i am talking about germany, france, italy. they have a temporary problem. but, they paid much less than half of their gdp, bill talked a our 4%. they're under 2%. yeah, they're strapped. here's part of the problem -- if you look at the programs they have. medical programs and others. there are people who are giving their own citizens substantially greater social benefits than we give our citizens and that's probably because we are paying their military budget. i think it is fair to ask them. we are not asking them to subsidize. be self-sufficient. >> bill? >> i think one of the preconditions for a strong america are broad, i'm in favor of. outlined in "the world america made" and the book president obama likes and governor romney, is, i think on that count the

world would be, would have been immeasurably more dangerous. can we get allies to do more? perhaps. should we have strong alliance structures around the world? i believe so. you can wish, germany, sweden, italy, france, do, spend more on defense. you can wish they would be more responsible in stopping genocide in africa or intervening in the balkans or helping israel, those wishes aren't going to be worth much not in the near future. i was part, every administration tries to go to europe to get them to spend more on defense. it hasn't worked. now they're in the course, the position they spent a ton on welfare states and they're going broke and bankrupt doing that as well. so that's not an american in th one of the cases for real eform at home, we need to be strong at home to be strong abroad. i think a world in which we retreat, in which we cut defense spending by 30% and still can

provide security guarantees that will keep the peace in east asia, keep something like peace in most of the middle east. i mean, that will keep even peace in places like the balkans. i don't think that's practical. i think it's much too high a risk to run. even president obama thinks it's too high a risk to run. at least he's rejected those people within his own party who wanted withdrawal from afghanistan or radical cuts in the defense budget. >> bill, is there a difference between the parties on american exceptionali exceptionalism, on american responsibility? >> i don't know about -- american exceptionalism is a term, an interesting term in political science and history. i don't like particularly its use in current debate. i just don't know quite what people mean by it. america should stand for american principles. the republicans have a more pro-bust, vigorous, if you want to use less than nice

adjectives, interventionics -- i don't know what -- i'll let barney provide the negative ak j adjectives. there are many who share the view and some dissent from the view. i think there will be a difference in foreign and defense policy between president obama and governor romney. i don't think it will be reagan/carter. i'm happy the administration has moved away from an early mcgovern-ite view of the world to a more centrist, left centrist foreign policy. i still worry about a certain aspect of the foreign policy quite a bit and the defense cuts. i think a republican administration with mitt romney as president and joe lieberman as secretary of state would be a slightly better foreign policy. not slightly, it would be a better foreign policy. the second term is different from the first term. he has come back -- let's not

kid ourselves. he has come back to the center partly because of the political pressure, because of concerns about the 2012 elections. it's not just a republican ta talking point to say he was overheard saying medvedev, once my last election is over, i will have more flexibility. that is a legitimate question for people to ask as they think about who to vote for this november. >> we're merging into the closing statements in some sense, bill, i guess that is almost a closing sentence. if you can continue another couple of minutes and we'll give you two minutes, barney, to conclude the debate. not just foreign policy but on other questions as well, bill, if you could wrap up the case for republicans in 2012. >> look, i want to make the case for being open minded and taking a real look. there will be three debates, convention speeches by governor romney and president obama in late august, early september, a pick by governor romney first

and then three debates, i assume, as there have been the last several elections between romney, obama, and a vice presidential debate. people should go into those with an honest, i think, open mind. if people have strong views one way or the other they'll be committed. there will be a fair number of undecided voters and people should take a look and decide whose policies make more sense in terms of reducing this terrible debt and deficit, in terms of a strong foreign policy and whether the administration has been successful or not and what a second term of president obama would look like as opposed to. >> ra romney administration. be open-minded, think hard about the choice that is ahead. don't think about george h.w. bush or -- i'll promise not to raise the issue of george mcgovern if barney raipromises

to raise bush. and take a look at the actual real choice before us in 2012. >> thank you. >> could i just ask bill one question? i was impressed with bill's urging people to be open-minded approaching the election. are you open-minded approaching the election, bill, or is that what you're telling them to do? >> i've been open-minded. we praise the obama administration for some things. i'm partisan. some people aren't. you know who you're going to vote for, too. >> right. and i don't tell them -- i don't pretend they should be open. i would say this, if you have decided views about elements of public policy and you don't know now whether you will vote for obama or romney, something is the matter with you. >> i think that's -- i think that's really -- i think that's really a foolish statement, honestly, barney. >> nonsense. >> i know people, including people who are close who don't know who they're going to vote for and they're not stupid and

they're not uninformed. they're conflicted. they agree with the republicans on other issues. that's not an unreasonable thing for people to do. >> that's different than the open-mindedness. >> that is different -- that is different. there are a very small number of people who tend to have those conflicting views. what you were saying is be open about the whole thing, see who is on what side and, in fact, most people who are following things closely will know now who they are going to vote for. there are no surprises coming. i read the focus groups of the undecided voters. they are not an impressive group of people. they do not know a lot of things that are true and, more frankly, they are convinced of fantasies. but let me go to talk about the election. i do want to say i think bill is a little guilty here of campaigning by innuendo. there are all these obama has

moved to the center, et cetera. not a specific public policy has he shown or talked about or alluded to where obama was too far to the left from his standpoint compared to where he is today. particularly with foreign policy. in fact, obama was being criticized for talking about intervention in afghanistan and pa pakistan. this is a myth. there's no drastic change on afghanistan and iraq today. i would like him to be moving out quicker. on israel, i've seen nothing negle negative. we have a republican party to the right of ronald reagan where mitt romney attacks rick santorum for voting to raise the debt limit, where you have people advocating significant expenditures and no tax increases where they say in the ryan budget and, again, by his

own assertion, let's increase military spending so we can make cuts from what otherwise would be there in medicare and medicaid. it is a very radical agenda in the social area with regards to lesbian and gay people, with women's reproductive rights. on immigration they have been militantly anti-. the administration hasn't been successful in trying to get a more rational policy but that is, in part, because they have so willingly opposed it and people are frightened. the one encouraging thing that's happening now is that the bilingualism is coming in and they're learning to count to spanish. they're up to several million and that's having an impact. you have a very clear choice between a very right-wing faction on the republican side. i hope people will, in fact, having looked at the issues,

decide that way. >> thank you, congressman barney frank, bill kristol, "the weekly standard." thank you for being part of our debate. i would like you to make sure -- please stay in your seats. we're with b to begin the next portion of the program. please stay oop while i exit the debaters out. live coverage to tell you about. at 10:00 a.m. eastern, a house subcommittee holds a hearing to examine several legislative proposals for overhauling the federal reserve. one introduced by ron paul would abolish the federal reserve system. other proposals being considered would seek to reform the central bank. and at 3:00 eastern a senate house conference committee will work on a bill to extend funding for highway and surface transportation programs for another two years. congress passed a temporary

extension early this year which expires at the end of june. you can watch high coverage here on c-span3. and to us, north carolina will vote on a state constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. we'll talk to darlene lipper. then a discussion on the role of federal lobbying. howard marlowe joins us. and then your phone calls on what this weekend's elections in france and greece could mean for recovery efforts. watch "washington journal" at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. this week live from hohn

done, the ceremony and pageantry of the state opening of parliament. pa parliament's official opening was usually held to the end of the year with changes to their election rules it's now been moved to the spring and wednesday queen elizabeth will formally outline the government's priorities for the upcoming year. live coverage starts at 5:30 a.m. eastern on c-span2. saturdays this month, c-span radio is airing more of the nixon tapes from the collection of secretly recorded phone conversations from 1971 to 1973. this saturday at 6:00 p.m. eastern hear conversations with deputy national security adviser alexander haig. >> very significant, this "new york times" expose. the most highly classified documents of the war. >> oh, that! i see. i didn't read the story. you mean that was leaked out of

the pentagon? >> sir, there's a whole study done for mcnamara and carried on after mcnamara left by clifford. this is a devastating security breach. >> listen at 90.1 f.m., on xm channel 119 and at c-span radio. robert zoellick cautioned against a top down approach when it comes to international development work, and he called on the u.s. to get its fiscal house in order. he was speaking at a conference hosted by the group interaction, an alliance of u.s.-based international relief ngos. mr. zoellick completes his five-year term in june and will be succeeded by dartmouth president kim. it is a great pleasure to welcome to the interaction

forum, mr. bob zoellick. i think it is telling that during his tenure, and i think i'll address you as bob since we've known each other for a while. bob has not only led one of the institutions in the world but has done so in a manner that has been based for significant recognition not only of the role of civil society but civil society as a fundamental partner and critical player in the development space. as you all know bob zoellick tame from the private sector as the vice chairman international of goldman sachs group but also someone who has devoted years of public service whether as deputy

secretary of state or a career in terms of time as the 13th u.s. trade representative. an individual who is perhaps the best of what a public servant is, someone with both dedication, knowledge, and a vision for change. we're going to have a brief conversation and thought we could explore a number of topics before we turn it to you, our audience, and there will be some mikes for that. perhaps the place to start is as you end a term, a very successful tenure at world bank, legacy of accomplishments, transparency, a client approach.

if you had to sort of reflect back and look at where do you think you have left the mark and then we'll turn a little bit to the future after that. >> okay. well, first, sam, let me thank you. you, in particular, and interaction have been a great partner for the bank. and for all the people in the audience, i was reminded that i think i participated in this forum from london in a video conference a couple years ago. it's a great forum. and you've had as i understand it a very successful three days in terms of covering a wide variety of topics and from a brief exchange with sam, i had a sense in some ways what you've been discussing is a similar aspect what i would have been trying to do at the bank over the past five years, which is to see how the bank fits into a larger network or ecosystem of partners and how to leverage and draw from one another and sam has been extremely helpful in many different aspects. so thanks to you.

i guess when i reflect on my tenure at the bank, i tend to think of three phases. it's been a busy five years, that's for sure. the world economy has been a little bit in turmoil. but the first part was the institution faced its own time of troubles and so there was an internal turn around that one had to focus on. and as a compliment to the bank staff, my judgment was that the sooner we got people focused on the mission of the bank that the sooner they would move away from the gossip that occurs in every institution. and so i tried to focus people on some core strategic themes and that judgment turned out to be right, which is the reason people come to the bank because they're deeply committed, want to accomplish important things. those are challenging issues but getting people refocused is an

important part. second, as you know, we work closely on interaction with this. i came to the bank in july of 2007. by later that year we were starting to get worrisome signs in terms of food prices and i think we also talked at the time, there was an article that had come out "lance et" as nutrition is the latest development goal. we quickly had food, fuel and financial crisis. it was very important for the bank not only to respond in a big way, more flexibly, more quickly. we had about a quarter of a trillion dollars of financial support across all aspects of bank throughout that period but as important as the money was the type of things we did with interaction and many others and u.n. agencies in the foods and seeds area and the flexible type

of support that you need to offer for countries that are, frankly, redding virgin grounds in terms of the challenges they face. the third phase, in a sense, was running throughout as we've gotten to the past couple of years we're able to focus more on it, which is to try to modernize the institution. one of the themes that i've stressed is the need to modernize multi-lateralism. i often view things from a historical perspective because i have a great love of history and so i look at the world bank as one of the bretton wood institutions created in world war ii for one set of functions. if you think about the issues that people were trying to deal with in that era, which is currency, exchange rates, reconstruction, trade, those issues haven't gone away, they've been transformed. so the institutions -- some

people feel you should do away with institutions. i think they play a critical role as a thin interconnecting tissue among sovereign states that still have to make decisions but you have to make them better. there are a loft aspects of that modernization of the financial agenda. we got the first capital increase of the bank in 22 years in the area for of 79 poorest states we were able to raise about $90 billion for those countries over the past five years and then a second area is something that i know you feel very strongly about which is to try to open up the institution. and this we created the first freedom of information act for a multi-lateral institution but equally or if not more important we've opened up all our data sources, so 7,000 data sets

going back to the late 40s and we continue to expand that. so the idea is not only to make it available but to help develop applications so people may tap into our household survey data, going back and maybe add to it in different aspects. and this is important because not only does it sort of forces institution to be open to a variety of voices, but it's part of a larger idea that i've been suggesting about the need to democratize development, move it away from sort of elite economists and universities that say thou shalt do this and that and instead work with people from communities to capitals and try to figure out how they perceives problems and how we can have an interactive process. this has huge potential. if you think about it, you can get on our website, call up a

country, find out where all our projects are. if you want to get interactive, you can go to a village and say this is how you see what's going on and this is how we see what's going on. as you think about civil society, these are groups that can help you catch corruption, that can help you assess the performance of social services. these are groups that can help you determine, you know, what are the priorities of the community? so it's a huge shift from the notion of a big, bureaucratic, elite institution in washington to a much more networked system. and there are also aspects of modernization, how to draw private call tall in, connect us with trade agendas, integrate the public good agenda with an agenda that's normally focused on countries, whether it's oceans or climate change or some of the other broader iue