>> george mason university president on the role of higher education and training information technology professionals, tonight on the quality the communicator's." -- " beat the communicators." >> how was he spent funded? grants and -- >> grants and stuff like that. >> donations. >> i don't know where the money comes from. >> it comes from donors. >> how is c-span funded? america's cable companies created c-span as a public- service. no government mandate, no government money. .

>> good morning, everybody. thank you very much. it is wonderful to be with friends and colleagues, mayors and those in law enforcement leadership, and certainly, those representing the line level police officers and sheriff's deputies and state troopers. it is a great, diverse group of people. i think the end result will be that you will learn far more from each other and from the programs and plans that are going out in the communities and perhaps -- than perhaps you will from someone like me standing behind the podium. the attorney general talked about being smart on crime, and i want to talk about being smart on drugs.

i have spent nearly 40 years in law enforcement -- i do not know which is worse -- these decades -- 37 years. we are going to have to come up with some new script writers to try to take the gray out. i think the link the experience gives me a great perspective on crime -- the lengthy experience gives me a great perspective on crime. when i was chief, we listed everyone in the community. it was described as a city of zero decaffeinated liberals. it was a great nine years. we had a bumper sticker processing our product. you could not have enough and put in any program or project, but i think that is a valuable lesson that is not just shared, certainly in seattle. it is an incredibly valuable lesson that all of you will bring to this form of -- forum

today, and that is that a lot of different people with different voices should be brought in. we do not own the crime problem. we all own it. and we do not own in law enforcement the drug problem. we all on it. there are ways to do that. i was delighted that crime was down so low at the time that i left, but i could not have been more pleased in that i had such a great partner working with the mayor in bringing people to the table to end with a 40-year low in crime. i want to follow the same process here. i have been on an airplane every week since the first week. in three and a half months, i have traveled all over this country from boston to key west and baltimore to california, to mexico, and a number of other

places, but this ability to have this chance to listen to lots of different people. so i have had these opportunities not only to attend roll calls in boston and national in manhattan and listen to law enforcement officers on the front line or to go hiking in the sierra nevadas and watching shares deputies in collaboration with dea and in collaboration with department of interior officials, i get this opportunity to listen to what they had to say about crime and about drugs in particular, and i could not be more encouraged about the levels of collaboration. are there concerns, certainly, that are brought up about the funding issues and funding extremes? yes. have really smart people of good will work very hard to overcome those areas and come up with good ways of making progress? not just in dealing with the crimes involved in drugs, but

the heartbreak to communities and neighborhoods. the obama administration looks at addiction as a disease. if you were to ask me 10 years ago as a police chief about addiction, i would have clearly said i do not understand what is wrong with people and why they cannot fix themselves and why they cannot inject some self discipline and on and on. clearly, if you read the research, you understand that addiction is a disease. it is a treatable, diagnosable, chronic illness that has an age of onset from about 12 to 21, and figuring out how to prevent it and how to treat it is unbelievably important, and it is not through just a public safety problem -- it is a public safety problem. it is also a public health problem. i think one of the best editorialists and one of the most forward leaning remarks that i have seen, i saw an

editorial not that long ago where they asked about how as a longtime administrator in law enforcement, what people needed from law enforcement in order to reduce crime. he said he would give every officer two cards -- one is for treatment on demand so that someone could walk in who needs the drug treatment and rehab, which does work, and he said the second card he gives them is a card for a job. so it was not just about more police or more jails or just more technology. it was about being smart on drugs. as you on know, -- as you all know, washington only does so much and can only do so much. we can set policies and provide financial resources, but the daily task of addressing the safety issues on the streets and in the courtrooms through a variety of mechanisms all falls

on your shoulders. i cannot think of a more difficult job than being a police chief in any size city or community or of being an elected sheriff or being an elected mayor or city manager in these communities. really tough issues in which the rubber meets the road. we have a couple of programs that are would like to mention to you that i think could be helpful. many of you take advantage of them already, but the drug free communities -- refund about 600 communities, and the drug free communities are locally run -- we find about 600 communities. they have a lot of participation from a wide variety of elements. those are the grass roots people that actually know what is going on in their communities, and lo and behold, they actually know what they need to do with a little technical assistance and a little advice and a little help from ondcp and a number of

other organizations. they actually know how to fix these things. the high-intensity drug trafficking areas -- they exist and have for a long time in 28 different areas of the country. they are locally run, although they are funded by ondcp. there executive director works for a local board, and we provide guidance and technology in some funding, but if you think of an organization that actually has made a significant difference, particularly with the support of the drug enforcement administration -- and i want to thank the acting administrator for all of her support. you think of a program that actually works and does well, it is this one. they share information among state, local, and federal law enforcement entities about crime and problems, and they shared it long before 9/11. they shared it long before the 9/11 commission report said that we should be doing more

information sharing. they also have on their boards prevention and treatment components, who said as board members. for a number of years, they have not looked at this as just more arrests or more seizures, the kinds of things that congressman scott brought up that in the long run are self-defeating and not helpful to our communities. they looked at it in a way that is holistic, and that is very much what we would like to do. we would also like to see that we are faster off the mark on particular issues. mayor murphy is here from iowa. if you have not read his book, i would encourage you to read that book. it talks about a variety of issues, particularly in a small city, but it also tells you that when small cities and communities in the heartland or in the west, where i just spent the last nine years, the mayor had problems with a new drug or

a particular drug problem, it should not take years for the information to get to washington, d.c., and it should not take a number of ph.d.'s -- it should not take years of analysis to say that we have a problem and we need to get on this very quickly. we hope that people in the communities will act as weathervane so we can address this earlier. if you look at where i think they did a very good job, because there are very smart, very dedicated people in the organization, will only want to do things to lessen the harm to communities from drugs and to make community safer, where we did a very good job, i think, is on our media campaign and particularly nonprescription drugs. more kids are getting involved in drug abuse through medicine cabinets than through any drugs

right now coming across a border. so we need to look at the commercials that were done with our media campaign, particularly during the super bowl, in which there is a guy who is a drug dealer standing out from behind a convenience store saying, "don't blame me for your kids drug problem. it is coming out of your medicine cabinet." we had an opportunity on the media campaign, which is a really well done campaign, and the messages are tested. unfortunately, you will see the messages on tv and say the you do not get it. let me clue you in -- the messages are not for people that are in their decades now. the messages are four and a lot younger people. i listened to a group of seventh grade girls talking about testing messages, and they were talking about farm plugging, and i was so naive as to sit back to talk about by the in maryland

and out in nebraska, etc. and these are seventh grade girls. they are actually adorable, just unbelievably cute kids, talking about getting pills from the medicine cabinet and then all getting together and then taking these pills. the obama administration intends to address a number of these issues. the campaign is very good. many of you know that drug induced overdose deaths now exceed gunshot wounds in this country. i have met representatives, and -- i have met representatives now some three states that now say that drug induced overdose deaths exceed heart rashes -- car crashes within their states. this is a significant problem. we have lost a number of people to h1n1, sadly, in this country. at the same time that h1n1 was hitting our shores, we have literally lost thousands of people to drug-induced overdose

deaths. there are other things, one of which i wanted to touch on, particularly on the importance of treatment behind the walls. as congressman scott talked about people coming out of prison, if they went into jail in prison with the same kind of problem and no treatment, and they are released back into your communities and back into your neighborhoods, it should not take another ph.d. to tell you that you will probably have many of the same problems. so these are areas, whether it is in the second chance act, whether it is a range of course -- whether it is in drug course -- they are all important. we have seen a lot of innovative programs. i have been told, as many of my colleagues and probably some of you in this room also, that treatment for methamphetamine

does not work. it is not addictive. in three and a half months, i have met probably a dozen methamphetamine attics that are back in their communities, back in their neighborhoods, being productive, back with their families, and as i talk about my decades in law enforcement, paying taxes, so i look a social security in the future, and i'm very glad they are back there and doing so well paying taxes. i am absolutely convinced after traveling every week for three and a half months and will travel a lot more that there is no shortage of good ideas when it comes to reducing crime and combating gang violence and reducing illicit drug use, and the secret is that not all great innovative programs are developed within the beltway. in fact, i know that is shocking to some of you, but they are developed out in the communities. i had this wonderful opportunity

thanks to the president and vice president, to not only go out and see these things, but then to share the stories of these successes with others across the country. these are often done, again, at the grassroots movement, and they are done among people that trust each other and support each other. they have very hard and difficult conversations about what is the right way to go about fixing these problems, but without question, they are the people that are down in the trenches. whether it is the law enforcement officer, the schoolteacher, the social service director. we know that resources are always limited. they were limited when we had $16 billion in the cops program. they will continue to be limited, but we also know that new initiatives and new partnerships and new opportunities, particularly in our ability to sustain those, is critical and crucial as the states and local governments look at some pretty tough times. building on this kind of infrastructure is the best way

to protect communities and to reduce crime and to reduce substance abuse. you will be learning from each other. you will be sharing amongst each other today. i think that at the end of the day, you should be very satisfied with the level of interaction and support in the fact back -- that this is an administration that is clearly intent on listening to you and figuring out high up in our way we can be supportive and helpful. i have spent almost my entire career at local government. i think i have a good appreciation for that, and i could not be more honored to be part of colleagues like the attorney general, eric holder, or to work with friends on capitol hill like congressman bobby scott, and many others as we develop some new ways and some innovative ways of looking at our drug problem in this country. thank you all very much. [applause] [captioning performed by

national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> more coverage of health care issues coming up in about 45 minutes. economists look at rising health-care costs and the effects on u.s. industries. until then, throughout the month of august, "washington journal" is speaking with authors of new books. here is one and jimmy carter. ring host: what sort of political -- what shaped jimmy carter's political background and views? guest: jimmy carter had a liberal left ideological world view. he saw the world through the eyes of -- that people such as committee were a human rights

movement, and little george washington's -- he actually still does today. washington. he still does today. host: didn't jimmy carter run as sort of a washington outsider, bought part of a liberal or otherwise establishment? guest: he did, but so did barack obama. they both ran out hope and change. host: but barack obama had been a member of the senate. guest: that's true. one was a governor. some would argue that the governor has more experience than a senator. nevertheless, they ran against an unpopular president and an unpopular war could for carter, it was nixon and watergate. for obama, it was bush and iraq. host: the heart anof your book

is jimmy carter's views on the middle east and broadly on terrorism, it specifically on middle eastern relations could you describe it as carter-obama plan that will not work. tell us what you think it will not work. guest: the first thing i have to do is set the scene for the plan. when jimmy carter came into office, because he saw the shot of iran as a conservative republican alpa -- shah of iran as a conservative republican ally, he took the position that this had to go. they had a twin bill of doctor and which richard nixon developed -- twin pillar doctrine which richard nixon developed with a strong iran was in america's best interest. carter did not believe that and did not want a strong iran. he looked to a man in france who

was only there for months. that is what intrigues me to read the book. -- write the book. how could a refugee go to france in four months and accumulate the firepower and the money and resources to overthrow country? it did not seem possible to me. that is why i researched this. israel is our proxy. it has been a party of the united states back to the cold war. host: does that mean? guest: america has used israel to do its fighting and the middle east. during the cold war, we cannot fight a war in the middle east. the deployment time is not probable. we had places like diego garcia that we would have to go through. it was impossible for us to fight a six-way -- six-day war in the middle east. all the battles against communism, we were paying israel to assist us. they were our proxy.

the new course of the 21st century are proxy wars. host: i want you to address the comment on khomeini in paris. guest: he shows up from najaf, iraq, and he is a refugee. the president said he did not know who he was when he arrived. i did not believe that, but he said he did not know who he was. the first thing we find out is almost 1000 individuals a day, 1000 individuals a day, are coming out to the chateau west of paris. we are finding out that tourists are going through the airport and they are not -- terrorists are going through the airport and they are not being stopped. the french put in another show -- they only do two a day, short shows, but they did another just

to cover khamenei. host: are you say that the u.s. government was behind supporting him in paris? guest: as the french were and the british were, and it ended up in a summit in guadalupe which confirmed it all. host: did in the revolution in iran happen first, before khomeini was in paris? the was already a nascent movement there, was there not? guest: mosques, mullis, and madrasahs -- mullahs, and madrasahs but my contacts on the ground, ambassadors i talk to, said it was run through the mosques. khomeini was firing through the mosques with cassette tapes every week. listen, they were sending money in to him, he was getting enormous amounts of money, covertly.

host: but back to the u.s. interests, why would it be part of the u.s. interests to have someone like him support that if the world view of khomeini was anti-u.s.? guest: because carter did i see him as anything but a ghani-like figure -- did not see him as anything but a 90-like figure. he had a team of leftists who thought he would be a cleric and good for human rights, or as he thought the shah was a republican-loving mark who needed to be overthrown. -- monarchs who needed to be overthrown. host: we will go to calls now. good morning to give the and in austin, texas.

caller: i think carter was one of the best presidents we have ever had if we would have stuck to his plan, -- he had a plan under way to get us off dependence on foreign oil. he put solar panels on the white house. and you are just a corporate mouthpiece for the dark oil companies. the same things were going on then, oil companies influence, is going on now, and you are just part of that. carter was the best present we have had and we have not had one like him since. guest: i think he was a wonderful ex-president i have a problem with a president that sends $50 million to the muslim brotherhood in egypt and bombs at up to $90 million, and it becomes known as al qaeda, because he wants to find the afghan [applause] -- the afghan which had been.

we are fighting them because of that operation. the russians were very worried about the destabilization of iran, and they were extremely worried in july of that year, 1979, when carter started moving some of his people into afghanistan, and the russians threaten to invade. it is our real problem. there are a lot more facts out there than most people know. host: that caller talked about jimmy carter's view on energy, some of his famous speeches about a war over energy. do you write about his views on energy at the time? guest: yes, indeed. jimmy carter created a lot of economic problems for the united states. sure, he wanted to do something about energy, but we see something that happened with energy. the price of oil went through the roof. because the destabilization of the middle east under carter's watch. he was obsessed with one thing, i think it was a good thing, but he was obsessed with it, and

that was peace between israel and egypt. i was advising men often been at the time. -- advising menachim begin at the time and i know the story well. he put everything else on the back burner, including our revolution was beginning in iran, a shiite revolution that has destabilized the entire world. host: it is coming on this third anniversary of the takeover of the u.s. embassy in iran -- the 30th anniversary of the takeover of the u.s. embassy in iran. how much did that heard jimmy carter's presidency? guest: that was the existential nail in the coffin. you had a dilemma for jimmy carter that he could not get out of jimmy carter was, i believe, a kind man. he did not want morris, he did not want to fight with people. -- w he did -- wars -- he did

not want wars, he did not want to fight with people. he said you cannot kidnap a holy man. host: back to the u.s. supporting khomeini, how does it make sense that khomeini would allow this takeover happen if the u.s. had provided some sort of support for him in paris or wherever? how does that jibe with the fact that the embassy was taken hostage for over a year? guest: in fact, the embassy was working at the destabilization of iran. sullivan, the ambassador at the time, was working with the clerics, opposition figures, to undermine the shah and they had but his palace. motorola set up the operation there for the phone services. i met with quite a number of the people who were involved in it. the cia really believed that the shah was not good for iran, and

the only guy in town that seemed to have the voice of the people of iran was khomeini, so carter had a program that was designed -- was to find plausible deniability. they had a contact there were working with you had a direct access to khomeini, even though carter said he never had direct access to khomeini. caller: good morning, gentlemen. first, i would like to know if you're just as appeared on fox news yet. guest: i have been on the fox news quite a lot as a middle east analyst. caller: that seems to be rather obvious. first, i'd like to point that unlike mr. bush and cheney and reagan, jimmy carter was a noble, decorated man who served his country in the military. i think that needs to be pointed out. you are all over the place with your selective history.

you don't have any quibbles about mr. reagan misleading the american people and continuing with the republican leadership to say no negotiations with tear wrists, when everybody knows about the secret negotiations, the delays of the terrorists. mr. obama finds off in an economic -- finds himself an economic disaster much like the one mr. carter finds itself in, and we see the republicans playing the game of trying to blame the trillion dollar debt as it of their administration on the following democratic administration. guest: you know, i did not write a book on reagan or bush. truthfully, i did not support the iraq war. i wrote a book against that, before bush went to war in iraq i said the war would not begin until it ends. on a rake and, i was with the

marines -- on ronald reagan, i was with the marines in beirut 1240 of them were killed by iran, hezbollah. i filled those kids the night before because they're not going come to christmas so that they could say something to their moms and dads. i could see their faces right now. i am well aware that ronald reagan himself pulled@@@@mha you are right about your facts on reagan and some of the other presidents, but the book is not about them. host: minnesota, good morning on our republican line. caller: a couple of things i want to mention. president carter prosy national security adviser has this idea that the soviet union is surrounded by islamic countries that will prevent the soviet

union empire from expanding into countries like iran, afghanistan, and so on. expanding into afghanistan and so on but they thought it was best to remove the shah from power and have an islamist that would obviously be against an atheist type of government. they had this idea and it went forward with it. today, most of the problems that western nations are facing in the middle east and afghanistan is as a result of jimmy carter's mistakes with iran and afghanistan. the creation of hezbollah, hamas, iran at turning into a bully, all as a result of shah being deposed. the cia director of carter has appeared on the show you are on right now and has not denied that the cia was against overthrowing the shah. guest: you have your facts precisely correct. i agree with you on those facts.

nobody wants to tell the truth on this matter. it is not convenient for people to say that the crisis in afghanistan was greeted by us. brzezinski, who you mentioned, in july of that year, warned carter -- if we continue this course, the russians are going to invade afghanistan. carter did not listen to him. it is true. the soviets were very worried about destabilization of the muslim bordering countries, and they threaten to before it ever happen. i wrote articles called " blowback" on it. if we win, we lose. you cannot put $10 billion of money into pakistan and create a terrorist network funded and feel it and she did and if they win, we lose. it was a real problem. host: you write in the book that --

guest: yes. listen, the saudis right now are shopping for a nuclear reactor. they know that their 400-mile wall that they built between iraq and saudi arabia will not sustain them on a 200-mile gulf with the nuclear atomic country the shiites number only 100 million, maybe 120 million, where you have 1 billion sunnis. we are talking about a

trillion-dollar nuclear arms race among all the oil states if the shiite states goes nuclear. this would have been prevented a totally if carter had not stepped into the pot with iran and had actually supported democracy. host: in your view, what israel be justified with a pre-emptive strike on an iranian nuclear facility? guest: well, i have never been a proponent of that. i hope and pray that there are other alternatives. ahmadinejad is coming here for the united nations in september. what i lobbied for in 1988 when yasir arafat was coming was for the president to not give him a visa. ahmadinejad is a fraudulent president the iranian people -- many people are still in prison and tortured over him. if we justify this fraudulent election, this could be a huge sign to the iranian people and a world that we will not tolerate this type of things and

marginalize and islamic regime. that is the last resort. we should try to avoid any cost. host: and on the democrats' line for mike evans. caller: jimmy carter was interviewed on one of those programs, and he was saying that any congressman or senator voted against the government of israel -- giving israel money, they would never be reelected again. can you elaborate on that, tell me what he was talking about? guest: i met with carter's people around the end of his presidency, and one of his key guys that i met with -- there was such animosity that he told me carter had towards the jews but he blamed the jews for the loss of his election. this gentleman told me in the white house that. for some reason, he just developed a really bad attitude.

begin did not like carter. menachem begin would meet with him after the presidency. carter developed a real attitude towards the jews and israel and still has it today. host: jacksonville, florida, independent line. caller: i will ask a question and then make a comment. you claim any party, a democrat, republican, independent? if you do, where do think we would be at now without the peacekeeping force that president carter put into the middle east between egypt and israel to watch over those two countries? i think israel and egypt is a big piece of the puzzle in the middle east. if carter had not did what he did, i wonder where we would be at today, sir.

guest: look, i agree with you on egypt and israel could actually, it was not carter. i know the story well. it was begin and sadat who put the deal together. carter was opposed to it. he was trying to bring the soviets into the peace process. sadat was opposed to thaand so was begin and carter back down and changed his tune and he ended up taking a lot of credit for it. nevertheless, the peace accord was brilliant, and worked, even the carter did not develop the plan. he did participate in it at camp david and did a good job at camp david, reasonably good. yes, i support that program totally. i think that is something that carter should get a lot of credit for. host: former president carter continues to have a role or presence in middle east peace discussions. world leaders push for mideast peace.

several world leaders, including president jimmy carter, plan to visit israel on the west bank in an effort to advance the peace process. the international middle east center said that the group will arrive in israel on monday but will not visit the gaza strip during the trip. the visit is aimed at trying to push barack obama's peace policy forward and encourage israel and palestinians advance peace and reconciliation. are the goals of the former president in sync with what president obama would like to see in the middle east? guest: i don't think so. it is interesting, the animosity between clinton and carter. he has not been in step with most of the past presidents, and has created a lot of animosity with that. carter is coming in under our organization called the elders. bishop tutu was a bus to come with him -- host: desmond tutu?

guest: yes. i do not know if he is still with him to read if you take the term elders and you go to the jews and say to the jews that we want to have a peace program called the elders, would you like to meet with us, they get very nervous. the great book that traded most of the anti-semitism is called "the elders of the protocols of his eye ozion." it is the number-one selling book in the muslim world outside of the car on -- out of the koran. appropriate smith's, and that is a news story today with a swedish -- it propagates mix, and that is that news story today with the swiss journalist talking up the selling of organs by israelis. but his belief system is that -- is precisely the same. hamas should be recognized breed is a terrorist organization, but carter did -- and as should be

recognized. it is a terrorist organize asian, but carter does not seek -- terrorist organization, but carter does not see it as one. host: california, sally for mike evans, republican colubr-- repun caller. caller: i am sorry to say that i voted for jimmy carter, like a lot of people that, because of its it was more against keeping gerald ford in print, thank you for writing this book about jimmy carter. i remember his presidency very well. after he turned the country into chaos, and unemployment soared, he turned around like a true democrat and taxed our unemployment. he was the first president that did that. i remember it very well. that is the better of what he did.

i hope this was in your book. i remember the interview with a reporter when the reporter asked jimmy carter, "do you mean that anyone coming to our borders seeking political asylum, we will give it to them? he hesitated and then said, "well, yes." that was the beginning of our downfall. anyone who wanted the two magic words, political asylum, we had to take them in. that is when our country -- easterners began to flood the country. barbara walters even did a segment on it on "20/20" program. i used to travel back and forth between new york and france, and it got so bad. when i would come to customs, they would not even ask for my passport, and they would just put me through. i would say, "how do you know i am an american?" dewitt said, "just go through,

we know." it was not until i saw the program that barbara walters in that i realized they were letting me come through, because they had to let these people through that customs agents themselves said release scary. guest: well, i also voted for jimmy carter. host: both times? guest: no, the first time he ran. because of my faith, i thought this was going to be a wonderful president. we claim to be an evangelical -- he claimed to be an evangelical and he said all the right things but because of my personal fit, i thought it was so great. -- because of my personal faith, i thought it was so great. i was excited about his presidency. i did not understand at the time. i was in washington, d.c., with a general who was dying and crying, and he was the general who was sent by carter to iran to work with the military, and he told me, "i caused the death

of these men. i lied to them." most of the top leaders in iran were tortured and executed. they were allies of the united states, but the general said, "i was sent there to neutralize them and keep them from a military coup." to was horrified. that upset me when i talked to the general and realize some of the things that actually with the truth about the dilemma. host: of you were sent as a tweet. -- a viewer sent in a tweed. do you think he is an anti- semite? guest: i don't recall calling him an anti-semite. that is a dangerous word to use. i don't think he is an anti- semite. now, i am not going to build a case for him based upon being a nobel peace prize winner, because yasir arafat was also, who killed leon klinghoffer,

threw him over in a wheelchair and was this possible for the munich massacre, and over 1100 terrorist attacks. just because you got a nobel peace prize winner does not put you in great stay with the world. carter, i don't believe, was an anti-semite, but i do believe that carter is completely wrong about his position on the jews and the state of israel, and has been on the rocks at of history on virtually everything lightly. -- wrong side of history and virtually everything lately. host: what did the camp david accords fail? guest: they did not fail. how did they fail? host: in the long run, division of middle east peace. guest: guest: i think that the fundamental premise was correct. carter did not seem to understand where bacon was coming from. he said he had eighth list of

cities in america named after the bible like bethlehem, pa.. i said to the president, with the governor of pennsylvania say that everyone could live in bethlehem accept the blacks? ? except the blacks? >> he said of course not. i asked how he could ask me to do that because this was the original. he had a real problem because bacon did not agree to divide jerusalem. he did not agree. saying it. even his secretary said that we did not agree to these things. the camp david accords failed because carter was trying to solve all the problems in the middle east at once. he wanted a complete solution to everything at once. israel was the center of gravity

at that time, seemingly, on all of the problems. he still thinks that the center of gravity for all the problems -- that is not true. when you have iran, a terrorist state, most of it mahdi army with hamas, there is a lot of problems in the middle east besides israel. host: james, democrats line. caller: thank you for taking my call. mr. evans is the first person who has ever caused me to stay on line long enough to get on line. i'm a first-time caller. thank you very much i am an ex-navy man, and jimmy carter was one of the reasons i joined the navy in 1973 he was a wonderful man, and the things that he felt about people are totally anathema to what this man is saying.

he just upsets me so much. the first thing he did was dehumanize ayatollah khamenei who did nothing but try to protect his country. if you put the shah of iran in charge of my country, i would hope that i would have the guts to fight him back. the center of gravity is still israel. you don't have to be anti- semitic to disagree with the treatment of the palestinians. you don't have to be anti- semitic to disagree with the fact that one small country as hegemony over an entire region. host: his views are echoed by of the work or whites on twitter -- writes on twitter -- guest: well, there is an issue here with what nation?

i never heard of a palestinian language, flag, culture. there is not any. all that was created. i debated someone in madrid who said to not distort my reality. she said, "bethlehem as a muslim village where the first palestinian was born, jesus christ." i do not agree with that premise, the palestinian press. you have a refugee problem that the arab world that does not want to resolve. in order to support an enemy, you have to have an army for an enemy, and israel becomes the enemy to justify their armies. the palestinians have been pawns. they have been exploited by everyone, including the muslim world. the refugee problem is the center of gravity for all of it. nobody wants to stop it. i met with the prime minister of jordan and said, "the

palestinians were passports, why can you resolve the problem?" he said, "we would be delighted to, but we cannot get the support of the arab league." host: you mentioned being an adviser of menachem begin. what is your background in the middle east? guest: i became involved as a very young man. the senior advisor to the prime minister became my mentor. he introduced me to the founder of mossad. and i must tell you this story and i will try to make it short. in some to more 23rd, 1980, i had dinner and i said, "do you think terrorism will come to america?" "if terrorists have the will but not the power, that could change in time, and the first terrorist

attack would be in new york city in your tallest building." he predicted that the world trade tower was be hit -- would be hit as the first target because it was a phallic fertility symbol. he said that sadat would be assassinated. any said ronald reagan would be elected president and he puts his hand on the bible, the hostages would be released. i was shocked. rubén called me that moment and said that he was right. carter wire transferred $7.9 billion from the federal reserve to the bank of england and find documents -- signed a document to buy back the hostages. host: what were his, -- what were his options at the time? host the ba -- guest: the backward options had failed. he did not want a military

option. when you give a terrorist regimes $7.8 billion and respect the territorial integrity, you are sending a signal that crime pays we need to deal with that militarily and we needed to deal with it quick. he would not do that. host: mike evans with us until 10:00 eastern, talking about his book, "jimmy carter: the liberal left and world chaos." thomas, good morning. caller: will you write down these two names for me? guest: short. caller: they took jimmy carter and sued him over the panama canal. they went to the supreme court. when she walked to the supreme court, she said, "i'm a legislator, a teacher, and a professor. i am a lawyer for the supreme

court." they went and checked her documents. she is a lawyer who sued jimmy carter over the panama canal, said it was unconstitutional for him to do that. the lawsuit has never been heard from after she left. the woman has passed on now. but the lawsuit is still there and nobody has ever talked about the panama canal and el salvador and nicaragua and colombia to -- the columbia pact for the portrait that jimmy carter left in. guest: i am not familiar with a loss of -- with the lawsuit so i cannot speak to it. listen, jimmy carter has a belief system. he actually believes that most of these human organizations that we call terrorist organizations argument rights movements. -- are human rights movements that have not matured. if we are going to fight a war

on terror, we have to define it with more clarity. somebody has to be a terrorist. right now jimmy carter does not use the word terrorist. host: what is your view of the work he has done with his carter center? guest: i think that the carter center is a front for the arab league. the an oblique puts enormous amounts of money into the carter center -- the arab league puts enormous amounts of money into the carter center and jimmy carter is there poster boy. and talking about the ones that are anti-israel, finally taking the position -- fundamentally taking the position that "carter is our man." habitat for to manatee is wonderful. ." and for that. but i do not -- habitat for humanity is wonderful. god bless him for that. but i do not have any respect for the carter center. caller: someone finally what

about saying how horrible jimmy carter's presidency was. he was the worst president of the 20 was century. the unrest in the middle east is due to him. they did not do it because they finally saw their shot in 1979, 1980, because they saw that we had an unfit president, and that is what started all of people taking shots at the u.s. from the middle east. if anyone else is president at the time, they would not dare do that. that led up eventually to the impact in 2001, when they started taking attacks against the west and they should not let him go around being ambassador for the u.s. if he has something to say, don't say nothing at all. guest: well, thank you. i met twice with the empress of iran in this city. the wife of that shah.

i said to her, what was your has been thinking when carter was pressuring him? to release political prisoners who were fundamentally khomeini 's people but to give freedom of the press to the radical islamic movement in iran. what was your has been thinking? who knows where or will come into the world of carter continues with this pressure -- what a horrible, into the world if carter continues with this pressure? she told me this, and then i remember reading about osama's number, the number he gave us when he had us on 9/11, the number of moslems that were killed. i checked on the approximate number of moslems killed in the iran-iraq war and the afghan war, and it was fundamentally the same number.

osama, even the terror is never justified, had taken that as a reason to attack us. i think there is a lot of truth to what carter did. i met with the iranians when ahmadinejad came to the united states the first time. i brought up the name and george ball, and the ball report is another reason i wrote the book, because it was a plan to overthrow iran. when i mentioned the report, they were shocked that i knew about george ball and his 18- page report. if iran was still our allies, he would not have an islamic revolution in iran, i don't believe, he would not have had the russians invading afghanistan, you would not have the iran-iraq war and you certainly would not at al qaeda. yes, in fact, i think the united states made terrible mistakes in the middle east. it could do it intentionally? no, i don't he did it intentionally.

caller: i hear a lot of discussion about carter's relationship with aipac and the israeli lobby. i worked on carter's 1980 pennsylvania primary campaign. it was the first time i ever worked on the campaign at that level. it was fascinating to watch what happened, because about two or three days before the pennsylvania primary, a vote came up to the u.s. security council. our then-representative donald mchenry abstained. literally, within hours, the apec groups and all the other jewish groups, especially -- aipac groups and all the other jewish groups in mobilized, and we heard the stuff they were calling carter on phone calls, and literally, that is why we lost the pennsylvania primary to kennedy. less than ours. for me, it would never work on a campaign at that level, it was an eye opener to see the kind of power aipac has.

host: you are talking about 1976? guest: no, 1983 i do not know if it was a pack at the time, -- gue19 now, 1980. i do not know if it was aipac at the time we little israel, the great jewish northeast, if all went for kennedy. later on, you find out, no wonder every politician on the hill is scared to death of aipac. host: does that correspond to the research you want done? guest: no, not really. i have had this discussion with bibi netanyahu. i was advising him for his first position.

we have discussed this, and we laugh about it, because a aipac is not that big an organization as far as that in -- as far as economics. but what they do is mobilize the christian community. you don't have that many jews in the senate or the congress, but you have an awful lot of christians. if you look back to the days of harry truman, you find that a lot of harry truman's decisions to do what he did were based on his biblical beliefs system. he read the bible through by the age of 12 place. he had a strong bible belize. a lot of evangelical christians and america. they are a big lobby. host: tennessee. caller: i forget the man's name. host: mike evans. caller: thanks for c-span.

he is using a lot of work games, but he is right about the nobel peace prize not being that important, because they give it to henry kissinger. give it to henry kissinger. i think jimmy . . . here are my two questions. please do not evade them again to what branch of the military did you ever served, and what is your party affiliation? since you said you are evangelical, i am pretty sure you are one of the neocons. i am enjoying your book our this month. i hope to continue this. guest: i served in the army, i guest: i served in the army, i was a the army. i was not in thethe vietnam, but i served in a hospital in korea. i was horrified when i came back from korea because people were spitting on me and calling@@@@@

honestly, and embarrass republican. i do not agree but a lot of the positions that have been taken in the last few years within the republican party. questions. host: you write in the book about@@@@@@@@"" the truth is that the entire nightmare can be traced back to the liberal democratic policies and the old rural liberal left this -- leftist, jimmy carter. but wasn't it president bush's decision to go into iraq and afghanistan not based on carter policies, but based on the attacks of 9/11? guest: do have a summit in the french island of guadeloupe with the french president, the

german chancellor and the british prime minister. those three met there. host: what you're are you talking about? guest: 1979, january. if you have the president of france telling me, a direct quote, carter told us that he was overthrowing the shah of iran and he was going to put on the injured everything has been -- and was going to put condçg in caridad i said, could you have stopped it? he said, it was already done during the february 1, khamenei a rise back in france and along the ride were two journalists. peter jennings was on the flight.

host: this is florida on the republican line carried caller: mr. evans, my name is frank. the federal reserve bank, when they raised the interest rate so high, that was the reason that jimmy carter's presidency was destroyed. second, i understand your name is not your real name and i was wondering if it is not, if you could tell us your real name. guest: my real name is my name, mike evans. i have never used any other name but that name. it is the name on all my books. i do not know anything about the federal reserve matter. i only know that i lived through the situation and i was close to the prime minister of israel at the time and watched it very carefully. i do believe that iran was the reason that the president lost

his presidency. and i note he founded the brother should in egypt and provided them arms to go fight -- we call the mujahideen -- and decorated the organization that we are dealing with right now. host: next to babylon, new york. you are on the air. i'm going to put him on hold and go to noblesville, indiana. this is karen on our independent line. caller: earlier in your statement you had said that jimmy carter rose up through the power of, i think, the peanuts? the peanut farm. but could you elaborate a bit more on the fact that he was kind of an unknown? and this is in zbigniew brzezinski's book.

>> "washington journal" every day at 7:00 a.m. eastern. we leave this record portion now as the health-care debate continues in washington. we're taking you live to a news conference for the release of a study linking the growth in the health care costs with adverse economic conditions. we will talk about how the industry's labor cost and productivity are being affected by employer sponsored health care spending. live coverage on c-span. >> if you know that ran health is the single largest unit within rand and we put out over 300. he reports and articles each year that you can find on our website. many of them are going to be the types of issues that will be considered again this fall. the research that you hear about today's dieterle timely because as you know, for the past two decades, growth in u.s. health care costs has outpaced

the gross domestic product. until this research was conducted, we did not know how it affected the u.s. economy directly. in today's briefing, you'll find -- will find out about a first of its kind city that directly linked to the rapid growth of health care costs to the negative impact of several u.s. industries. you can find on the website links to an op-ed written by today's presenter of running the effects of today's health care cost growth on the economy as a whole as well. today's presenter is a senior economist at rand. in addition, he recently became an associate professor of the university of southern california. he is a professor at the party rand graduate school from which he also graduated and he is a faculty research fellow at the economic bureau of research. he has focused on innovation,

hiv and aids policy and health care financing. this is one of his current projects focusing on economic products and health policy with an emphasis on the role of health regulation and the effects of provider reimbursement on resource use. i will turn it over to dr. sudeood. >> thank you ever before coming to the briefing today. as a lot of you would have heard, the president and other observers have said that as far as health care is concerned the status quo is unsustainable. and predominance of employer sponsored insurance are halting the u.s. economy. we will talk about today how this affects different industries. let's start with two well known fact. the first one is -- ok, this

works out. the first is that health care costs have been rising rapidly. in 1997, we spent about 10 percent of the gdp on health care. and we spent about 16.2% of gdp on health care. the health care costs has been rising faster than gdp growth, which is the blue line. the red line, which is the annual percentage change in health care costs has always been about -- above the blue line, which is the change in gdp and income. the other fact is that there are

only -- there are only a few that are on public health. there is a small minority that has access to the private insurance market. what are these two facts? rising health care costs and the predominance of employed sponsored insurance for the economic performance of different u.s. industries. how should we think about these two facts, rising health-care costs, the employer provided insurance, how would these two facts affect the performance of different industries and in particular, which industries would be hardest hit by rising health care costs? and in the second part of the presentation, i will use data from about 30 days -- 38 different histories in the u.s. -- industries in the u.s. and analyze to see empirically what we find over the previous 20 years. what is the effect of employer

sponsored insurance and the cost on different histories. and i will see what would happen if health care costs continue to grow. there are two opposing views on the effects of health-care costs. what is the business view, or the view you see among policymakers and the popular media. this view is that as health care costs grow, the health insurance premiums grow and if health insurance premiums grow, employers who provide insurance to their workers face a higher cost of hiring these workers because not only do they have to pay them their wages, they have to pay them the rising health insurance premiums and if the cost of hiring workers goes up, then the employers respond by hiring fewer workers and if they do that, what would happen is either a output would go down or employers would try to recoup some of these costs by raising prices, which might affect the competitiveness of u.s. industries.

but in contrast to this view is a view from standard economic theory. according to this view, what happens -- so, the first step is the same. if health care costs rise, health insurance premiums go up. but then what employers do is reduce wages by executive same amount as the growth in health insurance premiums so the cost of hiring workers remains the same. the overall labor costs remains the same and of labor cost remains the same, then there is no burden on the employer. the entire burden has been shifted to the employees, and therefore, should have no effect on u.s. industry. which one of these views might be right? one hypothesis is that the business view might be right if you think that wages are sticky. by sticky, i mean, if it is difficult to change wages. there are several reasons why this might happen. the first is -- if you are paying some already at the minimum wage even when health

insurance premiums go up, you cannot reduce their wage beyond the mandated minimum wage. the other might be that several industries have in their long- term contracts with their unions, or they have long-term contracts with individual workers. given these long-term contracts that specify a certain benefit package and certain compensation, it will be difficult to change those contracts, at least in the short to medium run. and finally, i think a lot of employwrs when they hire people, when the offer them a certain package and certain wages, had an implicit contract with their workers. and in the face of rising health-care costs on the workers, it will affect worker productivity or morale. and for these reasons, one might think that employers faced some of the burden of rising health- care costs. and there is some evidence from the literature. there is a standard -- a steady from two harvard economists -- a

study from to a harvard economist and they found that if you in -- increase premiums of insurance costs by 10%, there is an effect on employment. employment goes down 1.6%. but the same time, they try to shift some of the cost to the workers, employment was down as well. the other paper in the series came by an economist, david cutler, and what he finds with his co-author is that with health insurance that go up, -- health insurance rates go up, they make their existing workers work harder rather than hiring new workers for whom they would have to provide more insurance. they make sure that they are working harder, working overtime and they are not hiring new workers.

but none of the prior studies have looked at how these affects very across different industries and none of them have gone beyond looking at employment and wages. this is where this study comes in. we will examine the effects of rising health-care costs on different industries including output and employment as opposed to outcomes. which industries are likely to be more affected? which ones are the ones that will be hardest hit by rising health care costs? here, the story is fairly simple. and if you provide insurance to a large fraction of your workers, when health insurance premiums go up, your labor costs are going to rise much more rapidly and therefore, those industries that provide insurance to a large fraction of their workers will be hit hardest by the rising health- care costs. the other industries that provide insurance to a very small fraction of their workers cannot even have health insurance premiums go up,

nothing happens to their labor costs because only a few workers have employed -- employer sponsored insurance. it will have very little affect on those industries that provide insurance to a small fraction of their workers. we will look at whether this hypothesis is true is empirically. we will use data from 1987 to 2005. and we will look at two primary outcomes. first is employment, each one of these industries and the second is output, as measured by the total sales or revenues by each one of these industries. and the key measure of health- care costs is going to be what i showed you earlier, the depressed between the red line and the blue line, so the difference between the health care cost growth and the growth of gdp, which we label as the x has growth in health care -- as the excess growth in health-care costs. we will identify the link between employer sponsored

insurance, rising health-care costs, and the two outcomes of rising output and employment. and finally we will look to the year 2017 where we no health care costs will account for about 20% of gdp and see how it would change the economic performance, or the composition of the industries in the u.s.. we will look to the year 2017 when the projection is that we will be spending about one-fifth of our gdp on health care. let's start on looking at the broad data. at each point on this graph is an industry. what i have here is the percentage of workers with employer sponsored insurance in 1986. the annual percentage change in employment between 1987 and 1985 appeared no health care across were rising rapidly. at this point highlighted in blue, it's as the construction industry, about 42.8% of their

workers had employer sponsored insurance and employment in the construction industry grew at about 2.1% during the timeframe when health-care costs were rising rapidly. if you look at another point, which is to say, hotels, motels provide about 54% of their workers and grew more slowly at 1% per annum during 1987 to 2005. çthe finally, another point on this graph is utilities and that has provided insurance to a vast majority of their workers. they provided insurance to about 85% of their workers and instead of growing, it contracted at an annual rate of 2% -- 2.8% -- it contracted at an annual rate of 2.8%. if you look at employment as an outcome, the picture remains

more less the same. again, there's a strong negative relationship between employer sponsored insurance and growth in output during the timeframe when health care costs were rising rapidly. some of you might wonder how much of this relationship is truly employer sponsored insurance or are there other factors that might vary across industries? for example, there might be differences in labor productivity trends or unionization between utilities and construction and maybe that is what is driving the disparate performance of these two interests -- industries rather than employer sponsored insurance. we will try to control for all of these potential confounding factors, which could be a trend in labor productively -- productivity, unionization, competition faced by different industries, or differences in the timing of their business cycles.

some might bite -- argue that some industries are leading industries and their business cycle is different than others in the economy. we will investigate this by using canadian data. the canadian data is interesting because it does not have employer sponsored insurance, but has more less the same industries. this might help us figure out of this industry specific factors that are leading to the trends we see in the data or if it is really employer sponsored insurance and rising health-care costs that are driving the bad data. when we run the progressions, we could -- we control for different trend in labor productivity, up differences immunization, and we control for any time differences across the different sectors of the economy this could include product -- product it innovation

and any other factor that might have influenced different performances in different sectors of overtime in the u.s. economy. the variety of factors are there, but the basic result is unchanged. even in industries with the higher percentage of workers with employer sponsored insurance, they are hardest hit by rising health-care costs. now let's move to the canadian data. what we find is that the u.s. the sultan industries, -- certain industries, for example, utilities, grew at a larger percentage of that provided a small percentage of their workers. if you look at canada that does not have employer sponsored insurance, we find that utilities grew faster than

construction or her toes, if we find that, then we know that it is not driven by employer sponsored insurance because they do not have it. if you find the same results in canada, and the most likely explanation is that there is just some correlation between employer sponsored insurance and economic performance of different industries and it is not that industries with a higher percentage of workers with employer sponsored insurance are the ones that are high listed with rising health care costs. what i have done here is -- this is a repeat of the chart i showed you earlier. each point on this graph is an industry in the u.s.. on the axis -- on the "y" axis is the change in employment and in the "x" is the change in employment. and there's a strong

relationship in the u.s. between employer sponsored insurance and economic performance. now going to take away the u.s. data and introduce the canadian data. do we see the same pattern in canada? the answer is, no. in canada, there is no relationship between employer sponsored insurance in the u.s. and those economic performing industries in canada. is relishes in the u.s. andç no relationship in canada strongly suggested that the results are driven by rising health care costs and employer sponsored insurance rather than some rising level industry factors. given those results, how do we measure the magnitude? how big is this affect? i'm going to start with the status quo. in the status quo, we're spending about 16% of gdp on health care. then i'm going to move to the year 2017 or the production is that we will be spending 20% of

our gdp on health care. seeing how we go from 16% of gdp on health care to 20% of gdp on health care affects the industries. on the "y" i have all of the different industries. on the top is industries with low employee stock -- employer sponsored industries for insurance and at the bottom are the height employer sponsored industries. i can't see some people in the back benches having difficulty reading which industries these are. to help them out -- agriculture, hotels, amusement parks are examples of some industries that do not provide insurance to a large fraction of their workers. chemicals, textiles, petroleum and coal, food and tobacco are some industries which provide health insurance to a

significant fraction of their workers. and utilities, oil and gas extraction are examples of industries that provide a vast majority of their workers with insurance. i'm going to focus on six arbitrary industries. hotels, construction, retail, banks, automobiles and utilities. hear what i am showing is the fraction, wharf share of employment accounted by each one of these industries with 6% of the gdp -- 16% of gdp being spent on health care. if you take an analysis and project what would happen in 2017, that is shown by the purple line here. what you find is that industries above the of line, their share of employment is going to go up. these are the industries that do not provide insurance to a large fraction of their workers.

those industries that provide insurance to a large fraction of their workers, which is the industry's below the dotted line, their share of the industry is going to go down. if you look at retail trade, which accounts for about 21.9% of employment in his foot-status quo. and in the year 2017, if health care costs go to 20% of gdp, it will account for about 22.8% of employment. it is about a one percentage point change, or a base of 20. so, one in 20 is about a 5% trophy. that is shown in the next breath. if you look at the trade, this corresponds to roughly 700,000 jobs based on 2005 numbers. you can clearly see the retail trade, construction and hotels -- their share of employment is going to increase roughly from a

5% to 50% of both in employment and output. and for utilities, automobiles and banks, their share of the employment is going to reduce by roughly 5% to 15% of health-care costs account for roughly 20% of gdp. it is basically the generous employers, like utilities, automobiles and banks who provide a large portion of their economy to their workers, their share is going to shrink and others will increase. in conclusion, we find is that the status quo, which is rising health-care costs and predominance of employer sponsored insurance is held -- is hurting several u.s. industries and industries that provide employer sponsored insurance to a large fraction of

their workers are hit hardest by the rising health-care costs. i will take questions now. thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> and of the results speak for themselves, but what affect will they have on the health care results? but i cannot predict what effect this will have on the health care reform efforts,ç but this establishes that if there -- that there is a need for health care reform. this establishes that the status quo is hurting the economic performance of u.s. industries. given a weak economy that we have right now, the impetus for health care reform is even larger, or even bigger. this established the baseline condition that there is some-

what effect it would eventually have on health care reform, i wish i could predict that. can you wait for the microphone? >> how with the results to differ if you studied -- compared businesses and firms within a single industry to one another and across industries? >> that is a very good question and that is what i have tried to do as the next step in this research and the idea is that within an industry, i want to look at employers who have lines between the trade-off between benefits and wages being automatic. these cafeteria plans saying i'm going to give a total compensation package and the side -- and let the workers decide how much they want to allocate to insurance and how much they want to allocate to cash wages. within the same industry of

cafeteria plans verses employers that do not have them, i want to look within the industries and to which employers hold up. we did not find the same pattern of results in canada. but i think this is an actual extension of this research and i hope to pursue it in the coming few months. >> can you put the last slide back up? with the graph? yeah, that one. one message that i seem to be getting from that side is that this gill industries are most impacted by this esi problem. one group that has been sort of worried about health care reform are workers in those skilled industries. if there is one message we can

give them, i would say -- you have to help me if i am in misinterpreting your data -- that fixing this would help them more in some ways. is that a fair interpretation of your data? >> i think that is a fair interpretation of the data. if health care reform is successful in controlling health care costs growth, and we still have a system that has employer sponsored insurance, give -- given these two facts, it is true that industries that provide insurance to a large portion of their workers, which tend to be industries with skilled workers are going to be the ones that benefit the most. >> i have to admit [unintelligible]

the time frame of 1987 to 2005, yet health care cost increases, stability in the early 1990's, not having read the paper, i do not know exactly what the productivity measures are, but for example in the utilities, you have a lot of additional computerization. you expect to find that people are doing a lot more with a lot less, productivity is up, but employment is down. that is sort of natural. there are too many other things that i do not know are controlled. if you look at this from a different perspective, look at the labor department's from the employee, -- compensation survey, i do not know what it was like on the mid-1990s, but

average cost to our health benefit have been fairly stable and in fact, french benefits and our -- in our wages are going up. people are being paid for productivity and if productivity is going up, it may show upç in health care changes. you have a very crude measure, which is just health care costs over gdp costs. and the fact that health care costs are rising, that means it has to be going up faster, but it is still a relatively small share and it was certainly a smaller share back in '87. i started in 1982 when people told me that health care costs were 5% of gdp. it cannot possibly ever get more than 10%. clearly, we're there.

it is not that it is impossible, but even without a canadian comparison, if you've got that one item on your chart, the slopes are sort of the same. you have said it is a robust relationship, but there is a correlation there -- i do not know. there's a lot of variation. >> i agree that this presentation was not geared toward pointy headed an economist. [laughter] one concern that you raised is -- i see all your concerns and i've heard them before. one concern you raise is that during this timeframe there is not always rising health-care costs. with the regression analysis does is it controls for that.

it controls for secular time frames and economist terms, it has sector specific effects. that is observing a lot of the variation in the economy that you are talking about. we control for differences and labor -- in labor productivity and the results remain unchanged. there still could be other factors which we have not controlled for which might be driving the results and that was a reason to go to the canadian data and, which is a catchall for other industry factors. it is not perfect, but given that those affects also kind of point to the effects in the u.s. being real, it gives me got more confidence in the results. but i think the final thing to be what would be to do what -- to look at the employers in other industries and to put one

more nail in the coffin and that is the next step in the plan i intend to take. >> can we look at firm size? we know in the u.s. it is the big firms that have been much higher offer rates and take up rates. i do not know much about the non-held parts of the economy, but you have adjusted for productivity, although i do not know what the measure is. i do not expect there to be regional effects, but there might. firm size, you have the same sort of thing. we know the autos are big. i think we know utilities can have high employment. >> we have controls for anytime variances across the industry. you have to tell a story where

there are changes in form size which are correlated with employer-sponsored insurance and are also correlated with economic outcomes in those industries. there could be a laundry list of those possibilities. you cannot rule out everything, but given the canadian data and given that the results remain unchanged, the other thing that we did is tried other measures altered and health-care growth. the other thing is try to see the differences and the lights in the health insurance structure and you have the same results. i think the bottom of that is in the paper and not in the presentation here for a reason. >> i appreciate the research. i would suggest in addition to looking at industries, as was a good companies within industries, i think it would be

useful to look at exactly what jobs are gained and lost. employers provide insurance for their employees because their employees demand it. the reason that the high skilled professional jobs have more employer-provided insurance is because of your one to hire in juniors or accountants or any other skilled professionalçs wo have leverage in the work force, you have to pay the more than a minimum wage, provide them with competitive benefits with in there. there seems to be some anecdotal evidence, at least, and perhaps some studies, showing that within their industries you have some of the lower skilled jobs that used to be in house are now being outsourced. maybe the security guard is no longer employees of the comp --

of the company. they're now contractors that do not have employee benefits. they will not stay at this company for ever. they are working this job and not getting benefits. the other thing seems to be, i think, a decline since the early '80s, whatever, is a decline in apprenticeship programs and training programs. employers want skilled professionals walking in the door. they do not just fire them right out of school and train amapola and perhaps some of that is a reflection of the benefit costs of hiring people during -- during a training time frame. fort tebo, you get a company

laying people off and then starting people over again when the economy improves. even within the industry's where there is job gain or job loss, intuitively it seems that there is -- the professionals are maintaining their benefits and it is the people who feel that some employers -- the employers to feel that it would be easier to replace folks and outsource are losing their benefits. >> i agree that the objective of the study was to kind of look at bigger aggregate outcomes, so what happens to employment, what happens to output, and what happens to value added. the aggregate in the street level, what is going on -- industry level, what is going on? you can look at the other level

and say, what are employers doing. some are outsourcing some of their lowest -- lower skilled jobs to services and industry and others are trying to reduce wage growth and the question is that despite all of these efforts, there is a real effect at the aggregate level in terms of employer output and value added to gdp. how are these employers changing anything? i have another paper that shows that when health care costs go up and these are employers with cafeteria plans, what happens is that workers basically still want to hold onto their health- insurance. demand for health insurance is still fairly in the elastic. they end up spending more money on health insurance and have less money left for dental insurance, their report --

retirement plan and cash wages. those might have long-term effects on these workers if they are under injured for those other important groups. i agree that there are a variety of pathways that you might see these affects and those are definitely something which i or someone else should pursue in the future. >> also, i would be interested to see in sort of economic theory at least, that the effects should be greater in the trade sensitive industries. on the utilities, i cannot buy my water and sewer from china. but you can buy foreign-made car. there are some things that are much more sensitive to u.s. costs versus foreign costs. there are other things -- you

know, other factors involved, but they are not as sensitive to market -- >> and yes, that is a good point, too. it is possible that some industries might have different effects. if you think that one of the responses to what rising health- care costs is to increase your industry costs. çand if you think of where thee are more substitutes, increasing prices might have a bigger effect. in utilities, it might not have that much of an effect and the consumer might take that price increase and they just they, too bad there are some examples of this. in sandra disco, they came up with a plan were all of the insurers -- employers had to provide health insurance. they started charging health-

insurance premiums and in their view, it did not affect the number of people coming to their restaurants. employer response might also be different in different industries. it might be easier to push the workers in the form of higher prices or reduced wages. in other industries that might be more difficult to do that. >> clearly, rising health-care costs hurt business, but in some ways it seems what you are making is an argument for divorcing health care from employment. so when you lose your job you did not lose your health care at the same time are you making an argument for something like medicare for all? and if that is not politically

feasible in america for a variety of reasons that i will not go into right now, how do we tease apart what comprises rising health-care costs -- which we seem to take as a given? some of it is obviously over utilization by providers and patients, but what about the prices charged by insurance companies, makers of michigan -- medical machinery, makers of big pharmaceuticals? as long as those retirements, including federal government employers -- workers now, can we expect those prices to ever be moderate? >> what i am arguing for its controlling rising health-care costs. what i am saying is that if you reduce health-care costs, then you improve the economic performance of several u.s. industries. the next step is, do we want to divorce insurance from

employers? that is a much more complicated question. that question -- to answer the question, we need to figure out what the alternative is and what the potential cost of that alternative would be. if you move to a publicly financed system, you might need to raise taxes to finance the system. then you need to figure out what is the effect of raising taxes on the economy? to answer the question is very difficult right now. what this says is, if you can control health care costs, that will help the u.s. economy. elkharthe bigger question of dig health insurance from the employer is a more difficult question to answer because you need to know what the alternatives would be. there might be some that would be better and some that are worse. that is something that we should look at seriously, but something that this research does not answer.

i think there are no more questions. thank you very much for coming here. [applause]

coming out. i have a few issues on mind and

i know you have issues on your mind. how many of you have health care on your mind? please raise your hand. ok, almost all of you. ok, almost all of you. no carrierringconnect 1200

number. uthe $1,400 per year isáux what calls low on the cost here. mit says it will cost more than otwice that amount per family pr year. tmy concern is that we have the wronghñ approach for cleaning up the environment. âfmy concern is that we needo use the existing revenues for natural gas and coal, which most of you know, the government and loans. we as taxpayers own. resourcesm@o that we have here n this country to be energy time we can use those resources and those funds to find alternative energy research -- research, clean power that efficient. the next generation of technology. :o+8e0furthermore, if you look t china is doing, according to

the president energyzv secretar, china+m carbon into our atmosphere over the next three years than the u.s. has limited since we were 'w-- over the next 30, years thn the u.s. has emitted since we were founded. think about that. we needoñ make sure that they participate as well. we cannot/

changes or any type of reform whatsoever? @ñplease raise your hand. i we say there is one in the crowd during -- i always÷ say there is one in the crowd. how many think that we need to do something, but the approach matters. absolutely. d+zbut the consensus -- the #consensus is for reform. az4=i the sake of action is ì(lc@&c+ you have to make sure that you do it right, not just quickly. what we have seen out of washingtonñ is their intent to act quickly. i think in a way it is flawed. i will tell you what i am for and against. let me begin[÷f with where i am against. dthis is a jar-3200, the house version -- this is hr-éíb3200sg

health-care plan. i can tell you what i am against. i4vq am againstksg this plan. i will tell you why and i know you are going to have questions about it. úhñ[applause] thank you. «do we have consensus on this as well? re, e)ight now. i promise i will get to your tonight, i will tell you am against and there are large components of this bill that are flawed. there is one area of this bill that is constructive and good and i will tell you that area. dv i do not think that employes should be able to -- that insurance division be able to discriminate for pre-existing conditions.

i think you should be able to move from insurance company to insurance company regardless of your medical condition or if you have challenges that you are facing with your health care. i think that helps with competition as well because then we can actually have more choices if wegmw lose jobs or me our jobs or want to create our own business. we ought to have flexibility. that one containment x choices in here. i will also tell us -- tell you of the plans that i am for. i think we ought toú: have medl control of medical malpractice lawsuits. [applause] /ñw think we also need to have association health plans so small businesses can band together and negotiate with insurance companies.

f7tthat will help substantially. 7bwhy can't of the chamber of commerce where i just cametw fr, why can't richard randall down there and negotiate for one dozen or 50 businesses that are in the area, right? anp negotiate for a larger risk can actually get a better5p deal out of the insurance companies at lower rates. beyond that, i think we need to go beyond the state lines, which we currently cannot do. i think some of that stuff will increase competition. it, but i know you have health care questions, don't you? af ÷so, tonight i want to be vy organized. i want to make sure that the rest of the world sees jks in western north carolina act and treat each other. i am not going to ask you to be ó=÷polite to me or be respectfuo me. i work for you.

you canápñ treat me how you lik. [applause] but if you would, if you could be courteous to the rest in the crowd, our neighbors that are here tonightd, perhaps some yog people that are here for a town hall meeting for the first time -- if you could be respectfuldo them in youruáç language and ran t up and are asking questions, please be we all have our own opinions on health care, but if we can respect one another'svn:jju, regardlessí,y of whether or note believe what they6cñ say arched- 1ñ).z if we can fñshow how town hall meetings ae done in the south, that would be good. if you have a question you would d5like to ask, if you would lie up behind austin or behind zbilly, they have the microphones. question. we will try to get t/>qlc@&c+ everybody's question in the best

if he would keep your question to a question orjsq comment, you can line up now if you like. povglogtthank you. 1>yónaif thisxr:g is blocking 's views, if you want to move, i certainly understand. this is the most efficient way that we have found i'qñ hall comments. if you could keep your comment to a single issue or your question to a single issue, that would be very helpful. if you could keep it under a minute, that would be great as well. anyway, we have covered a good fae will open it up to questions now. . . @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rvr r@ @ @r

[applause] >> thank you so much for the question. it is a great question. we must have a secure borders. we have to have internal enforcement of immigration laws. a great nation should know who is in their borders. it is a matter of national security, and in this time, economic security. it's a bipartisan piece of legislation written by congressman shure up in nashville. it's called the save act which has real internal enforcement and does it the way i think would make you proud. the fact is if you break the law to get in this country you're not going to respect the law once you're here. it doesn't mean that we don't welcome immigrants. actually, our ancestors were welcomed here. but you have to make sure you do it the right way, the legal way. and we need to make sure the

process works and at the same time that we have real border security. that's what i'm fighting for. unfortunately, the challenge in the united states house of representatives is the speaker of the house doesn't share our perspective on this matter. so we have to make sure that we get good people in office that are going to do the right thing for border security and all these other issues. thank you for raising the question. yes, sir. >> my name is chuck cost ywhere. i just want to make a comment about the situation with the health care. last august my dad went into the hospital, found out on monday he needed a triple buy pass surgery. he's been doing fine ever since. the condition he was in, he didn't have six weeks to wait on a cardiologist it wasn't going to happen. six weeks later he wouldn't have been here. from what i've seen of other countries, and i'm talking about the u.k. and canada mostly it would have been a minimum of six weeks. from there they would have made

him an appointment. and they know, last fall i'm not a member but i know a guy that is or was, any how, and they were talking about they're basically putting people on lists knowing they'll never live long enough to get the surgeries. i don't know if anybody that's for this thing thinks they're going to be exempt from that kind of treatment but you're not. this is going to be a disaster no matter how you look at it. it's as simple, like you were talking about keeping it in simple terms as far as being able to go across state lines. i'm a fairier here, and if you had three, me and two others get together and say here's the price we're going to set and assuming you couldn't go outside to get your horse shude you're stuck with that. you're talking about preexisting conditions, there's nine other states that i know of that accept preexisting conditions. so people that have, if you could shop across stateline, you could get insurance that

way and a lot lower. i know iowa is half to a third of what ours is. if you could shop around, it's simple freedoms like that, that right there is just control on any level. and if you're letting them control your health care, they've got you. and we need more freedom. thank you. [applause] >> thank you. i mean, you've made a man tass tick point. and what i would say to add on to what you said, i think what the gentleman said is, well, he's a fairier, so good horse sense is what they say. right? but the idea that you have competition, that's what we need to instill in this current marketplace we have. and we can maintain state based regulation of insurance, but we should be able to go across state lines. the constitution says the congress has the authority to regulate interstate commerce.

well, last time i checked, i could go buy a simple product across the stateline, i could go buy a car down in south carolina. why can't i go get insurance from south carolina or any other state? different states have different mandates on their health care from minimums of care. that may mean longer hospital stays but it costs you more money. why don't you have a variety of plans that you could actually choose from across state lines and have real competition? insurance companies don't want that competition. after all, north carolina more than half of the insurance marketplace is controlled by one entity. soy called not for profit called blue cross, blue shield of north carolina. they don't want to have to compete against blue cross/blue shield of another state. they don't want to have that competition. and the thing is, with more competition we the consumers, the patients, win. thank you, s.

i appreciate it. yes, sir. say your name and where you're from. >> walter kim belle. gasten county. first a comment your statement sir that you work for us. it seems to me watching many of the media accounts from across the country that some of your colleagues have forgotten that they work for us. now, on to my question. it has two parts. first of all, if the plan is as wonderful as it's supposed to be, why are the members of congress apparently not going to be par taking in that plan is is the first part. and the second part has to do with the time line. why are we trying to pass this overreaching legislation which basically will affect er american in less time than it's taken for the president to pick out a dog for the white house? those are my questions, sir. [applause]

>> i think they agree with you. great point. i'm a co-sponsor of resolution that says if you vote for it, you're enrolled in it. would you all agree? congress must be under the same laws as the people that they represent. and under this -- [applause] and the rush to action is a great concern. how many of you all logged on to the internet and actually pulled up the legislative text of h.r. 32 00? raise your hand. hold your hands up. that is amazing. now, how many of you would normally go on line and look at legislative text?

ok, we've got three or four. there are a couple of you. but the fact is that we've got a whole group of people looking at legislation for the first time to make a judgment for themselves. there's certain components of this bill that have been explained by other people but you want to look at it and judge for yours. and there's one section in particular that rather than telling you what i think about it, i'll just read the legislative text and i'm sure we'll have questions about this section later on. but the point i would make is that an active engaged citizenry, actively engaged in their governments and making sure that the laws that congress and the general assembly for that matter here in north carolina is passing makes for a better end product for legislation. and i want to hear my feedback from my constituents. that's why i have townhall meetings. not because of one group agreeing or disagreeing with me. that's not really the point. the point is to actually hear

from your constituents. so with that i'll wrap up and go to the next question but thank you for your comments. absolutely. >> my name is gary mims. i've been involved in health care for 30 years. i provide different types of care, i'm responsible for sen call centers. i see patients every day, i deal with insurers, physicians, nurses, a lot of different people. ict you i can tell you the perspective of the care givers. neither side of the aisle looks really good right now. it looks if you have a car the brakes don't work, the democrats want to throw the car away and buy a helicopters. and the republicans want to say let the free market decide whether or not we need brakes. a reasonable person would say take the car to the mechanic and let him fix the brakes. too often i'm hearing, and the reason i believe that neither side has a good handle on this is because what i'm hearing on the news from both sides is

it's as if you're listening to lobbyists and politicians to make these decisions. i don't believe that enough emphasis is going to the care givers, to the physicians and the people at the bed side, things like every hospital has an ethics committee. we've discussed this. and, believe me, the kind of feedback we get from you gentlemen, it's hard to believe that you're really getting information from reasonable sources. and i know i'm insulting some of the conservatives in here but i'm also insulting the liberals at the same time. i just don't believe that true care givers are having that much input into some of this discussion. >> so what's your input as a care giver? you know, if you're saying that input is needed from a care giver, and that's your point,

my question to you would be, what do you want to see? >> what i'd like to see are people who do hands-on care actually being involved in the process, whether it's setting up committees, setting up commissions, whatever, people who are there who can answer some of the questions. for instance, i'll give you one thing. we've all heard about the death panels. right? ok. you and i have a mutual friend an on congs in gas tonia he is on the committee. speak to him about end of life decisions. they're not this horrible thing that is you're hearing from the right and they're certainly not some of the things that you're hearing from the left what we should be doing. they're reasonable ways to deal with end of life decisions. unless you're at the bedside it's difficult to hear that. >> what's your practice?

>> certified clinical exercise special list. >> i appreciate your input are you in my district? >> yes, sir. >> i just want to make sure you get my communications on this. and we've tried to communicate the best we can to the medical community. so to touch on this, we get the government that we elect. it's true. and i would tell you that republicans are my party is in the minority in congress right now based on the fact that the american people spoke at the last election. i understand that. but my constituents spoke and put me into office to make these decisions as well and simply because the majority is different doesn't mean that i stop acting on behalf of my constituents. what i would tell you about health care is that there is a way to get a reasonable bipartisan compromise. there is. and in terms of you saying republicans this and democrats this, i would like you to hear me out tonight and hear what i

would like to do for health care. and i talk to providers all the time. and that goes for chuck to a number of other doctors to hear their input. and what i would tell you about this so-called death panel element, which is a section of the bill that i norm ily bring out my blackberry and read the stks of it because the section 12 33 and there's a lot of hot debate about it. but regardless about how you feel about this, would you rather have that physician's ethics panel do it or would you rather have a panel in washington that may or may not be physicians that has enormous latitudes on the actions? could take? . .  >> i would say the current panel of experts on a local basis that make these judgments. and the fact we have a state

medical board that oversees physicians and physician licensure is a very strong, good, and appropriate. and i don't want to see congress break this, regardless of what the politics are. in terms of input, the american medical association has been bought off and is in favor of this deal. i say they have been bought off. that is just my language. pardon me for that. and that is my language -- pardon me. the ama and phrma are actually in favor of this. yes, local doctors are not with ama on this bill. they think that the so-called public option is the wrong direction and will hurt. hurt but i think you're right. there needs to be better input. you need to use the incubator of the states were you have real change in public policy. you need to use those ideas and

take a measured approach to fixing the brakes on that car, not throwing away. the away @@@@@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @á yes, sir. >> my name is jim, from kings mountain breed i don't have a question, just a comment. myself and some people i've talked to have lost all trust in congress and the senate'. we believe, as an example, that 1000-page document is contrived so that they can hide things from the public that they can shoot through at a moment's notice without anybody knowing what is in there. i believe that from time to time, you put your foot on that stack of papers. that is where it belongs. you should kick off the stage

and get it off their completely. -- kick it off the stage and get it off their completely. thank you. [applause] >> thank you. and i would tell you that we have the ability to elect four people to the federal government. one member of congress, the two senators, and the president. you get the vice-president thrown in for free. but those four offices that we elect directly, we need to make sure they're held accountable, meaning he mails, phone calls, letters. talk to me at the grocer's store. that is part of the whole process. we have to hold elected officials accountable and take ownership for the government. >> patrick from cherryville. i will be brief. most of the people i talked to are definitely in favor of

things such as lower taxes, less crime, economic development, and a sound basis of education. we know that your commitment to our constitutional guarantees is there. but are you as astounded as most at the level of the budget deficits and national debt that we are insulating our children with? actually, members of congress and those whose son budgets are enslaving our children to an ungodly amount of debt. >> your representatives are you. you have to make your voice heard and make sure that you let people who are in keeping with your philosophy and what you want from government. i am astounded by the massive debt washington has occurred. we have a debt that rivals european standards of indebtedness for government. that is the wrong approach.

so far this year we have a $1.20 trillion deficit in washington. at the end of the year in two months, september 30, that will be $1.80 trillion. the highest before this year was about $500 billion under the last president. this is a bipartisan problem. we have to have people who have a stiff spine to balance the budget. we cannot afford running these massive deficits and borrowing from china at an amazing rate. there is a difference between how drunken sailors spend money and how congress spends money -- the only difference is that drunken sailors actually spend their own money. [applause]

so, rather than having a $1.30 trillion healthcare bill here, that is going to run up massive deficits every year from the moment it is implemented after the next presidential election, that deficit will be enormous and it difficult for us to contend with. if you look back at the debate over medicare four years ago, the budget analysis was that medicare would cost about $10 up to $20 billion per year. it currently costs about $110 billion per year. they get it wrong. we cannot afford to get wrong with one seventh of our economy that health care represents. >> yes, deborah from cherryville. i would like to know the status

of the un convention to the right to the child and what can we do to defeated? >> i'm concerned about it as well. if we can get your contact information we can tell you exactly where we are in the process because i cannot give you the details right now. i'm concerned about the limitation on the ability of parents to raise children as they see fit. we will follow up with you afterwards. thank you for raising the issue. yes, ma'am? " yes, hi. i am mary from cherryville. speaker pelosi's said that we will borrow $500 billion from social security to help fund the health plan. and also that the health plan was a self-sustaining plan. how do you feel about that?

>> it would be great if it were. it would be better than now. it would be far less bad than is now. but the congressional budget office run by democrats has scored the bill and analyzed its cost. over the next 10 years ago cost $1.30 trillion. there will be a deficit in that even though they have raised a lot of taxes. they have been individual tax based on enrollees in health insurance. that goes for everyone, regardless of income. there are a number of taxes in here and it still does not balance. the fact about social security is that we have taken a lot of money out of its to fund other government issues. it is not right. we need to put the money back.

[applause] yes, sir? >> thank you for being here today and allowing us to come to express ourselves. i'm scott and i live in shelby, north carolina. first of all, we had it this debate back in 1993, 1994. we were assured by the republican party that competition would take its course and solve our medical insurance and issues. since then i have seen my premiums with my employer one year 2004, to those of five increased by 100%. and every year since then it has gone up. co-pays have gone up.

we have probably gone through four or five different insurance companies. when my first child was born we received a bill for that that was outrageous. the insurance company paid far less than what was billed for that procedure. recently i was hospitalized for one night and believed the bill was $4,000 for mersa. the insurance company paid much less than what was the. -- them what was billed. -- than what was billed. so, first of all, why are doctors and hospitals not charging the true cost of the

stay? and i'm leaning towards the single-pay public option. but i just think that ultimately we have to put our heads together. if we can put a man on the moon, why can't we figure out this issue? if you will suffer me one more thing -- i was first registered at age 18 as a republican, strong supporter of ronald reagan and all of his theology or philosophy. but since then the republican party has lost me. i am now a registered independent. it is for such things as this -- if you can look at the enormous and ridiculous salaries and other compensation of high- ranking and management executives in the u.s. and global corporations, in addition to those who are on their boards of directors, getting their stock options, one thing after the other.

it is no wonder that they cannot afford to pay the common man a good and decent, reasonable salary. and so, they are taking all the gains for themselves and asking for more from taxpayers to be paid ultimately by our taxes when there education and credentials bring us all to ruin which is evident today in this economy. think of the following examples of corporate failures -- corporate, corporations, business who cannot do any wrong, especially by the conservative point of view. let's think about enron, tacio,

arthur andersen, general motors, chrysler, ford, merrill lynch, wachovia, bear stearns, a.i.g., bank of america, exxon, and of the valdez fiasco, lehman brothers, washington mutual, countrywide financial, and so on. do we not ever consider? we talk about the inefficiency of the government and our enormous deficits. as of october last year our country had commended itself to something like $7.70 trillion with all the bailouts. >> if you could wrap it up because we have a lot of folks behind you. >> do we not ever consider -- yes, there is waste and fraud in government. but we need to give a lot

more attention to the waste and fraud in business and the burden it places on society. [applause] >> thank you. scott, i share your concern about waste, fraud, and abuse wherever it is. the fact is i am elected to represent you in washington and overseas. your taxpayer overseas so, it is not my business to be in your business. [applause] look, i voted against all those bailouts. i thought it was the wrong direction. [applause] but when companies succeed or fail it affects those people who are making decisions for their company, the people who invest in them.

that is held the system works. i do not want to see government controlling. and more controlling when you talk about chrysler and gm, the government build them both out and now you're joking about chrysler putting jobs in mexico to produce the fiat. that is not a good investment in america. it is not that i do not love our local car dealers. i did vote against the cash for clunkers, though. [applause] with the difference is, when private enterprise fails it fails the people who made the choice to invest in the company. and those people who are leaving the company. but when the government fails it just goes back into your wallet and takes more from you. so, i am trying to limit that. i understand your concern and

desire for single-payer system. i quite frankly disagree. i see when government gets involved in business and does not do it more efficiently. it does not do with less waste and fraud than the private sector. you can certainly find examples of companies who have filled. -- who have failed. [applause] what is your name? >> how are you tonight? ok, i do not like to talk with that thing. amplifies my voice in a would you explain to me [unintelligible] it is good to trade with other countries, but it came up for renewal two years ago. >> no, sir.

it is a permanent treaty. >> the congressman over here was inside the vote on this. i thought it came up for renewal. >> that was in 1994 and the congressman has been now for quite a while. he has been out since 1998. >> was it concord, i like that congressman? >> that is a different tree. what is your question? a@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it is good to trade, but you cannot have more coming in than is going out. you blame labor and it is this going overseas. the county tax them, the state tax. the had to pay unemployment insurance, they have to a

worker compensation, and i do not know how much -- thousands of dollars for some it working in a textile third we need manufacturing jobs. you have a lot of people cannot work out there on the roads and what you are putting money into. but a lot of the illegals are at a turning them signs and them forms. you put into north carolina? co-op insurance -- roosevelt set them up in the 1930's. r.e.a. is working my good. in the 1950's, the governor wanted the telephone system in north carolina. you either run the funds out into the rural area or we will form a co-ops, and suddenly the

telephone companies got busy. it has been mentioned about though co-op insurance -- i have insurance, but is really working on my pocketbook. if my social security does not jump up by $50 per year, before long my insurance will be more. but i do not have to pay anything my good to the doctor or hospital. . but i am paying a one thing else -- this proposal -- how with a grown man think of something like that? i went through the 1980's and i did not go along with it in the dairy industry. i was a ronald reagan man. he had two programs the pic, and another. it did not work. now we have those clocker program -- the clocker per room,

and they -- the cash for clunkers program, and they said they're buying the foreign cars. 35 million people on food stamps. i'm not critical. but that is alarming. before long it will be 50 million because people will start hurting out there and you're politicians up there in washington say will bottom out. >> let me try to enter two of those four questions there. first, i voted against cash for clunkers. i think it will cause some problems in a couple of months when people cannot make those car payments. about co-ops, the idea that we have a co-op as an alternative to the government option -- it just depends how the constructive. if a government-run co-op is

basically equivalent to a government-run insurance plan, then i do not think it is the right way to go. social security will go bankrupt starting in 2013. medicare in 2019. we have two major programs that are important to seniors and not sustainable currently. we need to look skepticly at the government expanding further into the real economy, especially when we have enough government programs to clean up already. in these terms i would say it is a little better. in reference to the phone companies, when we deregulated the companies and have a number of different providers, your long distance rates came we down. now you can get long distance for a few cents per minute.

so, the private sector can create enormous good for competition. we have to do this properly and incentivize the competition and a real way that is effective. to make sure that you have competition for societal good under health care. competition drove down the price. yes, sir? close good afternoon. john from cherryville. one thing has fallen into the background is the fact we're still at war. we have been fighting endlessly for least the past eight years. we spend billions of dollars. we spend too many lives.

what is our exit strategy? what are we doing? are we attempting to annex afghanistan? what is our way out? >> it is a very good, serious question. in iraq i would tell you that the surge had an enormous benefit in terms of getting the violence down to lower rates than previous. we have seen a lot of violence in the last few days in iraq that were as for the iraqis to bear the burden. we have done -- we have gotten to the point with iraq where it now becomes their duty. we have trained the military and have a civil government running. there have been multiple actions. they need to take ownership of their democracy. we are in the process of pulling

troops out. now with large-scale attacks it has been the iraqis who have borne the greater brunt of the burden in dealing with the violence. the american troops -- we have pulled out of most of the major cities. that is good. we need to make sure we get our men and women home safely. we need to get them home soon with less expense to taxpayers. the iraqis need to bear that expense. when it comes to afghanistan, the insurgency there, what ever you want to call them whether al qaeda or whatever group there, they are largely funded out of the heroin trade.

we have had multi-national troops there. one of the problems is that there will not fight. we are bearing the burden there. we need to make sure we get it turned over to the afghans. unfortunately, their government has major problems. you're right. the government is largely not doing its job. it is governing from the safe areas which is the equivalent of local police saying we will not go into neighborhoods where there is violence. they are trying to take the

elements that work in iraq and apply them to afghanistan. some can work. i have a great deal of concern about making americans deal with the brunt of this issue when it should be afghans. unfortunately, while in iraq there was a notion of government historically, in afghanistan has been largely and governed. in terms under the previous president and under this president, it is for the presidents and military leaders to set policy and goals and for congress to fund them. as a matter of public policy i

will make sure that we find our troops on the battlefield regardless of whether or not i agree with the president. [applause] i appreciate your raising the issue. there is not a simple answer. you are exactly right. >> my name is leon and i live in your district in cleveland county. if this health care plan does pass, what changes will have on the way the veterans now receive hospitalization and healthcare? >> thank you for serving. that is a great question. we are still trying to go through the scenarios by which different groups are affected. one area i have concern is for veterans with tri-care, those

getting their care through the v.a. system. i have worked hard to get the veterans clinic open but a closer location then nashville. i am still trying to figure out how veterans are affected through this them. it does not appear that veterans would be adversely affected. i want to make sure the details are correct. so, we're still working that out. we would be happy to contact you when we figure out for certain how veterans will be affected or if there are the unintended consequences to the bill. tanker. -- thank you. [applause] >> i have a comment to make.

thank you for your conservative leadership in washington. [applause] we have had a congress that has spent money like jon edwards in a the shop. >> i'm glad that you only made? edwards jet. >> working in small business, it will take leadership that is not left or right. when you get back to washington i would like you to tell nancy pelosi and mr. harry reid that we can take all the money and put it into health care and it will not fix the problem until we put investment into prevention and wellness, that will drive costs down. i have a friend at duke university next week for cancer

treatment. we are better than that to tell us must wait six months. most americans value life. the value the life at one as it represents all. thank you for your conservative leadership. [applause] >> thank you. a good part of any health care reform must include wellness and prevention. going to get a physical every year to detect problems before they become serious. the healthcare provider earlier made the analogy to get in your brakes replaced in the car. well, when you get your oil change they actually check the brakes, tires. we should do the same for health care.

unfortunately, this bill from the house does not address it wellness programs. when you talk to good businesses they talk about on his programs -- the talk about wellness programs for their employes. they get a lot of benefit from it. it would be easier to detect a small problem early on then a big problem late. you are right. wellness must be something we all take seriously. our health, how we eat and exercise is very serious. after having said that, this is my eighth town hall meeting this year. when we get done it is late in the evening. i'm forced to do what many of us are -- go to a drive-n. -- i'm sorry, a drive-thru. to pick up some food.

after one town hall meeting i got done talking about welness programs and the right and there was so hungry and chick-fil-a will still open and i opened a number one -- and i ordered a number one combo with a diet coke and they ask me for one did a biggie size and i said, of course. i finished eating all that and it hit me like a ton of bricks. that was dumb. @@@@@@@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but it is something that we can control in health care. and i think we should. yes, sir? >> i am norman and i live here in cherryville. i would like to take a bit of stimulus money and put better seats in this auditorium.

[laughter] [applause] >> well, norman, as you know, three months ago, this auditorium did not have air- conditioning. and we are grateful that we got some -- >> i know the seats will come. the seats will come. this will sound dumb to you, but i called your office and asked for some members. through them i learned that about 1.4 citizens of north carolina are under medicaid. >> mm-hmm. >> why can we not just medicaid enough to take care of those people who now do not have insurance? now, of course, i do not want to

see the illegals considered. there are a lot who do not now have insurance who do not want insurance. it will not leave a big number of those who could not change the rules to put them into medicare. your job would be done and we can all go home. >> about medicaid -- the plan would support and do support is written by senator richard burke, that bill and,ryan-nunez bill in the house. it would give all americans using existing government revenue medicare, medicaid, schip. it would give everyone a tax credit using those existing revenues.

we can actually give all americans of belt a $3,000 tax credit so they can buy health insurance. you would only get it -- it functions on your tax form. all americans would get about that much, $3,000, to buy health insurance. they would be in the private marketplace and could make choices for themselves. furthermore, it would not have this issue with the gentleman before about medicare that costs, the cost of a supplement. everyone would be in the private marketplace. 8% could buy from that baseline tax credit. there are some americans that we need to provide for.

-- 80% could buy from that baseline tax credit. the vast majority of us can get into the private marketplace. this would get the younger, healthier people into the. insurance the 60% of the uninsured are under 35. if you are over 35 remember how you never thought you would get sick or anything bad would happen. a lot of these people do not want to buy because they do not think they need it. there is the concern of those were laid off or simply cannot afford to buy. we need to make sure they have access. we can do that through existing revenue streams. it would fix medicare and

medicaid. that is what i support. >> hi, i am betty white and i want to thank you for being so committed to the people in your district. what has happened in the 1960's when billions of dollars was taken out of the social security fund and never put back? if you good to the bank and borrow money you have to pay back, right? well, they have not paid back. social security would not be in this shape if the money had been paid back. the second thing is, veterans are the backbone of our country. they have made this country what it was. they are being forgotten,

pushed through the cracks. >> i think you're right. when we have a young man or woman willing to fight for our freedom we have to honor our commitment to them when they come down. that means the best benefits and health care in the world. that is what i support. [applause] it was not just in the 1960's when congress robert social security to pay for other things. they have done it ever since. -- when they robbed social security. the ideas that you take it away from politicians, make its whole, and then we can talk about reform for the next generation. make sure that we fix it for those who are at or near

retirement. for the younger workers to make sure they can get a benefit from social security and not pay into it only. so, those 30 and denver may have a different social security, but we need to have generational fairness. -- for those 30 and younger. we need to make sure that forcing years right now they do not have any changes or cuts. two. -- for the seniors right now. but they do not have any changes or cut. thank you. >> i have just one common. according to homeland saturday i'm one of the biggest threat -- to the homeless security, and one of the biggest threats to america. look at me. >> you say that with a smile. >> i was reading obama's web

page and wanted take $360 billion away from medicare and want another $140 billion because our doctors are cheats and crackers. -- sheets and creeks. the trip patients -- our patients have said that they are being told to go home. i do not want an hmo. i got laid off because of the auto industry. i have a precondition for i had a heart attack 10 years ago. i paid for my wife's insurance so that she does have been charged in the i still do not want the policy. burn it. as far as the soldiers go, the sec and other and father cries over a soldier cries over the coffin we give them a reason to

believe do not make me come back so that this older does not die for nothing. >> thank you. and you are right. that is why we need to see these things through, to make sure that we achieve the goal. our military men and women can achieve nearly any goal, but the politicians do not need to mess it up. [applause] and get them home, and of selena not keep changing the mission. health care in terms of pre- existing conditions -- i think he should be about to get health insurance. even if it was 10 years ago.

our current system does not address that. this current bill does not either, unfortunately. i want to make sure everyone has that access to make health-care choices for themselves. i would rather you make your health care decision with your family, the nurse or doctor you see, and the discussion between you and them, not with any member of congress. who you trust more? the congress or your doctor? [laughter] yes? >> hello. it is good to see you again. thank you for being here and giving generously of your time. i am the representative for this district and i'm happy to be here tonight as a citizen. my concerns also revolve around

healthcare via as a health-care professional with 30 years of experience in cancer detection, and had some. as i look at the individuals who come to my laboratory, they are very concerned. when they have tests they want to know what will happen. that is a great chart that you have talking about what happens in socialized medicine with lowering survival rates. we live longer in the u.s. because we put technology and health-care at our disposal to use for citizens. we have a better quality of life even though we may have been dealt a card unfavorable in terms of of having a disease. my question is, how do we as citizens in this strict110 and

other counties helped to prepare ourselves so we can have the best quality health care and choices to live longer -- in district 110. >> thank you for representing us in riley. i know that it is quite a challenge especially with this economy. [applause] >yes, i have a chart here is buying the cancer survival rates. about the meeting would be like last year with about 10 of us in a circle. but the chart i have here is the survival rate for prostate cancer in the u.s., canada, europe, and england. after five years we have 91%

americans surviving. 85% in canada survive. in england, there is a 50.9% survival rate for prostate cancer. so when people talk about health care, this is what i think about -- real lives. we have all been touched by cancer. if not personally, those of us in our family. and this hits home. if you look at breast cancer survivor rights, 80% survive in the united states, canada, 82.5%, england, 69.8%. you can look at all men of's cancer and all women's cancer

and come up afterwards with this charge. i have this on my website if you would like to printed out for yourself. we have the reference points so that we can look at where we got this data and you can judge for yourself as well. the fact is, survival rates, not just for cancer, but across the board, are better here in the united states because of our access to health care. it is expensive and it is flawed, but it is far better than the single payer system where you have a single option, and that includes a long line. added includes fewer choices with you and your doctor and your family, and beyond that, in these systems, because they are so expensive and such a burden on the taxpayers, you have rationing of health care, where the decision comes to a board of elected officials on whether or not you get your treatment, and you're to work, whether or not that is worth the the dollar cost the taxpayer.

i don't want to be in that system. i don't want to be an elected official in that system where congress is voting on whether or not you have access to make your, whether or not you have at -- whether or not you have access to a cure, access to our procedure or drug. whatever we can do to maintain freedom of choice and health care is coming out in this town hall meetings. i do not know if we have a total on how many folks are here tonight -- 232 people. last year it was 19. the town hall meetings i have had this year -- i have had a town hall meetings. we have had close to 4500 people come out to town hall meetings across those eight town hall meetings. last year we had a total of 10 town hall meetings, and about 400. you can see that people care about this, you can hear it in people's voices tonight, by the

fact that they are sitting here on what the gentlemen said were hard shares -- hard charis. . chairs. the phone calls and letters do matter. you can make your voice heard also to our two senators and to the president. i'm grateful that joe biden is not president. [applause] sorry, joe. sorry, joe. but an active and engaged citizenry makes all the difference in the world. it holds a elected officials accountable. it means we can make decisions and express our opinions. it matters in a big way. i'm glad citizens are active. where there is heat there is fire.

the fact is, this august has been rather hot for those advocating for this plan. it has been high because people are reading the bill. people are making decisions. they are doing research on whether it is the best approach. the consensus is not for. the for three weeks ago the president's approval rating were a net positive, but now are negative. -- the consensus is not for this plan. the town hall meetings are leading, not following public opinion. is there consensus against this plan in this room? [applause] >> representative, my name is leann.

>> hold on once a committee of and my representing your perspective on health care? >> yes, yes. first of all i wanted to thank you for being so accessible. you really are. we appreciate that very much. i am one of those people who has read a good portion of the bill. my eyes have glazed over. there are many things i wanted to talk about, but here is one thing in particular that no one else seems to discuss. i have notes. i am quoting this bill. it is called "the americans affordable health choices act for 2000. ninth" on page 1 it states "the purpose of this bill is to provide affordable, quality health care

for all americans and reduce the growth in health-care spending, and for other purposes." my question is "does and for other purposes" carry a big implication? on page 29 they talk about cost- sharing the bulls. then, on page 59 i am quoting "electronic funds transfers in order to allow automated reconciliation with the healthcare payment and a remittance advice." represented mchenry, i never thought i would have to ask this -- when did the government thinks they have the right to go into my bank account? [applause]

also, we should not called the public option. this is the government option. no way around it. >> this has come up a couple of times about access to your bank account. that is a concern. we are still seeing how that is done operationally under this legislation. i appreciate your reading the bill, bring it to everyone's attention. i share your concerns about the government accessing your medical records or bank of. accounts >> this is supposed to be a free country.

accessing your medical records or bank accounts. >> elections have consequences. we tell this to our kids. we forget that sometimes as adults. our form of democracy means that we elect officials that we support. so, if we do not support those actions, the we made the wrong choice in most corrected in the next election. thank you. [applause] now, i have two charts i want to reference. i am sorry they are not large enough for the crowd, but they

are on my website. it does not matter here -- it is a mess. it is very complex. we also have another chart from a group that does healthcare research, the democrats and cause them to gold center. this group has researched this bill and public. option -- and public option. it is only an option in the beginning, and then is the only option. so, that is not an option. the health care commissioner determines health insurance

plans can be offered in this national exchange. they also determine what the public "plan or government option to" is. if the referee is wearing a carolina panthers jersey, the you think he will be an unbiased for the football game? if your kid is on the baseball team, we be a fair referee? if you look at the health care commissioner, they can certainly have the plan for the government option. based on how this bill operates the onus is on the individual, not the business. so, individuals will have to purchase it. under this plan, 119 million

americans will not be offered health insurance by their existing business. they will be dropped. that does not make the government auctioned a good one. it makes it more likely outcome -- and does not make the government option a good one. i oppose this bill for the same reason that barney frank supports this bill. he said "i support a public he said "i support a public option@@@@@@@@aá@ @ r

outside of fox news and conservative talk radio, i do not really here from our side telling us the truth about what is going on. i voted for people to represent me, i vote conservative. we sought by partisan candidate john mccain lose an election, getting us nowhere. i do not believe that the opposing side is interested in getting along. there a single source release can send money to help people like you and others -- i believe they're interested in taking over. there are elected officials such as borne a friend. you were trying to ask him a question on the house floor.

-- such as barney frank. nancy pelosi said that she need a jet on friday. she decided she would not take the trip. that is a waste. >> it is cheaper than taking her on the trip. >> chris dodd participated in a fever through countrywide mortgage. he and barney frank were instrumental in increasing the mortgage debacle we have been the big almost everything was fine. on the flip side, they said if you do not loan is money we will audit you. this includes illegal aliens. why are people who are doing illegal things, the president overstepping the constitution by appointingczars --

[applause] by. seen -- by appointing czars that do not have to go before the senate committee to be allowed to. if people do not stand up and shout that this is wrong, against the constitution -- i want to hear from other people besides just fox news and talk rita. whether or not people like sarah palin, she is the only ones to endingup. what can we do to get the attention of our elected officials? the head of the republican party does not stand for what i believe in.

i believe he is not doing the job he should be doing. if you need money to run ads, if there were a single source i could spensend my money to to im people of the truth -- before obama was elected during his campaign he told us specifically what he would do to our country. he is doing. people wonder why this is happening. he is doing exactly what he said he would do. . . could lied tax cut -- my tax cut is

only going to tax the rich, not going to cut taxes for the statistics that he used. 90% or something, right? he did not say that he would raise your taxes. hillary clinton, over here on health care, he said he was in the middle. let me tell you, this is not in the middle. it is constructed by liberals. [applause] >> you stood up to the unions and acorn. [inaudible] >> sure, sure, that is a hope and a dream. he did not say that in the presidential election. he said that his plan, that if you liked the plan that you had, you could keep it. under this new plan, you cannot.

unless they want to accept your plan. and whether or not your employer writes a big enough check. it means that if you lose jobs or move jobs, you cannot keep the plan, if you are laid-off you cannot keep it, if you start your own business you cannot keep it. that is not what he is saying now. let me tell you about the republican party. there is a debate about where the party is going. i have been a strong advocate for change in the direction of relying on conservative core principles all, as well as a solid right and war -- right and wrong in the term of core values. talk about health care, talk about education, talk about the reforms that he won for family

and small businesses. stand up and say that you are an advocate for small business, not to go with it the big business in washington, but stand up for local folks and communicate with them in a way that they can relate to. that is why i sent out youtube videos regularly. i m on facebook and twitter. i would incur if you to go there side a some -- supporter twisteriwittetwitter site. you have to hold these people accountable once you elect them. if you want to have a political discussion after that, i would be happy to do that. but i don't want to sit here and

talk that campaign stuff. i can do that on my own personal time. thank you for coming out. i appreciate it. yes sir? >> de que congressman. i am from kings mountain. president john kennedy asked us to do what we could for our country. i just wanted to say, what about anybody 30 or younger is no benefit from social security, we will still pay into it and we will still contribute. if you are at a certain age after a certain time you just don't get any benefits. we will not see it anyway.

at least a note but i want leave my kids with the same thing. as 30 you are at the age were you can work and set up on your own retirement. you have plenty of years, you have years for mutual-fund and retirement accounts. i want to present you with that idea and see what you thought about it. i don't mind sacrificing it. >> how about this? your employer pays 6.2% for social security and you pay 6.2% of your cellar for social security tax. 12.4%. how about 80 the employer's share and continue to put that into the system, about four younger workers, you of to opt

out of that plan and have more of a 401k type of plan. still, a government rule -- regulated entity. if you would have -- and the retired federal employees here? yes ma'am. are you on the thrift savings plan? >> yes. how about the thrift savings plan for the rest of society? you have some options for basically a mutual fund, very safe. you take your personal 6.2% and put it into that, still regulated by the government, still participate in the system, but younkers working people would -- younger people would go into that system. you give up half your social

sturdy -- security tax to try to even this out for the generation that is getting close to retirement while at the same time giving younger workers a similar benefit. and the end -- in the end, based on the market over 30 or 50 years, we have had a very bad source here right now. but for a number workers it is better. >> social security will be horrible by that time. thank you for much. >> thank you for stepping up and for being here tonight. >> i wanted to tell a horror story about a government health care. i am in the military, and i should get the best health care there is. during the first golf score i

want into gimmickry -- marine corps in 1971 and i spend -- spent time in the gulf war. i got injured. they sent me to the hospital and the doctor there told me -- they x-rated and you cannot see most of x-rays and away. he said you tore a muscle and isn't anything you can do about it. well i was a firefighter. it had me upset. they sent me to another clinic and the doctors are there said there is a much you can do about it.

you'll have to live with that and i thought i will lose everything i have worked for. there's nothing to be done. they sent me to shot air force base for therapy and the doctor said, we can't do anything about it, we you just have to live with it. my wife is a nurse, and she looked at me, she finally saw me getting a little bit mental and she said, we are going to reduce something for you or you lose your mind. she got me an appointment to see a civilian doctor. i went to see him and he looked at me and he said, this can be fixed. it he said it should have been fixed when it happened over one month ago when it happened.

i went back after he tell me this i want back to the clinic and i told the clinic that i have some you'll fix me and i want him to do it and that we need to do it now. they tell me to go home and they would call and see what they could do for me. they called me an hour after i got home and they told me to pack my bag. they said they found a doctor down in texas and he will do the surgery. i got a little upset and i said what do you mean, you just found a doctor? i have been screaming for you all to do something and now that i found a doctor that can fix it, all of a sudden you can find somebody to fix it. they said -- i said, i trust

this man and i want this meant to do it. they told me, if you don't let the stock to do it, we will pay for it. so guess who had to pay for their own in the line of duty military injury? i did. it cost me to pay for my injury, to get me back to work on the fire department. if that is government health care come i don't want any of it. >> thank you. >> i am really glad to be here tonight. i am really learning a lot.

when i hear you say things like, who you want to make your health-care decision, your congressman or your health care -- or your congressman? of course i want your health care professional. i can't go see my doctor because i have a $200 deductible. why are we so willing to let private health insurance companies, who are profiting from our money, taking our money and not giving us the services we need so they can make a profit, why are we so willing to go along with that option and not the government option? while i don't like the idea of anyone millie in my health care, knowing that the health insurance co. who is taking money out of my pocket and putting it into there's makes me much more nervous than the other

scenario. i mean no disrespect, but when i hear a senator byrd who has always responded to my e-mail -- when i hear about this plant he has proposed to allow people to buy private health insurance and you look at the millions of dollars he has accepted from the health-care industry, it gives me pause. i just wanted to make that comment. i know this is an unpopular opinion in this room but i wanted to have a chance to say it. maybe you can explain why i should be more willing to put my health care in a for-profit system as opposed to the government. >> thank you for coming and expressing your opinion. in terms of a discussion about senator byrd, he is not here to defend himself.

i understand your concern. and the idea insurance companies are profiting, it ges a lot of people prospered in understand that. the largest insurer in north carolina is a not-for-profit, blue cross blue shield. they are not for profit. there is what is called retained earnings -- exactly. it is not that i support the health-care industry at all. that is not the intent. i am looking for a better delivery system. the better delivery system is where we can all save tax free. first, you have to set have money. it can be part of an answer,

held savings accounts can be part of an answer, that means you pay less to the insurance company and we become consumers to health-care like we are consumers of other products and services that we have and that is far better than what we already have going. health insurance is expensive. a lot of people in our community would be grateful to have a plan that you have. that is not to diminish your point at all. but to say that i would rather haverivate competition among insurers and incentivizing competition across state lines against these insurers, and we can wring out profits out of the system to make it more efficient and get better product offerings because of competitions. the example is the same example the president said. ups verses federal express, verses the united states postal service. we as consumers of delivery

services get the benefit because now we have choices. that is fine. the postal service was created before federal express and ups, right? it is a little different than this government plan here, because we now have a private delivery mechanism for health- care, and the government would get in and basically create a postal service. i don't think this is healthy. i would look at medicare as an example. medicare costs $110 billion per year to the taxpayers. well, that was the 1990, 1991 or 1993 number. we are talking about one-third of our budget being consumed by medicare. it is not sustainable.

if we are sustaining that kind of health care offering, it will bankrupt the system, leading to not only higher taxes but an unsustainable health care system. that is not good for local doctors gospel, or patients. i want to achieve the same thing that everyone else wants to achieve, universal health care coverage. i would like to do it in an affordable way. i would like to incentivize competition. health companies do not support health savings accounts, nor competition across state lines, but i am for those things. thank you for coming out. thank you for those questions. we are coming down to the short rose. >> short people as well. [laughter] i have been a cpa in a small

business for 39 years. i wanted to sit back and address a few things. i was very impressed to see the people say that we needed health care reform. but this trash on the stage is a fiasco. that is one of the first things, the internal revenue code, that is a success. [applause] irs code but this is. >> not to interrupt, but it is interesting to listen to you because i have read these news reports about these angry mobs at town hall meetings. and you said that with a smile. >> i will not stand up here and yell at you. let's get down to specifics. from health care back years ago, being a cpa, and a national organization.

we had group plans back then. we went out, we got the plant and it was great for the group. that way you can compete with wal-mart. if we don't do toward reform, let's go back to where the profit began. when we ended up with malpractice insurance -- i have clients who are getting their tails gleaned over malpractice insurance. the insurance companies will make a profit weather is blue cross blue shield not for profit or a profitable entity. if we don't get toward reform specifically the numbers say between 1-4% of the cost of medical care is because it is malpractice i will use john edwards to make a point. how can a man as young as he was completely retire from malpractice lawsuits. he did not sell for one thing as far as health issues.

toward reform has got to be a part of it. we have to have groups. any group can do a better job than the federal government can do on anything. if i think we have to have the congress and the federal government will be part of any health-care plan, the far -- the fox will be guarding the hen house. government knows best. we have been sent a bill of goods for years. social security is flat broke. that is the bigger issue than health care. the person who made the statement about czars, is it constitutional that they can answer to no one and they are making policy decisions?

somebody needs to get a hold of it in question it. i am very concerned. i have always been taught that 90% of the solution to any problem is having enough sense to recognize the problem. we can fix what we have. but to tear it apart and throw away is ridiculous. [applause] >> it is the one good thing to come of the bill is short being engaged and in your government, but i am glad they offered it. the citizens need to be engaged and involved in their

government, from city, county, state, federal, all levels, to make sure we people who are accountable and doing the right thing. about they czars, the president has the authority to hire and fire his own staff. that is out it runs. -- this is how it runs. the confirmation process for cabinet agency has. their report to the secretary of treasury, the department of defense, these were created by congress through block. the confirmation process -- i am just restating this to show you my line of reasoning. the president recommends and the senate confirms these has a different agencies and they have powers granted to those agencies by an act of congress and by law. they are also not accountable to

just a precedent, but to the people's representatives on capitol hill. therefore, these czars are collecting a paycheck without having any power, or if they have power, there circumventing federal law. i can demand hearings on this in september. the chairman of the oversight and reform committee is not intent on investigating this matter. i would like to ask them some questions. do you have any power? they can say yes or no. macy's, then there circumcision -- circumventing federal law. -- if it is yes, then they are circumventing federal law.

amen to the rest of your statement as wl. thank you. >> i think i am going to have to change the subject. i am an educator. i am the assistant principal at davis medal. one of the thing that educators are worried about is no child left behind. my comment is that say for instance our school has 500 of the students. we did not make our annual proficiency because we had won a subgroup -- 40 kids that were not up to par. i would like to see some revisions of that. i would also like to call your

attention to, and maybe it is a state bank, but our funding here has really been hurting. we need to run our schools, and that has everything to do with the health care of our children. i just wanted to make those comments. >> thank you. education is vital. i was not in congress when they voted on notes of left behind, but i would have voted against it. -- on that no child left behind. if you're sitting behind a desk in washington, your average seller in the department of education is $92,000 a year. the national average for a teacher's salary is $47,000 a year, half of what they're getting in washington.

they don't educate people up there. the money we're spending in washington in education is not getting to the schools, to the classrooms or it needs to bay. no child of bind is redundant based on what we have here in north carolina and the accountability we already have here in north carolina. education should be a state and local issue. the federal funds we have, rather than putting people behind desks and paying their salary, we need to get the money down locally, back to the states. >> just another comment, we are not afraid of accountability in education. but there should be some fairness to it as well. >> the accountability that we have in north carolina is good.

no child left behind -- the governor of texas who look at education reforms across the country and and decided that testing and accountability was good so they implemented it in texas. that plan was based off of the north carolina plant -- plan. when the governor of texas became president, he made that the national model. well we are have it here in north carolina. it is redundant and expensive. good teachers are always in favor of accountability. i appreciate you coming out as saying your peace. we have two more left. >> i would like to say that i am proud to call you my congressman. my question for you is that we

spoke about a lot of things tonight. by biggest fear is that we live in the greatest country in the world right now. this president, this administration, and your opposition in congress is steering this country to the left. i want to make sure the my children and grandchildren are left in a country that i love will still be around. what can we do that besides voting? >> that is being engaged in the political process. but also following what is happening in washington, what is happening in raleigh and what is happening with our local government and making sure we hold our election officials accountable between elections.

we cannot be active every other november november on a tuesday. that active engaged citizenry it means you have to be involved in every step of the process. with the power of the internet, following someone on facebook, supporting your agenda and perspective, that helps significantly. the intent is to leave the next generation better off in this country than the country we found. that has always got to be our intent. we have to be mindful about that. when i vote in congress, i think about what it will do to the next generation. how it will impact them in terms of the indebtedness of this country in terms of our economy,

in terms of our health care and our choices. thank you. thank you for coming out. is this your first town hall meeting? >> no. >> had been involved before then? >> ok. glad you're involved. final question of the night? >> thank you for coming. my name is -- and my wife and i live here. i am a republican and a veteran. mr. president, i did not vote for you, nor will i vote for you again.

i have lived through roughly 10 presidents. i remember world war ii, i grew up with the shadow of that. my entire family went all the way back to serving in the american revolution as well as a civil war. my mom's side of the family has been here since the 1700's. we have relatives to sit up for the flag, which i did. i am sadly disappointed when the president runs around the country and world apologizing for our [applause] i love applause. [laughter] i lived in the u.k. for three years. i was in the military. i witnessed their health care system. a friend of mine almost died.

they had an accident, they transported him to a hospital. there was severe trauma and internal injuries. they pulled the bloody ankh, they did nothing. the air force came and got him three days later. he almost died. i saw the results of the health- care. the average wage was about $20 every week. the unemployment was about the same park. the black market absolutely flourished. at that time, basically communists were in control. taxes were outrageous. ere outrageous. when they so proudly put a tax on cigarettes, they should have

checked to see how many trucks were hijacked in the united states and how many sigrid curtains fall of the back door. that happens when you raise taxes. i work for government and myself so i know government. he is not a government person, he is and elected official. some of these people who were for the government, and i work for one of the most corrupt states in the united states. it was not n.c.. it was the six borough of new york. it is a very corrupt state. the people stole and did not do their jobs. it was hard. they have what's called a medicaid taxi for those that are ill. they take you to doctors. these taxes would take people to the liquor store coming to the

711 and all these different places. that is billed back to the government and it comes out of your tax dollars. the fraud and waste of the government creates is unreal. ice stood up for that flag, i guarded your country. do not let me down. do not let me down. do not let my brothers down. those that died. friends of mine died protecting your country and protecting that flag. do not let this government run all over you like they are doing. stand up for the constitution. listen to these people. we are all in agreement, we have some basic things we don't like. stand up for that flag. thank you. [applause]

>> thank you for coming out and think before serving. -- and thank you for serving. >> i have a couple of comments i would like to make. this quote is from nikita khrushchev made back in the 1960's. the title of this comment was the road to communism. you americans are so gullible, you will not accept communism out right, but we keep feeding a small doses of socialism until you finally wake up and find out you are the have communism. we will weaken your economy until you fall like overripe fruit in your hands.

the way i look at it we have a one-party rule. this country reminds me of russia, china, north korea, venezuela. the way our country is headed right now, we will be on that list. need i say more about that comment? the next comment, we may need to take better care of our troops. in case of war that are being called to serve. i think we are in war right now. some are on their third and fourth tour.

i know the draft was stopped back in 19 -- 1990, somewhere in the near red. -- somewhere in that neighborhood. >> thank you for coming out tonight. thank you for your comments. i appreciate you all coming out tonight. this is a record turned out. except for this year, the highest turn out i have had for a town hall meeting was one and 78 people. and that was in a much bigger

town. for us to have was the total number? two hundred 57 tonight is significant. and i appreciate you coming out to keep your voice heard. ople should be engaged in owning their government, and engage in what haened to their government. people make their voices heard. when it comes to health care there is consensus against the president's plan. it does not mean we are not in favor of health-care reform but we need it to be rational. so we can save tax free for health insurance events, so we have more options for health care and small businesses can band together and negotiate their rates. that we can actually have a medical malpractice reform, that

government getting further involved will not help the matter but make matters worse. these thinks -- these things, rather than weakening things, you have strengthened it me to go back and make my spine a lot stronger to go back in september and fight this proposal, and to stand up for our district. thank you for coming out and making your voices heard. god bless you all. one final thing, i want to think of the jury -- cherryville fire department, who up to put this

event on tonight. thank you so much and god bless. >> c-span coverage of the national health care debate continues tonight with the wisconsin democrat, ron kind. we will show that meeting to you tonight at 8:00. tomorrow, live coverage of democrat jim a grand and his town hall. howard dean will join him at the event. you can see it live at 7:00 eastern. as the debate over health care

continues, c-span's healthcare hub is the best place to find information. share your thoughts on the issue with your own citizen video, including videos from the many town halls you have gone too. there is more at c-span.org/ healthcare. >> george mason university president on the role of higher education in training information technology professionals tonight on "the communicators" on c-span 2. >> how is c-span funded? >> private donations? >> the public? >> grants. >> a donations? >> federally? >> i do not know. >> donors. >> america's fabled companies -- cable companies created c-span as a government service, a private initiative, no

government money. >> news this afternoon that eric holder has named john durham to investigate cia mistreatment of terror suspects. he is already investigating the destruction of taped cia interrogation. now we will discover if they broke laws in the rough handling of suspects. the obama administration is releasing a newly unclassified report detailing the treatment of suspects. president obama and his family are on vacation for the week in martha's vineyard. bill burton spoke with reporters from their today. topics included the health-care debate in the detainee interrogation notes. this briefing to place prior to the attorney's announcement. this is about 25 minutes.

>> good morning. the president has enjoyed the hospitality of the folks here in martha's vineyard, so far he hung out last night that the house. he had dinner with valerie jarrett, her daughter and the whitaker's. he played some tennis this morning with the first lady. he is going to hit the links today with congressman cliburn. here is what is on the reading list, i know that some folks have been asking. "the way home," "hot, flat, and crowded," "plainsong," and "john adams."

with that i will take some questions. >> [inaudible] >> as the president has said repeatedly, he thinks that we should be looking forward, not backward. he does not agree that anyone who has conducted sanctioned actions it should not be -- should be prosecuted -- should not be prosecuted. ultimately the decision falls to the attorney general. >> [inaudible] >> the attorney general makes the decision on who gets prosecuted. the president thinks that eric holder should make those decisions.

>> there is nothing official as far as a visit to senator kennedy. is that a possibility? >> there are no plans for that and i heard reports that the secret service had visited hyannis port. there is no reason to believe that they will be going there at this point. if the secret service was there, they were probably just checking out the lobster. [laughter] >> there has been a lot of talk about the buyer for general motors. does the president planned to speak with them about it? >> the president's view is that

decisions made about the day-to- day operations of general motors should be made by general motors. we are there to simply help get them back up on their feet. >> no. >> [inaudible] >> i would not know anything about that. >> the new unit to question terror suspects, what about the information that could not have been garnered in 2001? >> i can confirm that the report is largely accurate and that the president did put in place a new group of high valued interrogations', housed at the fbi. it will bring together the different elements of the intelligence community to get

the best intelligence possible based on proven methods, consistent with that the army field manual. the president's view is that intelligence gathering is best left to the intelligence community. this is a way that the intelligent community can -- intelligence community can best operate. >> is this new system going to be more efficient? will we get better information? >> the president's view is that we must always worked hard to protect the american people. when he signed this order, getting more intelligence by scientifically proven means, he thought it was a good plant and he has full confidence in the plant. he will continue to support it. .

clucks the president put in place a strategy by which we would disrupt, dismantle and defeat al qaeda and its allies. his view is that when he laid out as a policy earlier this year to put more troops on the ground, put in new strategy in place, as you know, general mcchrystal has only been there a short time and he has made an

assessment of the progress that we have made and what else we need to do to continue to make progress. i think we are going to hold off and not prejudged and predetermine on the reports coming out of the region. >> on the investigation of abuse of interrogations', you have referred us to the justice department. are you suggesting that the president will accept whatever recommendation the attorney general comes up with? , not just suggesting that. i did the president believes that is in his hands. >> is the white house now communicating with each -- with the justice department on that? has the president himself had any communications? >> wende president appointed attorney general holder to the job he wanted him to be independent and the department of justice to be independent europe has great faith in attorney-general holder, but he ultimately will make the decisions. >> hand off?

but the decision is in the -- >> the decision is in the attorney general's hands. >> is the cia effectively out of the interrogation business? >> i'm sorry, say that again? >> does the is the vision of this group under the fbi's purview me that the cia is out of interrogation is totally? >> absolutely not. the cia has an important role to play as it relates to interrogation. they have done a brilliant job in doing it so far, gathering intelligence. a lot of people do not know that half of the fbi's mission is actually to gather intelligence. what this does is it houses all of these different elements under one group iwhere they can best perform their duties. the intelligence committee will have a deputy who will be in that group and obviously, this york -- the cia will be involved. >> what is the president doing

tuesday in the health care debate? he is absolute -- is obviously out of the spotlight in washington. >> there are no calls or meetings on his schedule right now, but i will say that he is obviously staying up-to-date with it. he is giving daily briefings and talking to advisors as appropriate. but back at the white house, you can bet that nancy-ann depaula orol and her team are moving forward. >> the president is the strongest advocate on this. >> i think the president has a lot of faith in his team. he is happy toç be here in martha's vineyard. the health care debate is moving forward at a good clip. if you listened to what john mccain said yesterday this week -- on this week, he said there was broad agreement on some key things as it relates to health care on any of -- bring down costs to getting caught folks

covered -- to getting folks covered. there is a possibility of getting a bipartisan plan through. he will continue to work toward that end. right now, he is probably at the golf course, though. >> you just said there were no more calls on the schedule. we were just told by another press guy that he would be taking -- making calls to individual members of congress on health care. >> sure, but there's nothing on the schedule. he will do that as a portrait. stay tuned. if there are any regards, i will keep you -- >> the next day? >> [unintelligible] >> senator kennedy has as the governor and the legislature to change the law to appoint someone to his seat if someone should happen, if a seat is vacated for whatever reason. is the president concerned at all about losing senator

kennedy's vote and what might happen if the senators seek is vacated? >> i do not think that there are many people in the history of our country who have worked harder towards health care reform than senator kennedy. obviously, any support from him is critically important this issue is not one that he has discussed with senator kennedy. i do not know if we have had any discussions even on a staff level with the governor of massachusetts. but that is something for massachusetts to decide, not the president. >> it is a very close vote, the senator's vote is not there. does that concern him? >> arbys the, the president would love to get 100 votes in the senate. the we're working toward as big a majority as possible to achieve what the president is trying to achieve. but the decisions were talking about are up to the folks in massachusetts.

>> [inaudible] how is he going to balance that out? >> as you know, when we were originally coming in is because there was a delay over whether concerns, over whether and how we could have a big public arrival when we got here. i do not think we were able to organize and the like that knowing that the weather was going to be in tough shape. the president, as i said, he really appreciates being here in martha's vineyard. people have been very warm and welcoming. he has been coming here for some 10 years now. and he plans to come back. hopefully going forward, there will be opportunities out in the public. for right now, he is suspending a little time with his family. >> is congressman clyburn the only member of congress playing golf with him this week, or will there be other people in congress throughout the week? and what is his relationship

with mr. wolf? >> he is friends with mr. wolf. and right now, he is only scheduled with that one member of congress. right now, you have some breakfast, worked out, and what do i feel like doing today? he is doing that just like anybody else. >> was he specifically to play golf with him? but i am pretty sure he was already here. >> -- >> i am pretty sure he was already here. >> [unintelligible] he said the president obama would be the next victim of this kind of bias in the media. does the white house agree with that assessment, that criticism of african american politicians is often racially based? what's the president's view is that -- and i will be honest, we have not been following that

race with the granular t where we might know the ins and outs of david paterson, but we are obviously in close touch with governors from time to time. in terms of the media with the president, he thinks there are a lot of people who agree with him and disagree with him in the media and a lot of folks that just report it straight. whether or not is raise or not, i do not think it is the case. the president does not think it is the case. there are a lot of people that have different opinions and one of the great part about the american tradition is that people are able to do that freely. and that is the sort of thing that makes our democracy so strong. it is majorsç birthday, so i'm going to go to him. >> senator schumaer has asked

for a resolution [inaudible] does that mean that will not happen? >> i do not know about schumer's resolution. and i would suggest that you contact my good friend mark up in ambassador rice's office on that. as for seen quaddafi at the general assembly, as you know, he is the head of the general assembly. i assume at some point they will run into each other, but there is no scheduled meeting and no plans to schedule one. >> would be different now after the welcome? >> the president's view, as you have seen members of his administration say from robert gibbs to robert moeller, it was disgusting to see a convicted terrorist welcome to the way he was in libya. obviously, the president feels like that was a particularly bad idea. they should not have done it.

we said before and that they should not have done it. but in terms of our relationship, we will work on a case by case basis on whatever is appropriate going forward. >> [inaudible] >> i have a lot of folks with a lot of different opinions. we're dealing with 535 members of congress. some this weekend like john mccain said there is great agreement. we think there -- the reason we have been able to make more progress on health care than any other president in the last 60 years is because the american people are four square behind getting something done. costs have gone completely out of control. and the president's view is that until we get costs under control, until we get health care reform passed in this country, we will not be able to get everybody covered. we will not be able to get in place the kinds of a neinsurance reforms that we need in place.

the president feels like the process we have got moving forward is a good one. we have already got the support of the doctors, nurses, hospitals, aarp has said that therefore hope to reform. the president feels good about the progress we have made and we will continue moving towards getting the bill done and health care reform passed this year. >> [inaudible] >> i do not exactly know. i will get back to you on that. >> [inaudible] >> i saw that report in the "new york times" today. what if this was the fact that it is possible to sites presidential appointees in a bunch of different ways. and the way that the report did it specifically made it look like we are not doing very well. but if you compare this president as to the most previous presidents, we are far ahead when it comes to presidential appointees. or their individual frustrations

along the way, like the fact that congressman hughes has been held up for partisan purposes and not able to serve as secretary of the army? which people brought believe is something he is able to do capably? sure. but if you look at the progress in the last severn -- seven months, what we have done in the auto industry, the financial industry, iraq, afghanistan, children's health care, stem cell research, equal pay -- we have got a lot. >> [inaudible] >> like i said, i think that report did not accurately reflect the fact that there are a lot more folks in our administration and the pace is a lot quicker than the previous administrations.

the president's view is, do we have some more hiring to do? sure, but are we able to make a lot of progress with the team in place right now? absolutely. i think moving forward, the president is good about his team and he will continue putting together a strong team. >> [inaudible] >> in some cases, but there are other cases like congressman mchugh where it is, no. >> [inaudible] >> then skinned, that is interesting. i would not say they are thin skinned. we appreciate there are people not just at fox, but in all aspects of the media who come at this with sometimes very sharp opinions, sometimesç very tough questions. the president has obviously been in the past happy to take tough questions. the administration's early has. conservatives at -- like michael

makan disch, as early as this week, the president has appeared with chris wallace, bill reilly. he looks for vigorous debate. keep your eye on the facts as they happen, but i do not know you base that assertion on, frankly. >> you seem to be singled out as -- >> where you think we've been singled out? >> it seems like that over the course of the past six months. >> fox news? >> it fox news. it seems like they have been a little more critical than other media outlets. is that a strategy? >> like i said, i do not agree with the premise of your question, so i do not know how to answer it.

>> [inaudible] is this really the best time for the man leading the world to be sabine wine and playing golf? >> -- sipping wine and playing golf? >> as i recall, the previous president had actually taken quite a bit of vacation time himself. and i do not think anyone i could be loaned out or be loans this president tried to take some time with his family and we charge his batteries and get ready for the year ahead. -- and recharge his batteries and get ready for the year ahead. i think the president feels good about the progress we have been able to make. but i think that it is important for the president, just like any other individual, to take a little time to spend time with their family and recharge their batteries.

>> [inaudible] is it possible that we will go several days without any of these sorts of activities? also, following upon chip, are you going to let us know in advance or after these things take place? >> if the president decides to pick up a phone and call a member of congress, i will not let you know in advance. but i will encourage you to stay in touch, a lot -- talk to lead to arlin about any surjit activity. but we will keep you posted. >> is it possible that for several days he will just be relaxing and not doing any of these activities? >> sherk. . sure. >> [inaudible] would you respond to that at all as to whether or not you think that might be a concern?

>> i did not see senator lieberman's remarks, so i cannot respond directly to that. but on economic and health care reform, it is pretty clear and the president has been talking about it for some time. if we do not get costs under control, the way they are going up is causing the health insurance industry to shed tens of thousands of americans each month as a result of rising costs. and those higher costs are causing medicare and medicaid and state run health care programs to create budgetary problems that are fiscally unsustainable. the president's view is that health care reform is important for health care's say, but in terms of the long-term fiscal health of this country, it is critical in that area as well. >> now that he is here, can you give us more insight as to why the president chose to come to martha's vineyard as opposed to any place else? can you give us an assessment as to his level of desire to engage

here? >> the president has been coming to martha's vineyard for some 10 years. he has probably been five or six times over the course of that time frame. he enjoys it. it is comfortable. the beaches are nice. the people are particularly nice. there is really good food to eat. if you're lucky and go down to the sandpit on a sunday night, there is singing. there are a lot of great things about martha's vineyard. the president has been coming year and probably will continue to. in terms of engaging the public, if he decides to put anything like that on the schedule, will be sure to let you know. >> [inaudible] >> hisç desire in martha's vineyard is to get a break. he sure appreciates the hospitality of the people here, but he just wants to spend time with his family and relax.

>> you know if he plans to post with other folks on the island? >> nou, at this point there is no plan for that. i would not foreclose the notion, but there is no plan for that are now. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> c-span's coverage of the national health care debate continues tonight with wisconsin democrat ron kind. he recently held a town hall meeting and we will show it to you at 8:00 p.m. eastern here on cnn. tomorrow it is live coverage of virginia democrat jim baran and his health care town hall.

the former dnc chairman howard dean will join him at the event. you can see it live at 7:00 p.m. eastern. as the debate over health care continues, c-span's healthcare of is a key resource. go on line, follow latest tweet, the dealings and ads. the watch the latest events and town hall meetings and share your own thoughts on the issue with your own citizen video, including any town halls you have gone too. and there is more at c-span.org /healthcare. >> george mason university president alan martin on the role of higher education and training information technology professionals tonight on the communicators on c-span2. >> now look at the process of how a bill becomes a law. michael white, managing editor of the publication called "federal register" talks about it at the forum friday at the

national archives. >> i would like to introduce you, michael white, the managing editor of the federal register and he is here to talk to about how a bill becomes a public law. [applause] >> thank you. i am all wired up. i hope i am getting a good sound level. it is my pleasure to speak to you all this afternoon. as a washington d.c. native, glad we can provide you with an authentic summer experience in our nation's capital -- sweltering heat and plenty of humanity. -- humidity. i was very pleased to be asked to present a program for the national archives and 75th anniversary. i am over at the federal register, which is a component of the national archives and has

been since our inception. i was asked to talk on how the bill becomes law, which is an old chestnut, i guess, but i will look at it a little bit more from our side, the executive branch, because i am not a house or senate parliamentarian and i do not want them to think i am encouraging on their territory. -- encroaching on their territory. i will start off by speaking of the office of the national federal register within the archives. just last year we launched this new web site called federalregister.gov and this is a portal, essentially, to all of our publications on various web sites. most of our publications are found on the gpo access web site, the daily federal

register, code of regulations. but we do have materials also on the national archives at that website. and we also opposed a certain material only on this website. to bring it all together, we created this as a way to get to federal register publications a little bit more easily. today's topic is federal laws. you had a little arrow and it will get you to the right place. a little bit about the office of the federal register -- as you can see, founded in 1935. when you're behind the national archives itself. -- one year behind the national archives itself. it was founded in conceptw3 befe it actually became a reality. after the infamous padlock refining case where a federal regulation was litigated up to

the -- panama refining case where a federal regulation was limited to the supreme court and had been an amended out of existence inadvertent anchored not be found as a rebuke -- as an original document. that incident spurred the american bar association, harvard law school's dean irving griswald to recommend that the federal register be founded. we have fdr up there because he is often thought of as the father of the federal register. when he was secretary of the navy during world war i he proposed a federal register be established. mitt romney was not so keen on the idea of it -- when he was president because like all presidents, there is some concern about opening of the governmental process to the general project -- public. and of course, the federal register is a government newspaper and in those days, fdr was considered -- there was a great deal of talk about him

being a socialist. the register might be an organ of propaganda. so, nothing really changes. fdr, giving him a lot of credit, was not all that keen on the idea when it came around. new scholarship, justice brandeis of the supreme court, was relieved when behind-the- scenes as a motivating factor. there is a wonderful article about it if you care to look it up one day. a couple of milestones, the statues -- statutes at large were not always with the archives. they were produced by a secretary of state. it was only after world war ii and the national security apparatus was reorganized that the state department threw off its domestic duties. it really has none to this day except, say, a presidential resignation. remember, when richard nixon

resigned, submitted a letter to henry kissinger, who was secretary of state. but these state functions, housekeeping functions were transferred to the national archives and the federal register after world war ii. a couple of electronic notes there, the first federal registered mandated by congress to be electronic was in 1994. we put the entire code of federal regulations on line in 1997, but began updating it daily in 2001, calling it ecfr. and we began digitizing laws in 2007. we are very proud of the fact that we inaugurated on inauguration day the daily compilation of presidential documents, which replaced the old pamphlet persian, which was a weekly public -- pamphlet version which was a weekly

publication and basically in print. the president's speech was posed within two hours after the inauguration and will now update it oevery day. this is a list of presidential remarks, statements and official documents that are not in the federal register itself. a little word about technology, we are switching the entire platform of the laws, regulations to a new system called the federal digital system. we hope in the next couple of years to embrace all of the social networking tools and things like rss feeds to notify the public of changes in regulations and laws. our objectives today -- and this always presents a dilemma because we could easily spend three hours on legislative process, but what i will try to do is quickly run through out

the bill becomes a law and talk a bit more about the publication aspects, which is what we do at the federal register specifically. touch on the constitutional and evidenciary issues and comment a little bit on the executive branch's role in lawmaking. building a little deeper there, -- delving a little deeper there, we are hoping to speed through the lawmaking itself, talk a little bit about the two different types of publications for laws. two different agencies handle this. and then at the bottom there, i want to go over some curious cases and anomalies if we have time. i have a few examples laid out here, which i think are little more interesting than the introduction of the bill and so forth. çi picked up this little carton because this is kind of a deep

subject. there you see some legislation being read on the beach and it sure is easier not to have to follow all of the ins and outs. it is quite a complex process in the congress and we will certainly not cover all of that today. here i express my apologies to the house of representatives for stealing their cartoons, but this is on their website. in a little different form. the sausage making. lawmaking has been compared to sausage making. it was the german chancellor over on bismark who was credited with the statement that is best not to look too closely at the lawmaking process because it resembles a sausage making. and it is not pretty. he probably did not say that, but he is generally given the credit. the only person who can introduce a bill in congress is

a member of congress. the president cannot do that. he has to have, in effect, an agent introduced something for the executive branch. there are four basic types of legislation. the first two, bills and joint resolutions, are virtually indistinguishable. it is by tradition that there are two different names for these actions. there are a few things that are specifically our joint resolutions. and in this to the constitution that are proposed, and of course -- that our joint resolutions, like the amendments to the constitution that are proposed and i was here for the 27th amendment. it had to be introduced as a joint resolution. it originated 200 years ago, but we will not go into that. also, concurrent resolutions and simple resolutions. the two houses can come up with a concurrent resolution, and that might be on a matter of procedure or a statement they

would like to make. it has to be passed by both, or they could just have a simple resolution from just one house. that it presented to the president. -- that gets presented to the president. there are private bills as well as public bills. private bills, as you might expect, affect private parties, maybe a single-family, maybe an immigration case, for instance. a special ring true for someone to get citizenship. -- our arrangement for someone to get citizenship. as we all know, when a bill gets introduced to members of congress, they will try to garner support from their other members and then the big lobbying campaigns take off, sometimes before the bill is introduced. occasionally, you'll see a draft

form of the bill circulated around, but that is before the official process. here is a picture of a hopper and their little early is a hopper in the house of representatives. -- literally is a copper in the house were presented. that is where you put a bill when you introduce it. in the senate, it is not specifically a the brown box, but you put it on the presiding officer's desk and then a bill clark will assign a number and these are basically sequential numbers. there is sometimes some competition to get hr-1 in the hopper or s-1, senate bill. this year, hr-1 and s-1 were both dealing with the economic crisis. of course, they did not come out

that way on the other end. as a public lot it was 11-5, so the fifth bill of the 11 -- it was 111-5, the fifth bill of the 111th congress to be enacted. another bill was the seller fix for the secretary of the interior, ken salazar, whose salary had to be reduced in order to take the office since he had voted on pay raises while he was a member of the senate. here we are. there are many committees, 19 house and 16 senate committees. of course, they covered different subject matters. actions get placed on the committee calendar and then they get marked up inç committee, literally marked up. amendments are introduced and

they may not go anywhere. they may get tabled. there, leave their referred to subcommittees', so the real work takes place at a lower level. reported a bill out, well, a bill is reported out literally with a report attached to it and this is the discussion and recommendations of the committee. there may also be a minority report if the minority side does not agree with these recommendations. they can make that known. then the build its place on a calendar and this varies greatly between the two houses, so we will not go into all of those details. but there are different calendars to get placed on and basically, it is up to the majority leader in the senate and the speaker and majority leleader in the house as to how the bills go on the calendar. floor debate -- well, again,

we're generalizing here. every bill that goes to the floor in the house is governed by a rule. it has to go through the rules committee of the house for the specific parameters of the debate to be outlined. how long a bill will be debated is all done through the rules committee. it may specify 20 hours of debate and so forth. the senate of course, has unlimited debate theoretically. there is not the same process. a limited debate can lead to filibuster and we are all hearing about that these days. the calling of the yeas and nays, i do not watch c-span that often, but i believe it is still correct that the house is using electronic voting whereas the senate has not adopted that and you hear the yeas and nays called out in the senate. or one of the senators walked up

to the front and records their vote. each house has a journal and of course, the votes are reflected in the congressional record which comes out every day after the congress or one of the houses, at least, is in session. when a bill get through one house is sent to the other house. there are a couple of terms year that are important to note. one of those is "in gross." if you look at the thomas website of the library of congress -- a library of commerce, you will see these terms. and grosseengrossed is very con. 11 house passes a bill it is called the engrossed bill version. it is sent over to the other house. the house may or may not pick up

the bill. it will literally be laid on the table, and that is the term, "laid on the table." that it means it stays there and it can be ignored. if the majority of the a house does not want to deal with it, that could be the end of it. of course, there's a certain amount of agreement between the two houses, so they try to work things out. once a bill is passed, there are very often differences in the two houses, so they have to be resolved in conference. each of the members of the house and the set at are assigned -- there are several members assigned to conference committee by their leader, and that would include the majority and minority leaders often -- members often and they work out those differences. and the final bill has to be sent back to both houses if they have consolidated or made some additional changes. when that goes through each house again, it is called the

enrolled version. that version is just about as good as a public law because that is the version sent to the president. interestingly, we still talk about the parchment being sent to the white house. no longer use goatskin for the parchment, but the paper is very thick and it resembles a parchment. note also that it has to be signed by the speaker and the president of the senate. that certification will talk about a little bit later in one of these special cases that i bring up. i do not recall which bill signing this was, but this was from one of our gpo access web sites where the president is signing a bill. this idea of present and is very important in constitutional law. of course, the normal process is that if the president agrees, he be with just a few members of

congress like you see here. maybe it will be in the rose garden with different constituent groups there. but also, the president can take no action. we call that a kendeigh law. if after 10 days, sundays at excluded, the president does not do anything with a bill presented to him, then the law goes into effect. you'll see in the statute book, and indistinguishable between the two, it simply says "approved." it will not carry a presidential signature facsimile. we will talk more about that in terms of vetoes. it gets a little complicated because what if there are not 10 days left in congressional session and the president does nothing?

well, he can literally engage a pocket veto by simply putting the bill aside and not returning it to the congress if he objects. but the first case is more common, where the president actually sends the vetoed bill back and specifies the objections in a message that goes to the congress with the bill itself. the parchment goes back. it is like a hot potato that gets traded back to the congress. interestingly enough, this process, a pocket veto and the regular veto spawned a number of cases back in the 70's in particular. richard nixon and then gerald ford. richard nixon sent back a number of bills and it really was not clear just what adjournment means. we always hear congress is in the adjournment.

but along the 70's, congress decided to introduce some vetoes that the president could appoint -- put into affect, they would appoint an agent while they were in adjournment in case the president sent the bill back. if you read it closely, it's as if the president is prevented -- it says if the president prevented from returning it by adjournment, then the pocket veto would be in effect. so, you have a case where the congress has said, is not impossible. we have an agent. that led to a lot of litigation. as well as the pocket veto cases later under presidents ford. he adopted this kind of strange, hybrid version. president ford sent back bills

with a message, but then claiming to have pocket vetoed them at the same time. that seems quite odd. the congress decided to treat that, and again, their decision, democrats versus a republican president, was to say, this is not a pocket veto. you returned the bill and we are when to override this thing if we can, and they did so on several occasions. that went all the way to the court and we got our first hard definition of what adjournment is. the courts almost gave us a hard and fast rule that it is adjournment at the end of a session, congress is in adjournment. and if it is not at the end of a session, they may appoint an agent. the supreme court endorsed that view. the constitution did not give

the president the right to pocket veto a bill of the congress goes out of town for the weekend. that is not what it is intended for. later on, it became a bit less clear. we have already talked about a veto override, it takes a two- thirds majority. what happens in terms of where the lot and up and that is where we finally come into the process at the federal register? if the president approves the bill, a cork comes over from the executive clerk's office at the white house with the bill, literally shows up at the office, knows the nomination to get in and present it to us and get a receipt. if on the other hand there is a veto override, it does not happen very often, but at the house and the senate, theç cles or they're nowhere to go. they will take the parchment

and, of course, it will have no presidential signature. it will have a notification on it that it was a veto override. we have talked about congressional process of law. it is worthwhile mentioning the executive branch. before a bill is enacted into law, before there is any legislative activity, each of the agencies is authorized by the president and his agents at the offices of management and budget to come up with a legislative agenda. each year, you will see a call go out to the agency'ies, submit on a leader but a request, but a legislative agenda. that will go a review process at omd. they may not agree with some

ambitious it is initiatives that the agency had has put forward. there's a process where you have to go through this laundry list of considerations as to how your proposed legislation is going to affect things. most agencies also have legislative liaison who work with congressional committees there, they are oversight bodies. maybe they do get their legislation put forward, but getting it through committee and onto the floor is another matter. there is a sort of gentle pushing along and greasing of the skids. the agencies themselves console during this process, too, it should be said. and agents have different interests and priorities and they do not always agree and they are very conscious of their turf. when we see the financial regulatory agencies now sort of battling over who gets to

regulate the financial system in what way, and you have got five or six different entities like the sec and the fdic, the federal reserve -- they're all sort of trying to protect their turf in these legislative initiatives. now, after a bill is passed by the congress comes a review timeframe. that comes before and after there is a review. this is where the department of justice most prominently waves -- weighs in. they have got about 48 hours to take a while at a bill. the president will say kaman not sure if i should sign that -- the president will say, i'm not sure if i should sign this. it is the office of legal counsel that is generally charged with reviewing the bill, seeing if there are any technical matters that may be a little out of whack that they want to weigh in on. they may look at it in terms of the president's prerogative and

they may also have advice about whether the policy in the bill is good for this president's program. omb also sent out copies to the various agencies that might be affected. and again, you have the 48 hour time frame to take a crack at it and then the president makes a decision. we all know there are many competing interests that may or may not agree with some of the parties. now this is the nuts and bolts of my job. i want to talk about the two different types of publications of laws. my two favorite animals here. they are different animals, but they work together pretty well. in terms of the publication, we have talked about the loss coming to the office of the federal register and we have two formats, which are essentially the softbound, paperback version

and the hard down version, but the same material. slip laws of the first thing that goes out on the streets after a bill has been enacted and published. later on, the united states statutes at large, which i have one standing up there, is produced and it should be identical to the various slip laws, which forceare literally s of paper. but the same time, there is an office in the house of representatives of the law revision council and this group of mostly lawyers is looking at a newly enacted legislation and deciding where the various components of it should be commodifiedç -- commodified, organized into a different

publication called the united states code. -- should be codified, organized into a different publication of the united states code. it is one bill enacted into law after another, whereas the united states code is organized by subject matter and that involves very literally the processes to take a pencil and go across the page and create a segment of the law as distinct and say, this should go in that title 44, or this piece needs to go in title 28. and then they do that electronically a little bit later on. here's a look at the statutes of large, bound volumes, and a slot. this is the publication at the federal -- that the federal register produces. the distinguishing thing about

the statutes at large that is extremely important for us is that there was no resort to the original document if there is any question about what is in a slip law or statute. in other words, this is irrefutable evidence of the law and we have to take tremendous effort to make sure that we capture the law correctly because those mistakes, if there are any, will become law. we will talk more about that in one of the special cases. the u.s. code, on the other hand, is the law on its face. it appears to be the law. that means it can be challenged. if you are looking for the original source document, you need to go to the slip law or the statutes at large. however, it is a lot easier to find material in the u.s. code. so, commonly, lawyers will look

at the u.s. code rather than investigate a slot after is several years old. positive law gets a lot of discussion sometimes in internet groups and what not. some people think that if something is not enacted into positive lot is not law, and that is a misimpression. positive law as a process by which the law revision council go through their volumes periodically and they say, well, we have done our best to codify this material and along the way congress made a mistake and is designated a paragraph, perhaps -- it should have been "b" and ended up "c"then congress will

reenact the entire book into law. in other words, it is taking the cleaned up version of the law, reenacting it in a bill that goes through those houses to the president for signature and should -- both houses to the president for signature and should be noncontroversial. the problem is, it is an ever- changing legal system. as soon as they get these books of today, someone else has amended its. they're always try to catch up. but there are a number of editions that have been reenacted into positive law. a bit more about the u.s. code, this is the best dramativegemate because that is what they think about what they're doing this. they are literally chopping up pieces of those 50 laws and putting them into various titles as you see on the left. another interesting thing about that, the way that we work together is that the

classifiers, as they are called, are doing this slice and dice after the bill is signed and they're sending it over to us at the federal register. we have an opportunity to put those citations into the slip law so we can help the reader forecast where this is going to appear in the code. the other thing to mention here is that a lot of lawyers and other folks do not use the official version. they use the united states code annotated, or the lexis u.s. code service or even the cornell university does a very nice job on their website. the u.s. code is only updated every six years in full. there's a lot of activity that happens every six years. they do produce supplement, but it is difficult for a person to see the full picture of the law. to talk a little bit more about our process on our side, we have

already talked about the executive clerk, but i do want to mention it is a very important function. the executive clerk is a career person. often there for 25 or 30 years at the white house. they literally take custody of these laws from either the secretary of the senate or the court of the house. when it is passed on from the congress this idea of the chain of evidence must be maintained -- the court takes custody and that is the part of which most constitutional scholars consider the law to be presented to the president, when the white house clerk gets it. whether he actually put on the president's desk the same day we do not know, but that is what happens inside the white house. and that starts the 10-day clock running. the president may affixed his signature, and that is barack obama's official signature that

he submitted to the federal register. then my office assumes custody from the white house clerk. what we do immediately is to assign a public law number. before we get it, it has a congressional designation by hr- 1 or s-453. we give its identity, like say, public law 111-2, which was the ledbetter fair pay act. we have a copy, like what you see in the old bank robbery movies, where you put the originals. we later send those to the national archives, of which we are a part, so it is totally appropriate that we are part of the archives. the other thing that kind of goes on in the background is gpo and remember, i said very

common denominator between the house and the federal register office. in the old days, gpo would take a photo static print of the law along the way -- so, as an interest bill, and enrolled bill, as it introduced bill for that matter, there was a print that was considered the text of the law. every little changed along the way had to be recorded. congress does its work during the day, then at night they send these changes over to a gpo entitand the gpo in the old days would keep the lettering in. these days, it is done electronically. but you can see that when you have a photostat copy, that is a hard piece of physical evidence. they have to take great deal of

care to make sure they are using the right file. what we do at the federal register, as i said, we add some by utilities, including those u.s. code sites. we also make corrections, not in the sense that we change congressional language, but inevitably, when you send material back and forth, you have to be sure that nothing gets corrupted in the electronic file. when we are satisfied that everything is in order -- so, we have taken a chain of custody over the enrolled bill and we have added material to it, then we will say, ok, go to print. that usually takes five to 10 days for the slip lot and much longer after a big adjournment and you have, say, 13 appropriations bills consolidated into one big thing. it takes awhile to get that going. and the statutes at large or two

years running behind. here is an example of the type of accord value added -- the type of the value added, as we like to call it -- of the top you have the date of enactment. there you see what will be the united states statutes at large citation. so, the pattern nation is r.t. there in the slot blot. -- is already there in decent little law. it does not get change in our book. -- in slip law. it does not get changed in our book. the popular name is usually highlighted. then you see these little notes. interestingly enough, we call them willits and that is because there was a fellow over in accounting thatç was a legend n his own time and his name was ed