this. with all the petty partisanship and game play in washington, i know that sometimes you got some free press. @@@@@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009]

[captioning performed by the national captioning institute] and the future will belong to the united states of america. thank you. god bless you. god the united states of america. thank you. thank you! [applause] thank you! [applause] all ybody sit down. this is where i t seat, so i have to take off my jacket. everybody sit down. some of you have been to town halls before, so this is pretty straightforward. we have people in the audience with microphones. just raise your hand.

we will go girl boy girl voice so that we make sure it is fair. i will try to take as many questions as i can in the time remaining. before you ask your question, if you could introduce yourself so that we know who you are and try to make your question relatively brief so that we can get as many as possible. we're going to go girl void for a boy. the young lady right there. >> thank you president obama. >> what is your name? >> my name is lawrence. in nevada, we have the second highest number of medically uninsured, about a hundred 25,000 uninsured. more than five working adults our colleagues that die each

week because of no access to health care. i am the founder of volunteers in medicine, a free clinic that has been set up to help our sick and dying. there are hundreds that have rallied like a core of angels to provide free health care for their struggling neighbors. housekeepers and operators and social workers. in your health reform bill, you have a provision to protect the federal refunded and subsidize community clinics. it is not clear if they are going to cover the free clinics where volunteers throughout the community have rallied to give support to the struggling neighbors in their great time of need. can you help us with that? >> thank you for the great work that you guys have done. we appreciate that.

if you are like a lot of free clinics across the country, i know you're getting overwhelmed. the need is so great. the bill that harry and i have been working on will provide assistance to a whole range of community-based efforts preventative care, well as care, which is absolutely vital not only to the people that are receiving services, but also for reducing the cost of health-care overhaul. the more that people have access to preventive care, the less likely they are to go to the emergency room when things are already out of hand. let me speak more broadly about health care. i have to it meant that this has

been an issue that i was warned i should not take on. no, seriously. when i first came men and harry was part of these conversations. there were a lot of political advisers that said that health care is just too hard. it is just too complicated. everybody says in the theory that they want to reform the health-care system, but because it is complicated yet all kinds of criticism the insurance lobby will spend money. your poll numbers will go down and will not get a lot of cooperation from the other side. that was the warning. pause, because the economy is

bad, a lot of people are feeling anxious. so, they are thinking that if they had to do all that stuff to fix the financial system and had to do the stuff to fix the autozone and the recovery package, tax revenues are not coming in and. this is probably not the time to be too ambitious. i want to explain why i decided to do this. first of all, i got a letter every day from people who lost their jobs and suddenly not have health insurance. they were solid, middle-class folks until lost their job and discovered they could not get coverage because something had

happened to them before. maybe a woman had had breast cancer and it was ok as long as she had her employer based health care, but once she lost her job, she could not get health care. i have looked to many parents in the eyes that say that their children have these chronic diseases and we found out that our insurance only cover us up to a certain amount and then there was a cap and afterwards, it makes sure that the kids would live. that was the main reason i said we had to take it on. the second reason was because what has happened to your premiums. if this was a representative sample, i am assuming that 85

percent of you have health care. some of you are buying it individually. no matter what your situation, it has got up double digits over the last year. they doubled over the last decade. there will more than double over the next decade if we did -- do not do anything. this is digging deeper and deeper into your pockets. some of you saw the news. for those of you that do not do this, one of the biggest insurance providers just announced that they were going to raise rates on these rates up

to 39%. that is the future. that is going to be one of the main things that helps to bankrupt local school districts. those young people that are about to go a college, finally, the third reason we had to take this on is because the deficit and debt that you hear everybody getting in a tizzy about, the vast majority of our long-term debt is driven by medicare and medicaid. it is driven by our allies in

health care cost. you could eliminate every year mac -- ever earmarked and foreign aid and it would amount to 5% of the budget. most of it is health care costs. that drives up even faster. pretty soon, the entire federal budget will be gobbled up by these rising health-care costs. you are already seeing it at the state level. the government is talking about cutting all aspects of medicaid because of the cost. here is my point. we cannot wait to reform the health-care system. it is vital for our economy to change how the health care is in this country. it is vital.

[applause] having said all that, the people who were giving me advice were right. healthcare has been knocking me around pretty good. it has been knocking harry around pretty good. harry had shown extraordinary courage because he says that we will get this done. that is what he has been saying consistently. i am proud of him for it. [applause] let me describe what it is that we have proposed. i am waiting to see what the republicans propose in return because there has been a lot of misinformation. what we have said is this. if you have health insurance, we

will pass a series of health reforms so that the insurance companies have to treat you fairly. they cannot prevent you from getting health insurance because of a pre-existing condition. they cannot put a lifetime cap in the fine print and it turns out your not fully covered. there is a whole series of insurance reforms. we have a series of cost controls. we are saying that every insurer has to spend the vast majority of your premiums on actual care as opposed to profits and overhead. we are saying that we have to get out of some of the waste and abuse including that which runs in the tens of billions of dollars every year. that is not a good use of

taxpayer dollars. we are working to improve wellness and prevention so that people will not go to the emergency room for care. the thing that is most controversial is what we are also saying which is access to coverage. we set up something like an exchange where individuals and small businesses that do not get a good deal because they do not have the same negotiating power as the big companies when it comes to the insurance market, they can't fool -- they can pulool so that they have the purchasing power of a million people behind it will give subsidies to local -- working families.

[applause] i want everybody to pay attention next thursday when we have this health care summit. you may not want to watch all six or eight hours of it, you have things to do. but pay attention to what this debate is about because there has been so much talk about death and girls. the attention. this is -- what we're proposing has nothing to do with health care. most of you would have the exact same health care that you have right now, but you'd be more protected and more secure. if you do not have health care, you have a chance of getting health care. it would actually save us money in a long term because all those ways will dollars we are spending right now, the experts say would save one trillion dollars by passing it. i think it is the right thing to do. the republicans say that they

have a better way of doing it. i want them to put it on the table. if you show me that you can do the things that were talking about, make sure that the costs are controlled@@@@@@@ @ @ @ @ @ show me what you got, but don't let the american people go another 10 years, another 20 years without health insurance reform in this country.

all right. ok. it's a man's turn. this guy over here. the guy with the beard. >> thank you, mr. president. jonesboro, arkansas. >> what are you doing all the way here in vegas. >> that's what i'm talking about. there you go. everybody comes to vegas. yeah. [applause] now, here is my only question. have you spent some money here in vegas? >> yes, sir. >> he says yes, sir. . doing all the y here in vegas? >> everybody comes to vegas. [laughter.] >> that's what i'm talking about. there you go. everybody comes to vegas. [applause.] yes. now, here's my only question,have you spent some money here>> oh, yes, sir.

>> he says "yes, sir."[applause.] >> yes, sir. >> he's spending some money here in vegas. all right. that's good. we like to see that. all right, what's your question? >> well, sir, i'm reasonably familiar with the current and proposed legislature as it applies to dentistry and oral health. and my question is, what's your vision for how dentistry will fit into your larger framework for health care reform? >> are you a dentist yourself? >> yes, sir. so if somebody has a heart attack, you better still call 9- 1-1. [laughter.] just a dentist. >> now, it is interesting that you raised this. it turns out -- this is serous -- that dental hygiene is actually very important for keeping your heart healthy. it turns out that heart disease can be triggered when you've got gum disease. so everybody floss. that's my first -- am i right? you got to floss. [applause.] at minimum -- at minimum, i think it's very important that we've got dental care for our kids. [applause.] because what happens is, is

that if we can keep our children's teeth healthy, then usually that means they've got healthy teeth as adults. and if not, oftentimes that actually distracts them and -- if we can keep our children steve howe, then that means they got healthy teeth as adults. if not, oftentimes i actually distracts them and prevents them from learning, because both dental and eye care -- a lot of kids end up being distracted. they can't read the blackboard, they've got a cavity that's been untreated. it's a huge problem. so i would like to see dental care covered. i will tell you that some folks are going to say we can't afford it. at minimum, i'd like to see that our children have the care that they need. [applause.] >> can i say one more thing, sir? i think most of us in dentistry think that health care is the

primary need here in terms of that, and children as well. so we think that if you can take care of health care first and let dentistry -- do that kind of thing -- it's more important to take care of the health care first. thank you, sir. >> there you go. all right, i appreciate that. thank you. [applause.] okay, it's a young lady's turn. it's so hard to choose. okay, i'll call on this young lady back here, right over here. yes, you. [laughter.] all right, we got to get the young man with the mic over to you. >> thank you, mr. president. thank god for this opportunity. i realize that insurance and

medical care has been a major issue. this is my problem. i worked for united airlines for nearly 30 years. i was severely injured during flight. i have a workman comp's case that have fallen on deaf ear. the lawyers and the doctors and this whole problem has drove my life really to almost not having a life at all. i don't know where else to turn. i don't know who else to talk to about the problem. i've written you letters. i've written letters to many of the senators here in las vegas. i've talked to the doctors. i've done everything i know how to do. but i am a widow with a special needs child. i have lived in the house that i live in for 19 years. my house is in foreclosure. i have disability insurance. i have social security disability. that disability tells me, your insurance is not accepted here.

i can't get the medical help that i need to get better. >> what's your -- >> i'd love to be a flight attendant for you on that u.s. one. i'm trained on that u.s. one. [laughter.] >> well, look, in terms of your specific issue, come see harry reid and harry reid will see if he can help you out here. [applause.] all right? workman's comp is generally a state issue as opposed to a federal issue. but harry, he's got a few connections here in nevada, so i suspect that he can help out. but, look, to the larger point, there are a lot more people who are actually going on disability right now partly because job opportunities have shrunk. and that's why it's so important for us to really focus on jobs. now, if you were listening to the republicans, you'd think that last year we weren't paying any attention to jobs, that we were just kind of -- i don't know what we were doing, harry.

i guess we were just sort of sitting around. [laughter.] the truth is, is that everything we did last year was designed around how do we break the back of the recession and move the economic recovery forward in order to promote job growth. you can't have job growth if the economy is contracting by 6 percent, because businesses look and they say nobody is spending money, we got no customers, we can't hire. so the first thing we had to do was to make sure that companies were starting to make a profit again, and the economy was growing. we are now in that position, because of the work that harry did and a lot of -- and these two outstanding members of congress did, congresswoman berkley and titus. [applause.] the economy is now growing again. but here is the challenge that we've got.

the challenge we have is that after they've laid off 8 million people, now they're growing with fewer people. so they're making profits, but they haven't started hiring yet. our challenge is how do we get businesses to start hiring again? now, some of the jobs, i'll be honest with you, are probably not going to come back. and the reason is because people have installed new technologies, or they've set up new system where they can do more with fewer workers. that's why it's so important for us to invest in new industries and new technologies. i'll give you an example. we were talking about autos before. do you know that before the recovery act was passed, the united states was producing about 2 percent of the advanced

batteries that are used in these clean cars, these electric cars? we were producing 2 percent of the batteries -- less than 2 percent. what we did as part of the recovery act was invest in developing plants for battery production here in the united states. and do you know that in 18 months, we will have the capacity to produce 20 percent of the advanced batteries around the world? [applause.] and by 2015, we'll have the capacity to produce 40 percent of the batteries around the world. we've created an entire new industry -- an entire new industry has been created here in the united states that can produce jobs. so we've got to constantly look for those opportunities in solar and in wind, and in other hi-tech areas, because that's going to be the future. the more people have work available to them -- there is just a virtuous cycle that happens. when people go to work, they feel good; their health is better; their kids do better in school -- right? [applause.] business -- they've got money

to spend, they come to vegas, right? tourism industry starts taking off. [applause.] so we're going to be putting -- harry and i are working now on a jobs package for this year that's designed not -- it's no longer designed to grow the economy. now it's designed to give incentives to businesses who are now making a profit to start hiring again, and to help small businesses get loans. because a lot of small businesses are still having trouble getting loans from banks, even if they see an opportunity for business growth, and we want to make sure that they've got access to capital. all right, it's a guy's turn. i'm going to call on this guy, even though he's got a cubs jacket on. [laughter.] everybody knows i'm a white sox fan, but i'm going to call -- just to show that i'm unbiased, i'm calling on a cubs guy.

[laughter.] >> you're not a cub hater. >> i'm not a cub hater, that's right. >> okay, before i ask my question, i want to say something. i'm enrolled in a medicare advantage plan. i understand that my benefits will be cut with health reform. i'm all for it. >> well, how about that? let me -- let me -- before you ask your actual question, let me just make this point. we're not actually eliminating medicare advantage. what medicare advantage is, is basically the previous administration had this idea, instead of traditional medicare, let's contract out to insurance companies to manage the medicare program. and the insurance companies can then kind of package and pool providers of dental care or eye wear or what have you, and it's a one-stop shop for seniors. now, in theory that sounds like a pretty good idea, except as you might imagine if the insurance companies are involved that means they've got

to make a profit. and what happened was they didn't bid out competitively this medicare advantage program. so these insurance companies were just getting a sweet deal. all we've been saying is let's make sure that there's a competitive bidding process and that we are getting the absolute best bargain. [applause.] but i appreciate your larger concern, which is let's make sure that everybody has access to health care. and traditional medicare, by the way, is a great deal. everybody who is in it is pretty happy with it. but go ahead with your question. >> i'm going to introduce myself. my name is norman -- i live in north las vegas. i'm retired. [applause.] and my question is about social security. >> are you a former chicagoan? >> yes, sir. >> where are you from in chicago? >> schaumburg last. >> fantastic. well, the weather is a little bit better here, i got to admit. [laughter.] >> well, we can visit snow here. >> exactly. all right, go ahead.

>> well, my question is about social security. now, i know there are a lot of myths out there, and i know you can dispel them. i saw an interview on "meet the press" with alan greenspan, who, as you know, was on the social security commission in the '80s. and tim russert asked him specifically, what about the crisis in social security? alan greenspan's response was, there is no crisis in social security; it's a payroll tax issue. can you comment on that? >> yes. here's the situation with social security. it is actually true that social security is not in crisis the way our health care system is in crisis. i mean, when you think about the big entitlement programs, you've got social security, medicare, medicaid. these are the big programs that take up a huge portion of the federal budget. social security is in the best shape of any of these, because basically the cost of social security will just go up with ordinary inflation, whereas health care costs are going up

much faster than inflation. it is true that if we continue on the current path with social security, if we did nothing on social security, that at a certain point, in maybe 20 years or so, what would happen is that you start seeing less money coming into the payroll tax, because the population is getting older so you've got fewer workers, and more people are collecting social security so more money is going out, and so the trust fund starts dropping. and if we did nothing, then somewhere around 2040 what would happen would be a lot of the young people who would start collecting social security around then would find that they only got 75 cents on every dollar that they thought they were going to get. everybody with me so far? all right. so slowly we're running out of money. but the fixes that are required

for social security are not huge, the way they are with medicare. medicare, that is a real problem. if we don't get a handle on it, it will bankrupt us. with social security, we could make adjustments to the payroll tax. for example -- i'll just give you one example -- right now, your social security -- your payroll tax is capped at $109,000. so what that means is, is that -- how many people -- i don't mean to pry into your business,,

payroll tax. somebody said, what? yeah, that's the he says, yes, sir. what it means, mor 95% of americans, for every dollar you earn, you pay into the payroll tax. but think about the other 5% that's making more than $109,000 a year. warren buffet pays taxes on the first $109,000 he makes and then for the other $10 billion, he doesn't pay payroll taxes. yeah, "what?" he says.

is solvent. so that would just be one example. that's not the only way of fixing it, but if you made a slight adjustment like that, then social security would be there well into the future and it would be fine. all right? [applause.] okay. it's a woman's turn. anybody -- i'm going to go back here. nobody's got -- these folks haven't had a chance here. hold on one second -- i'm going to let you use my mic. you'll give it back, right? [laughter.] okay. >> my name is peggy -- and i'm a native nevadan, grew up in boulder city. [applause.] there's a few of us here -- known this great guy, harry, all my life. and my question, which is near and dear to my heart, and there's a few of my co-workers watching right now on television, and a few here -- is we want to know what is going to be done for tourism in nevada, particularly airlines. i am a u.s. airways employee who has been furloughed for 17 months. they furloughed over 500 more

just on the 14th, so there's many, many of us now on the unemployment rolls. and we want to see what's going to happen to bring our jobs back to las vegas. [applause.] >> well, first of all, obviously tourism is directly connected to the state of the economy as a whole. if people have disposable income, then they're going to travel. and if they're going to travel and have fun, they're going to come to las vegas. [applause.] right? so -- but on the other hand, if times are tight, they're having trouble paying the bills, making the mortgage, et cetera, that means tourism declines. so everything we're doing in terms of improving the economy as a whole will start improving tourism. but what is also true is that we can take some particular steps to help to encourage the

tourism industry. and harry, before we came out, was talking about a bipartisan tourism promotion/travel promotion act. harry -- i'm going to give the mic to harry for a second. harry, do you want to talk just a little bit about what would be in the act? [applause.] senator reid:we're going to try to take that up next week. you'll save a half a billion dollars over 10 years and create tens of thousands of jobs. we're the only country in the world, major country in the world, that doesn't promote itself. you'll see on tv jamaica does, new zealand does, australia does, south africa does -- but not the united states. we hope within two or three months we'll be promoting ourselves. [applause.] >> good. now, that's the kind of leadership that harry is showing.

let me make one last point about airlines in particular. there are two things that we can really do to help improve the airline industry. the first is on energy. part of the reason that airlines are getting squeezed all the time is because their fuel costs are huge. that's the single biggest problem for most airlines, is fuel costs that skyrocket or are unpredictable. and so if we've got a smart energy policy that is encouraging the use of electric cars and improving gas mileage, and making sure that we're looking at alternative fuels like biofuels that can be used for trucks, all those things

will help to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and, as a consequence, will, over time, stabilize fuel prices in a way that is very helpful to the airlines. the second thing that we need to do is we've got to upgrade our air traffic control system, which is a little creaky. and one of -- don't worry, i mean, it's safe to travel. i'm not -- [laughter] -- i don't want anybody to think, man, creaky, that doesn't sound good. [laughter.] what it is, is that because we don't use the latest technologies, a lot of times the holding patterns for planes, how many planes can land safely at the same time, all those things are -- reduce the efficiency of -- the overall system is reduced because we're not using the best technologies available. if we can upgrade those technologies, then we could reduce delays, we could reduce cancellations, we could reduce the amount of time that it takes when there's bad weather for planes to land. and all that would also help improve profitability in the airlines industry, which in turn would mean that they would be able to hire more workers and

provide outstanding customer service. okay? [applause.] all right. it's a gentleman's turn. this guy right here. he's a big guy, he stood up and -- he stood up, i thought, man, that's a big guy, i better call on him. [laughter.] say you're big, too -- i agree. [laughter.] don't worry, i'm not saying you're not big. [laughter.] all right, go ahead. >> thank you, mr. president. my name is dr. herve misoko [phonetic] . i am originally from france -- actually from africa, moved to france, and now i'm here in america because i believe -- i still believe that america is thecountry of the american dream. and i came here -- i'm a scientist, president of a renewable energy startup, and i came here because i really believe that america can become the first country for clean energy. [applause.] one of the comments i wanted to make, coming from europe where carbon is regulated, i see

firsthand -- i have a company in france also -- that regulation works. it creates job. my company has been growing 30 percent every year in france for the past two years. and i really want to see that happen here. and i think that even if you don't believe in climate change, there's like byproducts that are awesome jobs. the country is going to advance technology-wise. we're going to become once again like we were with the space industry, the most advanced technologically country in the world. and so i really want to see these regulations happen because it's going to help all of us in the clean energy business. [applause.] >> okay. well, let me just talk about -- this is -- when the conservatives have their

conventions and they yell at me and say how terrible i am -- [laughter] -- along with health care this is the other thing that they usually point out, which is that "the president wants to create this cap and trade system and it's going to be a job killer and it's one more step in the government takeover of the american economy."so this is a good place for me to maybe just spend a little time talking about energy and climate change. a halffirst of all, we just got five feet of snow in washington and so everybody is like -- a lot of the people who are opponents of climate change, they say, see, look at that, there's all this snow on the ground, this doesn't mean anything. i want to just be clear that the science of climate change doesn't mean that every place is getting warmer; it means the planet as a whole is getting

warmer. but what it may mean is, for example, vancouver, which is supposed to be getting snow during the olympics, suddenly is at 55 degrees, and dallas suddenly is getting seven inches of snow. the idea is, is that as the planet as a whole gets warmer, you start seeing changing weather patterns, and that creates more violent storm systems, more unpredictable weather. so any single place might end up being warmer; another place might end up being a little bit cooler; there might end up being more precipitation in the air, more monsoons, more hurricanes, more tornadoes, more drought in some places, floods in other places. . . the best way for us to unleash

the free market and capitalism and dynamism in the energy sector is for us to fully take into account all the costs that go into producing energy and using energy. and what do i mean by that? if you tell a company that there are no mileage standards on cars, people end up making hummers. ring if you have a more fuel efficiency standard, suddenly,

all these engineers start to think, how do we do that? ultimately, you end up seeing jobs and businesses thriving in response to the regulation that's been put there. now, that's one way to regulate is to tell people you have to produce more energy-efficient cars. another way of doing is -- it is to set a pricesignal. saying it will be more -- that's the idea we're trying to talk about when it comes to these greenhouse gases that are causing global warming. if we say, you know what? the pollution that's being sent into the another fear has a cost to all of us. in terms of -- in some cases, the air we breathe that's causing asthma. in some cases because it's causing climate clay. account those costs and price

energy accordingly. that means things like wind energy suddenly become more appealing because they don't produce those pollutants. and other sources of energy become less appealing because they do produce those pollutants. the idea has been that if we put a price on these carpets, then maybe that would be a way that companies would all respond and start inventing new things that would make our planet cleaner. that's the whole ysmed now, last point i'm going to make on this -- what is true is that a lot of us depend on dirty sources energy. a lot of us depend on really inefficient cars and buildings and et cetera, and so there has to be a transition. we're not going to suddenly get all our energy from wind or all our energy from sun because we

just don't have the technology to do it. what we should be doing is planning over the next 20, 30 years to move in that direction. that's what countries like china are doing. that's what countries like france are doing. that's what countries all across europe and asia are doing. a are we do not to be left behind. xdwe are the only ones who have left -- who have missed the boat. we are still using 20th century technology and everybody else is using 21st century technology. suddenly, everybody was buying cars from japan or south korea. we want to make sure that does not happen when it comes to wind turbines, solar energy, etc.. the ideas that are being talked about is how we provide more incentives for clean energy companies to operate profitably.

over time, how do we start shifting from less efficient ways of using energy? it is a pretty straightforward thing to do. there is nothing radical about it. it is not going to happen overnight. it is going to take some time. we are still going to be getting our electricity from coal. we will still get our electricity from nuclear energy. we will still get power from natural gas and other traditional sources. we just want to make sure we are also movingig@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ right there. i couldn't call on everybody. you know i love everybody here. >> good morning, mr. president.

my name is terry wright, and i teach math right here at green valley high school. [applause] and my mom is right behind you in the top row. >> where is mom? oh, hey, mom. you have a very young looking mom. >> thank you. my question is, and i'm speaking on behalf of all the math teachers here. when you were a freshman in high school specifically, did you have high school every night, and if you did, did you do it? 6 >> oh. wow. [applause] the answer is yes, and sometimes. first of all, let me thank you for being a math teacher, because we need more math teachers, we need more science teachers. we need more teachers generally who are enthusiastic about their

work and their jobs. thanks to all the teachers here. all right. we are actually, unfortunately -- our students are falling behind in math and science lly. we used to rank at the top. now, we are sort of in the middle of the pack when it comes to math and science performance. this is why one of the things i have been emphasizing this year -- this has not been subject to controversy. this is an area where we have been able to get good cooperation between democrats and republicans. we are promoting math and science education, promoting

technology education. the more that we are moving our young people into these areas, the better off this economy is going to be. that means we are producing engineers, producing scientists, producing so we want to make sure that we are recruiting more math teachers, we are recruiting more science teachers. we want all outstanding teachers to be getting higher pay. we want to make sure that in is constant professional development when it comes to the teaching professions, so that if you had the best way of teaching math five years ago, it might not be the best way of teaching math five years from now. so you should be able to go back and constantly sharpen your skills.

to the students, i want to say this -- we're doing a lot of work on education reform. we are doing a lot to bring in new teachers, to improve classrooms, to make sure that they are all connected to the internet, to make sure that cledges college is more affordable. but, let me just say that, it won't make any difference if our students aren't working a little bit harder. now, i'm not saying all of you aren't working hard. i'm sure many of you feel like you are working very, very hard. but i really do think that we're going to have to emphasize in the next decade that we're competing around the world, and america will continue to be

number one, as long as we are just as hungry as other countries. so if our kids are spending all their time playing video games and somebody else's kids are getting the math and science skills to invent video games, we're not going to be number one. it's as simple as that. so the need to turn off the tv, put the video games away, buckle down on your work, making sure that parents are checking their kids homework and talking to their teachers, being accountable, being responsible, that's what's going to make sure that we continue to thrive, we continue to excel into the future. thank you, henderson! i had a great time! bye bye!

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>> next, live, your calls and comments on "washington journal." and live at 10:00 a.m., the

opening news conference at the national governors association winter meeting, being held here in washington. that's followed by the n.g.a. session on childhood obesity with remarks from first lady michelle obama. >> c-span's coverage of the conservative political action conference continues today. former speaker of the house, newt gingrich, is live at 10:00 p.m. eastern. and then live at 6:00 p.m. eastern, remarks by radio and fox news host, glenn beck. that's today on c-span. >> this morning we'll talk with christina bellantoni and susan ferrechio about close races in the u.s. senate. then susan u