findings on the bp well blowout. witnesses are testifying on the cause of the oil rig explosion and what can be done to prevent future disasters purdue can see the commission's hearing live right now on c-span 2. coming up at about one hour, a discussion on the impact of the tea party in the recent midterm elections provide republican senate candidates and 40 gop house candidates who were supported by the tea party were elected last week. we will hear from panelists who talk about that the trouble when and whether these new members will continue to support the goal of the tea party. it is hosted by the heritage foundation and that is live at 11:00 a.m. eastern here on c- span. president obama continues his 10-day trip to asia. he arrived in indonesia where he is expected to give remarks tomorrow morning pretty plans to travel to seoul for veterans day where he will give a speech to u.s. troops before ending his trip in japan. it will return to washington

sunday. >> with most election results final, use the cspan video library to see what the winners 7 the campaign trail and during 140 debates. search, watch, and share any time all frei, is washington your way. saturdays, landmark supreme court cases on cspan radio. >> there is nothing in the united states constitution concerning birth, contraception, or abortion them a target in 1971 and ruled on in 1973, roe vs. wade is considered one of the court's most controversial decisions. for the next two saturdays, listen to the argument as 6:00 p.m. eastern on cspan radio, in washington, d.c. at 90.1, nation wide on xm radio. and at c-span.org. >> more than 90 soon-to-be

members of the house are arriving in washington for freshman orientation. a short time ago, the 21 members of the team held a photo opportunity led by congressman greg walden. >> do you want to put your recorder's down here? >> we would love to >> you can get quality audio and do you want your recorder's down here? >> we want to hear review have to sectariasay. there we go, there we go.

are we ready to go? i want to thank all of you for coming in today. we have a terrific his transition team. we met last night for a couple of hours. we will meet most of today. our goal is to look at how we can make the u.s. house of representatives more open, more transparent, more accessible to the american people, public, the press, and does in terms of how to improve legislative policy. job number one is creating jobs and how we can get after reducing deficit spending. it is really important that we get input from all of our members and a broad cross- section of our conference. we will be reaching out to members of the other party and we will be reaching out to the staff to find out from them how we can run this place more efficiently and cut costs. i will look for every settings and so will the team, how we can make this a more efficient institution and that we can reduce our costs and make our

operations more transparent and accountable. it is essential. we have the people's business to do and the people have the right to watch that business being done. we have a lot of work ahead of us. we had a good session last night. we will break out into workgroup and a few minutes and begin to drill down. next week when the entire republican conference is here, they will have an opportunity to weigh in and give us their input and there will be further workgroup sessions so they have quality time to give us advice. we have well over 80 members of that will be new to the congress. many of them are bringing energy, intelligence that we want to incorporate into how we rewrite the rules of the house and the american congress. i think we have time for a couple of questions. >> >> how important is it for

republican leaders [inaudible] >> it is essential to listen to all the members. we were all in the elections. we have some dynamic young leaders that are coming into our congress. you bet we are listening to them. they're bringing the message we heard from americans and much of what we heard from americans is already reflected in our pledge. >> any first impressions from some of the new members? do you feel like your voice is coming -- is being heard? >> this is an important opportunity for us as members of this new class. to be at the table. transparency and accountability is number one. >> any minority average for the republican party? >> the opportunity for

minorities, realize that we all go together. for me, that has always been adopted. we include note -- all groups with no exclusions. >> in 1994, there is a transition team. what were some of things you can learn from the previous generation? >> i think a couple of things are important sweat the small stuff. at the end of the day, the smallest of matter spread of matter as to how this institution operates and how the public perceives this institution. get deep into the weeds and make sure you get it right. the other thing that is important is to do unto others the way you want to be treated.

treat others like you want to be treated. that is important to restore confidence in this institution and make it the best delivered to a legislative body on the planet and allow everybody to participate regardless of your party in a constructive way so we can harness their energy and ideas, keeping our principles in place but certainly making sure they have the opportunity to be full participants. they came here with brands and they should not be parked at the door. too often the decisions around here have been made at the highest levels excluding the rank-and-file members of both parties. we need everybody pulling together to solve these huge problems our country faces break we have to figure out a job strategy that works to get americans back to work in the private sector. we will have to work together to reduce the deficit spending and reckless to waste. i think we can find good participation. i met yesterday with mike capalono,.

brian: baird was in with me. we will be reaching out. >> [inaudible] >> i probably in the for that to the leader, mr. john boehner let's face it, you have 80 incoming freshmen members and they are bringing energy and enthusiasm and ability to our congress. we want them at the leadership table. they will be represented effectively and forcefully. thank you, everyone.

>> that was the gop freshman class. at least five republican senate candidates and 40 gop house candidates were supported by the tea party during the election. coming up and about one hour, a discussion on the impact the tea party have a midterm elections. we will hear from panelists who will talk about the future of the movement and whether these new members will continue to support the goals of the tea party. it is hosted by the heritage foundation and begins live and about 50 minutes at 11:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. coming up next, the cq roll call groups reviews the midterm elections and what it means for president obama's agenda going forward. they focus on the u.s. economy

and we will build remarks from the cq managing editor. this is about one hour. >> this is supposed to be a conversation about the economy -- does it matter who is in charge? the first thing we can say it's that it is not clear who is in charge and that will be the topic of this conversation as we go forward. the panel today is two fellows to a been around a long time watching economic and especially fiscal policy issues on capitol hill. at the far right is bill hoglund with signal corps and a longtime aide to pete domenici and bill frist in the senate to delay on

budget matters but probably on anything those two guys needed help with. to my immediate right is scott lilly who did similar work for david obie and is at the center for american progress now. i would like to start this with eight note that another longtime budget watcher, stan collander said that the result of tuesday was going to be gridlock, still makes, and the shutdown. i am not sure that i agree with that. it seems kind of conventional. i will let these guys have a few minutes to talk about what they think will happen and we will go to some questions. one of the questions i would like to put from them -- to that at the beginning is out and gridlock, stalemate, and shut down be avoided or can it? which of you wants to go first?

>> go ahead. >> i would say that the topic -- does it matter who is in charge -- as far as economic policy is concerned is one of the few topics that i think you can get bipartisan agreement on. both sides would say absolutely had matters. after that, you would have total disagreement about all of the details and implications. a number of the discussions i have heard on this topic have failed to get at what are the powers that eight side bring -- that each side bring to the discussion. a mandate to the congress to cut spending and increase jobs and that is hard to interpret because, really, almost anything you do to cut spending will also cut employment and there are

very few things as a spending that the government can do that will stimulate the jobs, particularly in the near term. i think you have two parties that are coming at the question of the governments in an entirely different way. we have a huge divide between the political parties over the question of what is the role of government. that is what i think caused standcollander to make that prediction. it is hard to see one party that thinks that government should play a major role in trying to restore economic growth and the other party who believes that government is the problem finding very much common ground. you will have, i think, an effort by the house republicans to try to cut spending in any way they can. you will have an effort by many

in the senate and the white house to sustain the typically the most important parts of the spending effort or of government spending. with agreement to cut spending in certain places but not nearly as deeply as i think the new republicans will want to cut it. that will result in a very delicate dance. ultimately, if one party, one house of congress decides that they will not spend money, it is hard to make them spend it. the republicans in the 1990's, when they controlled the congress, got themselves into such a difficult situation in terms of their public image that they had to go along with much higher spending simply to avoid the confrontation that would look like another government shut down. i don't think that's necessarily that scenario will reply itself in the same way

current the white house quite frankly will have to get smarter politically in terms of dealing with its opposition and they have demonstrated so far that they hope to win the confrontation. with that, i will turn it over to bill. >> thank you, scott, thank you john. for the many years when i was -- i worked on the hills in the senate. whenever the president's budget came out on the first monday in february, we always had a staff exercise where we had to put together an instant analysis. it had a half life of about two hours. sometimes i feel similar about these kinds of conferences, with all due respect. what we say here probably has assured that light. who is in charge? i think that can have an impact on the economy.

work positively and negatively. i think congress matters. i think fiscal policy matters. i think spending and revenues matter. just being an old budgeteer deficit and debt man -- matter. some might argue that when the republicans were in charge in during the bush presidency that they had an impact on the economy, may be a negative impact. one might also argue, it seems to me, that was the independent federal reserve system that helps create the bubble that brought about the collapse of the financial system and the severe recession beginning in 2008 and they were responsible and congress did not matter. alternatively, i think you could argue that the voters apparently

felt very strongly on tuesday that the democrats in charge of congress, of these last two years did not do enough to correct the-impact of the economy from either the previous administration or the federal reserve. therefore, what they did too much of or not enough of, that they did matter. placing blame or credit appropriate or not on congress does not release any thing. at least the american public thinks congress matters and should have something to do with the economy. as these two professors out here at harvard have been continually telling us and pointing out over the last few years -- large financial crises do long-lasting damage. they are characterized by three

things historic plea -- asset markets collapse, it is a deep and prolonged collapse and this is associated with a profound decline in output and employment and then the real value of government debt tends to expand i think the real difficulty going forward over the next two years, many years regardless of who is in charge and regardless of who is to blame for the economic woes that we have today, is the fact that our democratic system that has operated so successfully to prevent quite frankly tierney with a a shield the dused us tendency toward bull delivered to of decision making and a divided government, that same system that we honor and respect from our forefathers is

the same system that gives congress to manage an effective monetary policy. an editorial a few days ago before the election in the financial times said that the mix together -- to mix together democratic defeatism, republican recalcitrance, and tea party hysteria into a system designed to slow down decisionmaking, you do all that and you have a recipe for paralysis. maybe that is where stan was coming from i think it is very unfortunate that this is coming exactly at the wrong time in our economic cycle and our fiscal outlook. i think the fed's action yesterday to try to increase liquidity into the system with

its planned purchase of $600 billion in long-term treasuries raising long-term interest rates to locally promote growth, i think the fact that this occurred the day after the election was pure serendipity. they had planned this meeting and had been signaling this for some time. the unstated goal of the action was to drive down the value of the dollar. it is hoped to increase our competitiveness in world markets. you will find credit right now, today, in congress -- you will find critics right now, today, in congress that say that as overreach and the fed will double the amount of their treasury debt and therefore, they will increase inflation. what would this congress do? scott says cut spending, fine. but what spending? with all due respect to my

colleagues in the house, i have looked through the pledge for america. i cannot find anything specific here. on that score pad. >> if you can't, bill, i don't think anybody can. >> let's be more specific. it is very carefully stated here for a republican, is this the right time to pull the plug pulled away when the economy is still fairly weak. extend tax cuts? sure. i think it will happen. it will happen in the lame duck. i think a deal will be cut there. this is the lame-duck and you'll add to our long-term deficit with that action. you will require all -- require more borrowing later. how are you going to get this back to a sustainable debt to gdp ratio going forward?

given those two professors'' continual admonishments about the financial crisis and how long it takes to work of something like what we went through, i think the action of the fed yesterday was appropriate. inflation is not a problem today. i think congress should work somehow within the tandem with that policy to begin developing a very measured, long-term bipartisan fiscal plan to restore some economic growth that will not come very quickly over the next two years. unfortunately, that plan requires congress willing to make some extremely difficult political decisions that they have been on willing to make in the past. i am not quite sure that the change in control particularly in the house is going to change that.

they will try to cut spending but it is not likely to make its way that easily through the senate or a presidential veto. you cannot be vetoed yourself into higher spending with the appropriations bill. what it really means is that by partisanship, working across the aisle, and it probably means freezing appropriation accounts, eliminating programs, it means reducing reimbursement rates for highly sensitive programs like social security, medicare, medicaid, farm subsidies, public pension programs and yes, it it means we will make a fundamental restructuring of our tax code to do away with a number of tax credits and deductions and guess that means increasing revenues and adair i'd be so bold as to

say some kind of consumption tax or national sales tax. think it can be done. i disagree with the conventional wisdom that we are in for two years of stalemate. i guess i am still naive enough that i want to be optimistic about the future. i look back at something that's got and i went through. we had a divided government in 1994 and the government shut down and we came to a bipartisan agreement in 1997 and move forward and work together in a bipartisan manner. i think congress matters. i'd think the federal reserve matters. i think we'll continue to work together to find some solution. i want to remain optimistic that we will find that solution in the divisions that exist today. >> let's walk back through some of what you just touched on,

both of you. i want to spend a minute talking about the fed. i want to move from that to another point and that is there is a very strong argument mostly from the right wing but not entirely, some people on the left wing have the same view that the fed has overreached and they are out of bounds and it is a problem. if you're in a private moment, ben bernanke would say that congress is not doing anything and we had to act. you had might pense -- you -- pense -- you have mike pense , out and say the fed was out of bounds. there certainly are a few folks who have argued the same way.

just to start this in an idea and try to figure out where there will be agreement, is there going to be agreement in the middle or maybe the wings are wrong in arguing this extreme position that the fed was out of bounds. is there a possible ground here for john boehner and mitch mcconnell and harry reid to conclude and whoever is in charge of the democrats for the house, to agree that maybe we need to take those extreme things off the table? i will throw one more and that is the notion that the debt limit might be a cause for a potential shutdown sometime in the next six months. if treasury comes to congress sometime in the first part of 2011 and says we need to raise the debt limit, there will be many tea party fakes -- folks

that says no. those are two danger spots, aren't they? >> i would say first of all, i have seen efforts within the congress over the last 30 years to try to rally a movement within congress on fed policy. the constitution actually delegates the power to mint coins to the congress. the creation of the federal reserve was a delegation of congressional authority to an independent entity. illegally, i think there is a lot of static for the congress to be at fault but there are very few members to understand monetary policy at a level that they are comfortable having a big fight over that periot. the ones that think they do

which is often the major distinction have a hard time rallying their peers to get involved with it. on the other hand, if the tea party movement decided that this was an issue that they wanted to engage in, i think they have the kind of power right now that they really could bring their leaders totow. i don't think that republican leaders in the house or the senate will take the tea party on any time soon. i'd think everybody in that party is afraid of them. i think they have the capacity to challenge members. a very substantial portion of and not many people realize this, but assuming that we end up with 60 -- with an increase of 62 seats for the republicans

in the house which is what people are saying right now, that means that you have a out of twolass of '888 ordered 42 republican seats. that is a huge block. that is 35% of the caucus. if as many as 30 better republicans in the house or to vote with the freshmen and a freshman voted as a bloc, they could control the speakership, the committee assignments, and the legislative agenda. you got a lot of muscle among this group of people. i think one of the problems with the leadership is pense as a much stronger connection to the group of 85 than mr. john boehner has pares.

i think he has to do a fairly delicate dance on that theme with respect to the debt limit, i am not so worried. >> i think about the coke brothers and i don't know if their net worth is $20 billion by was speculate there is a significant amount of that debt that is in the u.s. treasurys. they are not unlike an awful lot of other people who have been funding this movement over time varian. washington are going to default on the debt of the federal government, i think would not be a -- something that they would like. and i think that -- >> so the koch brothers and the chinese will be so the coca brothers and the chinese will be making common cause? >> absolutely.

the democrats will say they will vote for this thing but you put up the to to let it 18 votes first and we will vote for it. >> bernanke is a republican and was appointed by republican presidents. thank god today the federal reserve is there. i do think that they may have taken about every tool in their toolbox and used it as far as they can go. i don't know what the next step here is after quantitative easing. guest: no qe3? >> i don't see it. he has tried and he has recognized that there was still made in congress that was not being addressed. yes, there will be a populist

sentiment. i don't think that will happen. our system is too dependent now on our financial system, the federal reserve system and thank god. anger is not a strategy. you can be angry about your government but fine, what is your strategy? i have been through this so many times, cut spending, cut spending, fine. 2/3let's be clear, tell me, of our federal spending is social security, medicare, medicaid, and net interest on the public debt. you cannot cut net interest and to reduce the deficit. it is social security, medicare, and medicaid. let's be honest, or those

discussed during this debate? if anything, no. but don't raise taxes. i get so frustrated in these debates and discussions. you are here in washington. reality will now said it and you will find out that we will not default on our debt. in fact, maybe one of those solutions to reaching a bipartisan agreement for a compromise here is to take it to the brink but then tied the extension of the debt limit. >> this was also true in 1996 with the deal with the democrats. >> i am glad that you agreed on that point. it would be bad if we all wound up impoverished because the dollar is worth less. if we're not going to have a fight over the debt limit that

stops the world from working and if we are not going to have the monetary policy engine stopped from keeping the economy rolling, the fiscal policy becomes the other choice. there are still calls for additional spending and/or the middle-class tax cuts to promote a resurgence in the stagnant growth we have now, 2% does not meet the needs. . you said you thought in the lame duck we would see an extension -- i presume you mean the 2001- 2003 tax cuts -- is there an opportunity to go beyond that? is it a good idea? can the anti-deficit crabby quieted with an additional middle-class tax cut on top of that?

>> first of all, i think there will be an extension. i live the president did today is talking about work about bridget working out an agreement. it is a question of whether it is for the middle class or those above $250,000. >> it was suggested that we talked to the top. >> i think the question is for how long will you do the extension? i think that as a given. my issue here is that extending the current tax code with all its warts and failings is not the solution in the long run. i would hope that the extension is not very long. unfortunately, it could probably be for two years up until the next presidential election and we will go through this again.

by the way, as a side bar, people will say that you were there when you did the tax cuts in 2010, this is -- i was. we did put together the tax -- tax cuts in 2010, excuse me 2001. a lot of this has to do with the budget stuff because he could not extended beyond the reconciliation bill without much trouble. please try to remember where we were in the spring of 2001. we were dealing with projections of surpluses as far as the eye could see. that tax cut went into effect in the spring and probably the timing turned out to be fairly decent because it became

effective right after 9/11. the timing on that -- >> sex or even going out in august, as i recall. >> -- checks or even going out in august, as i recall. >> which it never have made tax cuts for 10 years on the basis of projections that nobody could have trusted anyway. that was the projection. that is why the tax cuts are expiring at the end of the reconciliation period. >> i think it is important that you look at this new majority that is taking or the house of representatives. what are they willing to do with respect to fiscal policy? half of fiscal policy is revenues. if you cannot touch that, you have constrained every

successful budget deal going back as far as i can remember that is unfortunately quite a long time. it has involved some measure of revenues. if you look at the problems we have, and i think we have some serious budgetary problems long term, they are largely related to the demography of the population. we will be spending 23% of gdp by the federal government. if we keep revenues at 70% or 18% of gdp, we will run up a horrible death. bt. revenues is not something they will look at. the judge concluded camp and were one of the major points of that the other party was trying to cut medicare benefits. that obviously will not do much

on medicare. i would add social security as part of that. as bill mentioned, servicing the debt is something that nobody can do. we're down to about 34% of the half of the budget that a spending. of that 34%, half of that is defense. they have not given me an indication that they're willing to do anything with defense. defense military uniform pay will continue to cope with the cost of living. you'll probably have more weapons systems that they are interested in. your down to 18%. of that amount, you have the fbi, the veterans administration, the homeland security department all of which have a day -- they have exempted in this pledge to america for any personnel freezes. you really get down to about 8%,

9% of total spending that is on the table and all the rest of it is off the table. you can emasculate that 9% but you will not get very far. they will be surprised and deeply frustrated by what they can do given the constraints they put on the fiscal policy they are willing to accept. >> the new republican majority has already said that they are challenging the defense department on its $100 billion cut over the next five years. >> once you work for united states senator, it seems to work for him for life. i do not want to call up something that will happen in about a week and a half before the president's commission reports or does not report. earlier this year, senator domenici who i work for 425 + --

why work for -- who worked for for 25 + years, we have been working over the last year on this and will be coming out with the report. this will come out prior to the president's commission. i can only highlight for you even though i tried to get balance in 2020, that is not going to be the jargon. the jargon will be reducing the debt to gdp to 60% or some level so we are not greece. we will not changed all presentation. those who come to town think

that balance the budget is it skirted the issue is can you lower the debt to gdp to a sustainable level? otherwise, we are in really deep doo doo beyond the 60%. >> 60% of gdp is the sustainable target? >> that seems to be the consensus. to get there, you have -- you can still do that by having in the short term a payroll tax holiday. in a short time from, limit it and prime the pump on more time but with that, you have to have a deal for how you're going to address it in the long term.

that means coming back with fundamental changes to the tax code, fundamental changes to our entitlement programs, and it will not be easy or pretty. that is where we are today, it seems to me. there's no way to grow yourself out of this. there is no way you can spend and cut your way out of this and no way to tax yourself out of this. it has to be a combination. >> we got a bipartisan commission and we have the president's policy commission which may or may not make recommendations december 1. it is conventional wisdom in this town that commissions do what they do and it sits on a shelf and nobody acts. the only one i can't remember that had not gravitas to succeed was the greenspan sells a security issue. a crisis was an hand and i don't know if we have the same level

of prices. >> certainly, the thinking is, i presume, that this election if it is focused on deck the devil -- debt andto \ deficit spending -- >> can we rally the public? that is a problem >> i seriously question -- there are democrats and republicans in this town who can get together and put together a very sensible pad. unfortunately, they are not in office. >> none of these people i work for for this last year were elected. >> i have the impression of this new republican majority that

they would fight an effort of the type of bills described which sounds very reasonable and i think people who have studied the federal budget and fiscal policy and national debt for any period of time, would see the need and moving it in that direction. i don't see any prospect at all -- it is not that they would not help to try to pass it. they would do everything within their power to try to defeat a proposal that approximated what bill just described them in the alternative, we have at least one member of the house >> who has put forth his own plan, paul ryan. the document you pointed to one minute ago does not adopt any of mr. ryan's approaches to

dealing with this serious fiscal crisis. is he too much for the republicans at this point? is he thinking too much for them? he will run the budget committee so it will be an interesting game, right? >> when you have been in this town as long as you have, you start to worry about this. paul ryan was a staffer in the united states senate and work on the budget committee with me years ago. that shows you how things can circle around. i think what paul ryan has put out is very bold, very courageous, it is huge. it does address the issue. i think he would have to do more on the revenue side to balance it out. thank goodness somebody is laying out and proposing

something so that you can start and work. at least he has ideas. i think it is helpful to have those kind of ideas. it is a proposal in our system of government and hopefully, that will filter in and see another day. we want to address the concerns he has raised them about the republicans did remarkably well on tuesday with senior citizens. >> people over the age of 65 voted republican by 58% which was a significant driver. as is always the case, they voted in large numbers. they had a strongly disproportionate impact on the

results. if paul ryan is proposal becomes more than a think peace and is spelled out in greater detail said that senior citizens understand what he is saying and it has some semblance of the republican party, they can kiss that 58% goodbye and get something closer to 28% in the next election it focuses a huge part of the burden on low-income senior citizens who really would have no way of compensating for it. in fiscal terms, it is realistic. it makes serious cuts on the pledge to america. those cuts are going to be viewed as very unfair and unduly harsh by a huge proportion of

americans, not just senior citizens that j. >> i believe that most of the proposals as it relates to social security and medicare quite frankly is more likely to hit the young people out here than it is to hit the current retirees going forward very of i agree, it is hard to sell and convince people that proposing reductions in medicare or social security that to not affect the current recipients but will affect the future recipients. they are at risk of not even getting whatever social security has been promised them. >> that is the issue. when we retire, we might get some of what has been promised. the 20-somethings are massive

necessarily in that both parents is there a question from the audience? yes, in the middle? >> i had 12 years at the omb and you guys are kind of heroes. i am asking the question of, where is the leadership on the senate side specifically to try to find a way to look at all three of the drivers, the economy, the revenue side, the fiscal side and broaden the conversation so that instead of just talking about personal income tax, maybe we should talk about some of the things that got left off the table in the 1990's like capital gains or corporate rates.

>> to the senate, i personally am sad to said that bob bennett from utah did not win his primary. on the leadership thoughtful side, i think he was one of the more thoughtful senators who worked across the aisle. to be brutally honest with you, i would have difficulty telling you right now where the leadership is. i presume my former ranking member, now chairman of the budget committee, mr. conrad thinks about these issues. unfortunately, he is up in 2012. i wonder if he would decide that the farm bill is more important than the budget these next two years and he may consider that

that is the opportunity to leave that area. if i sat here long enough, i could get myself in trouble by talking about various senators. i think you raise a very basic point. it is not so much the leadership in terms of economic and fiscal policy from my perspective. it is more the ability to reach across the aisle regardless of whether you have an expertise. i will show my age in terms of, i know he left under a cloud, but packwood and danforth and george mitchell and tom daschle were willing to work. >> is it time for more leadership? >> it would be nice. >> does ms. mcconnell hold the balance of power in the senate today? >> i think he has a lot to say, how's that, about half of the

senate will operate over the next two years. i think he can be the real key to whether or not there's a willingness to work with the president and in a bipartisan manner and reach across the aisle. he will have a tough time even with the senator like from kentucky who has already said he will challenge him every day. i have not heard of such a thing. is this on the record? [laughter] >> yes, this is on the record. >> i was quoted some years ago up saying rather snidely that the house, both parties and the house were very happy to send tom coburn to the senate. we wish to the senate well parial.

coburn and demont have made mitch mcconnell's let difficult part of babel may be made more difficult with rand paul and a whole host of new characters and by the fact that you have this extra force. you have this outside money that is not coming through the republican senate campaign committee. it is coming in independent expenditures from people driving this agenda. there is a threat that they will take on incumbent republican senators in primaries if they don't behave in a certain way. that greatly changes the kind of authority and bargaining power that a leader in either party will have parian i thi.

even though mitch mcconnell will be positioned to have influence over the authority has got a huge problems within his own party that will put him on a shorter lead to the nea has been used to. -- a shorter leash then he is normally used to. >> and the other questions in the crowd? i have one ver. the republicans have said they will try to appear -- repeal health care. probably will not get through the senate. but, isn't it possible that there are provisions in the health-care bill that will require appropriations in the coming year? if there is no money, then many of these things will just not happen. >> you are asking a budgeteer rather than asking and

appropriators who is sitting next to me. that is a good question because obviously, i am not wearing my sugma hat right now. i will wear my budget hat. when you are out of congress, you have difficulty getting congressional research services but they put a nice report out that puts the subject to appropriations and that which is subject to things already appropriated are subject to transfer. a winter list and ended up that there is about $7 billion in programs that are subject to appropriations next year. as scott would know better than i, yes, the appropriation bill will originate in scott's told

the chamber. they could step back and reduce and to not fund that witcheat. when you go through the list of those items that are subject to appropriations, they are the grants, the demonstration projects, the wellness prevention programs compared to to a effectiveness. the $50 million in grants to states who are carrying out medical malpractice. you cannot fund does. is that going to fundamentally undermined the larger legislation? no, because the rest of the legislation has a p [re-funded. you can still come back and revisit that. or you could probably put in an

appropriation alternative. you could put in a recession of that which has been but the president has to sign that. i don't see that he would sign that. i don't know how you vetoed yourself into higher spending. you could just not fund. i don't think that this de- funding of the health care bill, it will have an effect. undermines thet fundamental and tell the nature of the guarantee issue and the changes that are out there in terms of the underlying presidents in on the bill. everybody is scrambling to get a more precise answer. much of what was structurally important is covered with mandatory appropriations that

were made by lot in this act. it would take a repeal of those provisions in order to stop money from flowing to the state programs to monitor the premiums of health insurance companies. . . are important that need to company the health care bill, but i agree with bill, there are companies that are discretionary that will need to be included in the 2012 appropriation and which may well not be included in that appropriation, but they will diminish the quality of health care perhaps, but leaving them out will not stop the program from going forward. >> on the subject of just, here's the pledge again. i studied this. all you've heard is repeal

health care. yes, but then you go on through the other things, medical malpractice. that's possible of a bipartisan agreement. purchase insurance across state lines, possible. i want to get down to the real nut here. ensure access to patients with preexisting conditions, expansion of the high risk pools, make it illegal for an insurance company to deny coverage with someone with prior coverage on a preexisting condition, and lifetime spending limits. all these things are in the current bill, and once again, it's going back where is the meat? what are you changing, and how are you changing it? >> the individual mandate i think is. >> and that could be a problem. that could be a problem. so let me have a prediction from both of you. scott. you go first.

how will this play out over the next six months? will we get a full year cr out of the lame duck or cr he previously served as director of communications, and prior to that he was heritage's director of relations.

please join me in welcoming my colleague, mike franc. [applause] >> thank you, and welcome to the heritage foundation. this is something we wanted to do not immediately after the elections but a few days for all of the results to come in, for people to form some thoughts about the significance of what happened last tuesday, and we want to invite three folks who will set an awful lot of light on a historical collection. we had a couple of markers for discussion that point to the significance of were the two party has come from. if we did this a couple of years ago, people would ask what tea party? now everyone has an opinion about the tea party movement.

there is very little trust in the major parties. approval and disapproval of the democrat and republican parties were both negative 10. the tea party was 39 approve, 32 disapprove. the rest were neutral. they actually had a net positive. at the state level, there were some cases where there were more questions as the bulk ked e tea party and the other major parties. teh tea parhe tea party is net e in 17 states. also interesting to me is that

there were 11 states where the tea party had and a higher approval rating than one of the major parties. in california, ohio, washington, and orgaorigen the tea party was more popular. having it is obvious that where we are at is -- i'd think it is obvious that where we're at is a major for. we will look at major prospective scope of questions relating to the sustainability of the two-party movement. how will the two-partea party ey and passion find its way in washington? we have three terrific speakers. billie tucker, executive director of the first coast tea

party in florida. she served as ceo for 20 years and her former role as executive vice president of tec florida. she has spent her entire career working with ceos and executives, earning her reputation for the teen understandings of motivations to become more effective. we need a lot of that here. she will be our first weaker. billie is representative of the leaders that have emerged. there is really no one leader of the tea party movement. it is the spontaneity that came out of almost nowhere to have their voice heard. billie does a great spokeswoman

for that dynamic. our next speaker launched a political blog in 2003. he helped create a model for success and expansion. his pieces have appeared in "the daily standard" and "the new york post." his commentary is widely sought after. 25,000 daily visitors to his daily readings. he will address some of those aspects today. our cleanup speaker is byron york. he provides conservative commentary once a week for the examiner, which is a terrific column. i encourage you to read it. he previously was a white house correspondent for "the national

review." i want to read the title of his book that i thoroughly enjoyed. "the vast left wing conspiracy." that is the title of a great book. you could start off, and we look forward to going ahead. >> thank you. i want to take this moment for saying i am here to represent a lot of people that set up on november 2 and before that to take our country back. everyone says they get back to waake it back to what? i will do my best to represent each of you. there is no leader in the tea party movement, and that is what

makes us unique and so different. most of us did not know we would be in this movement. that is exactly my story. it is really interesting because we are all being asked what now? it is like we're setting up a secret room. it did not happen that way. we were all call to this through a movement inside a parked at that told the sunday and was seriously wrong in this country. -- we were all called to this movement through our gut. during this election campaign -- when the movement first got started, we were really focused on the issues. that is what the tea party is all about. we have a lot of issues.

we are in serious financial trouble. we are in a lot of ways we are in a decline that we have never seen in our history. this is why people are waking up, because we know it. there are a lot of smart people in america, and i am so honored to have worked with them. i have worked with ceo's that have brought huge organizations to our country, and i thought they were smart until i started working with people in the tea party movement. americans are very smart people. they have known for a while the something was going on in our country. what happened last tuesday night was so great. our founders created this whole process by which we could do that. we put it into action. it was so cool to be a part of that. it was so phenomenal to be a part of it. listen, we are not smart enough

to figure that strategy out. our founders did it for us. and it worked beautifully last tuesday night. i am here to tell you that people say what now? we do not know. we did not know what was now for the tea party when we got involved for it. we know one thing, we're not going away. we did not give our lives of foufor two years -- and that is what most of us did. a lot of people gave up careers, walked away from any kind of financial way to create wealth for them, and they created an organization of loosely- connected groups all over the country without any big money. there was no big factor.

-- big backer. we paid our own airline ticket to comee here and say no to this. we wrote our congressman. we activated our citizenship. we did this in a robust led by paying for it at our own pockets. we are all grow. -- broke. we are all trying to regroup. tuesday night we had a great night. i am from florida, we had a super night in florida. marco is coming to washington, d.c., because of the tea party. we are all about telling the truth. the gop did not get behind him when it first came out. there were standing behind our governor who ended up being -- we do not know what he was.

they did not stand behind marco. he showed up at the tea parties. he had no money. i remember hearing a radio show where he was talking about he had no money. the gop did not get behind him, but the tea party did. all of a sudden, the gop realize we have put our faith in the wrong person. they had to scramble. that is who is coming to washington. the gop let him do his address on saturday. he has not even got here. after obama's address, she did his address. we have a governor in florida that the gop did not support at first. the tea party did.

we're not blaming the gop, we're just saying we stood outside. we kept saying no because we are smart. we put fpressure on both parties. now they are saying now what? we're saying we're going to keep pressuring you. we're going to make sure the democrats take their party back from the progressives. we have to come back together to our parties. that is what we want. we are so thrilled about it. i am not the expert. i am not the queen of the tea party. i am just one person in america that is standing up. before i came, i said i am going to go to heritage, tell me what you want me to tell them. i am disappointed quickly go through this. -- i am going to quickly go

through this. we had 90 people telling us what you can do. i am going to share a few of these things with you. this is america. number one, we're not going away. if you think we are, we are not. we have to have garage sales to fund this. [laughter] we will watch each and every new member of congress to make sure they are not going to be corrupted when they come to d.c. something happens when people come up here. they seem like a really great people, and after a while they do not look like the same people we sent here. heritage, you are up here. we are born to ask you to keep an eye on them. -- we are going to ask you to keep an eye on them. i cannot tell you how much i have learned in the past few years. here are the issues we are

concerned. the decline of the dollar. the over-reaching federal reserve is another one. the debt. out of control spending. they want you to balance the budget. hello? this is common sense. we do not want any more pork, earmarks. we want you to keep taxes low. tax reform. keep it simple. repeal the health-care bill and finance bill. we want congress to get back to working on the constitutional ways. this is craziness that went on. how about reading of bil a bill? we did. they said read the bill? what are you talking about?

it is all just craziness. somebody put something in the water. [laughter] national security. it is a big deal. we do not feel safe. we do not feel safe with our money. we do not feel safe with our security. our borders. we of terrorism going on. when of terrorism with our money. -- we have terrorism with our money. we went to algor builcreate a nd of communicating. and it is important that the people we send up here stay connected to those of us back home. we also want you to check on the regulatory agencies, make sure we know what they are doing. we did not trust the epa, the department of energy, any of the bureaucracies.

there is a huge level of stress going on. we will stick connected. there is no big organization, no big leader or board that tells us what to do. we like it that way. we have done a pretty good job without being managed from the top down. one thing we are doing, and this is florida. the florida groups -- how do we communicate? we google. we were divided. we were divided when we had our governor's race as to the gop candidates or the tea party candidate. we came together and we said we're going to get behind mr. scott and we did and he won. in florida we decided we will create our own organization so that whenever we want to talk to

marco and our governor, they will hear from all of us as a coalition. it will be a coalition of tea party. we are organizing in a little way, but not top down. we are encouraging people to run for office. we will fight the liberals. we will focus on education. ithese are little things. we will use technology. and we will broaden our base by using other organizations. we use heritage last year. we love heritage. other organizations that helped us, liberty central helped us understand the issues that were going on. we have a lot of partners out there. and i know i am talking too

much. the other thing we want to focus on is the media. they probably will not like me for saying that, but the media really did not tell the truth. not all of the media, but there were a lot of lies out there. the people in the grassroots movement knew it. we want the media to be held accountable as we move through the process. are we going away? no. do we know what we're going to do? no. but we didn't, and we won. [applause] thank you very much. >> first off, i want to tahnhan heritage for inviting me share. this has been an amazing couple of years. mostly because it really

reinforces the special nature of american politics. it is incredibly dynamics. american politics are incredibly dynamic. sometimes we forget that because we operate with a paradigm of a two-party system. in most cycles this tends to cover most of the basis. with some people they feel the two-party system is constructed and does not allow for honest grass-roots movements. the last two years proved that. i think the american system is healthy and really worked in the last two years. you had a mass of people who were very dissatisfied with not just the way washington was working, not just the way the economy was working, but the options that were being offered

by both political parties. instead of checking out of the system, instead of staying home and being silent, what you had was a nationwide movement of people. it was really started by -- inspired by a two-minute rant on nbc. it energize people to go out and demonstrate -- it energized people to go out and demonstrate and demand change. i have been on the side of being part of that, of watching it in writing about it. incredible movement. it is really like iunlike anythg i have seen since 1978 in california when the tax revolt began. and that was a grass-roots-

fueled citizen movement to increase tax rates in california. it was on a specific issue, but it with a grass fire that went across the nation. it said not every solution should involve taking more of our money. in some ways it is very similar to what we've seen but thwiththa party. i think you have to look at the proposition 13 fight in 1978. that is really an analogy. that was not a moveon.org type of organization. there was an organization that formed in created organization thought got people out in the street. the people went out in the street first and then u.s. leaders that emerged.

provincial you have ronald reagan and republicans in the 1980's. -- eventually you had that ronald reagan and republicans in the 1980's. it did peter out when we got othe idea that thae era of big government was over. then people got comfortable. the anti-tax movement, which was an insurgency, became part of the establishment, became part of point in but what we didn't -- became part of what we didn. this is the same type of dynamic. you are seeing people get out in the street and looking for leadership.

they are not going out in the street because people told them to go out into the street. they are not going into the street because someone created an organization that had a nice website and was pushing back against an unpopular congress. this was a populist revolt in the clear sense of the word. without organization -- obviously there will be some limitations, i will not even sit limitations. there will be some issues that the movement has to overcome, organization being one of them. it is very easy with a grass- roots movement to simply peter out. especially after an election. this was an extraordinary set of

circumstances. you had an extraordinary economic upheaval. a congress that absolutely refuse to listen to the people that sent them to washington. in such an arrogant manner that i am not sure that even has a parallel. it was an incredibly arrogant congress. at the same time you had this encroaching regulation that was being part of that arrogance. all of those things tend to motivate people into action. now what you have is a republican congress, at least a republican house, that will be able to address some of the spending issues. hopefully as a consequence we will see economic improvement. hopefully we will see a reduction in the regulatory environment. the question is, how much success will it take to take the steam out of the tea party movement, if you can?

success may be the big issue here. let's say the republicans get into congress and do not do what they promised, do not slowed down the regulatory expansion, spending the -- i do not think there is much of a chance of that with the people we elected. john painteboehner will force ud alona stand-alone issue on whatl be the debt load. it will be very easy for the tea party to maintain momentum, but also grow momentum. once again you have more arrogance, people who are not willing to listen. the question for the tea party

in the next year will be as the tea party succeeds, how you keep the momentum moving and build on success and how you keep people like billie who has sunk an incredible amount of sacrifice and to this movement, how you keep folks in the movements and working and sacrificing like that as we succeed? i think that really is going to be the big question in the next couple of years. [applause] >> i want to thank you, mike, and everyone at heritage for inviting me to speak. i hope i have a little bit to add after that. just before the election i gave a speech at the federalist society. the deal was for me to talk about some of the candidates i have met during covering the campaign. i talk about what i thought was

are really high-quality level of a number of republican candidates. it was a very good class. these were people who were successful in their private lives. they had never thought about running for office, many of them, until the spring and summer of 2009 when they watched barack obama and the democratic leadership in congress to enact one enormous government initiative after another. they each came around to the idea of running and they aspired to be citizen-legislators. they did not want to be professional politicians. it was a touching story that i told, except the three guys that i've focused on all lost. -- that i focused on all lost. rob steele who ran a good race against john dingell in michigan. the last was a man named john dennis who challenged nancy

pelosi. after i did the speech i went back out and did the final trip for the campaign and went to illinois, wisconsin, and ended up in nevada. i think the most impressive person i saw during that trip was a man named ron johnson, the senator elected from wisconsin. very happy in his life as ceo of a plastics manufacturing company. never thought of our running for anything. is appalled by what happens in the first months of 2009 and invited to speak at a tea party rally in oshkosh where he lives. after he speaks people come up to them and ask them why don't you run? he began to think about it. after a lot of thought he gets in the race and runs on an

admirably simple platform. everywhere he goes he says i only had two things in my platform, i want to repeal obama care and reduce the size and scope of the federal government. obviously he will have to do other things when he gets here, but was an admirably simple platform. he is a very serious guy and is going to do what he said he is going to do. i would expect that he will devote a lot of his energies to repealing obama care. the question would be what would be the tea party's role in policing ron johnson? the bigger question is a are all of the republican candidates going to be that way? the one thing we heard the most

was we have learned our lesson. we really have learned our lesson. we're so sorry we strayed from conservative ways, but if you elect us again, we probably will not do it again. -- we promised we will not do it again. i give them some credit for that. i think some of them have learned their lesson. it seems to me they have gone about their business in a pretty sober way. i think the question for the tea party is the future of the party is in the hands of the congress. what if republicans really have learned their lessons? what if they've performed admirably over the next -- they perform admirably over the next two years?

try to bring federal stimulus back to pre-tarp budgets? i think if that happens, a lot of the passion with saul and te saw in the tea party rallies will dissipate. i think their actions will be seriously constrained by an energetic house of representatives, if that is what the republican leadership of the house chooses to do. i suspect that if republicans perform well, we will see a dissipation of the energy that took place, which will be compounded by the beginnings of a 2012 presidential race. there is no clear, single person that every tea partier would

get behind. i think it will disappoindissipe of the energy as well. and there are born to be performance monitors. they will keep their eye on everyone. i suspect that will take place, but i think you may have a situation where the success of the tea party creates a little dissipation and their energy. thanks. [applause] >> now we can go to some questions. i thought i would start off by asking billie, in terms of expectations, how do you think the two-parea party support woud define congress and the next few years? where would they set the bar?

>> we certainly want them to look at the health care bill. we want to see that actually take place. we want to see limited government. we do not want them intruding into our lives. we want our taxes to be less than what they are and what they're going to be. we want to see them do the things they said they were going to do. and we want them to fix the mess we're in financially. we are in a pickle. there is an article that i wanted to read. we have passed a milestone that is negative beyond the pale. the u.s. now has exceeded this level. they have work to do. we are scared out there in america, and we want this congress to fix this mess.

we will see if they are successful if they can fix that. >> questions from the audience. yes, sir. everyone identified themselves. >> [inaudible] if you look at the last 100 years of government, it is hard to argue that congress alone can't solve the problem, because we have periods where conservatives may be in charge and where liberals are in charge. where is this tea party movement on the the idea of constitutional reform? this is a question for anybody. where do think the people are on the idea that we need a constitutional reform if we are

going to permit -- permanently limit the idea of fiscal responsibility? >> balance the budget is a big deal in the tea party movement. and we want to go back to our constitutional foundation. the big government is not working for us out there. we want to go back to where we used to be at some point in our history. you know more than we do. we're not exports. but we know it has to go back to wehrwhere it was. >> i do not necessarily think you have of a balanced budget amendment to have a balanced budget. the problem is congress. congress writes the budget. they are responsible for writing

the budget. they are not going to balance the budget or lower debt just because there is a constitutional amendment to balance it out. it will just keep raising taxes. it is more incumbent on american voters to send people to congress that will spend less. he raised some very good questions, because a lot of the spending right now is automatically triggered. a key part of this will have to be entitlement reform. we will have to fix or replace social security and medicare. until you do those things, i am not sure a balanced budget amendment is going to address the actual problem. you can balance the budget and still exploit it. >> i think if you did a poll of supporters, they would favor a balanced budget amendment. i think that they would be happy just to see significant progress

in this area, because if you talk about some hazy, lovely time in the past where things were better 2007 might be a place to start. in 2010 that total federal expenditures are 3.7 trillion dollars. prior to 2007 the glut may be 100 billion per year. -- they go up maybe 100 billion per year. if i could say one thing in semi-defense of republicans, if the economic conditions that pre-date tarp and stimulus of existed, i doubt many of them would have very passionate about being tea parties. -- tea partiers.

the federal deficit is $160 billion. things were not nearly as bad. that is why i think the republicans got all lot of mileage by saying if we can just go back to 2008 spending levels. balancing the budget is certainly of gold, but making it better is probably something that would really satisfy most two-parea party activists. to>> you both talk about success dissipating in the movement. i thought opposite. i think that tea party members usually look -- term. -- usually look long-term.

i was wondering if success would help create the long-term of more conservative-leaning of the republican party if they could do some of the stuff you just talked about. >> first of all, there are zillions of ways for republicans to fail, some of which we do not even know about. [laughter] i was actually serious. if they fail to reduce spending, in other words, if they keep to their ways, and like i said, their old ways are not nearly as bad, if they keep to those ways, i think the tea party -- there is a serious decision to make. there are other issues that the

tea party is much less clear about. obviously the president conducts foreign policy, but if there is an enormous foreign policy issue that arises in the next couple of years, what is the tea party's position? what is the tea party's position on afghanistan right now? they have been extremely focused on budget, and not as much on the entire spectrum of issues that face government leaders. >> i want to disagree a little bit with that. and people tend to think of the tea party as focus on fiscal issues. that is really what brought people together. but because of my background and leadership i always found out that there will be one thing -- how many of you are in relationships? right, and when you are in a

fight with somebody in a relationship, it always starts with a surface issue. what you have to do is dig deep to find out the real issue, the one we do not want to talk about. that is what happened with the tea party movement. we started with the monetary issue, but the more we work together, the more we found out it was a deeper issue in our country. the deeper issues we have in our country is one word, and it is corruption. that is it. we have been out there working, we have been out there doing our job and sending our money to washington, and the political class corrupted our money. that is the issue that is going on in this country. to>> the issues you're talking about, dustin, armonk-tee long-m issues.

repealing obama care is not something will happen in the next congress because it cannot happen. when she is talking about with corruption can also be talked about in terms of trust. the reason you had depth tea the tea party erupts because of trust. good start counting. i think that is something that we need to make sure we acknowledge. if you have republican congress that starts working on rolling back obama care, serious entitlement reform, serious structural changes to the budget, including the budget process, i think that is a good start and people will reward them for that. >> our country was founded on a good start.

it started with a tax on tea, but the reality was taking our freedom from us. that is the same exact thing that is happening in our country again. >> [unintelligible] my question is it is very easy to win an election -- >> really? [laughter] >> ross perot did this 15 or 20 years ago. newt gingrich did this 12 years ago. the point you are trying to make is many organizations in washington who are fighting for reform but did not happen. the people that are reflected in congress --[inaudible] i am from pakistan. we have like 50%.

here it is very different. you did not have that type of corruption. my question is, i am republican. one person said we should defeat a congressman because he is muslim. if this is the substance of the party -- >> it is not the substance of the party. at the start represent the tea party -- it does not represent the tea party movement in america. if somebody said that, shame on them. [applause] >> jeff fox were the, you know what you are a republican when you threaten the life of jim

demint. i wanted to get the panel's call on the conventional wisdom in the establishment circles that the two-parea party cost the republicans the majority in the senate. >> they would of had to completely run the table to win. it was theoretically possible. i do not think it was realistically possible. i think what you had was the tea party. a former senator explained this to me, and i think he is right. you had existing candidates and existing politicians who latched onto the tea party because they thought it could get them support that they cannot have. christine o'donnell had run to for office before. neither was a good candidates.

ron johnson is a more pure tea party candidates in the fact that he had never thought about running and that is because he saw the energy and concern that he began to think about it. to me, candidates quality mattered more than anything. there were a couple of races that republicans may be could have picked up that they did not, but if you look at nevada, for example, i was out there and i got the sense that angle was going to win by a tiny amount, and that was wrong. if you look at the three finalists, i do not think any of them would have been a great candidate, nor would they have been carriharry reid. >> the gop never offers poor-

quality candidates. and [laughter] got that stuck in my throat. sorry. billie knows that better than anybody. athe whole establishment got behind charlie crist. he was a terrible candidates. there will always be candidates to fall short. -- who fall short. just to give you a perspective on the actual idea what happened, in 1974 after watergate, when the republican party had to go to a midterm election three months after their president had to resign on national television and then gerald ford pardoned him after that, the democrats picked up 49 seats in the house and three seats in the senate. granted they were the majority.

this was a fairly-monumental win. you can go to any election and say that there were poor candidates in good candidates and that election cycle, and i think when you take a look at the totality of what happened on tuesday, you cannot walk away saying somehow the tea party costs as something. you can quibble about nevada or delaware, but with although tea out the tea party we would not be having this discussion. >> i would like to save the gop cost us some races. -- i would like to say the gop cost the summary says. [laughter] i had to go home and tell my dad that. i thought he would throw me out

of the house. i supported republicans my entire life, but i am a tea party person now. there were many states where we heard the stories. we talked. it there were some -- there were some goper's that would not get behind the party. you do not want to make hazmat and florida. when mama ain't happy, ain't no bodbdyody happy. they could have taken more seats had to work with the tea party and the local races. >> i think other countries are

looking very rigid were very interested with what will happen in congress. -- i think other countries are very interested with what will happen in congress. you give the long list of guidelines. had there been any discussions on the ground about the issue of dissipation, whether you can keep the momentum going? also, the relationship with the gop going forward. what about 2012, the presidential race -- have there been any discussions on the ground about this? to go where it after the election that everyone might go away. -- >> we were read after the election that everyone might go away. but we all have our individual sites and we are all reporting people are still joining. we're still steer. -- here.

>> your relationship with the gop going forward. >> we love the gop. it will be one of cooperation and working with them we are here. if they do not call us, we will call them. we have people better already starting to get out there in america. we have that all kinds ohad alld teams reaching out to us. we're waiting to see who the candidates are. we will be part of the 2012 election. >> there has been a lot of analysis and talk about the ability of the tea party candidates who are now in congress to govern, and a lot of

analysts are saying we're just looking at gridlock. what is your take on this two- ea party block in congress? >> i did many of them would be gridlock as progress. [laughter] a lot of the platform was negative. it was to repeal obama care and stop doing what the administration had been doing. they certainly believe if they can get a handle on spending, make sure tax cuts are extended that they can make a difference and bring around jobs. we will see what happens on that score. i sthink if they see

leadership working hard and passing things in keeping up with issues, if not all of them get through the senate, they will understand that. they understand the way the system works. the question is will house republicans be working hard on their issues? >> if you go to heritage.org you will find a checklist that will hopefully guide the next congress. it involves appealing -- repealing obama care, and reining in government, mostly on the regulatory side. you can go to heritage.org to see the details. >> all three of you have mentioned that in order to have a niche of reform, we need to cut back on entitlements.

if they are the motivation, the courage, and the desire to go into that fight to cut social security, medicare, and all of those programs? >> yes, and we have had discussions about that, because we know it is a problem. again, the american people are smart, and the tea party members are smart. we know we cannot do away with spending without looking at the entitlement programs. the word we do not like is to say that social security is entitlement. people are sick of that, and it want that changed. they paid into a system that was set up by this government, again, sort of like this health care. it was not entitlement. the problem is corruption happened and it did not do with the money what they were supposed to do with the money. we are willing to work on that issue, but we're not willing to give it all up because they

screwed it up. does that make sense? when it comes to entitlements for people that are not willing to work, absolutely we're willing to talk about that as well. there are a lot of good people that can get to work, but they are on the dole of the government, and we cannot have that. we're willing to negotiate. we're going to take care of the people that paid into the system. i have an 85-year-old mother in law that paid into the system and she will get out what she is entitled to. she is willing to the of a little, and not everything for people who are unwilling to work. -- she is willing to give up a little, but not everything for people who are unwilling to work. >> medicare is an utter disaster just waiting to happen. adding obama care to it made it

even worse. you cannot get around that. it will be a measure of the seriousness of the people we just sent to washington whether or not they will address that. people like paul ryan who are willing to address it in stark realistic terms. people were willing to talk about what you actually need to do to restructure the system, otherwise it will -- go to heritage.org for the list -- but otherwise it will eat up trillions and trillions of dollars. everyone knows that. that was not sort of wisdom i got off the internet. every single person in this town knows that precisely. whether they're willing to do something about it or not will be a function of people

holding them accountable. >> there was a debate as they drafted their pledge to americans about what to include about entitlement spending. it did not end up being in. my guess is you will not see any serious action on entitlement reform. >> we have time for one last question, and we will go to the very back. >> a question about 2012, the presidential candidates. will the gop and tea party candidates be behind the same candidates? >> i cannot speak to that. it depends on who the gop gives us. >> i agree. it depends on the candidates. i think there will be a number of interesting candidates, that we've seen before.

i think you will see fresh faces come out. >> [inaudible] [laughter] >> i will ask two questions, who do like in the 2012 field -- who do you like in the 2012 field? . .

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010]

>> the national oil spill commission holds a public hearing on preliminary findings. witnesses testified on the cause of the explosion and what can be done to prevent future disasters. the commission will be breaking for lunch at about of a clock 30, and then returning at 1:30

for another hour of testimony. president obama continues his trip to asia this week. he arrived in indonesia where he was expected to give remarks tomorrow morning. he then plans to travel to seoul where he will give a speech to u.s. troops stationed there before ending his trip in japan. he returns to washington on sunday. >> this year's competition is in full swing. make a video on this year's theme. upload your video to suspend before the deadline of january 20 for your chance to win the $5,000. >> seven seats in the u.s. house

have yet to be officially called. 218 is the number needed for control of the chamber, which shifted back to the republicans of r a four-year period democratic control. earlier today, the transition team spoke to reporters at the beginning of an organizational meeting. this is close to 10 minutes. >> creating jobs and how we can

get after reducing deficit spending. it is important that we get input from all of our members. we will be reaching out to members of the other party and will be reaching out to the staff around here to find out from them how we can run this place more efficiently, and cut costs. i am going to look for every kind of savings to make this team more efficient institution, reduce our costs, and make our operations more transparent and accountable. it is essential. the people have the right to watch that business being done. we have a lot of work ahead of us. we had a good session last night. we are going to break down into work groups in a few minute. next week, the entire group will have the opportunity to weigh in and give us their input.

as you know, we have got well over 80 members that will be new to our conference coming here. a lot of them bring a lot of energy, intelligence, and experience. with that, i think we have time for a couple of questions. >> [inaudible] >> it is the central to listen to all of the members. we have some dynamic, young leaders tedder coming into our conference. you bet we are listening to them -- we have some dynamic, young leaders coming into our conference. >> do you feel like your voices

are being heard? >> this is an important opportunity for us as members of this new class to have seats at the table. moving forward is what this congress looks like. >> and the minority outreach from the republican party? >> we all go together. for me, it has always been about how to encompass all groups without exclusion. >> in 1994, there was a transition team. [inaudible]

what were some of the things you could learn from what they told you? >> i think a couple of things that are important. sweat the small stuff. at the end of the day, the small stuff matters. get deep into the weeds, make sure you get it right. do unto others the way you would want to be treated it. treat others the way you want to be treated. i think that is imported in restoring confidence in this institution to make the best legislative body on the planet, by allowing everybody to participate regardless of your party in a constructive way to harness their energy and ideas, too, but certainly making sure they have the opportunity to be participants.

they should not be ignored because they have a different party label print it too often, decisions have been made at the highest levels. we need everybody pulling together to try to solve these huge problems our country faces. we have to figure out a job strategy to get americans back to work in the private sector. we are going to have to work together to reduce the deficit, and i think we can find good participation it. i met yesterday with mike. he was a real leader in the 72- hour effort. we have really reached out. >> [inaudible] >> i would probably defer that to the leader, john boehner, but

you have a lot of freshmen members bringing a lot of enthusiasm and ability to our conference it. we want them at the leadership table it. >> thank you. >> thank you, everyone. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> democrats remain in charge in the senate. one race has yet to be called, but the official number is 51 democrats, 46 republicans, and two independents. the one -- the race undecided is in alaska. they are waiting on write-in votes to be counted, and that process began earlier to date. even though most of the congress has been selected, there is still work to be done in the

111th congress. members plan to return to session next week, where they will work on federal spending for the full budget year. it would like to vote on extending some or all of the bush administration tax cuts that expire in january. watch the house live here on c- span, and the senate, live on the c-span2. with most results final and winners preparing to govern, use c-span's of video library. search, watch, and share any time, all free. it is washington, your way. saturday, a landmark supreme court cases. >> there is nothing in the constitution concerning contraception or abortion. >> ruled on in 1973, roe v. wade

is still considered one of the court's most controversial decisions. listen to the argument on c-span radio. >> next, young innovators talk about ways to fill a need in society while affecting change. held last month in new orleans, this is an hour and 20 minutes. >> i have the great fortune to share the stage with a series of innovators. we are doing extraordinary things.

i want to talk about what is innovation. creativity applied with intention to create value. at the end of the day, this is what young social innovators are in the business of, creating value. economic and environmental value. i think we talk about what these social innovators are doing, but who are they? what drives them? tell us your big idea. >> we have created an anti- genocide committee. our idea is to create the first permanent constituency by training americans in every congressional district on how to engage in the lawmaking process

it. we make tools to make it easy to leverage that concern. just briefly, when richard lugar was chair of the foreign relations committee, we had a bill that was not being passed, so we rally people in indiana to start calling his office. we want to see you put it on the agenda at. then we went after voters, starting to cold call his donors it. i know you gave money, hang up the phone, and call our hotline. he will tell the senator to put the bill on the agenda. two weeks later, he put the bill on the agenda, and it passed. it took less than 100 people to do it. [applause] >> you have been on the forefront of using tools.

could you talk about how you are mobilizing young people across the country? >> e-mail is great, but it is not having the impact. we created this hot line called hong 1-800-genocide. -- we created this hot line called 1-800-genocide. all you have to do is enter your zip code. whatever option they peck, we will give them the specific talking points for that specific policy maker and then connect them for free so they can tell them the plot -- the talking points. we contracted real-time -- we can't track it real time. -- we can track it real time. members of congress themselves are calling us and saying please

get people to stop calling. >> thank you. next, we will hear from the co- founder of embrace. >> the big idea is to save millions of babies around the world through an innovative low- cost infant incubator. it came to a course i took at stanford if you years ago. you come together to develop affordable technologies for people living on less than a dollar a day. the challenge was to develop an incubator that cost less than 1% of the cost of a traditional incubator, which is $20,000 in the u.s. i want to show a quick video of the solution that we of come up with. >> as i watched my child sleep, i feel a sense of inner peace. i would do anything to protect

him and then when to always be there to give an unconditional love. >> every day, he teaches me something new. together, we share many special moments. >> the day my child was born, the only thing i wanted was to help her live. >> one of the biggest problems these babies face is taying warm. traditional incubator's cost thousands of dollars and required a constant supply of electricity. as a result, parents in rural areas resort to desperate measures, including the tying hot water bottles around the baby, placing them under light bulbs, or holding them over hot

coals. ce consists of three parts. once he did, the material is placed under a compartment under the sleeping pad and can maintain a constant temperature of 37 degrees celsius, or 98 degrees fahrenheit for the next four to six hours. the products stays warm without electricity. it is safe and intuitive to use, easy to clean, portable, and allows close interaction it. the mission is to give every infant a chance for a healthy life. every child deserves the opportunity to live, grow and dream. ♪

[applause] >> i have the product with mate. it looks like a little sleeping bag for an infiant. you can he this using hot water or replace it with intermittent access of electricity. once it not, it stays at the exact same temperature for the next four to six hours, at which time you just reheat the pouch. we hope to save the lives of over 100,000 babies and help prevent illness and over 1 million babies. it seems counter intuitive, but as infant mortality goes down, population growth goes down it. parents do not anticipate their kids are going to die so they start having fewer children. >> thank you.

>> buy and the founder of frog tech. we are bringing the latest technology from the silicon valley to the bottom of the pyramid, which is the 4 billion poorest people on the planet. what we focus on what the humble shopkeepers. we have given them a smartphone, at a bar code reader, so they can't keep track of sales, purchases, inventory, get the financial reports -- get what you get here from quick books, but on your mobile phone it. they are easier to learn and they already have [unintelligible]

so far, it is pretty boring. it just accounting. if you look at the numbers involved, it looks more exciting it. there is 1 million shopkeepers. in india, there are 12 million shopkeepers. roughly one in every 20 families gets primary income from a shop. going back to our product, what is innovative about it, because it is a smartphone, it is connecting to the internet. every transaction is backed up on our platform. we keep it safe in case the phone disappears. we processed it and return information back to the shopkeeper. we help them forecast their sales so they don't overstock critic.

on the other end of the platform, we have a large consumer packaged. we just connect the shopkeeper with mobile phones to their supplier to make the supply chain more efficient. >> very quickly, because we said they do not have enough time, tell us very quickly why do you do what you do? >> there are very compelling human stories behind what we do. i will give the story of maria, a shopkeeper who we work with. she used to keep a very neat track of her work. she told me she was running the business for 18 years. three or four hours every weekend it is a lot of time for

some basic accounting. she got really excited. the business puts her children through college. for us, it seems trivial. everyone goes to college. in the third world, when you go to college, you escape poverty for good. she and her peers are so inefficient it. there are these horrible products, called the poverty penalty. that is what we are trying to solve it. that it is pretty excited. >> why do you do what you do? >> i worked for a nonprofit organization in china that help children with aids. the government would collect

people's blood, pull it together, separate the plasma, and then we inject every donor with the remaining blood cells, believing it would allow them to donate more quickly. as a result, 60% to 80% of the adult population was hiv- positive. i saw many children who lost their parents and people who lost their lives because they could not access the right medication it. the most frustrating part of it, these are medications that exist. that is not a tragedy. it is an injustice. it became a passion of mine to try to bridge the disparity i saw between developed and developing countries. this gives me a platform to do this because i believe every person has the right to a healthy life. were mother's parents orphans and fled to britain on a transport. my father's parents were denied

entry into the u.s. and in cuba and made their way to ecuador. i grew up in ecuador, always hearing about two lessons. never forget about what happened during the holocaust, and never again. it does not matter who you are. it never let it happen again. when i look at the world's worst problems, which is extermination of a group of people for who they are -- if you just called it 10 of your friends and asked them to call 1-800-genocide, our politicians could live up to these promises it. >> thank you. we appreciate you sharing your visions for change and why you do what you do. we are out of time unfortunately. please find your time to these innovators. tina will be joining us on stage for a quick announcement.

please join me in thanking these young people. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> thank you. we are so glad to have had the opportunity. our founding sponsor, h-p, -- [applause] where are you? our guardian angels brings to the attention whenever we ask him to get involved in these conventions. he has been so incredibly generous. he has a very special announcement he would like to make, on, michael. >> tina has been attacking everybody. it with an event like this, this

does not happen in new orleans if you do not have the incomparable tina brown. [applause] there is not a conference, there is not an event that we would not do without tina brown and "the daily beast." is a phenomenal website with just unbelievable writers. they have a great editor. with tina's oversight, it has become, i think, one of the best news sites that has multiple functions relative to its coverage. the fact that they have david kirkpatrick ready for them, they just picked up some of the best writers, who in fact have that some of the most prestigious print publications. if you are not on it, get on it.

support it. it is a great site. [applause] tina, what a wonderful event. there is one person i wanted to call-up. we are talking about innovation. we talk about having an idea and seeing it through. this was a gentleman that came out to silicon valley and said i have an idea about how i want to scale and help schools. he was a teacher in the new york city area. he had this idea. he scaled grant and giving to any teacher across america. h-p put in your bag, a $50 gift certificate to each of you to go on and help a teacher in america. i will tell you, there are tens

of thousands of grants that posted it. co use this card and engage. i want him to talk to you about what he is doing and how he took an innovative idea. charles? [applause] >> thank you. that was so generous. h-p has made our charity, which grew out of my classroom in the bronx a far more agile, impactful, far-reaching organization. kobe and education micro philanthropist, and look at these classroom project requests on our site hosted by some of the most innovative public school teachers in america. our site really does enable

hard-working teachers who have great ideas for books they want their students to read, a field trip that would bring the subject matter to life, for an art project that needs certain supplies, to become innovators. it is because of that residence that i am so grateful to be at this conference and so grateful to each of you in anticipation of spending the gift card, and grateful to h-p for allowing us to serve hundreds of thousands more public school kids across america. thank you. [applause] >> we cannot leave without talking about -- some of the folks spoke earlier about this. it is the importance of small, medium-sized businesses it predicted you start to peel back the backbone of what makes big companies like h-p sustainable,

it is the entrepreneur hours. it is the small, medium-sized businesses that will help bring america back. it is a great pleasure of hours as we listened to out the current and listen to some of the people here in new orleans that we announced today that h-p is going to contribute $100,000 to the idea village here in new orleans. tim williamson who led this charge, who is in critical entrepreneurs to succeed here in new orleans, which is a great model for the national stage, and one i think can be replicated. it is not just giving funds to the entrepreneurs to get them started. you need to stay with these projects. you need to incubate with the entrepreneurs. >> thank you, michael.

[applause] 10 years ago, some of us were sitting back in new orleans thinking how to change a city in decline. the way you reverse it is through a entrepreneurship. if we could identify occoquan yours, if we could support them and keep them in new orleans, we can reverse decades of decline and create a new generation of leaders. i want to say on behalf of our board of directors, advisors, for the court to a rural community, there is truly a movement here in new orleans. it is a catholic investment. we are going to use this technology to connect the new orleans on to growers to the world. -- to connect the new orleans' entrepreneurs to the rest

of the world that could i want to thank h-p and the daily beast. welcome to new orleans and thank you for being here. thank you. and as a reminder, a company it like h-p was started by entrepreneurs. >> and a big thank-you to all that came down and attended. is tina here? ok, they're coming up. the next event. [applause] ♪

>> we have got a really fascinating discussions that we are about to start. there have always been people who seem to seek to capitalize social change. in this new era that we are in, social entrepreneurship and purpose-driven businesses are a very important new measure of the way we can develop not only innovation but also really exciting ideas of reality.

as we heard yesterday, 75 million who seem to be part of another group that knows how to develop this process. as we heard yesterday from the ceo of puma where he spoke about p, this seems to be one of the hallmarks that the social entrepreneurs take for granted. tomorrow is here, and you can see it through social innovation. of course, one of the key element in driving purpose- driven businesses is social networking. this is something that is absolutely a function of what we are trying to do in this area.

the hallmarks of social innovation seem to be small, simple ideas. as was shown in this last group of innovators. local problems, and sometimes an enormous global potential. the key to success of this is a scale ability, and one of the essential elements of making it scalable. mobile phones, digitalia, a new understanding of social networking, and in idea of what might be coming next. social entrepreneurs pay -- play a vital role in bringing about change. social entrepreneurs are valuable, bridges, connecting people to things, and it also need a strong network and support to get things going. this trio of people who have flanked me on the stage are

exemplars of this. robins case, it is lovely to have you here. ladies and gentlemen, rabin runs a consulting firm -- robins runs a consulting firm. she is the founder of zipcar and has been on the national advisory council for entrepreneurship for the department of commerce. as well as being one of time magazine's 100 most influential people. on her left, mark cosco, who has come in from the u.k. i saw you preparing for this even this morning. >> probably when you were going out for your run it. >> that is correct.

[laughter] sharyl, we have heard what you have been doing over the various elements you had on the program, but we are going to come back to you on how to identify who the new social of entrepreneurs are. you are quite given ant have some interesting hobbies. every day, you should do something dangerous. i think you follow her wishes it printed in 1984 when you were living in the caribbean, you read a newspaper story that predicted that syringes would be a major transition route for hiv aids. after research, you decided to look into it seriously. he went to immunization camps, learning how plastic is produced, and you realize that a

solution had to match the process. you used your innovative thinking to bring about a new design for a syringe. it took 17.5 years to perfect what it was and get something going, and you made a syringe which you called the k-1, which has now sold over 2 billion syringes. tell us your story. >> basically, i was always looking for a cause. when i read this newspaper article, i was certain that that was for me. as he briefly went over the important part for me was the research period. studying all aspects of the problem let me to the very simple solution, which is now in production.

we are very happy with the progress. if i show you what it is, -- it looks like a normal syringe. it is made on existing machinery. it is made in the same way. you can put it down or throw it away. if a person tries to reuse it, it locks, brakes, and you cannot use it again. the key -- several things. the manufacturing of a better product is obviously beneficial in the world that we live in it. we are used to progress every 18 months, big steps forward in computers or mobile phones or health care. the key was to really get information all the way down to the recipients of bad injections. the sad fact is coming each syringe in the world is used four times each and results in 1.3 million deaths per year, which is more than malaria.

no one ever talks about it. that was sort of the challenge i was looking at back then. once i understood the problem, i was able to develop this product and then design parallel programs around 8, which supported the implementation. >> when thomas edison develop the electric light bulb, he said -- they said he had almost 3000 goes before it worked. how many years did it take you? >> it took me 17.5 years before we sold the first one it. >> what did you do in that time? you felt that this epidemic not only in developing world but with poor medical practice was a contributing factor to this kind of problem. >> yes, i really had self belief because of when i was studying

the problem. it was just logical in the end. no one in the world wanted a dirty injection compared to a clean one. no one would disagree to that. then the challenges of not enough supplies, affordability, or a recycling culture -- those with the issues i had to break down it permitted for a manufacturer to take it on and produce it, it was a major step. >> in your invention, did you look at existing manufacturing processes because there are only a few manufacturers of the syringe is in the world? how did you manage to convince them they should change process, such that it would give that little bit of plastic that renders it unusable? >> i made it as simple as possible to retrofit the manufacturing process, and that is why it was an easy sell.

the manufacturing was an easy sell. it was all about whether they were willing to change the basis of their supplies. >> you sell your first syringe, get some agencies around the world to proliferate this, but then you take on another task, which you still are in the midst of doing. this is a part of your large mission, in a sense, which is to get global government to change legislation so as to not allow syringes for multiple use it. >> exactly. >> which countries did you start to target? how did you do it? how you go about that? >> i took on probably the biggest challenge, which was india. the reason i targetted india, they do -- there was a very well documented study there.

it found that 62% of all injections given in india or unsafe. it was resulting in around 300,000 deaths. i use that as a basis of the campaign. the minister of health said know. i asked for another meeting. >> what did he say? >> he said no again. i was fortunate enough to meet the delightful president of india. he asked for a meeting with the minister of health. >> and? .> he said no with a small budget, i was able to show a small film which identified this in a very dramatic indian-style way. >> how did you get that footage? did you do it under cover?

>> i cannot possibly say, but we made a film that dramatically show the problem. we were able to show this on television 5.5000 times. we had famous radio announcers, 10,000 times it could 240 newspaper articles. we were able to do that in a five-day period. the net result was 700 million people saw the message, and the minister of health saw me straight away. >> india is a big country. >> he said, "what do you want?" i said i think you need to mandate this type of syringe. there are about 10 competitors in the world. after a dialogue with his staff, he agreed in december 2008. he mandated rate in april cut

that out -- in april 2009. this is now fully implemented, which protects about 250 million people could >> life-saving results of this legislation is? >> we are doing this in other countries as well. we have been credited with around a saving of 10 million lives. >[applause] >> one of the things that strikes me when hearing the story, from an economic standpoint, if there is less secondary infections, nurses have more time to deal with bigger medical emergencies, how has that factored into this new legislative lifhg path? >> it is absolutely proven now that you can cut down

infection, people stay weller when they leave hospitals, there is less overhead in. economically, it is a no- brainer. but it is very hard to penetrate that obvious message straight away, all the way through, but you keep banging the drum until you get the message through. >> don't worry, be happy. >> exactly. >> so, mark, india was your first bastion that you concord, or are conquering still. then you made your sights on africa. it is a big task. >> you have dreams of african unions in standing up in front of them and having them the vote in your way. i work with a group of 14 countries and i got them to pass a resolution. next week, we are in action in it tanzania.

you bring the story to the public. the public is the best weapon that we have it. it is obvious. no one wants to have hard put on their family or anyone else for that matter. so you make an appeal to the right person, and that overcomes politics, administrations, and bureaucracy. >> the helpful benefits of what it can do? more importantly, there is a political value as well as being able to say we are saving more lives. >> i think it is it. in india, if we go back to the health minister, he had 120 articles written in the following week telling india how good he was in putting this legislation through. you just have to deal with that. >> the free press in india.

>> it has to be used. >> looking forward in terms of where the future rides on this, you feel there is a cumulative momentum with this? >> definitely. it is not just whether we are going to make progress. what is important to me is whether we can accelerate that process. every day, we delay, people are suffering needlessly, so why want to do is bring this to a conclusion as quickly as possible, and then go back to hang gliding. >> that is a purpose-driven business if i have ever heard one. rabin, you or someone who started the whole question of transportation, the complexity of transportation. over 1 billion cars on a global

basis. there are people here in the audience and on the web who might not be familiar with what you'd do with zipcar. zipcar is really something that was originally formulated in 2000. give us a little bit of background to how you thought of this notion and what actually transpired. >> i did not think of it. i had a co-founder sitting in berlin it. she it sought a shared vehicle across the street grid she came back to boston and asked what i thought of it. this was in the of 2009 and everyone w talking about wireless it. i was a prime user. it was really a light bulb that went on in my head. >> the sharing of scarce

resources. this would be the sharing of scarce resources across the board, not just wireless resources or network resources, but resources like for example cars. >> yes. i felt like there was a huge economic advantage for people who live in cities. people are spending about $25 a day on average. after a week of commuting to work without using your car, it is $125. people are spending 18% of their income on average on their cars. the idea was, cars, traditionally, you had to buy as a big unit or a car rental. this allowed you to rent a car by the hour or by the day. >> how did you manage to persuade the city's to give you

parking spaces for designated zipcars? >> it took six months to persuade the first city, but we would get parking exactly where the parking stop was. it is so local, we would pay for parting -- parking, bartered for parking. the two things that made it the largest one in the world, even though we had a 15-year lag on the industry, we rebranded it entirely as a smart, urban, hip product for people. the technology allowed it to be so trivial, to make a reservation on-line.

did you walk to that car. you hold your card on the windshield, unlocking the door, enabling the ignition. then you drive round trip and park back in that spot. what we were giving people were dedicated parking. from its inception, it grew incredibly well. it has been very successful. >> almost like word-of-mouth online. more particularly, there was a convenient factor that could be applicable to urban dwellers. >> i want you to hark back to 2000 where 50% of people had access online at work. the viral marketing had not happened yet. you would see a car it. i feel, like when mark was talking, it came down to

speaking to individuals self interest. individuals do not want to have a dirty needle. for us, and feel it is about any environmental products, we need to look at your individual self interest. why are you spending $8,000 a year when you are using your car almost never? people are spending a quarter to a third of what people are spending that own cars. from an environmental side -- i used to joke it was reason number four to do it. from an environmental perspective, we discussed social entrepreneurship as a term that i am not pleased with. i feel like we did this as a for-profit, capital-driven company. capitalism had details of the social and environmental

benefits. today's zipcar has i think 7000 cars, 450,000 people using them across north america and in the u.k. 40% of the members have not bought or sold their car, said that would mean we have replaced 200,000 cars. >> and no cash for clunkers in that it. >> i think it was half a percent of u.s. car sales last year, so it had a dramatic impact in terms of car storage. when people pay for cars by the hour, they drive about 80% less. so the reductions in co2 would be about three-quarters of a million tons less than last year that was not emitted because people did not drive it. >> one of the fascinating things that you uncovered is the whole notion of how you can use excess

capacity. excess capacity is not one single thing. there are multiple components that make it up. i would love you to tell us about the fascinating, new example that surfaced with the website called couchsurfing. >> i was thinking a lot about excess capacity. you do not have to buy the entire asset. couch surfing is a favorite example for me right now. >> what is it? >> it is individuals putting their unused beds onto a platform for people to use it instead of going to a hotel. what is remarkable, i would like to compare for you the largest hotel chain in the world. it has been around about 60 years.

650,000 rooms in 100 countries. >> 60 years to grow that much in. >> building it, planning it, making the bed, the entire thing -- 60 years to produce print it out surfing, seven years old, 1 million rooms in 200 countries. seven years. this is a piece that i am so excited about, excess capacity. we can get incredible speed and skill when we use excess capacity. all of that stuff existed, and end users put their extra stuff on the web. how long does it take? a minute and a half? for me, this is the most compelling and optimistic i have to offer. we can get the speed and skill. >> how can you rely on the power

of the crowds, the wiki-type evolution of this comment that it gives you baulked and continues to enhance as a profitable business? someone tells their friend -- how does this work? >> when i think about this, if you think about wikipedia, facebook, twitter, it is all the same thing. excess capacity. >> that is a good example. >> think of skype building their company without having to lay down a single cable. i think of this as the platform of participation. this platform in naples and users and their content and their extra stuff to participate

-- this platform enables users and their content and their extra staff to participate together it. it is completely independent, and it is together on a platform. i feel like we need a new word. it is not collaboration or cooperation pri is simultaneous something -- it is not collaboration or cooperation. it is simultaneous something. >> in america, we had about 300 million mobile phone subscribers and continuing to grow. in the next three to four years, we have some 50 billion devices that can talk to each other or operate in a connected way. >> if we enabled it. >> open source is an important thing for you and marked because it is something that can help

accelerate this usage of excess capacity. give us an idea of how this can be done in a practical fashion. >> i am totally intrigued about the billions of dollars about to be spent on the smart grid transportation, health, medicine. >> like a mesh of all of these networks it. >> >> i think the revolution in mobile phones is that what used to be a singular attribute device, up we can create a meshing of all of these devices. if you think of all of these devices that are permeating our environment with