elections analysts and congressional quarterly politics editor, the cso and guests of the speaker, use the media. [applause]

>> the state of minnesota had its credit profile and national politics 40 years ago. they also had supreme court from the northil star state. our guest today may look to bring back national prominence to the land of 10,000 lakes. he is officials and undecided whether to run for president. fellow minnesota republican and tea party favorite michelle bachmann may still his thunder. the state struggles through a recession. they have a $6.2 billion budget deficit. tim pawlenti is launching his book tour which has become a pawn, and preludes to

presidential requests. he will announce by the end of march whether he will run for the republican nomination. other stops include new hampshire and a iowa. we will let you draw your own conclusions. he will tell us about his book," courage to stand." he will talk about his political ascension and his time in the governor's office. mr. pawlenty presided over the state when the bridge collapsed over the mississippi river. he also hosted the republican national convention during his tenure and has spoken here before in 2008 when he was considered to be on the short list for the john mccain vice- presidential nod only to be passed up for someone not from medicine -- minnesota but only sounds like one. please visit and welcome with

governor tim pawlenty at the national press club. [applause] >> thank you very much or as president obama would say, you are welcome. i am delighted to be here and thank you for that kind introduction. we will miss you as you go on to your next assignment. as the president of the national press club, we are honored that you are from minnesota and you have done such a diligent job of keeping the tradition of making sure that this institution plays the role of better informing our citizenry if so we can have a better nation and a better democracy. if you presided this at a very important time for our country. let's give allen a round of applause for his service. [applause] we know we live in the freest and most prosperous nation in

the history of the world. the united states of america, we are blessed to live in this great nation. as i travel around and you travel around, this country and our respective states, you get the clear sense as he talked to people and listen to the dialogue and listen to the debate that something is amiss, that the american confidence, the american optimism, the american sense of hope for the future is diminished. there is worry in the air and people are wondering if the american dream still rings true and is still a guarantee and an opportunity for them and for their families. there is a lot of discussion in these recent hours and these recent days about the incident in arizona. in the instant aftermath of that he event, there was instant judgment on incomplete facts and other sorts of combinations that seeped into the discussion. allen mentioned that one thing i presided over during my time as governor was the 35-w bridge

collapse. it was a terrible tragedy. there were 13 minnesota into lost their lives in that tragedy. there were 145 others who were injured and heard. a number of lessons came out of that terrible tragedy. number one, as americans always do and as minnesotans always do, in a time of crisis or a tragedy, people in minnesota, everyday people who happen to be nearby, did not run away but ran toward the danger. they wanted to help others. they wanted to do what they could to make the situation better, to rescue and helped in the recovery and there are astounding stories of heroism there as there was in tucson just some days ago. as a nation, as we come together in this moment of reflection and condolence and concern and empathy, lessens the merge. in the book that i am here to

launch today, it is a book not just about lessons learned in my upbringing and my time as governor, but lessons learned in leadership, in crisis, and in service. one of those lessons is in times of crisis, leaders, people in responsible positions, need to step forward and make sure that we make good statements but they need to be accurate statements, based on good information. we cannot have a functioning democracy unless we have an informed citizenry and the can have an informed citizenry unless they have good and accurate information. the national press club and its members elevate and continue that tradition. it plays a vital role in the fabric of our democracy, the well-being and health of our democracy and i take that sentiment that i expressed to alan very seriously and sincerely, thank you for the work that you do. we also know that in those instances where reality and fact

give way to condemnation based not on fact or allegation or judgment, it becomes very corrosive, not just to the debate but to our democracy and more broadly. in my experience with the 35-w bridge collapse, we have individuals and others making severe judgments in the early moments and hours of that crisis that turned out to be flat wrong. one hour later, one year later, the ntsb determined that the primary cause for that bridge falling was a design flaw dating back to the 1960's, really quite unrelated to much of the concern and allegations that were expressed. we saw some of those same reactions in this tragedy of a few days ago. i come today in the spirit of great discourse and accurate discourse and fair discourse and the way that we can help insure that is to question each other,

hold each other accountable, and engage in these type of dialogue. thank you for being here today as friends and guests and interested citizens and stakeholders in that process. what i want to talk about today is that sentiment i talked about earlier, the sense for many in our country that the american dream is somehow slipping away, even eating the grass of our citizens at a level --evading the grasp of citizens. i want to talk about restoring the american dream by restoring american common sense. we all have learned about this concept of common sense through various channels or experiences in our lives for various people in the room it may be different but the ingredients include our upbringing, it includes our value system, our life experiences, our world view and philosophy and a variety of other things.

for me, these early common-sense benchmarks and lessons were formed in my home town of south st. paul. this book is written with good attention to this piece of background. it is a small suburb outside st. paul minnesota. when i grew up there, it was home to some of the world's largest stockyards in meat packing plants. that was an enormous part of the community and culture and economy of my home town. so many families up and down my street and across our city were connected economically and culturally to these cute engines of the economy in our town. of course, as things change and evolve economically, those plants dramatically shut down and the economic pillars of my community, the economic foundation of my childhood and my neighborhood began to unravel in pretty severe ways.

the trauma that that visits on people and on families when their livelihoods are questioned and destabilized and called into doubt is almost unmanageable unless you have experienced that yourself. most people in the room have. it is not on like the worry that we see in the country today. a missed all of that, when i was 60, my mom passed away pretty quickly of cancer. -- when i was 16, my mom passed away pretty quickly of cancer. my dad lost his job for awhile. i am the only one in my family was able to go to college, not because my brothers and sisters did not have the capacity or the ability. they did not have the opportunity. in their american dream, they were able to get by and prosper and raise a family, but they did things like work and oil refineries and my other brother who recently retired after working 40 + years as a produce

clerk in a store and my sister works as a one on one special ed aide in a school district in my other sister has worked for many decades as an executive assistant in the same company. i share that with you because as some of you are old enough to remember, ronald reagan democrats, or sam's club republicans, there is an experience or perspective that comes with having those kind of life experiences. back in the day, certainly in my mom or dad's generation or my grandma or my grandpa's generation and i am sure it is true for you as well, if you miss the educational rung for whatever reason, you are disadvantaged. you were disenfranchised or does respected. as long as you were not disabled, you could often go get what my dad called the strong

back job. you could go down to the meat packing plant and you could cut made and load or unload freight. you could drive a forklift. you could do the hard work of what existed in those stockyards' our plants are related industries in towns like that all over america. it was really the fall back for a safety net for the american dream for those who could not grab on to the education or skills that was necessary to access the economy of that day and in that time. as we all painfully know, things have changed. those strong back to jobs that were the fall back for the backbone of america, the american middle class have migrated away or disappeared for various reasons. now we are at a point where our fellow citizens and the generation that is to come behind us has to have the education or the skill to access

the economy of today and tomorrow because if you don't, you are marginalized in our society and our economy in ways that are extremely difficult and extremely hard to overcome in this hyper-competitive global economy that we live in. i want to talk to you today about that but also the important role that government can play but should play in recognizing a limited role and a more responsible and effective role and the lives of our citizens in the context of what are those american common sense of values that will help get us back on track. i want to share five of them with you. the first one is not very complex. it is common sense and we have all seen it and experienced it. if you ask minnesotans, if you ask americans what matters most to you, they will most often

say that i am a person of faith and that matters a lot or they will say they love their family and that matters the most to me. after that, they will describe a host of other things that bring them joy and meaning, that has them positively motivated. they might say they want to get their basements finish or they are worried about how they will pay health care or they have a concern that they can get their children through college and pay for it. they might want to say they want to watch the minnesota vikings win the super bowl. they might want to go duck hunting. the point of all of that is, you can't do any of that or have a pathway to most of that unless you have money. for most americans, their pathway to opportunity for money is having a job. there is a great debate in this country as there should be about what are those things we can do

to make it more likely, not less likely, that jobs will start here and stay here and grow here and as all the politicians run all over the country and say they are the jobs politician or leader, let's make sure that we ask and answer the question by going to the people who actually provide the jobs, who actually have done the work of taking the risk in having a dream or an invention or an innovation and are willing to invest and build buildings and add payroll and willing to buy capital equipment and do research and commercialize it here in the united states of america. when you ask people who actually provide the jobs, who do those things that will keep a private sector economy growing, there are clear and consistent answers that come back to policy makers. those answers do not best reside in the minds of the politician's most of whom have not worked in the private sector

or have not done what i am describing. when you listen to these entrepreneurs and these dreamers and designers, the folks who will make our opportunities unfold in the future in our economy, they say first and foremost," governor, or member of congress, or legislator, you have to keep my costs competitive." this is a hyper-competitive global market. as measured by taxes, as measured by the costs and burdens associated with regulations, as measured by the costs and burdens associate with a time it takes to get a permit, as measured by workers' compensation costs, and implement insurance costs, energy costs and the other costs that come with that basket of burdens and costs that add up to doing business in a city, in a county, in a state, in a nation. how does it compare to the rest of the market not as measured by the rhetoric of a politician but measured by the objective-board

you can put up and ask how my state or nation is doing against the rest of the world? when you conduct that exercise for minnesota and for america, we have work to do. this first lesson that i want to share with you is life is pretty tough if you don't have a job. in minnesota, our unemployment rate as the left the governorship was about 7% which is significantly lower than the national average. our job rate -- our job growth rate was approaching three times the national average. our income growth was a double the national average.

our per-capita or personal income in our state are amongst the highest in the country. there are many other measures of that kind of growth in my state. the second principle of common sense to return the american promises we have to be responsible. we cannot spend more than we have. you cannot do it as an individual. you can't do it as a family. you can't do it as a business. you can't do it as a state, by law. and we certainly can't do it as a federal government. we have a government now in washington, d.c. that took about $2.20 trillion last year and they spent $3.70 trillion with trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see. this is not a matter of right versus left. this is a matter of common sense. it is a matter of eighth grade mathematics.

it will not work. it is irresponsible. is unsustainable. it is reckless. it will certainly take this down the path that we are seeing unfold in parts of europe because we followed grease into democracy does not mean we need to follow it into bankruptcy. [applause] of course the push comes -- how do you do that? the politics are difficult. the rhetoric is difficult. i will tell you about difficult. as allan mentioned, i am from the state of mccarthy, mondale, humphrey, of ventura, al franken. if we can shrink government in minnesota as frank sinatra would sing about n.y., if we can do it there, we can do it anywhere. [laughter] what are the measurements. i was born in the year 1960.

that makes me 50 years old this year. i got my aarp card and mail not long ago. i did not keep [laughter] ] yet. from 1960 until i became governor, 42 years, up to 2002, the average two-year increase in the spending of my state was 21% for 40 years. there is no way you can sustain that. during my time as governor we headed down to about 1% per year. it is a transformation but it was a difficult transformation. there are powerful forces that wanted to say that we cannot reduce our spending pattern and we have to get back to the way it was. we must not reduce government's footprint and we cannot prioritize. we have to raise taxes.

i drew a line in the sand. i said we are going to live inside our means. when the economy is growing, you cannot have government growing a multiple of that. it is not a matter of political rhetoric. it is a matter of basic economics. in my state, that principle remains. i talk about the sam's club republicans and what i mean by that is when you go look into the faces of people who shop at sam's club or wal-mart or costco or k mart or if you have extra change you may go up market. places like that, what you see is people don't have a lot of money. they are looking for the very best value for the money they spend. they are also investing in many cases in their families. their carts are overflowing with huge volume-based purchases of the staples of life. they are really trying to

minimize or reduce the burden they put on their family with their shopping experience so their children and their loved ones can have more opportunities. the third thing i want to mention to you is common-sense principle -- people spend money differently if some of it is their own money. if you have time in your busy life to go to seminars and stay up all night and watch cable tv or read all kinds of journals, i hope you do. those are valuable experiences. if you need a short cut and all you need to know about government reform and accountability, do this. on a given weekend, go to two weddings. go to one with an open bar, where the refreshments are free and and less. go to one where there is a cash bar. , where people have to pay for their refreshments to some

degree. you will see very different behaviors. [laughter] i said this in new york not long ago and someone asked who has a cash bar. [laughter] i did not have the heart to tell them that we still have the dollar dance to raise money for the bride and groom. the point of this story is that if you have a system where people get to consume stuff without knowledge or responsibility about making wise choices about price and quality and the provider has no incentive other than to provide more volume of -- of whatever it is being considered given and the myth is the bill go somewhere else and it is all free, that is a system that i assure you is doomed to fail. that unfortunately is most of government. it is particularly most of our health-care system as i have described that phenomenon.

that is one example of many. if you look at what is driving much of government spending for cities and school districts and counties and states and the federal government, it is indeed the health-care issue. it is driving budgets at a rate and pace that exceeds almost everything else. if we don't solve this problem, really solve this problem, it will take down the country or at least impair it from within. president obama stood in aisle and said he was going to do health care reform with an emphasis on cost containment on a bipartisan basis and we were going to tackle this issue with particular emphasis on the part of health care that challenges and worries most americans. he broke that promise. that is not what he'd delivered to the country and it will mugwort. what is the future in -- and it will not work.

what is the future of this discussion? we need to have systems where consumers or purchasers are in charge. they must have user-friendly information about price and quality. the providers of the service need incentives to do more than just provide volume. they have to be held accountable for better results and better health and that the money is in a line into those goals and it is at least in partial control of the purchaser and the consumer and they are in a transaction with the providers. that is not what our health-care system currently is in minnesota. let me give you a quick example. with our state employees who are struggling with health care costs, we asked about a new system where if you choose to go somewhere that is higher in costs and lower in quality or

efficiency, you will pay more. if you go somewhere that is better in and out comes and lower in costs are higher in efficiency, you will pay less. 90% of our state employees noticed and they migrated to more efficient and higher quality providers. the premium increases in that program in an astounding way have been 0% for four of the last six or seven years and the other years are approaching. that is unheard of in the health-care market because consumers are now in charge and i have information and accountability around price and quality measures. we have begun the process of paying providers on better outcomes and better health. the next principle is this -- as a nation, if we are not going to be the biggest place, we only have 300 million people, if we are not going to be the cheapest

place, we have to be more competitive, if we're not going to the be the biggest and we're not going to be the cheapest, then we darn well better be the smartest. the comparative advantage for the united states of america is that our people are educated. they are skilled. they are innovative. they are indented. they are collaborative. they have the ability to see and create and invented in ways that much of the world has not yet known. they are working on it and we need to not keep pace perry we need to be ahead of that. this goes right to the issue of our education system in this country. you cannot have a successful country with 1/3 of our future citizens being relatively unskilled or essentially unskilled and uneducated and expect that to work. it will not work morley, socially, economically,

strategically and it presents a moral and educational impact -- economic imperative for the nation. we are now having 1/3 of our children in the united states of america not completing high school. if you don't complete high school and maintains an education skill level beyond that, you cannot access the economy of today and tomorrow and you will become the marginalized citizen or fellow citizen in our country. with the strong back jobs being gone, there is nowhere for you to go. you become trapped in a vicious cycle of a bunch of part-time service jobs or you become a ward of the state in whole or in part and the call comes for more government. there will be more government housing, transportation, health care, everything at a rate and at a time when we cannot afford it. the reason they can't afford it is because they can't pay for it themselves.

the reason they can't pay for -- pay for it themselves is they don't have the kind of jobs, or skills or education to access the economy of today and tomorrow. it becomes a vicious cycle and it needs to be broken. the light in the chain that will have to be severed so we can move on is this -- the number one determining factor of how a child will do in school is the degree and level and in tests -- and intensity and frequency of the engagement of their parents and their school lives. the second most determining factor is the preparedness and effectiveness of their teachers. there is an entire agenda that needs to now occur around who is going into teaching and whether we are recruiting the best and brightest to come into teaching and whether we have rigorous enough and requirements. it is about whether they are

being required to have mastery. it is whether before we let them out of the college of education, they can demonstrate minimal compensate once they enter a profession. it is whether we are measuring their effectiveness of whether students are learning, what they are learning and we have to have mechanisms in place for the teachers if they are not doing the job to develop them professionally and if need be, move them out. the teacher unions in this country -- i love educators and they don't get paid too much -- they work in a system that was built in the 1950's that looks nothing like the systems and accountability that we have now and will have in the future. it needs to fundamentally change. as we were waiting for superman, we had superwoman. she was in this district. she had this agenda in the most

high-spending district in america. she was dismissed because of her views. while we were waiting for superman, super woman was pushed aside. her name was michelle rate. she was a democrat. she told the truth. -- her name was michelle rhee and they kicked her out. [applause] in minnesota, we have a great test scores and the highest sat scores in the country and all the other great indicators. if you peel back the onion, if you come from an area of advantage or reasonable functionality, if you come from a background of socio-economic unraveling, the numbers in a place like minnesota tell a different story. we have new standards. we're the first-aid in the nation to offer pay for

performance. this issue is so important for the future of our country. we cannot let a labor organization put the interest of adults in front of the strategic and moral interests of our children and our country any longer. when people say what can we do about it? they come to town and say they are for the poor and disadvantaged. one of the first thing they do is eliminate the scholarships and a former democratic- controlled scholarships for poor children. shame on them. the critics against school choice say that he will take a wealthy and that healthy and you will take the advantage to and give them a chance to flee the public schools and leave behind more challenged population. we will have less money to serve and a more challenged population. how can you defend that or

suggest that? i look them right in the eye and say let me see if i can give you an alternative proposal. what we gave that choice, that scholarship, that freedom only to the poor, only to the disabled or those who are failing? who is against giving another chance to a failing or disabled child or disadvantaged child? i would like to see you defend that. they cannot. in those terms. lastly, you may have learned this lesson in a sandlot. you may have learned in sports or business or in an alley or you may have learned in a bar. it is always true. bullies respect strength, not weakness. when the united states of america projects its national security interests here and around the world, we need to do it with voices and capacity of strength. we need to make sure there is not equivocation and

uncertainty between us and our allies around the world. there's a troubling trend developing on this front under the leadership of this administration. president bush negotiated anti- missile defense systems with two of our best allies in the world, the czech republic and poland. president obama k. men were reversed that decision and pulled the rug out after they had already extended their neck out a long way politically. lech walesa was quoted as saying you cannot trust the united states anymore. they are only for themselves. you had the leaders of israel questioning whether we really did stand shoulder to shoulder with them and whether that question was creating uncertainty and equivocation in terms of their enemies or their

threats being enhanced because of that question being raised about where the united states stood. we have to be strong. i will close at look forward to your questions but none of this will be easy. this is the united states of america. we are the american people. we have seen difficulties before and we always overcome, but we need to do it with a clarity and call to what made us great and make sure we don't lose sight of that and applied to the challenges of our time. if prosperity were easy, everybody around the world would be prosperous pretty of freedom were easy, everybody around the world would be free. if security was easy, everybody around the world would be secure. they are not. it takes an extraordinary effort. it takes extraordinary commitment. it takes extraordinary strength to stand up to the forces on the other side of these principles. we can do it. valley forge was not easy. saddling the west was not easy. going to the moon was not easy.

the heroism and commitment of the people on flight 93 was not easy. this is not about easy. it is not about going home and kicking back in our respective tv venues. this is about rolling up our sleeves and we will have differences but we will put our head down and plow forward and get it done. thank you for listening this morning. i appreciate it. i look forward to your questions. [applause] >> thank you, governor. we have no shortage of questions. what did you think of the president obama speech on the tucson shootings? >> i was not able to watch the speech live or in its entirety. i can comment on the exercise on the news.

from my standpoint, the president, leader of our nation at this moment, needs to make sure that he conveys empathy and condolences expressing the sentiment and emotions of the contra. from what i could see, he did a fine job. >> what would be your opinion of speaker john boehner's attending a republican meeting instead of the funeral. >> i heard this morning that the invitation to attend the memorial came very late. he had already made other commitments so i cannot speak to what the mechanics are. i know john boehner. he is a person of conviction and character. i support him strongly. i don't know what reasons were but the invitation to speaker john boehner came very, very late after he had made other arrangements that was difficult for him to change. >> in your book, you mention

socialism. why did concerns over federal power rise of greatly in 2009 in ways that it did when the bush administration also expanded government power? >> keker that is the debate i had with jon stewart last night, actually. there is a continuing between liberty and tear in the. as government at whatever level pushes into areas that were previously the province of family or neighborhood or community or charity or private markets or entrepreneurial activities, every time government pushes into one of those areas nudges us back, it says for us not to take the initiative. we will do it. you don't have to have the activities necessary to put together that safety net for that program because we will do

it. sometimes it happens in big ways like you saw unfold with health care. other times it happens a little incremental ways that you hardly ever notice. the more government pushes in itself and pushes out individual responsibility, industriousness, accountability, charity, neighborhood, family and the like, we moved down the continuing. as it relates to republicans in the 1990's, i think clinton was president in the 1990's, in any a bend, you have issues where republicans -- this came up last night -- there was an issue in the 1990's. many conservatives said they did not want the federal government telling us what to do in education. the republicans said they are going to spend on education, we want to make sure we have accountability. it is not fair to say that republicans entirely did not express concerns about >> the 1990's.in the >>1919 >>

>> do you think there's a different dynamic at applplay? > is there hypocrisy between conservatives and republicans taking swings that president obama? on issues of federal overreach and principles of federalism compared to the voices four years ago or eight years ago or so. probably. it is probably true that the republican party, the conservative movement in its current form have that clearly in focus. i think you will say a consistent and clear message, not just this six-month. but for the foreseeable future. >> you mentioned president obama

calling for a bipartisan health care reform. you also had republican leaders say their strategy was to say no to everything. is president thomas solely to blame for lack of bipartisanship in washington? >> no. [laughter] >> several accomplishments of the republicans came under president reagan. how do you see yourself as a republican in the reagan mold and how are the challenges for republicans different today than they were in the 1980's? >> ronald reagan was many things but amongst those things was the fact that i believe he was one of the best presidents in the history of the country. a number of questions arise -- what can we learned from ronald reagan substantively and stylistically? he understood that while government played certain limited important roles, a

government becomes inefficient when it overreaches. he said government should be limited and a real genius and power of america was the american spirit, the entrepreneurial spirit, and he wanted to retrench government and release more of that american spirit. that is the ronald reagan wisdom and legacy and he was successful in advancing it. we can learn stylistically from ronald reagan. he was a strong, strong conservative. he had strong views. he had strong convictions. he had the confidence in knowing who he was, that his feet were planted in the right place and his compass was set to true north. he was definitely a movement conservative. you did not see him very often demean or judge or get angry.

he certainly expressed his views in strong ways. ronald reagan was a hopeful, optimistic, can do, thoughtful person. at the end of the day, americans are looking not just for an indictment of the problem, they want to know what the better way forward is. ronald reagan was better to do that and the country really needs that now. >> do you know where ronald reagan was when he announced his first presidential candidacy? >> no, but based on the town of the question, i suspect it was here. [laughter] >> jimmy carter and john kennedy announced their candidacies here as well but i did not think you'd find a convincing. [laughter] how would america be different today had been chosen as john

mccain's running mate in 2008 rather than sarah palin? >> with all due respect to my friend john mccain, i don't think it was going to matter who he picked as his vice presidential running mate. once the economy cratered in the late summer-early fall of 2008, he or whoever the republican candidate turned out to be was likely to lose the election. i think will end up in the same spot for that same moment in time. >> the sarah palin can this is provided with her -- provided her with her first national exposure. what has her influence been on america? >>large. [laughter] i don't know her well but she is an acquaintance and i have had a chance to spend time with her when we were both governors. i think she is a remarkable leader.

as to this notion that somehow she is not worthy of consideration for national office, she had more executive experience before being selected as vice president and president obama had before he became president. that included being a mayor and chief executive of the energy commission and it included being a governor. there is also a double standard at play here. if you have different kinds of experiences, not that much, but you went to a more prominent school in a different part of the country or you were the law review editor of the journal or something, all of a sudden, that is more valuable in the discussion that if you are in a place like alaska or minnesota because there is a little bit of sense that maybe that is not quite up to our standards in some people's eyes. i don't agree with that. as it relates to arizona, setting aside the debate back

and forth, those early hours and early days, she was falsely accused. people came out and flat out blamed for in part for that incident. the fact to did not bear that out. >> with several questions about specific political issues rather than politics. your discussion of wal-mart or sam's club republicans. if wal-mart or individual country, there would be one of china's largest trading partners. does that strike you as ironic when you lament the loss of american jobs? >> there is a variety of issues there. how we best to deal with china? i have been to china three times. i have been to iraq five times, afghanistan five times and doing a number of other things. as it relates to china in particular, they are obviously a large and rising power. we want our relationship with

them to be positive and constructive but let's not be a pollyanna. this is a competition. we need to open our eyes as it relates to the chinese intentions relative to the interests of the united states of america. i am portrayed -- i am for free trade. i think president obama should be advancing the panamanian and colombian and north korea -- and south korea free trade agreement. i'm not for being a john. mp.np we have entities around the world that do not play by the rules. the answer cannot be that we are afraid to call them out. we cannot be afraid to hold them to account under the systems and rules and from more that have been established for such violations. it is hard to do that when china owns and controls one of the linchpins to our economy,

namely, we are unable to control our own finances that we have to mortgage part of our future to places like china. when that happens, you give up control of your portion of the economy but also control of a portion of your moral authority and your influence around the world. it is really hard to tell off your banker. in the discussions with government officials and business officials and others, one of the reports back in their interactions with chinese leaders have as compared to five years ago or so is that there is a new degree of assertiveness in substance in those discussions. it is not unrelated to america's inability and perceived weakness to control our own finances and the fiscal responsible and stop being a beggar nation when it comes to borrowing money from

places like china. >> stockyards and packing plants operate rely heavily on immigrant labor. how do more restrictive immigration policies affect those industries? >> minnesota and many other states have huge economic sectors of food and food processing and the immigration issue is not just related to those but many others as well. i start with core values and principles in mind. one of the corn restauranttenets of our country is that we are a nation -- one of the cornerstone tenets is that you cannot have violations of law and not just because we are legalistic but because when you have large numbers of people in the country ignoring and looking the other way and taking a path

and ducking ball law as written, it is corrosive to our culture and society. people then began to disrespect violations and a lot in new ways in different ways barry we have seen this many times throughout history. one example is in new york city. if you allow people pre-giuliani , to pee on the sidewalks. then you have people snatching purses. k and you havenives being wielded. pretty soon you have many other problems including crack houses. share all that with feyou because we cannot have a nation based on rule of law and have this much behavior in violation of law. if you look at my record in

minnesota, i have done a number of things to help the effort to take a more aggressive enforcement posture as it relates to illegal immigration. i think it is appropriate to increase significantly the efforts to enforce the border. we do have a secure and safe country. we need to have border integrity. it can be done. it can be improved significantly. there is a variety of techniques for that including technology and person power and reinforcing our capabilities. i voluntarily send troops to the hours of border as operation jumpstart. we need to do that first. we need to sequence the discussion with that in mind to give the country's security but the people in the debate confidence that we have that taken care of. if you want to be serious about reducing and moving toward the elimination of illegal immigration, you have to address it in large measure at the core

of the reason why they are coming. they are coming for jobs. the screening process relating to immigration his outdated. -- is outdated. you getan i-9 form out and i check it and put it in the file, you can expect small-business owners to conduct an international investigation. it would be burdensome and unreasonable to that person. it is filled with fraud. we need to move employers to a system likee-verify where people can electronically establish whether a person is or not here illegally. there are many other collateral issues. those two things are

prerequisites to the larger discussion. otherwise, you will not have confidence that the other stuff will stay >>. if you had been president one month ago, would you have signed the dough the bill? "don't ask, don't" tell bill >> ? >> the military took surveys and they came back with a majority of those saying they did not think it would make much difference of a supported repeal. when you looked at this survey for combat units and to ask how they felt and your the testimony on capitol hill not of the military most broadly but of a combat unit leaders, they were not in support of it.

they had serious concerns about it as it related to unit cohesiveness and the testimony reflected a concern about the safety of the men and women in combat i think we need to pay deference to that amongst other concerns. that is why i supported maintaining it. >> we're almost out of time. with a couple of important matters to take care of. first, to remind our members and guests of future speakers agreed on january 26, we invite you to an evening advent which is a night of solidarity for journalists. proceeds from the fund raiser will raise much-needed funds to assist haitian journalists and their families. yesterday was the one-year anniversary of the haiti earthquake started on february 43, we have chairman ben

bernanke of the federal reserve speaking at a luncheon. on april 5, we have douglas shulman, the commissioner of the irs. i would like to present our guest and this will be his matching set. i hope you and your wife will have lovely morning looking over the frozen tundra of minnesota with your national press club mug. >> how do you beat that? >> thank you. you can applaud the [applause] . . [applause] as we were speaking earlier, i am a minnesota native. this allows lunch i am hosting as the president of the national press club. i want to tell you that being president is great. [laughter] i had the honor of being inaugurated last january. senator klobuchar was the

keynote speaker. my alma mater wasconcordia college and they presented me with a brett favre jersey. given his year the minnesota vikings, would you like to take this back with you? >> we appreciate brett favre's performance last year [laughter] . >> you have said you're contemplating a presidential bid. you have been open about it and you said you would decide in springtime. given that you don't want to announce it right here right now although we would have to have you back if and when you do, what factors would keep you from deciding to run for the white house? >> since this is the last question, thank you. he grew up in motley staples area. one of his relatives owns the

bar there. hopefully there is no video. as it relates to running for president, i am seriously considering it but i have not made a final decision on it. i will and the next couple of months and it takes the needs of the country and what i can bring to the table in leadership and experience and perspective that i believe would move the country forward. it is obviously a personal impact the decision. i have a family, my wife, two daughters of very much, and a dog and they need love and care and attention a want to make sure as i make this decision that it will not be burdensome to them, that they are equipped and prepared. those of the kind of things i am thinking about. thank you again for listening and being here today. i appreciate it very much. [applause] >> thank you governor pawlenty. i would also like to thank the

national press club staff including our executive director, our organizer, the broadcast operations center, and the entire national press club staff for all the great work they have done this year. for more information about joining the national press club and how to acquire a copy of today's program, go to our website atwww.press.org and that's the message from lake woebegone. thank you so much for being here today. thank you for this wonderful year at the national press club. we are looking for more great years to come. this meeting of the national press club is adjourned. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010]

>> "washington journal" is next with the day's news and your phone calls. we will be live at 10:30 eastern with the republican national committee winter meeting. the agenda includes the election of a chairman. the current head of the rnc, michael steele, has four challengers. in about 45 minutes, we will discuss how the democratic base sees president obama's priorities. our guest is a contributing writer to the nation and an author. author.