we will find is that the mistakes that we now have to pay for are the responsibility of gordon brown's two henchmen sitting on the opposition front bench. >> the prime minister used to talk rather a lot about fairness, but he has not done so well on performance, so here is a test for him. the banks have walked away from the talks on bankers' bonuses. what will he do about it? >> the talks are ongoing, and i will tell the right honorable gentleman what i want. i want the banks to pay more in tax, and they will pay more in tax, up from 18 billion pounds last year to 20 billion next year. he says they have walked away. they have not. these talks are ongoing, and i want to see the taxes go up, the bonuses come down, but vitally, the lending increase. i am confident that we will achieve all those three goals. >> i know that the prime minister regards blackpool as a special place, as indeed he should. does he agree that it is about time that blackpool's unique status as the first working- class seaside resort should be recognized with unesco world

heritage status? >> my honorable friend makes a powerful case for his constituency. i have a warm feeling whenever i think of blackpool, because of the many conferences that i have attended there and the time that i have spent there. i understand, as i know he does, the pressures that it faces because of changing patterns of tourism and development, and the government are committed to helping blackpool to map out a strong future. it is also wonderful to see blackpool where they belong in the premier league. >> with the economy shrinking by 5% and inflation rising, having followed ireland on the path of cutting too fast and too deep, are we not now in danger of following ireland further down that slippery slope? >> i am sorry to tell the

honorable lady that the 5% reduction was under her government, not this government. if the former shadow chancellor's primer has gone missing, perhaps she could get hold of a copy. when we came to office in may, the idea that there was some acceptable plan to reduce the deficit is a complete fiction. let me just give her this one figure. if we went ahead with the plan of halving the deficit in four years, in four years' time our deficit would be bigger than portugal's is now. does anybody think that that is a credible path back to growth and confidence? it is not. >> one of the most important strands in the government's growth strategy has been the creation of 75,000 additional apprenticeships. does the prime minister agree that the forthcoming national apprenticeship week and the gloucestershire apprenticeship fair represent a great

opportunity to get young constituents to earn while they learn, especially in the manufacturing sectors, which are growing faster now than at any time under the previous government? >> my honorable friend makes an excellent point. in the spending review, we had to take difficult decisions, particularly on welfare and pay, but as a result we are able to expand the number of apprenticeships to a record level, an extra 75,000. yes, the growth figures are disappointing, but manufacturing and exports are up, and we are starting to rebalance the economy away from the unsustainable booms that we had under the labour government. >> each week the house of commons is in session we air prime minister's questions. at c-span.org you can find video archive of past prime ministers questions and links to the prime minister's websites.

>> tomorrow and c-span, the white house launching of start up america, an initiative to spur the economy. you will hear from the commerce secretary on the obama administration's plan to create jobs. also remarks from the head of the small business administration and two top business advisers. that is monday at 11:00 a.m. eastern here on c-span. jay carney will be the white house press secretary. he works for vice-president biden and as a correspondent for time magazine. learn more about him and watch his other appearances on line at the c-span library, with every c-span program since 1987, more than 160,000 hours, all searchable and free. it is washington, your way. >> tonight, former minnesota governor tim pawlenty at the first politics and eggs breakfast of 2011 in bedford,

new hampshire. politics and eggs is a regular stop for presidential hopefuls. right now he is on a book tour that takes him to a number of the early primary and caucus states. this is almost an hour. [applause] >> [applause] >> good morning. it is a delight to be with you. thank you for the invitation to be part of this important dialogue and i am honored to be here. thank you for the sponsors. i just wish my wife could do with me this morning, the former miss bausch first lady of minnesota. she is a big part of my life. she gives me pretty good advice and keeps things on the road. when i was thinking about running for governor in 2001, i

was winding up my time as the majority leader in the minnesota legislature and i have decided that i was not going to run for governor. gov. venture was an office and had not decided if he was quick to run for a second term or not. it could have an uphill for a republican in a deep blue of state. i came home to the suburbs and i said that i was not going to run. it was time to turn the page and to move on to the next chapter in our lives. she came across the living room and she literally grab me by the lapels and looked me in the eye and said that i cannot quit. she said that i have to fight for everything that we believe in would get washed away if we do not get in there and stand up for our principles and our values. away if we do not get in there and stand up for our principles and our values. i thought, wow, i am rocky

balboa and here is a tree and in she is giving me this into -- this inspirational speech. through hard work and good fortune, i was able to become the governor of the great state of minnesota, but not long into my time as governor, i had a big budget deficit and a state of the state speech and the schedule have become quite difficult and burdensome and i came home one evening about two months into my governorship and merritt was holding me to account for not being home enough. there was a little tension in the discussion. i told her, don't you remember, your the one that told me to do this and you gave me that inspiring speech and told me to get in the race. then there was a pause. and she said, yes, but i never thought that you would win.

[laughter] she says she just wanted to get out of my system. i share that with you because in our country, today, we have a sense where there are some question marks as to whether the future is going to be bright or not and whether the future for our children and our grandchildren is going to be brighter and better than the opportunity that we had. i believe that this is the greatest and most prosperous nation in the history of the world and will continue to be in the future. but in order to ensure that, all of us in minnesota and across this great country have to make sure that we will remind each other what those things were, the values, the principles, the things that made this nation

great and how we can apply them to the challenges and opportunities of our time. i refer to it as restoring american prosperity by restoring american common sense. i want to share with you just a few of those principles and reflections. i think those values and principles apply to the public policy discussion and then i will be delighted to take your questions and answers. as we talk about this concept of american common sense, people would derive their black perspective from a variety of different things. not just from principles and documents of government, but from your personal experience. how you were raised, what your parents taught you, what you learned in faith, what you learned in community and in family. for me, my background was growing up in a small suburb,

which was the home of some of the largest meatpacking plants and the world's largest stockyards. this was a blue-collar town with a lunch buckets and a gritty background to a -- to it. i have a wonderful neighborhood and a wonderful upbringing, but it was not easy. my mom died when i was 16. she passed away from cancer. my dad was a truck driver for much of his life and he got promoted to dispatcher and we thought we hit the jackpot. at a very young age, and not only saw this massive meatpacking plants and stockyard's begin to shut down summarily and see the economic dislocation and were ready and uncertainty, but in my own family, i saw these challenges

very dramatically at a young age. you learn some things along the way through that experience. just to give you one example of that, when my mom was not long from passing on, she called together two brothers and sisters and that they were not able to go to college, not because they did not have the capacity, but they did not have the opportunity. she pulled them by the bedside and said that whatever you guys do, promise me that you will get him to college somehow. -- get tim to college somehow. i knew that the way out for me was not just hard work, but it was making sure that i had an education that was relevant to the economy and the future. that is one of the things i want to talk about today.

let me start out by saying that the main issue for new hampshire and for minnesota and for our country, beyond a national security which is the first priority and focus of government, but the main issue is the economy and jobs. all of the politicians at the state level, the local level and the national level, they say that in the jobs president, jobs governor, jobs mayor, etc.. but if we want to be able to ask and answer the question of what we can do to make sure that jobs will grow in new hampshire or minnesota or our country, we should ask the people that provide the jobs. that is an important perspective. we need to listen to people that know what they are doing.

this depends on asking the question correct please -- correctly. besides your fate, in addition to your family, what brings you the most joy in your life? what brings you the most meaning? there is a series of things that people worry about or hope for that might be getting their health insurance premiums paid or how they would get a son or daughter to college or they might be worried about a simple thing like how they might get a half a tank of gas in their car so they can get to the next job interview or maybe they are worried about a home repair that is critical, particularly this time of year when it is cold. what you will see is that it all depends on something. it depends on people having a job. for most of our fellow citizens,

the best thing that we can do for them as public policy leaders is to make sure that we have an environment where we are doing those things to make it more likely that jobs are born to grow and that people who are entrepreneurs are going to take risk and start something and grow something and at employees and build a bill that -- ability of -- and build a building. we are born to grow not a government economy, but a private sector economy. when you ask the people who actually do that, the people who are the engines of our small businesses and provide these jobs, there are pretty clear answers about what members of congress should do.

as former governor, you have to keep my cost competitive. you cannot price me out of the market. you cannot do something to make the burden heavier, you have to make the burden lighter. you have to give me confidence that the environment is going to be more encouraging, not less encouraging. as it relates to energy costs, as it relates to unemployment insurance costs, as it relates to lawsuits, all of those things, together, add up a basket of costs that is the cost of doing business in new hampshire or massachusetts or minnesota or iowa or wisconsin. those costs are not a matter of rhetoric, right versus left or some political kabuki theater.

you can see how we are doing. you can see how it compares. this country's costs are not competitive enough in a hyper competitive world. we need to have a great debate about the details of those categories that i mentioned, but the clear direction for our country as it relates to competing in this hyper- competitive global economy is to make this more competitive, not less competitive. principal number one is that if we want to grow jobs, listen to the job providers. understand and implement those things that they say and grow the private sector economy and not a government and economy. the next one is hard. i know you have had only 1 cup of coffee.

it is a little complex. i have been dealing with this for a lot of years. are you ready for this one? this is really important. here it is. we cannot spend more than we've .aken in - it is not that hard. but we have the government at all levels, particularly at the federal level, that have been spending money for a long time then they take can. -- more money for a long time van they taken. they take him.

we had the wall street bubble. we had the housing bubble. we have the i.t. bubble and now we're going to have the government bubble. we need to hold our government officials to account. it has to live within its means. in my state, and generally, we are not under taxed. we pay enough in taxes. we have a government that needs to control its spending apatite and needs to get spending under control. people say that it is difficult. it is hard. you have to understand the challenges that we are up against. tell me about it. i came from minnesota to this breakfast. this is the land of hubert humphrey. this is the land of walter mondale. this is the land of jesse ventura. now it is the land of the united states senator al franken.

if we can do this in minnesota, as frank sinatra would talk about new york, we can do it anywhere. we took the spending trajectory of my state which was 21% every two years for 40 years. that was the average spending pattern increase in my state. we got that down to a low over 1% a year during my time as governor. we were able to bring in government spending in a historic way. we actually reduced government spending for the first time in a 150 year history of minnesota. of course, that is not easy when you are up against a culture that leans pretty hard the other way. there is a lot of hard work that went into that.

including having the first government shut down in the 150 year history of my state. but the point was, we were not going to have business as usual. we will want to draw lines in the sand and we were going to get government to live within its means and we began to see a big change in my state. the unemployment rate is below the national average. the job growth rate was above the national average. since the crash, our unemployment rate is below the national average.

we police had to get minnesota of the top 10 in taxes. in minnesota, that is a big deal. no governor ever did it. i did. these changes are possible. if we can do it there, we can do it anywhere. the first principle i want to leave you with is this. if you have a chance to go to policy seminars and stay up all night and watch cable television, i hope that you can do that. and there is great information available. i know that many of you are busy and have busy lives. what you really need to know about government and government reform, you can get an abbreviated version just by doing this. go to two weddings. go to one wedding where there is an open bar and the refreshments

and the alcohol are free or perceived to be free. go to another wedding and they will have a cash bar and you will see two very different sorts of behaviors. if people think something is free, that they do not have to be concerned about price or quality, they can consume it endlessly and only have to worry about the volume being provided. there is a myth created that the bill magically goes somewhere else and gets paid for and it is " and " free -- is: " gosh region -- quote unquote free.

>> someone asked who had a cash bar any more. as we change the systems, whether it's education or health care or anything else, we have to move in the direction of giving consumers or purchasers in charge of and responsible for decisionmaking. we have to give them good information about price and quality and performance measurements. we have to give them incentives to make wise decisions, including financial incentives to make wise decisions as people provide service. we do not want the service to be a government monopoly where there is no accountability other than how much volume is provided. we then create the image or the myth that the bill goes somewhere else and disappears. like i said, that is too much of

what we have in government right now. in health care, the answer is not to drag it into a state capital or washington d.c. and create a one-size-fits-all bureaucratically inspired staff and range of options that are limited model. that is not going to work. there is no notion that a government run monolith is going to be good. it is the wrong direction. i believe strongly that the obamacare legislation takes the health care and the country in the wrong direction. the solutions that we have for that and for public policy more broadly is to say to consumers that you were going to be in charge and you can shoot -- and you can choose from a range of options. we will give you some guard rails and protection in terms of

consumer protection. if you need financial help, we will give it to you directly in the form of a tax credit or a voucher or a stipend but you will be in charge of that decision making. to the providers of the service, we are going to say that we are not going to just pay you for endless volume, we want to pay you for things getting better, so in the area of health care, if i say to bill need for volume, what will i get? more volume. we have to pay for not just volume but outcomes. minnesota has led efforts in this regard and we have an astoundingly good results. we said to our state employees that you can go wherever you want for your health care, but if you choose to go somewhere that is higher in quality and more efficient in terms of cost, you will pay less. if you go somewhere that is less

efficient, you will pay more. guess where they go? 80% of our state employees migrated to higher-quality, more efficient providers and the cost of that program over five to seven years has been dramatically below the average interstate. astoundingly good results. people are in charge and they have good information about price and quality. they have financial incentives to make financial decisions and it is working. let me close by telling you that our country faces a lot of challenges. one is the federal spending issue. there is an opportunity to address it now than congress because in order for them to spend more, they have to raise the debt ceiling that you may be hearing about in the news. i wrote an op-ed in the washington post that was published sunday. it basically says not to raise

the debt ceiling. the president has set this up as a choice between defaulting on the national debt obligations and raising the debt ceiling. that is a false choice. in the country can pay its bills with the cash flow that we have in terms of the outside debt obligations of the country so that if you take the issue of the fault of the table and what we have left is a debate about how to you prioritize and reform and reduce the discretionary spending that is left. we need that debate. it is coming. this nation is facing great challenges financially. just because we followed grease into democracy, it does not mean we call them to the edge of bankruptcy. we need to stand up and look the american people in the eye and tell them the truth about how we got here and not just scare them.

they are there. the answers are there. the question is, do we have the will to actually do it? it will not be easy. but if freedom were easy, everybody in the world would be free and they are not. if it were easy, everybody in the world would be secure. if prosperity were easy, everyone of rubble world would be prosperous. we have succeeded because we are a free nation. it sets us apart from much of the rest of the world for most of time because our people have the freedom to worship and to associate and to dream and to invest and to take risks in ways and measures that most of the rest of the world does not know. it gives us a huge damage. but we are going to have to come together and put our head down and plow forward to a stronger and better future for our fellow citizens.

settling the west was not easy. going to the moon was not easy. the heroism that we saw on flight 93 was not easy. winning world war ii was not easy, but we are the united states of america. the people were given the task to help and they were frozen and fixed the problem, but it starts with engaged and involve citizens coming together and sharing ideas and holding public officials accountable for the results the results. that is why i am so glad you are here. thank you. i will be happy to take your questions. [applause]

>> i will give you my views on deficit-reduction. if you look at a chart -- federal spending, if there is non- discretionary spending, that includes social security, medicare, medicaid, interest on the national debt and a few other things. the red part is already over the halfway line on the pie chart. it is growing at such a rate that in 15 years, it will be over the 3/4 line on the pie chart. what is left in blue is defense spending. if we have as a goal, a nation

that faces the security threats we face, to maintain our commitment to defense, the pie chart gets difficult to change unless you tackle head on the red part of the pie charts, the non-discretionary spending on the pie chart. there are a lot of things we can slow down and reform. the heart of the matter is being able to look the american people in the eye. we have a mathematical problem. it is junior high math. we can all see it. here is the commitment on spending. here are the revenues. it is not in dispute. what do we do about that? there are things we can all agree on. there is a reasonable dialogue in the country. on social security, we have to say, we have got to get this fixed. we have to get it fixed soon.

here are some things we should agree on. as it relates to the cost of living adjustment in social security, not the whole program, i think we can say means testing is an ideal. amongst the suboptimal choices we have in front of us, means testing, just a cost of living increase, is a reasonable step. what that means that in the future, if you are wealthy, your increase in social security will be smaller than if you are middle income, lower income, or poor. that will not solve the problem by itself. it will help substantially. we now know the history of life expectancy is and how long people are living. i do not think you can change the rules for people in the program. for a new people entering the program, we have to save the retirement age will be pegged to

some reasonable correlation for life expectancy that is different from the way we do it now. we also have to give them the often -- the option of individual accounts if they want to choose that route. many in the younger generation would be comfortable with that. medicaid is a program that is growing at levels that are simply unsustainable. providing health care for the poor remains an important program for our country. the federal-state partnership needs to be fundamentally redesigned and overhauled. starting with this premise, let the states do it. that the nation decide what we can afford to spend on this program. require the congress to come in every year to actually appropriates the money without a built in increase. block grants that money to the states and get rid of all of the

micromanagement in the program. tell the only obligation or the money is to use it for health care for the poor. they have complete freedom to reform its in a way that is suitable to their system. get the laboratories of the mark as the, the 50 states that compete an experiment with each other -- it the laboratories of democracy, the 50 states, to compete and sperry -- and experiment with each other. we have some dramatic examples of that when the federal government let the states do that. medicare is a much longer answer. the short version is medicare was designed in the 1950's. it is largely a cost plus about him based system. if you have been historically a high-cost provider, whether the results were good or not, you

have been paid more. if you were in a more efficient place, you get paid less. you have this weird upside-down in version in the results of the money that went out. in the mayo clinic, they get paid substantially less than places in the country where they have dramatically higher costs and worse results. all that we know about health care reform in terms of consumers and purchasers been in charge, information about the quality of the market, incentivizing providers, as we have done in minnesota, medicare looks nothing like that. it needs to. there is a lot under the hood of that statement. that is the direction we need to go in with medicare. we are going to have to slow down and prioritize what we do on the discretionary side. not all that the government does

is of equal value. i said to the state, we are not reducing military veterans, national guard, or related programs. we will not reduce corps public safety programs. we will try our best to make sure we maintain our commitment to k-12 education. everything else got reduced because it was not as high a priority as the rest of the stuff government does. another thing i did not talk about in the interest of time i will mention now. in a country of 309 million people is not going to be the world's biggest country. it is not, demographically. if we are not going to be the cheapest place, we need to be more competitive. if we are not going to be the biggest or the cheapest, we have got to be the smartest. there is a whole agenda around and reforming our education system to make sure all of our

citizens have an education or skills that is relative -- relevance to the economy today and tomorrow. the biggest factor on how a child will do in school is their parents. we cannot legislate good parenting. if you have some ideas, let me know. the second most important determining factor in a child's educational success is the quality and professionalism of their teachers. there is an argument around the country about who is going into teaching and whether they are properly prepared as they enter that profession. before we let them into the colleges, do we have some minimal expectations before we let them in. are we making sure they have subject mastery before we let them in? do we have a minimum expectations about what they know? once they enter the teaching profession, are we properly

training, developing, and supervising them so we can see who is effective and who is not? if we cannot make them effective quickly, how do we remove them from the profession? i will not go into the details of that. we were the first day in the nation to offer statewide performance pay for teachers and begin to change the mentality and culture firm, we are going to pay most of the money on the issue of how many years you have been around to where it went to pay the money on whether students are learning. i do not know about you, but how many of you get paid for how many years you have been around? i do not-teachers. we celebrate and respect teaching -- i do not bash teachers. we celebrate and respect teaching. there are some who accept the status quo and block some of these kinds of changes. our country cannot succeed with

1/3 of our children dropping out of high school and being unprepared to work in the 21st century. it is not going to work strategically. those of us who know that my stand up and look these interest groups in the eye. i will not name them, but we know who they are. we are not going to put an adult organization in front of the interests of our children. [applause] >> thank you for coming to new hampshire. nice to see you again. one of our biggest problems is getting the economy going again. as a business owner, we deal with taxation issues all the time. the united states has one of the largest corporate tax rates in the world and our competitors

have some of the least. what is your recommendation on how we stimulate the business economy so that it picks up and we can hire people again? >> our tax rates in america are too high. if you compared the american tax rates to oecd nations, it is too high. it needs to be reduced. there is one other aspect of tax reform i would suggest we look at. we need to have our tax system be flatter, more transparent, and more simple and user- friendly. i would like to see a law passed that every member of congress should have to complete his or her own taxes without a tax professional under penalty of perjury. [applause] i filled out a w-9 form. it was one half of a page, but

came with a papal of instructions. it is so frightening -- it came with half a page -- can with a page of instructions. it scares people from being entrepreneurial. we get debate in the country about your marks on the spending side. i agree with that completely. but let's also expand the debate to the earmarks in the tax code. we have a system where thousands of pages are dedicated to whether some interest groups got the right lobbyists to go down to washington, d.c. and get this little thing in the tax code. let's lower rates for as many as possible. let simplify the system in the direction, and the spirit of

what ronald reagan did in the early 1980's. let's also remember that the bulk of the job growth comes not just from our large companies that pay the couple -- pay the corporate tax rates. the bulk of the dow growth comes from medium and small -- job growth comes from medium and small businesses. they do not use or utilize the corporate tax rate. and if we are serious about inspiring large companies and large -- large companies and medium and small businesses, we have to reduce the individual rate and create an exemption on business proceeds for individual returns. there are a lot of good ideas.

all of them would be helpful and stimulus to of. the general goal is to get as many of -- all of them would be helpful and stimulus to give -0- imulative. i would clean out all of them and have them as a taxable for the country. next question? >> thank you for being with us today. you talked about health care and competition, particularly in the prescription drugs, which people use when they get older. how you feel about the secretary of health and human services negotiating as they do in other countries? what do you feel about

legalizing getting prescription drugs from select countries? >> thank you. good questions. on the issue of importation of prescription drugs from state countries like canada, -- safe countries like canada, i think we should be open to that. canada has a distorted system in that regard. their argument is, it cannot import from canada. we can report everything that we can import everything from communist china but we cannot allow grandma to get her drugs from canada? congress has taken a run at that many times. they have never had the votes to get it done. on the issue of negotiating inspection drug prices, i do not think we want the -- negotiating prescription drug prices, i do not think we want the government to do that. i think the future should be

about trying to empower citizens and purchasers and give them good information and let them make their own choice in health care. some people might want to choose a health savings account. some people may want to use a place like the clinic and had it back up with catastrophic care. if government is in bald -- if government is involved in some fashion, they negotiate that on their own behalf for their programs. >> tom horgan with the college and university counsel. -- university council. congress is talking about states -- congress is talking about allowing states to declare

bankruptcy. what do you think about that? >> the question is that congress is looking and allowing states to declare bankruptcy. as i said earlier, we are going to have a government bubble. we need to pop the bubble in a way that is least destructive and harmful. it is a bubble. it is not like general motors or chrysler or these other countries -- these other companies where you have management and labor running up money so high for so long that no reasonable assumption about revenues will allow the picture to catch up with itself. it was reckless and now the chickens have come home to roost. you are going to see new york and new jersey, places that were particularly large in the bankrupt division that are going to have to reconcile this first.

how does general motors do it? they run to the federal government for a bailout. we should not bail out the states. the politicians are like water going down a hill. it goes to the point of least resistance. we have to make sure we give them the courage to make the tough decisions. do not bail out the states. forced them to reconcile their decisions and fix the mess. number to, if you are general motors or chrysler or these other countries, they run to a bankruptcy court. someone comes out of a room with a black robe pen gives you a do over. we should force the system to sell their own problems. the federal bankruptcy laws allow municipalities to have that kind of restructuring. it does not allow the states. it is worth looking at or

considering. i prefer that we do those stains that would force the states to fix their own problems. at the state levels, they have balanced budget requirements in 49 out of 50 states. they have to fix the problem if you do not bail them out. if they have no result, some creditor is going to get a court order saying you must pay. judges in the courts will start weighing in on tax policy and how to pay those bills. i think it is worth considering. ok. thank you for listening and thank you for coming out this morning. [applause] thank you. >> you have to do one for him, too.

put today's date on it. >> it is the 20 cents today, right. >> right. this one in is to mike. e -- and you have to sign my egg, too. i take this very seriously. with the date. i will remember you forever. >> thank you. thank you for being here this morning. you are nice. >> will you sign my egg as well?

>> of course. >> we appreciate you being here today. >> thanks, ken. >> a little tricky. >> they are a little slippery. hi, heather. how are you? >> i am well. thank you for coming. >> i was glad to do it. >> good to meet you.

>> the to meet you. -- good to meet you. not an easy place to tackl.e e. have a great today. >> thanks for everything. >> happy to do it. >> you were worth the wait. >> how is life for you? >> terrific.

>> thank you for coming in. quite happy to do it. >> it is a traditional day to come in. a little snow.

>> have a great today. >> i am back again. >> i enjoyed your remarks very much. [unintelligible] >> thanks. good luck. >> one of the interns in my office introduced herself to you. hi. how are you? >> good. it was good to hear some

common sense. i hope it catches on. >> thank you. take care. >> if you can just sign. i still want to go to heaven. die.t don't want to

>> thanks again. i appreciate it. how are you doing? good to see you. good morning. >> i wrote this because i am thinking about running for state rep. thank you. i appreciate you being here this morning. have a great day.

you are back. good to see you. >> byron actually apply to us to this event. he had to leave early. [unintelligible] >> do you want me to sign these, too?

>> i know a lot of workers over there. >> make sure paul has the information. he can send me a note or an e- mail. good to see you. >> i gave you a copy of president bush's out ahead. ed.president bush's op-

>> i like your speech. i like your speech on a -- i liked your thoughts on education. >> thank you. >> where are you off to next? >> manchester, new hampshire. i am going home tonight for a little while. >> i wish you luck. >> thank you.

have a great today. good to see you. >> he was going to try to work this into this schedule. >> where you at the event last summer? [unintelligible]

>> are you guys getting busier now with the merger? [unintelligible] >> better to have addition and subtraction. >[unintelligible] >> she is seven. >> that is terrific. how does she spell it? >> k-a-t-e. thank you.

>> tomorrow the white house launching of start of america. you will hear from gary locke on the obama administration plan to create jobs. also remarks from the head of the small business administration and top white house economic advisers. that is here on c-span. >> every morning, it is open " washington journal," connecting new with journalists. watch live coverage of the u.s. house and congressional hearings and policy forums. also supreme court oral arguments. you can see our signature

interview programs. on sundays, "news makers," and prime minister's questions from the british house of commons. you can watch our programming anytime at c-span.org. it is all searchable at our c- span video library. a public service created by america's cable companies. >> as protests continue in egypt, opposition leader mohamed elbaradei address the crowd say that change is coming. we will show you a portion of all forum he appeared at earlier. it touches on his possible role in the future of egyptian politics. this is half an hour.

>> i am an egyptian and i have been in massachusetts for the last 30 years. you have become -- what do you judge your ability to become the next president of egypt. what are your top four or five issues in egypt? and could you rank from 1 to 10? >> those are three questions. you can answer any questions you want. >> apparently do not know. my concern is to be an agent for change. whether i am president and not as totally immaterial to me. that will have to choose whoever they think is the right person

for that job. the other question u.s., my priorities, people do not understand that if you ask that this -- i democratic system about economic development, education, democracy means that you are collecting the people you think are the best. you are able to have an independent judiciary and parliament or congress. your havel -- able to have a change of power. empowering the people means of focus on their priorities, that their priorities are the priorities of the people. social security, what have you. obviously if [unintelligible]

i am now technology savvy person. i set that the major part of a program is democracy. it the policy and everything else will come to you. >> we go to the first one here. this is an assistant professor at the kennedy school. in you did a great job. i'm assistant professor at the kennedy school. i teach middle east politics among other things. thank you for coming to harvard to date. in many of your public talks, you have to emphasize that you are not really interested in being the president of egypt. you are interested in being an agent of change. i heard you speaking to the egyptian american community and emphasizing that egypt needs to go through a long process of change in order to become democratic citizens. that to me may be correct but it is not the kind of thing you'd

think politicians say. they generally cater to their audiences and tell how wonderful they are and etc. that makes me think you are serious and not being interested in being president of --. why did thing that so many egyptians are not willing to take your word? [laughter] >> you live in boston and i live in egypt now. i know the difference. i have not said that i am not interested. i said that is not my top priority. by getting more credibility focusing on the need of change and not a personal agenda. i've made it very clear it that if there were to be changed and we made the move toward democracy i would not let them down. i never said that i would never run for president. i am saying this is not my primary goal. my primary goal is to help a

democratic agent. it seems to work because now i'm getting 300,000 people on my facebook. [laughter] >> this gentleman, please introduce yourself. >> i am a citizen of boston and thus the world. when i go to sleep at night, i think he personally for the work that you have done over the years to reduce nuclear weapons and control them on this planet. i want to ask you about the recent agreement with president obama and president met vedette -- medvedev to reduce nuclear weapons. i have a suspicion that it will not be as productive as it appears to be on the surface. these nations that have thousands upon thousands of overkill are simply reducing weapons that they have to take out of circulation anyway and are replacing them with new,

more accurate. , etc. -- i know they cannot warheads within a mriv. reducing the amounts and the world, or is more work needed on india and pakistan and should the world that has nuclear- weapons -- or nuclear capabilities like france, provide nuclear power to countries to reduce their dependency and cost of petroleum in a second controlled manner? what are your thoughts on that? >> i number of questions. i am disappointed. i would have liked to have seen a more aggressive cut in the number of deployed weapons. 1550 still talking about each and that could be implemented in seven years' time to reach that goal. but there is nothing in that

agreement about on deployed weapons. there are thousands of nuclear warheads that are not deployed. there is nothing in the treatises that they should be eliminated. [unintelligible] he will tell you that this is not sustainable. it is not logical. the cold war, if you still have weapons deployed in no way that does not give humans the ability to think about whether to retaliate in case of a nuclear attack. the treaty could have sent a better message. there were provisions about eliminating un deployed weapons.

and changing the deployment standards that they found at the end of the cold war. that would have been sending a different message to the rest of the war. the message coming from start that we are tiptoeing toward this, whereas there is a long way to go. it does not change the environment. it does not send the right message to the indias and the pakistans and the frances of the world. why britain, the u. k, they are buying new trident submarines. why does the uk need you nuclear-weapons? why are they different from germany, spain, or italy? there's a message that it is

important not as a deterrent but as a status symbol. you should not be surprised that in areas of tension that countries would either go for nuclear-weapons of go for the capability. that is something i worry about right now. you might see a phenomenon of not developing nuclear weapons but have all -- going all the way short of developing nuclear weapons, but you can have a nuclear weapon in a matter of weeks. that is too close for comfort in my mind. , pick up program here -- and we're not really managing the adams the way we should. i take we need to change the

whole way we are managing the atomes. you can provide electricity but eliminate the possibility of proliferation by having a national approach to that sensitive part of the fuel cycle. one country -- no one country would have an enrichment factory alone. these would be regional. a number of countries will be keeping an eye on each other. that to me is the wave of the future. adding every country now saying that we can have enrichment facilities or others, you will end up basically what 25 countries who have nuclear- weapons or capabilities, which does not make much difference. you need to look at 50 years after that goes into operation

and see how you balance the need for security -- in other words, maximize the benefit of nuclear energy but minimize the risk. there is a lot to do to minimize the risk. one is to adopt a global approach to the fuel cycle, a better safety system, safety inspections, had better inspection mechanism, which i should tell you, the iaea possibility -- people say that we are the watchdog. we will continue to be a sleeping watch what of if we do not have the authority or have the satellite monitoring. sometimes yes, sometimes known. we will continue that. we do not have the independence and the credibility that we should. we're talking about an area

where one error could lead to our world being wiped out of existence. and the argument i used to get that this is too expensive, we cannot afford it? as i mentioned, our budget for verifying the world, $100 million. in the case of iraq, when they went for a second visit, they spent $3 billion. that was our budget for 30 years. we need the money, technology, the resources and my mission before i left, graham allison was the project director. i think by 2050, we will get some response. >> we have about 20 questions

and we have only 15 minutes. quick questions and quick answers? >> i am a retired political science professor. i had the privilege of attending meeting.y's interestr. elbaradei's in democracy. i support this very much. however as i explained yesterday, this would and address to the educated and illiterate people in egypt and will not be well understood by the workers, the most aliterate people, and they are the majority in egypt.

the second point is running for the presidency, if mr. hosni mubarak is not going to run for the fourth or fifth time, i do not know, we will need a special address, special precautions against the comments -- the common practice in egypt for the last almost 100 years ago, was that the most privileged are the military. >> your question, please. quickly. >> that started with the first president of egypt, the second president of the chip, on large

so that, the third, and mubarak, the fourth, they all make sure to work in their military since to convince the people of their power and of their backing. thank you. >> thank you. i was prepared to answer more questions on the global securities such a question. however i should answer that. you speak different language from some people. do not underestimate even these people. i talk about classical music, about jazz, and they were absolutely excited and supported me. we should not try to underestimate him.

however, it is a question as i said, going through that, [unintelligible] i gets lots of advice i do not know how what is going to be. >> but we want to focus on another subject. please introduce yourself. >> i am from the kennedy school. the iaea -- the current threat is -- [unintelligible] what can the iaea do to prevent nuclear terrorism? is it limited to inspections and setting standards? >> we are setting standards and guidelines and a lot of missions to assess threat assessment. the problem we have is a lack of

resources. we do need a lot of resources. the more resources we get, the more we are able to secure the materials. we should aim in 40 years to have nuclear secure materials. but people should put their money where their mouth is. i a scene that so many times. you get lots of lofty declarations and then it goes back to the treasury now say that they do not have any money. we know what to do. we can do it. it is the question of giving us the resources. >> i am an arab-american. if they keep for your time. i'm good at you to my facebook. you think ron's intention to build a nuclear bomb or nuclear energy has acted as a deterrent,

or whatever prompted israel to refrain from bombing iranian sites like they did in iraq? the fact that they want to build nuclear weapons, has that acted as a deterrent and actually prevented other wars from taking place? >> i am not sure -- i do not think they have nuclear weapons to date. i don't think you can talk about the iranian deterrence. what the iranians have done is their concern about the whole stability work in stability in the police. it is a concern about nuclear program, and discomfort about the security and stability. it raises concerns about domestic policies in different countries and what have you.

the iranian issue -- the use of force, you would've done the best service if you brought the iranian program. they knew it got to a crash course. it would of supported a lot of people are around the world. there is no military solution. the only solution is to build trust. it is none the nuclear-weapons to have more influence. -- it does not need more nuclear weapons to have more influence. [unintelligible] in the city of lebanon, in afghanistan, the nuclear program is a means to an end, and that is to show that they are a major player in the region.

you have to pretend as. i am not certain that they have a lot of concerned about this. i think the solution is not force but the find a way to live together. >> the gentleman there. >> on of>> this is in a run-u.s. that is the reality. you have the russians and the chinese, but everyone understands this will have to

come from the u.s.. they can provide the security as servants, if you like, to the iranians. and the west. bair the able -- they are able to provide the technologies. it is the u.s. that would become the first beneficiary of a run -- of iran acting as a stabilizing force into afghanistan, in the palestinian territories. no matter how you look at it, is both u.s. and iran understanding that a solution will lead to the countries getting together, support by russia and china and others is all fine. never have any illusion that it is the -- that it is not the u.s. that has to do the heavy lifting. >> i'm a student here at the

college. i like to talk about what is on the program, moving toward a nuclear-free world. it doesn't seem like brigitte -- it seems it would be destabilizing. the arm reduction talks don't mean anything to date. even if we reduce by 25%, we can still destroy the world many times over. i want to talk about getting to the important titles when we have 50 nuclear weapons, even zero. what do you see happening in this world where one nuclear weapon changes the entire balance of power? it seems to me to be very unstable. i did not like the world wars and it would not be a great situation to return to. what you see happening? it seems to be unstable situation. >> on stable if we have no

nuclear weapons? >> if you are going to 1 or 10 or 100, or they could rebuild when necessary. >> we had an agreement to take them out completely, if russia or the united states cheated and kept wondered to -- >> i understand the question. we discuss that today. we all realize that the current situation today is not sustainable. is unstable in many ways. you will not be limited to 9 at nuclear-weapons states. if you continue down this path, if you could have 20 nuclear- weapons states. the use even accidentally is much higher the number of states

that have them. george shultz and others spent talking about nuclear weapons, they have come from the heart of the cold war. the central question particularly but the terrorist threat is a situation that you need to change. we would like to go to zero. we will not go to zero overnight. what reason would to have that we continue to have 20,000 warheads today? 20 years after the end of the cold war. and we cut to 50 or 100, short, we need to have an alternative security system. we talked today about how to make sure that we have a security system where there are no nuclear weapons and yet every country feels, how russia would feel that you're not going to use your superior conventional capabilities.

to your advantage. there's a lot of for the needs to be done. that work is not being done today. meros of not talking about zero. this one area is fascinating. how could we have the new security paradigm? that does not depend on nuclear weapons. we owe it to our children to leave -- leave them with the world that the only way we can secure a self is to have weapons that of one of them were lost, the world will change come -- differently. there must be a different way if you can rely on conventional weapons. it is a question of security. security is a very difficult issue. are you secure when you still have $2 billion earning $2 a day, when you have countries light pakistan, where the issue has been going on for 60 or 70

years, and you have a u.n. security council's which is in many ways dysfunctional and you cannot rely on it to resolve many of these issues. security is not just a weapon. it is creating an environment, when you create disincentives for people to go to war or to attack each other, there is a good example. the european union does not see eye-eye on each issue. they have a lot problems. but you will never think that they would go to war against each other because there is so much interaction between them and there is so much cooperation between them. it is unthinkable to think of any member of the european union attacking each other. they could be a model.

different countries, different regimes, but we need to think about alternative system. i think you're right. the world would be unstable if we just go to zero. and then not take care of possible cheats. a security system with zero nuclear weapons but with mechanisms to detect and deter possible sheets. there is a lot of work here at the kennedy school and and other academic institutions as to why we're going -- that is not going to happen tomorrow, but how we can develop a security architecture where we can live as human beings, not afraid that we will wake up and find half the world on. >> you can watch the entire interview 1. all the updates on our website, c-span.org, where you'll find twittefe