alley, and a landslide zones of california. this past january, a severe winter storm blanketed much of northern arizona with as much as 6 feet of snow. npr member station kuyi lost power for 48but it was able to o deliver broadcast for their audience. they stayed on the air thanks to two diesel generators funded with federal dollars. without it, knelt -- nearly 100,000 people would not have access to vital information on emergency relief efforts, platter, and road conditions. this is just one story -- there are hundreds more like it. with journalists on the ground and transmitters their reach far beyond population centers, they

provide a vital service that only three broadcasting can deliver. -- free broadcasting can deliver. this results in an engaged audience. almost unique in american media, our audience for the traditional core service radio, which we have not abandoned, mark, it is court to everything that we do and it is more relevant than ever. as witnessed by the fact that the audience to our radio is growing and has been growing for the past decade. with just that our ratings for last fall and i am pleased to report they mark another all- time high in the top 50 markets. that is four consecutive quarters of record growth for npr. 44 million people listen to npr station -- 34 million people listen to npr stations every

week, and they listen on average six hours a week. in the digital arena, we reach 17 million people a month. that is a 100% growth over the last two years. they come to us on npr.org, on the iphone, on the eye when it -- on the ipad, on enjoyed, to read and listen to the radio and they connect to us on facebook or we have a larger audience than any other media outlet, and on twitter, we reached 3 million. it is not just about the numbers but also about the impact. our social media's strategist here with us today in the audience has become something of a one-man news platform, and i hope you are tweeting this. serving as a hub for news reports out of egypt and anywhere else that news spreads. we are also growing in audience

trust. according to a recent pew report, we're the only national news organization to receive growth in public trust of the last decade. our audience is not a left and right and dominant. we are urban and rural, north and south, read state and blue state. our listeners are equally distributed throughout every part of america, because of our unique network of local member stations. rooted in their communities, locally owned, operated, and staffed, these are citizens serving citizens. our listener is still a personal connection to what we do. not long ago, i was walking in reception with npr "morning edition" hosts, and we are radio, but as we mingled and introduced ourselves, i was

struck by their reaction people had when they realized who he was. not merely a media celebrity, but someone with whom they feel a deep personal connection. and then of course, always the same joke, i wake up with you every morning. he is a good sport about it. he laughs each time like it is the first time he has ever heard it. and he is in cairo tonight so you will hear his reports from the region over the next several weeks. our listeners tell us they appreciate that our reporters report. and so do our hosts. our listeners tell us they come to us for the craftsmanship, the stability of our programming, and the range of opinion and diversity of stories. our region has its limits and our coverage has its critics. we're working to expand the diversity of our audience, our staff, sources, and stories, to

do a better job speaking to people across the spectrum of thought, experience, and background. and we are paying aggressive attention to our ethical decision making. standards and practices that journalism at our level demands. in doing so, we hope to deliver an even larger following in the country and better serve our mission to enlighten and inform. let me shift to our funding model. i did this not because i think you're fascinated with our balance sheet but because it points to the depth and variety of our public support. it is a success story though often misunderstood. npr is successful not because we are smarter than anyone else. we certainly are not. nor because we have different values, we do not. and certainly not because we do not have to worry about the bottom line -- believe me, as you heard in the introduction,

we most certainly do. we are successful because of the investment that the american public has made in public media over 40 years. and this is critical -- the way in which we have gradually been able to leverage to that investment to build other sources of support. those sources include listeners, whose contributions make up the largest share of station revenue. corporate underwriters, whose support is not simply a transaction, they want to be associated with the credibility and the value of the npr name. we are also supported by philanthropic individuals and institutions to share our vision of an informed society. and finally, we rely on continued government funding, grants to stations and the corporation for public broadcasting represent 10% of

the economy. it is not the larger share of revenue, but it is a critical cornerstone of public media. this money is particularly important for stations in rural areas. there, the government funding can be a larger share of revenue, 30%, 40%, 50% or more. they may have no other access to free over the air news and information. modest as it is, government funding is critical because it allows taxpayers to leverage a small investment into a very large one. it is seed money. station managers tell me that 10% plays a critical role in generating the other 90% that makes their broadcast possible. the fact that we have four sources of revenue -- listeners, a philanthropy, corporate, and

government -- helps ensure that public media is not beholden to any one source of revenue. indeed, it is for this diversity of funding that we are able to maintain our journalistic independence. with the nation facing continuing economic uncertainty, it is both right and necessary to scrutinize all federal spending. but if the public value for the money spent is the prism through which spending decisions are made, public broadcasting stands strong. the american people believe in federal funding for public broadcasting. a national survey conducted last month by a bipartisan polling team shows that 69% of americans oppose the elimination of federal funding for public broadcasting. at the time when our industry is cutting back, when punditry is

drowning real news and thoughtful analysis, npr moves forward with quality reporting and storytelling delivered with respect for the audience. -- what a columnist caused the sound of sanity. we continue to build and not retreat from that 44-year investment. as guardians of the public trust, we have an obligation to address the current crisis in journalism and not simply fall victim to the turbulence of these times. i like to acknowledge that npr is not alone in this mission. here at the head table, some of my colleagues from public broadcasting. pollock, president and ceo of pbs, which presents programming unique in the television landscape that expands the minds of children, the documentary is that open up new world, and

cultural content that exposes america to their roles of music, theater, dance, and art. the president and ceo whose job is to advocate for public television and why he is more vital now than 44 years ago. or recently, pat has taken on the mantle of president of the public media association, which represents both television and radio stations. and pat harrison, the president and ceo of the corporation for public broadcasting. a private corporation created by congress to serve as a steward of the federal government's investment in public media. i would like to thank all of them as well as my other many npr and public media colleagues and my colleagues throughout journalism for joining us here today. in closing, at npr we have a vision for the future, built around high-quality journalism,

radio craftsmanship, and storytelling. smart use of social media, a seamless user meet -- experience across platforms that combines strong, local, national, and global reporting. it is a work in progress and always will be. but our growth in audience tells us we are on the right track. a light to and where we started, in libya. recently on "all things considered," the husband to an entrepreneur in the midst of a major protest about 25 miles outside tripoli. throughout the conversation, you could hear gunfire and chaos unfolding. it was reverting to listen to and brought the story home with clarity and immediacy. when the interview was finished, mohammad asked michelle what radius station he was talking to. she taught him in pr. he said, i listened to the

station most of the time. i have it on my waking clock. i really love that phrase. every day, the men and women of npr get up and go out into the world to bring back news that matters to people like mohammad and people like you and me. that is both a privilege and responsibility. it is good to have a waking clock to remind us that what we do matters. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you. we have had a of a good month for six weeks before we knew you were coming. we're grateful that you had. the internet traffic has been spiking into my in pots or twitter account with some good

things. we want to engage the public and discuss matters of importance, particularly those that have to do with journalism. there are some subjects that are particularly of interest to these people who sent in a number of e-mails in as well as those in the office. the one that is garnered the most amount of traffic involves someone with whom you no longer share a professional relationship, and that is juan williams. we have to get the subject dealt with before we can talk about the other issues of government funding and critical issues facing journalism these days. i guess you had five months to reflect on how that episode transpired. it took some pain for the organization in this that it shifted the discussion away from issue like the talk about. as you reflect on that episode now, and you have one key employees no longer with npr,

who suffered because of that, what can you tell people about the way that that transpired now, about how you might have done it differently, and then ultimately a number of other questions and get to the issue of the perception of left the s -- versus right bayh's. he -- bias. >> we handled the situation badly. on reflection, it has been several months and i stand by the fact that we handle the situation badly. we acted too hastily and make mistakes and i made mistakes. we reflect on the states now and fix things that some of the rigid that fell down on that day and make sure it did not happen again. that is the learning experience with juan williams. >> are you arguing that and tell

us how that works and how ultimately whether you'll be in line by that or you're stakeholders? >> we did not handle it very well. there were processes they were not really in place or fallen on that day. and we have fix those. >> from that standpoint, the public interest notwithstanding, it you think that you have move past it and get fixed whatever the issues were in place that caused the problem? >> yes, the process issues. >> can you give us an idea of the processes? >> their work issues on communications over those couple of days that did not work as they should and we have put those in the place. >> obviously -- [laughter] >> a lot the ink has been spilled about this issue. >> by virtue of the questions

that we got, people feel that there are some questions that lender. this is an opportunity for you to not have them linder anymore. >> i would like to talk about something more assistant about who calls to win, that since october, we have undertaken a thorough review of our new code of ethics. this is something that any organization should do from time to time. it was high time for us to do that, the major our news code of ethics is clear, up to date with the reality of media in 2011, and is consistently applied. the fact is, our news code of ethics was created in 2004 and has not been fully updated since then. we just finished a process whereby a task force of 13 people from inside and outside npr, led by bob steele, one of

the experts and journalistic ethics, letter reviewed and there were recommendations that are coming out of that of thatled a -- led a review and their recommendations coming out of that. we will release that in the spring. one example -- we're going to be creating a new position at npr of standards editor. he is on top of the checks and balances that we have in npr. we haven't ombudsman, lisa shepherd, here today. we have a correction is policy. we have a comments section on our website. the addition of a news standard editor will help us be another critical check in our process.

look for more about that sen. >> there was a question anticipating that issue. the task force has called for an into the practice of allowing npr journalist to appear on other media outlets under long- term contracts. and a specific question -- i don't think it is relevant here, but how would this affect your journalists? >> one of the recommendations, the task force embraces the notion is -- the notion of npr journalist sharing what they have learned with sharing with other it audiences beyond the npr audience. we wait to make sure that the processes in place for approval. but the task force has recommended that having a long- term, long standing blessed ship with two news organizations can be confusing.

we will take a look at that. >> can you expand on that? >> a couple of our reporters have relationships with other news organizations that have been long term. what you will see is that we will likely not have any in the art journalists have relationships, longstanding, long term standing relationships with news organizations going forward. with regard to specific individuals, they are doing that for years and we're not ready to make any specific statements about them. >> this sounds like there could be a grandfather clause there. >> could be. >> in pr has been criticized for not having enough minority voices on the air. juan williams was the only black male regularly heard. >> this is a big priority for us. i'm glad you brought it up. it is true that at the time that he left the organization, he was the only -- not the only

african-american, but the only male african-american reporter. that was changing and has indeed changed. but this is a very, very big priority for us. in the room with us is keith woods, who came from the dean of studies and now is head of diversity for npr, and we have a number of different initiatives under way to diversify -- to further diversify our staff, our reporters, the people that we interview on the air, and of course, our audience. we think we have made some progress but it is not nearly enough. the national association of black journalists, an organization that has given us a hard time in the past, they had recently wrote a column and its title was,npr's diversity, better but not enough. i think that summarizes where we

are. a year from now, it will be better still. >> an entry in the "national review," someone who is in the audience today from the heritage foundation, addressing the question from another angle. and that is -- to you believe there is an imbalance at npr with terms the liberals? what do you propose to do about it? >> every news organizations -- i have worked with three, but from every other news organization and i know -- critics up -- there criticized about being too liberal, too conservative, this, that, or the other. it comes with the territory will certainly get criticized about all manners of things. in terms of the liberal, and it

does not get as much attention, but we get criticism for getting -- for being too conservative as well. i wish those those could be a our editorial meetings and see the care that our reporters and journalists and editors take to get it right. this is incredibly crucial to what we do, to present not journalism that is on the one hand and on the other hand. that is not very interesting storytelling. but reflects no particular bias, and not a matter of how the stories are told, but that kind of stories we tell one npr. we tell stories about areas that almost no national news organization is covering, not just urban phenomenon. for those that to criticize us for being liberal, i ask them when i get that personally, i ask them to point to specific stories. when they do, we take this very

seriously. have we erred? absolutely. but we make corrections and we strive to do better. >> would you say it is a perception problem as opposed to an execution problem? the perception seems to exist toward the liberal criticism. i did not have have any questions that you were too conservative. >> there is no question that there is a perception there. it is a perception issue. that happens with all news organizations. the main thing for me is not the general perception, which is difficult to control, but the actual work that we do. let's look a stories. i take much more seriously when someone says i have a problem what this story, the estop i have a problem with npr. what does that mean. they met not even be listeners. but when we get a complaint, we

take those very seriously. >> another question all along the same line, but asked in another way. what is npr doing to attract talent outside the normal sources? >> we have a reporting on team represented by the almost -- 800 stations throughout public radio. they are all over the radio -- the country. every state, every community, just about every campus, every indian reservation. yes, well we certainly have hired people from j school. but we have quite a number

people on our staff to work it in pr reworked at -- worked at npr member stations. with apologies to some of those stations. >> former cnn correspondent wrote a pretty critical entry in the "american journalism review," and you may have seen it. in a sense, she link together juan williams with the episode where congressman gabrielle giffords was reported to pass away after her shooting. and that was not case. she is raising the issue that may be in the attempt to embrace change that haste is creating

some errors. to the specific question, we vari talked about juan williams , about the gabrielle giffords reporting error, and does that fit into your earlier comment about standards? >> there is no linkage between the juan williams matter and the gabrielle giffords error. the real difference, it was a mistake, a plan and simple. -- gabrielle giffords, it was a mistake, plain and simple. we take that matter extremely seriously. throughout the newsroom, he have done a post-mortem and shared information -- we have done a post-mortem and shared information. i would not say that it represents anything other than the one mistake that it is. it got so much attention even though other news organizations reported the same, because we so

rarely make these kinds of errors, a mistaken breaking news reporting, i do not know the last time that it has happened. it is a serious mistake but because it is so unusual, it got that attention. >> in the same injury, she says that you did not follow your -- in the same entry, she says that you did not follow your standards about checking or the information came from, and significant errors. did you feel that you did follow your room procedures? was there anything not properly handled? >> there were procedures that fell down in the story about gabrielle giffords. we apologize for the error on just about every platform that we had, on the air multiple time, on line, one devices, and

with a breaking news alert. the error,ooking at it was not that we did not react -- corrected. we most certainly did. >> there may have been an error and that report. you talk about the challenges to the political environment and funding. there is a matter that congress has yet to resolve, funding going forward. when you're talking about the risks to the public broadcasting model, how high would you say the risk is from ultimately the deficit-cutting environment that seems to be pervasive in washington right now. how great is the risk to your enterprise, as well as those interested in your well being? >> it is a very significant risk, a risk to all public broadcasting. as i said in my remarks, for public radio it represents on average to% of public radio

stations -- 10% of public radio station revenue. but for some, it is a much higher percentage of revenue. and for many public radio stations, there is state funding as well. we take this very seriously. it would have a profound impact, we believe, on our ability of public -- public broadcasting possibility to deliver a cultural programming and the arts to the audience. >> one person harkening back to an earlier thing, but it does get to the political dynamic -- how does the liberal perception of national public radio impact the current funding debate? >> that statement has been made and that has been suggested. the fact is, this country is facing a i'll $1.4 trillion

deficit. i do not envy those trying to figure out how to bring that deficit down. i think this is driven by mostly an attempt to find cuts to the deficit, and that is understandable why it is important to have a the deficit reduced, but it is a small amount of money that goes for public broadcasting. and a very large amount of money that that small amount of money leverages across stations, the public/private partnerships allows for critical infrastructure to continue, it to be able to continue to serve underserved communities and to raise money from the lappers and organizations, it is too critical to give up. >> a question asking how you may be risking at the historical

project historical standpoint. is there any more reason to think that these attacks will succeed this time? >> that deficit is a simple answer. there were attempts to the fund in 2005 and famously in 1995, but we did not have a $1.4 trillion deficit. i think the threat is more serious than it has been in the past. >> some ask, can you just walk away from government funding? you say it is a lot of money and you essentially cannot. but this was opposed by a couple of people in different ways, why does not npr become completely privately funded? >> federal $1 way, the impact on our ability to serve the he is

federal dollars went away, the impact on our -- if the federal dollars went away, the impact on our ability and the stations they rely on the lion's share of their budget for government funding, then we would be going backwards and retreating on this 44-year investment that the people have made in this incredible institution. and the fact that you cannot isolate funding for this one institution, we are all of that word. it is the network that strengthens us, not usnpr and the other predict -- not just npr and other stations, but pbs and local public television stations, many of whom are

joint licensees. it is like pulling out a thread, and the whole thing unravels. >> you have an interesting background in that you work for a number of other media organizations. now you are at npr. there is a question about that broad background as opposed to the ready of background. first of all, can you talk about your memories of listening to radio growing up, and other than listening to npr what do you listen to now? >> i grew up in the 1960's and early 1970's in new york. i mostly listened to am pop music. i came late to npr, because for most of the 1980's, i was living abroad. i can tell you the first time

that i really listened and honed in on it. i first target dating my husband, who is here somewhere -- there he is. i just previously move back into the country, and he had npr on, and i was hooked on npr and on him. those two things are linked. >> we hope it stays around if only to keep your marriage -- here is a question. this is news to me, but npr engineers are complain that they're being made obsolete and the strength of the networks and is not what was traditionally. that is not the only question that we got along those lines, but there's a feeling in some quarters that the attention to audio quality is not what it has been. can you address your assessment of audio quality and whether the

professional staff is as robust as it has been? >> audio quality is essential to is. people often tell us, and i've had the same express myself, if you are in a town or city and do not know, and you turn on the radio looking for whatever the npr member station is, a people tell us that you can tell within a nanosecond that you're listening to an npr member station. the extraordinary, rich audio, and all our reports, but what we hear coming out of the middle east and north africa, is not just about the reporting but the rich audio experience. there have been some reductions in our audio engineers as we move to some automated systems. but we are not forsaking our heritage, the rich audio experience of public radio.

>> no drop in quality from your perspective? >> that would be in the year of the listener, i suppose, but we have your audio engineers going to do field reporting. so not every story has a full crew. in those cases, perhaps you do not have some of the layering and richness of sound, but generally speaking, we have not heard any complaints from our listeners in any significant numbers at all about at the mission of our sound. -- a dimunition of our sound. >> area huffington just got paid millions of dollars. why not just call them commercials and move on? >> that is not who we are. we are public radio, and it is part of the fabric that we do

that we are non-commercial and not for profit. we have corporate underwriting. if you'd be hard-pressed for anyone to listen to the five- second spots and think they are anything like what you hear on commercial radio. would love to have more revenue from philanthropists, from listeners, from corporations? of course. we work very hard to try to increase the revenues so that we can have more money to spend on our reporting. but we have no plans and will not have a plan to become a commercial enterprise. that is not who we are. that is not how we are chartered. it is part of the implicit pact that we have with our listeners that we are a not-for-profit news organization. >> the earlier question about public radio branding.

i looked at it from a different perspective, obviously a very rich website to have with breaking news and to catch newscasts you might not have been able to get as they aired. what is your vision for that website for anticipating technological changes? is there anything you were trying not to do on the website, like staying away from a large offering of video packages? how you want to identify the website, going forward? >> the npr.org website this is one piece of our digital strategy. our goal is very simple. provide more news and information to more people in more ways. the second pieces of that, more people in more ways, speaks much to the fact that we must be

available wherever the audiences. even though they are listening to radio in record numbers, broadcast radio, we know that our audience is on other devices. they are on the iphone and the ipad, they are listening to pipe gas, so we aim to provide a very rich experience across all platforms. you will hear us rolling out plans to provide and make sure it that we create an entire package of tools and services and best practices, provide that to all of our member stations, so that every member station can be as relevant and robust one digital platforms as they are on the radio. our heart and soul as a network -- we're not trying to try everything, but that is our

broad strategy. >> television has experienced tension by view of the time shifting, where people watch programs on tv are -- on dvr after the fact. is there is significant downside risk for you and the way that a younger generation does not care about catching things live? >> the only risk is if we ignore what the audience wants. the audience wants to listen to live radio and the audience wants to, and some of the same people, sometimes different people, also want to be able to pick and choose stores and listen to it on their schedule. our job is not to influence their behavior but make sure that however they want, wherever they want, whenever they want, we are there. that is the only risk, that we

are not there however that the audience wants to consume public radio content. >> we talked about the tensions in the economy when you first to cover. that involve laying off staffers. have all those positions, numerically speaking, then restored? and has the reporting suffered at all throughout the down cycle? >> those positions have not all been restored. right before our joint, it was the exit -- executive team there when i was arrived, i think they made exactly the right decision, which is, instead of cutting around in every department can get every unit, we're going to cut to% from everyone, the decision they made twowe're going to eliminate

shows from the schedule. there were very good but they were underperforming in terms of audience. by cutting those shows and unfortunately having to lay off many of their staff, there rest of the news gathering operation , there were not only spare but we began to modestly invest in those programs and to invest in the hour news gathering. they have now reached the level of people that were laid off from those two shows. we are not in a financially viable position to do that. but where we invest, it will be in those areas, more foreign correspondents, reporters on the beat, more programs with stations. and based on the pew report that showed that people trust us more than any -- a greater growth in trust and any news

organization, and that our audience is growing across platforms, it would seem our audience has not been disappointed. >> almost out of time. before we ask a last question, a couple of important matters to take care of. i want to remind you about upcoming speakers and trying to engage in more conversation about journalism. with the milk -- all little more laughter, harry shearer, a voice of "the simpsons," and others, will focus on media myths. then the commissioner of the irs right ahead of the tax deadline. then something in between, it on 19, when ted turner and t. boone pickens, now ceo of bp capital

management, they will discuss issues related to energy consumption in our country. we might get to a question about cnn will for all of that is completed. with that, what i want to do is do something that i think you are vaguely familiar with. as a token of our thank you, we like to present you with yet another, perhaps her husband who turned you want to npr, the coffee mug.npc [applause] our last question has to do with your academic background. people may not know that you are a scholar in russian studies. i am wondering, warrior studies at all instructive in helping you to cut through rat -- were

your studies at all instructed and helping you to cut through red tape? >> i do not know about my studies, but my first job, this is why i was not in the country listening to npr, i was at tour guide taking americans of broad and all over the world, but because i spoke russian, i took quite a few groups to what was then the soviet union, and i learned not so much as academics, but everything i've learned about management and leadership, i learned as a tour guide, taking a group of 180 cranky americans to places where there were no hot water. a great learning experience. >> been, thank you very much. -- vivian, thank you for a much. a lot like to thank our national

press club staff, including our library staffers to help organize today's event. for more affirmation on how to join, please go to our website at www.press.org. thank you and we are adjourned. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011]

>> up next on c-span, former cia director james woolsey talks about climate change in global security. after that, of forum from a file with republicans who may run for president in 2012. later, california congressman henry waxman on u.s. energy policy. >> with congressional chronicle, if you can follow every word from the house and senate floor on one, track daily time lines, read transcripts, and find an archive on every member. on this schedule, a joint meeting of congress with the julia delauro.

gillard.a >> former cia director james woolsey talks about environmental issues and how they impact national security. he spoke at the jewish council for public affairs. >> thank you, rabbi sapper sting. we have had very inspiring and compelling presentations from senator klobuchar, and now we turn to jim woolsey. we're so pleased that you will share your expertise. we will turn this to you now. >> i was quite honored to be asked to be with you today. i spent 22 years as a washington lawyer and some time out at the cia in the clinton administration. i am honored to be invited into

any polite company. [laughter] two years ago, when eugene mccarthy was working on the nomination, we have been involved in some of these things of one kind or another for a long time. that me start by -- let me start by calling attention to key distinctions. it gets blurred a lot, not by our speakers today, but i want to make it explicit. we have two the energy systems in the country. one is transportation, and it is 95% oil. we do not use anything but petroleum products, natural gas, and as such. basically, it is all oil. completely separate,

electricity. it is a mixture of coal hydro, nuclear, except for. -- etc. 15% of our natural gas comes from canada, unless you he share the views of cartman's mother and think we should invade canada -- [laughter] we tried that lies. we invaded in 1775 and 1812, and they with our butts both times. we do not have a farm supply problem with energy -- foreign supply problem with energy but with oil. these things have nothing to do with one another. yes, if we electrify transportation, he will

ultimately need some changes to the electric grid. 75% of our electric grid goes on news that night. three studies by the national laboratories, by utilities, they all say the same thing. you could have 70% of the cars on the road be electric before you need a single new power plant. all you have to do is charged at night, and that means that you need pricing the way that businesses get it. electricity and oil are separate systems for all practical courses. -- purposes. the problem with electricity is cold. but during more% and 2% of our electricity comes from oil. the big problem -- and natural class -- natural gas is cleaner,

and ultimately we want to move away from natural gas to some extent. reasons. for some time if you're substituting natural gas for coal you're doing a good thing from the point of view of climate change. coal is the problem with respect to electricity generation. oil is 96% of the problem with respect to transportation and those two systems are separate. now, why is this important? it's important because those who have led much of our public discussion have tried to pull -- either they don't understand those two simple things themselves or they have done everything they possibly can to pull the wool over people's eyes because they know foreign oil is unpopular. none of us likes the idea of shipping large amounts of money off to saudi arabia. we borrow a billion dollars a

day when oil is $80. when it gets up closer to 150, which it nearly hit two years ago we borrow $2 billion a day just to import oil. and it goes for some pretty ugly purposes. for example tom friedman has a great chapter in his book called fill er up with dictator. a number of academics, sometimes called the oil curse. why is it the case that eight out of nine of the leading oil -- largest oil exporters in the world are dictatorships or autocratic kingdoms. countries th get two-thirds or more of their income from oil are all dictatorships or autocratic kingdoms.

what's going on? economic. if your country discovers a great deal of a commodity that has a huge economic rent attached to it, since it costs the saudis, according to their own terms, $1.50 to lift a barrel of oil and they are selling it now for $104, they are getting, to put it mildly, a fairmount of economic rent. your heart does go out to them. so what happens when you have a dictatorship or autocratic kingdom that gets access to a commodity like that? the huge economic rent goes to the power structure. it goes to the elites that run things and own everything. if a nice country like norway or apologies, canada gets a huge slug of oil, what happens? it already has a democracy. it already has a reasonably broad-based economy, it just gets richer. it doesn't become a

dictatorship. already probably a dictatorship state. second thing we have problems with oil on, security terms, is the fact lawrence wright in the looming tower, which is i think the best book on 9/ and al qaeda, it says that with -- between one and two percent of the world's muslims saudis control % of the world's islamic institutions including schools. why is that important? i knew slightly had dinner with him, a marvelous man, the former late president of indesia. marvelous advocate of religious liberty. going back generations in his family. after he left office as president formed an organization called le for all, religious

liberty for all, got together with indonesia's leading young rock star who also was a strong supporter of this indonesian tradition, and they went around the country putting on rock concerts as soccer stadiums, the rock star would write songs about religious liberty, teach them to kids, the kids would sing, the rock star would entertain and he would talk about the importance of freedom and liberty, including religious liberty. to put it mildly, that is not the saudi tradition. they teach their doctrine. indonesia is the largest muslim country in the world, so it's certainly not everybody. a big chunk. this doctrine effectively teaches death to homosexuals and apostates, all kinds of brutality is fine, beating your wife, killing your daughter as she strolls down a neighborhood

street with a neighborhood boy talking. it goes on and on. a worldwide caliphate, theocratic dictatorship. all over the world google to saudi schools are eight, ne-year-old boys who are bein taught to dream someday, perhaps, of being able to be a suicide bomber. so if the next time you're driving into a filling station to fill up you happen to think -- try to do this. i always try to do it. before you get out to get your credit card and charge your gas, stop for just a second. turn the rearview mirror just a few inches until you're looking into your own eyes and ask the question, i wonder who is paying for those eight and nine-year-old boys all over the world to be suicide bombers.

you're looking at 'em. a lot of us have very serious problems with oil for surity reasons. in one way or another those facts are more or less digested as the population as a whole so you say a good thing if you're a politician or anybody else when you say our problem is foreign oil. i think it's oil but say foreign oil. foreign oil. therefore yada, yada, the solution is nuclear power plants. no. because only 1 to 2% comes for oil. so it's only partly true you were substituting for oil when you built a nuclear plant. how about wind plants? wind farms don't substitute for oil. cap and trade? cap and trade is one way to prevent co2. i prefer a carbon tax but cap

and trade isn't crazy. it's one way to go. but cap and trade is all about stationary sources. a dollar a ton added to the price of co2 adds one penny at the pump to a gallon of gasoline. entire cap and trade $25 a ton co2 set up, that adds about $0.25 a gallon to the cost of gasoline. i would say perhaps not negligible, just tiny. how about drill baby drill? certainly we can fix the problem if we just produce more ourselves? no. because since opec has 80% of the world's reserves, conventional reserves of the world's petroleum and we have three, and they produce at $1.50 a barrel or say it's up to something huge like $4 or $5 a barrel, they produce in single

digits a barrel we produce tens of billions, we have no reserve, they have reserves. they are going to set the price of oil, they are a conspiracyn the rerestaurant of trade. they are a monopoly. they have 80% of the oil and pumping 40%. wh they are withholding oil to make you pay more. they will have that power n matter how much we drill baby drill, whether in the gulf or alaska. we will not be able to get control of the oil market. the days when that was true, up until the early '70s, and republic of texas had something called the texas railway commission, the texas railway commission was opec. set the price of west texas crude so set the price of oil worldwide. when i was growing up in

oklahoma learning to drive i drove on $0.25 a gallo gasoline. thanks, texas, perfectly reasonable folks at least compared to at least compared to wahabis. drill babe drill doesn't work. we import a small share from saudi arabia. canada is our numb one source. so we buy more from canada and less from saudi arabia. no? somebody else will buy more from saudi arabia and less from canada. we can't secede from the world oil market. that is except in the event of a world war. for all practical purposes, it's one pot of oil and we don't do a damn thing to resolve our problem by buyingmore from canada and less from saudi

arabia. so almost all of the solutions either do next to nothing like drill baby drill. drill baby drill helps with the balance of payments. we could maybe save a few days worth of imports by drilling a lot. but drill baby drill does almost nothing. the other solutions all have to do with electricity. so almost every speech th you get from piticians or people advocating a solution starts with foreign oil and ends up with something that deals with 1.5% of the problem. so what do we do? well, i tend to think that capturing co2 from coal-fired fire plants is affordable, 25 to

30% added cost. but sequestering carbon dioxide, have to be in saltwater aquifers, nationwide set of pipelines for co2 at least as complex as our oil and gas line network. so if we can get away from coal as the stink from cleaning up coal, at least co2, then i think we probably should. that's one of the reasons we want to work very hard on cleaning up hydrofracturing david was talking about to get natural gas out. if we can clean up the water satisfactorily we have hu reserves. he called and said, jim, what's the fastest way to get massive improvement in co2 emissions.

that's easy turn offoal-fired and turn on natural gas plants. they areot being used at night. they are for peaking. we can double or trouble what we get from natural gas even without drilling anymore. he said, that's right. he said y did the congress do the opposite? i said, well, that's easy. it's because the coal and railroad lobbyists, railroads are about two-thirds schlepping coal, coal and railroad lobbyists were a lot more organized than the natural gas lobbyists. hurting natural gas lobbyists, independents is not like herding cats it's like herding cheetahs. he said it's a shame. yeah, it's a shame. even though it's hard and we have to solve the hydrofracturing problem, moving torts renewables and natural gas, which is a nice partner

with renewables so you can turn it off, firming renewables is probably a good direction to go, at least one of the less bad directions. david's dilemmas by the way, the way i talk about them -- of course i teach at yale on energy -- energy in the 21st century could muir, patton and gandy agree. muir is secure patton, gandhi, bottom 2 billion, i even channel these 3 ghosts and have a discussion. [using irish accent] but we do not have time for

channeling and so forth today. on electricity, i think renewables did you away from the big grid, and the big rig has some terrible vulnerabilities, particularly for hacking into their control systems and for electromagnetic pulse and all sorts of other problems, and with respect to petroleum and transportation, i would say this. try to move in a direction of electrification. there is no real downside to that. there is some stuff you have to do, but you have got to get the oem's square away, and you will get a few hundreds of thousands of vehicles that do not move very fast. best of all it would be to provide tax credits or some kind of incentive is asian -- incentives.

they do not need to be all electric. the average car in the u.s. goes less than 25 miles per day, and three-quarters go less than 40 miles. if you have a plug-in hybrid, and you go all electric for 30 miles, and in your liquid kicks in, three days out of four, you are in an electric car, so i think modify the vehicles' where you can, electrification. i think natural gas, i think t. boone pickens and had it about two-thirds right. natural gas pumps everywhere. for interstate trucking, all you need to do is put the pompez inn at gas truck stops. it is pretty easy for large vehicles. at least two members of the portfolio.

i think a third would be improving the efficiency of internal combustion engines, including anything you could give an incentive that can be fit onto existing vehicles. electronic valves, for example. they can shut off when you are cruising. we already have that on some oem cars. a v-8, cruising on only four of those senators, we can save. and then biofuels. hot region on only four of those valves -- cruising on only four of those valves, we can save. ethanol from biomass, cellulosic by a mass, it is about 80% better. -- cellulosic biomass.

i do think that biofuels have a place, as does electrification, as does greater efficiency, as does natural gas. if you do all of those at once instead of what usually happens, the usually form their firing squads in a circle. [laughter] if you do that all at once and agree that even if something is not perfect, if it helps a big problem, oil or coal, let's move that way, i think we can begin to make some serious progress. thank you. >> thank you. [applause] faith you both for your thoughtful remarks and for laying out what we all see is an

immensely complex situation of global proportions that is before us. so what we would like to do a this point is take a few minutes in order to unpack some of the issues we are dealing with, perhaps to benefit from jim woolsey's expertise and think about how we can go back to our communities and mobilize their attention in their energies to have a real impact, and also, to call upon david saperstein and your thoughts so that we can deal with the issue is. there are those that we are better able to address that we all want to work towards, so let's open up for questions, please. comments from the floor.

yes, hi, thank you. >> mike stern from san antonio. i did not hear any mention of biodiesel. i have heard roughly one-third of the transportation sector is diesel, and you can actually substitute biodiesel for conventional diesel boat, i think, with minimal and perhaps no retrofitting, so why is this not more on the table? it looks like there is a lot of potential there? >> there is a lot of potential, especially in a lot of plants that, along, especially things that grow in desert and do not grow on other types of land. basically, if you have got a so you be in, at.-- a soybean, it is either going to go for de

enane or something else -- edemame or something else. the oil go through the plants, and the cattle will eat it just fine on the other side. what does not go through, what gets turned into white lightning or 200 proof vodka or ethanol, whichever you prefer, and you drive on it, wrote -- on it, and that is cornstarch. by the way, we do not use corn for all practical purposes for food. almost all of it is for animals. cattle does not normally a naturally eat corn starch. you have got to take them to these big combined animal feeding operations and jam it

down their throats, and it makes it sick, so you have to add a lot of antibiotics to the feed, and that in turn degrade the effectiveness of the antibiotics for you and me. there is only one thing that feeding the cornstarch does. it makes it fatter. that adds to your and my cholesterol. the other thing that you can do if you do not want to drive on the corn-based ethanol is that you can turn it into cheaper fructose, and that is why those otherwise known as the job from lobby was such a powerful voice opposed to driving on corn-based ethanol. i think the junk food manufacturers know that about one-third of american children are obese, so they think there is plenty of room for double digit growth there. [laughter] and finally, you have to use aromatics, benzene and others

that are highly carcinogenic. since it does not have ethanol in it to raise octane, it has gotten benzine and xylene, and you are putting carcinogen's out of your tailpipe, so do not drive on ethanol if you care about diabetes, the degrading of antibiotics, and cholesterol. on the other hand, you can turn into ethanol, if it is not that bad, but it is only a certain small percentage. >> thank you. next question. >> i am from southern new jersey. penn i continue to be astonished and disheartened by the fact that for many of our political leaders and a significant portion of the population that listens to them, global warming

is an ideological invention, that it is somehow something conjured up by the left, and therefore, it is one of those myths that we do not have to do anything about. of course, the effect of that campaign means that it is very hard to get bipartisan support for any program that makes an impact. do you have any suggestions for addressing this unfortunate situation? >> i will take your challenge and deepen it a little bit in terms of some of the struggles we are facing in making decisions that the senator talked about at a very, very challenging time. there was a long period of time in the last two generations where we kind of worked out some working rules about how politics

was done here in the nation's capital. the congressional budget office was established, and both parties relied on their analyses of economic issues as a nonpartisan reliable source of data that we could all work with. that is now under attack. a lot of tea party folks are coming in. without a common base to be able to make intelligent decisions, unpegged it becomes almost -- decisions, it becomes almost impossible at a very deep structural level, beyond the ideology. things have happened in the last decade in the science research that has gone on.

everything becomes an ideological debate. there is a divide, and you have to have both sides. this is challenging and a time when we have to make crucial decisions. the center has called on us. it becomes really hard to do if there is not information we can

all rely on. there is an idea to push back against this idea of a 2%, 3% of the experts disagreeing. it is all up in the air. .we have to address this if we want to make improvements. >> coal and oil, oil has now passed coal and is now in first place in terms of co2. one thing that is crucial for coal is getting important carbon sequestration. if we can find a way of a doubly to sequester, sequester it, once

we can do that, we can probably make a lot of progress with whatever we quickly -- progress relatively quickly. oil is different. think of best al capone. the residues produce cancer when they come up of the tailpipe. i went to a press conference a couple, three years ago, and a friend of mine worked for the evangelicals, and he and been fired -- had been fired. they had a press conference with huge organizations, all saying

that we are not taking good care of god's garden. ok? i talk about the coalition between the tree huggers, the do-gooders', the evangelicals, and willie nelson. if you cannot get them for climate change for now, until the debate changes, go after but oil. we go after the oil. -- go after oil. oil is al capone. on the senate side, it would make it against the law appears -- unlock -- against the law.

they are going after the epa, the coal plants, the oil refineries, and that is a good place to start. this is something that i hope that the different groups will weigh in on. >> thank you. we have a few minutes left. i assume the tapes of the session will be available, and i would like to note -- to mull it over. >> they can go on a website, and everybody can look at it as they want. let me suggest that one very

good one is by a friend of mine, called "turning oil into salzberg." -- into salt." the electric grids came at the beginning of the 20th century and a freezing possible. within a few years, electricity effectively destroyed salt. it is still used, but nobody held over their neighbors had because they had a salt mine and others did not. -- held over their neighbors -- held it over their neighbor's

head because they had a salt mine and others did not. someone came to me and said, "someone has stolen your idea." many people have written about that. including me. the woman is the creative one. she gets to write what she wants to with her colleague. it is a very fine book, and on the oil side of things, it really pulls things together. >> sherry, from portland oregon. i have to choose between two questions. one concerns me a great deal. how are we going to safely store nuclear waste, because we still have no solutions.

we lived not that far from the nuclear reservation. it has already been found to be volatile by scientists on several occasions, and there is always some kind of quick fix for it, but it is not a good fix. that is one of my questions, and i am hoping that someone will talk about ending our reliance on the automobile system. >> quickly, i think we cannot do it quickly, and so, some of the longer-term things, about towns and being able to walk places and mass transit, all of that is great. it is just that you cannot do it fast. we have an emergency with respect to oil. i think climate change is certainly a national security issue. that is why talking about things that will change existing vehicles, not even new ones. we need to move as fast as we can. i think as far as the nuclear

waste is concerned, there are probably technical solutions that are not bad, encasing it in things. it has become such a political football that it has become very hard for the government to deal with. i am concerned more about the proliferation than the waste. the proliferation problem does not exist. a lot of countries are going to want to get into nuclear power for electricity, and once you're in there, the nature of the nonproliferation treaty is such that it lets you get into it, and they cannot keep you from doing it. there is an imaginary schema.

they will have control. it is imaginary. i think if you have a number of these countries getting into nuclear energy, our waste storage problem is going to seem simple by comparison, because in some of them are north koreas and irans, they are going to teach. -- if some of them are. -- are north koreas and irans, they are going to cheat. >> montana, wyoming, they are doing a lot of it, and they need to be able to turn on their water, and the water goes on fire, because i guess there

might be methane or something coming up, and are we being proactive at all, trying to figure out a safeway -- safe way and not cause a lot of environmental problems? >> as a way of forcing the gas out, using water. it is a relatively new technology. it is less expensive to get the gas out that way, which is why it is very tempting to do. people predicted some of these problems. did it turn out that some of the problems were pollution and some are destabilization? there is work being done, but the whole content of technology raises serious problems here.

using fossil fuels, in terms of global warming, it happens that, a, the united states is probably the saudi arabia in terms of natural gas in terms of having reserves. israel has now discovered natural gas resources. after all of these years. so trying to get a piece of this right is culturally important here. >> let me just add one thing. there is one problem with fracturing that can be avoided if you know what you're doing. i come from oklahoma, and there have been 4 million natural gas wells drilled, many in oklahoma. i grew up camping and fishing and hunting on land that had a natural gas exploration going on

at all of the time. the offer -- aqua for widgetaquif -- the aquifers, you can go at one or two miles, and this is what is revolutionary, and it takes about 3 million or 4 million gallons per well. they always treated with some added sand, fine grained sand, and that lets the natural gas out. there are at least two or three technologies for cleaning that water up, not completely but enough that you can use it to

frack another well. half the size of as ballroom, they might have 8 wells, one going down this way, one going down that way, so if you can clean up that water and used it again, clean it up and use it again, you may not have as much of a disposal problem. you have used it eight times, and then it can be cleaned up much better, but they have not got that all sorted out yet. i think it is doable. but they have not gotten it well sorted out yet. >> david, did you want to comment any further on that? >> no. >> unfortunately, clearly, we have much more to discuss, but we have run out of time. this was an outstanding panel. we thank senator klobuchar in absentia.

and we thank others. before you leave the hall, just to give one final thought, to return us to the jewish asset of what we are doing and what we are discussing, to remember and praised the work, not only of jcpa, but something reminds us of the effectiveness of the jewish people. this is how we come to a broad perspective around the country. and if there is one thing that this teaches to us and demonstrates to us is that the same principles that apply to our complex global society came from a quieter world, thousands of years ago, demonstrating an interdependent community that knew that we had to take care of

each other, care of our land, care of the animals, and care of our own sense of dignity and respect for our conduct, it is is from that that a vast tradition that brings us here today to seek a better, more peaceful, more just, more secure world and makes us able to pursue that goal. thanks to our panelists. >> that was a beautiful ending, but there is one thing that everyone can do. helping us build coal drilling. it requires your going back and actually doing something to recruit people to be part of this broad community. it is the single most important step to do to make us important in the debates that are going on now, so please make that a priority. >> thank you, thank you.

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> on tomorrow's "washington journal," michael hayen. thenl,

ily eskelsen and education spending. after that, we will talk to a national security reporter for "the new york times," eric lichtblau. "washington journal," every morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern. and testimony before the senate budget committee. it calls for $4 trillion in deficit-reduction over 10 years. live coverage, at 10:00 eastern. >> up next on c-span, a forum with potential gop candidates for 2012. after that, california congressman henry waxman on policy. and later, the president of npr, talks aboutller,

public funding. >> of a 1000 students entered this year's documentary competition. c-span will announce the 75 winners wednesday morning during our "washington journal" program, and we will stream of the videos -- all of the videos at cspan.org. >> newt gingrich, a former minnesota governor tim pawlenty, and former -- mr. santorum. >> thank you for reading the letter, and i wanted also to say thank you for the congressman presenting that message to us. there are so many here today, and i forgot to mention another governor is here.

please give him a big hand. [applause] to share our role in the first in the nation states, omaha, neb., to introduce all of the potential 2012 republican presidential candidates. there is the national committee man for nebraska, and he was a republican senator candidates in 2006. -- candidate in 2006. he got a degree from the university of chicago. he was president of a trading company after it went public. chief operating officer.

he is the founder of an asset management company in omaha, nebraska. he is a member of numerous boards and commissions. the family owns the chicago cubs baseball team and the associated businesses. please give and i knew i will welcome to him. -- give an iowa welcome to him. [applause] >> well, first of all, i would like to say what a privilege is to be here in iowa, and the important work that you do to lead the nation, and i cannot think of a better group of people to leave that worked to. you people are fantastic. i would also like to think some others for inviting me here this evening, and all of the people

who worked to put this on. should we give them another applause? 2 the first speaker we have tonight -- [applause] the first person we have here to speak had a mother who was a domestic worker and a father who was a chauffeur. they knew if they work hard and had faith in god, themselves, and this great country, that they could retrieve their dreams koran -- to achieve their dreams, and they had two dreams. the first dream was to own their own home, and the second was to see their two boys graduate from college. the first was realized hot -- realized when he surprised his family by buying a house. the second was when his son herman graduated from morehouse

college with a dual degree in math and physics. his brother would go on to graduate from college. herman continued his education by earning his master's degree in computer science from purdue university. while working full-time for the department of the u.s. navy. herman returned to his home in atlanta to begin a korea working for the coca-cola company, -- to begin a career working for the coca-cola company and in a short period of time rose to vice president. shortly thereafter, he later became the regional vice president of the burger king division of pillsbury. he was able to turn around the region to make it the best performing in the country. he then took his biggest

challenge by becoming the ceo and president of godfather pizza. the companyp -- izz -- pizza. the company was on the verge of bankruptcy, and he turned it around in the matter of months. they made him the president of the national restaurant association. he had the opportunity to talk with president clinton during a nationally televised town hall meeting. hear, herman challenged president clinton regarding his health-care overhaul proposal. when president clinton attempted to assure him that his legislation would not harm american business owners and their employees, herman responded," quite honestly, mr. president, your calculations are wrong. in a competitive marketplace, it simply does not work that way."

"newsweek" named him the primary saboteur of hillary care. [applause] through his work, he was asked to be a member on the board at the federal reserve, and he had a radio show and is a regular contributor to several networks. his choice in his life are his wife and his two children and grandchildren -- his jointjoy -- note -- his joys in his life are his wife and his two children and grandchildren. one common thing is their importance in faith and family as the foundation of who they became. so with that, we welcome herman

cain. [applause] >> and thank you. thank you very much. thank you, thank you, and take you for being here. as somebody pointed out, you are here because you care, like a lot of people in the country, about the future of this country, and there was what was demonstrated on november 2 of last year. the bigger and more impactful -- of 2012. [applause] let it be borne in mind that the tragedy of life does not lie in not reaching your goals. the tragedy lies in having nobles to reach for.

-- having no goal was to reach for. -- goals to readh -- reach for. it is a calamity to not have dreams. as you have heard, my parents had dreams, and i have dreams. the good news is we are fighting back. [applause] we are fighting back with our face, and we are fighting back with our freedom to fight back -- we are fighting back with our faith. steve did not give me a lot of time, so rather than go through all of the ideas that i have learned from you and listeners to my radio show about what i

call, and-cents solutions, you can pick up one of those booklets from itable -- what i call common-sense solutions, you can pick up one of the booklets from our table. there are three guiding principles that have guided my life, guided my decisions when i was running companies, and has guided my own family. guiding principle number one, and i am only going to do three, or do the right thing. do the right thing. it was not right to sue the state of arizona when they were simply trying to protect themselves. do what is right. and it was not right, as indicated earlier for the president of the united states to order the justice department to not in force the defense of marriage act. that was not right.

-- to not enforce the defense of marriage act. one of the things you can always count on is to do what is right. epo secondly, one of my guiding principles, we have -- and secondly, one of my guiding principles, we have to guide as to in powering society.-- bust to vote -- guide us to an empowering society. life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and last time i looked at it, i did not see a department of happy in washington, d.c. there is no such thing. we have to become an in power and society. we have to win power businesses to create jobs -- we have to become an empowerment society.

[applause] we have got to empower the states to do what they do best, which is to solve the problems in the states. they cannot be solved in washington, d.c. note i will ask you a rhetorical question. when was the last time that something was micromanaged in washington, d.c., and it worked? time is up. we have to move to note -- to an empowerment society. now, we call them entitlement programs, and the only way we will get our hands around the spending is that they have to be restructured, and the state is given more responsibility and

authority to do what they do best, and that is to deal with the people's problems at the state level. empowerment, not entitlement. [applause] and then my third guiding principle but i want to share with you is not about us. it is not about us. our founding fathers did their job. we must all now be the depending father's -- defending father's -- fathers. we have to defend the life of the unborn. we must defend -- we must defend those principles of this nation was founded on. we must defend the future of this nation today. as ralph said, our time, our talents, and their individual

issues. whatever gave you the crazy idea of running for president? that was not something i had dreamed about all of my life or aspired to do all of my life, and if you're familiar with my background in many instances, i was compelled into a position of leadership, and this whole journey for me, and i did not know it at the time, started in january 1999, when my first grandchild was born. my wife of 42 years, we have a 39-year-old daughter, a 32-year- old son, and three grandchildren. and on january 22, 1999, my granddaughter at selena was born -- my granddaughter selena was born, and i did not think i was going to make it back from an

out-of-town trip to be there, but as scott will -- as god's will prevailed, i got there, and my wife came out to tell me, "we now have a granddaughter." obviously, i was thrilled. we were both thrilled. i went inside the delivery room, and i said you were, "are you doing ok, melany?" and she said, "yes." and i said, "is the baby doing ok?" and she said, "yes," and then she said, "do you want to hold it?" the first thought that went through my mind is what do i do to help make this a better nation and a better world.

that is when my journey started in order to be here for this location, and so my third guiding principle is, it is not about us. it is about the grandchildren. it is not about us. ask any grandparent. [applause] and even though the liberals starting in the white doves are trying to change this nation, -- starting in the white house are trying to change this nation, the liberals in washington, d.c., as the liberals all over this great nation, the united states of america is not going to become the united states of europe, not on our watch. thank you. [cheers and applause] .

>> up next speaker is the former speaker, newt gingrich. [cheers and applause] he immersed himself in the study of history, in getting a master's in note -- history, getting a master's degree. he taught college for eight

years. he was first elected to congress in 1978, where he served the six district -- sixth district. "the washington times" has called him "the indispensable leader." he got a man of the year in 1995. "meters make a possible. exceptionable leaders made them inevitable we do leaders make things possible -- leaders make things possible. exceptional leaders make them inevitable." under his leadership, congress passed welfare reform and the first balanced budget in a generation and the first tax cut in 16 years. a strong advocate of volunteerism, gingrich talks

about the positive impact every individual can have. he has raised millions, including for habitat for humanity, cerebral palsy notep -- als --palsy, and others. he was named conservationists' of the year. he has published 13 fiction and nonfiction books, "new york times" bestsellers. there is a consulting firm that specializes in transformational change, with offices in atlanta and washington, d.c. he serves as a senior fellow at the american enterprise institute in washington, d.c., a visiting fellow at the hoover institute, an honorary chairman of the business alliance. he was also a news and political analyst for fox news.channel.

-- fox news channel. he has a wife and children. it is my pleasure to introduce the former speaker of the house, newt gingrich. [cheers and applause] >> well, let me be totally candid. i just said to herman cain, i am stealing as much of that as i can, but not this evening. herman and i go back a long way. he is a remarkable person. i first worked with him when we did a tax reform commission that he chaired a brilliantly when i was speaker. it is great to be back.

like herman, i am a grandfather and, at this with maybe a little bit more wisdom than i had a while back -- i am a grandfather an come at this with maybe a little bit more wisdom. this is a time to start a dialogue about america's future, and i do believe that we have an extraordinarily fundamental choice to make about the very future of this country. i believe in some ways, the election and the conversation around this election may be as central to our future as the conversations in the 1850's that led to the election of lincoln in note -- in the 18760 -- 1860's. i have two grandchildren, 11 and 9, and i think our dialogue over

the next couple of years will be what kind of country we want to leave to our children and grandchildren, but to me, when the ninth circuit court decided in 2002 that it was unconstitutional to say "one nation under god" as part of the pledge of allegiance in school, and i decided, and i think it was parallel to lincoln responding to the dread scott decision about slavery, i decided that if we now have some judges better fundamentally out of touch with america that they have no clue on what this country was based on, we need a political change so deep and so profound that nothing we have seen in our lifetime is comparable to the love boat -- a level that we have to go to to get this back on the right track. [applause] let me be very clear about this

period since 1952, we have won nine presidential elections for republicans, and democrats got six, but despite the fact that republicans were in the white house for 50% more time, we did not at a fundamental level change the power of the left. we did not change the bureaucracies. we did not change the bias in the judiciary, and over the years, they have all gotten worse, moving further to the left. [applause] this requires a fundamental conversation that believes, i begin, with american exceptionalism. do you believe that this country, because of the declaration of independence and the constitution, is a fundamentally exceptional system for a country, or do you believe that we are a normal country

like everywhere else in the world? now, it is a very profound question. but there was the nine days that changed the world. we discovered one of the great weapons is what the polls say, a sign that solidarity put out, which i have a copy of, the original sign in my office, and it said, "for poland to remain poland, two plus two must always equal four," and that does not seem like much to you, but this may be the most important government slogan over the next 25 years, because it comes down to a question of truth. lincoln said, "if a man can convince you that two plus two equals anything but four, then facts do not matter." there are times that a man can

be killed for say two plus two equals of fujiwhara, because they cannot stand the truth. -- two plus two equals four, because they cannot stand the truth. we hold these truths. what are they? that we are in doubt by our creator with certain inalienable rights. en dow -- we are endowed by our creator. you are personally sovereign. you loan power to the government. the government does not loan power to you. that is the difference between the secular socialist people around obama and the degree that they can understand america, cannot possibly lead us to a

successful future. [applause] orality applies across the board. morality is important. so you can have a sense of dignity and worth. it matters because balancing the budget is immoral, not economic question about whether or not politicians ought to have to follow the same rules as the rest of us. there should be no distinction between economic national security and social conservatives. we should base our principles on fundamental questions of morality. [applause] you had a great speaker last year and in it strongly endorse his cutting out all funding for planned parenthood which has become a major source of abortion in america.

[applause] how fast could we turn the country around if we had a president who shared our values and set up the values of the secular socialist left? there is a system called an executive order which allows the president to interpret the application of the law. , what we hadxample a president who said we're inlishing every single saaczar the white house and their offices. [applause] what if we said on the very first day, we are reinstating ronald reagan's mexico city policy, and no american tax money willin the abortion anywhere outside the united states,.

. what if we said on the very first day that george w. bush's limitations of conscience protection will be reinstated so the government will act of the protect those as a matter of conscience who refused to do the things and finally, what we said on the first day at the state's department will be instructed as of this state to recognize the right of every sovereign nation to define its capital and the embassy will be in the capital of the country that defines it. it, means that the united states embassy will be in jerusalem. the only country in the world where it refuses the local

government to allow its embassy in the capital. we should stop on the very first day. i am not yet a candidate. i am the process of exploring. you can go to newtexplores20 12.com. we are all lying to be on the same team after this is over. it will take all of us to defeat the left. we cannot just to feed the left in washington. we need 40 more house seats in washington. we need to pick up the state senate here. we need to strengthen the hand the government has. we need to recognize the 513,000 elected officials of the state and local levels, and only 537

in the federal level. we need then for the first time in 80 years to replace the governing structure of the left with the governing structure that is center-right, and we need from the very first day to implement decisively every establishment of an american exceptional is some that recognizes the power starts with you and goes to washington when necessary. art does not start in washington with a bunch of judges and bureaucrats dictating to you what to do. thank you, good luck, and god bless you. attendeds roemer

public schools. he went on to harvard university where he received his degree in 1964. governor romer served four terms in united states congress. as a conservative democrat he broke ranks with his own party to vote for president ronald reagan. he was louisiana governor from 1988 until 1992, both a democrat and republican. during his tenure, unemployment in the state dropped by half. the state budget was balanced in all years. teacher pay was leaked to proformance street -- was linked to performance. since leaving office, he has been involved in a number of ventures, recently serving as

the founder and ceo and president of business and first bank. it took no bailout money from the federal government. governor roemer the father of three children. it is my pleasure to introduce you governor buddy roemer. >> thank you, and three grandchildren. i love those kids. i am honored to be with you in iowa at faith in freedom. i have always been a church- going methodist boy. from a cotton field in north

louisiana. after a long. as a divorced man, 12 years i remarried some 10 years ago. i married a piano player in a church next door to my own. scarlet. thank you, jesus. i now go to first methodist church nearly every sunday, said in the balcony, and then as the final hymn is sung, i go to the chapel at lsu and sit with my wife did the piano. faith and freedom, i am honored to be invited. let's get to it. i am pro-life, traditional values man. i am the only person thinking of running for president who was elected as a congressman and as a governor prep.

i helped lead the bull winkles. i worked with or reagan every day. i am proud that we helped turn this great country around. then i ran for governor of louisiana, served four years, beat and admittedly corrupt edwin edwards after he spelle -- span $12 million. we sold airplanes, limos, delayed paychecks, did not replace workers who quit. we forced the oil and chemicals to clean up the air and water. we dropped toxic emissions by 41%. we stopped prevailing wage. we anchored the unions, but we build on the right to work. we broke teacher tenure by

testing teachers, to find out who can teach and we paid them 30% more. if that was not enough to get the attention of the corrupt good old boy network, i changed parties while in office. i blamed president reagan. he was always on me, you should be a republican, but. the democrats at this date by strangled. there was no debate. i decided that we needed a debate. i decided louisiana needed to be -- the polls were horrible to do that. they said he will lose your

reelection, and i did by a whisker. it was a tough battle. edwin edwards and david duke, how would you like to campaign against them? we lost it by a whisper, and they both went to the penitentiary. [applause] for the last 15 years, i have been building banks, community banks, main street banks, banks that come to their greatness one loan that time, one person at that time. the old-fashioned way. main street, not wall street. this is not about my past. it is about our future. i think america is in trouble. the debt is amounting, and is

resting on the chests of my grandchildren. spending is out of control. we spend $300 billion of month, and we'd borrow $120 billion of that. we've borrowed from our enemies or our competitors -- china, japan, and the tyrants in the middle east. there is no end in sight, and the president's own budget, he has got to in years of deficit. he will add more to the national debt in his four years than all presidents or him combine. what is washington doing? thank god for the tea party. i noticed -- [applause] thank god for paul ryan and the republican party and steve king and others.

washington is not about leadership. washington is not about the people. washington is about money and reelection. had he figured it out? -- have you figured it out? i will tell you a story, the nation is hurting, and washington, d.c., is a boom town. how does that grab you? i tell you what they are addicted to. special interest money, all i want is access money, wall street money, to be to fail money. union money, the pac money, pac money back money, corporate money, a pharmaceutical money, all subsidy money, ethanol subsidy money, insurance money, tort reform money.

the system is institutionally corrupt. where are the people? they're left that. i go to washington once every two or three years, to spend a couple of days, see what the old boys are doing -- nothing. they have a fund raiser every night, and the old guys are auctioning off for their retirement so they can be a lobbyist. am i telling the truth? that is washington, d.c. there are guys that right health care bills of 2100 pages and they do not even mention tort reform or farmers to the will competition. they write banking bills and they are a joke. too big to fail is still allowed in this country, and banks are bigger than ever, and greedier than ever. wall street is not what it used

to be, and they are not main street. i challenge the system. i challenge it. i declare my independence. i will take no more than $100 maximum contribution from any individual, $100. i will take no pac money, and i report every name and address. why would i do it? the only way to do the things that newt wants to do or tim pawlenty, good people, or mr. cain, or anybody running, the only way to do it is have a president who is free, who is free to do the right thing, who was freed to lead. [applause] all people say, roemer is a smart guy, i went to harvard at 16, studied economics and got a

master's degree from harvard business school, and build all these companies. yeah. it is not about how smart i am. they then go on to say, he cannot win. he is running for governor. i am running for president, and it is $100. it is in reach of every family, even -- every person of faith. and we can take this country back again. they say he cannot win. you know what i need? one person out of every hundred. if i get one out of a hundred, i will have 3 million americans give a hundred dollars in the primary. we will raise $300 million. that is more than john mccain raised. it can be done, and then when the primary is over and you and i are -- on the purse, which will turn on the president of the united states. we will get two people out of

100 to join us, and we will raise $600 million, and we will let in. we will change this country. i have always wanted to do it. i have always wanted to challenge what i saw when i was in congress. i did not take pac money then. i always wanted to send -- set a hundred dollar limit to walk across iowa, new hampshire, south carolina, and the proposition, make a deal. to free people, free people of faith, they should get involved. i want a president free to lead on energy independence. this nation ought to be freed from the middle east. [applause]

when i said that policy, we can do it by the end of this decade, i will eliminate the ethanol subsidy. i want to tell you, iowa, and i will eliminate the oil subsidy. the price of oil is $106 a barrel. what do they need a subsidy for? at the law takes -- out of 10 of every cornfield. four rows out of 10 that is not the hungry or necessary. -- four rows out of 10. you carved out the inefficiencies. but business principles there businessi.t. and standard software. we have to get rid of my little deal and your little deal, and put together our deal.

i declare my independence. i ask you to join me with $5 or $10 or $20 or $100. not anymore. i ask you to spread the word. i ask you to tell people that a seasoned warrior, against the special interest money, is in the race. i ask you to tell them that he is old enough to know what to do and young enough to get it done. [laughter] i ask you to tell them that he has been in business battles and political battles come from local to national. i ask you to tell them that he has the scars to prove fvalor and courage, and by god, he is a friendly man, too. finally, i know there are some who will dismiss our chances.

they say do not considerdbuddy. he cannot win. let's suppose that there is one of you here today, just one, who would reach out across old wounds and down the mississippi river and say, let's go, but the. just one. and that tomorrow he added one person to that. and the next day we doubled those. just people who say, buddy, washington is all special interest, and i am with you. in 21 days, we would have a million people. in 20 days, we would have america. we are this close. listen to me up, iowa. where this close to taking this country back.

we're this close to doing the right thing. cannot think it is too big a job. i know all the other candidates are good people and they have pacs and they have airplanes. all i have got is me and you. i think it is enough. when we declare our independence we are finished with our service i believe our nation will be stronger, freer, happier, safer, more at work, and more at peace than it is today. there will be surprises. there will be setbacks. but we will aim high, and i believe that america can compete again. i have been to china more times than all the others put together, including the president. i've watched the competitors up

close. that is what i do. the cynics will say it cannot be done, $100 of the time. that is the only way to do it. i am a book man. proverbs, 13:11. read it when you get home tonight. i will read you to lines. if honest money dwindles away, but he who gathers money makes it grow. [applause] as a young man at harvard, from the cotton farm, 16, never been away from home, my first airplane ride, i was there two days, 1960, and i met robert frost.

a poet who was my hero. he was 80, 81. he wrote a poem hundred years ago, and i will read you four lines. and going out to clean that pasture spring. i only stopped to rake the leaves away. and wait to watch the water clear, i may. gone long.e you come, too, iowa. we have rotten leaves covering our spring. we do not need a new spring. we need to clean what god gave us. i run to challenge the corrupt system. i run to dream of all the things that could be and make america that place for you. i am preparing to run for president. you come, too, iowa. you are our heart. thank you.

[applause] >> you go, buddy! >> tim pawlenty often says that people's politics are rooted where they come from. that is south st. paul minnesota, a blue-collar neighborhood that was the home to the largest stockyards in america when he was growing up. one of five children, his father was a truck driver, and his mom passed away when he was young. he worked hard and became the first in his family to graduate from college. while he went on to law school , his siblings went on to become homemakers and grocers, and they became the center of

his life. although they were democrats, at least until when he became governor of minnesota in 2002. i sure you his background because his leadership is rooted in the values he learned growing up. the values of hard work and family, and a promise of upward mobility. those values that guided him as governor, where he worked to of our people by reforming schools, cutting health-care costs, a lid on taxes. say no to taxes and spending is not easy anywhere, at him has gone towed to toe with democrats, unions, special interests. under his leadership, minnesota has flourished. the station has nation-leading health care, the highest school test scores, an economy that is doing significantly better than most of the other states. during his eight years, he was a

champion for family values and set up for the rights of the unborn. while being a conservative, fighting the liberal minnesota established and can be a lonely endeavor. he was fortunate to have his wife at his side for the last 22 years trip since they met, mary has also had accomplished career, serving as a district judge in minnesota and helping to raise their daughters. the family attends with dale church. it is my honor to introduce to you, the former governor of minnesota, tim pawlenty. >> thanks a lot. as president obama would say, you are welcome.

as the story goes, then president lyndon baines johnson assembled his team into the cabinet room of the white house, and he characteristically and loudly yelled out down the table, he said, moyers, who was the press secretary, why don't you start the meeting with a prayer. bill moyers began to pray down at the other end, and lbj belt out again, said, we cannot hear you down at the end of the room. as the story goes, moyers said, with all due respect sir, it was not you i was talking to. that is a great story about remembering where we get our help from, where we look to from our guidance and leisure. i want to thank the faith and

freedom coalition for having their 11th annual gathering. it is very important. i want to thank chuck and the leadership of this or a position -- of this organization. we have a lot of challenges in this country at this moment and in this intersection. i am reminded of another time when our country faced similar challenges. we had a brutal and difficult election but ronald reagan won the presidency. [applause] the country had almost seemingly insurmountable economic challenge. we had trouble abroad and security concerns, many of the same challenges we are facing today and in that january day that was overcast, ronald reagan came from out of the capital and he stood at the podium and said

later he felt even though the day was overcast and that moment, he thought a beam of sunshine had hit him and warmed up the podium in a way in time for his swearing in. he put his hand on the bible and took the oath of office as president of the united states of america and that bible was open to the second chronicles, 7-14. the passage says this. if my people who are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turned from their wicked ways, i will hear from heaven, and forgive their sins and heal their land. and now reagan who could not have known, his mom wrote in the margins, "a great passage for

healing the nation's." that was great direction. it is great direction in our time and it is great direction for the future of this country for all time. we need to know where our help comes from. we need to be a country that turns toward god, not a country that turns away from god. [applause] this is not the rhetoric o. this is a founding premise. the thought it was so important, so profoundly important, the imbedded into the founding documents in this country. there are many eloquent examples, you know of them. i will give you a few by way of example. in the declaration of independence, it says we are endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights.

it does not say we are endowed by our member of congress or our bureaucrat, or our school board member, our freedoms and privileges r grant, a blessing from our creator. we need to make sure we remember that and our freedoms are gift from our creator and constitution. it guarantees that will continue and 49 of the 50 states have language in the beginning of their constitution like iowa. like minnesota. in our constitution, similar to your language. our says -- powers says we the people of minnesota, grateful to god for our civil and religious liberties and it goes on to talk about the importance of perpetuating those blessings for future generations to come. we need to remember as others try to push or marginalize people of faith, we need to remember this and always

remember it. the constitution was designed to protect people of faith from government, not to protect government from people of faith. [applause] leadership matters a lot. the leaders nationally set the tone in the pace in the focus for our nation in these matters and we have a problem in washington, d.c. and we have some of the leaders there who believe the enormous moral debt in our country does not matter. it matters. just because we followed greece into democracy does not mean we follow the lead to bankruptcy. we have people who believe the unborn do not have a right to life. yes, they do.

[applause] we have people who say, marriage will be defined however we feel like defining it. no, it will not. it should be defined as between a man and a woman. [applause] we have people who believe that the judges in the elite and other should decide. they need to be reminded the constitution does not say, with the judge's or week, the media. or we, the elite. it says, we the people. we tell them what to do. they do not tell us what to do. [applause] i got a lot of folks who say this is tough. the country is divided. there's a lot of challenges. interest groups are powerful and

it is difficult. you're looking at someone who is the conservative governor of the state of mccarthy, mondale, humphrey, wellstone, and united states senator al franken. as frank sinatra would sing, if we can do it there we can do it anywhere. if you look at my record as governor, we have a record and this is important. chalk spoke about it today in the newspaper. as the conservative -- ask the conservative movement and people who have had their hopes high and been disappointed. we need leaders who can not just talk the talk but who can walk the walk. we need people that you know based on who they are and what they believe and why they believe that, who will stand in with their compass setting set right and move forward with fortitude and strength and courage and get the job done.

in minnesota during my time as governor, we took spending down and reduced it for the first 150 years.w zero in on we cut taxes even though we had recessions. we reformed one of the first states to do bold public employee pension reform. we were the first state to go statewide to have performance pay on teachers other than to pay them on security but performance. we did welfare reform and for reform and all the things the country needs and is talking about now. there are four governors in the country that got an "a" from the libertarian cato institute. one was in south carolina, in louisiana, west virginia, and i was the other one. i was the only one in the north

half of the country that got that great. -- grade. [applause] none of that was easy. in the single season record holder for issuing of visas -- videos. we had the first and only government shutdown in a 150- year eithehistory on my watch. we had one of the august transit strikes in the history of the country because our government bus drivers thought they should able to work 15 years and be able to have the government pay for their health insurance for the rest of their life. we took a strike, 44 days, shut down the transit system for months and a half the in the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country. we had the usual protests and the noises in sights and sounds.

i had people standing outside my window with signs saying tim pawlenty is a weapon of mass transit destruction. i would go around the state on this issue and many like it and say if you are not in government, how many of you get to work 15 years and have the government pay for your health insurance for the rest of your life? no hands ever win out. the the i would say, do you know that bus drivers get that? how they do? you are paying for that. we are? do you think we should shut that benefit of? heck, yeah. we got big issues to tackle and none of those are easy. those are examples of the kind of thing we tackle. it ain't gonna be easy. if prosperity were easy, everyone in the world would be prosperous and if security were easy, everybody in the world would be secure.

if freedom were easy, everybody in the world would be free. but they are not. it takes extraordinary commitment, it takes extraordinary strength to stand up to the people who oppose these principles. valley forge was not easy. settling the west was not easy. winning world war ii was not easy. going to the moon was not easy. this is not about easy, this is about rolling up our sleeves and plowing ahead and getting the job done. [applause] this is about our country. we, the people of the united states will rise up again. we will take back our government. we are the people of this country. this is our country. our founding fathers created it. ronald reagan personified it and

abraham we can defend it. we need to do the same. now as ever, this nation under god will have a new freedom. our government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth and will have the greatest nation can itand continue to. god bless you and god bless the united states of america. [applause] >> thank you. steve does not like his new name chuck, so i am sorry. [laughter]

former senator rick santorum of pennsylvania was elected to the u.s. house of representatives in 1998 at the age of 32. when 1995 to 2007 he served in the u.s. senate. in 2000 he was elected to the position of senate republican conference chairman. he became one of the most successful government reformers in our history. taking on washington's powerful special interests from the moment he arrived. along with john boehner and others he was one of the famous gang of seven that expose post office scandals and it was his record that prompted a reporter to write in a recent article that santorum was a tea party kind of guy before there was a tea party. he is the author of the welfare reform act that has empowered millions to leave the welfare rolls and enter the workforce.

he wrote and championed the legislation that [unintelligible] and the combatting autism act because he believes each and every individual by you and the most notably to be protected. he fought to maintain fiscal sanity in washington before was fashionable come out fighting for a line-item veto. he proposed reforming entitlements, cutting spending, and developing a spendometer. he served eight years on the senate armed services committee where he led the fight for the -- before the attacks of sept. 011 to transform our military to meet today's security needs. he was a leader on u.s.-israeli relations, offering the syria

accountability and the iran freedom act which he fought to pass. despite initial opposition from president bush. he teamed up with president bush to read these courage of aids and malaria from africa. he patted the 2005 best-seller, "it takes the family". he is now a senior fellow at the ethics and policy center. a contributor on the fox news channel. he is proud of his role of husband and father. they're the parents of seven wonderful children. it is my pleasure to introduce to you senator rick santorum. [applause]

>> good to be with you and -- i have done that a million times. sorry. it is great to be back. i was here at a smaller venue last year when we did this. this is exciting to be here. it is always the case when pete read the introduction, i can always count on the line that it's the most response. are the parents of seven children. i thought maybe not in this audience it would not get so much of a ripple. before left the seven children and karen, i told them this was not just another speech for me. the ones you always think of when you're on the campaign trail and you try out your

economic speech or your social conservative speech or whatever. this is a group that is for faith and family and freedom. this is a group that means a lot to me. this is a group that i have been attached at the hip from for a lot of years, working in the vineyards with people who stand for what america stands for. america is a great moral enterprise. it is not just about creating wealth or military strength. it is more than that. my grandfather came to this country and brought my dad at the age of seven. he did not come here because he needed a job. he had a great job in italy and worked on the postal train. he saw the father as a brown shirt in mussolini's youth corps and said that is not what he wanted for his children.

he came to this country and worked until in the coal lands of western pennsylvania until he was 72 digging coal. i remember him very well. i will never forget those powerful hands he had. he came here because he wanted to create the opportunity for his children not just to get rich. not just to the the be able to do whatever they wanted to do. but for my grandfather and generations of americans, america has been about doing what our declaration of independence says. doing what god has treated us to do, to follow his mission. america is not about great wealth or power. the purpose of america is you. the purpose of america is to create an opportunity for each and every person blessed to be in this country. to be able to live as they ought

to live, as they were called to live. we all share values. america, i always say that if i went back to my father's home country of italy and lived there for 50 years, i would not be an italian. when my father came here and learned england -- english and was able to live and be an american, he was an american because he accepted america as the idea is. america is about an idea and it has to be about shared value for what is it? -- or what is it? people say we should set these aside and have a truce. it is to wear. it is the purpose of our country. i have been out fighting in the wars on these moral issues. i can tell you, i had a chance to speak to which anderson who is the chairman of the

judiciary committee. i was talking with him and we have been dealing with these marriage issues and abortion issues and it is tough. i have never been through the assault i have been true over these last few days. i said welcome to the club. it is one thing to stand up in front of a group and talk about the things you believe in. it is another thing to go out and lead and fight for those beliefs. for my children, i always thought because i took the lead on the partial birth abortion and abortion and family issues, i was the conservative. i was involved in all sorts of cutting spending. the gang of seven. i was the conservative conservative. it was not until i stood on the floor of the senate next to barbara boxer and for our on and, debated are boxer. it was a special -- there is a special place in heaven for me as a result.

[applause] after those debates, after i stuck my head out of the foxhole, my children used to think my first name was ultra. once you stick your head out on the social issues, one to fight for the moral fabric of our country, you are labeled. you are labeled. it doesn't matter i was out working on welfare reform in 1996 and 1997. i read the contract with america welfare reform provision. that does not matter you were out. i was able to end a federal entitlement. i stood toe to toe with daniel patrick moynihan. and for the first time, a broad based federal entitlement and got some boats in the senate.

almost half the democratic caucus. ultra. it can stand up and helped -- 54 health care reform. we were the first introduced the concept called medical savings accounts and we push that forward and developed a patient centered approach to solving the problems of health care and focus their energy and tried to change the system to make it more private sector oriented as i did on the finance committee. ultra. it can work and taking on as i did after the events of 9/11 and focused in and trietry to engage colleagues in the senate but even the president on the war of ideas. the war of ideas. who are we at war with? one of the great concerns when i ran in 2006 was we're missing something. we did not understand that we were losing the battle. not on the streets of iraq in

2006. we were losing it in america because the president did not trust americans enough to tell them who this enemy is and why. what they want us to strike. was afraid to call it what they were. i gave a speech in 2006 and said this is not a war on terror. we are at war with jihadists. they it is because of who we are and they want to distress. we need to laid out for the american public and trust they will understand. i took on that battle. i continued to take on that battle. i spent four years traveling the country talking about the threats. i worked in the last couple years of my term and pass the

iran freedom and of support at. to help the pro-democracy movement in iran. to plant seeds in all these muslim countries that are ruled by dictators that are posed to us to have a peaceful revolution. where we can be helpful to them. and compare that to the strategies of this administration who sit by and watch as people died in the streets of iran and we took the side of the people who are developing nuclear weapons. we sat on the sidelines in as we do in libya. when khadafi -- gaddafi is attacking this country. i am ultra. why? because i share your values and i fought for them. i sit on the floor of the u.s. senate and offered a partial birth abortion act and i did not

just offering. -- offer it. [applause] i stood there and i fought day in and day out year in and year out. 1996, 1998, 1998, 1999. we fought and lost. we lost time and time again and we ended up losing because bill clinton would veto the bill and we the the not have the votes to override the veto. i continued to fight. i continue to stand up for life and god bless us. -- blessed us. [applause] hwo? how? for the first time since roe v. wade in the late 1990's, something dramatic happened. as we were talking about, remember what it was?

a baby in the womb at least 20 weeks with arms and legs and eyes and ears, it is a baby. and it was being delivered all but the head and killed. for the first time, the folks on the other side could not ignore that what was being killed was a baby. it was right there in the doctor's hands as the baby was almost delivered and killed by the doctor. for the first time since roe v. wade, attitudes on -- in public opinion polls changed about abortion and the continue to change. why? because we lost. had bill clinton signed that bill when we first passed it, no one would ever have heard of partial birth abortion but he did not. god blessed us for fighting the fight. we continued and we got it passed, overruling the supreme court and the supreme court said it was wrong and we passed a bill and said you are wrong.

the first section said why they were wrong. [applause] that procedure is banned. we were blessed. we stood up and fought for the unborn victims of violence act. that is if a child is killed by someone who harms the mother and is killed or injured, the law can treat that child as a child for purposes of criminal charges. talk about a house divided. how can we allow abortions and charge someone for the crime for killing the same baby? it depends if the doctor is allowed to or not. has consent to or not. finally, the born alive infant protection act. that is an important piece of legislation that will be something i will talk about a lot. if i ever get down the road a year plus now to meet with the

president. that is a bill i offered and it was copied in all the other states. everyone interest -- introduced their version. if a child born as a result of a botched abortion, that child is entitled to medical protection and treatment. it is a pretty simple bill. [applause] to my knowledge, there was only one person on the floor of any state legislature who stood up and oppose it. it happens to be the current president of the united states. who stood up and said that he opposed this bill because it would impinge on a woman's saidt under roe v. wade and sa any child prior to nine months of gestation would be able to be killed, otherwise it would

impinge on roe v. wade. think about that. any child born prematurely according to the president in his words can be killed. who was the extremist in the abortion debate? who is the ultra in the abortion debate? we have an opportunity in this election to frame a great moral cause. everyone wants to talk about the economy and it is important. it is vitally important. it is important to create jobs and to cut our deficit, it is important to control the size and scope of government, to repeal obamacare, but what is the mission, what is the what for? we have to paint a picture of an american-led that believes in you again. we have to paint a picture of

america where americans believe in ourselves again. that is what is going on here. i referred to the entitlement programs as a result of a conversation i had with juan williams at fox. i used to work there. i was in the green room and the president decided to double down and get this bill passed. who cared about the public opinions? he was going to have the house passed it. i said where you doing? you are going to destroy yourself in the election. the public is against what you are doing. what are you doing? he said, let me tell you. reid, pelosi, obama. we believe americans love

entitlements and once we get you hooked on entitlement, they will never let it go. sounds like nothing more than trying to hook someone like a drug dealer. is that what entitlements do, mccue dependent? make you feel less and what less? [applause] if that is not a moral issue, if what we're doing to the next generation, this entitlement attitude, if that is not a moral issue, i do not know what is. we have an obligation. we have an obligation as americans to do what my grandfather and father did for me. to leave our country better than we found it. a lot of tough things going on right now. i feel blessed to be here.

i feel blessed to be here and i hope you do too. to be here at a time when america that needs you. we're at a crisis point here at home and our deficits and culture. every place is that the turning point. it is a crisis but what a blessing. america needs you. put on aot need tyou to uniform and fight a war. put your citizen cap on and go out and fight to make america the country at least as good, much better than what you were given. that is the blessing and god will be faithful. if there is anything i've learned from the wars are fought in washington, if you are faithful to this great country, he will be faithful to you. i will close with the story of faith. it was during the partial birth debate.

i had debated barbara boxer, six hours on the floor. it was it o'clock p.m. and i was just about to go home. the senate was closing down and i said, there was something i needed to do more. i thought maybe if i stay on the floor and argue, maybe some senators who do not have a life are watching c-span like they're doing now. maybe i can convince them to change their vote. i went back and call my wife and said -- at the time we had four children. do you mind, it is late and i will not get home until after the kids are asleep i feel called to do this. she said what she always said. if you feel what -- this is what god is calling you to do. i said i will be 20 minutes. i said i will be 20 minutes.