"the communicators." >> u.s. labor leaders discuss the future of labor unions. >> the republican party's pathological drive to crush labor. it has reached epidemic proport >> that is on c-span at 8:00 tonight and on c-span2, a look at the balance of states' rights and federal authority, and the legacy of brown versus board of education. >> i would say -- correct me if i am wrong -- brown versus board was to protect the peace and prosperity of the people and if that is the federal government overstepping its bounds i did not see why the federal government is there if not to protect the peace and prosperity of its own people. [applause]

>> i must say, for being a student at the university of colorado, you have great insight. [laughter] i would just say this -- that i would love to see the federal government dedicated to those principles that you mentioned. but running every facet of our lives, and including education, is not one of them. i honestly believe that, rather educators are smart enough to do it without the federal government, to do it without the department of education. >> you can watch that discussion of state's rights and federal authority tonight at 8:30 p.m. on c-span2 and a discussion on the future of labor unions at 8:00 p.m. on c-span. mississippi gov. haley barbour said that republicans can win the 2012 election if they make it about a policy. he made those remarks thursday

at a campaign event in manchester, new hampshire. the governor spent the day they're making several stops, including a gun shop and a diner. governor barbour is considering a run for president in 2012 and is expected to announce his decision later this month. this is about one hour and 10 minutes and starts with governor barbour meeting local voters. >> your gracious to do that. thank you. >> how are you doing? chasing you were around. -- chasing you are around. >> thank you.

>> welcome to the twin cities. my wife of 53 years. good luck. >> i have a wife of only 40 years. >> very good. >> she has not changed a lot. >> when you come in -- come into the city i would like to have you there as a guest. and i would like you very much. >> when the time comes and you are here, i would be very happy to set it up. >> thank you very, very much. >> he is the one that talk to you when you came in. >> ok, very good. thank you. how are you doing? >> glad to see you. >> thank you for coming, thank you for doing this. >> hey, chris, good to see you.

>thanks for having me. did we teach you how to fly? >> yes, you did. >> it looks like it worked. i am your manchester committee chairman. great to see you. mike and i go back to long way. >> he is a great guy. >> i am gabriel, nice to meet you. >> hey, bob, thank you for coming. >> thank you for coming out. >> pleasure to meet you. i have been wanting to do so for a long time. i appreciate the work you are doing. >> welcome to new hampshire.

>> our you doing? thank you for coming. >> welcome to new hampshire. >> thank you, glad to be here. >> got it? >> i think so. >> good to meet you. thank you so much for coming. >> thank you. >> hey, john. >> i am from vermont. >> had a nice visit yesterday. >> good to meet you. great to see you. hopefully i will keep up that record. but how are you doing? >> hey, betty, how are you doing? i married over my head, too. >> mark is a good man. i meant to ask you -- is a

french? >> the barbours were huguenots, they left in the counterreformation and went through holland probably. my family went to scotland and into northern ireland. the english hated the scots and irish so they sent the stocks to kill each other. and my great grandfather came to the u.s. in the early 1840's. they actually came to pittsburgh. he had a brother. the seventh of seven brothers who came to the united states and he had a brother in pittsburgh. did not like it that much, stayed only a year, then he went to memphis where he had another brother. he was a young man and he worked at a hardware store. and ultimately after the civil war, moved to mississippi. but it is a old french huguenots name. when you go to ireland or to

the mifflin's of the u.k., people will notice -- they refer name. hat is a huguenot but i did not know why we never changed the spelling. -- i do not know why we never changed the spelling. had to go home for a couple of days, but we got it straightened out and a couple of days later they passed the budget and closed the doors. state day of prayer. we actually finished the first week in april. that is our statutory -- >> do you meet every year? getting will session? in annual session. this is our election year.

that session last 125 days. the other three years, 90-day sessions. january and ends the first sunday in april generally. >> i was over at your legislature today. someone showed me the beautiful house chamber. i said is about the third largest theater in mississippi. i could not imagine 400 -- we have 122 in the house, which seems to be mighty big. a 400? good luck to you, buddy. but the good luck, and we are looking forward to your remarks -- >> good luck, we are looking forward to your remarks. >> great to see you. a piece of advice to your husband -- do not the law heard

take your picture without. -- do not let her take your picture without her. >> whoever replaces you in mississippi will have to fill a big pair of shoes. >> thank you very much. >> hey -- sullivan county gop. >> manchester. >> sandra. >> great to see you. >> you look better in person. >> thank you. i take that as a compliment. we're trying hard. thank you very much as saying that. i appreciate it. we are trying to do the right thing. >> governor -- and this is chris. democrats coming through the door.

>> i was always impressed how you managed -- you did a great job in 1994 really good, and nc. you did in the rc >> i met to jason. i did not know that. that is great. what you doing? >> i kind of run a department. >> good, good. >> big wire resisters? >> sorry, barb. >> do you know howard industries in mississippi? the transformers? >> i thought maybe you worked -- >> they -- we are very tiny compared to what they make. >> indispensable. great to see you, jason. thank you for coming. >> no problem.

nice to be here. >> hope you will feel that way when it is over. >> hey, catherine. what part? >> almost necessity. >> i came here to hear your accent. >> i do have a question for you, though. are you going to take some later? >> great meeting you. >> john claiborne -- clayborne. >> thank you for coming out tonight. >> look forward to hearing from you. my brother was born down in your area, jackson. but how did he appear? the long story. brother was in the army. pretty part of the world. >> pretty today. >> go back in three or four months. >> alan. >> alan, great to see you.

how was it coming? good, good. >> kathy is my wife. >> oh. thank you. she is great. i am haley. >> ehy, virginia, nice to see. the great to see you in the state of new hampshire could then i saw your beautiful chamber the other day. >> a lot happening. >> 400 people, wow. >> the third largest in the world. >> i said has been the third largest theater in mississippi -- the number of seats. hey, y'all. how were you doing? >> hanging in there. >> peaceful alternative. >> there was a "the new york times" columnist who wrote a

book in which he said the first thing i do every morning is to see if my name is in the obituaries, because it is i did not have to read "the new york times." the one thing i could agree with him on. a weak going to get everybody to sit down? -- are we going to get everybody to sit down? [applause] kathy, thank you. b.j., everybody here at kro. thank you for letting us be here. for those of you who are not the baptist, there are still a couple of seats appear in the front. we are not going to pass the collection plate. thank you for coming. and letting me have a chance to meet so many of you. something funny happened to me today. the first thing i did was charlie sherman's radio show.

most gracious and most fun, but he finished the interview by saying i've got to ask you something that may come as a weird question. you know, you are the second person that i know who is from -- city mississippi. he was a pause in to see, and immediately i said -- of course, jerry moses. catcher from the red sox. maybe all-star team in 1970. he just howled on the end of the line laughing. you are right, that is exactly who i know from yazoo city, mississippi. that reminded me, it would be great if i could get my old high school friend -- we paid one two -- played on two stages binge a baseball teams' together. i pitched in he caught. mostly he hits. hard. i got him on the phone and he and carol are with us today.

jerry moses to y'all. [applause] i had to prove my bone of fides when i got here -- why was i a red sox fan? [laughter] but the truth is, jerry told the truth outside, i was not a red sox fan because he signed with the red sox in 1964 when he graduated high school. he signed with the red sox because of my mother, who was a red sox fan -- [laughter] and when it all came down for him to make a decision, he did not have any choice, he had to sign with the red sox. i am glad you are here. great to see you, old friend, and carol. jerry and i haven't, we both married over our heads. the mark of a good man, i always

say. i am glad to be with you. i want to talk for a little bit of mostly i want to save time to insert questions. i want to talk to you just a very directly about the stakes in the 2012 election. and what i think is the path to victory for republicans. i have been politics as long time. i dropped out of college in 1968 and i ran the 30 counties in mississippi for the presidential campaign and i have been involved in every presidential kingpins' cents. i was blessed to be the political director of the white house for ron reagan for two years in the mid-1980s. heady stuff from someone -- for someone from yazoo city, mississippi. the chairman of the party from 1993-1997. i have been governor, eight years. two years chairman of the republican governors association. i can tell you, i have heard repeatedly, often daily, something in the last year and a half or two years that i never heard during the depths of

watergate, during the height of the vietnam war, during the jimmy carter malaise. people say to me, i am afraid my children and grandchildren are not going to inherit the same country i inherited. i hear that every week and often every day during the week. i hear it from executives and professionals, but i hear it from nurses and firemen and school teachers, particularly from small business people and the employees of small business people. because they understand that the country can't continue on the course we followed for the last two years. primarily they see that through the lens of spending. they know the government cannot spend it selfridge any more than their families can spend itself rich. so when the government spends $3.80 trillion, as president obama's budget this coming year, $3.80 trillion, and the

government is only going to take into $0.20 trillion, a $1.60 trillion deficit, people understand if you did that in your business, pretty soon you can write a book about it. it would start at chapter 11. [laughter] the american people get it. they also understand it is not just a matter of this enormous spending driving up the deficit. make no mistake about it. that is what drives that deficit. we do not have $1.50 trillion deficit because we tax too little. it is because we spend too much. but they also understand another part of that equation. when the government sucks $3.80 trillion out of the private economy, out of the economy, how does the private sector growth? how does krl create more jobs when the president said yesterday he wants to put $1

trillion of new taxes on the american economy? did you see how refrained it? he said that of the republicans wanted to spend, spend $1 trillion on tax cuts for the rich. as if it is above government's money. as if it is not your money but it is the government's money that we are going to spend a by letting the people who work and earn the money keep it. that is about as fundamental a statement of the difference between what i believe is right for america and what this administration believes. because they obviously believe that all money belongs to the government. and the government is willing to spend our money by not taking it from us in taxes, that we ought to be grateful.

well, the fact of the matter is, the government does not have any money except of from what it takes from the private citizens and businesses of this country. the more it takes, the less we are able to grow the economy. our first goal, our first priority, should be to have economic growth and job creation. if you want to deal with the deficit, let's grow the economy had a much faster percentage and let revenue go up that way. i can remember when i was in the white house and president reagan would talk about growing our way out of the economy and the left would snicker of their sleeves at the idea of growing our way out of a deficit. i can tell you this, we cannot spend our way out of the deficit. that is one thing we know for sure. in my state, the first four years i was governor, state income went up 40% without raising anybody's taxes.

we did it by economic growth. we did it by having more taxpayers with more taxable income, by replacing lower skilled, low-paying jobs with higher skilled, higher paying jobs. and that is of the private sector that did that. it was not the government that did that. and the president government growth of programs are never going to be a substitute for real economic growth. they have -- the obama administration has a limitless faith in an unlimited government. and the average american understands bigger government means a smaller economy. bigger government means a smaller economy. this is a state that has been based on that. i remember when gov. thompson said, low taxes are the result of low spending. the that is an idea -- there's an idea. this last election in 2010 was the most policy-driven election

of my career. it was all about growth and job creation. it was about spending, taxes, energy, health care, regulation, and on every one of the issues, the american people agreed with the republicans. that is why we won 60% of independents. we did not just when republicans by 90% cut 60% of independents because it was a campaign about issues. that is what we need to be in 2012. when you see the president repeatedly say publicly as he did yesterday that spending on entitlements is unsustainable, and then propose to do nothing about, you can understand why the american people are under it -- upset. spending on entitlements is unsustainable. so, paul ryan, to his great credit, stepped up to the plate

and said here are ideas, do something about it. anybody who stands in front of you and talked about getting control of spending or getting to balance the budget by reducing spending and doesn't take it -- take into account what we are going to do about entitlements is just pulling your leg. i was pleased -- some people can disagree with me -- i was pleased with what john boehner and the republicans in the house worked through this past weekend. if we cut $38,000,000.20 $8 billion -- i am sorry, billion dollars, the b word is a little harder for us governors than it is for people in washington. whether it is $38 billion or $28 billion or $68 billion is not the point. because there is not an of spending in the non-defense the

special -- discretionary category that they made all of the cuts out of to really be a big deal of in the budget. what was a big deal was in the -- the single. that single got us not just to first base but got as headed in the right direction for a change. it changed the direction of government spending regardless of how many billions of dollars. but the real issues will come up on the debt ceiling, when we have multiples as much leverage and on the budget in 2012. that is when the real spending will be in play and we will see of the president's speech yesterday, in which he talked about saving $2 trillion on spending -- he talked about saving $1 trillion on lower interest rates than his budget

proposed an aide quote, was born to cut government spending by $1 trillion tax increase on entrepreneurs like this very business and tender thousands of more small businesses across the united states because, after all, the people who are in the highest individual income tax brackets are about 80% small businesses. at least two-thirds, probably higher than that. how are they going to hire more people? how are they going to grow your business if we stick them what their share of $1 trillion tax increase? well, our plan is not going to go that way. to make the savings in spending -- not to raise taxes. to get another big impediment to hiring out of the way. and that is obamacare. i did run the health care reform

debates for a long time. when i was -- i have been around the health care reform debate for a long time. when i was chair of the party, the clinton reform was on the front burner. no one -- it makes health insurance premiums go up. that is why republicans, among other reasons, want to repeal it. the house has voted to repeal it. for and we need to repeal it. but i know the big element is, when employers or potential employers do not know what they're obligations and cost will be for their employees are, for health care, how do you expect to hire more people? again, whether it is tax policy, spending policy, health care policy, in every case, they all impede what should be our first goals -- economic growth and job creation.

energy -- as you watch gasoline below past $4 a gallon to lord knows where, i would just remind you that in one sentence, the energy policy of the obama administration is to increase the price of energy so americans will use less of it. therefore, in their minds, we will have less pollution. well, that is not energy policy. that is environmental policy. if you think i am pulling your leg, let me just say, go back and read his speech to stephen h -- did the speech stephen chu made in 2008 -- and which is said, and i paraphrase, we need to do is get the price of gasoline in the united states up to where it is in europe, $8.90 dollars a gallon. they may need that in berkeley, but we don't need that in biloxi. i can tell you that right now.

that is where we are going and it is not as active. when they shut down the gulf of mexico. when you got enormous, proven reserves in alaska. when it is harder to get a permit to mine coal in alachua than getting a heart transplant -- appalachia, you can see this is not just their policy but the one policy that is working. because of the cost of energy is going up. president obama -- then senator obama told "the san francisco chronicle," under my cap and trade plan and a trustee rates will necessarily skyrocket. i believe we need exactly the opposite energy policy. our energy policy should be more american energy. when the british landed at jamestown they looked over the rail 400 years ago, and they saw abundant american energy in the form of timber, the form of woo

d, and for 400 years we had abundant, affordable american energy that has been one of the great comparative advantages -- advantages to our economy in competing in the global marketplace. we need more oil, we need more natural gas, we needed to make sure that liberal opposition to hydraulic fracturing, the new technology that has increased our natural gas supplies so tremendously by making gas available back we did not know we were able to produce economically. we need to make sure that those not slow down. we have the first coal fired power plant in the 90 states under construction in mississippi that as commercial -- commercial scale carbon captors sequestration. we will keep burning coal as long as anybody in this room is alive. we need to learn to burn it cleaner, but at the same time we

are the saudi arabia of coal and already becoming the saudi arabia of natural gas. there is no excuse for us to be so energy dependent, gets the president's policy is less american energy and more expensive american energy has a way to reduce imports. i think it is just backwards. i want to share with the a little bit about what haley barbour is. i want to answer your questions about new thing that has to do with these issues, the economy, with the budget, social issues, foreign policy, or anything else. i do think this -- if we make the 2012 election about policy and show the clear differences between what obama has done and tried to do and what we believe in and what do and what our

house is working toward, then we will win this election. the democrats will try to make it about anything but policy but they will try to see that the republicans don't care about poor people. republicans don't care about children. republicans don't care of sick people. republicans are bought off by big business, small business, agriculture, whatever. this is an administration that has a habit of politicizing every subject. and we saw that in spades yesterday. when the president invited paul ryan to sit in the front row for his speech and said that the republican budget was on american -- unamerican because, in his mind, not having $1 trillion in taxes, new taxes, on the american people was unamerican. we can have honest disagreements about issues -- and we do -- and

if we will make the campaign about those, we will win because the american people know we were right. but we cannot take anything for granted and we have to start here in new hampshire. if i run for president -- i will close by saying this, i will make a decision by the end of the month. if i run for president, then i will compete for new hampshire. everybody understands that mitt as this huge lead here and as a house here. and that is fine. but this is going to be a critical state in the november election of 2012. i think the yen -- the number of small handfuls of states who decides whether we have a new republican president or whether barack obama gets four years. i will compete in new hampshire because whether i win the primary or not, i would try to win new hampshire in november 2012. any republican candidate needs to do the same thing, because of

this state is very important in that regard. if i and that running -- kathy, you will see me back. i am very grateful to you and pj and your family and krl for letting me be here. with that, i will stop and shut up and let you ask questions. thank you. ons. thank y'all. [ applause ] >> we have something in common. you are from the deep south and i am from southern new hampshire, y'all. i will ask a question that will come from the other side. you were quoted as saying some positive things about yazoo city, mississippi, and they tried to turn it into something ugly. how would you handle this? >> frankly, i am not worried about. i was asked about my childhood.

my daddy died when i was two years old and i was raised by my mother. i have two older brothers. she never remarried. i was asked what was my child would like. my child was great. a wonderful family, great friends. could both catch and hit. [laughter] and i would not give anything for it. does that mean everything was perfect in the south? of course not. and we have made some real changes in the south that have been a big plus. we like to show those off and we will be doing more of that. but, look, i want to worry about that. i think the people of the country are looking for plainspoken common-sense truth tellers. and they want somebody -- they are tired of happy talk. and they want somebody who would trust the public enough to tell

them the truth and then say, okay, we got this problem -- let us talk about what we going to do about it. rather than, entitlement spending is un sustainable, and let us talk about something else. >> i am chairman and founder -- past president of past -- greater manchester ncaap. i would like to thank you for embracing and promoting diversity by having a person of color on your security team. i think it speaks volumes of the kind of man that you are in the person that you are and an inner self. and what to say thank you. >> wayne, thank you very much. let me say -- we run state government in mississippi to try to put the best people in the best place. it happen that the colonel, who is chief of the highway patrol in this is their a --

mississippi, is an african- american. the reason he is there is because he is the best person. that is just the way we do business. that is what i do business. but you are very nice to say that. and the other thing about him -- he is a pretty good tight end. [laughter] nobody fools with him. [laughter] >> can you give a plug for mississippi beaches? how is bp trading in? >> bp has tried very hard to pay the damages that occurred. the thing about the bp oil spill, it was a huge calamity for us economically because -- no offense, but 24-hour cable television, at least once an hour, every day, 24 hours a day, seven days a week for about four months, showed the worst scenes from louisiana and gave the american be the the impression

that the whole gulf of mexico is ankle deep in will -- oil. the fact of the matter was, it wasn't. we had a good plan for misses eddy. my 80-mile coastline -- we closed one, three-mile stretch of beach one time overnight. every other incursion we had with oil -- and it was not that much because we were catching a lot while but was still the water -- every other incursion of quote, we cleaned up that day. we had to move people around sometimes. bp paid all of that -- which it should have, by the way. but it killed our tourist season just because people thought it was terrible and that they would not enjoy themselves or it wasn't safe for their families, blah. now that there is the realization the beaches are clean, the water is clear and

fishing is great -- we have not had one seafood samples since the oil spill, not one that failed testing. we have fish that are bruised for being sampled so often. we have done more sampling than we ever dreamed of in the past. i say that, and i want to give you one caveat that is the facts as they exist today. we don't know over the next year or two or three what might be discovered down in the gulf that is not apparent today. we have teams of the finest scientists in all of the gulf states and people from other places around the country through the federal government that are studying this constantly. but right now, the biggest thing for us has been the economic disaster of crushing our tourist season. i would close by saying, a little different in louisiana. they were closer to the well.

the oil that got to that was what, brown oil. by the time it got to as it had deteriorated to the point where it was tar balls, little -- kind of feels like tar. you could just pick them up. dir -- sir. and i am wondering if he could touch upon illegal immigration. >> the first thing, is you've got to close the border. you've got to control the board. and there is not going to be anything done until that happens. there are just a whole lot of people -- no matter how they feel about guest worker programs, no matter how they feel about this or that, they are not going to do anything until the border closed. in my opinion, the obama administration have not closed the border for that reason, because they think they got a political issue and they are not

going to give up a political issue by doing what needs to be done. i should note, about 40% of the people that are in the united states illegally actually came here legally. the second thing that i think we should do that no administration has done, republican or democrat, when somebody comes here on a temporary visa, we should have a system that keeps up with them. you could go to the bank with your atm card and you can swipe the through the bank or swiping through many, many other places, and that can be used, if you are set up to do it, to say where you are. it has to be set up that way. i am sure it is against the law to do it again somebody's will read at a minimum, you could say every week if you are here on a temporary visa of some sort, you have to check in.

there is no big labor requirement. do not have to hire a bunch of people. if you are supposed to be working in boston and you show up for two weeks in seattle, maybe we figured you have to see if -- we have to see if you are on vacation or doing something different. those two things are -- without them, i do not think anything will happen. once we get the border controls -- and i think we will end of the next president. then we need to think about what we will do about 12 or 14 million people here illegally and what we are going to do about the need for labor that we have eaten a lot of places in the united states. let's not kid ourselves -- we are not immune to what is happening in europe. we are not immune to what is happening in japan. we have an aging population and we will have a labor shortage in the united states down the road. i may not still be around, but

we need to be prepared. we also have industries today -- businesses, agriculture, in many areas -- that are dependent on guest workers. we need to have a good program for that. we need to have a good program to keep up with them to make sure they pay their taxes, to make sure they do not go to jail and they stay here -- because of the go to jail, they ought to lose the right to stay here as a guest worker. if they commit a crime. but nothing happens until you close the border. it is just not going to happen. >> i want to get back to what -- he made a point. mine is a little related. i saw "60 minutes" on sunday and they talked about lewis allen from liberty, mississippi -- do you know who i am talking about? then i guess i would change my question. i will make a kind of related.

he was a black man who was killed in mississippi in the 1960's and it seemed like in mississippi they were not doing as much as they could to solve that problem. i do not know if that is true or not. i was to get your feedback and ask you to respond -- but since you did not know -- >> i am totally ignorant of it. as you may know, in the last 15 years or so there has been an effort made by prosecutors -- state prosecutors and federal prosecutors to reopen old cases. -- who shotbyron shoppe medgar edwards was convicted. >> is it american or un americans have the rebel flag in your state flag. i am sure it will come -- >> our state had a referendum and voted 6 to 9% to keep the flag that has been since 1894 --

69%. the voters voted on it, and that is that. >> there was a report on the fox news website, that the budget cuts were not really $38 billion. did you see that report? >> i did not see that particular report, but several. reports posted -- one of the things they talked about is, there are several billion dollars who did not get spent on the senses. when you cut that out of the budget, is that a real cut? kid yourself to be a lot of money gets reprogrammed in the federal government. that is commerce department money that the administration probably can reprogrammed. but once you take it off, it is gone. wool around spending

and for some other purpose. $38 billion, $28 billion or $68 billion -- it is not really the point because of those numbers are such a tiny, tiny part. remember that all of non-defense discretionary spending, which is all this bill dealt with -- that all of that was 50% of the federal government, giver take. the real money is elsewhere. republicans rightly put $5 billion extra in this spending bill to make sure the military get paid between now and the end of the year. that is something i would favor. you are looking at a guy who said publicly, and i will say to you today, we need to save money at the pentagon. the defense department budget can get smaller, it should get

smaller. if we do not make it smaller and we republicans are not going to have credibility about cutting other spending. anybody who has ever walked through the pentagon knows that you can save money over there. the secretary himself was quoted as saying they have been given so much money they forgot how to budget. they overpaid one contractor to hundred million dollars and did not find it until the audit -- $200 million. a department the general accounting office said under republican and democratic congresses has become unauditable. i was so proud of paul ryan, cut b o d over 10 years 178 million -- reprogram 100 and save 78. defense is the number-one priority of our country. national security -- we've got to spend whatever it takes.

but that doesn't mean we have to give the pentagon a blank check. we have to give the pentagon a a blank check. . >> we don't have to do the ability. step up to the plate. you can save money over there and do just as well. >> they don't think it's possible politically. what do you think about a balanced budget amendment.

>> we will. >> deterrent for big deficits. and it does. i was elected, our budget was 20% out of balance. we spent 20% more in recurring expense expenses. the constitute constitution for the bujts shortfall. took us two years to g out from under it but we did it without raising taxes. the fact that there was a balanced budget law was helpful in keeping it from getting worse.

so, i don't think we ought to let people think it's the end all be all. ma'am? >> as predent what would you do about the abysmal state of education in this country? >> slip that up under there. we need to judge them by the results of our children. some of the ones who spend the most produce the least, have the lowest scores. some things we need to do about

education. we need to -- because there are a lot of kids who are smart kids. we need to get them i called three car dealers in jackson, mississippi, an average auto dealer made $70,000 a year. which is more than double the average private-sector workers in mississippi. just suppose -- marcia and i

have been married 40 years in december -- reeves is our baby. just imagine of the beauty parlor when he was 18 -- he decided he is going to the community college to be an auto mechanic. what would they have said that the beauty parlor? they would have said -- marsha, what is wrong with him? because we have stigmatized the skills and careers and skills. we are in mississippi starting a career track in ninth grade to start exposing -- and we hope to get it back to the eighth grade -- to expose kids into careers other van going to college. 70% of the dropouts in mississippi schools are passing. something i would have never believed -- they are bored or they do not see what it has to do with them. for the university-headed students, we need to make it harder. we need more advanced placement,

we need tougher standards, higher standards. because we are in a global battle for talent in the world. we are in a global battle for talent. right here -- the biggest thing is -- and i think i have done economically in mississippi, is to work to improve the quality of our work force. and we have doubled what we spend on it, we have given a lot more emphasis, and we have tried to de-stigmatize work force training, and we've got to get our kids back to where we are not down at the bottom among developed nations in the educational. but it takes work and it is about so much more than money. we've got to get of the idea is just a much money you spend. and the last thing, you asked me about immigration. than money. you asked me about immigration? somebody did over here.

for highly trained, high skilled professionals, really. we run out after about three months every year. we need to have about five times more visas. when a kid from india goes to mississippi state university and gets a phd in engineering, most likely he is going to go home. he will start a business in mumbai that employs 1,000 people. you know y? we won't let him stay. we ought to staple a green card to his diploma and every other phd in science and engineering. let them go memphis and start a business that employs 1,000 people. we forget we're in a global war for talent. we should never forget that.

>> if i may take another moment -- i would like to thank you all for coming and participating in our meet and greet the event, giving a traditional new hampshire welcome to gov. haley barbour. i would also like to thank the media for their coverage of the event and helping us keep the public informed. event and helping us keep the public informed. i would like to thank all of our volunteers and donors and those of you watching. govern barber, if you could come up, i have a special thank you that comes with the message. >> just knock that bottle of water over. >> we will fix that later. to send you home with something to remember us by, i have been asked to give you this special gift that is a new hampshire

made maple syrup proudly produced by the thompson family and the message that comes with it is it is in the honor of the great former governor of new hampshire tuesday great governor of mississippi.

then i was just trying to be responsive to the questions. >> i happen to serve as a commissioner of the agency -- which you have in mississippi as well as here. >> stay in touch. >> would love to have repaired them -- would love to have you. >> thank you.

>> this is where we've got to make real savings. if they believe we want to do with -- i will not say we can't do it because if they are not willing to make the right concessions, then the blood will be on their hands. >> thank you. >> thank you for coming, sean.

>> i am susan emerson. how were you? taxes -- texas a&m. i worked on ronald reagan's campaign in 1985-1986. and then the bush sr. -- yfeah -- yeah. thanks for coming. emigrate fund. >> i love the mississippi. i used to date a guy in mississippi. >> we were all pretty cool. >> do you have a different hat for every day of the year? >> this was my great grandmothers. >> its got a little pizazz. then i an not known as the had

lady. -- >> i am known as the hats a lady. >> thank you for being a part of this. >> thank you for coming. >> very good, very good. we will, we will. >> if we don't, i think we are ". >> i hope you come back often. >> i have been trying to get the secret service hotel kit. >> can't do that. [laughter]

[crowd chatter] >>

[general chatter]

>> how are you? >> i'm good. >> you look like a million bucks. >> so do you. you've lost some weight. you look ten years younger. >> i have to lose about 20 more. >> i'm trying myself. i get on the treadmill an hour every day. >> wow. >> just trying. trying to eat healthy. >> it's hard. >> how are the grandkids? >> half of them are coming home for easter. >> oh, good. >> going to take his wife and kids out at virginia, they have a big easter egg deal out there. >> we're going through the same thg. our kids have all kinds of

things to do. so we have to realize we have to start doing things together, you know, because my little grandkids are? spor in spts. >> they're older, right? >> 21 down to three. . >> we have five on one. oldest will be six. so we have a lot more flexibility. >> -- coaching my grandson, staying at disney world. the 11-year-old. >> you get with him, they're follow. >> okay, got it.

>> great to see you. thank you for coming. >> that's why i stood away. >> a little gra tags over this sway. >> would you like a water? >> that you think. all tt chocolate i know is great. i have to get a little

something. >> somebody has to eat it. >> take it home. >> put it in your pocket. >> governor, nice to have you here. >> started years ago with ross. he's the guy right here.

>> i w in california, my cousin -- when they were doing the nafta stuff, ibm was trying to get that contract -- the other reason they didn't get it because in that contract dwn in mexico, there was a whole area set up, all the drug points.

>> really. >> and i know that from when we used to chase them down. i got ann order from ronald reagan to take pictures all up and down the border. i called some guys up, they were sitting there on the tarmac, i said do you want to be it one of these? mexicos has its problems and it's infringing on our border. and you're right. pull out the national guar has s infringing on our border. and you're right. pull out the national guard. military is the fourth leg. >> can be done, got to be done. >> that was what we were originally set up for. a face doesn't need to be an

imperialist nation. we can't be the police. we can't afford it. >> and you got to get going. >> good to see you, governor. thank you very much. >> great to see you. >> in about 50 minutes from now, former speechwriter for president nixon including pat buchanan and the perception of the 37 president. we will have that 411 cspan at 2:00 p.m. eastern. story on wireless is frankly a bigger one for the impact on the economy at large

as opposed to the macroeconomic question of whether a given set of carriers builds out. >> and the president's chief technology officer on wireless mergers, the demand for spectrum, and expanding brought with the u.s. joins our guest reporter tonight at 8:00 eastern on "the communicator's," on c- span 2. >> to night, u.s. labor leaders discuss the future of labor unions including recent republican efforts to curb collective bargaining rights. >> the republican party's near pathological drive to crush organize level even at the cost of further wrecking the economy and disabling democracy has reached epidemic proportions. >> that is on c-span at 8:00 p.m. tonight. on c-span 2, a look at the balance of states' rights and federal authority as well as the legacy of brown vs. board of education. >> i would say and correct me if i'm wrong, that brown vs. board

of education was to protect the peace and prosperity of the people. the fabric -- that is the federal government overstepping its bounds. i don't see why the federal government is there is not to protect the peace and prosperity of its own people. [applause] >> i must say, for being a student at the university of colorado [laughter] you have great inside. insight. i would love to see the federal government dedicated to those principles that you mentioned. running every facet of our laws and including education is not one of them. i honestly believe that colorado educators are smart enough to do it without the federal government, to do it without the department of education. >> you can watch that discussion on states' rights and federal authorities tonight at 8:30 p.m. on c-span 2 and the discussion

on the future of labor unions at 8:00 p.m. on c-span. >> how have the republican and democratic parties appeared in a recent spending and budget debates in congress? we asked a couple of political strategists that question on yesterday's "washington journal." host: our sunday roundtable we want to welcome jamal simmons democratic strategist and leslie sanchez republican strategist. thanks for being with us. how serious is the president in reducing the deficit? guest: that is a good question for jamal. i think republicans are open minded and you saw two-thirds of the cuts were proposed by the republicans and the president after this election cycle is talking the right game but i think there is a lot of concern

about the president's speech this week and his long-term impact. it sounds more like politics than it does good governance. i think they would argue that they are looking at all the different pieces of the component of a deal. you can't just balance the budget and deal with the deficit on one end of the ledger which is spending cuts. you have to look at revenues and reduce spending cuts is not just domestic. you have to look at entitlements and defense cuts. and then you have to pay attention to the places where you can make up some of the money on the domestic side. the thing about the ryan budget, it is the only budget, whether it is any of the other plans or president's plan, it is the only one that doesn't deal with revenues. that makes it not credible. it is like the congressional black caucus budget that is all tax increase.

so on the ryan side you have all spending cuts and black caucus side all tax increases. it will be between those two the. host: paul ryan is the cover story of the national review. this story gets to the essence of where the country is, the role of government. this is called "ryan's new deal." are we at the press piece business -- precipice of where these programs are, medicare, medicaid, social security? guest: those of us who think the new de deal feels a good idea a ready to have that discussi discussionmediscussion. only 18% of americans think medicare should be having a major fix and 13% think it should have a total overall. that 31%. that leaves 69% of americans that think it should be left alone or have minor fixes. host: but two-thirds of the

budget is medicare, medicaid, social security and defense. so if you look at a $15 trillion deficit the cuts have to come somewhere. guest: the president talked about dealing with it on the prescription drug side and there are things you can do that don't require you to turn it into a block grant that you hand out stipends to seniors and negotiate their own rates. that will raise costs as much as $6,000 per senior. host: leslie, two wars. medicare part d that was not adequately fund and bush tax cuts that will cost the government $4.2 trillion in revenue. guest: i think there are two different parts i want to talk about. i don't think republicans and many conservatives feel the president is serious about reduction. there is a fundamental debate about that.

he is not -- i think it was just this cursory illusion to -- to entitlements. that is the most significant aspect, a system that will not be solvent within nine years and as the ryan plan is taking a serious look at that based on recommendations that did come from conservative democrats. is a nonstarter. you talk about surveys. i have 64% to 29% realize the air. caller: hey. can you hear me? host: sure can. you are seeing movement with this very difficult budget process to look at the ways they can cut this for long-term solvency. host: the president talked about it this week on the campus of george washington university in a speech in which he outlined his budget agenda. then yesterday in his weekly address. >> it is a vision that says at a time when other nations are

hustling to outcompete us for jobs and businesses we have to make drastic cuts in education, infrastructure and clean insurance. the very investments we need to win that competition and get good jobs. it is a vision that says to reduce the deficit we have to end medicare as we know it and make cuts to medicaid that would left millions of seniors, poor children and americans with disabilities without the care they need. even as it proposes cuts it would give tax breaks to the wealthiest 2% of americans. an extra $200,000 for every millionaire and billionaire in the country. i don't think it is right to ask seniors to pay thousands more for health care and students to postpone college so we don't have to ask those who have prospered so much to give back a little more. host: your response to his comments yesterday which carried out what he said last week and

he will talk more about them this week. guest: i think they are trying to paint this as more like a political speech than a realistic one in terms of leadership. we talked about one of the things is price controls. we know 50% of doctors who won't take medicine kaid or medicare because of the reimbursement policy. it is a system that that is not going to work. i think the ryan plan is correct, it won't work as it is now and the president needs to be serious about it with respect to spending and transforming these pricing options. host: senator coburn delivering the republican response on the medicare and medicaid here is what he had to say. >> his plan includes a debt plan that fails to target the debt. entitle spending is more than

80% of the long-term debt burden exempts them from reform by saying they are sound when they are not. he is jeopardize being the benefits for the americans he says he wants to protect. host: jamal simmons, your response. guest: i think the president and democrats take into account entitlement spending has to be dealt with. in all of the plans out of the house plan, the budget committee lead put out and president's plan they deal with spending and they deal with medicare and those issues. they also deal with the revenue side. the issue is the republicans are being given credit for taking this on but there is not a lot of courage to say let's cut domestic spending which the republicans have been against. let's reform entitlements which trying to have been take out. the question is because the

currently is for the republicans who will say we have to deal with revenue raisers. i wrote a column in t"new york times" about saxby clam chambliss but i give him credit because he and co-burn and the gang of six in the senate are willing to use the word taxes in talking about the deficit. we have to have a way that includes taxes and spending cuts some the problem. host: we will get to phone calls in a moment and you can send us an e-mail. or join the conversation online at twitter.com/cspanwj. i want to go back to something that is on the website at politico called d.c. is angry at the budget deal and president obama. there is a related story below the fold in the "washington post" d.c. right opponents to obama what gives? president obama's arrival two years ago inconspired un-abashed

optimism in the district who yearned for their quest for statehood. it says they are disappointed. . they are. as a resident of washington, d.c. i'm disappointed. what you don't want to have happen is 600,000 or 700,000 be used as bargaining chip on capitol hill. the people who live in washington ought it be able it decide their fate and apparently that is not the case the way things work in washington. people in the district are upset. we saw it the mayor and other officials were arrested protesting. host: mayor gray was with us yesterday. leslie, what does this tell you about the president and his base? guest: i think he has a big problem not only with the base but with independents. if you look at polls he is at a low but he continues to slip. a pattern we saw with republicans in april of 2009 and continues to fall in support of

fiscal and spending issues with independents. we are still 18 months from the you have a lot of concern about the direction of the country. host: this morning monday can davy has this. madison, wisconsin, sarah palin at a rally yesterday her appearance offered an early hint at wisconsin's rising significance in the presidential race ahead. the place has long been a battle ground but what seems clear is voters are energized and that offers prospects on both sides. guest: if you look at wisconsin we have to be serious. wisconsin has gone for the democrats in the presidential election i think in every election since ronald reagan's re-election in anyone -- since 1984. it is a state democrats ultimately do well in. what we saw last year is not the

same democratic turnout in previous elections during the midterm and it is always a little dicier because you don't get the young performance, minorities who show up, all the women who support democrats that show up. that makes it more conservative. host: yet the president has been there more often than any other state. guest: else looking at the electoral map. it is always part of the calculation in the white house. regardless if you are republican or democrat. what you are seeing is a catalyst for movement of how both the public sector and private sector are going to be dealing with an economic crisis. i think you are seek that spread across the country in terms of having a debate about collective bargaining, what should be on the table. host: we'll go to barbara. good morning. caller: good morning, steve. you didn't hear me last time. i tried to get in.

host: yeah, i apologize. we're glad you're with us. you get the first call of the round table segment. the forum is yours. caller: that gentleman said that, too, to me, the receptionist. first of all, may i just make a comment on donald trump running for office? number one, he is a citizen. number two, he knows that there's only 50 states, not 57. now, to this issue, i like both of them. by the way, you are so tall. you tower over these other two. but as far as -- >> it's a high chair here. [laughing] caller: as far as entitlements, i'm tired of the foreign entitlements except for israel. if we stop all of these trillions and billions -- whatever we pay to these foreign countries who turn around and stab us in our backs, then i think we could use that to help

the entitlements in the united states. with that i'll leave you alone. thanks for taking my call. host: thanks for trying a second time. we apologize. i'm glad that bill was polite on the phone to get you through. was very polite. and would you write him up for being a professional, knowledgeable, conscious, polite. he's an asset to "washington journal." host: you're not his mother, are you? caller: no. and he didn't even pay me. [laughing] host: thank you, barbara. bill is smiling right now. guest: yes. guest: that's a great recommendation. you hear this a lot, this question about foreign spending being a way we can make up the budget deficit. it's just really not that much money. it's not trillions of dollars, it's billions. and it's a small billions. the president talked about that in his speech, that you just

can't get to where we're supposed to go. host: we have our own facebook page. and leslie sanchez, in this era of bipartisanship, you just posted? >> yes. host: where was this taken? >> in your lobby, in your greenroom. guest: i have to catch up with leslie. host: back to your calls. frank, new jersey. good morning. caller: how are you doing? host: fine. you. caller: i think the that issue here on the budget is pretty simple in most cases. there is cuts that have to be made. but on the revenue side, i would bring the taxes up to 42% at the highest rate, for one. and on the other side, as far as medicare and social security is concerned, i would lift the cap completely off. just take the cap right off. and everybody pays the 8.2% or

whatever it comes out to. and that will solve your problems with social security for the next century. the idea that you can make cuts in the armed service -- can't make cuts in the armed services is ridiculous. the boots on the ground in afghanistan, iraq, in the middle east, is also ridiculous. i was in the service myself. i know a little bit about intelligence. that's where all the efforts should have been put. we are wasting money in so many areas. but the one area that you don't want to really cut off is the safety net for the old. i mean, here you're killing -- there's all types of ways of killing people. you can murder them. you can send them to war. you can, you know, plague them with diseases. but now you're saying you want to plague them with apathy.

caller: we'll get a response what about that issue which the president outlined this week? >> i think there's a lot of common ground on the safety net issue. i was telling jamal about this. i had experience with medicare and my family. and my mother had to have an emergency bypass operation. and we've been dealing with all of these procedures. i tell you, it is a core tenant of what the fabric is of many of our seniors and many of these families whether they're caregivers or parents. and i think fundamentally we need to agree as republicans and democrats, we want to make medicare stronger and solvent. to do it in a responsible way because there are many families across the country, much so like mine that need it. but it needs to be attainable. host: this past week we covered a number of events in new hampshire. including an appearance before the manchester public federation of women.

haley barber talking about the president, politics, and 2012. here's a portion of that event. >> this is an administration that has a habit of politicizing every subject. and we saw that in spades yesterday. when the president valued paul ryan to sit on the front row for his speech and said that the republican budget was unmore un-american, un-american, because in his mind not havin taxes $1 trillion in new on the american people was un-american. well, we could have honest disagreements about issues. easterand we do. and if we'll make the campaign about those, we'll win. because the american people know we're right. >> mississippi governor haley barber. do it, steve. host: tommy is joining from us

long island. good morning. go ahead, tommy, you're on the air. caller: hey. can you hear me? host: sure can. caller: leslie, i got to tell you, the republican party is being held hostage by the tea party. how can anyone rational cutting, one make the case to cut pell grants? that case was made 25 years ago during the reagan administration. you just can't do that. and then don't tackle any cuts in terms of military and, more over, don't raise any type of revenue from those at the top. you just can't. and, leslie, you talked about the issues you were going through in your personal family with medicaid, i believe -- guest: medicare. caller: you're absolutely right. people look at those issues, they personalize it and say this doesn't make sense to my family if it doesn't make sense in that regard, from a national standpoint it doesn't make sense. you just can't cut certain things. do you have to raise revenue,

but there has to be some cuts. i agree with that. the complexity of the republican party is trying to distance themselves from the tea party that is too conservative. and i think, jamar, you're right when you talk about the congressional black caucus. they have to be a little more balanced. they have to. but what's going win this election is those who are in the middle. and i think obama is doing the best he can. he was dealt a very unfavorable hand. i think he has come in true to form. he's moving towards that center, trying to find common ground. so i do like his response as it relates to the budget. host: tommy, thanks for the call. while he was phoning in we had this from dennis lane. you can respond to these points of view. republicans want to privatize responsibility to the very corporations which proved each and every day how irresponsible they are. so to both of these points? guest: the privatization, i think competition is what republicans are arguing for. that that is one thing that can

enhance and equalize the system. i think with the other part, i a fair point to that, to look at with this the size. people have looked at insurance company that way. there's a high degree of skepticism, both about the government efficacy in the space. but also, you know, corporations. i don't think anybody h escapes that. i think that's a fair debate. part of this is to bring this out through transparency and have a real dialogue about it. this kind of campaign jockeying and these sound bites which we engage in all the time, but theslatively just down street is not taking us seriously. host: rach frel texas. good morning, independent line. caller: yes. the republicans are talking cutting the debt by 38%. and the bush tax cuts to the rich has cost us $417 billion a year. you get a tax break if you own a

business. and why should the rich people worry about opening a business when they're already getting a tax break. they spend most of their money on vacation homes in brazil. they don't invest -- like in jobs. most of the jobs are created by small people making less money than $250,000. host: we'll get a response. jamal? as i: well, as much think -- what i think is everyone in the country actually wants to be in the same pot together. and you talkound to people about this. what you hear the most often is people understand the fix that we're in as a country. and they necessarily want to participate or are willing to participate. i was with the union leader, a leader of one of the major unions last week who said to me their union members are willing to take pay freezes, benefit cuts. but they just want to make sure that they're not the only ones paying the burden. they want to make sure that the

wealthy are also going to be in the pot together. look at what's happened over the last few years where the united states bailed out the banks, and the banks went ahead and gave bonuses to their executives it it gives a lot of people in the country pause to say, wait a minute. we've got to cut spending and we've got to lower pensions and trench a little bit. where dot wealthy get in the pot with us and have to pay a little something extra themselves. so i think business people do create job. i think we have a tax policy that encourages growth and helps people to do more business. but we also have to make sure that everybody's paying their fair share as we deal with this big, huge mountain of debt. host: i want to follow up on your piece of the "new york times" website. the group is looking at budget cuts. "political co-" this morning writing about the biden deficit pam which is already starting slowly. points that the president calls for a working group, but so far it's off to a shaky start. lawmakers in both parties

expressing skepticism about another round of talks and the house already agreeing to reduce the number of participants after complaints from congressional leaders. guest: and we saw the democratic side, the senate proposed, nancy pelosi proposed chris van hollen and congressman clyburn to be the delegates on the democratic side. to hear theg republican names that will come out to be a part of this commission. and the president's going to have to -- i think the vice president is the one who's charged with dealing with this. and he's going to go up to the hill to be a part of it. we've all got to get serious. we'll see what happens if they can come together. host: another round of talks. another series. guest: we've been down that road. i think, again, there's a lot of healthy skepticism about this. we saw the health care proposal, deficit initiatives. some of them never even got out of the starting gates. it's not always the best solution. i think there have been many plans on the table. people want to see get to the process of legislating a lot faster difficult to want to take

issue with one of the points about i think it's a false argument about raising taxes on the rich because we know perfectly well many of the people based on the way they file their taxes, these small business owners file to proprietiers. they don't consider themselves rich. they have inventory, families, health insurance. have to provide for their employees. takes big burden. but it's also the catalyst for economic growth in this country. that is the type of red tape and deregulation that we're looking for, i think, overall to spur the economy again. so i don't think it's necessarily this big, false, rich wall street versus main street argument all the time i think many cases it's small businesses that are penalized the most. host: the question sufficient the paul ryan plan who give people tax cuts. can you at least go to the position of a chuck schumer who says let's do something for people who make over $1 million a year. but at some point there's got to be a place where the wealthy are asked to do something to help resolve this problem and not leave it all on the elderly and

the working people. guest: i think that's the same argument you see walter monday dale making even today. the idea of increasing taxes. the campaign argument i ran on 1984 didn't work then, i don't see how it's going to work now, you know, revenue raisers, tax decreases you saw them in the obama health care plan. you see that republicans and conservatives are trying to do something to mitigate that, increase in taxes, and the lack of economic growth businesses are concerned about the full effect of obama's health caver law. there is, i don't think, a strong appetite -- it's going to be part of what the gang of six is going take an. but there's not a strong appetite when you talk about tax hikes. host: how to raise taxes without losing votes. it's pointed out that in 1994, i told the american people that i'd have to raise taxes. and, in fact i lost the election but won the argument because reagan ended up increasing taxes in 1984, 1985, 1986, and 1987 to mend the budget and also to tax

systems. in the essence of what walter mondale is saying today is that barack obama is saying i'll raise taxes in targeted areas if the american people would support something like that. guest: i think it's still mixed. let's not forget that rage rage also reduced the mancheinal tax rates. you saw the 20-year period of economic growth because of his policies, more private enterprise, more growth in the small business sector. when you're talking about those taxings, again, back to the gang of six, i think there's going to be probably the biggest part of the debate on the senate side is whether or not to close these loopholes. you're already seeing some of the conservatives pushing back on that. it's going to be a very difficult fight. guest: we do have to give the republicans credit. they want cuts for everybody, and state budgets, cut pensions for firefighters and cops they want poo cut

medicare for social security. social security recipients are seniors. then they want to cut taxes for the wealthy. but that's not the kind of shared sacrifice people want. if we're going to cut things for people who are working and seniors, people on the lifeline of america, we ought to at least cut some of the loopholes and get the healthy and the people who have more assets to be able to participate more. where i thinkce you lose people in this conversation. host: let's get roger on the phone. he's been waiting from georgia, republican line with leslie sanchez and jamal simmons. good morning, roger. caller: good morning. i just have a couple of things i wanted to touch base on. first off, i paid social security taxes in when i was working for other businesses most all my life. ok. and now there's a possibility that they may not be there whenever i get ready to retire. i'm 60 now. have just started a business of my own because the --

[indiscernible] a smart move -- [indiscernible] in that event, we lost a lot of small memberships which involved a lot of people that are ground floor, just like me. i'm educated automobile mechanic. in the event that we get up there, why can't we determine a way -- and i feel like you and congress, republican and democrat, are working on it. but why can't we develop a way to keep from taking from them? if you took the interest from what i paid all my life and gave it to me as my retirement, me being conservative, and living on my means and not above them? host: thanks for the call, roger. leslie? guest: to some extent he's talking about the argument in

the 1990's, private savings accounts, people invest their own money. after financial crisis people were skeptical, still, about that plan. but part of the reason is people are living longer, thank goodness, life expectancies. the amount of revenues that are going in are different. but the costs overall are a lot higher that we're paying back. it's not means tested. there's a lot of -- reasonable solutions we tend to have quick fixes for social security. but i think medicare and medicaid are much higher on the list of outgoing outlays, the government, the responsibilities that we have that are going to bankrupt us a lot sooner. host: and this twitter four, jamal simmons. which is worse, cutting social security by letting the dollar decline in buying power and give no cost of living increases? guest: which is worse? i don't know that that's the choice we face. when we talk about social security, one of the callers who called in a second ago had a good idea, which is let's raise

the cap on taxing social security. so right now i think we stopped taking social security taxes from people after a certain dollar amount. people want to raise that cap so that you go a little bit higher so the wealthier pay more into the social security system, which seems to make some sense. maybe you raise the retirement age a little bit. but you've got to be careful. because there are some people who work with their bodies, arms and legs not with minds mostly like us all day. there are some people out there in textile mills, auto factories, they can't work as long. so if we raise the retirement age, we have to deal the folks who can't work longer. we have to find a way to deal with the entitlements that is fair and equitable. but we can't do it all on the cutting side. that makes people nervous. we have to look at closing some of the loopholes, getting rid of some of the bush tax cuts from a couple of years ago. certainly not cutting taxes more for people who make over $300,000. host: both of our guests have experience on the capitol hill

and white house with respect to their political parties. jamal is a democrat, an analyst for cbs news and cbsnews.com. and leslie sanchez, i have to ask you about resurgent republic. what is that? >> it's a 501c4. it's a transparent organization. we do focus groups and research to talk about what the government is discussing. and we try to provide insight on what a lot of independent voters, voters 55 and over, small business leaders what america is really thinking. host: and your website lesliesanchez.com. the links available at c-span.org. ron, independent line from wisconsin. good morning. caller: yes. i'd just like to make a few comments. and then i have a question for you. i think we need to take a hard look at who we run for president next time. the current tax and spend policies despised as investments

that we're currently seeing here from our president just don't well with people in america here. currently in wisconsin, we're fighting a hard fight to separate our government unions from our politics. as you see with our last judicial election, that's still up in arms. we're trying to break that hole there -- hold there. host: jamal simmons, your response? guest: wisconsin is the hotbed of what's been going on in terms of state budget cuts around the country. but what's interesting about happened in wisconsin is it's actually brought a lot of people who maybe were sit on the fence over to the side of more progressive policies. one thing that you've seen in that usually firefighters and police officers are among the most conservatives union members. and although they're members of unions, they don't tend to get out in the frontlines and join arms.

but what we've seen in wisconsin is it brought firefighters and police officers into the same picket lines with teachers and with construction workers and all the other people in that movement. so in some ways, moving people who ought to be allies of the republican governor, moving them away. and if you look at scott walker and the governor 6 of wisconsin, look at his pole ratings, they are under 50%. he's losing more support the longer this goes on. so in some ways this may have been the best thing to happen from union movement, to give people focus. what they don't want to have happen is take collective bargaining and give working people no organized way tone gauge. host: and yet the gallup poll had the president's rating down to 41%. guest: i know. it's bad. guest: we agree on something today. guest: it's bad. i think the president's got to -- i think they're focused on trying to deal with that. one of the reasons that's the case is the approval rating among democrats is going down 77%. that's the number, though, that i think he can make up in the end. but the independent reigning i think troubles the white house. you have to move the

republicans. they still don't like them as the independents and democrats moved away. they've got to fix that. guest last week on spoil's "newsmakers" the chair of the republican national committee. the essence of the story is that he's brought down the r.n.c. debt to below $20 million. he's also made inroads with major donors, party leaders on capitol hill and k. street chipping away at the debt he inherited from michael steele. he had a payroll of $400,000 and only $350,000 in the bank. guest: very true. he hit the ground running. he came with a specific plan to restore kind of fiscal responsibility, come up with a vision for the future. and he gave a lot of encouragement back to the donors whom are concerned about where the direction of the r.n.y. was going. they came back in a strong way. i think they're very excited about the opportunities for 2012.

this comment from twitter, twitter.com/c-spanwj. shared sacrifice includes all, rich and poor, young and old, sick and healthy, public and private, union and nonunion. no more class warfare. i read that tweet because the president last week in his speech in chicago, a series of three fundraisers in which he helped collect $2 million for the democratic national committee as he makes inroads in what is expected to be up to $1 billion. at least $750 million that he will raise for his re-election effort. and here's how president obama frames the debate for 2012. >> that's why i'm going need your help now more than ever. this campaign is still in its early stages. but now is the time when you can help shape it to make sure it gets out of the gate. strong. let me tell you.

you know, i'm a little dinged up. [inaudible] [cheers and applause] >> i know there are times when some of you have felt frustrated because we've had to compromise with the republicans on some issues. there have been times people are frustrated because we didn't get the first twoe in years. there have been times where i felt the same way you do. but you i know what? we knew this would not leave. we knew that on a journey like this, there are going to be setbarks -- setbacks, detours. there are going to be times where you stumble. but we also knew that each and every juncture in our history when our future was on the line, when we were at a cross roads like we are now, the country came together. we were able to make the changes

we needed. host: michael len posted this piece -- michael len posted this speech shortly after the president's speech. the first job is to reconnect. guest: reconnect. revision history. i'm kidding. he's one of the most unique communicators. it's astounding, his ability to do that. the problem are the facts kind of have to come into the debate. there's a few different things. you talked about the lack of supported, the decrease in support, among the democrats. only 35% of independents support -- believe in the president's job performance so far. he has some significant challenges. it's all resting on the economy, fiscal responsibility, where the economy is in november of next year. it's really going to dictate a lot of where this election glows. we've talked about the class warfare. i thought that tweet was very interesting. no class warfare. nobody should be left out. right i think this whole idea of pitting a working

class is not part of the conservative movement of the republican party, this and that. those are old debates. they're tired. people want fiscal restraint, responsible leadership. even safety net programs continue to grow under the current budget that we just passed. they want to see the type of welfare reform that we saw in the 1990's when you had president clinton and republicans come together. it was very painful, having been there, but came together to have responsible government that powered back with the governors and allowed those governors to make unique choices to save their states. host: leslie sanchez, graduate of george washington university, attends johns hopkins university in the baltimore area. and jamal simmons, graduate of morehouse college and earned his masters from the kennedy school at harvard. he's also a principal at the raven group here in washington, d.c. gordon joins us from columbus, ohio, for our two guests. good morning. welcome to the conversation. caller: thank you. and good morning to you all. thanks for allowing me to join before i get up and go to church

this morning. host: certainly. caller: well, i have a few questions. first of all, ms. leslie sanchez, i believe you just talked about the governors and their plans. our governor here -- i just want to touch on one specific plan that he is coming about with that i don't believe is really -- i don't know. i'm a little nervous. i really don't think this plan is really good. he wants to take our liquor stores out of drink. but he wants to take our -- i don't drink. but he wants to take our liquor stores and defund them at the same time. so basically selling to wall street. and he wants to name his -- i'm not too familiar. but i've heard something about this plan. and we've been talking about it at work. i work for a landscaping company. i kind of injured my back at another job that i had. so, you know, without having health care, i wasn't able to go seek some kind of help.

so i had to just go straight back into work. so i'm working with a bad back. i do work 12 to 15 hours a day. i don't complain. i like my job. i like doing what i do because i'm allowed to do it. but if our governor is going to cut our budgets -- you know, i'm basically just saying what is the bigger republican plan? i don't hear anything good coming out of what they're talking about. host: thanks for the call. are you familiar with john caseic's -- kasich's proposal in ohio? guest: not that particular one. i think to your latter point, i think overall with republicans with conservatives, is to see the viability and strength of our economy and to give more freedom and power to the governors, to be able to make choice that they need, to be able to provide consistent quality care, health care, education, and the resources, transportation, whatever they are going to need to do with those dollars, to give them the freedom to do so without

restricting them based on what several folks and a lot of lobbyists think need to be happening in washington. but you do raise some really interesting points. i think the republican challenge here is you can say what we're doing. we've increased the number of support for safety net programs. we're talking about fiduciary responsibility. i think you're seeing independence like that but overall what is not getting out in that message is the amount of waste and duplication. i mean, it's one thing to say nobody should be immune from a cut. but we know perfectly well there's a lot of programs that are old, antiquated, wasteful that really need to be looked at. i think that's their point to make. guest: i think the president would even agree with that. in his last budget he ha had $770 billion in discretionary spending cuts going forth for the next decade. he also talked in the400 billion security apparatus of the united states.

sew talked about real cuts. but he also talked about putting everybody in i think we just can't get off that point. i know you want to talk class warfare. but they are the ones who have suffered while people in the top 2%, 10% have had their incomes go up and taxes go down. everybody else in the country is getting squeezed. so we can't get so disconnected. we've got to find a way to get everybody in to help fix this problem. host: mitt romney officially announcing the formation of his committee. committe he do so on the campus of new hampshire. he was in orlando, florida, over the weekend. here's the former massachusetts governor announcing his committee. >> last week in nevada i talked through a neighborhood with homes vacant or in foreclosure. unemployment there is over 13%. across the nation over 20 million americans still can't find a job or have given up

looking. how has this happened in a nation that leads the world anyone yo racing and productivity? the answer is that president obama's policies have failed. he and virtually all the people around him have never worked in the real economy. they just don't know how jobs are created in the private sector. that's where i spent my entire career. in 1985, i helped found a company. at first we had 10 employees. today there are hundreds. my work led me to become deeply involved in helping other businesses from innovative startups to large companies going through tough times. sometimes i was successful and helped create jobs. other times i wasn't. i learned how america competes with companies in other countries, why jobs leave and how jobs are created here at home. later when i served as governor of massachusetts, i used the skills i had learned in 25 years in business to streamline state government, balance the budget every year, and restore

a $2 billion rainy day fund. from my vantage point in business and in government i've become convinced that america has been put on a dangerous course by washington wash politicians. host: jamal simmons, as you hear mitt romney's speech and see where he's traveling, what's his strategy? guest: mitt romney didn't have a very good time in iowa last time. he spent a lot of money, didn't get a lot of votes. i think what you're starting to see is him piece together a strategy that keeps him from being so reliant on the iowa caucuses and maybe build more strength in new hampshire, his neighboring state from massachusetts. he talked about nevada in this ad that he just had. nevada has a huge mormon population also. he's got a little bit of a foothold in nevada. so i think what you're seeing is romney trying to put all of it together. what's interesting to me, though, watching this as an outsider, looking at republicans, is that typically republicans tend to go after or vote for the next person. the person who did the second best in the last election.

but you don't see that kind of reception from mitt romney. people have not quite bought into his 2012 strategy yet so it will be interesting for democrats to sort of watch the most wide-open republican nominating process i think we've seen in a long time. host: and this twitter from jan who says mitt has a plastic hair helmet. is the clothing supposed to make him look like an every man? that is an i shall yew that the romney campaign is dealing with. guest: normally it's female candidates i have to answer questions like that about. guest: john edwards did. guest: and al gore for his makeup application. interesting. i'm a big fan, i will disclose, of governor romney i think he is one of the hardest working individuals who's truly committed to what he says. in the sense that he wants to see the economy grow. he has the resources. and he e graishated himself

among conservatives after he endorsed mccain last time. people were skeptical of him, didn't know where he was coming from. did that have veneer about him. you i know, what were his intentions. which positions did he support? i think he's worked very hard to express his vision for economic growth in this country. host: you're saying mitt romney does not excite the tea party activists or the bible thumb%, he better skip iowa? your comment? guest: mitt romney, i think it was a conservative jewish group he was speaking at. i heard it on c-span radio driving around. that's how cool i am, i listen to c-span radio when depriving around washington -- driving around washington. he said something about he wants to do tax reform, but he's not going to do tax reform to make rich people richer. he wants to do tax reform to make it simpler and encourage

growth. i think if more republicans come out with lines like that, they would win over a lot of people who are more skeptical about their intentions. host: you can also listen to c-span radio on our website, c-spanradio.org. we are heard coast-to-coast on x.m.102. it's pointed out if congress fails to raise the debt ceiling, the treasury department and tim geithner specifically will be forced to default on some treasury notes and bonds as they come do so creditors would demand higher interest rates on the new bonds as they have done for greece and other heavily indebted nations. will republicans support increasing the debt limit or is this a game of chicken? guest: unfortunately i think the later. overall, yes, i believe republicans will. this is not a game. there are very significant consequences if we can't go and sell our bonds and have our debt. we can't ignore the fact that,

you know, what it, this week i.m.f. and the brit countries were all meeting, talking about whether or not the u.s. dollar should continue to be the world reserve currency. there are some significant concerns about people abroad, globally, understanding that the u.s. can pay back its debts. especially since so many of them are the lending authorities there. i think we have to take this very seriously. host: we're joined from north bergen, new jersey. good morning. caller: good morning. this is for mrs. sanchez. i want her to explain to me about the health care bill, how a person -- i'm very lucky. i'm 70. i'm retired. my income is $24,000 a year. so i'm not falling in that

medicare proposal of the republicans mr. ryan. but it's many people who is going to be only 55, who are going make less than i do. and i want ms. sanchez to explain to me how that people is going to survive. not everybody is a genius. not everybody can go up like she did. host: how do you respond to that sentiment? guest: i think to speak directly to the caller, i think your concerns are valid. the point is not that the new health care initiatives are to look at entitlements and how to approach them, to make sure that they're stronger. i think it's to break the system apart as much as it is to find a way to make the system better to make it solvent so that it can be there for the extended family that are dependent upon it. i talked about my personal

experience with it earlier. navigating the system is poor. there's a lot of abuse in the system. there's a lot that can be done to make the system stronger, better, and viable so that people 55 over -- so that we're not indebting future generations to pay for benefits that we have to pay out today. there's a very real economic concern. host: jamal simmons, the last word. guest: the governor may have -- talking about medicare. the promise to seniors that they would be there for them in their senior years to make sure they got the health care they needed the paul ryan health plan takes away that promise. instead, you go out to the market like everybody else and buy your own insurance. the costs go up more than out of pocket than today, then good luck. we wish you well, but country needs it i don't think the republicans want to throw all into the street. i don't believe that but i do think sometimes they don't think about how the policy they come up with impacts people in a general way.

that said, at the end of the day, we're seeing the contours of a plan that's a gang of six, the republicans and democrats, and senate are coming up with, the president is trying to put together, various commissions trying to do it, and it will have spending cuts, entitlement reform, and revenue raisers out ofhost: leslie sanchez >> now live coverage of the nixon white house speechwriters looking at how president nixon's public language and speeches and statements prepare -- were prepared and honed. this started just a moment ago. live coverage on c-span. >> he taught at northwestern

university and here at george washington university, where he only recently stepped down as director of their school of media and public affairs. it gives me great pleasure to introduce lee huebner, a long and good friend. [applause] >> thanks so very much. it is wonderful to see all of you here. i thank him for the wonderful job he has done steering nixon legacy programs the last year- and-a-half. he has also been a leader in keeping nixon alumni in touch with one another for the years. thanks to him, and everyone at the foundation, and george washington university has helped, too, making this program come together. it is a pleasure to welcome all of you to the school of media

and public affairs, so many students and friends here. we are also happy to welcome those joining us on a c-span. when i first joined the white house staff in 1969, there were five of bus riders, and i think we will see a picture of that group -- there were five of us writers, i think we will see a picture of that group here. we are so pleased that four of the people in that voter who are still living off with us this afternoon --. so please that all four of the people in that photograph who are still living are with us this afternoon bread for stock, you will notice that we've not changed much in 40 years. let me point out on the left side of the picture, believe it or not, that is me, next to him comes pat buchanan, and then sitting on the sofa is the chief of staff of the white house, bob

haldeman, and taking notes as he always did it, then bill gavin, then the first director of the white house staff, later an editor of "time" magazine. you will recognize william safire, who died less than two years ago, and who we all, i know this afternoon, are thinking of. now having introduced to them through their photos, let me welcome them in prison, and invite our white house speechwriting -- let me welcome them in person, and invite our white house speechwriting panel to the stage. [applause]

it very quickly, ray price, chief speechwriter for much of the new yorke, staff, at later an editor at "new york herald-tribune." pat buchanan, a journalist at the "said louis globe-democrat" 04 he became an advisor of the -- before he became an advisor and later became a communications director for ronald reagan could you may remember that himself has been at a presidential candidate at times. you have read his books and may be seen him on television. william gavin was a high-school teacher who wrote a fan letter to president nixon in 1967, and soon after became a key writer for him.

he has a book called "speechwright," spelled w-r to highlight the craft-like nature of the job. ken khachigian joined the staff after this photograph was taken, and represents a lot of people who came on to the writing staff in later years. he is now a lawyer in california, republican political veteran. his work on what i think our nine presidential campaigns. he began at the white house in 1970 and worked on the president's memoirs. he was the first chief speechwriter for president reagan. that is the group, the panel, and we're delighted they are here and welcome the most warmly. i was asked if i would say it a few more words of stage setting, and then we can move on quickly and my colleagues can pick up where i leave off and correct my mistakes or misimpressions, or confirm maybe

some of the things i've said. the white house, when nixon came to office, was involved in what we might today called three arms of messaging. each was an independent operation, reporting separately to the chief of staff, bob haldeman, and at bus to the president. some historians have mixed up that point. the press office, which ron ziegler headed it. two, the communications office, which it dealt with longer-range media strategy. and then there was the writing and research staff, the first such group to have the formal name. we dealt with the president's own words, whether they were spoken or on paper gu. this unit had several sub-tasks. speechwriting was the most prominent, but that at

subcategories under it. there was the drafting of actual speech text lee, the president would rewrite those quite heavily. many historians say he may have been the most active of all recent presidents in writing and drafting his own speeches. at that was one part of it. the second speech writing task was what we call suggested remarks. i wound up working on this a lot. mix in a normally prefer to speak without any notes. he welcomed, however, research and background material, what he would call "nuggets," if i remember the words right, and that included a vast variety of material -- statistics, anecdotes, jokes, parables, historical references, personal memories. we would often send nine or 10 of these short items, maybe three or four pages of material, a kind of smorgasbord -- we used

to think of it as tasty little morsels -- from which she could select a few and weave them into his extemporaneous -- from which he could select a few and weave them into his extemporaneous remarks. that was part of the process per se. speechwriting was only one part of it, however. it lot of what we did it appeared in written form a bridge out what would be the president's long messages to congress, where he will play out in detail the administration's legislative proposals. and there were tons of documents -- announcements, appliance, reactions, proclamations, executive orders, books and pamphlets and introductions to books and pamphlets, letters and greetings. a lot of words to be written, or written, or polished as the days passed by -- written or rewritten or polished as the

days passed by. and then there was a very influential daily news summary prepared under pat buchanan's directions for preparation for presidential press conferences. it was a tenacious research staff which produced all the raw materials for this process and verify its accuracy. i should mention there was a lot of writing for other members of the administration, supporters around the country. if i could add a personal observation, i think that that senior staff, but i mean chiefly price, buchanan, and sapphire, acted as general advisers to the president in memoranda and in person brought in what was going on, and it was exciting, it -- in memoranda and in person. in what was going on, and it was exciting. we came from a lot of different

backgrounds and outlooks. most assignments were given to us individually, but my happy memories that we also work very well together. we are also very fortunate to have the opportunity to be there at that time, and it is great to come back this afternoon and talk a bit more about it all. that is the overview, and let me at this point called on the first person to jo -- first person who joined the nixon staff at this time, pat buchanan. he came in the midst of a rather incredible period in american history and a remarkable moment in richard dixon's light, because that was the moment he was really beginning his comeback efforts. you want to set it up for us? >> sure. you go back to 1964, and the republicans, as you folks know, were completely wiped out by lyndon johnson at. richard nixon was a two-time loser. he had been defeated in 1960,

defeated in 1962, partially because the cuban missile crisis interrupted his momentum. i joined in late 1965, the first full-time staffer other than rose mary woods, in his office. our office was a tiny enclave off from the vice-president's office. and a lady who called herself pat ryan helped out with the phones. was mrs. richard nixon. i bummed an awful lot of cigarettes for her in those years. richard nixon was the most avid campaigner for the republican party across the country. he wanted 35 states, 80 congressional districts, 147 house seats, and dixon predicted the victories, and all of a sudden he was a ligh -- he was alive again as a potential

candidate in 1968, although most of the national media had written him off. let me talk about that campaign of 1968, where raymond price and others in this audience were with him every day of that campaign. ray and i started off, i think the 31st of january, to file in new hampshire for the last day of the filing in the new hampshire primary. it was a horrible snowstorm, and when we got to new hampshire, nixon -- we found out something going on in vietnam was known as the tet offensive. that offensive lasted for weeks and was a political disaster in the united states, as it was a military disaster for the vietcong. and walter cronkite basically broke with the president over the war because of the tet offensive, and a divided the

country and inflamed the anti- war movement. within three weeks, our opponent george romney dropped out of their race -- father of mitt romney -- because we were leading him in our own closet bulls 7-1. then it came to new hampshire primary, and the stunning perceived outset of lyndon johnson bite eugene mccarthy. johnson won the race, but mccarthy's 42% was so dramatic that everyone said, the press said that the president of the united states is in deep trouble. four days later, bobby kennedy, who had stayed out of the race, it jumps into the race. murray kempton, many people were bitter about that, saying it was opportunistic. murray kempton said it was proved that st. patrick did not drive all the snakes out of

ireland. [laughter] then you had nelson rockefeller supposed to get in and challenge us, and he announced, "i am not challenging richard nixon in the primaries." in march, lyndon johnson is going to give his major address on the vietnam. he announces he will not run again for president of the united states. tremendously dramatic events. we were hoping he would be in the race with kennedy and mccarthy. four days later, martin luther king was assassinated in memphis. i grew up in this town of washington, d.c. why it's up to the 17th street corridor, 14th street -- riots up to the 17th street corridor, 14th street corridor. that continued 3 or four gay street then became teammates, and -- that could to do three or four days. then came columbia campus, and

then we one of the oregon primary with a tremendous victory. bobby kennedy was assassinated after he won the california primary. then came the democratic convention in chicago. nixon sent back to observe. i was i was called the co mrade hilton hotel when everything came apart. democratic party coming apart in the streets of chicago. we were leading humphrey 43-29, and george wallace was getting 23% of the the vote. that was how polarized the country was. hubert humphrey gave his famous speech in salt lake saying, "i haltcreate a bombigng

if i'm elected," and the democratic party started to come together. humphrey game and gained in gay and right up until election day, where -- gained and gained and gained right up until election day, where nixon won narrowly. the town he came to was utterly hostile to the nixon. in love to john f. kennedy. richard nixon was loathed by a significant part of the press. it was predominantly democratic. for the first time since zachary taylor, both houses of congress were against the president of the united states. and as i said, the media loathed richard nixon, a lot of them did, and others did not like richard nixon. here is the final problem -- go

up and down the east coast, "boston globe," "new york times," "washington post," anti- nixon, all of them. the three networks -- people depended on the network news of those networks as their primary source of news and information about the president of the united states. all of fossil to richard nixon. thus, -- all were hostile to richard nixon. thus, the imperative of richard nixon to communicate a round of this filter, which many of us saw as distorted, and keep the country united behind him. he did it two ways. one, the primetime address, and two, the press conferences. it was in that environment that he wrote his inaugural address, of which my friend was the

principal author. >> it may have been one of the high points, his opening minutes. the inaugural address was widely perceived as a dressing in the right way -- as addressing in the rye what -- right way wahhat pat was alluding to. >> the greatest title history can bestow is the title of peacemaker. the chance to lead the world at last out of the valley of turmoil and on it to the high ground of peace that man has dreamed of since the dawn of civilization. if we succeed, generations to come will say of us now living that we mastered our moment, that we helped make the world safe for mankind. this is our summons to greatness. i believe the american people

are ready to answer this call. >> ray, historians point out that a lot of people contribute -- archivists know -- that a lot of people contributed passages to that speech, you were with the president putting it together. what is your recollection of it all? >> it is true, he was his own and chief speechwriter. i had the title for the last two years, head of the writing and research staff. but he from his earliest days on had been enchanted and debater in high school and -- collet had been a champion debater in high school and college. my educated guess was that one out of 20 speeches was written, 19 out of 20 or not, and he never used notes, different from what you see today.

he would know what he wanted to say and have it well in his mind. he would have planted all-out -- he would have planned it it all out. he would always provide what were called suggested remarks, limited in size but would include, as you heard, some ideas, thoughts, possible language, anecdotal material, which could help make his points. essentially, is speeches were his speeches, not our speeches. i have dealt over the years, since i belong to a lot of these association of writers and journalists and things -- i am a journalist myself by profession -- and i keep running into writers from other administrations who like to brag about how they got the president to, without his realizing it, put forth their and then

disappeared i consider my functions as making sure that as circulations and drafts were coming, what the president would say would be what he wanted to say, not what somebody else was trying to trick him into saying, which happens to often in the too often -- too often in the field today. he had a phenomenal mine, and you cannot understand the nixon presidency without understanding the dexterity of his mind. he was always strategizing. he would do it quietly, by himself most of the time, but when we got into the writing of speeches he was going to make, there were suggested remarks, and coming up with things that might be of use it to him. it was always with that in mind -- we were not trying to dictate what he would say and what it would mean, but provide him with

material that would help them flesh out his own ideas, and protect him from having other people's ideas slip in without his knowledge and approval, which was part of our job. we also had a very important unit of what we call to be writing and research department, which we took over the same people from the johnson administration, the research department. three women, and their job was to make sure that everything came out in written or spoken form from the white house was factually correct. i had been at "life" magazine, so i was familiar with this process. ievery word that you have a i gt over it. black dot for most things, red

dot for any number or name which would have to be double checked. that was a huge benefit u.s., having that skill -- huge benefit to us, having that skill, to make sure that we did not make the kinds of mistakes that too often get made in washington. but again, the writing process -- i was the principal club greater on both inaugurals, and at the thursday night oval office address, and he would resign the following day. i would rather not have had that final address necessary, but as long as it was, i was going to be the one helping on. by the time we got that one at dawn, we had pretty much what he wanted to save 48. i kept popping that he would -- if at it i kept hoping -- i kept hoping -- a had been such an

emotional final week for it that i hope he would be able to hold up for delivery, and he did. >> at the inaugural address, one of the other key passages -- your writing, if i'm not mistaken -- had to do with the admonition to lower -- [unintelligible] as pat describe it, it was the admonition to calm down -- >> i am glad you mentioned that, i forgot to. when we inherited in the 1960's, we had i have often referred to as the second most disastrous decade in american history, second only to the 1860's, a civil war since the 1860's --

closest to the civil war since 1860's. >> yes, a lower your voices, but he had buses surrounding the 82nd airborne going into the basement. >> that is a good transition to the next clip we have, a response to the march on washington that fall. it later became known as the majority" speech. i think it is a speech he wrote almost entirely by himself. he wanted to focus on how to address that particular moment in american history. here is part of what he said. >> let historians not record that when america was the most powerful nation in the world, we passed from the other side of the road and allowed the last hope for peace and freedom of millions of people to be

suffocated by the forces of totalitarianism. and so tonight, to you, the great silent majority of my fellow americans, i ask for your support. i pledged in my campaign for the presidency to a end the war in a way that we could win it the peace. i have initiated an action which will enable me to keep that pledge. >> and indeed, that speech was very well received. his extraordinary poll ratings, one of to the high seventies. >> highest he got in his entire presidency, and that sustained him right through the four years. the only time he reached the same level as when the pow's came home in march of 1973. >> it is a speech worth reading

carefully, and i think crafted largely by the president himself. pat, you are involved -- let's show another vietnam speech, which has, i am going to say, is slightly different tone. >> that is why he didn't pick ray. [laughter] >> writers were really they're not so much because they specialize in a style -- sorry, not because they specialized in a subject, but because they each had a style. nixon wanted a tough speech, and pat, you could tell us more about it. >> my fellow americans, we live in an age of anarchy. we see-attacks -- we see a mindless attacks and all the

institutions created by free civilizations. even in the united states, great year christie's are being systematically destroyed. -- great universities are being systematically destroyed. if, when the chips are down, the world's most powerful nation, the united states of america, acts like a pitiful, helpless giant, the forces of totalitarianism and anarchy will threaten free nations throughout the world. >> let me tell you, that is april 30. i guess i was called into -- the president had the oval office and the office next to it, but he would go across the street to the executive office building, where there was a huge office underneath the vice-president's. he called me in, and he said, "we are going into cambodia with

ground troops." he said, "henry sent me a draft," and he didn't like that. and kissinger, sorry but he said, "-- henry kissinger, i'm sorry. he said, "i've got some notes here," and "go back and in about two or three hours, and give me your draft." he said, "we are going into all eight sanctuaries." i said, "all 8?" he said, "yes. we are already bombing them a." "you are going to know -- they are going to know you are coming in." "don't worry, pat, we've been

bombing them for a long time." that is how i knew about that cambodia bombing. my secretary was writing real fast -- we didn't have those computers and things. i had copies of it, and he said, "don't show it to anybody." this is bad news, henry might be interested. i went swimming at the university club, and they didn't have a bathing suits, and someone came and said, "mr. buchanan, someone at the white house is on the phone." i sat there stark naked, and someone said, "vere is the speech?" [laughter] it was henry kissinger. "henry, sorry, but the old man said to give it to him and that

was it." three days later, my buddy who ran the press summary call me up and said, "four kids were killed and nine wounded at kent state." i said, "where is kent state?" the country exploded, and i did not even know where it was. it was a small school. nixon got up one morning, a tremendously concerned about that, and he went down to the lincoln memorial and met with the kids and try to establish some sort of community with them. it was an extremely dramatic moment in the nixon presidency, and was at onthat point that he could only be in 60 days and then he pulled out. the american casualties in vietnam despite the during the cambodian incursion, but a -- that -- the american casualties in vietnam spiked up during the

cambodian incursion, but after that dropped by half. you know, i don't think that on major -- well, i don't recall -- >> i just wonder -- the speech itself was nixon with the bark on, as we said -- >> when he called me in the re, rather than ray -- i mean, it was for a reason. he was pissed off. [laughter] >> we could stay on that subject and maybe come back to it. speaking a different styles, i want to jump back in time. there is a section of nixon's acceptance speech in 1968 which

reveals a different side of presidential rhetoric, and one that was a little bit unusual for nixon. maybe we could play that acceptance speech right now. >> tonight i see the face of a child. he lives and a great city. he is black or he is white, he is mexican, italian, polish. none of that matters. what matters is he is an american child. the child is more important than any politician's promise. he is america. he is a poet, a scientist, a great teacher, a proud craftsmen. he is everything we ever hope to be and everything we dare to dream to be. >> that passage goes on, and in it, nixon says, "i see another child tonight," and then he talks about his own child.

bill gavin contributed to that whole sense of heart -- i think that is the word that is associated with bill's right thing. can you talk about all that? >> lee was kind enough to mention my forthcoming book, "speechwright," published by michigan state university press. the reason i say that is, first of all, a shameless plug, but second, i spent two or three years researching. i was talking to my colleagues that stage, at all of us were thinking, "i don't remember it that way." one of the things i did was an analysis of that acceptance speech. i want to speak about that for a few minutes, because it helped to solve the problem, and that is one of the things that i see speechwriting as, a technique of assaulting a particular problem

a particularng problem. it is not, in my view, an exercise in eloquence. i think we have been eloquence'd to death. it is the curse of the speaking class. what rhetoric means, and what nixon did in so many speeches, was this a really address the problem, and in doing so -- was to address a specific problem, and in doing so, use every rhetorical tool he could. the speech was, like every acceptance speech, a hodgepodge. everybody contributed. everybody through something in. but he himself worked over that speech, and he worked over a -- the reason i know that is in order to prepare for the book, i got four drafts of the

acceptance speech, and a particularly in that part we just saw here, he made the slightest changes sometimes. i think the original was "i look at the face of a child," and he changed "at" to "into," which is a much more warm way of saying it. in order to understand why that particular passage is remembered, it should be because richard nixon, in presenting that speech, had to solve four or five problems. the first is, he had, as pat has pointed out, a host of people who quite literally hated him. one of the reasons the old haters hated him is that he had not a man named -- had nabbed a

man named alger hiss. second, he had a reputation as a "tricky dick," the archfiend could always manipulated people. and yet our reputation of -- he had a reputation of hawkishness in his rhetoric, and he himself was parodied by a lot of people because of the way he spoke. he had to solve and make sure that all those things were taking care of in the speech. the whole thing is him projecting it. when i had been a high-school teacher of english, i wrote a letter to a lawyer named richard nixon urging that he run for

president. i got a formal letter a week later. i had no idea about form letters. that eventually i got a phone call from a man who said, "mr. nixon? would you do -- mr. nixon likes what you do. why don't you send him one- liners'?" i was working with the graduate school of education at the university of pennsylvania that time, but i was still a high school teacher. we got an invitation to nixon's christmas party. i am a high school teacher, i couldn't believe it. is this a fake? we went right into the apartment, and he was standing with his back to us, and d

wight introduced me to richard nixon, and he said, "ah, gavin, the one minor m -- one-liner man." i kept sending those things in and he eventually invited me to become a member of the staff. i was at the graduate school of education, and i had to leave a few weeks early, and i went to the dean, and he said, but " why are you leaving a?" i said, "i am joining the richard nixon campaign." he looked at me is if i announced i had a fatal disease. "what on earth are you doing that for?" i tried to explain to him, but it did not go too well. before i left new york, glen stuck his head in my cubicle and said, "did you send something for the acceptance speech?"

"nobody asked me for anything." so i sent it in and went to miami and forgot about it. the night of the speech, i was watching on television, and he got into this part, and i was not even in the convention hall. i was at the hotel watching on tv. my sced around -- "it's tuff, it's my stuff." the next day he had could buy it for people who adopt at the convention, and he put his arm around me, on characteristic for someone who was not touchy- feely." "i did not say this, i said that." i did not know what to say to him. "i want you to come onto tricia."

the name of the airplane. that particular part of the speech was important, because if he got it wrong, it will have beenmaw -- would have been mawkish nixon, the part that was satirized and even at demonized. when he finished, the whole building rocks, and he is standing there like this with that look on his face, and it is like a great baseball player. when they hit a home run, they don't strut. he hit it right on the nose. he did that with the rest of the speech, which contained much more political themes. when i was with bob michael, nixon came back to the house to give a speech to the house republicans, and bob asked me to greet him at the door of the

capitol building. hands. out and japashook we went upstairs, and bought the set, "how you like being with your old speech writer?" "we razed gavin." it is true. my story is not to said it be told, but so improbable that if i did not leave it, i would not believe that -- if i did not live it, i would not believe it. >> i was at staff gathering that bill describes. richard nixon -- astonishing gesture -- puts his arm around bill gavin, and walks around with them, apart from everyone, talking to him personally for 5 minutes, and it was just a graceful gesture by richard nixon, but what he was saying

was, "you did a tremendous job over me, i want everybody to know it -- job for me, and i want everybody to know it." >> one last point -- he didn't have to do that. he was one of the most famous man in the world. i would need a decent public relations firm to bring me to a decent level of obscurity. who is this guy talking to nixon? he was kind enough to do that, and i don't present this to the court of history as extenuating circumstances, but that was part of the man. >> a great sense of personal consideration, i think we all agree with that. he saw life from the perspective of someone who had come up from small town, small roots, and was

able to listen to the trend and i can dream -- listen to the train at night and dream. he cared deeply about words. the use of the little dog checkers in 1952 -- a lot of people to this date cannot possibly forget about him. let me pick up where he left off -- you left off, some of the promise of the first year of the administration revolving in the conflict and confrontation is in the 1970 period. unrest, economy stagnated, the midterm elections. even the elections for it makes it look like a daunting prospect -- even the elections for nixon

looks like a daunting prospect. a lot was gone on and on other fronts. the china initiative was being planned during that period. a lot was happening on the domestic front, and this is one of the areas where history -- more recently, but even the public record of the time did not reflect the level of imaginative initiative that was wrapped up in the domestic program. 10 or 15 or 20 elements -- we had a panel on this stage last summer about welfare reform, for example, and the war on cancer and some of the other areas of domestic initiative that tended to be obscured. nixon the problems tha-- would say that we do not have an overriding theme. i want to get ken in on that,

but here is the state of the union address of 1971, after the elections, and the efforts to find the phrase that might summarize the domestic energy that we felt was their but was not always getting through to the public. >> in these troubled years just past, america has been going through a long nightmare of war and division and crime and inflation. even more deeply, we have gone through a long, dark night of the american spirit. but now that night is ending. now we must let our spirits soar again. now we are ready for the lift of the driving dream. dream --f a driving seemed to me to be afraid that we could have built around. you are right thing -- are writing state of the unions.

you remember anything about it? >> he is that when we announced in 1968 -- he used that when we announced in 1968. you wrote the opening speech of the campaign. i remember teddy white talking about that. let me just say about the 1971 s speech -- this was a move to get onto a higher level. i was out with agnew in 1970 on what we call the war against the radical liberals. richard nixon went out also, and he became -- agnew was supposed to be that day and that of the party -- the bayonet of the party. nixon went out himself and took up some of the themes we were using with the vice president. safire and i wrote him -- he

came off as extremely harsh. "they say it we are for crime. that is a lie, they know it is a lie." clearly, we were looking for a positive thrust -- >> john mitchell even said in the 1970 campaign that it seemed like we were running for sheriff. the harsher rhetoric. you came to the white house at that time, and you were involved in rallying to the cause. >> i rise and a tribute to the junior speechwriters in the nixon white house. you get the murderer's row of buchanan, safire, and price, and the whole tribe of us who were really jr. speechwriters who never got to work on all the big

speeches. i remember that as when we announced six great goals. one of the jobs we had was to cost of the provide background material -- to constantly provide background material and push the agenda we had for the administration. that meant writing fact sheets, talking points, and we just didn't write for the president. we wrote for cabinet officers, we wrote for senators. i was senator dole's speechwriter. i wrote for a cabinet officer and never knew it because we would craft segments of the speeches -- for congressional members we would write minute -- it floods to washington, d.c. and this hostile atmosphere we had that we had to overcome costly by generating on our own on massive amount of communication. at the white house started doing that, and the communications

shop, and the political campaign of 1972, and afterwards, we continue to do it. whether it was the war on cancer or revenue sharing or some of the other great domestic programs we had -- >> wage and price controls -- >> right -- well, we had a great controversy, went for the nixon presidency, the wage and price controls of 1971, and then in 1972, just before he went to the soviet been on a big foreign trip, the president ordered the mining of the harbor -- >> against all advice, i think. it was a gutsy move. >> huge gutsy move. it turned out to be a phenomenal foreign policy move. you had during the easter offensive of 1972 in vietnam -- you had these great seminal

moments where there was great national controversy. the december bombing where president nixon ordered the b- 52s back in the air. one of our jobs was to provide this backup material to help flood the media, supporters, surrogates. i think we elevated that to an art form, and it was all basically came down from the top. >> things did go better. nixon went to china, signed the first arms control agreement of the era. he won a record landslide. and then by early 1973, all the troops were out of vietnam. >> pow's -- >> that was another record high. nixon talked about at this way

in another state of the union address, early 1974. >> america is a great and good land, and we are a great and good plan because we are a strong, free, accreting people, and because america is the single greatest force for peace anywhere in the world. [applause] today, as always in our history, we can face with confidence what the american people will achieve in the future on the record of what the american people have achieved in the past. tonight, for the first time in 12 years, and president of the united states can report to the congress on the state of the union at peace with every nation of the world. [applause]

because of this, in the 22,000- word message on at the state of the union that i have just added to the speaker of the house and the president of the senate, i have been able to deal primarily with the problems of peace, what we can do here at home in america for the american people rather than with the problems of war. >> that last little bit i asked to be added because it gives me a chance to talk about something i was involved with, that speech. that message, which he had ended physically to the presiding officers, was a message i work on because it was an effort to reconcile two, given obligations in the state of the union address. on the one hand, this was a great state occasion, great ceremonial occasion.

congress is there, military officers are there. it is a chance to speak in a ceremonial way to families in living rooms across the country not go on the other hand, there is the obligation to the administrative role of the president as the leader of the federal government bringing in and sending out again to signals from every department and agency and euro for what is called the state of the union message every year, which is often cturned into a laundry list. nixon is the only one who did this -- i don't know why -- but he decided to do it in two separate parts. inspiring speech to the country, and the 20,000-word, carefully drafted, detailed message to the congress. he had it both ways, a two- tiered communication approach. >> a very good, and what made it

possible -- state of the union is provided for in the u.s. constitution, but what the constitution says is that the president shall from time to time report to congress on at the state of the union. it is not say anything about format. -- it does not say anything about format. in the early years of the country, these were written messages. sometime, probably with television, it became common up with the president to give the state of the union address -- >> i think woodrow wilson was the first one -- >> to give the lie address to congress. -- live address to congress. they would be good if you are trying to sleep at night trying to read one. nixon decided to try to have the best of both worlds, and he started his practice of having

two versions, a spoken version and a written version. the spoken version would cover staff in the written version, and the written version would be much more spelled out in detail. it would be a sophisticated analysis of why the things he is asking for in this spoken message shouldmessage should be it worked well. he would take the written copies and take one to the speaker of the house and one to the senate and delivered the address. i think it was a very helpful intervention -- innovation. on one earlier. we had a 6000 word address, and what you would get is the various departments have policies they desperately wanted to get as the state of the union, and we said we cannot do it because the president wants

to deliver a speech. lyndon johnson would get up there and say we're going to do this and do this and do this. their listing all of these things. president nixon said put all of those in a message and we will have the same standing so that people can point to it. this is white house policy and this is administration policy and get it all written. mine was 6000. to go the written message got to 20,000 that year. i think i finished it at about 8:00 in the morning. the president -- i was assigning these things. assigning pen. one of them are still out that he evidently designated for me. i was not there, but he was said to have said did we killed him in the process? >> i want to make to do belwo

observations. and the speeches you have been watching, he is not using a teleprompter. he almost never a teleprompter. he read from text. we have transition significantly over the years. in fact, president reagan did not use them that often either. >> ken was the chief speechwriter on at the inaugural address. >> the second observation is that vietnam permeated so much of what we did in the white house until 1973 when the war ended, theoretically ended. it just dominated everything we did. in fact, it dominated half of what i did as an doing these things that i did. against all odds, we had trying to get public opinion to support the very difficult policies, even though as we were

withdrawing troops from vietnam in huge numbers we had the national security staff working for henry kissinger, three people in a vietnam war room. they worked in an amenity. i would be up there once every two or three days because they would collect vast amounts of information that we would use for speeches in communications or what not. be a non dominated everything so much until we got the water gate dominating everything. >> i mention 1974. you were talking watergate. that is after the massacre. that is after the urban committee hearings have gone on and had been concluded. by then, i think the whole impeachment process was under way, so i think you morse -- see

more stress and strain in the united states there then you saw earlier. >> you got to see the contrast. >> all my friends were solving great geopolitical problems, i was doing what is known as rose garden rubbish. it was the name they had for the kinds of things we were talking about before, just so many things that the president has asked to speak on or write something about. most of the time those things are forgotten almost immediately after they are said, but they have to be done. while all of these world shaking events were going on, i was doing st. patrick's days o stuf. one good thing was the duke ellington meddled of freedom.

i work on that pier yen the point, and we made it right at the beginning is, there is no end to the things people want presidents to do. when i hear even scholar sometimes say why do these presidents have speechwriters, why don't they write their own stuff? one reason is if they did that they would never come out of the oval office, which in some cases might be good, but you have to have people -- and he put together us draft -- a staff that have different styles. i once read a criticism of that and said that just makes the president schizophrenic. the answer to that is you can get it from part or your own life. presidents have many dimensions to them. they have many ways of communicating. when you have people on your

staff like fellows like this, it makes it easier for you to do that. >> speaking of being multi dimensional, surely at the end of the speech that we saw, he sort of left the formal part of the speech and said i must add a word about watergate. it was the first time he that to the congress. he talked briefly about how the business of the country would go on. we all have heard this segment of rhetoric before, but i thought we should also share it now. this is the resignation speech on a thursday night in august, 1974. august 8. >> i have never been a quitter. to leave office before my term is completed is opposed to every

instinct in my body, but as president, i must put the interests of america first. america needs a full-time president, and a full-time congress, particularly at this time with problems we face at home and abroad. to continue to fight through the months ahead for my personal vindication would almost totally obscured the time and attention of the president and congress in a time when our entire focus should be on the great issues of peace abroad and prosperity without inflation at home. therefore, i shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow. vice-president ford will be sworn in as president at that

hour in this office. >> can you tell us about this? >> 1 lead up to it is that on tuesday, the tuesday of that week, we convened in his office to really stress is the battle ahead. we went through all sorts of strategic discussions. that ended, and we were scattering, and the secretary came in and ask me to come back and, and al said that was all a sham. i started on that on tuesday. he delivered that address on thursday evening. it was a fairly busy couple of days. i was sorry it had to be done,

but if i had to be done, i was glad to be the one doing it. the president and i went back and forth on a number of drops as we did with anything like that. we worked it over until we had what he wanted to say the way he wanted to say it in was satisfied with it. he then delivered the address thursday night. most people who remember anything about the television at this time, what they remember is his emotional farewell to the staff in the east room, which was very dramatic. he delivered his resignation thursday night. then he assembled a staff in the east room on friday morning. then he came in, and going over there i did not know what was going to be done. i thought it was just a farewell.

he was a little more formal. everyone was trying to keep his eyes dry and so forth. we gathered on the south balcony to wave goodbye as they got aboard the helicopter to take them out to california. one of the things i remember about that most is we were all pressed tightly together waving goodbye. the woman on my right had tears streaming down her cheeks, it was barbara bush. they climbed aboard the helicopter and went back, and that was the end of it. >> if i can, what led up to that was the bravest -- i antron heckler and jim sinclair came in on sunday. we want to camp david. there were talking about the

tape of june 23. we did not know what it contained, but that is what was being demanded. we called steve bowl and we got the tape and we found out the tape in the 23rd contained statements that seem to contradict what president nixon had been saying for three months and the president himself had heard that take three months before when he said i will not send it over to the special prosecutor. that led us to believe that when that tape was dropped there would be perceived credibility crisis. >> that was called the smoking gun. >> what we decided was that the tape was fatal, and that what we should do is go back to the white house and proceed to drop the tape, and when it hit, the support that still existed for the president, frankly the

bottom would drop out and then our friends and our allies and the present supporters would see that it was not survivable, so that it was not some kind of staff pushing the president out or pushing him to do something. you just drop something and it was something fatal that hit, and everyone knew that. as has been written in "the new york times" barry goldwater and greg scott came over to the white house and were on the lawn on wednesday that we, and the pathology is they went in and talk the president into resigning, but that is nonsense because ray price was already working on the resignation speech when it came to the white house. >> we have some slides of the

president's reading task of the speech. i do not know if you will be able to see them well from audience, but you see the line towards the bottom. i have never been a quitter. this is very typical of the text. it would take them out in this fashion so there is lots of white space and very easy to look down and look up again and find your place. everything in very logical order. last-minute changes at the top. underscoring keywords that he wanted to emphasize. on a happier note, i think we have a view of the inaugural address. maybe if we can put them on the screen. this is the mark on the left penn. therefore i will resign the presidency and a bottom-line marks a pause.

and just before that happier note is the inaugural press like. -- press slide. the national archives are very much a part of this event today, but it is fascinating to look at this. >> first inaugural. >> we want to have some time for audience questions, so it is a good time to move towards that. we would love to have you participate in this discussion. >> before we get to that, i want to make an observation about the process. we did not have computers and microsoft word in those days. when you did speeches, they had to be real tigh-typed. this is a tribute to the secretaries who worked on all

hours of the night. we work on ibm typewriters. you corrected them and if it did them on the sheets and re-typed them. nixon himself never learn to type. >> i do have a question. this has been a fascinating forum, and i think all the participants for being here. i must also observe it has been a forum that nixon's mother might love, but it is also taking place at a university. one of the questions i have is this. nixon has been presented in a certain kind of way. we might reflect on certain aspects on the controversy of the vietnam war. the bombing of cambodia is not something we want to laugh about. whoon was someone

inaugurated the racial strategy and southern strategy, using race in a very oblique way. then we have water greagate. the elephant in the room here as the distinguished gentleman on the form are implicated in this. what is it like to write for a president who should have been driven from office? that would be fascinating to reflect on now that we have had 35 years to think about that? >> i would not accept his premises. when he said that -- we believed then and i still believe that we were on their right side of the bottle. and if i had not believed it, i would not have been there. i still believe it, and i think you are wrong. >> when general eisenhower left

office and richard nixon left office in 1961, there were 600 american advisers in south vietnam. when we arrived back in the white house and the democratic overwhelming control of both houses and the presidency of the united states, we have 535,000 americans in vietnam and richard nixon said i will end of the war with honor. he did not promise to cut and run. he worked tirelessly. he worked hard. we worked hard with demonstrators in the streets against him. he supported the war, but never said we will cut and run. all of those four years, i will tell you who is responsible, take a look at the best and brightest to brought us in there. take a look at "the new york times" and others that cheered

america into war. suddenly when he entered the white house, it is nixon's war. in 1973 we had all of the pows at home. he had won the war basically. what happened was congress then began to cut off all of the military equipment to the north vietnamese. the congress forced the south vietnamese to fight a poor man's war. it was not richard nixon that marches into vietnam, but he tried to get us out with honor, and he succeeded in doing so without opposition of a lot of people that were responsible for having those guys over there. >> the controversy continues. it is useful to remind people that it was a terribly controversial time. it is natural that you have got a certain interpretation.

i suppose there is a larger question for speechwriters, and that is how you a stumble a coalition of speechwriters -- how do you assemble a coalition of speechwriters, and do you always agree with the principle you are writing for? when you do not agree, how do you handle that in your own mind? at what point you leave and at one. -- what point do you leave and at what point do you continue? >> i always said if it is a serious matter of conscience, and this happens very rarely, you follow your conscious, you leave the job. 99% of the time it does not like that. you disagree with the boss of a certain issue, but it is that may be a moral issue, and issue a policy, whatever it happens to

be. you just have to ask yourself the question, is this the best way for me to keep on helping this person i am working with, even if i do not agree with him or her. let me give you an example. when i was with senator jim buckley, a great man that he is, jim gave a speech asking president nixon to resign. it was just so difficult for him to do. before he gave the speech, he had it drafted by jim burnham. before he gave the speech, he showed it to me. there i was, i had worked for nixon.

i helped to cairo flights a little bit. i did not think that was a matter for resignation. each speech writer has to make his or her judgment as to when the bright red mark comes up. believe me, very rarely is it a matter of complete conscious. almost always it is a matter of policy, and then you have to say to yourself, do i go along with the policy and make it as analytic and good as i can't, or do i say to the guy i cannot do this? >> there are couple of other people but wanted to answer a question. am brad patterson. urs on colleague of york'utd

the nixon staff. how did he handle conflict among his staff? i can think of an example. in march of 1970 the supreme court said he will have desegregation of all of the schools, schools, in their corn to do it now. this was a very controversial, political, and then the controversy across the country. he asked my boss to do some research on this. i was an executive assistant. there was a message to congress on school desegregation. in which i remember he asked the congress to appropriate sums of money to help the southern district's go through this terribly difficult process. but there were people on the staff, i think, pat, you were

one. there was controversy on the staff. in the eisenhower time, and i was there and can give you an example, there was a cabinet meeting. my understanding is in general president nixon did not like to have meetings and people face to face in front of them. i think he took this message to his thinking room in the executive office building and made his own decisions. my query is how is that or other controversies, how were they handled in the nixon white house? >> i think i recall being in that. it was a very tough series of meetings. attorney general michel cheered them. i was there. you were there. there was real conflict in there, and i think at the end it

was our rice hollow who was asked to draft the statement. the whole issue was desegregation of the southern schools. when nixon left, 70% were desegregated. there was a huge battle over the issue that had come out of the charlotte decision of court that ordered busing. it takes students from one district to another to achieve racial balance. .ixon was opposed to that that battle was basically one by those who argued for going forward with the tough decisions, getting the money and getting it done. >> one other issue is how nixon was able to do successfully what

everyone said could not be done successfully. george was key to this. he was secretary of the treasury. he had been a leading labor negotiator, moderator and so forth before hand. he set up a program -- we set up committees in the various southern states. mix black and white committee. they had to clear the mandate. this was going to happen. the schools were going to be desegregated. it will be up to you to work it out. len garwin was key in this as you might remember. so we set up these committees that were black and white. each state had one. then they started doing it

state-by-state. i will try to shorten this up. he invited the members of the mississippi delegation. i think george organize this, to come up to the white house. they all came together, first in the roosevelt room, and then they were moved into the oval office to meet with the president. i was very -- it was a very emotional thing for them and the president, too. finally, the leader of the black group and the leader of the white group got together, and they finally said to one another, if you and i cannot do this, nobody can. they took it on themselves to make it happen and happen right. it worked in mississippi and throughout the rest of the south. >> [inaudible]

>> brad patterson is a great witness to so many things. also speeches that were made issued to minority of affairs. tom wicker thought to be of -- >> wrote a book on one of us. >> we can take one or two more questions. again, and cannot quite see. >> i have a question about technique. there is the delivery of the speech. i work as a storage writer. -- speechwriter. is there a challenge with that?

was any advice ever given to nixon on how to deliver speeches? >> the answer from what was said earlier, the speeches i worked on, we went through eight or nine drafts. by the end of it i could not find too words put together that belong to me. they were all his. he turned it into his words and his formulation and his way of saying it that he was comfortable with. that made it frankly relatively easy. there were some cases when your on campaigns where you might have to give a president one draft of the speech, but all of the big speeches that nixon gave were his own. when he gave the written text and obviously when he spoke from notes or no notes, it was all him. it was relatively easy. >> we all complain he spent too much time writing the speeches. it was probably a good judgment in the end. >> he was a lawyer.

he was a champion debater in high school. >> he insisted on two things. he would say the speech does not happen until it is given. he would insist that the writer go along on any assignment that the writer had worked on, which took us two corners of the world sometimes. he wanted us to hear how it went. secondly, he asked us to underline in every text the part that we thought would be the lead in the evening news or the next morning's newspaper, because he knew unless we had a sound bite, the press was not going to press ick it up. those are little indication of his sensitivity to what happened in the minds of -- >> whether it was a national speech or rose garden speech or proclamation, every speech writer's name was on the top of

the speech. >> that was really nice of him. >> i stepped up behind you. >> i want to thank the panelist for putting together this. [applause] i would lead you with one thought. one of the nice things about the nixon administration was how many young people there were. here we are 40 years later, and we are doing these panels with the trends of the nixon white house the nixon administration who can tell you about what it was like to be there. we have almost the original staff of speech writers. we will talk about a lot of other substantive areas as we go forth, but it is because there was a very young staff and we have matured quite nicely. use of the colored hair in the beginning of this lights and you look across and we do not have

that anymore. thank you all for coming. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011]

>> the jobs story on wireless is a bigger one for the impact on the economy at large as opposed to the micro economic question as to whether it will give incentive up carriers filled out. >> the president's chief technology officer on wireless mergers, the demand for spectrum, and expanding broad brand in the u.s. tonight at 8:00 eastern on "the communicators. : >> tonight u.s. labor leaders discuss the future of the labor unions. >> the republican party's near pathological drive to crush organized labor, even at the cost of for the wrecking the economy and disabling democracy has reached epidemic proportions. >> that is on c-span at 8:00 tonight. on c-span2, a look at the balance of federal authority and

like a seat on brown vs. board of education. >> i would say that brown vs. board was to protect the peace and prosperity of the people, and if the federal government is overstepping its bounds, i do not see why the federal government is there if not to protect the peace and prosperity of its own people. in [applause] >> i must say for being a student at the university of colorado, you have great insight. >> i would say that i would love to sue the federal government dedicated to the principles you mentioned, but running every facet of our lives and education is not one of them. i honestly believe that college educators are smart enough to

know this. >> join us on the discussion at 8:00 on c-span. >> this year student cam competition as students from around the country to consider washington, d.c. from therir lens. >> [inaudible] [unintelligible] >> i want to play piano. >> i want to be a vet. >> i want to be president. >> i want to be a football player. >> imam. >> i want to be an artist when i grow up. -- a mom. >> this has never been more true

than it is today. at a time when our children are competing with kids in china and india, the best job qualification you can have is a college degree or advance training. yet in the paradox of american life, the very moment it has never been more important to have a quality education, the cost of education has never been higher. the past few decades the cost of tuition at private colleges has more than doubled will cost of the public institutions have nearly tripled. compounding the problems tuition has run 10 times faster than the typical family's income, putting new pressure on families that are restrained -- that are already strained. >> it can be a burden to go to college. it is really expensive for yourself and family. i come from a middle-class family. my parents had to dig in tear

their retirement savings, and i will still graduate with $10,000 in debt. -- my parents had to dig into their retirement savings. he would be nice of college was free. it would be nice if you have a lot more aid. >> i have always said the role of federal government is to brought -- provide opportunity. it requires an effort and initiative to climb up it. i think the federal government responsibility is to make sure but drop education opportunity is there. -- this education opportunity is there. >> for college to be affordable to someone, [inaudible]

this is funded by taxpayer dollars. we rely heavily on the appropriations from the state, but we have no other way of getting revenue to help support the institution. beyond just paying for the classroom materials, we need the faculty, the cost of the overhead to operate the building, the upkeep of campus and everything. the only other revenue source is tuition, so it is an appropriation -- so if the appropriations from the state continued to go down, it keeps going down, you only have the source of the tuition revenue. >> for private system -- institutions, escalating tuition facts are due to multiple costs. while the federal government has traditionally had a fairly limited role in higher education, some feel you have a

responsibility to address this issue because it addresses national concerns. >> it is absolutely critical for the nation if we're going to continue to be or want to be primary economic powerhouses of the world for us to have first class, best in the world education system. so one way or another i think it is really essential that the government ensures that we continue to have top-notch education and a graduate and under pressure -- the undergraduate level. >> some feel it would be too difficult to resist and deviate from the federal government's historical limited role in higher education. we do not involve government

to that extent of setting price and demand. in terms of the percentage of high-school graduates that go on to congress, if we had the same percentage, it will be paid through entirely through federal government, we would have to massively increase taxes. we would then have to shift towards a vision of a shrinking the percentage of high-school graduates that go to college. >> right now we are involved ts and through pell grant stor guaranteed student loans. i am involved additionally in helping making college more

affordable through the deductibility of college tuition for middle income families. >> basically finding the money to the student. then the student has the choice of going to whatever college he or she wants to. >> the federal government has taken a number of actions to address this issue. they have to change the way student loans are administered. they are investing in community colleges and increasing pell grant funding in college tax credits. in addition, they have work to simplify the financial aid application. however, the issue still remains, but washington does not a soul responsibility in addressing it. government is a very misused term. we are the government. there is no separate entity. if we as the people feel like education is not getting the entire support, then it is our

mandate as the people to take action. want to be an officer for the united states marine corps. >> although we are headed down drastically different paths, there is no doubt that higher education will play a very important role evein our future >> by undertaking this project, we have learned it is not the role of federal government in america to provide us with a free ride. >> it is however the role of the federal government to provide us with the resources necessary to allow us a college education. >> this allows us the opportunity to aspire to be what ever we want to be.

>> go to studentcam.org to watch all of the winning videos. >> throughout the month of april, we will feature the top winners of this year c-span a student cam an documentaries. what to videos every morning at 6:50. during the program, meet the students who created them. stream all of the winning videos any time on line at studentcam.org. >> representatives of small banks and credit unions recently endorsed by house republican proposal to change the structure of the new consumer financial protection bureau. the legislation would replace the single director with the bipartisan commission and make it easier to overturn actions

taken by the bureau against financial institutions. this hearing is just over three hours. the first measure is h.r. 1121 that changes the leadership from a single director to a five- person commission. in my view, this is a critical change to the structure of the bureau. this is not unprecedented for a regulatory agency. securities and exchange commission, the commodities futures trading commission and the federal trade commission are examples of regulatory agencies led by a commission. most noticeably, the consumer product safety commission is led

by a five-member commission. the powers of the bureau are too broad for a single director, and the move to put the commission in place was an important check on power. i would like to commend mr. duffy for his leadership on the second bill we will be considering today. this legislation makes important improvements to the financial stability oversight council ability to overturn a siepi be regulation. -- cfpb regulation. current law also requires a two- thirds majority vote to oversee overturn regulation. this simply sets the bark too high. mr. duffy is to be commended for

his legislation which makes dramatic improvements by lowering the threshold for a vote by changing it to regulation which is subject of the petition inconsistent with the safe and sound operation of the united states financial institution. in addition to lowering this threshold, this changes the votes from two-thirds majority to a simple majority and excludes the director from voting on the regulation. it is my intent to serve as the instructor dropped to serve as the draft. the september events the cfpb to sending personnel to examine regulations. these are correct structures before the designated transfer date. and look forward to hearing from our witnesses. this is just the beginning of what will be an ongoing dialogue on how to better reform. the current structure puts too much power into the hands of one

individual and does not allow for sufficient oversight of the regulations put forth by the bureau. there have been recent statements made about the bureau being made as the voice for american families. and the willingness of the bureau to stand up and stick up for those families. the members of the subcommittee are elected by the american people. it is our responsibility to protect the freedoms and liberties of our constituents. we also have a responsibility to ensure that regulations are in place to properly protect consumers. finally, we have a responsibility to ensure that financialsonal faith to kno decisions are left up to them. i would now like to recognize member for cornminority the purpose of making an opening statement. >> i would like to welcome the witnesses today and think the

chair for calling this important hearing. i appreciate the opportunity to consider these legislative proposals, but i take issue with the title of today's hearing, legislative proposals to improve the consumer financial protection bureau. because i disagree that these proposals are to improve. these proposals we are considering today come from some of the members who last year voted against the dollar-franc by new to production and consumer protection act, which created the siepi cfpb. -- last year voted against the dodd-frank law. the consumer financial protection bureau was created in response to the worst financial crisis since the great depression.

any attempt to delay or we can the cfpb could leave american families and their communities and the economy as a whole exposed to many of the same risks that brought our financial system to the brink of collapse. the -- according to the majority, the bills we are discussing today are to create and promote greater accountability and transparency at the cfpb, but that is precisely what it is doing. the cfpb is working on how to make credit and other financial products clearer and easier to understand so that consumers have the information they need to make informed decisions. these moves, in my opinion, are an attempt to return to the failed policies of the past. the same regulatory and

difference, at the same blindness to real-world consequences. it is reinstating the same mindset of the regulation that was firmly in place in the prior administration as the economy headed towards disaster. it is as if all of the loss, sorrow, misery of the great recession never happened. if you doubt the benefits of an effective consumer protections, then please take a look at what the center for responsible lending have to say about the effects of my credit card bill of rights that was passed with broad bipartisan support in the last congress. the study shows that the credit card act of 2009 has reversed much of the unclear pricing on credit cards, without leading to higher rates or more difficulty in getting credit. furthermore, the greater transparency about the real cost

of credit makes it less likely that consumers will get in over their heads, something many believe was one of the contributing factors to the credit -- to the great credit crisis. this was all reflected in the fact that consumer complaints have dropped dramatically since the implementation of my bill. the consumer financial protection bureau can begin to do for all financial products what the card build the four consumer credit cards, make the irina more competitive and the products fair. less deceptive, and more transparent so that consumers can compare costs. these are all traits in an efficient free market system needs in order to thrive. the bureau is designed to be funded through the fed. in order that it might be just that, independent. this is vital in order to avoid

the kind of politicizing of its mission. will notm that the cfe bpb be subject to oversight is simply not reality. the director will testify price per year to congress. the board will report annually to congress on board and are treating plants. it will submit quarterly financial reports. the government accountability office will do its own audit. the financial stability oversight council will review all cfpb regulations and can turn over turn them what two- thirds vote, an unprecedented power. federal courts will review agency decisions and congress can overturn regulations. elizabeth warren has made it clear she favors free-market

solutions, but like the vast majority of americans, she is opposed to the use of deceptive, predatory, or anti-competitive practices. i would like to end by quoting her. " we want to see innovation, lots of innovation, but innovations need to be around real product difference is that consumers can see and understand, not to run misleading advertising and new tricks buried in the fine print. our goal is simple, we want the credit market to work better for consumers, for responsible providers, and for the whole economy." thank you, and i reserve my time in the event others have opening statements. a>> i would like to recognize this to baucus for the purpose of an opening statement. >> what you just heard from the

gentle lady from new york is sort of what the press has also, that is their message. their message is that this is all about politics, we do not like consumer protection, nothing could be further from the tructh. my bill is for a commission that this house passed. dodd-s what we pass in ted in frank. what we are advancing is not politics, it is the way government has always functioned, and that is not one person with unbridled authority. you have also, and let me say this, professor warren has done a great job of really fooling the national media into thinking this can easily be appealed. nothing can be further from the

truth. sean duffy has introduced a bill that is as spartan as the bill i am introducing, which tells you you cannot even appeal a ruling unless the ruling would bring down the whole financial system of the united states. how absurd is that? someone has to file within 10 days of the consumer protection bureau issuing something. that is absurd. it is designed and a supermajority. it is 70%. i tell you what, no one has gone past this crazy story that we're just attacking ms. warren or do not want consumer protection. i know this congress is more sophisticated to believe that. if they are able to hoodwink the american people, they have pulled the real sham here.

i am advancing the sign language that everyone in this house was the appropriate solution. is what has been discussed for years. someone in the dead of night decided they could just do whatever they wanted to, whenever they wanted to, and the press would not tell the american people. this is not about elizabeth warren, this is about giving one person total unbridled authority and power. >> i would like to recognize mr. scott for two minutes. >> thank you. this is indeed a very timely and very important hearing. i think that essential is basically two points that we have to explore today and make sure we get our hands under. one is that how to be adequate

we put forward the machinery that will effectively to two things? protect the american consumer, and two, make sure that in the process of doing that, that that consumer does not lose valuable access to credit? those are the things that we have to do. we have to explore. we have to really respond to some of the fears of that are out there, and make sure that we answer before we move forward. that this effort does or does not clampdown unfairly on the financial-services industry that has to both help protect the consumer, while certainly at the same time make sure access to credit is there. so i want to get some answers to that.

i want to get some answers to these concerns, because we cannot do it without the financial services industry, and we have to make sure that they are not going to tighten up on credit if such procedures are in place. i think in so doing, we will do the american people a great service. chus iend, chairman baucu has an interesting bill. if we do this, what will be the political makeup of the commission? if it is three, and you have two political parties, somebody is not going to have a fairly good chair when the music stops in terms of balance. i think we have to be very thoughtful as we move forward, and again, i know my time is up, but the major points that i want to impress is what i am after

here is making sure we indeed protect the consumer, educate the consumer against predatory practices come against abuses that have caused so much of the problem we are in today, while at the same time ensuring that he does not lose that valuable access to credit. >> i would like to recognize mr. royce for one minute. >> thank you. the july 21 deadline is fast approaching here. we will soon be left with an agency unlike any other in any way this is britain. for the first time, there will be a director who serves a set term, whose authority is complete over the organization and has thousands of dollars outside the appropriations process. it is a bad president. -- president.

what i offered earlier was something that the prudential regulators wanted. they see what happened with oversight over the gse's. frankly, this bill takes a critical step by empowering regulators to have a greater say by allowing for the will to be struck them. i would also add that mr. scott raises concerns about access credit. beyond that, this worry about tying the hands of the regulators on this is our road we have been down before, where congress did this with respect to fannie mae and freddie mac. let's give the provincial regulators a greater say in this process. thank you, madame chair. >> commissioner miller for two minutes for the purposes of an opening statement?

>> it probably has more checks on its authority than any other agency of anti-government. every regulator of the financial industry is funded separately. they have had to come back -- they're not different except they are on a cap. the otc as a single director. that makes a difference to the banking interest in to the disadvantage of consumers.

the industry talks about safety and soundness. the cfpb cannot prohibit any products from being offered. when a bank says they want to consider safety and soundness, what they are saying is they have got to do things, they have got to do things the cfpb has determined are -- the language of the statue -- may be that a bank needs to go out of business. >> thank you. i would like to recognize my colleague for a moment. >> this legislation day, we are looking at -- it will go a long

way to providing necessary oversight of the consumer protection bureau. and in order to ensure that consumer protections can be implemented without risking the safety and soundness of our financial system, last november voters sent a clear message to washington. i believe the legislation before us today is extremely necessary in order to protect consumers, while also making certain small businesses and individuals are not prevented from accessing credit that they need. this will remedy a flaw in the final regis -- legislation. they created a very limited regulator while having 59 votes in the senate and with a democratic president -- it is so sir. they are bragging about how powerful this regulator was

until after the election. we want to go back to a more balanced approach. >> thank you, madame chair. i want to address comments from our friends and the other side of the aisle. i think back to the family where the innovations in the phone industry were stopped for decades. we grew up with one black phone, a big heavy thing. as soon as that was deregulated, changes began to come onto the market. now they call the cellular phones. now they have what ever. if you think about choking down the financial sector, that it is going to do exactly what one of my friends on the other side said -- it is going to limit access to consumers.

these situations where someone does cheat or take money away from someone, there are a remedies. stick them in jail. when people cheat somebody else -- have that outcome. we do not need to choke down the entire financial services market in the name of safety. >> thank you. one minute for the purpose of an opening statement. >> thank you, madame chair. i appreciate you doing this today. this is to create a more transparent process for what some have labeled as an independent agency. some of us would call it a rogue agency that congress created last year. underdog frank -- under dodd- frank there is authority to issue legislation that affects individuals and businesses with very little accountability.

i represent the second district in michigan. the president has to answer people in an election situation. how does the cfpb reports to him? no one. that is part of the problem. as lee -- as a newly-elected member of the 112th congress, i want to make a change. i appreciate your willingness to hold this hearing on this important issue. thank you. >> thank you. i would like to recognize mr. boles for an opening statement to read >> thank you. before and after legislation is passed, congress has an obligation to correct unintended consequences that frequently arise from what many would call well intended legislation. i played too fast forward. " we do today will have implications for many years to

come. let's go forward 5 to 10 years. let's say the administration is vastly different. you are in powering one individual with an enormous amount of power. we want to talk about one, we have fought. this seems to be common-sense legislation. instead of investing so much in one individual, we are investing in veto authority. it will be a simple majority as opposed to two-thirds, which is a very high standard to jump over. i look forward to your comments in terms of why this is not a good idea, why we need to invest some much power into an individual. broad regulatory mandate should exist within a structural framework that improves accountability. thank you for the time. >> thank you. one minute for the purposes of an old thing statement --

opening statement. >> thank you, madam chairman. in need -- in the dodd-frank bill, the most import question surrounds the creation of the consumer protection bureau. its primary mission is supposed to be consumer protection, although it is unclear what the distinction is between consumer protection and limiting salaries. there is great concern over structure. with no precedents for financial regulatory entities, a single director will have great influence. this means one person can essentially determine what types of mortgage products or credit cards americans can have access to. in its current state, it is also extremely difficult to overturn a damaging rule posed by the

bureau. the funding by this agency has also been carved out of the normal appropriations. the power seemed to go out against the traditions of accountability and openness to create an american credit czar. >> thank you. i would like to recognize mr. dufty. >> thank you. i think all of us agree that we want to protect consumers. i think we have a disagreement that this bill is coming to accomplish that goal. we have an incredibly high standard to overturn the cfpb rule. basically what has to happen here, the cfpb as to create a rule that is going to bring down the whole financial system. then we go outside and get three-quarters of the vote,

three-quarters of the vote to overturn a. the way the law is written right now, the director of the cfpb sits on the board. this is a super-super majority that makes it difficult to overturn a rule that comes from the cfpb that could be damaging to the financial system. i think my bill addresses this into perspective back into the oversight of the cfpb and bring some sanity to the legislation. thank you. >> thank you. that concludes our opening statements. i would like to welcome our witnesses. we have your full testimony. he will be given five minutes to summarize your testimony. -- you will be given five minutes. stick to the five minutes. i like to welcome leslie anderson the chief executive officer of the bank of

bennington, for 5 minutes. >> thank you for the opportunity to testify today. aba is excited to be part of creating a new bureau of financial protection. the banking industry fully supports consumer protection. we're proud of our at -- eight decades of consumer service. no bank can survive without treating customers fairly. the new bureau will certainly impose new obligations on all banks, large and small, banks that had nothing to do the financial crisis and have a long history of serving fairly in a competitive environment. there are several features of the bureau that make accountability imperative. these include features brought about by the extensive new

powers of the agency, the separation of consumer protection from bank safety and soundness, the gap in regulating non-banks, and unaccountable enforcement authority of state attorneys general. we believe the bills that are the subject of the hearings today start of the right direction, but certainly more needs to be done. no detailed recommendations in our written testimony. the me highlight just a few. aba supports h.r. 1121, which would create a bureau for decisions. this is better than giving the head of the burrow the ability to make decisions. it also provides the needed balance in tax -- and checks. aba recommends the commission included members with safety and

soundness regulatory expertise. such expertise would provide important perspective. we also support h.r. 3015. it establishes a majority vote. if a majority vote is believed to be having an adverse impact on the banking system, that will should not go forward. the reviews standard should be read calibrated to account for adverse consequences that do not rise to the level of systemic risk. in addition to further accountability, we believe the bureau should direct its resources to the most glaring gap in regulatory oversight, a failure to provide enforcement actions on non-bank lenders. one suggestion is to mandate

transparency on the bureau's non-bank expenditures. we also strongly urged congress to limit the term "abuses" from the prohibition -- >> i am sorry. can you pull the microphone a little bit closer. >> is that good? >> i am sorry to interrupt. >> no problem. this is the most effective method of keeping the bureau focused on the authorities that it inherited from its predecessor regulators. in the bureau can shape those more than adequate authorities into more effective consumer protections. finally, the dodd-frank act gives additional authorities to the state attorneys general and potential regulators to interpret the rules as they see fit. if we hold the bureau accountable, we must also hold accountable all those who derive

authority from its existence. to do otherwise would completely undermine the reliance of all systems on the hero's rule. rule.eau's we will continue to treat our customers right and make sure they understand the terms of their lungs and their obligations to us. with only 22 employees, i worry about how my bank can handle all the new compliance obligations that will flow from the bureau and from all other dodd-frank requirements. i had about the added cost, time, and castle for my customers -- and hassle for my customers these rules will inevitably create. >> thank you very much. i would like to introduce our second witness, ms. lynette

williams, on behalf of the national association of credit unions. welcome. >> good morning. the morning, members of the subcommittee. my name is lynette smith, and in testifying on behalf of nascu. washington gas has over $80 million in assets. nacu is the only national organization exclusively representing the interests of our federal credit unions, and we appreciate the opportunity to participate in this hearing today concerning proposals to improve the structure of the

consumer financial protection bureau. credit unions were not the cause of this financial crisis, and yet, we are still substantially affected by a number of provisions contained in the dodd-frank act. for example, all credit unions are subject to rulemaking authority of the new cfpb. the requirements in dodd-frank will create compliance burdens for small credit unions like mine. it is with that in mind that nacu has launched a poll -- opposition to the cfpb's dominion over credit unions. we believe its sole focus should be the entities that contributed to the financial crisis.

indications are some of the first areas they can tackle is mortgage lending and credit card practices, areas we've already seen a number of changes in. also, the data interchange price cap remains our number one concern with the dodd-frank act. i will focus my concerns on the new cfpb. frist, nacu will urge the subcommittee to return of 34 will making, examination, and enforcement to all credit unions to the national credit union administration. second, while we were pleased to see the financial stability oversight council -- we believe the current veto authority does not go far enough.

nacu supports legislation to modify the threshold necessary to veto a proposed rule. third, we support h.r. 1121. legislation introduced by chairman baucus and others. we believe the board has benefits over one single director. as a minimum, we believe we must have a senate-confirmed director before it becomes a stand-alone credit agency. fourth, and only three credit unions are above the current $10

billion threshold, and we would be subject to examination and enforcement authority of the cfpb. we believe it is a waste of taxpayer dollars to have credit union examination teams for only three institutions when ncua has been examining these institutions for decades. congress should transfer that authority back to ncua. finally, there are a number of other areas where the cfpb could be improved. i have outlined those in my written testimony. in conclusion, i remain at a loss as to why my credit union has been placed under a new regulatory regime. that being said, we welcome a dialogue with congress about

possible changes to the structure, governance, and authority of the new cfpb. i thank you for my opportunity to appear before you today, and i would welcome any questions you may have. >> thank you. our next witness is the executive director for capital markets competitiveness, the united states chamber of commerce. welcome. >> thank you. distinguished members of the subcommittee, i am jeff sharp. i am the director of the cmc at the chamber of commerce. the chamber supports legislation that ensures consumers get clear and concise disclosures about financial products.

however, the ability of the agency to carry out these missions successfully is in the -- is influenced by organizational structure, coordination with other agencies, and the ability to maintain a long-term approach. the proposals that the subcommittee is considering today will provide an opportunity to address issues essential to the success of the bureau's mentioned. i'll start with chairman baucus's bill, h.r. 1121, which would restructure the cfpb. for four reasons we strongly support this. first, the baucus bill would conform to other federal agencies, including those responsible for consumer protection and the fcc. almost all other federal agencies follow this model.

as chairman baucus, pointed out, the president's original draft bill -- the commission passed this bill in 2009. second, we think the chamber believes a commission wants better, partial decision making. by contrast, leadership by an individual director would create a difficult approach. more stringent rules and stricter enforcement will protect some users from fraud, as has been pointed out. we certainly agree with that. it could also lead to higher prices and reduced access to

credit with significant adverse implications for consumers economic growth. the smart decision making in this complex area depends on the full consideration of diversity. the third point is -- in 2008 in a law review article, the author maintained that the main challenge in establishing a federal regulator for consumer credit products has the job of minimizing capture. we believe this is the best way to address this issue -- this risk. finally, we believe the commission will ensure continuity and stability in the way a single director would not. it would ensure the continuous presence of a significant

number of members at all times and prevent any gaps in agency effectiveness. it would also prevent policy shifts based on political winds. now moving to mr. duffy's bill -- if every credential regulator proposed cfpb -- cfpb regulation, then that should not stand. pardon me. we are taking the bureau of of this for the purposes of this provision. that would permit the result. i would like to address briefly the discussion in committee for including -- the discussion drops would do a couple of things both in terms of the lane. the first would be to delay transfer to the bureau until a

director is confirmed. it would remove the current authorization to include euro examiners. -- bureau examiners. the protection fund -- the protection functions should remain with examine agency. as for the second proposal, we also agree that the bureau examiners -- accordingly, we would support this legislation as well. thank you again for the opportunity to testify. i would be happy to answer any questions you may have. >> thank you, mr. sharp. i would like to welcome our final witness on this panel. he is the director of the washington naacp, the washington bureau and the senior vp for policy. good morning. >> thank you.

my good friends are here on this subcommittee. it is a pleasure and honor to be here to share in discussion about improving the strength of the consumer financial protection bureau. it needs to reach its greatest potential to protect the american public and in ways it has never been protected. a robust cfpb is not only necessary. it is crucial. racial and minority consumers have been underserved and targeted by unscrupulous purposes. the result is an inability to build wealth or to continue to own a home or by car. more than four years ago, i testified over the senate banking committee about predatory lending and the racial disparities existed. at that time i stated above

predatory lending is unequivocably a major civil rights issue. as study after study indicates, predatory practices target minorities, the elderly, and women. the effect is not only devastating to individuals and families, that whole communities as well. it ruins people's lives. since that time, i of fort -- my work has been reinforced by more studies and tragically by the catastrophic consequences for families, neighborhoods and communities after the for closure rate for minority communities -- the foreclosure rate for men or communities has skyrocketed. racial and ethnic minorities are unfairly targeted unscrupulous lenders and we continue to be treated unfairly. paid air -- pay lenders and credit scoring.

for the sake of brevity, and will not elaborate on -- on them right now. i could go on and on with examples that show how racial and ethnic minority americans are taught desperately, and as a result, they have dramatically diminished opportunities to build any sort of wealth for the future. it is because of the blatant targeting of racial and ethnic minorities that the naacp joined many other national civil rights organizations to as a matter of fact, many civil rights organization including the naacp testified before this very committee on the need for a single, robust and other dependent agency charged with protecting consumers and ensuring all americans have the same access to credit. under the old system, at least

five federal agencies played a role in monitoring how financial institutions complied with civil rights laws while three federal agencies provided additional enforcement authority. there was not a single entity charge with investigating our charge with ensuring all consumers were treated equally and fairly. under the new and improved system as mandated by dodd-frank, for many financial institutions consumers financial protection will now be the sole focus of a single agency, cfbp. once operational, the cfpb will have a broader authority to write rules, and enforce federal fair lending and consumer protection laws. most important to the naacp, fair lending is explicitly built in the cfpb's mission structure mandates. dodd-frank clearly states that the cfpb is tasked with the responsibility to and i quote

from the act -- seek to implement and where applicable enforce federal consumer financial protection law consistently for the purposes of ensuring that all consumers have the access to markets where consumer financial products and services and the markets that consumers financial product services are fair, transparent and competitive. in short, a robust function cfpb will work through rule making, enforcement and trotch ensure more fair and equitable financial playing field. the naacp is particularly pleased to note that the cfpb will be looking at almost every aspect of financial services, including mortgage lending, credit cards, overdraft fees and payday loans. madam chair, i recognize the substance is four pieces of legislation intended as committee contends to strengthen the cfpb. i am very interested in hearing the analysis of these four bills because i would like to state unequivocally for the record that the naacp staunchly opposes any moves which would weaken or

undermine cfp blfment or otherwise impede it from reaching its full potential. any proposals that would weaken the cfpb would mean fewer protections for americans in general and racial minorities in particular as they attempt to manage the often confusing world of finances, mortgages and credit. emasculating the cfpb before it gets off the ground will result in an inadequate supervision that failed taxpayers, depositters, investors, homeowners and other consumers. and the targeting of particular groups allow greater risk to our financial system. thank you so much. >> thank you plrks shelton. i would like to begin the questioning -- i have a question for miss smith. on the -- we've heard reports the cfpb personnel accompanied

regulatory staff on examinations. as we know the statutory day to begin the full implementation is not in july. and think think for institutions, safety and soundness and protection of financial data of their clients and their customers, this could be problematic if you have somebody, personnel accompanied who doesn't have any regulatory authority or enforcement authority. do you have a comment on that and are you aware that this is occurring? >> yes, i'm aware. we call it the right along examination. so that would be detriment nall my opinion to any credit union regardless of size. the resources of a union really need to be better served than doing double examinations.

so for that reason i feel that it would be a problem. i can speak to myself and what i experience when an n.u.a. examines us once a year. almost i have to have a year-end audit examination by a certified public accountant. both examinations/audit take approximately 30 days to complete and it takes a lot of resources away from my credit union, resources that i can use to really better serve my members. that needs to be our focus. that's been the credit union's focus all along. while smaller credit unions are supposed to be exempt from the bill as written in the testimony, we just feel this

would be very problematic to the credit union and industry as a whole. >> i think it presents a problem whether it's a ride along or whether it begins issues -- privacy issues of financial data and other issues that magnitude. i appreciate the statement when you get into the regulatory burden, your undermining what mr. shelton addressed in his statements, which is how you get consumer products and credits to the folks who most desperately need it and have been shut out in previously from greater access to credit. >> please keep in mind the last two, three years i have been able to still continue throned to members. when this financial crisis hits, my doors were open and we were lending every day. >> i appreciate that. >> i would like to ask ms.

anderson, the carve out from the banks, you have 22 employees. i can see from your statement and it's a great concern to me as well that carve-out doesn't really exist for a banking institution of any size. whether you're in the larger part that maybe falls under the cfpb but still rules and regulations will reinstitute the institutions. have you hired somebody -- have you anticipated you will have to hire somebody to meet all of the demands that would then take resources from your bank that would be more adequately placed in seeking credit and helping your community? can you address that issue? >> yes, we have actually hired outside counsel who's helping us look at the issues coming at us to try to be prepared. that's taken additional resources.

we also don't have any one person in charge of compliance. being a small institution, everybody has to wear a compliance hat to show our customers and the more time and effort that is expended on new regulations -- we've already got a boat load, more regulations on what we got takes time away from our consumers and customers and also our ability to be active in our community. >> on the issue of a commission as opposed to an individual, to me this just makes good expense. -- common sense. we passed it in the house, when it was passed in the house, and as mr. sharp mentioned in his statement, it was added on at the end as -- it was a change made towards the -- not the end but towards the end of the completion of the bill. i think we've seen now with no statutory person in place, no presidential appointment at this point who has to go through the

confirmation procedure, i think it's problematic if we have no director, what are we going to do? so i think we can solve this a lot easier instead of having a singular person to head and have all of the power concentrated in that one person if we spread it out of the commission, our time is up and we're going to ask the ranking member if she would begin questioning. >> i would like to ask the panelist for your thoughtful presentation and i would like to clarify for the record the house passed the bill starting with the director and only became a commission two years after the designated transfer date. the how conferies rejected an amendment that would have structured the cfpb into a commission. i would like to place in the record the debate which is very expenseive around supporting the need for a strong consumer

protection regulator. without the objection, i will place that in the record. this is the model we have now in government for regulators, controller of the currency, head of the fed, o.t.c., all of them have a single regulator, not commission. i would like to respond really to miss smith's concern about the shadow banking system and that is what we pulled into the tfcb to be reviewed. the commission would only lead to gridlock and in my opinion action that would make it more difficult to react to the disparity between banks and credit unions. and i agree regulated credit unions and regulated banks did not cause the problems. it was these unregulated areas. i would like to say that my

colleagues on the other side of the aisle say they want to reduce the size of government, yet they want to change a single director bureau into a five-member commission. prsh is president obama is having difficulty finding a director who can confirm by the senate. one senator would hold up a confirmation. if he had five, he would have more difficulty in moving forward. but my question i would like to begin with you, mr. shelton, pending a civil rights issue and it is believed by many the old system reacted too slowly during the subprime mortgage boom and that helped bring the economy to near collapse. too often consumer concerns were

not thought about as a second thought or a third thought or they weren't thought about at all. it's believed by me and others if we had an agency such as the cfpb, they would have reacted more quickly to the screams and cries for help coming in, in communities across america. i would like to ask every member of the panel if you think the subprime mortgage boom that helped bring the economy to near collapse, would the cfpb helped to have prevented that? the old system did not work. we need to move forward in a system that will prevent financial collapse in the future. first mr. shelton and then mr. sharp and all the way down to miss anderson. >> thank you, congresswoman. you're absolutely correct. i'm deeply concerned about a lot of the argument being made to

install the implementation of the cfpb. quite frankly, the naacp has done reports and testified before this committee on numerous occasions. we sat down with heads of the cromp troler of currencies, feds sat down with a number of government agencies responsible for this oversight. we did a report in 2007 to show you the slow movement of the existing system and why it is the literal definition of insanity to continue with the existing policy. we will leave the names of the high-ranking officials out of this for a lack of embarrassing them in this particular case. but we went and said we were predicting in 2007 african americans to receive subprime loans in 2005 would go into foreclosure by the end of 2009. needless to say we were underestimating the devastation created by this lack of oversight and regulatory oversight of financial services programs. indeed more than 52% of subprime

lenders tpwheent foreclosure by 2009, that is outrageous. we need a process in the system that actually provides the kind of protection consumers need. what we have every step of the way is, we ask what do you intend on doing? we ask them to splim do things like a moratorium on foreclosures. we were told we allow the market to work it out. we have no plans whatsoever, even though we see the concerns you're having are two years down the line. we need namible, effective process to provide that kind of oversight and enforcement to protect the consumers first. if you protect consumers, we're not going to have the kind of meltdown we experienced. >> madam chair, my time has expired. i would like to request everyone place in writing their response on whether or not the cfpb would have helped to present and protect consumers during the subprime crisis, comparing that to what happened with the old system. thank you very much, i will yield back.

>> thank you. i would like to say in terms of growing government, i remind the committee the cfpb would have over 1,000 employees. it's a large group of government. some of them coming from manning agencies. many still remaining and the fdic he recently announced they would be creating a new compliance division there again growing government further. mr. royce, for mimb minutes. >> thank you. i think we have it exactly backwards. the buyford regulation we have here with the cfpb is exactly like the bifurcated regulation we had with respect to the g.s.e.'s. so if we had congress coming in and muscling the market and basically saying with the act you can overlevage and you have the safety and soundness and prunal regulators that said oh, no that's a mistake. the leverage of those forcing to

buy countrywide and hold it on the books, you're going to do that so everybody owns a house, whether they can make a payment or not, you're go to put that in the system, muscle those goals to create a market for junk like countrywide out there? that's the insanity of duplicating that kind of system and trumping the prudential regulator yet again who wanted to regulate the g.s.e.'s for systemic risk. here we created -- and i will ask this question of mr. sharp, we created a situation where we made it even harder for the prudential regulators to have the kind of say, and they conal block the regulations if two-thirds of its membership, including the cfpb director, would put the safety and soundness of the united states'

banking system or the stability of the financial system of the united states at risk. mr. sharp, do you think this standard is too proud in the number of required votes needed to overturn too high to effectively protect the financial system from onerous and overreaching activism by the cfpb? >> the chamber definitely believes the car is set too high. critical point here it seems like congress recognized there was a potential for a problem here. that's why this provision is in the bill. the way it's set up, bar that the that has not cleared -- that any rule can ever clear. even all five prudential regulators, five of the ten members make a decision the rule can undermine safety and soundness, that's still not enough. you still have to convince everybody else. if this is a safety and soundness question, it seems like if you have unanimity among safety and soundness regulators,

then that should control. >> this is the aspect that concerns me because i talked to prudential regulators and their concerns during the markup of this bill and during the conference on this legislation. let me just ask you, how would you improve upon this language, mr. sharp, if you might make some suggestions? >> sure. the language in the bill before -- >> how would you -- how would you address this issue in the way mr. duffy addresses it with his bill? >> i think the duffy bill is a very good solution. the only thing i would say in addition to what's before us here in the legislation is the authority to review and override reactions only applies to regulations. we heard to professor warren, her inclination, at least at this point and she's not obviously the director, but at this point speaking on behalf of the bureau, is not to regulate through regulations and use

enforcement actions to sort of push for compliance. so that's fine and that's one way of doing things and it wouldn't be the first time an agency did that. if that's the case, that's the primary means of pushing for compliance and shaping the landscape, then those type of actions schuch -- at least some of those actions could be broad and sweeping enough to have safety and soundness implications and it's probably a good idea to have the authority to review that as well. >> thank you, mr. sharp. i'm going to ask mr. wilcox, in your testimony, you expressed support from mr. duffy's bill to strengthen the review of cfpb rules and you mentioned that the icba proposed language to take his bill a step further by allowing the fsoc to veto a bill that would adversely impact a subset of the industry in a disproportionate way. i just ask if you would want to elaborate on your concerns there?

mr. wilcox is not on this panel so i will ask -- i will ask that question of -- of miss anderson. >> i cannot speak on behalf of the independent community bankers, so i've not quite sure how to answer your question. >> well, in that case, my time is almost expired and i will yield back. >> thank you. i would like to recognize miss mccarthy for five minutes for questioning. >> thank you. thank you very much for having this hering. i find it very interesting, you know, i keep seeing every week the numbers and foreclosures, i keep seeing the numbers of people losing their homes. many of them becoming homeless. i know we had all of these hearings going back when we were working to see what we could do to protect the consumers in the future and here is something we

have in place that really hasn't gone into place yet and i know there were concerns with the credit unions and some of the banks, but we also know that elizabeth warren stated in her testimony in march and a few other times before that, that the cfpb must consider the impact of proposed rules on community banks and smaller credit unions as well as consult with federal banking regulators considering written objections raised during the consultant process. we are forgetting why we are putting this together. everybody forgot about the consumer. and everybody can blame everybody else but nobody was there to protect the consumer. no one. so there are specific -- the questions to everybody -- there are specific requirements the cfpb must adhere in carrying out their regulatory activities, shouldn't congress allow the

cfpb to become implemented before we start making changes. we have done this before. it's called technical changes as we go down the road. basically almost every buildup passes -- every bill that passes this house comes back for technical changes. and then if there was a structure in place, what would have happened if there was an agreement on how to respond to a consumer threat? or move forward on a proposed rule? wouldn't the consumer end up being disadvantaged from the gridlock? and that's what we were trying to prevent in the beginning, gridlock? around here, and everybody knows it, republican and democrat, it takes forever to get something done. and in the case of what happened for consumers across this nation, they're the ones that paid. they're the ones that paid. they paid by losing their homes. they paid by losing their jobs, and what are we doing for them?

in my opinion, we did something for them and we're doing nothing now. i'll take mr. sheldon, why don't you start? >> thank you so much. again, nime full agreement to delay the implementation of the long-needed protections of the american consumer is something we have to remember throughout this process. could the cfpb at least have an opportunity before they implement it to become operational? the naacp sent a letter recently to the president asking for a nominee to serve as director for the cfpb. we think that's extremely important. but slowing down this process again brings the terms of insanity. the history revision we continue to hear why it was so important to nut program in place in the beginning is something we must go back and look at. we testified before, and it stands today, we have people being offered products they could not sustain. the issue for us is two-fold. one is the sustainability of

access to credit and secondly, protecting consumers from the predatory nature of some of these financial service institutions. we need to move quickly and decisively to make sure both of those particular divisions are in place w he see this well debated while discussed, has been legislated, president signed the law, let us now implement this program and let the american people enjoy the protections the bureau offers. >> thank you. anyone else? >> thanks very much. thank you very much. we appreciate elizabeth warren's statements and would urge congress to make sure the concerns of small institutions like credit unions are taken into account as the cfpb goes forward. compliance burdens would still be -- would still be inevitable.

credit unions have a board regulators naacp and so we're not the problem so a board can work. if i can just give you personal testimony in what i experienced, when the predatory lenders were out there doing 40-year mortgages, interest-only mortgages, my examine before the regulation got out on naacp in black and white were calling us on the phone saying, don't do it. don't do it. i just had another example last week, and it doesn't have to do with lending, but ncua is a source for our member to complain. i had one member to complain about a $40 withdrawal from an a.t.m. and she did not get the money. she wrote the letter to n.c.u.a. and we -- before i got the letter from ncua, i had already resolved it but then i had to

turn around and respond back to ncua. and this was in less than a week's time. so i think ncua does a good job really of keeping us on the right track. >> i agree with the credit unions and our community bankers. we try to do whatever we could, many of us, as during the regulation part to protect them because we know they did nothing wrong. but unfortunately at times everybody's filled in and that's why we want to try to make it right for those ahead with nothing to do with the economic failure. >> the gentle woman's time has expired. >> thank you. >> thank you. i would like to recognize mr. raciniey for five minutes. >> thank you, madam chairman. one thing and i thank you for all of your testimony today. one thing i heard consistent with all four of you is you all support sound and effective consumer protection. you said it in different ways

but you all said that. my question comes down -- and i want to ask all for you -- four of you, could any of you tell me how that weakens the ability for the cfpb to have effective oversight on sound consumer protection? because you all talked about how the four pieces of legislation were ok. i want to know if anyone can tell me how any one of these four pieces of legislation weaken the ability? >> i don't think they do weaken con exhumer protection. consumers with small businesses are the lifeblood of traditional banks. we take care of them f we don't take care of them, we don't survive. what these changes do will expand our ability to continue to take care of our customers. the commission is far better than having one single person

have the authority over deciding what products i should be delivering to my customers in bentington, nebraska. i have harrod time believe -- hard time believing somebody in washington, d.c., one person understands the needs of my community. >> again, i understand you guys have all indicated your thoughts on how these help. i want to hear if any of you can tell me where it's weakened, any one of these pieces of legislation? >> i would certainly argue it slows the process. one of the things we also experienced is products being offered quickly and not being able to respond quickly enough to assess the damages created by many of the lender packages we ended up fighting. if you end up quite frankly arguments could be made that having a commission or oversight along those lines and not allowing one person to actually survive the leadership in this case, also understanding there are checks and balances for that one person could very well slow the necessary oversight and

enforcement that this agency must be responsible for. quite frankly whether we look at this, all we see are things found to slow down the process and not add value to the process of oversight and protection. >> if it slow it's down and get it's right, we're still in the right place as long as it protects -- >> if you can establish somehow get it right but, quite frankly, what we have seen so far does not establish that. >> mrs. smith, when it comes to credit unions, i have had a number of credit unions come visit me in my district. credit unions do provide services to low and moderate income family households, correct? >> that is correct. >> do you see a director -- it's one of my concerns about having one director who maybe doesn't like credit unions or maybe doesn't like the way credit unions are going that may affect the ability to serve as low and moderate income families? >> absolutely. in answering your first es