a city like washington or san francisco is going to be like. it is beyond imagination. there is no cure for this. the only cure is prevention. we believe the same applies to nuclear power. there is no way to guarantee we will not have another thought the team. as power plants proliferate, the likelihood of that increases. we have to move in the direction of moving away from this to truly sustainable green energy. thank you very much. [applause] >> and now we will hear from dr. jeunesse sherman. -- genet sherman and. >> i think i have my sizslides. i am the editor about -- of the

book about trouble. i did not translate. that is a little correction. i was asked after the bush was published in 2007 and by what -- after the book was published in 2007 if i would edit the book. he said, we have no money. i said, i will work on in thinking it would take about four months. it took 14 months. this is an old slide from a talk i gave in september. this was a cop -- a copy of the book that was written by aleksei nabokov. after fukushima, it is a pooler view of the world and it shows that chernobyl went around the world. unless we stop the world from turning, then every nuclear offend -- even is going to go

around the entire hemisphere in which it occurs. you can see that chernobyl went around asia green land and north america and into canada. and there was fallout in africa. when fukushima happen, i said it was just a matter of time before we have contamination worldwide. these are just a few of the slides from the book. this shows the number of thyroid cancer cases in the ukraine -- rutukraine at the time of the meltdown. there were very few in 1986 and it continues to go up and up and up. one of the greatest concerns about fukushima is the tremendous amount of iodine 131 being given off and iodine 129,

which has a string along half- life. we are particularly concerned about the unborn and obviously, the pregnant women. iodine 131 goes to the thyroid gland of the unborn and then you are dealing with lifelong problems of loss of mentality and low iq. this is of great significance and i do not know what is being done worldwide as far as giving medical advice to pregnant women at this time. this is estimate of the number of cancer rates resulting from cesium 134, 137 and strontium 19. this is the most controversy and criticism we have received on

the book. the statistics are laid out in the vote. clearly. i will not go through them because i will put you all to sleep. but we know now that between about 800,000 people worldwide have died as a result of chernobyl. a new travel book is being published this next week in the ukraine, in kiev, where the estimate is now over 1 million. this is the trend of mortality of ukrainian liquidators who worked from 1986 to 1987 of non- malignant diseases. most of the things that people

think about is cancer as a result of exposure to the chernobyl disaster. but we found the most common cause of death was heart trouble. one of the biggest problems was brain damage in the liquidators. and in their children. a book documents illnesses ranging from brain damage, cataract development in children, thyroid disease, lung disease, heart disease. any woman who has had radiation for breast cancer knows about the development of heart disease. it turns out that these isotopes -- multiple isotopes are picked up in the respiratory system and are circulated throughout the circulatory system and you wind up with

damage to the vessels, of the blood system and a heart. one of the scientists who was ultimately arrested and charged with serious crimes was imprisoned for at least four years in belarus. they did studies in the tissues of the children have died and animals that died and they found high levels of cesium 137, the same in each other of the animals that he had studied before chernobyl. next, please. we hear that this is radio- phobia and that the reason people are sick is that they are worried about radiation and compensation and other political problems. we see the anomalies in plants in chernobyl. these are birth defects in

plants. it is not just humans who have been affected that we have been able to document the effects. these are barn swallows who have abnormal for other development. -- fetter development. and once again, multiple studies of domestic and wild animals, birds, fish, trees, bacteria, viruses -- all of them without exception develop changes. is not just humans. the book goes into the flora and fauna and human affects that we have seen as a result of chernobyl. believe me, we will see it as a result of fukushima, sadly. this is the concentration of some of the radio nuclei's in

fish. these were measured in finland, ukraine, poland, baltic, norway, russia -- of various kinds of fish. this is enormous fallout through that entire area. the greatest concentrations from the chernobyl disaster fell in the ukraine, belarus, and european russia. but the greatest amount fell in europe outside of those three countries. next, please. this is of enormous concern right now. this is from a ukrainian publication and it shows the emory's eelam 241. -- amorezium 241. this is the breakdown of plutonium.

unfortunately, it is water soluble, therefore, it is picked up by plants and get into the food supply. next slide, please. this shows the distribution in the year 2056. note that this is going to go across the entire southern border of belarus, ultimately, into poland and into the baltic and down the river into the black sea. the half life of amorezium is 140 years. it takes 10 half-life to completely disappear. we're talking 40 centuries before this is gone.

one of the debt problems with the whole situation of chernobyl and other nuclear problems is the agreement that was written, that was signed between the iaea, the international atomic energy agency, and leave the world health organization. the world health organization is to promote and protect the health of all peoples, to act as a directing according authority on international health work, and to assist in developing an informed public opinion among peoples on matters of health. the iaea is quite different, to accelerate and a large the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health, and prosperity throughout the world. next slide, please. i will not read all of this word for word, but what is happening is the iaea and the who have this agreement in place since 1959 that neither one can write

or discuss anything without the agreement of the other. that is like having dracula garb the blood bank. -- guard the blood bank. this must cease. i read recently that the u.n. secretary general ban ki moon was in trouble yesterday and said, we have to rethink this whole -- in chernobyl yesterday and said, we have to rethink this whole issue of nuclear power. i hope you will all urge him to stop this agreement because we are not getting it out of hiroshima that we need. sorry, i misspoke. out of fukushima. and if you noticed, it has not been on the front page of the "washington post" or the "new york times" for the past week. we need continued research.

we need to initiate research on the fukushima disaster and we informatione this disaste transparent and available to everyone. one of the things that they did with an organization called belrad was to measure the radiation levels in food and also in children and to make this information available. we need to have this in place now. this is a picture of this man before he died. they were standing outside of the world health organization in geneva, saying that they need to get rid of this agreement between the who and the iaea.

these are heroes as far as i'm concerned. i think that is the last one. thank you. [applause] >> thank you very much, dr. sherman. now we will hear from natalia amera dena -- mironova. she speaks fluent english and fluent russian, given that she is from kazakhstan. we do have a translator here, if necessary.

>> [speaking russian] >> my first question to this audience -- >> [translator] my first question to this audience is, do they know what we are talking about here? and if they know, why do they make gethose kinds of decisions and based on what values do you make those decisions? i tried to ask those questions and i tried to write a book about -- what is the title? >> [speaking russian] >> [unintelligible]

>> she knows english better than me. >> [speaking russian] >> let's see how connected we are in this world. where i live, they made the bomb that exploded in provincetown in the nuclear test field. kazakstan in the nuclear test field. they also brought nuclear fuel into my region, and all of that fuel turned out to be in the river.

and so, we can see that all of these military programs, in the end, they really mean radioactive waste for the society. we will talk about social and political issues with chernobyl. the chernobyl accident has not become a political lesson for the government. and it does not depend on what kind of government we have. we have authoritarian in the soviet union, and democratic in the usa, or whether it is a traditional government as we see in japan. but for the soviets, for the

people of the former soviet union, the chernobyl accident has become a different kind of lesson. it has become a lesson of negative social experience of environmental injustice on one side, and on the other hand, it really reveals dysfunctional system of governance and management in that state. and maybe that is why all information about the chernobyl accident was immediately classified.

and also, the information about the consequences of the chernobyl accident was classified as well. and of course, in the 1990's, they were hiding information using the mechanisms of business relations, new mechanisms of public relations and communications, etc. if you go back to the history of chernobyl accident, it is

important to understand that the way the system operated at the time, it contributed to secrecy of the information. the way that the ministry of health and the ministry had been responsible for nuclear energy, they had all been states with in the states themselves. they had their own bureaucracies and systems of " -- a classification of information.

the chernobyl accident contributed to basically the collapse of that system. when i observed what is going on right now in japan, asking myself whether we have the same kind of situation in the soviet union and why haven't we noticed that, what we see right now in fukushima is basically the collapse of all kinds of systems, the economic system,

the financial system, and also the transportation system and public health system as well as the food supply. we have exactly the same situation after chernobyl. what happened, actually, is that the chernobyl accident became one of the reasons why we had major changes in the soviet union. and what happened is that we have not really analyzed and noticed what was going on in the aftermath of chernobyl because of those changes that were

partially caused by chernobyl as well. therefore, we can say that the lesson of chernobyl was not really identified or defined, and therefore, not really studied. people who were decision makers in the soviet union at that time, they became decision makers in the new russia as well. it did not really allow for identifying the dysfunction of the system, and also, the

mistakes in the decision making as well in terms of the technical and political aspects. i remember that dmitri alexander was the chief -- so he was the chief of the backs >> [speaking russian] >> he was in charge of the chernobyl nuclear plant. he was also in charge of, basically, dumping nuclear race when -- nuclear waste in my

region. >> he was responsible. he was the key person, but he had no responsibility. he retired peacefully from his position. this is again about decision making. [speaking russian] >> the social lessons. >> [speaking russian] >> we can see that the catastrophe destroyed social and economic and political systems of the state. it created the social welfare of population, but also dramatically increases the cost of public health.

the released isotopes, they contain -- contaminated the entire area around, contaminating the food, air and water for hundreds and thousands of years. really, you cannot use this territory for that amount of time. and also, many people had to territory.rom that are

>> [speaking russian] >> if we take, for example, the contamination with plutonium, basically, it stays in the environment for the next 120,000 generations, which is definitely well beyond the life cycle of any political leaders or any political system.

thus, we have a question -- who is responsible? why do 120,000 generations basically have to deal with a situation that was created by one decision of one political leader, or a bunch of political leaders now. >> [speaking russian] >> and now i would like to speak about three things that i think are very common for trouble and fukushima as well. first, the delay and also classification of true information about released isotopes leads to the increasing

number of people who are affected by radiation, also among the liquidators and the population. basically, the nuclear operator is release of any kind of accountability. basically, those taxpayers and victims themselves who are paying for all of the consequences of any kind of accidenta. and of course, there is no national budget that would be enough to cover all of those expenses.

[speaking russian] >> basically, because there is not enough money in the budget, in order to save that money come all of these organizations who are supposed to protect the population, they usually reorganize quickly and changed their status and then they become representations of some kind of social relation when they actually go into the court with the victims of the accident.

we can say that all countries and all the guns around the world had basically the same experience with this accident. how come we have a situation if we do have iata, which is supposed to regulate -- the iaea, which is supposed to regulate the nuclear safety?

when we citizen of russia and other victims of the chernobyl accident start looking into the situation, we found that after all of this agreement that sherman mentioned, but she mentioned only the one with the world health organization. there were others. it is an agreement -- there is an agreement with the u.n. food and agriculture organization. the world meteorological organization. and also the national organization -- labor organization, which is responsible for the situation with the liquidators. and of course, unesco.

all of these organizations basically gave up their rights to do truffaut research on any kind of consequences. -- truthful research on many kinds of consequences. only the scientific sphere with no application witto real peopl. we can say that all of these agreements are -- which were signed in the 1950's and 1960's, they are definitely old for an hour days -- for now and they

need to be reviewed. let's talk about today. the aftermath of the chernobyl accident was sort of in the shadow of social and other big changes in the soviet territory. we can see that today, basically, the interest of the business industry is trying to downplay the effects of nuclear radiation. and nuclear renaissance.

and that is why russian and the kazakstan, it is the most dangerous situation we can witness today. i especially worry about basically, the collapse of the nuclear maturing -- monitoring systems, regulation of them. and i was surprised to find out that it is basically almost the same situation here in the united states.

ambitions have been announced to build 35 nuclear reactors in 15 countries, including bangladesh, vietnam, jordan. countries that have almost no experience of managing nuclear energy or nuclear plants. and now, the problem is that russia is trying to increase its lobbying capabilities within the iaea so that they will now

train the staff for the iaea. so, iaea is basically balancing right now between the fear of people against nuclear energy or nuclear weapons, and the interest of the nuclear industry. and is basically turned into the lobbying agency for a nuclear renaissance. and it has been confirmed through announcement that there will be 30 countries where we

will have nuclear plant is built before 2013. that is why i think the role of the iaea should be reviewed. and the general secretary of the u.n. should consider its role very seriously and played a role as well. -- and play a role as well. and wouldn't we like to see the situation when the relationships between the countries about nuclear energy or construction of new plants would remind you

about the corruption situation. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you very much, doctor. we have a few minutes before the break. we will take questions and answers. probably for another 15 to 20 minutes and then we will break. we will come and -- come back and form the second panel. i want to pose this question to all of you. is i'm sure the ambassador well aware of this, too, but what is the situation today around the chernobyl plant? what area is prohibited for long-term human living, and our visitors still permitted to the area?

i am told that there is still some burgeoning chernobyl tourism as well. to what extent is a danger in the ukraine, were belarus in particular, to go through this area. >> yes, tourism around the nuclear issue is burgeoning both in nevada and there as well. people are touring the test sites in nevada. there's the museum that is in nevada as well. i think that will probably happen at chernobyl. i think for a short trip into these areas, it is probably not very dangerous to people. i do not know that i would worry lot. alloa i do not think i would be taking children into the area, quite frankly. i'm not sure how that has been thought about.

you go into the nuclear test site in nevada and there's a place where they did it, about 100 feet under the ground to see if they could dig canals with bombs, and the russians did this, too. and there is a sign here that says "do not stand here longer than 15 minutes" because it is radioactive still, and that was back in the 1950's. it is relative in terms of how safe is. >> there is still an exclusion zone of about 1000 square miles, 2500 square kilometers approximately. that will remain there for some time because the main contaminant is caesium 137. there are people that have gone back there and they faced some risks. they make the trade-off because they want to go home. and that is something we should consider, the pull of going

home purses even some risks. the main risks are still being faced by the workers, i think. and from a technical perspective of chernobyl, it actually is a nuclear waste suppository. most of the plutonium, 90% or so, is still in the moulton reactor core -- molten reactor core that is buried in concrete. and i'm very glad about the agreement that you have with the french, and that is a very good thing, but it will have to be monitored and the workers who work there will continue to face some risks. i do not know how we are thinking about monitoring the site for beyond, actually. >> i think we can take a lesson from the my trindle was done previously. there were some 600,000 liquidators, maybe more, maybe

fewer. i spoke with one of the chief musters recently, a gentleman from the kiev institute of radiation prior to this, and his job was to go in and find hotspots are on the plant and tell workers, you can go here for 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes. and he has been back and said monitorshe radiation monitorin are gone. he does not know if they were taken to moscow. we have no idea how much radiation they got. i ask this gentleman, you were in line to their. you knew you were a radiation physicists. how much radiation did you get? and he said, i have no idea. i do not think the situation is going to change a lot now in fukushima. i think we will see the same kinds of things. >> i think it is social and

cultural phenomena in. we did not loan this phenomena starting from hiroshima and nagasaki and from chernobyl and from fukushima. this information was collected inside the technical and nuclear establishments. we need to get social scientists to understand this phenomena, too. i stayed in karachi. this is to and a half times chernobyl. i stayed.

i needed to understand what the phenomena is. but i remember i was without shoes walking on the field, very highly contaminated because i have no knowledge in the beginning of the 1990's. how many people have knowledge about this? the knowledge is kept in a close circle of scientists. >> i would also like to add that radiation is not a new science. it was 60 years ago that through x-rays they found a cause genetic defects. we have known about the radio isotopes for decades. this is not new science.

we have ignored it, saying, we have to look and we really do not know. we do know where strontium 90 goes. we know where caesium 137 goes. and we know where plutonium goes. and we ignore it at our peril. >> with that, i want to open it up for questions and comments. i will recognize people, but please, when you stand up, state your name and organization and to whom you would like your question directed to, or the whole panel for that matter. >> [unintelligible] when you were talking about the blow a cool and social consequences, you said that it contributed to the falling apart of the soviet union. we know that because 93% of the people of ukraine voted for independence five years later. but unless i misunderstood the translation, did you at the

beginning say there is no difference between what type of government has to deal with this issue? if you compare japan to chernobyl, i would like to remind everybody that five days after, hundreds of people -- children were asked to operate on the streets of kiev. it was more than 100 days before pashtun was given to the citizens. and it was also more than one year before any humanitarian assistance was allowed into the ukraine. that is completely different than what is allowed in japan. -- ben what has occurred in japan. i want to make sure and understood your comments. >> when i talk about --

fukushima day-by-day, the accident, using the image key, what i saw in general, only one week and we produce the same kind of arguments as chernobyl about safety levels of radiation. yes, of course, fukushima happened in that context. this was informational society and society itself was organized enough to control what the government is doing and what the government response is. that is why the government -- talked weakly in

chernobyl. when the japanese government started talking about caesium 137, i called up and ask, what about your dying? they need immediate reaction. they immediately need information to the population about how they need to populate -- protect themselves. but we still do not know about strontium. it must be in the air and water, but no one knows about it. the plutonium is also very

important because of air and because of press. -- breasts. it is half of the information and it is the same mistake that we saw in chernobyl and maybe through my island also. when the japanese discussed this, it was always -- obviously from the chernobyl experience. it was the only model. it was obvious from the first hour, but the government followed the same sadnessteps an

the ukraine. i talk about the same nature of we government's even if have been different type of governments in the countries. that is what i was trying to explain. >> we have to face the fact that the historical reality of the nuclear industrial complex is secrecy, minimization, and cover-up. it may be different in the soviet union than in the united states, let there are blatant examples of this. for example, when we were setting off nuclear-weapons in nevada and i was a child in iowa and kodak corp. realized there -- they're film was being clouded by, the government would tell kodak when they were setting off a bomb, but would not tell me in iowa about it.

there is example after example of this whether you are in a democracy or in the soviet union. imagine what will happen when something like this happens in north korea. it is the same worldwide phenomenon and it is the hallmark of of the military- industrial complex, which is secrecy, cover up and industrialization. >> i remember trying to communicate back in the 1980's and 1970's with colleagues of the former soviet union. it was almost impossible. you would place a phone call and would add your telephone for a return phone calls for up to eight hours. e-mail and telephones and cell phones make things very different today than back then. you had a question. >> i am a professional -- a professor of engineering at the university of california.

i am also with the jefferson science fair. i am also a member of the national research council investigating the accident. i want to thank the ambassador for hosting. i have been to your beautiful country and for three days i spent time with the of reverse and i worked on the plan. i have two questions and one minor comment. i have followed your great work, but one of the major causes of trouble have been investigated for the past 20 years and a lack

of safety kolter has been identified. -- safety culture has been identified. one of the problems with fukushima that we see is an independent nuclear safety agency. they do not do their job. that is why even when we criticize, we have to be thankful for the nrc. that confidential memorandum of understanding the and i e a -- the an iea, about 10 years ago -- and i was pleased to see it -- i brought to the attention of a major reporter the risks at

fukushima. he asked me a very interesting question. i asked my graduate student to find it and he could not find anything. he started quoting one chapter in french on the internet. and he asked me, has there been any evidence that country's official memorandum has been used for any chernobyl cover-up? any evidence? >> as is in the chernobyl will, which by the way, was published at originally $150 by the new york academy -- we now have it available for $5 and also on the internet in and e-book for $2.99.

but in the book, it was pointed out that the chernobyl forum, which was released by the iaea and the who, said there may be 4000 people who died. there were not many very -- very many problems and we need to move on and forget about chernobyl. in that document, they used about 300300 sites -- they use about 300 sources that they cited. later, they sighted about 5000 articles, many of them never before published in english. they have been previously published in belarus, ukraine and russia. most of the articles were published in peer reviewed

journals. and the book by nabokov includes information from british literature, greece, sweden, norway, france, the u.s. and the slavic -- and in the slavic languages. the difference was the who/iaea chernobyl form covered very little literature, did not cover the costs of it languages, and was very limited in what they found -- did not cover the slavic languages and was very limited in what they found. they said, we need to move on and get over chernobyl. i think that is the difference. thank you. >> just to respond briefly to a comment, i was going to say something about the prior comment also. i think there is some truth to what the prior, under said. the way the nuclear establishment is established is

in a certain context. in april of 1945, the general was worried about lawsuits if people's windows got blown out. there was a lot of fear of different agencies, and maybe nrdc. whistle-blowers in the 1970's may have lost their jobs and had a lot -- a hard time inside the seven, but they did not lose their heads as they had under -- inside the establishment, but they did not lose their heads as they had under stalin. there is more of a an identity culture.y coulte although, i think the culture

continues. what you have said is a relative statement. i do think today the u.s. regulatory commission for nuclear is far too resistant to impose regulations on safety and its vigilance in protecting the american public is not very good. there are plenty of examples, like the recent report about self assessment and self reporting, and so on. while i would not disagree with your relatives statement, i do not think there is an adequate level of vigilance in the u.s. >> i am a business consultant here in washington d.c., but i worked in the ukraine.

first, i appreciate the attention to this. many have felt the lack of interest and, for some, like of support for this issue. i was very close to the chernobyl disaster. my son was born in the year of the chernobyl disaster. i know how it is difficult to keep our children healthy after that. i worked for 10 years of the president -- for the president of ukraine. one of the first results of the chernobyl disaster in terms of economic development in the ukraine was in 1994. my question is, what do you think about demographic consequences now?

there was a very bad prognosis for best ways, worst ways, and other issues in ukraine. what do they think now? you spoke about health issues. can you summarize it and give a picture of the program? >> the health data in the area is terrible, and we have learned that only -- according to the belarus government, only 20% of children are considered healthy in belarus. some 80% are not well, and we are talking about immunological problems, genetic problems, birth defects, heart disease, brain damage. it is a tragedy. and who will be the artists and the teachers and the musicians in the future if 80% of the children are sick?

and now we are facing the third generation. >> i participated last november in a conference organized by an organization and the department of special medical biological problems of russia. the question was, is the statistic methods, statistical, population statistics approach works for the estimation of the nuclear disaster, and a very important person, dr. gonzales, says this is a good question. so the question, the big question involved message --

methods of -- the rate of illnesses in the population, kids, teenagers, and adults, kids and teenagers, more illnesses than in adults, twice as many. we took only about -- we did not talk about the genetic defect. i talked with the professor and he explained how difficult it is to published genetic information in the medical review journals. before this information came to be used as an informational level of increase to degrees, it needs to be publicized, but it is very difficult for this kind

of research to be publicized in a special journal to calculate with the world health organization. >> when you think about the psychological, ethical -- look at hiroshima and nagasaki. we set up bombs in nevada to figure out how much radiation people got. this is an entirely difficult situation where you have people getting ongoing radiation. you have psychological, social factors that feed in here. now we are looking at pesticides, and what is the combination of these things. you think about the money that went into hiroshima and nagasaki, millions and millions of dollars to do this. the ukrainian budget, in the ukraine, as i understand 1/6 of

the ukrainian budget was dealing with chernobyl. now this 5% to 7% of the budget every year. the world has not stepped in like we did in hiroshima and nagasaki and said let's figure this out, let's follow it. again, that is the secrecy and the cover-up that is going on today. it is huger then it has ever been, if you look at it that way. how much of this money is counted in to the cost of nuclear power today? do you hear people in the nuclear industry saying, well, gee, we have to add in the cost of the budget that went to the ukraine, to the kilowatt hour that is spent? no no, it is just not done. this is part of the tragedy, frankly, of all of this. and it is going to happen again. >> i have a question in the front, and i will take two more in the back. then i think we should break we

will have a second -- then i think we should break. we'll have a second panel, so if we do not get to your question now, please feel free -- i know our speakers will all stay, and we can ask it of them in the second panel. >> my name is marcia smart, and i'm a social worker by training. i have been concerned about environmental health. my concern is for future generations. almost 50% of women have an unplanned pregnancy. that means they are going off to visit a contaminated area and they do not know they are pregnant. we know that if the thyroid is affected, it will affect the brain of the children. and perhaps dr. sherman can talk about this, or dr. patterson, further. we have one out of 110 children with autism. we have an increase of alzheimer's. there is a wonderful book which stated what the problems are.

i mean, the future is very grim, if nobody has a brain, to deal with it. >> i agree with you that probably the greatest concern in the exposures of children to the chernobyl fallout is brain damage. how are we going to survive as a society on this earth if we have -- if our children are born brain damaged? we do know that the thyroid is key to delivering a healthy child. >> well, you know, i will start and end with this. if this were an experiment in my university, it would have been stopped long ago. this is a cruel, poisonous experiment that we are carrying out on our environment and ourselves that we are never going to know the end of trade in the news today, about pesticides, measuring

pesticides levels in the pregnant women and finding that children age 7 have lower iq's and have difficulty doing particular tasks. what are the synergistic effects of pesticides and radiation and these things? the answers to these questions are we do not know, other than they are not good. again, i would say, you know, this is a cruel, poisonous experiment that we are carrying out on ourselves that needs to be stopped. >> could i add one thing? john loughlin, the famous ph.d. said that the power was random -- that nuclear power was random murder. we do not know who it will fall upon, told they are, or their status. >> i work for city health

international, which works in belarus for the past 20 years, and i'm going to belarus and we will be commemorating chernobyl there. my question is particularly for dr. sherman and dr. patterson, because you both very convincingly have given evidence that the long-term public health consequences we do not even know yet, and they will be lingering for many, many years. i am curious what your predictions are for what role, particularly in international, the medical community will play. this is in the spotlight now because of the anniversary of the tragedy, and fukushima and the tragedy there. why does it need to be an issue a public concern? i am concerned -- i am curious what your prognosis would be,

what the international medical community will continue to do in this region in the years to come. >> go ahead. the difficult questions. >> one of the studies that fascinated me in the book is a fallen 22 generations of voles, little woodland creatures. and they found that the genetic changes stayed, did not disappear, and remained constant. so i do not think we will produce better human beings or more compentntntnt more functional human beings if we keep radiating them. >> part of your question was, what can we expect of the medical community and the world in terms of helping belarus and ukraine, and i think history is the best predictor of future behavior. that is an inadequate response at best. you know, i worry about the new

sarcophagus, the new sarcophagus that is supposed to last for 100 years. this one was supposed to last for 10 years, and is now 25 years out. the new sarcophagus, we do not have the money to build the yet. we have people promising, but with the world economy as it is, are we going to get the money? are the french going to pull out of this because they are not being paid? these are all factors in the future. that's sarcophagus is only going to last 100 -- that sarcophagus is only going to last 100 years. what happens after that? these are some of the dilemmas, and i think it relates to your question. we are trying to manage the unmanageable here. i think we do not want to create more unmanageable situations, so the answer is we all have to work as hard as we can to abolish nuclear weapons from the world because we have to prevent nuclear war, and to move away from nuclear power because we are going to see more of these

things. >> you all know that natalia mironova at this from -- natalia mironova is from just north of kazakhstan, a three-hour flight east, southeast of moscow. we have done quite a bit of work in that region, but somewhat separate from the issue we are talking about today, unbeknownst to most people, that region and the neighboring region houses one of the world's largest nerve agent chemical weapons stockpiles. we have been in that region now for 15 years, as green cross and global green usa as well as the u.s. government, are the russian government, and others to try to safely destroy that stockpile. when we had a local outreach offices in the local village next to the stockpile, formerly

very top secret -- we also had offices -- when we open the office her hometown, our russian colleagues said to us, it is fine if you talk about chemical weapons destruction, we are all agreed that we have to abolish chemical weapons. but please do not talk about radiation or bring in any geiger counters. so there is still a very high sensitivity, obviously, about the accident and the radiation, man-made radiation there. >> let's turn to the last question and then we will break for coffee. yes? >> i heard the german ambassador give a speech among other people on green energy. nuclear power came up and he indicated they wanted to eliminate nuclear power by 2036 due to chernobyl. i wonder what the feeling of the panel is on this issue. that is a pretty long timetable

to eliminate nuclear power. you have to come up with other sources to at least maintain the power that you have at the moment. if not, the it general increase of population that needs additional power, where will it come from? it's fairly safe and it is clean energy, but the recent events in energy clearly show that it is not -- the recent events in japan clearly show that it is not. >> i have researched this country and i wrote that book that i mentioned earlier, which you can download free. five years ago i did not think it could be done at reasonable cost. but i do think it can be done at reasonable cost. i will give you one specific number. the cost of wind energy in this country is about 8 cents or 9 cents a kilowatt hour. the cost of storage, compressed air storage, is about 3 cents.

the cost on the open market is not determined because wall street will not finance it. but assuming junk bond financing, the only thing it could get, would be somewhere between 12 and 20-plus cents. so we already know how to do it cheaper than nuclear. the worst thing that can happen with a wind turbine already happened in north dakota just the other day. a blade fell off. nobody was hurt, but at worst you can imagine a couple of people might have been there and seriously hurt killed. then when it is over, it is over. you pick up the pieces and move on. with nuclear, you never picked up the pieces and were moved -- and move on. we have more nuclear energy in this country, -- there it would -- we have more wind energy in this country than other countries have oil.

regarding germany, this country is a trade deficit country. we are complaining about the labor in china. germany does not complain much about cheap labor in china. they run very hard to stay ahead of the technological race, and they export bmw's to china and make a lot of money. when the chinese get richer, they do not want chinese cars. everybody wants bmw's. i do not have one. but, really, the germans in stalled more solar panels than anybody, even though they have a rather cloudy country, worse than seattle for solar. partly because i think they are determined to stay ahead of the technological race, and they are. siemens will become a leader in offshore wind energy, and we are worried about whether we will want to look at the view. that is the problem. >> i think the other thing that we do not talk about. we talk about wind and other

things, is conservation and efficiency. if we could do that today, it would produce jobs and save 30% of the electricity we would use. i 2020, that would obviate the need for 100 new nuclear power plants. conservation and efficiency. this has to become part of our mantra. >> the one thing i would like many armed guards have you seen around a solar panel? we will never, ever stop using armed guards to guard the nuclear waste and the nuclear power plants. >> or how many terrorists are thinking about destroying a solar panel? >> exactly. think about that. >> let's take a coffee and tea break now, and we should be back in about 15 minutes. thank you.

[applause] >> here are some of the programs featured on c-span this holiday weekend. three former secretaries of state talk about american diplomacy. in revisit of the star vs. clinton case with lawyers who participated, including a lawyer

from monica lewinsky. on easter sunday, president ford's sun stephen's -- president for's son stephen talked about ethical issues. and tom brokaw and vice- president biden on senator bob dole. for a complete list of programs and times, go online at c- span.org. >> 2/3 of the american people depended on the network news of those three networks as their primary source of news and information. about the president of the united states. all were hostile to richard nixon. >> go inside pivotal moments of american history online at the c-span video library. search, watch, clip, and share, with every c-span program from 1987 through today.

>> today, it is no more. no! what are you doing? i give you the ipod nano. >> in his monologues, like daisey comment on the world as he sees it. find out more about his obsessions sunday night on c- span's "q&a." you can also download podcasts of "q&a," available online at c- span.org/podcasts. >> coming up next, we take you to new orleans for a discussion about the current state of the news industry. it was part of the 25th annual

tennessee williams new orleans literary festival. panelists include republican strategist mary matalin and syndicated advice columnist amy dickenson. it is 1 hour 15 minutes. >> she is also on npr's "wait, wait, don't tell me." her voice is -- >> all right. >> people do not know that. mary matalin is a political consultant doing work with the republican party. she has been an assistant to george w. bush and vice- president dick cheney. i bet she has stories to tell. she has appeared in various documents -- documentaries and

movies along with her husband, james carville. the political analyst for the fox news channel, on the talk radio network. he is also a stand-up comedian, and on the cartoon network series called -- he is the voice of stormy. >> now you are impressed, right? >> is it possible to just give a quick -- >> it is like me but a lot louder. it is like me after drinking. >> this is a great topic. we hope to have time for different questions. let me throw out this to all of you.

if you want to get the details outside of where you -- who view -- or do you get opinions that you trust? >> i will start because i am at the end. i have npr on all the time, so that is sort of natural. yeah, i know. hey, we don't need you. just kidding. but, like everyone, i am at this transition where i am piecing it together in different ways. when this japanese incidents, when this tragedy happened in japan, i ran to my computer, and if your home page is yahoo! or msn, you see what they feed you.

i like bbc america. i have not watched network news in a really long time, which is shocking to me. i also turn to cnn reflexively when there is a breaking story, but then i would say through this japanese story, which is very breaking, complicated, hard to cover, i have been very disappointed, honestly, at cnn's coverage. i feel like, you know, i have been disappointed, especially, honestly, when anderson cooper shows up and they get the camera on him and he walks around -- what is up with that? anyway, but i digress. those are my sources. >> anderson spends a lot of time in the gym. >> i know, i know. >> that black t-shirt does not

come for free. spending less time in the gym myself, what most characterizes my answer that is multitasking and short attention span. i'm the guy with the remote in his hand on between fox and msnbc and cnn. i think it has resulted in me being very, very broad in my knowledge in very shallow in my knowledge. that is what i think most of us kind of need to be these days. we need to be quick and at least appear like we kind of know something on a huge amount of topics in a hurry. eventually maybe we can get around to really remembering how a nuclear power plant melts down in japan. but in the meantime we have to be kind of sami-smart -- semi- smart really fast.

>> mary? >> well, i will come backwards to your question to the absence of knowledge precludes the presence of many opinions. there's almost an inverse relationship. i would say everybody out of the box on japan, on egypt, on libya, was off, and that is a consequence of having a lot of air time to fill so the quality diminishes as the quantity increases. but overall, what happens when there is an international disaster, any kind of news event, more people turn to cnn. full disclosure, i work for cnn, but i have been on every one of them for 35 years. but the ratings, cnn does know how to cover this. i would say, just because you brought it up, anderson cooper is a dear friend of new orleans.

there was nobody who stayed on the story as much. >> no, i know that. >> i do not know if he is conservative or liberal, but he covers these stories in detail. i have not seen that covers that you might find objectionable, but i find him an incredible, you need reporter for the times in which we live when people turn -- this is not my bias, but the data suggests that if people want news headlines, they turn to cnn. if they want opinion, they turn to any of the other cable networks or their online source of choice. if they want in the spring, they turn to "the wall street journal" or "the new york times." people in this information age, they're not supplanting necessarily the traditional sources of media, they are augmenting them and integrating

them with the traditional. the upshot of all of this is that some people say they have read, they have some source of news yesterday. that means only 17% of us are ignoramuses, a pretty good harbinger of the future. >> the news is pretty broad. >> they checked in at some level. >> since we raised the anderson cooper thing. as someone who witnessed everything happening with my community, with katrina, i do not know if the journalists were telling the story for the sake of journalism are putting on a show. sometimes you wonder about that, and you wonder that with anderson cooper and geraldo. i'm just not sure where it lands. in washington there is something called the newseum. there is a news clip where mary

is talking about money she just got from congress, and anderson cooper put her down and says you all can talk about money from politicians but there are people suffering. it was a very yahoo! type moment, but a senator has to do with congress and make relationships. i'm just and lead. i do not know what to think about it. >> he really, really emerged during the coverage, and, bless him, months after the storm i loved the fact that he kept coming back, would not leave, and i think he made something happen, which sort of speaks to our topic. he became an advocate for the little guy, the faceless citizen. but i feel like in the course of doing that, his brand has sort of run amok, and now it is

almost like you never see the faceless citizen, you see him advocating for the person. it's just a point of view. he does more good than not. >> i am not totally sure that is bad. one of the things i have run across is that each one of them does may be one thing well. nobody brings depth and perspective on a story as well as words on a paper or words on a screen. but television does a hugely better job of connecting us with people. people see you on tv and they feel like they know you, and it is kind of a little window on ul. sol in the end, i think the answer is to recognize what each of these media does great.

do not apologize because the be put on a really good show, and there is good stuff about putting on a really good show. i feel like at this point if you are going to work in these businesses, and we all kind of work across them, you want to harness those things and ride the hell out of them. >> this is just an observation. it goes to my theory, with my aspirations.ac there is an inverse proportion between quantity and quality. they can all start out with all these people in journalism who want to be a journalist. i have met in 35 years only one person who said i want to be in theater but i have to be a news anchor. afghanistan, iraq, any of the emerging democracies, all the young people want to be genes

journalists. they want transparency. it was critical to our founders to how free press and -- to have free press and accountability. any reporter starts out at a good point a, and much of what gets on the the war in the paper, by the time that good this gets -- that goodness gets diluted down, they want to milk the story. you have all been on tv. if i'm trying to give a simple answer to somebody like you, they're saying, smack him, smack him, smack him. >> i thought you liked me. >> i love you. i think the most important thing, since we now have increasingly stations for opinions and validating your own opinion is that we know what we are looking at. if we are looking at anderson

cooper on day one, we know he is bringing his passion and his reportorial skills. we are looking at him that day 10 and he has done it 12 times are 22,000 times. we're in the commercial breaks saying, billy, you have got to stop eating all that fried food. what else can you even do? as viewers, we just have to know itt we're looking at and why does what it -- why it morphs into what it does. the respect for accuracy in bias for traditional sources of news is that an all-time low. an all-time low. i am not talking about opinions. regular news reporters are biased, inaccurate, and they do not correct mistakes when they make them. that is not my opinion, it is

the data. >> let's look at -- trying to figure where we are in terms of, the nation was built by opinion makers like thomas paine putting out his pamphlets. thomas jefferson had his own people who would go after john adams, the whole era of yellow journalism. when you look at where we came from, isn't this comparatively a golden age? and then you know, it is funny -- >> or was there a good period where i missed? >> i talked to my kids about the rehearsed phenomenon about william randolph hearst wanted to go to war, he could make it happen. compared to that, i think a lot of us do not realize sort of where we are in the cycle. with the explosion of technology, it is hard to know

where we are in the cycle because anyone with a youtube but load can become a commentator. i think that could be a -- up load can be a commentator. i think that could be a good thing. a lot of us as consumers, we just go to the thing that will feed us what we already believe. i really, really see this in my own little world, where my mom in the assisted living facility, they are all watching in her town, msnbc, nonstop. so in many, many very long visits with her i started watching msnbc and i was like, how can you watch this and not want to shoot yourself? it was actually -- by tend to watch fox more often because i have been on fox, and msnbc just blew my mind. it was so awful, i was

surprised, honestly. because msnbc has this nbc component that i consider to be one of the founding broadcast news sources in this country, and i had no idea that msnbc had become so, so, so -- i do not know, left-leaning, i guess you would call it. opinionated. >> it might surprise you to know that all my relatives in louisiana do not listen to msnbc. >> i think it's a strange little pocket of -- yeah. >> it is interesting. for the first time in modern history, that back in the thomas paine days, but it is possible to go to this huge media diet where you never hear anything said that you can disagree with. the can was the cable channels that -- and the talk radio shows that convince you that all this stuff you think are right and

only read opinion that you agree with. there's something really bad about that, right? i mean, most of us who think about this feel like we get some benefit from once in a while hearing something that we have not thought of or a bias that we do not immediately share. but i will tell you, it is tough to get people away from that because there is something psychologically reassuring to hear somebody who is more particulate or better informed or more passionate than we are saying in a more articulate than we can something that we already kind of feel. it is disquieting, i think, for people to hear, project early somebody to make a good argument that we do not agree with. i do not know how we get people to do that. i'm considered a liberal on fox, so i'm viewed by some of the viewers as the visiting team there. you should read my e-mail. >> this is a really weird thing

i have noticed on fox, and msnbc. i thought that the anchors sort of red stuff. i thought they just read it. they toss it to the commentators who appear to present a point of view. this sort of in topsy-turvy world, the anchors, who are hosts of their own shows, basically, they are the ones with the opinions, and it is like the commentators have come on to be reasonable. really, don't you think? doesn't it seem backward? >> as a commentator, i like that. >> it is true. it is like the anchors are the ones that come up with these absolutely outrageous, stupid, provocative statements, and then they toss it to the commentators who are like, "well, not quite, bill."

>> we talked about the choices. a lot of people may remember growing up -- i know as a kid there were three choices of network news, nbc, cbs, and abc. i grew up watching the newscasts. most of these around america, they were abc affiliates. a lot of people -- you said a while ago that you have not watched the network news in a long time, that resonated with me because i do not remember the last time i watched the 5:30 newscast. you can see the news at different hours now, so it is out there -- it used to be at 6:00, if you missed the news, you missed the news. it was over, and so i think the show -- the time shift is important. >> since you all mentioned fox, a lot of people, even the conservatives -- even the

conservatives get angry when you mention fox. why do people pick on fox? >> ti-hua to explain that? >-- do you want to explain that? mary? >> it is only people who are political, and our politics have become very emotional. again, to quantify -- quantified by data, they did a study at emory, putting people up to an mri and engaged in a political debate, and the rational parts of their brain went black. in their irrational parts lit up. so people bring that same emotion to what they see as a proxy for politics that they do not like. but the reality is, all the cable networks get a really big uptick in viewership, particularly presidential cycles

and in the midterms, and then cnn and ms fall off. but fox has remained steady, and a lot of democrats watched it, believe it or not, but i believe the emotion about it goes to people being -- i want to speak to your larger question about this golden age. when i first came to washington from the midwest, admittedly a bit naive -- i was shocked before the advent of cable and the outlets that we had in the two major papers, how these reporters would go into the oval office and they would be spoonfed the story, and it is one thing if you are watching nity or you know you are

getting an opinion when you're picking up "the washington post" or "the new york times," spoon fed by the president himself. that does not happen. they're now teenagers, and all you do is -- they're all my friends, they're all doing their jobs. it is so adversarial, but my job is to not cut them off, which a lot of political people try to do to control the message. well, the more you give them, the more color, texture, nuance, they can bring it to a story, which is different from spoon feeding favored reporters, which used to be the norm. now the norm is somewhere between locking them out with real information, which makes them even more adversarial, and having some favorites. i think we are in a better age

than we were because we are skeptical of everything we read that goes back to the other piece of data where people do not believe it anymore. people are naturally cynical. we should be skeptical of any thing that can evolve into an institutional power, which the media is. so i think we are healthy and i think we can have a healthy system. >> i have given a lot of thought your fox question, about what it is that makes it so -- that makes the ratings so high. listen, fox has done several things well. first of all, it is great looking television. >> and they brand all of their people. >> the hair and makeup, the producers. >> i happened to see a bit that he did about where they get these bonds -- what you call them?

the pandit farm somewhere -- the pundit farm somewhere? >> i have no recollection. >> it is really something. >> it is good looking television run by smart folks, but it is also speaking to a feeling that is out there in america, that certain issues, certain points of view were not adequately represented in major media for many years on television. there is obviously no audience for that, and it is a big audience and its kicking butt in the ratings. >> when you have an anchor news reader saying the following, as i heard this past week during the president's visit to latin america, the news reader said -- and i was watching fox, really paying attention to fox that day. the news reader said, "the

president is down in brazil and has asked brazil to produce more oil." i thought, ok, that is a story. and she then went on to say, "when we already have plenty of it right here." and i thought, oh, my god, this is like 2:00 in the afternoon. this was not a "crossfire" type show where this was just their regular newscast. i thought that was actually extremely biased and i was surprised. and you know what else they all do, they spend a lot time picking on each other. they spend so much time trashing each other, like not politics, not politicians, but other members of the media. it is so boring. i think people do like processed stories, but this sort of sniping and trashing, it is

just, as mary said, there is a lot of time to fill. >> the essence of the success of fox goes to the base element of the free market society. it is not just the views that were not being covered, it is the stories. i will give you an example. i live here now. i was seeing the the party activity way before anybody and i was saying this is real. this is not some astroturf, and fox just gives there -- it just gets there first. and would cover the issues that are not considered political issues by "the new york times" or by the boston/new york /beltway nexus, but where people

live. fox got there first, and what makes them so sniped at is because the response to that by those who were not succeeding and continue to not succeed because they are trapped in either an old model or their own biases inside the newsroom -- it is there, i am stating a fact. i have heard in some media organizations that i have work to that i should receive battle pay. it was understood that people were not getting something that they wanted, not just a different point of view. also, you had a really smart thing that is market-based. he made prettier the the, more engaging tv. on the old "crossfire," we would sit with a black background, bob novak and i, talking to each

other. that is not how our minds work in the information age. there is too much synaptic disconnect with all of our tools. >> it is not just fox. you guys have to look great. we have to look not grotesque. [laughter] >> right, right. i am at one of those privileged ages. >> like, whatever, you get what you get. [laughter] willm hoping that you guys lift the average year. >> mary makes a great point about how it is not just about the voice, the chatter, and the opinion, but it is the stories, and i completely agree about the tea party movement. as somebody who lives in a rural area, i absolutely agree, and sometimes you can actually set a

clock and you can see. i listened during the day, after morning edition, i listened to glenn beck and rush limbaugh every day. i know. >> topics emotional. >> you can almost set o'clock, when a story surfaces on glenn beck and rush limbaugh, you can set a clock, it is literally days before it surfaces elsewhere. that speaks to that point that they actually do cover stories that are not being covered elsewhere. >> but let me pull back a little. those are two effective conservative polemicist on the radio, and that plays to stop at some people believe. it is a very specific and kind of i would say slanted but somewhat narrow view of the world. there are other ways that you can feel about the world other than the way -- >> many days i hate myself doing

this. >> i love the fact that you listen to some of that maybe you do not totally agree with. that is terrific. but there is a whole bunch of other ways we can look at the world other than glenn and rush 's perspective. so far in radio that has not happened. i am not quite sure why. >> we talk about being sniped at. amy is being sniped at where it hurts the most, in terms of funding. >> do not look at me, i did not do it i was worried i was going to have to -- >> some organizations are accused of having a liberal bias. are you accused of that assessment? >> i do agree with that assessment of it. i actually do. and i do not work for npr news. i am on a comedy quiz show, people. so i do have a long, long

history with npr, some of it editorial. yeah, i do agree with that. >> ok, anyone want to comment? >> who cares if they are liberal? i will say again, they come from the world. journalism schools are liberal. it is the point that taxpayers who are not all liberals are funding it, even though it is an infinitesimal amount of money. in the scheme of things, the whole overarching issue of, in the indebted times that we find ourselves, what are our tax dollars going to? i listen to npr all the time, but i do not like paying for it. >> i totally understand that. and when you see the devotion -- talk about an audience that is absolutely devoted, i know that npr, the npr audience is willing to pay for it to keep their local station going. that is absolutely legitimate.

that is what they should do. >> some of this is in the eye of the beholder, though. i know, mary, you will see the media as being more liberal as i see it. i see it as being kind of down the middle. but i would rather have a thought about why we have to define it in that way? most smart people i know are not listening to nancy pelosi for their world view, nor to john boehner. most smart people i know do not go home at night and talk about continuing resolutions to fund the united states congress. maybe it is different in the room. absolutely, and we forget that. i mean, the people you know, let's be honest -- you are probably conservative about some things, right, and you want your

taxes to be low, but if a couple of gay guys want to get married, what do you care? why is it in the media that we still have to be red team or blue team? i would love to find a way to -- >> i will tell you why. i am a member of the vast right- wing conspiracy, but i would like to listen to smart people speaking a new in a new way. for years and years, i am sure we have all been engaged in this. let's have a program about -- and they tell you the same thing and nobody watches it, it does not get any ratings. but my new argument is, nobody -- we are in a world now were 100,000 viewers is huge, so there has got to be a country with hundreds of thousands of people who want to watch smart shatter. there has just got to be. so the answer to your question is, it is an existing model and

no one has broken out of it sufficient to convince the people who find this stuff that it isn't operative business model. >> for the sake of this discussion, you refer to liberals and conservatives here -- the so-called conservative party. of has -- the so-called conservative radio has succeeded. rush limbaugh, glenn beck. why hasn't the so-called liberal radio not succeeded, on the liberal side? >> that hosts is one reason. al franken did a terrible radio show, and there are splsmart people of a variety. >> and it is not like i want to listen to jeanine barone follow.

-- jeannine garofalo. she is bad. >> they're kind of young and rich and day -- i do not think it has been done right. i do not think it is reading some people will make the argument that people -- that those conservative ideas, they are so dumb and simple and they just work well on talk radio, and the complex nuances of liberalism -- >> and they come from the world like sports talk, and everything gets a score. >> that is not right. >> no, it is not right, and that is why i listen to glenn beck because there is a lot going on there. you have to be sophisticated about it. you have to weed out -- sometimes i worry about where he is headed and where he is trying

to lead -- he seems eager to meet people, which makes me nervous. but there is a lot going on in their. -- in there. >> i have done radio. i know rush, i know glen, and it is a very hard job to do what they do -- and neither of them would call themselves republicans -- but glenn beck is kind of a libertarian that never speaks for the party, has repudiated any association with a party, any party that would have him, he would not be a member of. rush is a conservative in the old fashioned edmund burke rational -- his daddy, his whole family are brilliant and his release march, and he prepares for it if you disagree with his opinion, you may think it is shallow, but he takes really

complex ideas and reduces them to clarity, enough to inspire you to want to dig deeper yourself. in addition to that, he is very entertaining. my husband loves him. all the liberals i know, they laughed out loud. >> he is really, really good on process and politics, and i have learned a lot from him. i hate the fact that i feel like he shills for himself a lot, like excessively like, "i went on an awesome golf holiday weekend." >> but radio is very intimate, and 100 years ago, people still call me and you really have a different bond with your audience. people want to know what you did this weekend, and they know golfing is his new thing and they want to know about his wife. it is only in that medium that you can do it over a period of

time where people feel like -- which fdr and other political people understood. speaking to people as if it is one on one in their own home. >> there is also a tolerance for -- >> not in the personal details, but promoting -- >> television hosts to not do live commercial reads. that is part of the radio selling, so when glenn goes on and on, there is money involved, did you know that? >> when you think rush limbaugh calls about a certain resort for eight days, do you think -- >> i am going to say this. russia has enough money to pay for his own hotel rooms. -- rush has enough money to pay for his own hotel rooms.

i doubt that they would be paying him. he does not like to take gifts. >> mary, as a consultant for george w. bush, i thought in the days after september 11 he made some really good speeches. there were other times when he seemed to have difficulty communicating. do you ever work with him in terms of the way the media advised him and what sort of recommendations did you give to him? >> i'm going to say whatever anybody says, whoever had the privilege of working for a president of either party, whatever your advice it is, you should keep it between you and your president. part of communicating what is going on in a transitional world, the difficulty is not an exclusive province of one president or one party, barack obama's complete lack of currency on what policy is at

any minute. that the press was not on obama enough to explain egypt or libya, and their excuse was -- we are getting facts, and then we are going to start asking the questions. after 9/11 -- and i was in that wartime -- the press, we are americans, and we have not seen that kind of threat on our own home short. they felt that they were not doing the job, so they came back with the sidewalk not -- the psychological force, the need for redemption and they went the other way too much. the other person is supposed to be giving information, and they feel like -- we used to say this to him -- go out there, and we will prove that he can walk on water. they say he can not swim. this is where i am not a knee-

jerk attacker of barack obama. i know what it's like to be so exhausted, your people are exhausted. the last two or three months, we have had more news than a decade. we went from every country in the middle east to japan, and you cannot -- these people are responding to it in real time across a vast bureaucracy, and they are exhausted. it is hard to communicate these people of yore that we respect for their articulation and their grace. they would sit around for days and write this stuff. >> get me another coffee while i -- >> they did not have to know that much. >> they were removed from it. they did not have access the was

readers. >> if you respond in real time, you are not contemplated and off. have some mercy for those people. >> there is a tradition of comedians offering the opinion. will rogers is one of the first famous ones. mark twain. today you see, the light"the daily show" and a late night talk shows. how powerful are comedians? is the audience's dugard downer -- guard down? >> it is a difference demo.

>> i have three kids in college. jon stewart -- they think that is a news program. >> there is smart stuff there. you would not wanted to be your only source. if the conservatives have done a good job in talk radio, i think the left is still a lot more fun, isn't it? [applause] >> we can fight about anything, who is more fun. it was not that long ago, the 1992 campaign, clinton went on arsenio hall. >> first he had attacked -- he had a cat. >> i think john mccain announced

on jay leno. i do not think it is bad. i am for an informed citizenry, and it is in the tradition to poke fun of people who put themselves in position to be put at. before jon steward there were cartoons. they are smart enough to integrated into a larger role if you. >> all this -- we work hard to get younger readers, and it is tough. those outlets have found ways to connect with younger folks that ugarless tional scheere delivery we have not.

>> you would see an excerpt from bush st., where is the coffee? the first couple of times, it was almost like a cause. did that ever cause any reaction where you work? >> for that stuff to be funny it has applied to something people already believed. you could tell george w. bush stories that connected with people. maybe that is why that worked. >> that is what -- humor works only when there is truth in it. it does not work when it gets angry. that is the antithesis of humor.

after a few times of the first thing you do, your communications persons says let's go into the lion's den. about individuals. who are some people -- who are people you admire as commentators, people that you admire? >> wow. it is funny, i feel like i read a lot of columnists and have found to dislike about all of them, which is good. that is what we have been talking about. i am trying to think of someone i run to. "doonesbury."

on politics? >> world affairs. >> someone who i love to see walking down toward the mike? i cannot think of anyone. >> i am focused on people who can make nonpolitical junkies engaged. gail collins. she is someone who can make it interesting and fun for people who did not care one bit about that. i wish there were more of us who would be doing that well. >> maureen dowd, but she got so jokey and caustic. i do not know. >> beautiful writing and speaking are a consequence of -- is a skill, a talent.

i always thought maureen dowd -- and i call this to her face -- you are the diva for the smart set. you are cranking out these columns. the other beautiful writer is kpeggy noona. it is not hurt line, but she knows where the line is, and she knows how to get it on the crash of the challenger, they slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of god. >> can the right beautifully? can they make out a coherent argument, and can they do it without ad hominems? and can they do it densely factual? i will give you an example, but he is att,

great writer and tinker and conform argument. you can express yourself well. >> i am thinking about wayne. >> he is the lead in the densely factual -- no peggy noonan. >> what kind of salesman is brought obama? he is very articulate and has a charm to him. >> i do not see that at all. i don't see him as having a chart about him. >> something must have worked when he ran for president. >> did he charmed us? no. >> i think there were people that were charmed by him.

[applause] >> i would describe myself as a supporter of his, but i do not see him as being charming at all. not all. you mentioned salesmanship. what was your question? >> what kind of salesman is he for his own administration, in terms of selling himself? >> creigh poor, i would say. -- pretty poor, i would say. a leader who is good at in selling himself inspires people the way that tony blair did before he went off. i remember when tony blair was urging england to engage in the iraq war. it was really something to hear. it was truly inspiring.

i do not think of president obama as an inspiring, charming salesman, no, not all. he is super smart. he is probably the man for the moment. i do not think he is doing a good job of selling at all. >> i think you are being hard on him. he is in the middle of a horrible situation, approval ratings in the 60, still? >> under 50% in a majority of states. i am not a math major, but i think he is doing pretty good. >> do you think of him as charming? >> there is some things they do well and not so well. i think that the part that is not so charming is the impression that he is not

commanding enough to figure on what he believes on and selling that hard. >> it is like he is waiting, testing, i do not know if it is clear to us as citizens what his convictions are. >> certainly on health care. there are few people in modern american history who can stand in front of an audience and inspire people. anyone who has listened to great speeches -- they are almost noonan-esque. >> teleprompter speeches. the defining moment what you like about or do not like about a president is what they do when they do not know the camera is going to be on or when they have to respond and real time. i will take this as in we can all hear you or reagan, "i

pay for the microphone. if it is not authentic, it is not ring true. no problem with asking your question, that we keep asking that question is a template for success. how charming is he? how popular? that is a bad measure of a presidency. we have a saying in politics -- the dog will not eat it. the dog will not eat the food. the intensely did not want it. a year later, the increasing majority do not want it, they

want it repealed. he could be prince charming and they are not like the edict. if i was working in the obama white house i would say quit trying to sell -- do they think they can translate his personal popularity to a popular policy? they resist in face of all manner of data, and i'm not talking about -- talking about losing new jersey and massachusetts. you would think they would come around, but he also does not have bill clinton's political skills. >> comparing him to bill we have, which op watched. whether or not you agree with him, he knew how to connect with people, so he was unforgettable in that sense. >> that is a pretty high political figure. i give you the last 20.

>> i think hillary clinton is pretty compelling, i do. i do. increasingly want her to run for something. >> i think what we find charming, infectious, or admirable in leaders depends on who it is. what is happening externally. i agree hillary appears to be the most effective in this current -- miliue. -- milieum. he was roundly criticized. if hillary cape rot, when a first, they both have to -- if hillary gave barack obama one of hers, they both have two.

the effectiveness of a personality on policy depends on what they are doing at the end of the day, what positions are they taking on policy. >> and our analysis of it often ends up where we started about whether we support the president or not. it is true in the debate we have the views people have are very predictable. >> you and i are going to end up -- i used to be a liberal until i started thinking and paying attention. i have been -- we have not switched each other on anything, but those who determined the election outcomes are not you and me, they're independents goose low 18 points for republicans in 2006, an 18 points in the last midterm. they did not like democrats, republicans, but they like or

oppose policies. there is something of a necessity to be able to clarify committee take your policy, but we are not their audience. questions in ato few minutes. a lightning round. people who were in the light of offering political commentary. eliot spitzer. >> why does he have his own show? i did like that. i feel he has a very narrow expertise, and as a resident of new york state and after years of being in the state, i am over him. sorry. but it was a blow to us, but not for the reasons most people think. i do not think there is another

television anger, is there? >> a lot cuter than eliot spitzer. >> i'm a conservative. i understand i believe in redemption, so i will put that aside. i was prepared not like him and i met him in new york. he is charming and it comes across on tv. tv is for making money. if he was not charming, coming to the screen in some way, and i got people who were finding him charming on television because he is smart, saying, is a number 10 or number 6, and i think the country to the extent they remember -- we are redemptive by nature. carville.

>> i like guys from louisiana to the. very few people are able to boil down complicated issues in a way that make them understandable and feel fresh, for people who are not thinking about it. >> but he has the attention span of a hummingbird. tvother way we disagree -- is a cool medium. he is hot sauce, he will be the first -- we were a lot less add . if he was born in any other country, he would be a cab driver. what they tell you in tv is the exact opposite of, and there is something that people stop him in airports.

i think a part of it is you are so weird. they will say things like, there is so -- you are so where there is hope for my son. stuff like that. he is smart. he could not do what he did if he was not as smart as he is. >> i think we agree that he is unique. he really is. mary, i remember the first or a read about him, and it was a piece in "the washington post, and he just jumped off the page. this is before any of us knew him. that and tell you something about that piece. it was in that piece, whoever wrote it, put in there that

james carville had a million girlfriends, a port in every store. at the moment i was his only port in a big storm. he wanted a retraction. the upshot of that come i tortured him for so long he ended up buying me a car. >> see, journalism works. >> he was the one who coined the the economy, stupid." do we have time for a few questions? >> i watched network news for 60 years, and i want to tell you what journalism is at its best. watergate, the mccarthy hearings, the moon shot. it is the eye of the camera. we do not need people who are good looking, their words.

did you e ofvents, we see them, we draw conclusions. >> amen, brother. >> next question. >> this gentleman is quite correct. unfortunately, i find this panel disappointing. proof positive of what journalism is failing is because it is in bed with politics and it thinks at the tenant is its -- entertainment is its objective. journalism is to be a check on government. whether they be tea party, white house, is going back down the wrong record weapons of mass destruction came from a politician. it was a lie and the press did

not penetrate. we live in terror of a muslim attack. how many muslims domestically have killed an american since 9/11? none. yet the entire nation -- >> that's not true. let's not get into that. >> domestically. again, let's not get into the one issue. think about it. when a politician speaks, and seven investigating the true value, for several, a person attacks government programs as being a waste. if i were a journalist, and i have been, the first thing i would look into his, is he, a member of his family, or anyone else that he is associated with politically benefiting from those programs, or have given them back? again, journalism, to be

effected in a democracy, has to have a -- between it and politicians to the extent that we are, our news is largely entertainment driven, attractive people, and using politicians as a point of departure, you can guarantee that democracy is in deep trouble. >> are right, thank you. >> i think you are watching the wrong stuff. there is today, and none of us are going to defend everything that is done under the banner of the media. acrap. it is in defens there is a wider range of points of view. there is more investigative work being done by more aggressive and smarter people than ever, and everyone in the room has the opportunity to engage and it

ourselves. >> and participate. reporter, anda that is what makes me excited about being a part of this. it is a little kind of throw up your handsy to say there's nothing out there could get busy, man. get busy. >> another question cre. >> a question -- jeb bush? >> what you want to know? not getting in, but he is for the moment the only one who could unify every fractious party, which i love. we love to debate, we are good at circling the wagons. to the larger issue, the nominee who is going to the march in this era will have to be the correct and that of experience

and record and capacity to articulate it the way everyone knows because they have seen that jeb can, but he is not going to get in. >> i am glad you mentioned thomas paine. i would like to pose this to ms. dickenson. what would you write if you could write a simple pamphlet right now, similar to mr. pain e's, "common sense." what would you call it? would you consider peggy noonan a writer or a rhetoricist? >> well, what a question. beautifule's a writer. that is why i read her.

she is a thinker. i do not always agree with her thesis, but i really do love to read her work. thank you. that is a great question about pamphlet, and i got to think about that. beautyessence of the pd o of paine is common sense. the essence of a virtuous society, which is what the founders or striving for and about which they were mildly concerned, that we would not be educated enough, participatory and off, moral and ethical, and reasonable enough, and applied common-sense across the same spir -- across these things.

teenagers are having babies, we have 35-year-old grandmothers. we could all and there is a good thought exercise. >> yes, sir. >> one of the reasons of listen this is a for instance, when there is an issue about health care, and who is going to provide for it, and then you break for commercial, and it is a health-care provider or hospital or a pharmaceutical -- i don't trust that the way i did n trustpr. >> pharmaceutical companies fund commercial space in commercial broadcasting. certainly, news. if you are looking to buy a product d likeepends or

something intended for an older audience come watch abc, cbs, or nbc @ night talk and that is what you see. actually, these commercial providers actually, certainly for local news, they dictate a lot of the stories you are seeing. you will see it if there is an "era"-style medical show on. that night your local news stations will run a story, allegedly, about the very issue that was on the network that night. it is crazy. public broadcasting is great, but then you get the founders, -- funders. all of these foundations --

people should look, what are these foundations, what are they paying for? npr is founded by -- is funded by foundations. >> when i was being interviewed by local news, my kids got a stop watch out. live at 6:00, one minute i was talking. the normal store was 2.5 minutes, and i got to sentences in. forever story, so when you talk about local news is going to cover this, it to get a stop watch out, 2.5 minutes of coverage, the first political meeting i went to, i said, let's watched local mystery the reporter was there for 15 minutes, did not know what the meeting was about. how does that fit into television educating us, and all

this make better decisions because of what we see? >> go to your local blogger. localis amazing reporting going on. they stay for the entire meeting and they attach transcripts. >> if you care about new orleans, you should be reading picayune."s you got a minute? that is a lot. you're never gone to get any more than that. have to the 20 stories in 20 minutes, plus, the news and weather. bs or consider or about it. there is actual people covering this stuff if you can find it. we got to find a way to pay for it, because local bloggers need to make a living. >> the closer to people, the

better the coverage, because you could go down to the station or find garland robinette, the further away the greater license to get away from even what is concerned about the time. national tv and radio -- james and i used to laugh because of what you just said. when you know you are only a going to getquoted in a certain amount of time if at all because of how pithy you are, and there are people in washington who sit around, thinking this the 32nd -- pithy 30-second sound bytes -- it affects your behavior if you want to get coverage for it you adjust to it that aren't covered, but you can always marched down to any station

here. it is better local and national. >> i would like to follow up his question. haley barbour? >> the liberals and conservatives are like venus and mars. it would never occurred to me a sayjoe bidfen -- ugh! haleigh garber is an experienced politician. has the-- haley barbour is an experienced politician. he is a very effective policy thinker and an experienced officeholder, and he is going to do better than the pundits are going to suggest is the case.

>> thank you very much. this has been a great panel. i appreciate all your comments. [applause] i also want to thank our underwriters. thank you all very much. >> here are the programs featured on c-span this holiday weekend. american diplomacy, lawyers who participated in thestarr vs. clinton case. president ford lost sonst steven. tom brokaw on bob dole.

for complete list of this weekend us programs, go online at c-span.org. >> this weekend, american history tv on c-span3, an artist takes us back to the 19th century white house. ed larsen looks at the constitutional effects of the election of 1800. get the weekend schedule at c- span.org/history. >> this weekend on c-span2, in a covert affair, paul and julia child. from inventing the george washington, the legend of america's first president.

also this weekend, the americanization of ahawaii. find a complete schedule at booktv.org. >> a discussion on education issues affecting minorities, including how to measure student achievement. this is part of a conference on race in america. from the newseum, this is just an hour and a half. >> we have looked at aspects of

the racial issues and aspects of the home and family and politics. this afternoon we will look at institutional places, such as schools, homes, and prisons. for this panel, and this afternoon, we have a new moderator, someone who is the afternoon moderator -- excuse me, he is the dayside moderator onmsnbc. chor at cnn.as an he has covered the presidential election of 2000 a atcnn. he has a degree from michigan university. he has been involved in community service in africa, asia, and the united states.

this will come richard lui. [applause] >> thank you for having me. i was watching the first half from my hotel room, and i could not leave because it was so engaging. but a great discussion we had this morning, and i hope that after we get past our food comas i will have all of you stand up and do a couple of jumping jacks. what an esteemed panel we have to talk about issues about things that are important to our country. this the third panel as you have seen in your documents. we will be looking at some of the institutional factors. charlie started by talking about that this morning, the institutional issues, personnel responsibilities for it during the segment, which took about some of the institutional factors, and i would like to introduce our panel. we have russlynn ali.

thank you for being here. our shopper to and -- al sharpton. thank you for being here. we also have janet marguia. thank you for being here. first mistake. janet marguia. dr julianne malveaux. >> that is a good thing. we want everybody to be from bennett college creigh you can be -- >> all right. she is ready for this. what we will do is focus on solutions during this discussion. feel free to pipe in as you feel best for you, and what i have done briefly as i have laid out potential solutions to the

problem that has been outlined earlier today. these are solutions that have been out in space about that you are familiar with. the first one i'd want to talk about is education. that was our first topic. we will do business and then talk about school-to-prison pipeline. the first solution i would like to discuss is the one i am hoping you can see, the issue of unions and districts working together. when we talk about how education at this moment is in the middle of a debate. at nbc2 has spent time to try to understand realities and the issues related to that. i will start to my left, and if he can talk about how the collaboration to work between the unions as low as district. >> there has to be a collaboration between all of the

adults responsible for transforming the way our schools work for it if we do not, we will not meet our goals as a nation. the achievement gap is hobbling students across this country the kind of collaboration's we're seeing in play, secretary arne duncan and 850 districts, presidents and union presidents came together to talk about how to replicate those principles from the very progressive contracts that drive student achievement across the country is about taking the success we have seen where unions and administrators and parents and community and policy makers are coming together to do what is right for kids and helping to replicate those and support leaders everywhere try to do the same thing. >> reverend al, are in unions the problem?

>> we wanted to see accountability. lately i have seen some very serious moves in terms of unions on how to deal with that. the president of the american federation of teachers t did aa tour. there must be accountability, you cannot have this situation set up where teachers are not judged on the performance. there's no accountability. unions are beginning to adjust to a climate that some of those of us that have tried to a policy, and i have worked with others on this around the country. we have been able to see it shift in some of the unions that were inflexible are saying there must be accountability, but it

must be where we have an anti- teacher or a demonizing the teacher. i think sometimes people have used accountability to go to demonization of teachers and union busting. >> we have seen examples of that in the news? >> i would agree that the common element that we all aspire to, and i think that is true for teachers as well as many of us who are advocates for the highest quality in education, is accountability. as long as we are all committed to effected teachers in the classroom and making sure we have ways to hold them accountable and to engage all the stakeholders and making sure we are making that happen, i do not believe it has to be about unions. i think we can tap into everybody cost aspiration that high standard. i do believe that we need to have common standards, in which

we can have more -- we need to know how powerful is being judged. yet different measures of different states four different topics, it creates a very confusing matrix for folks to -- who want to be engaged to know how. for us, it is having a set of common standards. under the secretary has been committed to, and a lot of other folks. i would add that within the standards and accountability for us in the latino community, for children of color, it has to be having teachers who have high expectations for those students. oftentimes we find that is barrier is not so much that teachers are not qualified because within the margins that are qualified. when they are in classrooms with students who have the highest need, stereotypes and other types of perspectives seemed to

cloud the ability for some of these teachers to understand that all students can achieve high standards and have very high aspirations for themselves. we need teachers to reinforce that and also make sure that the accountability measures are in place. >> what do you think of the tenure, and let's build on what janet was saying. >> what janet was saying was very fine of up. it is a court to challenge people. we go back to segregated schools, as examples of teachers who pushed students to achieve. we had as examples. tenure is not a bad thing. tender can be reformed. i think there are many in the teachers' unions who are looking at reform of tenure. here's my problem with the so- called education reform. we are sitting in a city, washington, d.c., where we have this crazy woman come in here with a broom and say she was going to sweep up all of

everything, and now we find that perhaps there was fraud in the so-called metrics that said that this harsh method of dealing with teachers -- i am going to fire you if you cannot get your kids' grades up. now we find erasures. most teachers are good teachers. when of the things i did we must do, and i see this as a college president who builds was due to came from the children from the kate-process and, we need to look at the other factors that should a young person's life. everybody,, and that is what janet said. everybody can learn if we decide on the learning. if somebody comes to school hungry, they just haved arive- much'm not sure how learning is fun to happen. i think that michelle rhee, when

she came to washington, did not want to deal with this other issues. we have to deal with all those issues at one time. we do not have an education crisis. we have an inner city education crisis. if you could alexandria, virginia, their children are going to harvard. everything is fine. if you come to inner-city washington, d.c., ward 8, you'll find challenges that are partially a function of this is no economic dynamics that we do not want to deal with. i want us look at him year. i want effective teachers. we can show that there are some folks who are ineffective. if you are an effective, galway. if you are in a district where there are so many things that are working against you, let's try to work the some of that. i think we can. >> does tenure as in the goal to

bring more diversity in the teachers? >> tenure is a mixed blessing. on one hand, tenure provides security of the implement, and anyone who wants to plummet, once security. we need to make sure we have effected teachers. one of the things we need to do is sabbaticals. they're people who get so burned out. forgive me, i have a academic way of saying crazy, nonsense. deleterious effects. the point is this -- we need to nurture our teachers said the best of them can continue to be the best of them and the worst of them can do something else. tenure is not -- does not allow us to that, but we want to protect the best of them. there is an organization, turn,

and i did not know what it stands for. they talk about reform. when not want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. we are not on to say to someone who is 57 we are trying away because you had a bad year. we are seeing our kids come first. >> i think the proposal that was raised deals directly with that. my understanding is the proposal is that teachers would be judged on their performance based on how the students in the classrooms that they are in charge of are doing are not billing and should not be test driven, which is in itself a problem. if that teacher in another year does not make improvements, they are given 30 days, and then there is removal. tenure as an absolute is not the answer, but i think the holding of boot them out, first-come,

first-served, does not work. when you have younes with -- union with progressive attitudes, that is a better formula. you have to take into consideration the environment that students are coming from and teachers that can teach in that environment. that is part of being an effective teacher. if you cannot deal with the students coming from a home that is not the same as a home with two parents, you have to have people that can deal and the late and educate that child. i do not think that you can have an educational system set up where the child has to remedy the infirmities come out of. i think the teacher has to be equipped to deal with that. >> my mother was a teacher for 25 years, and she worked in several districts in sentences.

her last school was in a very challenging area. these teachers knew how to teach these kids, who came from very difficult backgrounds. testing -- that did not necessarily reflect how successful they were, because they did have standardized tests. there are opportunities there. >> i will ask you for specifics. king schoo.att star at the top of the hill there in the area of -- i do not know the street. >> it is over in bayview. the challenges have always been the teachers have to love their

students and they have to believe that students can learn. this is a problem. as diane ravich ready great review yesterday about michelle rhee. >> how do you feel? >> she wrote a great piece, about one of the things she talked about is the affinity. there are people who love to teach and let kids, and there are people who think that teaching is a job. you have got to see every child who is in front of you, dirty or clean, or whatever and say to that you can learn, because then they can. >> i want to push you on something. their scores did not reflect how successful they were. >> that was the argument being

made. >> our assessments have gotten better and need to get a lot better. with the standards movement we have a growing turn in the country, so that said code does not get to determine what you learn. said, we have a long way to go before we have standards are implemented in the question, for children and one community are learning the same that their peers are in a wealthy community. our assessment guide, who is learning what? they tell us where the gap exists and where to put resources on where steudents need nms. the willingness to teach, the expectations that children can learn at the highest levels, the love for children, huge the

pundits and whether a teacher will be successful and whether we will see progress. >> how do we hold these up? they were successful by a lot of other measures. how do we show that to the district? >> you mean an example of what is a successful of kids are not learning? >> that they are learning. that? how we ddo we know >> teachers are saying they are quite successful, they are doing their homework, there are certain parameters that they have to fight for themselves based on their understanding of the marketplace to say it was successful. >> the question might be, what these tests are measuring trade that tests are measuring multiple choice, your ability to say all of the above, none of the above, that is not necessarily success. this -- using standardized

tests, with all due respect, i think we need to think about what these tests are measuring. they are anow that predictor of your first year of called success. everything is never wrong to stay the same for a freshman. you're measuring something that is almost abstract. if you can look at the test as an evaluation and propose an admissions metric, you can say richard as a math problem. we want to make sure that we help him with his problem so he can do the next thing. as opposed to say richard as a math problem so we will not let him in the school. i raise questions about the content of these tests, what the

measure, and what we use these tests exclusively to measure the success of our young people. >> that is where the broader set of common standards come into play. it does not become about teacher ing to the test. one of the things that continues to remain a challenge for many children of color and students of color is by and large, you can see the date on this and it is proven, the kids of the highest needs at the less effective teachers. we have got to do something to switch that paradigm, because the more that we allowed for only the highest quality teachers to be in the most affluent school districts, we are never going to tackle this problem. when need to be thoughtful about how do we see more of that shift occurring so kids can have the most effective teachers in place. it is a combination of factors,

and people are looking at that. one of the things that we had in the latino community that is a challenge that needs to be addressed as we look at the different factors, that is 20% of hispanic kids are and public schools. half of them are what we call english language learners. there transitioning into how to use the language in mainstream classrooms and to be able to learn like everyone else. it is important for us to be able to get that right because when you look at the demographics, as we saw in the latest census, we know that now the fastest-growing part of the population, portions, children under 18, has been a latino kids. one out of every four kids is hispanic. we need to make sure that we are tapped and that issue so it those kids can have access to the kind of learning that they

are printed need to be successful threat to rest of their years in that school system, because if we miss those kids, they are are to be lost in many ways forever. tackling those issues at the front end, and i would argue one other piece, looking very thoughtfully at early chocolate education, because the other statistic that we know is when kids get access to a head start, their chance of being successful grow exponentially throughout the rest of their years in the school system. there are ways that we can move the levers that will allow our kids to have the most success possible, and so is not just about the tests. there are social factors and their educational factors out there that we ought to be looking at, and it is looking at a whole set of them. there is not just one driver out there. , >> two things.

precisely why the bipartisan congress and the president were able to get the recovery dollars and $100 billion was floated into american schools in part to save jobs. $350 million was carved out to build coalitions around developing much better assessments. today there are 44 states engaged in this process of precisely that, moving away from multiple choice into essence measure critical thought. our proposals are right, that this is a pipeline that goes from babies through college and beyond. our early child care focus, especially as he has seen in the president's budget proposal, to begin to really move that agenda. this idea of equity. achievement gaps are not caused by someone else skin color. there cause because we give them

less of what we know makes a difference. including and especially access to the courses and those high standards and access to the effect of teachers. measuring schools by what their marketplace -- that is how low expectations play out. and marketplace in a poor community ought not be any different in terms of what we expect from those children than a marketplace in a wealthy community. the last president called it bigotry of low expectations. i've heard folks say it is not so soft. when they are in school, wrestling with housing -- having to pull students so they can compete in this new global economy. hole test go back and input session and try to run a test- driven kind of educational system that does not take into affect -- the other part of that

is the clear bias, if you would, and we have dealt with this with secretary but then as below expectations. when you have teachers that do not expect anything of the students, they communicate that to the students, even not verbally, so if you're being told if you are being told whats expected of you and you are not going to achieve academically or in life, that makes an achievement gap. i had an expectation from my mother that i would go to school and be something. when we did the education to our, -- tour, we went to a school that had been at the bottom of academic achievement. three years later, it was

number one in the city. we asked why they thought the student was better. they said, we were treated this -- differently. we felt people cared and they expect us to do something. the students themselves understand what is being communicated to them. >> the long run implication of this is what we need to focus on when we look at where we are economically and internationally. we have countries competing with us who are investing in ways that we used to invest. we have countries competing to us who believe the done at competing with us who believe their young people can learn. there is no notion that the young people in china and europe can learn.

one of the things we have to look back is what the impact of demographic shifts have been on the low level of expectation is that teachers have on the young people that come into their classrooms. we seem to disinvest in education windy classrooms became blacker and browner -- when the class rooms became blacker and browner. someone was telling me something like, we are going to make sure you get out of school and you do well. people are telling these young people that they are shackled. we have to look at the messages that have shifted because of different demographics. >> i would like to move on to

another discussion about teaching and then burst teaching. how do we attract more diverse teachers? >> you have to make being a teacher more appealing to a the purse set of americans. first of all, the level of pay, the level of how they are regarded, i remember president obama in the state of the union address talk about teaching should be something that we make as appealing as being an entertainer or whatever. i do not remember his exact examples. part of it is the appeal. when we talk to people around the country, you do not hear about teachers being considered at the level of someone -- in order to diversify, you have to

appeal more to the diversity of the population of what teaching can mean today. second, the impediments of getting there. we talk about student loans. the president talked about how he was paying student loans almost until he had a best- selling book. how can you tell people that teaching is a noble profession and something to look up to, but you will be paying for getting an education for being a teacher until you are 45 or 50 years old. >> a tough economic argument. >> absolutely. >> since the president has been in office, money for low income students has almost doubled. there is $36 billion going for

access to college. it is true that the profession today is not as diverse. does not reflect the student body. only about one in every 50 teachers are african-american or latino male. president obama and secretary have launched a program to change the way we think about teachers. on teach.gov, young people can go and find out the requirements to be a teacher in every state of the nation. >> is there something to do right now? >> we have an education department in our college for women. our women are doing great work in the state of north carolina. some of the work the administration has done has been helpful in terms of providing additional dollars. we are grateful for that. at the same time, there is

frigidity. -- rigidity. the notion of social change moves slowly unless we aggressively entering. i would like to see more aggressive intervention, especially in hiring african american males in the k-6 grade, which makes a phenomenal difference for young men to see people look like them who are educators. also for women, it is important to ensure that these young women had opportunities. i think what the administration is doing is what they can do at the bottom. in terms of accrediting organizations in teaching, we have to do it at the top. one of the things that a district should be judged on its diversity. just like they are judged on every other metric. people do not want to be judged

on diversity. that is like having sunrise fatigue. the sun will rise and the sun will fall. we need to make sure that our young people who are learning have teachers who can hit them where they live. >> what about charter schools? is a place to look at? >> we have to have an avenue where charter schools can be an option. to many of our systems have failed in too many of our communities. when the community comes together and says they want to do something for their kids, we have to help them. we have worked with 110 character schools across the country -- charter schools

across the country. >> do they break the mold where we often see minorities starting a year behind and never catch up? >> that is the good thing when it comes to charter schools. they have the flexibility to do things that they think will be helpful, whether it is targeting some of those areas of learning that other teachers have not been supported to do. we believe that having been training for those teachers in the charter schools that directly allow them to support those kids is a positive advantage. many of our charter schools become laboratories where we are able to attend by what is working to help us help the students succeed and see those taken to scale as we work with the department of education when the reauthorization of these

bills come up. >> let me say one thing quickly. the data still does not suggest that charter schools are more effective than public schools. they are innovative. i am not against them. let's look at the data. the data does not suggest they are more effective. >> the issue of lawmakers. some are making -- some are asking for more and some are asking for less. what should we ask of our lawmakers going forward? >> we need equal funding. we need to deal with the question of whether we have the same investment in our inner cities as we do because of the property tax set up. we also have to deal with the fact that we cannot use privatization schemes to take money away from public

education. the danger be one -- we run into is that there was so much energy put into trying to give some students a way out rather than the commitment that lawmakers have to all. we should be tried to see how we make the funds that are available work for everybody rather than having some scheme set up. by definition, we are writing off the majority of our young people. we should not select who we think can succeed. the mandate of lawmakers and those who want to fund education it to give equal funding an equal opportunity to everyone. you never know where a child is developing. who are you and i to selects ways that some can escape and we

write the others off. that has polluted the environment in the last several years. >> more money is needed to be spent more wisely. we are facing a budget crisis the likes of which most educators have never seen. tough decisions have to be made. we won't have the kind of investments that we had with the recovery dollars anytime soon. it is about equality as rebar sharpton mentioned. it is also about -- as reverend sharpton mentioned. had we closed the achievement gap as we wanted to over 20 years ago, we would have 315 to

320 higher gdp. it is about closing the equity loopholes that exist now. poor students and students of color you were dollars. -- fewer dollars. we also need to go further to help children who are further behind. >> what we fundamentally understand about education is that it is a local issue. it is one felt by communities directly. we need to do a better job of helping empower our parents and our community stakeholders to hold those local elected officials accountable. that voice can be much more powerful than it has been. we can be a stronger voice for

advocacy. we need to hold our local elected officials accountable. we as community leaders and parents can really come together. we have seen it happen where communities, when the parents are involved, when they are part of an advocacy movement in that community, they can have the kind of changes for their children that we would all like to see across the different communities. >> great discussion on education. i want to move it to the other institutional factor. one statistic brought up earlier this morning that you all remember and that i remember specifically is the are earning power disparity. 62% for blacks in a mean net worth. let's talk about business. what can businesses do to bring in inclusion? one of the ideas was brought up

at the start is how diversity is good business. i want to understand from your perspective how businesses might bring that message across. is it an important message to communicate to their employees and to consumers? >> one of the most important things businesses can do is believe that they are part of the society and the community. by 2040, there will be no majority community. african-american and latino people and asian people will be more up a majority in this country. how do you bring these folks into the workforce? how do you bring the spending power of their constituents into the workforce. we are looking at trillions of dollars that these communities are spending. often in the business

community, something has to be fixed. something was set in the previous segment. more money, more wisely. this is not only the case for education, it is the case for business as well. one of the things i think business must do is create partnerships with colleges and universities around things like internships and other ways to bring done people into the labor force. they can start early in the seventh grade and eighth grade with awareness programs. by the time i had students who who are at bennett college for women and historical black colleges and universities -- you plug. have got to do miny [laughter] we need businesses to come to

us. if you need black women to promote your products, come to been to -- to bennett. it is a hard thing to say in a recession because in a recession, everyone is paranoia. we have 14 million americans who are unemployed. half of them have been unemployed for six months. when you talk about what you can do for young people is almost inherently threatening. the labor market is churning. as people leave, people are coming in. we can learn from young people. they value diversity. let me say one last thing. one of the things our country has is a comparative advantage. our diversity. if we look at the countries that are kicking us, the united states is the only country that

has the kind of diversity, whether we got it or not. we have it. so let's lift it up and celebrate it. >> when we hear this from businesses, they are saying having a diverse work group and understanding that our customers and consumers aren't averse, it has to do with actions internally for businesses -- our customers and consumers are diverse, it has to do with actions internally for business. what are businesses doing in sets?of activities thaty they have affinity groups. they have all sorts of approaches. are those effective? >> i think they can be. for us, as you look at the

statistics out there and the demographic shifts, they do so much data and planning and research when it comes to almost everything they do. with the current landscape reflecting these demographic shifts and growth, there seems to be a disconnect for most of the major businesses and industries out there in terms of how to engage those communities whether it is as potential --a potential work force or in terms of consumers. one of the ways we have engaged is with corporate advisory groups. comcast and abc put together advisory groups that i think can be a good best first step in

terms of engaging many of the leadership who represent a lot of the communities across the country on how to take the steps necessary and that the different sectors where they can take those steps. education and how they are involved and engaged in the education takes a long term views. . businesses are so interested in long-term investment turnaround to be next week. they need to take a different view. their stickers and -- there shareholders know that if they take certain steps today, that roi will be there as a multiplier for them in 3-5 years.

if they are able to take any efforts to look at the longer- term view, that will be a benefit for good corporate responsibility and will have a direct benefit for their bottom line. they need to look and understand that having those types of our arrangement where they are able to engage with thought leaders and communities of color who represent leaders across the country is a good first step. but getting those recommendations and understand and be able to test out those issues -- the business issue does not see it played out with an everyi dotted. -- every i dotted. if we are quick to take advantage of the incredible need to of that in these young people and think of an obeyed of solutions, you are not going to

have all the answers every time you make that investment. nobody is saying you cannot have a good idea of what those outcomes are and accountability around that. the business and community needs to understand it will acquire -- it will require them to be more bold. investing in programs is good. we need changes in policy. those leaders in the business community are willing to step up -- i will give you one example because it is relevant. in the latino community, we have been experiencing discrimination and racial profiling in the state of arizona. we saw a law passed their that a federal judge ruled is unconstitutional. but they are trying to pass more extreme legislation. most recently, there was a push

back on those laws and those proposals in the state legislature in arizona. it was because the business committee said, enough. we do not want to be targeted as a state that is anti-hispanic and is seen as discriminatory. we will not support this. when the business community steps up and is a voice of advocacy, that can be powerful for many of us out there who are trying to do the right thing. there are multiple layers in the world that business and industry can play. it is also being the voice of advocacy. programs and investment in those communities along will not move the needle as fast as we need it to move in terms of the need to change policy. >> a lot of good point there.

rev. al, when we look at these companies that have offices in the regions around the country, how can we get them to hire deborah's workers? >> it has been the work of african-american -- hire diverse workers? >> i want to thank you for your advocacy in arizona. >> the way that businesses can engage is that it must be intentional. business operates that way. it does not take a rocket

scientist to figure out how they do anything else. why do they need a rocket scientist to tell them how to deal with adversity. they have to intend to do it. they have to admit that a lot of the omission in doing business with blacks, latinos, asians in employment was intentional exclusion. we used to hear the debate about affirmative action and people said, why do we need a program? because we had a program to exclude people. you have to have a program to counter the program you have. [laughter] let's not act like it was osmosis that excluded people. was intentional. in terms of your question about the allies report, we have done a lot of work. we had about six companies and i

know the board of directors on two of them. it is important of the advisory boards are set up. are they set up to be when addressing? are they set up where they actually hear advice and share the and formation and the data across the board. -- and share the information and data across the board? not just come in and say here is a brochure and we will buy a table and a chicken dinner once a year. you have to deal with how the advisory board are set up and how you deal with it to the locale. if you are going to deal with the wealth gap and the medium -- median income gap, you have to deal with personnel and growth and promotion within the company and who they contract and do business with.

we have seen some companies that make improvements on the employment side, but knew that -- but do absolutely no contract in communities of color. and the people in charge of those departments that deal with billions of dollars in some of these national and international companies, nobody is there to make sure any of that reaches our community. it is good business, but i think they must understand good business and intentionally deal with it. what janet said about becoming advocates is absolutely right. it brings in more profit to them. you have people who know how to deal with their communities who are large percentages of their consumers and the people they are trying to appeal to for the work force. those are the ones who can increase their profits. at the end of the day, people go into business for profit. they are not in charity work.

you make more money if you know how to work better in the marketplace that you already have a large margin of profit in. in many cases, we are the difference between operating in the black and operating in the red. if you operate with the black, you can stay in the black [laughter] . . [laughter] we have much economic power. for the latino community, it is $1 trillion. >> when we come together and we say issues that happened in arizona are wrong and we stand up against that, we are not going to bring our conferences or conventions. we are not going to bring major event and we will discourage artists from doing business in

a certain sense, we can be economic drivers for that kind of reform. we can hold corporations accountable for their actions if we are willing to use our economic power in addition to our political power. >> julianne malveaux, you have a comment on this discussion? >> i will yield my time. there is an example that there are notions that communities of color have made a difference. the aggressive attacks on communities of color. aggressive malting of, let's come and give you all -- the grass is promoting of, let's come and give you all mortgage come and give you all mortgages. we have seen it in many other

places. we can go industry by industry and look at the bottom line. several studies have been done that talked about the economic impact of diversity and the importance of using diversity metric to talk about production and to talk about productivity. it is really important. the company that gets it not only from a domestic perspective, but also from an international perspective, are companies that are getting profits at a time when others are not. mcdonald's is a great example. i have a board member on mcdonald's. >> no bias, right? >> none. there are companies that have learned how to go into communities, to learn their culture and improve their bottom line. we see that time and time again. we see other companies that are not able to do that. this inability shackles them and

makes it impossible for them to grow. one of the things i think this conversation has lacked a little bit is the notion of the global space. the leverage that we must have in this country is that we have a diversity that no one else has. as what can we do with our chinese and asian american population to leverage that grow in china for the united states? we see growth in the spanish- speaking countries. how do we take the latino population and began to deal with that? the african country -- african continent is so wealthy in so many things, how do we get the african-americans to be involved in that. we speak your language is that anybody else in the world. we do not do language education. part of our diversity is not

just race and gender. it is our ability to be linguistically competent. if we are going to be as competent as others are, we need to break some of this down. >> we now have to move into questions and comments. some other folks have to get some of your wisdom. any questions and comments? delaware hold back -- don't hold back. [laughter] >> maybe they do not want our wisdom. >> if you can state your name and where you are from. >> i work in washington, d.c. 4 and hbcu. -- an hbcu. i wanted to ask the panel what

they think the emerging role of educational institutions should be. we spent a lot of time talking about what needs to be done on the k-12 level and what needs to be done in the corporate world. the link between the two is post secondary education. he could speak to that, i would appreciate it. >> the president's budget proposal has renewed investment in minority institutions. they are playing an ever important role, not just in that bridge or in diversity work, as you both have mentioned. but also in teacher preparation. school slight bennett college --

schools like bennett college are in an amazing position to make sure we get a competent teacher workforce. they play a key role in our history and must in our future. we still see big disparities. the awful -- the office for civil rights has six outstanding desegregation orders. there is a lot of work to do to ensure that the promises of minorities serving in the institutions and promises made in the past our promises kept. we need to provide them with the support necessary to make sure all of their graduates can

compete as well. >> we need to combine that with the private sector. i was about with some of the conversations with the administration about hbcu's. we got corporations to make a commitment to a college as an example. i think it should be all around the country with these advisory boards that they have these arepanies that the ey sitting on a doubt a -- adopt an hbcu. i think the government on one end has to do more. that is one of the areas where the private sector needs to be engaged in. all of these advisory boards can

can wehich 2 or 3 hbcu's make our project? the problem is that they do not get the resources. they have been able to make lemonade sometimes with no lemons. >> i will lift up bennett college for women. in my four years as president, i have been thrilled to have built our buildings -- built four buildings, which is unprecedented. entrepreneurship. all of us will be entrepreneurs in our life what we like it or not. we will be at all passport

campus in august of 2011. i am so excited about that. communication is how we present to the world. it would have to invent his starkly black colleges if you did not have them. -- you would have to invent his starkly -- historically black colleges if we did not have them. public universities have metrics that they must meet. you cannot admit someone would an xxx gpa. i can admit someone with a 2.0 gpa and they will graduate and go to harvard. we invest phenomenally and intentionally in our students. if anybody is watching us, send

your dog to bennett college. >> you are so funny. do you have anything to add? >> for us, seeing the level of investment and targeting those investments in areas where we know there are gaps, that is where do half the population that is going to be so critical for us to move slow work. i would also make a pitch that community colleges and our investments and strategies for community colleges become important. they can be be stepping stone that can either be the next launch for our students or it can end here. we need to make sure that those kids who are trying to do everything that they can to stay in the system and who do go to that community college can find a way to go on to the next

level. it is about resources. we want to make sure that the institutions that are serving predominantly students of color are getting targeted funding. for me, committee causes become equally important if we are going to say that -- for me, community colleges become equally important if we are point to save that population. >> the question i have is the other institution a lot of kids are interacting with, which is the criminal justice system. my question is how do we deal with the war on drugs in all of its forms? >> do you have three days? you have to deal with several layers of that. you have to deal with the criminalization issue. you have to deal with the glorification issue of drugs.

the naacp came out with a study that talks about the disparity in prosecution and incarceration. even though african-americans are a small minority of crack users, we are the overwhelming majority of people in jail. even in drug use and drug criminality, we are not treated equally there. even crackheads are treated in a discussion and air -- in a discriminatory way. you have to deal with these layers in a complex way. it has to be dealt with. we have not conquered these layers because we do not want to. there are too many and we be , fodder for those who

want to privatize jails. we have not solved the problem. >> when you are taking a holistic approach between parents, schools, community come together and tackle the issues, ether it is gangs -- wha is gangs, you are looking at the juvenile justice system. not enough is done around prevention. even when they get into the system, they are not getting the breaks. if you are going to provide dis incentives for that behavior, there are different types of unforced actions you can take. when you mix these young kids with the older kids, you are only going to reinforce that

behavior once they are put into juvenile detention centers that are not meant for -- or detention centers that are not meant for juveniles. it is a mix of resources with the right engagement, taking a holistic approach, using communities and parents and the education system. >> rev. al sharpton said quite a mouthful when he talked about inequality. the sentencing disparity has to be dealt with. a crack cocaine user is sentence more civilian -- more severely than a powdered cocaine user. they are doing great work in some places closing the sentencing disparity. in other drug use, you find similar disparities. >> i will just add that the

notion that there is a cradle of prisons has become part of the american lexicon. it has to become crapo tdle to career. we are trying to do just that. it cannot happen from washington. it is a community, federal, state, local partnership that has to take place if we are to ensure that schools are the places that children can turn to meet their needs and get their support as opposed to what we are seeing today. >> thanks. >> i am the national chair of the national congress of black women and the board chair of the national leadership forum. rev. al sharpton, i want to thank you for all you do to hold our community out there. we do have challenges, but we

also do good work. we are like the president's campaign team. we do big things. the smaller organizations, the smaller nonprofits do wonderful things. wind -- when they are ask for mass of proposals to be written just to get a dollar a -we had- they are asked to write mass of proposals -- massive proposals just to get a dollar, how do we get corporations to come in and understand that we do not have all of the record on paper, but we are doing great things and we need some attention in terms of looking at what we are doing and finding it and not having the same requirement that you would

up a major company that has all of this staff to write these massive proposals. >> one of the things that these companies all operate locally. if you have franchises in local communities, your franchise should know what is doing -- should know who is doing effective work in the local community. national groups should be pushing that. one of the problems -- you are talking about dollars -- they have a saying -- this is the black bundle, this is the asian bundle. you fight over that rather than having a strategy to invest in the community over nonprofits. you are giving for different

reasons. you have got to get out of this whole thing where they have thus like hamsters running around trying to go on this treadmill and who was pointed out to run the other one to get the chicken dinner. the local nonprofits get locked out. they need the resources and they're doing the work on the ground where they are in business. this is where they are in business where they need the good will and the community that is working in the school in the after-school program. we have got to perfect that. another thing is that i think we need to be able to develop. that is why the black leadership forum is so important. you have got to have this interconnection.

you have to write those proposals to help plug them in. they need to be made billable -- made available to the non- profit. otherwise we cannot generate the grants we need to do the national campaign that we need. all of us do not have chapters in every village and hamlet. a young lady we had at a movement on saturday. 13 years old. she got 1200 young people. i had never heard of her. but because our atlanta office knew what she was doing, we have been able to help our write a proposal, get some attention. she met secretary duncan. those are the kinds of things we need to do. >> the comcast people are in our

community. they tend to help small organizations. >> at the nclar, we have 300 community -- nclr, we have 300 community organizations that help us. they help us on different programs. one of the things we are doing even more is creating coalitions. there is one example where we worked with the naacp. we have worked with the urban league and the asian pacific islanders organization when it came to the foreclosure crisis. we put together proposals jointly. we have been able to engage our affiliates in joint proposals at the national levels that have a direct economic benefit for our affiliates at the local community level. more and more of those types of

collaborations are emerging. being part of a coalition can be beneficial. >> gary and i represent 50 of those organizations. >> gary flowers, director of the black leadership conference. two policy questions. should every education -- should every student have a right to a high-quality education? united states only contributes 9% funding to public education. 91 comes from state, county, and local. meanwhile, the children are left out. is it the position of the administration or the panel to radically increase the 9% of bunting -- of funding so that

we can compete with the larger nations around the world fully fund their educational systems. >> to the question of whether education is a fundamental right, this is the most important question of our time. it is not a right in body in the federal constitution. there are a number of states that have in their state constitutions included the right to education as part of a right in those states. that is a decision for the conn >> was. does the admonished -- that is a decision for the congress. on the question of the dollars spent, you are right. to 10 cents on 8

the dollar is the historical contribution. the majority of the funding comes from states. several state supreme court decisions have said things like, the states system of funding for schools is unconstitutional and turned it to state legislatures to do something about it. this issue of the appropriate role of the federal government in terms of impacting systems of finance so that they are more equitable is one that we are exploring now. the secretary has called for an excellent in the equity committee that has many of the suggestions that have been mentioned here on it. would we like to see an increase

such that we could provide so much more to states? are undoubtedly -- undoubtedly. those conversations are happening in the congress today. >> if i can say a word about the way that we are funding, the fact that education is funded from the property tax is how we end up with educational disparity. he thought inner-city education was depressed, you end up with something where the dpp berries gdp varies by-dollars gd thousands of dollars. if the federal government decided to fund more, the state

government would be spending less. if they said, this is the floor and we will pay for it. the income tax as opposed to property tax pays for some level of educational spending. the federal government can be the equalizer. states have said that the way that we fund education is unconstitutional. we cannot afford to have a certain educational standards in mississippi and another one in new hampshire. we are trying to be a nation. what happened to the notion of a nation. the federal government should be doing more for k-12 education except for the political realities. the political realities are what they are. we will not debate those. they are what they are. people have denigrated my favorite beverage and they have done many other things. we just have to live with it for the moment. the fact is that we see these inequities in how we fund education. i would think that the department of education would be

leaders. you have some anythings on your plate. despite the criticism. but in looking at ways that we find education. when we look at other countries and look at the waist -- where once first in the production of a.a. and b.a. holders . now we are 12th. countries like spain. i am not dissing spain. countries like korea outraink us. it is just a question of what priority education takes in the work that we do. >> in terms of the constitutional question, that is important. for whatever reason, we did not follow the movement on that.

the national action record is on record. >> 30 seconds. >> it is important to understand there is a tremendous shift in growth and demographics in this country. it is more important now than ever for us to find ways for us to invest in these children so that we can see those children advance and know that the feature of this country relies on the investments that we're making today in those young people 10 or 20 years from now. will be important in guiding us as a country going forward. >> the idea of those funding inequities in our proposal for reauthorization of the elementary and secondary education act, you will see a great strive to use all the

federal dollars and ensure dollars get to where they were intended to. we are seeing great progress over the last couple of years in terms of states taking the lead to ensure that the zip code does not decide who learns what and to close the teacher that the gap and to close these l loopholes that were barring innovation. we have a lot of work to do. a strong america requires strong schools. >> a good selection of subject today. thank you. a fantastic time that we had here. [applause] >> thank you, richard. great job in moderating. we will take a break and we will resume at 3:25 p.m. [captioning performed by

national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> here are some of the programs featured on c-span this holiday weekend. the reformer secretaries of state talk about diplomacy.

on easter sunday, president ford's son and jenna bush hagar. and tom brokaw and vice president by dabiden. for a complete list of this weekend's programs and times, go to c-span.org. >> this program is about one hour.

>> it was said that the recovery is here, but government is not creating enough jobs. hopefully, we will get some ideas from around the world today as to how we translate increasing profits and stock market rebounds into a declining unemployment rate. i will start with done to my left. -- john to my left.

your members have a lot of cash on their balance sheets. when are we going to start to see them feeling that they want and need to invest in more hiring? >> that will follow demands that we are hoping to see. there has been some strength on the export side of the equation. that has been one of the strong performance in the u.s. economy. they are big employers. almost all of them are global. they are sensible and that makes a difference for the supply chain. in the u.s., consumers are pretty conservative. just at a time when our ceo --

we do a quarterly survey. it came back in the first quarter of this year with the most optimism from the ceo's that has ever come back from a survey. the first survey i get to report is the highest ever. we have three questions. it is simple. do you think sales will bedo yo? 92% said yes. do you think capital gains will be up? yes. do you think hiring will be up? yes. what do you think gdp will be? 2%. they are feeling good about where they are, but i think the idea of a consumer-led economy -- it is not there right now. we know housing values are -- fixing the housing market is still one of the great challenges that we have got to get people, i think, back on

track. i think the consumer confidence index came out about the same our numbers did and that was all down. what are they watching? japan, the effects of such as tsunami -- the effects of the tsunami. they're watching what is going on in the middle east. and there certainly watching what is going on at the gas pump every time they pull in and are paying four dollars per gallon. i will get into some of the other questions. i do not want to monopolize the conversation, but i think there are a lot of governmental policy questions here. there is a lot of conservancy. one of the reasons you're conserving cash and being very cautious at this point. >> david, a lot of the uncertainty is around macro underpinnings, the budget issue which is dominating the debate here. we have heard from paul ryan of budget. we have heard from the president the outlines of the budget.

which one offers the best view towards getting a somewhere? >> let me start with a health warning. what i am about to say is definitely not mainstream and it may be very hazardous to your peace of mind, but i do not think we are going back to work. i think we're going back to crisis. a floundering conflagration which will begin with the dead ceiling and last year after year. we have not had a recovery. we have had to exercises in lunatic fiscal and monetary policy that have created the illusion of recovering the stock market but are paving the way for an even greater crisis to come. we can talk about some of those, but when you tell the congress that the cost of debt is zero, that is what it is that the fed, when you tell the congress that the fed will buy $6 billion worth of treasury bonds every day, the same amount we are issuing, then you are simply

creating an illusory state of mind that fails to understand what this problem is really about. where are we on the fiscal problem? we are about ready to launch a class war because the politicians are so confused that they cannot deal with the facts of life in the fiscal math of the budget. last night, at least obama said -- he was adult enough to utter the t word, taxes. it is a pretty states -- a pretty sad state of affairs in a great country like this where the adults in washington cannot mention taxes when we are at the lowest rate of taxes on gnp -- 14% -- since 1948. but the problem with what he said is we are going to raise taxes on the 2% top tax payers. he was 2% right and 50% wrong. he should be telling the entire

middle class of america, we got ourselves into a massive fiscal. we can only work our way out -- and we have to do it urgently -- by raising taxes on much of the middle class, not just the rich. the problem on the other side, with paul ryan, is that he cannot even mention taxes, and then he goes on to say that for the next 10 years, when we are going to spend $17 trillion on medicare and social security, i am not going to cut one dime. that is what he said. everyone says this is a brave and courageous plan. is it brave and courageous to tell the middle class of america that we are not going to touch one dime out of $17 trillion that is being laid under current law? on the other hand, he is going to massively whack the safety net. the medicaid and medicare safety net are going to be cut by 20% in his plan and that is where most of the deficit reduction

comes. he is going to do nothing about the fence. that is a recipe for stalemate. that is a declaration this week by both parties of class war that has nothing to do with the fiscal equation, therefore, we are going to drift and therefore, we are going to find a global buying market that will slowly going to panic. in fact, i think it started already when you saw pimco this week finally announced the biggest bond fund in the world -- and this is really important, because all the bonds have been bought by central banks. there are not any real people buying bonds. but pimco, one of the people that usually buys tens of billions of treasury debt, this week announced they are shorting the bond, not only refusing to buy it, but actually shorting it. the financial market is going to go into a new state of panic sometime in the next couple of

months, particularly as qe ii ends in june. then we will find out where we really are, and that is right where we left off in october, 2008. nothing has been done to address the underlying problem. that is where i think we are. >> ok. [laughter] [applause] >> david, i should say that many of the tea party years in the audience, and i have seen many, beatify president reagan as the great tax cutter. you say they are reading reagan wrong, perhaps, and also the tax increases need to be broad-base. >> we made a mistake in 1981 when we cut taxes too much. there was a huge party on capitol hill, a great christmas tree put together.

businesses jumped on board. they got a tax break and a loophole for everything imaginable, oil, property, machinery and so forth. we realized after that the some of it had to be taken back. over the next four years, president reagan signed for tax bills. he took back 40% of the cuts that we made in excess in 1981. we cut 5% of gdp in revenue. we took back 2.2%. to do that today, again, saying we made a mistake with the bush tax cuts, we did, if we were to do what reagan did today, we would raise taxes by $400 billion a year. that is the equivalent in today's economy of what we did to restore the excesses of the cuts for the tax base in the 1980's. listen to people today, and they have historical amnesia when it comes to looking at the actual

record. when we have a whole party that is suffering severe amnesia, that is incapable of doing which israde masth, where the republican party is today, you can see why i am a bit pessimistic about where we are going. [laughter] >> how does this debate look from north of the board there? what is the canadian perspective on the fiscal debate and on jobs? >> well, for someone from toronto in philanthropy to have to comment on this -- the good news is, we are in the midst of a federal election. these issues are coming up. it is about spending priorities, and obviously taxation is in there. this is a fantastic example of the role of philanthropy today and how it is emerging. in canada, in toronto in

particular, we see philanthropy as the space where the public sector and the private sector come together to develop innovative solutions to precisely the type of issues we're talking about. let's talk about philanthropy. it is not about cutting checks. it is not about funding. it is about developing transformative solutions to a lot of these issues. i'm going to go down one rabbit hole, as it were, for a moment, and that has to do with immigration. that is still a dirty word south of the border but has a different context in canada. a couple of things to think about. much like the rest of the world, we have a declining population in terms of birthrate, and an aging population. by the year 2021, on the net growth in canada will come from immigration. by 2011, right now, on the net growth of our labor force in canada comes from integration --

immigration. our issue is, quite frankly, people without jobs, and more problematic moving forward, jobs without people. in other words, canada is reforming itself and looking at itself in the context of the global economy. the question becomes, how do you engage foreign professionals and bring citizens not only into the labor market, but at the same time, how you create connections with the new jobs being required in the new economy in canada? frankly, we are struggling with that. it is quite a big issue. the important part to take away from today is the role of philanthropy is playing in development solutions. i am happy to talk about that a little bit more. >> stephen, i am afraid you are sitting in a country which has already crystallized many of these problems that david lays out for us. the borrowing costs there have

rocketed. we are back tragically to the specter of immigration. how do things feel now, what is the job situation like over there? >> it feels clammy. there are about four hundred 65,000 people out of work. that is the equivalent of 20 million in the u.s.. we are back to an awful situation. in ireland, the unemployment has doubled in the last two years. i saw a figure recently that 50% of males under 25 are now out of work. the social crisis that has been built into the system is horrific. a cousin of mine who worked with me on the campaign is graduating this year from trinity. i think my campaign may have affected his grades a little. a "washington post closed closed journalist came over to address

the class and said -- "washington post" journalist came over to address the class and said, how many of you are thinking of immigrating? every hand was raised. there are zero jobs available in ireland. we are dealing with an unprecedented banking crisis, a national debt crisis, a serious budget deficit crisis, and unemployment and immigration crisis, and an education crisis. we just released a report in november that said that the irish education system has had the biggest fall in educational standards in the oecd in a decade, and not just in relative terms. it is not just that others are getting better quicker. we are having a fall. we have a public spending crisis. we are ranked 93rd in the world in terms of public spending effectiveness.

we have it all, and we have a highly dysfunctional political system. now, the people voted very strongly to get rid of most of the house of representatives. there are 20 of them left out of 106. i do not know what will happen next, but that was some democracy in action. we are in a very difficult situation. the minister of enterprise is announcing a new jobs budget, jobs initiative, and they're going to have a micro finance fund. they are going to lower employer taxes. they're going to try to reduce the energy costs. we of some of the highest energy costs in the world. we of both the highest paid energy workers in the world and some of the highest energy costs in the world. hence, 93 in the world in public spending effectiveness. we also have the most punitive bankruptcy laws in europe. i did my undergrad in ireland,

but i was lucky enough to study in boston, twice at mit at the kennedy school, and there i was immersed in the wonderful american culture of trying and being allowed to fail, right? so, you have the businessman or the business woman who becomes and, i failed in my first three businesses, and they get around of applause. it is a sign of something good. [applause] >> was that a wall street bank? >> i do not think so. [laughter] >> in ireland, if you try and you fail, you are done. you have a 14 year bankruptcy law, and the debt never leaves you, so if you get something right, you're stuck. the problem with stimulus is that it is very marginal. we are borrowing money to pay our police and our doctors and our nurses.

nothing the government is doing is addressing the banking debt or the national debt, so inevitably, we are moving toward, not the t word, but the d-word, the fault. it may not happen, but we are on that path. and most of it is being caused by the bonds, the situation in ireland is that we have senior bondholders and coordinated bondholders. the coordinated bond holders have taken a hit, but the senior bondholders have taken essentially zero hit. so, the rules have been changed. the rules now say that senior banking debt is supplemented. the people of us. by my calculation, the irish people will be covering about $70 billion in losses for senior bondholders, right?

if you invested in banks, not in irish bonds. that would be equivalent of the american people paying back about $4.2 trillion in other people's private losses. that is what is going on in ireland. we have a lot of problems, but underneath it all, we are simply paying off so much private loss that we have a national debt that means we cannot borrow money to invest and our austerity measures now are about half a trillion dollars per year, year-on-year, to try to reduce the deficit. is of very, very difficult situation. >> dennis, cheer us up. [laughter] over the last decade, the u.k. and ireland could look at germany and feel a little bit smug with double-digit

unemployment. that has completely changed. the german economy is plowing ahead, but also, unemployment fell over the last few years and that momentum barely changed with the recession. what can germany teach the rest of us? >> could i say one thing before returning to germany, which is indeed a mystery. but one on which a lot of light can be shed is, the crisis in ireland as well as in another of -- a number of european countries is totally and utterly unnecessary. the reason why it is unnecessary is that the european union decided not to make the obvious deal, which is any country that seeks to protect -- seeks the protection of the imf rescue package should commit itself to a fiscal role the says where the long run ratio of debt to

gdp ought to be, how quickly you approach that ratio and how sound the fiscal policy should be. and then announce, establish an independent fiscal authority that simply implements that rule. if that would have happened, then ireland would be able to stimulate its economy now without worrying financial markets because the financial markets would know that there is an independent authority that will, in the end, get it right. i was among 1980's, the crazy academics who said we ought to have independent central banks because governments cannot do monetary policy, and people said absurd, you're interfering with democracy. then we had central banks and inflation came under control. now we have reached the conclusion that governments cannot do fiscal policy either. oecd debt ratios have been

rising since 1970. it is only since the financial crisis that they have been rising very fast, but they have been going up. it is very bad for a debt ratio is to be rising. it is unsustainable. governments spend too much in good times. you have to spend in bad times to get out of recession, is a discretionary fiscal policy is not the answer. it would be a much safer world if political parties, including those in the united states, would argue about future fiscal rules rather than arguing about taxes year by year. but now, back to germany. i was trying to cheer you up, because there is an answer to this mess, but politicians do not seem to be able to muster up enough political will to do the obvious thing. with regard to germany, and it took everyone by surprise that

although the recession was very bad in terms of gdp, employment and unemployment basically did not budge very much. why was that? the sexy thing to do is to look for some economic policy in germany that others do not have and point to that. now, that is a policy whereby it is possible for enterprises that go into deep trouble to reduce the amount of hours that people and the government pays 60%-67% of the missed time to these workers, essentially. many enterprises did that.

the only problem is, we have had this policy in germany for 100 years. it does not explain why in this recession the labor market was so mild relative to other recessions germany has written. another policy germany has which is useful is that it is possible for employers to tell their employees to work longer hours without overtime, provided that they run down their working time account over a certain period of time. that certainly helped in the beginning of the recession, because if you have people who have a surplus in their accounts, they're more expensive to throw out. i think the simple answer to why germany did reasonably well is to twofold. oneness, germany has had a long

span of wage -- one is, germany has had a long span of wage moderation. wages rose for a long time. consequently, it was not necessary to fire as many workers. the other thing germany has which is very important is something called the social market economy. economists are instinctively suspicious of that type of sociological idea, but i have spoken to many workers and many ceo's in germany about why they did not fire more workers, and it is surprising how many of them said, we owe it to our work force to do our utmost to keep their jobs. they have been very fair to us. they have had wage moderation. they have cooperated. it is our turn now to give back.

this is in contrast between workers and firms elsewhere. in short, they manage to share out their losses in a much more equitable fashion than if we had had class war. in addition, i think it must be said that we were fortunate the recession did not last longer than it did, because another half year or year, firms would have had no option but to start firing. one last point i would like to make is that the democratic curve is hitting germany much more than many other countries. the population is basically peaked. most of the people going into retirement our skilled people, and firms are beginning to worry

about a skills shortage. that makes them adverse to firing people, particularly in a country where firing costs are reasonably high, so many firms thought that this recession would not last that long. all of these factors together explain a lot, but i think the most important factor is that there was an ideal of social market economy. >> john, a social contracts, share the pain? >> that is a long way from where we are today, no question. that is probably a long way from where we're going to be tomorrow. i think that one of the things that is interesting in the canadian experience right now,

if we look at how competitive they are becoming, immigration policy was mentioned, but also the canadian attitude toward research and development. it is very positive, much more advantageous really than the u.s. at the moment. corporate tax rates are very low. capital is so mobile today, and there are so many opportunities -- i mean, the german economy, one of the strengths we look at, if the u.s. exported the same amount of manufactured goods as the german economy does, there would be no trade deficit, even with all the energy costs. the german exports and their success over a long period of time is quite remarkable. we have a vast majority of our small and medium-sized companies that if they export at all are exporting to one or two countries, not really globally exporting.

i think that there are a lot of opportunities for work. you had earlier this morning congressman waxman -- when he was chairman waxman, his approach on the regulatory front is very difficult for american investment to be confident in. now, he is not in the ascent in the house, but certainly his philosophy is alive and well in the administration, despite the president's effort to start looking a regulatory relief. at this point, it has that yielded much. the intent is stated, but the results are hard to come by. i will argue the calif. -- they were just posting under the new administration out there that they of passed another clean energy mandate, and they were reporting under governor schwarzenegger that they had

locked in energy costs about $30 billion above market. you wonder, well why is california losing manufacturing jobs and investment? that could have something to do with it. staying aside from the fiscal for a moment, part of a component of fixing america's fiscal problems is clearly economic growth. you have to have some growth, what is the required? i think it takes the same kind approach on regulatory policy. i think it takes the same kind of approach on tax policy that says we recognize that at least when it comes to business investment that we are outliers in this country today, whether it is on corporate tax rates are effective tax rates. it is immigration policy,

talent, because the graduate schools that would educate a foreign-born students but then not pursue eagerly the effort to keep that student here, to keep that talent in this country, which is the place or at today -- we are at today, all of that has in recent years frayed at the edges. i think there is no coherence in that policy today. i also think there are areas where private capital, it simply freed up and allowed to work, would take off. this nation needs to do air- traffic control. that is an interesting one. we have oil at over $100 per barrel again. we have seen the cost of flying go up. a new air traffic control system, there might be a friend and $15 billion-20 -- a front-

and $15 billion-$20 billion cost, but that is renewable. congress has no ability to think through a capital budget which would not add to the debt and could be recovered. it is something most states have the ability to do. we know that if we upgrade our utility lines in this country that just the transmission, if you do not worry about where the kilowatt pride generated, whether coal or nuclear, just be transmission a certain percentage gets lost. >> isn't that what the stimulus money was for? >> no. there was an effort on most of

the stimulus money to have somebody as some agency at the government decide if this businessman has the right program. does what his company wishes to do fit with our vision of what ought to be done for the economy, as opposed to unleashing that spirit of enterprise in this country. we have been trying to guide and direct these investments. that is our social policy in this country. we are over on the spending side fiddling around with trying to direct money, not on the benefit side. >> i want to jump in on the social market concept. i think you raise a very interesting point. in some respects, it is a little radical, but going forward, the cities, our nations, our economies depend on competition, but in some of the things we are facing now, competition is not the answer. collaboration is. one issue we have now is that we

have figured out how to reward competition. we of not figured out how to reward collaboration. i'm going to take a large story and boil it down to give you an example. with three sectors, public, private and and foundations or ngos. the bottom line in the private sector has always been the bottom line, and then we have ua social mission bottom line. the public sector has a straightforward social bottom line, but the financial bottom line has become more acute over time. the private sector has only the financial bottom line. people are starting to talk about greater responsibility and a different connection. harvard is writing about corporate social responsibility and shared values. we are changing this relationship quite dramatically and we are changing the language

we are using to think about how the sectors can work together in collaborative ways. i think that is extremely important. when you hear social marketing, people think that is fuzzy and peculiar. i think that is actually emerging. i think we are in the early steps of the journey, and i think it is an important one. >> at the risk of offending my host, i would like to address the german miracle, which i do not believe very much in either. [laughter] the way to put this in context is that on the left, back in the 1920's and 1930's, there was a great debate, could you have socialism in one country? stalin tried to prove you could have socialism in one country. he killed 40 million people trying to prove it and he ended up failing. my larger point is that today you cannot have a social market model in one country that works

without looking at the context of the world market in which that economy functions. i think there are two broad terrains, geographies, in the economic world today that are burying themselves in debt and speculation, and money trading, and out of that, there is a massive bid for german exports, which for the moment is working well, but all things and badly when you are basing prosperity on debt, money printing and massive speculation. now, what are these two zounds? one is on the east asian mainland that is run by people who learned their economics from the little red book, and they have now become experts in running financial systems and advanced capital societies, but what they are really doing is creating the greatest construction project, the greatest financial bubble, the greatest speculative endeavor in human history, and it is working, but i think it is nearing the end of how much

laundry can go on. >> a multi-year boom. >> there is a huge bid for german exports and then it slows for the rest of the world because brazil, a satellite of china, there are booming because of the demand for raw materials and so forth in china. the second aspect of geography is the irish, as the portuguese, the greek. they have lived way beyond their means. they of barrault like crazy from the german banks in order to buy german -- they have borrowed like crazy from german banks in german exports. let's have a fiscal authority to tell the irish how much tax they

should pay for the next 10 years so that they can bail out the german banks and pay back their debt. >> we are going to have to find out if there is any place in the world that is working. >> i think the whole world is in a huge financial monetary bubble fueled by the central banks who have been printing money like crazy for 10-15 years. it is all out of balance. >> it ends badly for the planet, then. >> that is why i said that the crisis is just guarding, not ending. >> -- just starting, not ending. >> i know socialism is a bad word in the u.s., but if you think about it from an economic standpoint, two things. how do we grow the pie and how do we read distributed? there are successful models of that in europe and other places

where you do redistribute wealth in order to protect the most vulnerable people in society. i think i can work. from an economic perspective, obviously the marginal return you get from a marginal dollar is higher for people who have less. i think it to the point of did portuguese, irish, greece, and so forth, the pigs, did we borrow beyond our means? yes. my brother is seven years younger than i am. my first car was a 10-year-old ford fiesta, which i waited quite some time to buy. his generation just a few years down or driving astonishing cars -- were driving astonishing cars. there was a false sense of security and a sense of a party.

our prime minister said this boomier.l just get the he is not our prime minister anymore. [laughter] the problems facing ireland is this perfect storm, not due to that borrowing. the problems facing ireland, i believe, are due to very serious mistakes that have been made at a european level. number one, no european bank can fail, right? that is a subversion of the market system. in america, three of 22 banks failed between 2008-2010. -- 322 banks failed between 2008-2010. americans understand that a bad

business can fail. for some reason, the decision was taken a new european bank can be allowed to fail. that single assertion, i believe, has endangered the entire euro project. it is a total subversion of democracy and the market system which has worked pretty well so far. the second issue is that bank debt is the same as sovereign debt. it absolutely is not. those two assumptions are extremely dangerous. they've been made in europe. they've not been made here or anywhere else to my knowledge, and they need to be addressed. >> can we answer some questions from the floor? who has the microphone? there is a person jumping up and down very strongly here. >> i am a former finance minister of romania.

i just want to address an issue about fiscal matters addressed by dennis. i think it is wrong when it comes to ireland and spain. it is not about creative fiscal policy. the big issue -- and i see eye to eye with you dennis -- is blatant resources misallocation. the rules of the game are wrong. even now this is not addressed. the crisis is not actually over. this is another issue. as a matter of fact, i wanted to ask secretary brightener about geithner aboutry brightene

how the issue is not over. there is bank consolidation. there is enormous moral hazard in the years to come. that is the issue of fairness. this is a fundamental issue. when you ask people to pay, the taxpayers, to rescue the financial industry, what about fairness in a democracy? what is going to happen? last but not least, the erosion of the middle class, the loss of jobs, is not a recent vintage. i remember larry summers and others saying that there is an erosion of the middle class because of global competition. my fear is that the inability to create jobs because of economic growth may not be accompanied by job creation, will lead inexorably to more than currency in the years to come.

>> yoon 83 points and they are all worth addressing. made 3 points and they're all worth addressing. the first was, was ireland fiscally profligate? of course they were. they had this stupid bailout. if that is not fiscal profligacy, i do not know what is. your second point, have we done what we need to overcome the crisis? i agree with you. it is possible now to be too large and too complex to fail. you privatize gains and it is possible to socialize losses. that is totally unsustainable. there is only one way out, and that is to change the

incentives, to make people pay for the costs of their excessive risks. there are policies on the table which could not be implemented. for example, if institutions are too large and complex to fail are forced to issue debt that automatically transfers into equity -- >> i refuse to get into that. you would say break up the banks. that would be simpler. >> you heard timothy geithner trying to be reassuring. i was in a job like his, so i know that is his job, but the song you heard two hours ago was official washington whistling past the graveyard. we have not fixed any of the problems. they have to keep up a good front, but the real underlying problem is here on the banks.

on the eve of the crisis in september, 2008, the top six banks had $7 trillion in assets. they were clearly too big to fail because every one of them was bolstered in one way or another, bank of america, jpmorgan, goldman and so forth. today, they are now 30% bigger. they have $9 trillion in assets. what happened was the failing banks were forced into the arms of those who work propped up by tart and -- who were propped up by tarp and all that nonsense. what we did was change the accounting rules so that they would not have to acknowledge the tremendous amount of bad assets better still there. >> one more question over here please. >> my question is mostly to

governor engler. following upon dennis and his colleague from canada. you have your neighbor to your north and the country that i know when you were governor you thought had a lot of social policy ideas. faced with a debate on social cohesion, which frames this panel, you gave us two things that the united states should do. it should focus on regulatory relief, and use a private capital needs to become unshackled. the strange thing is that nobody in the rest of the world would believe the united states has these problems, because if the united states as a leader anywhere, it is on these two issues. something does not compute. how is it possible that the same companies that cry here now, turning to crybabies, managed to

markets,in european and by your logic should be dead and should have been dead a long time ago? >> we will get to that. one more question. >> national center for sustainable development. what does david stockton's america look like in two years from now if nothing happens? >> part of the challenge that i am worried about the u.s. economy -- i realize we do not divorce that from the global economy, but we have seen more and more of our investment take place offshore. we like to say that it does not matter where the customers are in the world. in matters where you build a research center or a manufacturing plant. in recent years, the competitiveness of other regions of the world, the fact that there are customers there, there are more favorable markets competing at their head to head

-- out of their head to head, i would like to make the u.s. more competitive. i think that is part of what we have to do and we have an unemployment rate where it is today. i am attending to look at -- you know, there are big global, big macro solutions necessary. and our roundtable countries, some of them were on the fiscal policy panels. we're dealing with entitlement reform in these big questions. the recognition that you do not overnight get all of that done, but each day, each week, each month, investment decisions are being made. if you said to u.s. companies today, this cash on your balance sheet, we're going to take that away unless you put that to work, my argument would be that most decisions to put that to

work would not be to put it to work here in this country. i'm trying to focus on, what does it take here, and i think there are sort of easy things to be done that would give permission. i'm very bullish on the energy sector. there is a lot of domestic energy to be explored if permission can be given. there is a lot of energy efficiency to be achieved if permission is received, and so, some of the regulatory issues in this country are ones that they hang -- they need to be clarified. some of the worst are not yet on the books but are listening. they're having a chilling effect. >> the david stockton manifesto, please. >> i think we're going to be in the same place we are now but a little deeper. these arguments are going to go

on. our system is paralyzed. maybe we will make small steps here or there, but this is going to be a generational struggle to try to unwind the 30-year party debt binge money train spree that we went on in this country, and it lasted for 30 years and it is not going to be solved in 30 months. so, we are going to be back in the suit. i do not think we will go down a black hole. i do not think armageddon is here. i think we are in an era no one could have predicted, an era of no growth, an era of austerity, a lost decade. that is where we will be and we will be waking up to that finally, and we have not yet, unfortunately. >> time for one more question here. >> i'm from the european think- tank. quick question around -- there

is a lot of focus on the crisis and the cost effects of the crisis. much of what david said seemed to suggest that there has been a longer-term problem, which uses the central banking. i would beg to differ. a big part of the problem is that the financial system we have had in peacetime has had incentives that are skewed, has had a time horizon that is far too short term, and that the cost of the crisis, even the largest estimates, do not capture even a small proportion of the real cost of decades of misallocation of resources every time between choices of what is short term beneficial versus what is long-term good. three particular kinds of investments, green, enterprise and infrastructure get squeezed out, and what we're paying is 30 years of the financial sector misallocating resources on a systematic basis. the stability approach to financial reform, which is what

every part of the reform on the agenda is, is far too narrow. all it means is that we reverse excesses' so they do not blow up in our face, but there is very little to address the kind of issues that create jobs and stable economies. >> we have time for one more if there is one more. >> u.s. chamber of commerce, just to follow up on the issue of fiscal profligacy. i think the point was that before the crisis struck, spain and ireland were running fiscal surpluses, and it was germany that broke the budget deficit limit. the point is, how much of a fiscal anger will really sect

year growth in europe -- and gore will release secure growth in europe -- anchor will really secure growth in europe and create jobs? >> dennis, do you want to respond to that? >> yes, i think we need to take two things into account. your point is absolutely fair. there are several ways to be fiscally profligate. one is to stand in the way of running deficits. the other is making certain promises, which is what ireland has done. the way forward is to ensure that you have fiscal responsibility and the simplest way would be to find a world in which a government formulates

fiscal rules. that would sort that out. once you are fiscally responsible, what insures bet you would continue to of prosperous growth? for that you would need to restructure the economy. one thing that has prevented economic restructuring is fiscal profligacy. governments have great incentives to have structural policies that encourage people to move where they ought to move if they were forced to be fiscally responsible. the last and most important issue that we face in this country as well as in europe is a revolution in the way work is organized. it is very easy to outsource and offshore work. it is more important than ever before for people to be adaptable in work. adaptability requires

investment, and these type and investments need to be made at the micro economic level. that is the way we ought to be thinking and that is what should guide structural policy incentives for adaptability. >> i think that adaptability is a very important point, and i think one of the differentiators -- we see this among the 50 u.s. states, but i think we also see it among nations today -- is the quality of the human capital. it is interesting. if you have to look at something that is probably almost a greater threat to the united states long term than our fiscal policy, it would be the lack of success that we have with our $650 billion per year education spend. we have got to get that right, and you cannot carry a 50% or + drop off rate in urban schools, you cannot carry ill-prepared,

untrained, unskilled youths rising up into the economy because a knowledge economy does not offer opportunities. globally, we do not have the capacity to suck up the unskilled workers. nations who get that right, regardless of what else is going on, are going to have a much better opportunity. to go to philanthropy, there are some opportunities there, but i think that and probably systems like, in our case, the health care system where again, we are lavishly overspending. we do not just have an overspending problem, it is a misallocation of resources. those are the things that are going to be part of what government is going to have to deal with on the effectiveness side. >> to the question here, i agree. in terms of the allocation of resources and the excess is an extreme short-term nature of the financial markets, we now know that the financial markets, left

to their own devices, will drive short-term, year-end bonuses very, very hard. they will take all the money away and they will let other people deal with any problems that are called. around the allocation of resources, what is the role of government? it takes on the questions early on about the federal money being used for certain business enterprises. the same thing is starting to happen in ireland. a team of civil servants is being created that is going to spend is going to set spending targets. we are now moving to a centrally planned economy in terms of allocation, and remember, we own the entire banking system, which is a terrifying -- but it really does get to the heart of the question, which is what is the role of government? is it to allocate funding to particular sectors? i do not believe it is. is it to provide, to fill in for

coordination, for infrastructure, for broadband, for roads, whatever. absolutely it is. any mention the environment. is it to essentially internal lives -- in to analyze -- internalize outputs of the environment. i think it is. government needs to review how they force businesses and citizens to internalize all of the consequences, and terminal, environmental, social, whatever it is. >> when the tide goes out, you find out who was swimming naked. the pigs were swimming naked.

they created the illusion of prosperity, but it was a windfall revenue, one time. when the central banks finally had to stop, you ended up with the situation we have. my final point is this is a central bank fuelled worldwide them. -- world wide boom. the fed, at the eed, the people's printing press of china, they created this and we're going to have to deal with this going forward. >> thank you very much. that is all we have time for right now. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011]

>> this weekend on book tv, in a covert a fair -- covert a faffa, a look at julia roberts and her

husband during world war ii. also this weekend, the americanization of hawaii, beginning with the arrival of new england missionaries in 1820. find the complete schedule at v.org. >> the discussion now on the 2012 republican presidential field. this is about 40 minutes. span.org/shop. host: our first guest of the morning, we are very pleased to have andy roth with us. tell people out there watching about the club for growth. >> it is -- guest: it is a membership organization. we have members from all 50 states, from all walks of life. we believe in one thing, and economic liberty, lower taxes,

less regulation. host: how involved will you be in the 2012 presidential campaign? guest: typically refocus on the senate and house races. we would like to make an endorsement in the presidential race, but the field we have looked at so far do not quite meet our standards. instead, we are taking an educational role. we are writing papers the look of the candidates on all of the issues and we will put them out for the public to look at and they can decide for themselves. host: wyda using -- why do you think you have focused on the state systems. guest: the leadership in the early 2000's was more government, more spending. and that typically is not the

role that republicans have played. and that reagan supported and that the party i -- identified with. i think they lost their way. and a lot of republicans do not behave the way conservative voters want them to. i think that is manifesting itself in the candidates available. host: grover norquist group has a longstanding anti-tax pledge. are you supportive of that pledge? guest: absolutely. tax increases served no beneficial role. never one, they harm the economy. increasing taxes now does nothing to stimulate the economy and create jobs. number two, it does not create revenue. a lot of times it will in the short run, but over the long run, it does nothing to help improve the government's finances or the economy. host: one feature of the "new

york times" editorial page is this a tax fund. he talks about the so-called gang of six, after republicans, three democrats focused on -- three republicans, three democrats focused on the deficit. it goes further than just a pledge not to raise taxes.

guest: i think there are two issues here. dr. cockburn is very much on target when it comes to ethanol. it is a subject that we need to get rid of. i think his proposal is, however, imperfect. ethanol receives subsidies and mandates and tariffs from the u.s. government. they're very few things out there that see that trisect accurate if we were going to attack -- let's see that trifecta. if we're going to attack and all, we should go for all three. if on the larger gain of six, we on the larger- th gang of six, we are opposed to any taxes that they may approve. host: the "new york times" frontpage poll about americans and the state of the economy -- of course, i am pulling it up,

but not quickly enough. a string -- interestingly, the independents right now seem to be breaking with democrats. i wonder what that means for your candidates in 2012. let me look at the responsibility to provide health care. you want to pick it up from there? guest: i am always concerned with polls and how the questions are asked. i wonder if they thought of the states should be irresponsible as opposed to the federal government. and of course, no government involvement, like you are seeing right now with obama care. i think you would see broad

support if it were not the federal government, but the states. host: on the question of using taxes to lower the budget deficit -- reducing spending was the favorite of all. on the end of the bush era tax cuts, here's the question --

\ guest: again it goes back to the poll question, assuming that raising taxes would answer the question. i think there is harm that would come from raising those taxes. it would not reduce the deficit. some may quibble about whether that is true or not, but the way the question is phrased is in perfect. perhaps, if it was worded differently, you may see a different art come. host: -- a different outcome. host: moving on to the gang of six, republicans and democrats see note to be so widely -- seem to be so widely different in

their ways to approach this. guest: already, we have seen some compromises. we saw a tax cut compromise in december and then the continuing resolution. i think you will see compromises on the free trade agreement where republicans will side with the president. it is going to be a girardo bottle and i do not know where you will see -- a dried out battle and i do not know where you will see a compromise, but when you look at corporate subsidies, there is very little taste for corporate welfare on both sides of the aisle. if they got rid of that, and simultaneously lower tax rates, you could see something come together. host: what are you banking on the issue in 2012?

guest: it's a very dangerous subject when it comes to elections. i think that will be another one. host: if you were looking for the perfect presidential candidate, who is qualified to speak with some knowledge on that point of view? is it more likely a senator, more like a governor? guest: well, at the club of growth, we're very fond of a congressman who recently decided not to enter the race and made other decisions about what he wants to do. that was heartbreaking and i hope he changes his mind, but we think he's very qualified both on policy and on the politics. i think he would gain wide support from both the conservative base and a lot of independence. i think that jim demint in the senate is equally qualified. and i think he would be fantastic. he's kind of staying above the fray and preferring to talk about other things. but we hope he reconsiders as well.

host: we are kind of mixing it up this morning with andy roth, talking generally about the conservative positioning going into 2012, and certainly in the middle of this budget debate right now in what they hope to see emerge from the discussions on capitol hill and the white in the direction of reducing the debt. we also would love to hear your comments on any of the 2012 presidential hopefuls. we can go in that direction as likaswell, if you like. before we go to calls, if you go to the club for growth's websi their powery have ranking members of the house and senate. since c-span viewers are big watchers, i thought it would be interesting to put your top 10 lists on both sides. lists on both sides. let me

host: in the senate side, here's the list. host: tell me what got people on to this list. guest: one thing that's remarkable about both lists is a lot of freshmen on there. i think that manifests itself because of the huge victories

were achieved in november. a lot of those candidates that are now congressmen and senators believe very strongly in limited government and lower taxes. and i think that club members are rewarding them by voting them high on the power ranking. i think that jeff blake, in the house, who's running for the senate, has broad support from our members and i think all across the country because of his fight against earmarks, taxes, and spending. and, of course, jim demint in the senate, i think everybody widely believes he's like the godfather of the conservative movement in the senate right now. he's responsible in large parts for helping the freshman. host: a tweet about presidential politics. guest: i think donald trump, club for growth has been playing a lot of attention to lately, he is a showman and talks very

bluntly. i think people appreciate that. he is not a politician who has candid speeches, candid responses to obvious questions. i think there's a lot of appeal to that. ron paul, on the other hand is very frank about where he stands on policies and issues. i think the more people learn about donald trump's record and where he stands on the issues, i think they'll find him very much less attractive. host: this is francis on our democrats line. good morning. caller: good morning. i have a question about if he's read a certain book when i get to the end of my statement. we have a wonderful, magnificent senator that's not going to run again. he's from north dakota. and his name is senator byron dorgan. he fights for the little guy always. he wrote a book called "take this job and ship it." and in that book he talks about a building six stories high on

church street in the caymen islands where u.s. corporations have their headquarters so that they pay no social security tax, no federal tax to our government. general electric and halliburton, these companies get tax dollars from americans who pay taxes. but i would like to know if this gentleman has read this book, because our middle class is collapsing. and the rich and the super rich and the billionaires want to get rid of the 20th century. have you read this book? >> i have not read the book, but i understand the issues very well. i think that a lot of people reflectively turn to protectionism when they see this sort of behavior going on. they want to penalize the companies here and penalize the companies overseas. the best way to get jobs back into the united states is to reduce taxes and reduce

regulations. if you increase taxes -- let's say hypothetically to 100%, companies in the united states will go elsewhere. it's just obvious. they'll be able to exist and maintain their businesses in a much friendlier climate. so the best thing to do is to reduce taxes so you can drive capital, drive jobs, and drive companies in the united states. they don't want to move offshore. they're happy to get jobs in the most productive markets in our country. and if we lower taxes and reduce regulations, i think you'll see that happen. host: is it all about tax and regulation? it not also cost of labor that is moving companies offshore? true. that's but the thing is that the united states is remarkably productive, more than any other country in the world. so we do have to compete against cheap labor. but if we make this climate in the united states accommodating to businesses through lower taxes and regulation, then we can compete against that. host: and westchester county, new york, republican.

you're on. good morning. caller: hello? host: yes, joey. caller: i want to talk about oil speculation on wall street that had destroyed the american consumer. you destroy the american consumer, you destroy the united states, the middle class, and the poor. the politicians have no compassionate all for us. if the wind blows, they raise the price of oil. they raise the price of oil for anything. the oil speculation. there's no shortage of oil. everybody has conserve. and the american public has to get out and stop the oil speculation. you could lower taxes all you want. if we're paying $6 a gallon for gas, it's not going to do anything. it's just ridiculous. and the american public has to wake up. donald trump has blown the whistle on all the oil

speculation, that is most of the banks are buying up all the oil stocks. host: thanks, joey. we'll get a response from our guest. guest: i think it's certainly true that with the increase in the price of oil and the the price of gas, people are starting to get concerned. think there are a number of reasons for that. one of them is just in flation. we've seen a lot of spending by the government. we've seen just the bailouts, the stimulus. then we've seen very easy monetary policy with q.e.-1 and q.e.-2 where the federal reserve is literally printing money. and you're seeing gold prices go up and commodity prices. so oil is naturally going up for obvious reasons like inflation. now, the caller didn't say it but i do have to know what the solution is. i think that a lot of people believe that raising taxes on oil companies is a solution. that, unfortunately, we do not

believe in. that will only increase the costs of developing oil and refining it and making it even more expensive. so i'm sympathetic with the caller, but i don't think that the correct thing to do is more government and more restrictions on oil companies. >> this is a tweet from maverick. please comment on farm subsidies. guest: farm subsidies, yes. we're against them. for one thing, they distort the market. they distort prices. and they prevent freer trade around the globe that will lower food prices and make it more accessible to all people around the globe. we'd be happy to get rid of them. but we want to do it in a way that does not harm the economy. i think that if you combined getting rid of subsidies but also allowing farmers access to foreign markets to alleviate that switching off those subbedies and also making it easier for them by cutting

taxes, i think that's a great idea. i think we should get rid of all of them, including ethanol, which is a lot of the candidates running for president support ethanol when i think they naturally would not. mark, ant, this is independent. caller: yeah. i think -- what about tax structure and from my corporate -- from like a corporate, nonprofit, everything, sales tax. look at everything and see who's paying what. everybody talks about having a flat rate or whatever else. and also that the underlying youe is basically -- when watch congress and all of these foolish bills are passing and wasting all of this time with

our tax dollars. also, on a local level, if you look at a town that's near write live -- where i live, they have five water districts. in one town. each fire district has a chief. and basically the town wastes all this money when they could have one fire district, one water district, and then branches under them. anyway, your comments. guest: well, i can't aggress the local concerns. i'm not familiar with it. but did he speak of taxes. at the club for growth, we believe the current tax code is a mess. >> think that's widely shared by most americans and even most politicians. the question is how do you go about reforming it? we believe that the corporate tax rate, which is now the highest in the developed world, the united states has that

position, that enviable position. it used to be japan, but they were smart enough to cut taxes. i think that, like i said earlier in the show, i think that there is a movement to cut corporate tax rates but also get rid of subsidies. we prefer that the overall package is a net tax cut. but i suspect that politicians like to have revenue-neutral bills so that both sides can be happy. one thing we can do. another thing we can do that's more radical is to go to the flat tax or to a fair tax. we're supportive of both of those because they make it simpler. i think a lot of americans can't stand the fact that they have to spend hours complying with the tax code when they fill out their tax return. both of those reforms would do away with that and make paying taxes simpler. host: president obama, as he travels the country, is beginning to mention fundamental tax reform in his speeches. do you see any of that for

tackling the comprehensive tack reform? guest: i think everyone wants to do it. no doubt about that. including president obama. when the democrats are in charge of the house, ways and means chairman charlie rangle was supportive of corporate tax return. so i think everybody is ready to do it. is there the political will? and because politicians are concerned about re-election, how does that effect their re-election? those are the question that asking themselves. and where does it fit in the schedule. i think that time is running out. think if they want to do it, they need to start very soon. but i think it's an admirable goal that they should try to do. host: asked by twitter "how would the club respond to a growth from high frequency traders on wall street?" guest: that's an interesting question. and probably a little bit too narrow for us to directly address. the solutions to that problem, i don't know what it would be except more restrictions on traders and how they behave.

i would have to look into that more, but we wouldn't favor more regulations or more government involvement in the private sector. host: st. petersburg beach, florida, republican. caller: hello. and happy easter, everyone. host: good morning. caller: i have a different question other than taxes and oil. you're involved with big brother and protecting us from big brother. i live in one county across america where we're seeing street video cameras go up that federal and local governments are putting up at an unprecedented rate. i'm seeing 10, 20, 30 of them going up in a week. it's just unbelievable. i was wondering if you're doing anything to protect us from the government that's doing this to us. it sounds like martial law. thank you. guest: i'm very sympathetic to that caller's question. fortunately it's not fiscal concerns. but i do believe that there is a

more paternal tend yancey on the part of the government lately. there have been smoking bans, government concerns about banning foods that are unhealthy for us, high fructose syrup, all of these sorts of things that the government is trying to protect ourselves from ourselves. while i don't know particularly what he's talking about down in florida, i'm sympathetic and i hope that he raises his concerns with his local congressman and local representatives, local and state government. host: i pulled some articles from the morning newspapers that may lead into the 2012 election theme for you to comment on. one is in the "washington times" this morning. one year later the battle still rages in arizona -- this is on immigration. immigration groups to step up pressure on obama for reform. the refusal of law by opposition

in the courts and president. immigration going into the next campaign. will it be a major battleground? guest: i think it will get pushed off to the side because of spending, jobs, and high unemployment rate. but that is a touchy subject, especially on the border states like arizona. how that plays out, i don't know. i think all of the g.o.p. candidates are taking a similar stance between them. and i doubt that the democrats will address immigration reform in congress. it will be a an issue have to deal with. host: drives for states to a hitize person hood as on roe v. wade. mississippi voters likely to be the first in the nation to add to their state constitution personhood language that declares unborn persons to be persons, effectively outlawing abortion and setting up a potential supreme showdown. it's seen as a direct attack on roe v. wade and the alabama

is considering two personhood bills this month and at least seven other state legislatures ins deuced similar bills last year. a christian minister launched personhood in 2008. wondering about abortion and other social issues in the primary stages of the presidential campaign. guest: well, the iowa caucuses, of course, are the first step in the long primary battle. they are very conservative, so i believe that it will play a large part on the candidates and their various stances. however, as a representative from the club for growth, i respectfully decline to on how these issues play out, simply because we only focus on economic issues. host: springfield, missouri. yolanda, democrat. go ahead, please. morning, mr. roth. guest: good morning. caller: yes. i have a question. i looked at everything like the gas, the food, and the way the

is going. and it's just so high. and also, social security. we need a raise. i'm disabled and everything. and we need that raise bad. and another thing is when we have problems with social security and we contact our state representatives or our senator, they penalize us for that. if we have any back pay coming, they hold it for as long as they can. they penalize us for asking for your help. but on the other hand, i do want to thank you because our senators and state representatives do work for us here. and i do want to say to you, thank you for your good job that you did. guest: well, thank you very much. talking about food prices, there's one issue that gets very little mention in the presidential elections this year and in past and also in congress. and that's monetary policy. i think that what the federal reserve is doing now with their

quantitative easing and the results, which is higher food prices, high oil prices, higher commodities, is that we're coming up to a period that may be highly inflationary. i think if we talked more about monetary policy, maybe even talked about bringing back the gold standard or some sort of reforms that will make the dollar stable so that a dollar a day is worth a dollar tomorrow -- a dollar today is worth a dollar tomorrow. i think that's a topic we need to start talking about. as for social security, it's a government program. and i think that when you call the local social security agency or your member of congress, you're going always incur red tape and barriers simply because that's the way government behaves. host: a few people have specific questions for you. "are you in favor of decreasing income tax rates?"

guest: let's go backwards. i think we should get rid of subsidies for oil companies. but, again, i don't want to do anything that would harm the economy. if we did get rid of subsidy that would increase the price of oil, and that would affect everybody across the country and across the globe. host: when you say i don't want to, are you speaking for yourself? guest: sorry. speaking on behalf of the club for growth i think that if we are going to get subsidies, which we need to do we should pair it with something that is pro-growth like reducing the corporate tax rate. first question talked about reducing taxes for the top 20%. i think that we need to do that, but also for everybody else. we talked earlier about the fair tax and the flat tax. i think that both of those would provide a lot of -- it would be very pro growth for every member, whether lower class, middle class, or high class. host: medicare. guest: and medicare. i think what paul ryan is

suggesting and what the republican study committee is suggesting is reforming medicare into a voucher system where you get the government out of health insurance and allow senior citizens to be able to purchase private insurance with the company they prefer, with the policy that they prefer, and allow them to negotiate directly with the insurance company rather than going through the government. host: another e-mail. "if the corporate tax rate was produced to 1%, the corporate army of lawyers and accounts would find a way for even a 1% tax." guest: i would push back a bit on his claim that lawyers would fight against the 1%, but i do think that we need to reduce it. simply having to discuss for corporations is a little misguided same my because jobs inions provide this country i think that we need to lower