i wish you well. let me speak of -- in the words of antonio -- "way fare, there is no road. your footsteps on -- are the road. " bought low university and bided erik weihenmayer, the only blind person to climb every continent. we start with the introduction by the university president who tells more about the story of

the blind mountain climber. this is about 30 minutes. >> he is celebrated for remarkable physical accomplishments. he is a passionate humanitarian with firsthand knowledge of overcoming personal obstacles which has inspired his inspiration for helping others. despite losing his vision to i disease at the age of 13, he has become a celebrated in accomplish czech athlete. is a world-class athlete, mont climber, skier, long-distance bikers, ice climber, and at prevent -- acrobatics skydiver. in 2001, he became the first blind climber to reach the summit of mount everest. in 2002, he became one of fewer than 100 people and the only

blind person ever to climb all of the seven summits, the highest peaks on each of the seven continents. this endurance is amazing enough on its own, but there's more. is also dedicating himself to bring new possibilities to others. he is co-founder of no barriers, a nonprofit organization that helps brings people with disabilities through their own personal barriers to live full and active lives. in 2004, erik and his teammates led a group of blind tibetan teenagers up the face of adverse. it was captured in a documentary. his exploits have brought him fame around the world, his 2001 autobiography "touch the top of the world close " was published in 10 countries in six

languages. he co-authored a second book "the adversity advantage -- turning everyday struggles into everyday greatness." on friday, we were going about our chores at work and perhaps you were packing up and celebrating. on friday, to mark the 10th anniversary of his mt. everest ascent, erik and his team were climbing a mountain, the highest point in the rocky mountains. starting next month, he will appear in the at a venture reality series, expedition impossible. he leads by example. we are so honor that he joins us here today. his speech is being broadcast for later review on c-span. please give a wonderful warm welcome to mr. erik weihenmayer. [applause]

>> thank you, everyone. thank you. thank you, president. i know that was a really nice introduction, and lots of prestigious things and accomplishments, but most people are just excited about the dodd today. -- dog today. [laughter] someone told me that it was the nicest creature had ever seen. i was walking up the island at the key here and say, and someone said, by the way, that is our speaker. he climbed mount everest blind. i am i used to taking a backseat to the dog. [laughter] it has been a pleasure to climb

mountains around the world, to do -- to do the seven summits adventure as a blind person or if there is a physical dimension to what i do. if of more interesting has been the mental journey. it has been a journey to understand how teams and cultures here in the u.s. and around the world, to see how we confront uncertainty, to see how we confront change, whether we can grow or evolve with a certain degree of success and then make a decision to camp out on the side of the mountain and ultimately stagnate or figure out a way to challenge ourselves until the day that we die. to see how people deal with adversity, whether it crushes us as it does so many people or we figure right away to flourish in the face of it. and how we deal with uncertainty. you were leaving bucknell, and you have a road map i had.

there is uncertainty as you go forward. a blind person, a blind climber in particular, there is a lot of uncertainty. there is no road map, no defined, clearer roadmap for a blind climber. they do not even go together. it's like being a jamaican bobsledders. [laughter] and there was uncertainty about climbing the seven summits, the tallest mountain in every continent. my first was macaulay, denali, the great one. we crossed a nares -- narrow summit ridge toward the summit. it was for 30 in the afternoon when i stood on top. it turned out to be helen keller's birthday. we're all worried about getting down. 90% of accidents happen on the way down, when you lost your focus. but we were exhilarating because

we had time did so well, we had radioed down to a small airstrip. now that we were near the top, my dad and my two brothers and my wife were circling above as, watching us take our last tap. we had red suits on. we looked at tenneco. we were waving and cheering. i said to my buddy jack. you'd think that they will know that i made it? and they said, they will know. you're the only one raising -- waving your ski pole in the opposite directions. [laughter] it is good to have friends. i did make a down safely. as cold as it was, as tired as i was, i laid on my belly in the snow, and i had never done some its doublet-something so mentally demanding, something that has so much for myself, i was not resilience and now, this

was the last thing a blind person is supposed to be doing with his life. but the other half of me did i care for the other half wanted to figure out how to climb forever. i climbed into the igloo, and our team leader cut up some freeze dried spaghetti which i immediately gave back to the mountain gods. [laughter] everyone had to climb through it to get out. chris is from alaska. he has these great callosities, great witticisms about light. you are sitting in a terrible storm, it is hammering in your face, you're miserable. chris will look up and say something like, "shuras cold outside, but at least it's windy." or he will say, "we have been climbing a long way, but at least we are lost." on the top of one mountain, i got to the summit behind chris,

he gave me a big hug and said, "you may be blind but you sure are slow." [laughter] and i was not expecting that. i said, chris, you're not so nice, but at least you're stupid. [laughter] of love positive pessimism. you can use it anytime, anyplace, the sec, we are facing a tough road ahead, but we will get through this together. you can say, there are not a lot of jobs out there, but at least i have a 2.1 gpa. or you buy your first house, honey, we may have to move into a smaller house and we wanted to, but at least my mother-in- law is coming to live with us. [laughter] back in the igloo, i said, chris, i am so sorry, i did not mean to it for that out of the igloo. he did something some eyes, he slapped me on the back as hard

as it possibly could, and he said, anyone who stands on the top of north america, i will cross through his you get a date. annie did, he crossed right through it, i was touched. i had such a good time in the mountains, climbing through the mountains, and coming down with friends around me. it is very much a linear goal, tangible, reachable. i love goals. all of you have multitudes of goals that will keep you very busy, that are very important. but in my life but i imagine yours too, what has been more important than any one goal is what i would call vision. i see this different than others, and internal vision, a vision of how we see ourselves living our lives in serving other people, and impact in the world. if what kind of legacy do we want to leave behind us? sometimes we can focus on this long list of goals and they can

become isolated and fragmented and go unfulfilled, or maybe even lead as the directions that we did not want to go to in the first place. but we need to continually reconnect with that unifying vision that takes those goals and binds them together and gives them purpose and power. first has to come division. it is one thing is you know to create a vision. it is another thing entirely to believe in it so strongly that you can summon up the focus and the courage and the discipline to live within its framework. here, your vision is powerful. perhaps it is to serve people. your community, and your family, your university, your world around you. how your goals day after day after day of line to bring you closer to that vision? perhaps your vision is to flourish through a sense of innovation? how is your goal to achieve it? if your vision is not to slip

into the status quo but to find ways of blasting for people's expectations and shatter them into a million pieces, how do your goals do it? if your vision is not to respond and react to lyse changes and challenges but to lead, how do you take those goals and wrapped them around that vision and make it real? as you leave your university, it is a very important time to formulate the vision that will sustain you. like an internal compass, it guides you through good weather and more importantly for bad weather. and it tells you where you're going and why it is so important that you get there. one i was not thinking about a vision before, i was thinking about just surviving. life had descended on me with such force i thought would be

crushed by a. i remember sitting in the cafeteria listening to all the laughter, all the jokes, all the food fights passing me by that i wanted to be part of. and i was not afraid to go blind. what i was afraid of was i would be swept to the sidelines, that might life would be meaningless for nothing. and i could still see a tiny bit out of my right eye. i could watch television and i had my face pressed against the screen watching "that's incredible." there were featuring and cagney and terry fox. he has lost a leg to cancer. he was still in the hospital when he decided that he would run across canada. thousands of miles. and i will tell you, this is not the typical decision that a person and his situation was supposed to make. most people would have dug in their heels and focused on

surviving. instead, perry did the exact opposite. he decided to attack. and the miles took a terrible toll on his body. the look on his face was an absolute contradiction, full of exhaustion, yet at the same time, fall of exaltation. and i thought to myself, there's something inside of us that i could only describe at the time as a light, a light that seemed to have the ability to feed on setbacks and frustrations and failures, to use those things as fuel, the greater the challenge, the brighter that light bird, and that light seemed to make us more focused, more and driven. i wondered if he could even transcend our own limitations. and give our lives power. and it was by staring into terry's face with my one-night prestigous the screen that i

first wondered, how you turn into the storm of life and emerge on the other side not just unscathed, not just damaged as little as possible, but actually stronger and better? and a few months after that, i got a newsletter in braille, rock climbing. and i ran my hand up the wall of my room and i thought, it would be crazy enough to take a blind kid rock climbing? so i signed up. i was tired of building walls around myself. i could do a pull up and scan my hand across the face just before i was ready to lose my strength in my for arms and fingers and felt like i had a fall, i could dig into a crack or pocket to keep me stuck to the pocket so i could do another pull up and scan my other hand across the face. i left a lot of blood and skin on the face but i got to the top. it was so exhilarating and fibrin, it was almost painful,

like a rebirth. the pattern of hot and cold as the sun touched the rocks, and the sound is based, i could hear sound vibrations moving infinitely through space, it was beautiful. but as beautiful as it was, it was also scary. and there is one thing that has not changed since the first time i went rock climbing 25 years ago, and that is the reach. i did not care if you are blind or side, we're all reaching into darkness. we're hoping, we are predicting, we are praying, we are calculating, all those metrics and measurements and algorithms, the data, it leads us to believe that we will find what we are looking for. but we understand there is no guarantee. is that moment when we have committed ourselves to the reach, our minds, our body, we know it is impossible to turn back.

those fears are overwhelming, flopping on our face, making a bad decision, if it leads us astray. that year that we are not good as something as we want to be or the fear for some of us older folks that we have climbed as high as we can go in there is nowhere else to go but down. all those fears conspire against us and paralyze us. but there is a big difference between most people and pioneers. pioneer's understand that life is an ongoing, never-ending process of reaching out into the darkness when we do not know exactly what we will find. we are constantly reaching towards the immense possibilities. they are always done seen, yet the process. so many others allow that darkness to paralyze them. i reached out that day and i know you reach out every day and you're about to make a big reaches in your life. those reaches lead us to some great adventures around the

world. i will say this, i do not see myself as some crazy blind guy, like a blind he will enable being shot across the grand canyon and a rocket ship. i'm very methodical. i see myself as you do, as an innovator, as a problem solver. i love looking at things as -- that others look get as impossible and improbable. i am motivated like pioneer's past. a sense of what is possible. and i think is important to see ourselves as modern-day pioneers. he does not mean that you are necessarily climbing a scary mountain. it means that we are motivated from within by that internal vision rather than from an external factors. it means we are motivated by a sense of discovery. when you define the word discovery, it means to unveil. a lot of potential is failed by

darkness. here is the trouble, i think as a pioneer, when you embrace that mind set, you reach out, father and father-in-law of a mountain, maybe farther than anyone has gone before, and you try to be great, but farther year reached, the more diversity bring into your life. in fact, it is like you are asking for it. who wants that? the party reached, the more adversity you bring in. and there is a correlation between adversity and greatness. they go hand-in-hand. there's no way to separate them. what kept our species survive in for some many thousands of years was the ability to move away from discomfort and uncertainty, to find familiar niches and settle in. but that does not work in the modern world. in order to achieve greatness, we have got to square off with adversity. the small adversity is that where is down, that make us ask

ourselves, i'm still treading water but i'm still drowning. the most complex issues on the horizon ready to share all of us. we have to square off with them and walk into the storm. the best example i ever saw on a personal level, a person able to do this is my friend mark. marks wellman, when he was 21 years old, fell down a peak in this area aren't -- sierra nevadas and became paralyzed from the waist down. he decided he would learn to climb again. he developed a new pioneering system known as -- no one had seen anything like it. mark had a poll of mardell logs on to their rope. he slides up the road, he pulls himself on a pulley system, he pushes the bar up, he pushes himself up, he only gets 6 inches up with each pull up. he climbed el capitan and.

they estimated he did over 7000 plots in seven days. ullups in seven days. they will find a way to transform lead into gold. with that of domestic -- an alchemist, they don't do the traditional things. they do not even overcome adversity. these alchemists have figured out how to do something radically different. they have figured out how to seize hold of that storm of the diversity that seems to swirl around us, to harness its energy, and use that energy to propel themselves for two places that they never would have gone to in any other way. with an alchemist, you can throw them in the midst of an uncertain environment, strip away their resources, throw road

blocks in front of them, and they will still find a way to win. and i would argue that cannot find a way to win despite adversity, they find a way to win because of it. if you want to learn and grow and strengthen great teams around us, if we want to innovate, if we want to create a new paradigm that the world follows, the way we harness those challenges in our lives is our greatest advantage. imagine that while the world is bigger than a fields and focus on surviving coming you are out there using the energy behind this momentous occasion to drive a ford, to make ground, to make an impact. what if adversity was not the energy? what it felt was instead the pathway to greatness? i think that there are a lot of adversities that are all around us. you're entering a pretty tough economy and people's confidence

has been beaten down over the years. there are a lot of hype that america is not what it used to be. and beyond that, there are global challenges like an overcrowded planet and poverty and natural disasters and climate change and over reliance on fossil fuels and a class of religions and cultures that compete around the world. lots of adversity. look at the pool of talent in this stadium, in this area. look at this pool of talent for your that alchemists. you are the world's best hope for alchemy. i do not think it is enough to just harness adversity and push through and say, look at me, look at me on top. leadership is about pushing the envelope, but i also think it is equally about helping others to reach their own summit. for me that opportunity came when they teamed up again with mark to start this organization

no barriers. by theo impressed innovative ways that each of us climb the mountains, we decided it was time to show others how to change their approach and their mindset through diversity. we bring together this amazing community of pioneers, most with disabilities, he's pushing the envelope in science and technology and music and art, we bring them together with the aim to help others with challenges, finding new ideas and new approaches and technologies to shatter a personal barriers in our lives and be more adventurous. we should new prosthetic legs better enabling fet to some time what for the first time, new mountain bike for paraplegics to get off the pavement for the very first time. you climbing systems and kayaking systems for triple and quadruple amputee is to get out and adventure in the wilderness.

most importantly, we teach that mindset that we have the tools to attack our challenges head on and live the life that we envision. in that no barriers spirit, in the 10th anniversary of my mt. everest climbs approaches on tuesday, we decided that we wanted to give back to america's heroes. we organize last summer a team of injured soldiers, soldiers who had been hurt in afghanistan and iraq. we had a team of 10 soldiers and took them back to colorado and trained them. we taught them everything they needed to know about climbing. we had some extraordinary people on this team, nicolette, who had been injured in iraq, and was in a wheelchair for 3.5 years as she learned to walk again. dan, a marine, big and tough and

could buy two and half, but because of posttraumatic stress center, he has trouble walking through grocery store. and matt, part of an elite force when a helicopter crashed and he was sucked into the rudder of the helicopter and he lost one leg. his other foot is still painful. and steve, who was in an armored vehicle, blinded instantly. it was a hard day. we were pushing up steep rock and steep ice and steep snow. at 1 point, steve started wearing down and struggling and said i feel like i am not in my element. i feel like i need to go down. and my friend jeff seemed to know exactly how to push people. he said, steve, this is not about you. this is about all of those injured soldiers, but the soldiers yet to be injured, all of your fallen comrades, this is

about them. knuckle down and get this job done. and that is what steve needed to hear. three hours later, stephen the rest of the soldiers, we stood at 20,100 feet together. i have been on higher mountains and harder mountains, but standing on top with these heroes was the proudest moment of my life. i think leadership, you will find you pass it from body to body, from life to life, and we give the people around this great courage to do great things. you are entering a very challenging world. it is harder and harder to predict the future. in fact, i promise you, there will be days or you feel like you're climbing blind. but i do not think that this is the time to lose our will to be clouded by fear and doubt, it to

be swept to the sidelines and forgotten. i think this is the best time in history, perhaps most precious time in history, to be a pioneer, to reach out, to take lead in turn it into gold. we do this for ourselves, for your families, for your university, but i think most importantly, we do it for the sake of this wondrous world that we live in. helen keller, she said, i am only one, but still i am one. i cannot do everything, but still i will do something. i will not refuse to do the something that i can do. bucknell graduates, 2011, keep climbing, and keep reaching high. thank you very much. [applause]

>> now to bennington for the commencement at vermont college. they chose an award winning neurosurgeon and presented him with an honorary degree. we begin our coverage with the president telling the story of a migrant farm worker now searching for a cure for brain cancer produces about 20 minutes. >> it is my honor and privilege to introduce our second honorary degree recipients and our commencement speaker. it is remarkable that nearly 20 years ago this accomplished

surgeon, educators, and author, and i just ordered his forthcoming book which will be out in october, was laboring as a migrant farm worker in the fields of the san joaquin valley in california, taking night classes at a community college, and in those early years, he worked other odd jobs always dreaming of what one day could be. from the start, he went on to harvard medical school ready graduated with honors and gave the commencement address. is not we're clear, this his first commitment address, then, but i am proud to say that we are the first institution to confer upon him an honorary degree. [applause]

upon completing his residency in neurosurgery at the university of california at san francisco, dr. quinones-hinjosa pursued a post-doctoral fellowship and developmental and stem cell biology which brought him to johns hopkins. he is now recognized worldwide as an expert in his field, as a professor of neurosurgery, neuroscience, oncology, and cellular and molecular medicine is, and as the director of the brain tumor stem cell laboratory at johns hopkins university school of medicine. he is someone who is deeply committed to finding a cure for brain cancer in the not too distant future. he is known to spend considerable time with his

patients and their families explaining their disease and their upcoming surgery. in short, he cares. and we should all have such a caring health care professionals watching over us. an award winning neurosurgeon, he was named one of the u.s. brilliant 10 scientists by popular science magazine. he has been awarded numerous prestigious grants and awards, including a recent national institutes of health grant for stem cell research, and he was named one of the u.s. says science and engineering speakers. for all of his accomplishments, awards, and prestige, dr. q, as he is known by his patients and

staff, remains humble, never forgetting his roots for his journey, and always remembering the importance of family and his wife and his three children here with him today to share this event. nice to have you here. one of our trusties, i wrote wagner, listen to this doctors speech at the central scholarship bureau in maryland. she was so inspired by his message of turning obstacles and opportunities that he called me up and said, he has a remarkable story to tell that will inspire our students to persevere. see if you can get him here as a commencement speaker. after my start to do this, i raised every convincing argument t dr.ld think of to ge quinones-hinjosa to come here.

ihad oto wh tm a al ohi ipingesge d dedication to helping others would make him a role model for our graduates as they embarked on their journeys, and he said, yes. there is a son -- one other part of this. that conversation gave me an opportunity to speak in spanish which is one of my favorite languages and confirmed for me that dr. q and died of literally and figuratively speak the same language. -- and i said literally in figure it'll be speak the same language. [speaking spanish] would you please join me at the podium? ladies and gentlemen, i am honored, deeply honored to introduce you our second

honorary degree recipients who will after the awarding of the degree address the class of 2011 as the commencement speaker. please join me in welcoming to the podium dr. alfredo quinones- hinojosa. [applause] and now the magic words. by virtue of the authority vested in me by the board of trustees of southern vermont college, i hereby confer upon you the degree of doctor of humane letters with all the rights, privileges, and obligations there and to

appertaining. ladies and gentlemen, our commencement speaker, dr. alfredo quinones-hinojosa. [applause] >> well, i am quite honored and humbled. i have got to tell you a quick story. when i told my family, my wife, and my children, and my daughter that i was getting an honorary degree, she asked me if we still had to pay for this to because we're still paying for medical school. [laughter] i said, delaware. i like to thank all of you, the board of trustees, especially parents, family members, students, and my family for allowing me to share these 10 minutes.

i want to take these tennis between you and your degree right here. [laughter] determination, resilience, excitement, admiration, mentor ship, and strength are the words that come to my mind to describe your journey. my grandfather was born in 1907 and died in 1984, and he told me once when the days are barred, if you just have to wait until the night comes. the light from the stars will then guide you. my family and these words that mean for many nights of hard work, many nights of study, to prepare for what i do today, which is brain science and brain surgery.

i will share with you a poem from a young writer, the title, and it goes as follows. a storm brews lightning strikes, the treed falls onto spikes and night turns today than the sun shines from the trees the days go by the trade case, and all life withers away. but when all hope is lost tiny leaves sprout out ling sproutrout my daughter rode that. as a migrant farm worker and my car rolled not only as a brain surgeon and science as a more

important as someone who tries to keep hope within my reach every day for my profession held by determination and resilience? let me start with a story. i was a second year resident of the university of california-san francisco leading prominent brain surgeons when i was in the emergency room. i heard the word, we have got officers down. and i thought they were filming a reality tv shows. but this was real life. a high-speed chase resulted in a fatal death of one police officer and a second police officer rushing into the hospital. clinging for his life. immediately, with a team of surgeons, we took this young policemen to the operating room that night over the next 12 hours. we operated three times.

two years later, the unperson went back to the police force and he was saving lives. from this experience, i received two things. it was a beautiful black that actually hangs in my office at home -- plaque that hangs in my office at home. knesset " from vince lombardi. the quality of a person's life is direct proportion to the commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor. the second thing i got was a beautiful plaque and appreciation of the center cisco police department, but most important, small business card, and on the back of the card it said the following -- any courtesies you can extend to dr. q would be highly appreciated. [laughter]

8 get out of jail card. [laughter] i am sure will be handy one day. " what happened if we would not have taken that young man, if we would have waited another minute or two? i asked myself that question often. it was thanks to the determination and resilience of not only the patient, the team i was leading at this time, that we were able to save his life. and we came out triumphant from that battle. to the graduating students, you will have many, many more battles, and i am just recapitulating what was said already. the only advice that i can give you, the advice i have gone from my own patients, if you have to find this steel in your soul. that determination and resilience with the new, and no

matter what happens, if you have to keep moving forward. my grandfather used to tell me, and tonight go were the past may lead. go instead with there is no path and be a trail blazer. and i believe that a very young age. once a very wise man, of migrants farmworker said, if you are not try 10 that you might fail, you will never do that job. if you were priced and, you will work like crazy. -- frightened, you will work like crazy. i deal with brain cancer every day. it attacks the most beautiful oregon, the brain. my patients have taught me very important lessons.

they have taught me it is not about dying, but it is about living,. to remain excited about life in the middle of a battle for your life is the most inspiring event i have personally witnessed every day in my line of work. talk about admiration. they shared some meaningful words with me and tell me the following about you guys. one needs to judge our students not on the basis of their qualifications hot on where they are where they leave us, remarkable men and women ready to enter the work force for further education, individuals who will contribute meaningfully to our world in ways people might not have expected. two words come to mind when i think of these types of accomplishments -- hard work.

a nobel prize winner in 1986 said the falling, he said, chance and goodluck does not come to those who wanted to. it comes to those who look for it. albert einstein said once, the world is a dangerous place, not because of people who do evil, but because of those who look and do absolutely nothing. we talk about the termination, resilience, excitement and admiration, and the last one and, mentorship. i have been mentored my whole life. there was a beautiful fall day in her rent 2006, and i wake up in a beautiful sunday morning, and i walk with my son david. i turned to my son as we were walking, the leaves are falling, 7:00 in the morning, it is a

little chilly, and i say, david, you are the man. he looks up to me from his little tricycle and says, that, i am not the man. i was quiet for few seconds and said, i am a brain surgeon, i am going to teach my son made his lesson. david, i want you to believe in yourself. the little tricycle again, he looks up and says to me, dad, i do believe in myself. i just know i am not the man. [laughter] at age 5. a lesson. [applause] at age 5, a lesson about humility and self awareness. regarding my wife and three children, my parents and siblings, my mentors, how can i thank him? i am sure you feel the same way about your family.

i am reminded of what albert and stein once said. many things in life you count that really do not count. many of the things that you cannot count are the things that truly to count. i leave you with a few tips for your life. these are lessons that i've learned from my own mistakes. there is a fine line between confidence and arrogance. i crossed that line the moment that i accepted the invitation to get an honorary degree and to talk in front of you. to think that i could tell you something that is meaningful. we need to teach our future generations some of the key elements that will make you successful. for me it is very simple. availability, affability, ability, and accountability. success, winston churchill said, is going from failure to cut

your with a lot of enthusiasm, that passion for life has to stay with you forever. treat others you would like your loved ones to be treated. cesar chavez once said there is no substitute for hard work. there's no substitutes for patience and acceptance. my grandfather used to tell me at pool with a good tool is still a fool. it is not the tool that matters and not the education and what you do with your education. we are today what we did yesterday. we will be tomorrow what we do today. sometimes you just have to wait until the night comes, and then you can let the light from the stars guide you. you yourselves are stars

already. congratulations to all the wonderful work that you have done, for all of your accomplishments. i am fairly humble to be here in your presence and to receive this undeserved honorary degree. thank you very much. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> president obama discusses the state of the u.s. auto industry and its relation to the rest of the economy. republican senator lamar alexander of tennessee delivers the republican response. he talks about the role of unions in u.s. manufacturing, including auto industry, and praising -- and praises the policies of so-called right to work states.

this is 10 minutes. >> i am speaking you today from a chrysler plant in toledo, ohio, where i just met with workers including jill, who was born and raised here in toledo. her mom and stepfather retired from this plant. she met her husband here and now they have two children of their own. this plant has not only been central to the economy of this town, it has been part of the lifeblood of this committee. the reason i came to toledo was to congratulate jill and her co- workers on the turnaround they helped bring about at chrysler and throughout the auto industry. today each of the big three auto makers is turning a profit for the first time since 2004. chrysler has repaid every dime and more of what it owes american taxpayers for their support during my presidency, and it repaid that money six years ahead of schedule. and this week, we reached a deal

to sell our remaining stake. that means and chrysler will be 100% in private hands. boston portly, all three american automakers are now adding shifts and creating jobs at the strongest rate since the 1990's. chrysler has added a second shift at the jefferson north plant in detroit that i visited last year. gm is adding a third shift at its hamtramck plant for the first time ever. and gm plans to hire back all the workers they have laid off during the recession. that is remarkable when you think about where we were just a couple of years ago. when i took office, we were facing the worst -- worst recession since the great depression, hitting our auto industry particularly hard appeared in the year before i was president, this industry lost more than four under thousand jobs, and two great iconic american companies, chrysler and gm, stood on the brink of collapse. we had a few options. we could have done what a lot of

folks in washington thought we should do, nothing. but that what had made a bad recession worse and put 1 million people out of work. i refuse to let that happen. so i said if gm and chrysler will it -- willing to take the difficult steps of restructuring and making themselves more competitive, the american people would stand by them, and we did. but we decided to do more than rescue this industry from crisis. we decided to help it retool for a new age, and that is what we're doing all across the country. we're making sure that american can out-build, out-innovate, and out-compete the rest of the world. that is how we will build an economy where you can see your incomes and savings rise again, send your kids to college, and retire with dignity, security, and the specter that is how we keep that fundamental american promise, if that if you work hard and act responsibly, if you can pass on a better life to your kids and grandkids. we've got a ways to go.

even though our economy has created more than 2 million private sector jobs over the past 15 months and continues to grow, we are facing some tough headwinds. lately it is high gas prices, the earthquake in japan, and unease about the european fiscal such a question. that will happen from time to time. they will be bumps on the road to recovery. we know that. but we also know what has happened here at this chrysler plant. we know that hardworking americans like jill helped turn this company and this industry around. that is the american story. we are people who do not give up. we do big things, we shape our own destiny. and i am absolutely confident that if we hold on to that spirit, our best days are still ahead of us. thank you for tuning in and have a great weekend. >> i am lamar alexander, united states senator from tennessee. i want to talk about making it easier and cheaper to create private sector jobs here in

america. we can start by helping companies make in the united states what they sell in the united states. unfortunately recent actions by the administration are making that hard to accomplish. last month the national labor relations board moved to stop america's largest exporters, the boeing company, from building airplanes at a non-union plant in south carolina, suggesting that unionized american company cannot expand its operations into one of the 22 states with right to work laws which protect all workers right to join or not to join a union. but instead of making a speech, let me tell you a story for the story is about a white house state dinner in february 1979 when i was governor of tennessee. president carter said u.s. governors, go to japan, persuade them to make care what they sell here. so off they flew to tokyo to meet with nissan executives, deciding where to put their

first u.s. manufacturing plant. i carried with me a photograph taken from the airplane showing the country with all of its lights on. where is tennessee, they ask? right in the middle of the lights,. that population center has migrated from the midwest where most u.s. auto plants were then south to places like kentucky and tennessee. then the japanese examined a second consideration. tennessee has a right to work a lot and kentucky does not. this meant that in kentucky, workers would have to join united autoworkers union spurred workers in tennessee had a choice. well, in 1980, nissan chose tennessee, the state with almost no auto jobs.

today, auto assembly plants and suppliers provide one-third of tennessee's manufacturing jobs. tennessee is the home for production of leaf, nissan's all-electric vehicle and the batteries that power. nissan recently announced that 85% of the cars and trucks is cells in the united states will be made in the united states. it makes it one of the largest american auto companies. now the nlrb and unions want to make it illegal for the company has experienced repeated strikes to move production to a state with a right to work off. what would this mean for the future of american author jobs? jobs with lee overseas. manufacturers would look for a competitive environment in which to make and sell their products around the world. it has happened before. a 1986 book " what the

reckoning" talks about the decline of the auto industry, and it quotes "there is nothing more by honorable then intrench success." detroit ignored upstarts like the sun. in 1960, they began selling a funny little car to american consumers. we all know what happened to employment in the big three companies. even when detroit sought greener pastures in the right to work state, its partnership with united auto workers could not compete. in 1985, general motors located its $5 billion saturn plant in spring hill, tenn., just 40 miles from the sun, hoping that side-by-side competition would help the americans beat the japanese. after 23 years, non-union nissan

opera the most efficient auto plant in north america. the saturn -- uaw partnership never met a profit. saturn was closed last year. nissan's success was one reason why volkswagen opened a manufacturing plant in chattanooga and why honda and toyota and mercedes-benz and thousands of suppliers have chosen southeastern right to work states for their plants. according to the chief of the boeing company, an unintended consequence of the boeg mpinisha 4thinng c's ulbe reluctant to place new plants in unionized states. lest they be forever restricted from placing future plants across the country. largests america's exporter, but we want them to export their plans, not jobs.

our goal should be to make it easier and cheaper to create private sector jobs in this country. giving workers the right to join or not to join a union helps to create a competitive environment in which more manufacturers like nissan and boeing can make care what they sell here. i am lamar alexander. thanks for listening. >> next, from the faith and freedom conference, quicksand torrent, ken cuccinelli, mich. representative thaddeus maqtada, and former ohio secretary of state ken blackwell. on his bankers, sander levin, ranking member of the house ways and means committee, talks about how house democrats want to address the u.s. dead, revenue- raising, and other economic issues. news makers at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. -- 6:00 p.m. sunday.

>> each year congress works to pass the 12 spending bills. the house and started working on the first to appear you can follow their progress on congressional chronicle, with easy to find an affirmation about your elected official, plus a video of every house and senate session. congressional chronicle at c- span.org/congress. >> prospective 2012 republican candidate rick sent ton and epa -- rick santorum is expected to announce his candidacy on monday. we will also hear from george any -- virginia attorney general ken cuccinelli and ohio secretary of state can buy " your this is about one hour and 10 minutes.

♪ >> thank you. thank you. aesthetics here. greg referredo the time magazine article, which still cannot figure out being one of the top 25 most influential evangelicals and america. i was, because of is doing what you are doing, coming here to washington d.c. and standing up for the values that made this country e greatest country in the history of the world. [applause] people say that as someone who was a leader on both issues, when i talked to the media now as i travel around the country, people always sayou are the

social conservative candidate. i said yes, i am very proud of the fact that i was the point man in the united states congress on issues where i believe they are vitally important to the future of this country, that i showed the passion to lead. i have always been pro-life and for traditional marriage, but i had always been like a lot folks that were not here last year that came this year, to come and make the pledge, about the social goods are to is that they will check the boxes, they will be for the things that social good targets care about. ladies and gentlemen, i don't just take the pledge. i stand out in front and lead, to make sure that the voices of those who do not have always are out and brought and being included in the natiol debate.

what is misunderstood by those in the national media, and if they would just come and listen to the enthusiasm and support or not just the issues of marriage and why, but all the issues that social conservatives care about. i, too, have been a passionate point man on all of those issues. i came to the u.s. senate as a leader on welfare reform. social conservatives believe in thdignity of every human person. at the moment of conception, but also for the poor in our society, for those on the margins of society. they believe that poverty is not the ultimate disability. they understand that we need to provide an opportunity for everybody in america to rise and fulfill got potential for them. when i lead on welfare reform, i ledocial conservatives who engaged in the debate to make stronger families because they understood that what government

was doing by involving themselves and subsidizing this party was destroying the family and the very foundations of our community. these were social conservatives who went out and did something that had never been done. we ended a federal entitlement. [applause] it is a great lesson to learn, that we can in federal entitlements if we paid a vision that is not just about dollars and cents. america is not just about dollars and cents. social and started understand that. we can reach out across the aisle and across the ideological spectrum that bring people together and paid a vision for this country that is positive and uplifting because social conservatives believe in that. we believe in limited

government. social conservatives understand that the bigger the government, the smaller the person and the more repressed the family. believe in the power of the indidual. they believe in the necessity of strong families and understand that government can be a destroyer of that. social conservatives a leading on these issues. we need to underand that social conservatives also are out and concerned abo our national security. there is ngreater brand to the state of israel and social conservatives in america. no greater brand. i've stood and fought for the state of israel, not because, as i do believe, that israel is a vital place for jews to be in this country for safety and

security, or people that have been repressed throughout the course of centuries, millennia, but also by art a strategic partner for this country. and so i have fought, candidly asseing who the eny is that we confront in the middle east. who attacked us on 9/11? >> in the summer of 2006, i've been out and gave a speech and said that even president bush got it wrong when he labeled the enemy as an enemy that -- calling them a terrorist spirit is like calling those who attacked us at pearl harbor kamikazes were those who we fought in germany. there is a tactic, it is not the enemy. the enemy or radical islamists who want to destroy us.

they want to destroy us not because of what we do, but because of who we are. there is a foundational difference between what we believe and they believe, and they believe that what we are is evil. they want to destroy us. what did io in the united states senate? i bought the syrian accountability act which helped it syriaut of lebanon and relieve pressure from the northern border of israel at the time. i thought president bush. at three major meetings with the president. he kept saying no. i kept pushing and pushing and finally he said yes, and the bill became law. i went back in 2004 before anybody had even heard of the threat of iran. i offered a bill and went out

and fought with president bush and condoleezza rice. out went to the floor of the senate and fought with joe biden, who blocked my bill for weeks. i continue to fight up until the last they are within the united states senate, but it eventually passed. we passed increased sanctions on iran. i have been out there fighting for the causes that social conservatives care about, and it is not just cut social conservative causes. they are causes about who we are as a country. i think this electric -- this election is probably the most consequential one. people say to me, you have been out of politics. you have seven children. why are you objecting yourselves to this type of scrutiny? i said because i have seven children and i am concerned about the future of this country. [applause]

ladies and gentlemen, this is a great country. it is a great country because it wasounded a great country. there is one statement that everyone in this room should remember the president of the united stas sums it up on how you look that america. he said about six weeks ago. he was talking about medicare, medicaid, and unemployment insurance. he said, talking about these three programs, that america is a better country because of these programs. i will go one step further. america would not be a great country without these programs. ladies and gentlemen, america was a great country before 1965. [applause]

social goods are routed to understand that america was a great country because it was founded great. our founders calling upon the supreme judge, calling un divine providence, saying what with at the heart of american exceptional with -- ism.ptionally a thum our founders understood that we were going to take the principal, judeo-christian principles that had been out there for centuries and it do something radical. we were going to actually found a government on these principles. they had come from countries that did not believe that rates came from god and given to every individual. the came from countries where people were not equal.

there were boards and subject. ere was no equality. they took this radical, biblical concept and placed it in our founding document and said that we are going to do something radical, and that is establish a government and a constitution ultimately lose one responsibility was to keep people freak so they could purs their dreams -- keep people free so they could pursue their dream. it is the righthat god give you that america is here to protect. [applause] ladies and gentlemen, that experiment changed the world. that experiment in believing in

the american people transformed the world. i remind everybody that up until 1776, from the time of jesus christ, life expectancy in the world remained basically the same. but once america believe a new and let you rise to heights without punishing you are criticizing you for being successful, and tolerated failure, tolerated the fall of people so they could learn lessons of the could again succeed -- without that, we would not have changed, and life expectancy in the 200 years of america has doubled. why? cause we believe in you. what is at stake in this election ia president who

believes that the greatness of america is in government taking things from you and redistributing to others that he and others believe in washington are more disturbing. people ask me what is the most important thing is this election. i say repealing obama care. it is not taking care of those on the margins of society. it is not taking care of those who are needy. it is a program that says to every working man and woman that we are going to tell you how much money you are going to spend, how you are going to spend it, what programs that benefit you are going to get. it takes money from you and gives power to washington. margaret thatcher said she was never able to accomplish what reagan accomplished in transforming britain, for one reason, because people's addiction to the british health- care system. she was never able to break that

bond. what do you think they worked so hard and were willing to risk so much, including the last election, to pass that bill? why did they want to jam it down your throat? because they knew it was a game changer. they knew that as the president says, america would not be the same country. ladies and gentlemen, america is a great country, not because of its government but because of its people. in 2010, -- excuse me, in 2008, the american public was looking for a president in a very difficult time in our history as a result of economic recession and trouble overseas. they look for someone in a president that they could believe and, and i found barack obama.

he took that believe -- they found barack obama. he took that believe in him and a centralized power in human nose around him. i believe as i across america, i believe at my court that as i go across america, americans have now realize that what they need is not someone that they can believe then, but they need a president who belies in them. [applause] ladies andentlemen, as i close, i will say this. as they fellow proud, social conservative, we need to go out in the next 18 months, no matter who wins the primary, no matter who wins our primary, all across our country, and figh for the future of our country.

this is the most important election in your lifetime. this is the election that will determine whether we will hand off to the next generation a country that is freand safe and prosperous, a country that we were given, a country that is transformational in the world. but if we do not win this election, what we will have done was given away the great gift of america. do not, do not let that happen. thank you, and god bless you. [applause]

[applause] >> thank you very much. the first thing in my of the opposite is to defend the u.s. constitution. it is something that takevery seriously. unfortunate, it is the first thing in the of the office for every elected representative in america. for many of them, they are checking the box when i say that zero to assume the office. we have seen the evidence in virginia -- when they say that zero to assume the office. we need to reverse that trend. ronald reagan used to say that the wisdom of america resides with individual americans, not congress, not universities, not the press, not institutions in our society, but individual americans. we are seeing for the first time actual evidence that he was

absolutely right, as individual americans, and prompted by organization or political parties, stepped out, rise up, and take their own country and their own constitution back. that is what is happening in america today. i want to thank youll for being here and having me here with you. you are engaged in issues that are critical to america today and that will be for a long time into the fute. your presence here alone showed your commitment to prevailing on of issues, to bringing back the founders' vision for this country in the 21st century. that is my goal in politics and i know many of you share it. our founding fathers pledged their lives, their 14th, and their sacred honor to creating this great nation. many of them gave up those live and gave up their fortunes.

none of them gave up their sacred honor, none of them. no one in this room is going to be called on to make the kind of sacrifices that they had to make to establish this great country. there was nothing certain about what they are doing. it takes much less on our part to save the vion and the foundation of this great country. there is no excuse for any of us to sit idly by at this point in time, when so much of the foundation is at risk and at issue. i'm glad you are here. i take it as a get -- as a great sign that you are engaged back in your home communities that you are here today. to win, we are going to have to

affect these individuals one heart, one mind at a time. it is the phrase used most often in the pro-life movement, butt applies across the defense of liberty. that is how we are going to win. for decades we have asked government to do more for us as a people, and all government ever asked is for a little bit more of our liberty. that is all. and we have politicians and court that have gladly obliged. we have that i lead by as a nation a let it happen. -- we have sat idly by as a nation and let it happen. we no longer have a federal government of limited enumerated powers. we have a central government, a centralized government that tries to plan and control virtually every aspect of our economy, which also includes is

our very lives, from health care to banking to energy to insurance to automobile manufacturing. virginia is still a farming state. it is the biggest part of our economy. those of you who live in northern virginia might not know that, but that is the truth. there is, however, hope. in the last few years, people have finally woken up. ordinary voters, ordinary citizens have woken up and they are pushing back against the federal overreach. it is not just health care. they are demanding accountability from their politicians and they are measuring that accountability against the yardstick of the u.s. constitution. that is n in our lifetime. they are also demanding that

first principle once again be the guidepost for politics and policy in this country. that offers the real hope, not the kind you heard about in 2008, the real thing. if we have people, if we have americans who are thinking in these terms, thinking in first principles terms, before they cast about, before they decide what is a good policy and what is a bad policy, we are going to turn america in the right direction. parties are secondary to that. they are a vehicle to achieve that direction. they are not goal. this reaction by the american people reaches back to when republicans had both the house, the senate, and the presidency and screwed up. that failed to lead in a

principled fashion. there are three ways government exercises more power. more taxes, more spending, and more regulation. republicans did to ibm -- republicans did two of them. saying republicans and white rock and sellers is offensive -- to drop and sellers. he was absolutelyight -- when the democrats take over, they make republicans look like pikers in the spending category. exnsion of government power, which we saw with republican spending and regulation, has burst the boundaries of a wall in the constitution. that was the natural course that we were on. you cann blame just the last

two years. it is not enough, absolutely not knops to get republican majorities back and a republican president. that is not enough. [applause] i am countg on you all across the country to bring that message and to keep in mind when you are picking candidate to get behind. don't just pick the one most likely to win. pick the one of likely to matter for america. we are seeing federalism, a concept i know you all understand, reemerge. people want to return to let federal government that is, in fact, ltd., and living within its emerated powers. and not acting as if it has all power to fix all things

characterized as problems. if we just hand over enough of our liberty. that is the trade-off. we all remember economics - reagan's economic pie. i talked to people about the liberty hyde. it does not grow and it does not shrink, and it has to slices, government power and citizens liberty. everything willain that government does to increase its power comes directly at the expense of the liberty and freedom of the citizens of this country. as we confront this head on in many facets, many from the

federal government overwhelmingly, we are seeing the state's star as a check, the check in the checks and balances system that james madison talk about. everybody thinks about the three branches of gernment. to people who actually study the constitution, it is the executive, legislative, and judiciary. is chuck schumer here? how about that? that check and balance is more commonly understood. i think of that as a horizontal check and balance. the particle check and balance is between the federal government and the state government -- the particle check and balance. it was put there so that either side oversteps, the other has sufficient power to bring it

back into line. that is what we are doing as states today. when i sued in the health-care case, it was virginia suing the federal government. [applause] one of the more amusing aspects of the case was when we had our oral argument in october in the district court in richmond. the federal government's lawyer got up and introduced himself. he said he was for the government, i mean, the federal government. the least anti federalist

founding father, alexander hamilton, even noted these courts are here too rapidly these contests of constitutional authority. justice o'connor quoted him all the way back to the new york convention in 1788 in reminding people that the 10th amendment exists and matters and accounts, and she did that. in exercising the sta check in this federalism structure, i am proud to play a role as the state attorney general. we are the last line of defense, particularly when the conservative do not have control in washington. it falls to the state to check federal power. the new health-care law provides the prime example of this. it is historic in that 28 states now are party plaintiffs suing

their own federal government for violating the constitution. that has never happened before. [applause] virginia was the first state to argue in court that the individual mandate was unconstitutional. we did that last october. we have argued that federal government's attempt to use the constitution's coerce clause to order people, to dictate to people that they buy private heal insurance -- nancy pelosi has the best title in washington -- former speaker. i really liked that one. we have argued that they may not use the commerce clause to order you to buy their government approved health- insurance, that it goes well

beyond the power of congress. wh people say this case is unprecedented, it is not just that 28 states are suing the federal government over violating the constitution. it is that our federal government has never in its history ordered americans to buy a product or service under the guise of regulating commerce. that has never, ever happened before. why not? perhaps every congress before the last one and every president before this one knew and respected the fact that they did not have the power to do this. if you go back to the colonial period, which we do when we are arguing about the boundaries of elements of the constitution and have not been tested before, at least in the way it is being tested here. this is a unique case.

lawyers would call the case of first impression. during the colonial period, led by virginia and massachusetts, the colonists were boycotting british good to push for the repeal of the stamp act and the intolerable acts. in response to a massachusetts convention in 1768, the attorney-general, solicitor general of the king, news that in parliament at that time, were asked a question, isn't this boycott treesnd - treason? the answer was, the colonists of up to the line but they have not crossed it. think about that for a moment. that means that the parlment and king george the third, whom we rebelled against as tyrant, acknowledged they could not order subjects to buy british

goods, but we have a president and half of congress that believe they can. that is extraordinary. that is absolutely extraordinary, historically. americans can argue about whatever piece of the constitution means, but every american should be able to agree that the results of the american revolution was that we got a central government of less power than the one we left. a simple venn diagram, a dumb not, a big circle and a little circle. this congress believed to have more power than king george ii and the parliament of britain to be able to order you to do what

they want you to do. the government is arguing that it has the power to order you into commerce. go andead article one, section eight. they have the power to regulate commerce within the state. is that just an argument about half of language? i was an engineer, i am horrible at grammar. go look at the military clauses. power to raise an army out of nothing. that is what the practice constitutional. they c argue -- they can order you to go fight and die under theonstitution, but that cannot or you to buy a product, and there is a reason for that. there is a good reason for that. they say not buying health insurance is as much of an economic activity as buying it is.

activity is the word used in all the commerce clause cases. the biggest impediment to a federal victory in this case is a dictionary. it causes them all sorts of problems. in the government's eyes, not buying health insurance is an economic decision to sell the insurer. isn't that pleasantly put? read that sentence again, and it means to do nothing. that is why the district judge ruled for the federal parliament -- i left her phrase, just because it was so blunt. she said there were regulating meant collectivity -- mental activity.

george orwell would be screaming "sequel, sequel." a convenient, 201 30 years later than 1994. there are trying to get away from that, but they cannot. they are regulating your decision to do nothing, to sit there and do nothing. is there a more basic definition of liberty than to be left alone? it is very simple. you cannot always be left alone, there is the draft. that is the trade-off of liberty because they are granted certain powers, but that is the argument that are relying on. it is mental activity, but let's say that a dip for white. they are claiming the right to regulate it bought if they do

not like it. surely we can trust this administration with that sort of authority. the same reasoning they use here can be used to force you to buy a car, broccoli, a gym membership. this government has a pretty significant interest in general motors. you have noticed, government motors. . drive a chevy equinoxe you do not want to own a shabby equinoxes -- a chevrolet equinoxe, trust me.

i elected in the garage on the way here. this goes back to reagan. he said that when it stops moving, they want to subsidize it. it is the ones that stop moving that get subsidized. so we have that to look forward to if we lose this case. it is astonishing got to consider that if we lose this case, there is no constitutionally logical bar to them ordering you to buy those other products. and federalism is dead. think about that. what can the federal government not do that is left to the authority of the states any longer? it does not take a lot of creativity a pocket or you to buy products and sources, to do almost anything out what to do as a policy matter.

thus, federalism is dead. people who predict we are going to lose have said the same thing. jonathan turley said a year ago, he predicted we would lose and it would be the end of federalism. that was his expectation. the mentality was because the federal barbara always wins. in know what? they do not always win. they did not win in virginia in december, the constitution did. it has been mixed results across the country, but these are all run up to the supreme court for this will be decided. my guess is it will be decided next year. it will be before next november. it will probably be june 2012, , but we willuess

see. we will keep pushing in virginia. some courts will not like the ommerce claus. but came up with it all back argument that the penalty you have to pay it to do not by their government approved health insurance is a tax. what they do that? they have vast taxing power, particularly after the 16th amendment. the court gives them great deference. this is their fallback position. you may recall that when the president was being interviewed by george stephanopoulos, before the bill became law, he was very irritated with the notion that his opponents were saying this was a tax.

his response was that they say everything is a tax. this is not a tax increase, not at all. funny how things change want to go to court. i have almost felt sorry for some of the federal lawyers getting grilled on this point. counsel, you have congressional leaders and a president who's in the whole time this bill was running through the legislative process were insisting it is not a tax. now you are standing here arguing in this court that it is a tax. can they do this sort of debate and switch? please ask me another question. it has been very uncomfortable for them. and that's that, i almost feel

sorry for them. for all the problems on the commerce clause, think of our radical this would be. i'm congress, i can order you to do anything. if you do not, i cannot fine -- i can fine you. it is truly extraordinary. not a single judge has accepted that argument. they are for 6 on that argument. i mentioned the order was issued in december. we argued last month in the fourth circuit. we are waiting that order. it will come sometime this summer. this past week, they had appellate arguments in cincinnati and in cincinnati, 26

states are arguing the aborted deal in atlanta in the 11th circuit. june 23 there is that for the appellate court arguing it. the appeals courts are rolling through this right now. by the end of the summer i expect we will have some orders and starches the appeals to the supreme court. at some point, the losses will hit the supreme court. in the autumn, i believe the briefing will run into the winter and a decision by the end of the term next june. that is not expected timeline. for months before election day if it is the last monday in june. but wait until the end for the more controversial ruling.

you will hear some on the monday of this month. whatever way the ruling goes, we will appl to the supreme court. i ll tell you some of the reaction because of my role in enhancing the constitution as it was written. what a concept. crazy. i am cast as everything under the sun, not able, awful, terrible, and the guy who wants to tack away everyone's free health care. never mind that all all i have said this case is not about health care, it is about liberty. because of the implications long into the future, this case is not about health care. it is about liberty. that is what this case is about. [applause]

unfortunately, it is one of many examples of this administration crossing the line on the rule of law. before broughthe help their case in virginia, we sued the epa, the employment prevention agency, over their greenhouse gas endangerment finding. there is no agency in the federal government that so egregiously ignores their own rules and the loss of life to it bound their authority. that is not enough. when lisa jackson said in december 2009, i am not to transform the american economy and i have the 15,000 people of the epa you are ready to help me do it. in a statement. no mention of keeping the environment clean in that

statement. transformed the american economy. they know what they are doing and how they are doing it. again, we are the last line of defense. the attorney-general in south carolina is fighting to keep those 22 states that are free of compelled unionization. we are a coal state. we are here for a reason. coming to an internet near you this summer, this is the most brazen one of all. the fec is goi to roll out again and ordered to regulate the internet. why is this the month raised --

most brazen one of all? for one simple reason. a year ago, in 2010, they had a court ruling telling them they could not do this. they tught about it and said, we will do it anyway. it is just a court ruling. talk about a brazen this regard, stain for the rule of law. we may not like what courts do all the time, but there has got to be a place where our contest are rep read and thought out. this admistration does not just this respect state and federal law, does not just this respect the united states constitution, but they also have no respect for the courts of this country. it is amazing, and this ruling, this order coming up this

summer is the most brazen one of all because of that, because they have crossed one more line so brazenly. you there arell attorneys general that got elected in 2010 all over the country who are now stepping up to the plate and playing a role in defending the constitution, the rule of law in their states and our federalissystem. it is happening all across the country. reg abbottrom texas has been doing it for years. scott pruett in oklahoma, luther stranger in alabama, allan wilson in south carolina, the list goes on. it used to realistic account on one hand. not any longer. there is hope, because the burden has fallen to us at the

state level to carry the spot for. en i ran for office in 2009, no one had ever run on feralism before, but i did. i said very clearly, if the federal government crosses the line, i will fight back. i got elected and was called all sorts of things. i got elected in november 2009 with all the usual suspects and he is too conservative to win, with more votes than anyone in the history of virginia running for attorney general. [applause] when the federal government crossed those lines, i kept my campaign promise and we are fighting them every step of the white. thank you all for fighting where you are from. god bless you and god bless america. thank you very much.

[applause] >> good morning. i'm grateful for our time together. friends, and bring good news. we take heart despite the times. for as imperfect moral beings, we realize that within these ephemeral stream of time by grants of, we will all based file and tragedy, and with his help, triumph and transcend them. his wisdom string bands and sustains us we confront the forces of secularism and moral relativism, besieging our cherished institutions of faith, family, community, and country,

whein revives a self-evident truth upon which our pre republic was founded and perpetuated. as a full litany of burial secularism challenges at home and abroad are not the best way to start this beautiful day. a few notches examples must suffic at home, we confront the elitist forces of big government attempting to force fight from the public square, advance the bitter, in human harvest of abortion, interfere with parents' ability to import their moral teachings to their children, reward the indulgence of will, appetite, and agreed through the unjust act that was the wall street bailout, and in both an entitlement culture and government dependency upon our ho-- we recall at the horror of

those being butchered for their beliefs in sudan and north africa. we are existentialist challenged by the people's republic of talent -- china. ruled by a communist and therefore intrinsically evil regime that still tells people how many children they might have, imprisons people for passing out bibles, compels people to attendnly official state churches, proffering a live the people's liberty threatens their security and prosperity. despite these challenges at home and abroad, we still take part in these times. because we are first in two eternal rarities'. liberty comes from god, not the government. therefore, no good government

denies the presence of god. [applause] our knowledge of these true this is and still not by abstract theory, but by the concrete and glass of mercy's found in the institutions of faith, family, community and country that we have inherited from the generations. on my part i inherited it from my mother and my father. my father was born to irish immigrants in detroit. early of my brother died from disease. later, his mother also went to her eternal reward. with his brother, frank, the father could not care for him. or my father or her sister. raised by the nuns at the st. francis home for boys, he was fortunate to be blessed with athletic ability that has

skipped a generation. [laughter] he earned a scholarship to the university of detroit. he later went on to become a teacher. since he has passed, i can say this, that truman democrat never had to witnesses son become a republican. [laughter] although in all candor it is due to my mother and my father, because throughout my life day instilled in me the fact that there is an intrinsic dignity to self-reliance and work and an innate quality to all of god's children. so, however we find our way to foster and fulfill our faith, rooted in the truth of confronting trials and tribulations, we all take part, despite the times. we will rebuild an america that

works. because we understand and embrace the face of that humanity's hope flows from god's heart to our homelands and with his health improved, we will fulfil our moral duty to bequeath to our children and generations of free people yet born, a purposeful, free republic, a virtue in work of wisdom and love. we are americans. it is what we do. may god continue to bless the majestic american people and our free republic as we go forth today to triumph, transcend, and perpetuate the eternal sparked of liberty. thank you very much. [applause] ♪ [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> thank you, dr. smith, for that generous introduction into our fellow patriots, good morning. i am a natural born conservative. i was born in cincinnati, ohio. i do not know if you know what mark twain said aut cincinnati. after his seventh visit he was on a train ride and a young reporter asked him his impression. he said that it feared the wor was ending tomorrow, he would was ending tomorrow -- he would get to cincinnati as fast as he could. [laughter] i told some folks yesterday that

my father was so conservative that he prohibited premarital sex because he thought it might lead to slow dancing. [laughter] so, do not be shocked with my conservatism. i have been blessed to be the mayor of my home town, the secretary of state and treasurer for the great state of ohio, representing the united states in that band of confusion, the u.n., as president george h. w. bush's ambassador to the u.n. in charge of the human rights portfolio. i had the opportunity to work with josh bolten. let me put it to you plainly. elections are about winning. beuse elections matter. i want to give u a couple of

examples and then tell you why i have been spending his time working. working to build, precinct by precinct, rd by word, an operation in ohio that can turn out voters who can turn an election. ralph has told many of you that no republican, no conservative has won the whiteouse without carrying ohio. let me give you some perspective. in 1976, the race was between gerald ford and jimmy carter. carter won ohio by 11,300 boat. there are 13,000 precincts in ohio.

if we had overturned one vote per precinct, ford would have won. while he may not have been everyone's cup of tea, he was measurably and demonstrably better than jimmy carter. [applause] fast-forward to 2000, 2004. george bush verses, you know, carry. coming down to ohio oe again. george bush carried the ohio by 118,000 votes. just a tad bit under 120,000 votes.

you tn 60,000 votes in ohio for john kerry, and you have a different america than we have and that we had in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008. john kerry was wrong for america. obama is wrong for america. what will make the difference is whether or not we are able to go into every precinct in the country, every ward in every county, turning out the vote. we are going to do a lot this weekend to motivate you and educate you, but we are depending on you to activate voters. to train and to activate voters and get them out to the polls. that is what we are destined to

do. let me tell you me about 2004. it is important. everyone was talking about a retreat on socialssues. we would not have had george bush and we would have had senator kerry if, in fact, it had not have been for an issue that social conservatives put on the ballot that year. it was a simple amendment to the constitution saying that marriage in ohio would be recognized aa union between one man and one woman. interesting demographic to look out across the country. george bush won 10% of the african-american vote. in ohio that year, he won 18% of

the african-american vote. it was due to the fact that an issue was on the ballot that was an sue that said there was a difference between john kerry and it was not just a distinction, it was a real difference. and that a basic and fundamental, cultural understanding of what a family is, of what a marriage is, and as many have told you this afternoon, but one of the basic intermediary institutions in our country, marriage and family, what they are and that they were at risk. african-americans came out and voted for bush in numbers greater than the rest of their colleagues around the country.

i would suggest to you that issues matte and that as on of your speakers said this morning, the only way the to get limited government is by having a strong famil and strong churches and synagogues that carry forth of the message that it is our responsibility, not the government's responsibility to craft a kind of future that we want. [applause] in the bible there are a couple of passages that i would like to share with you. and the first is in john 3. those that want to do evil love to talk to us. in matthew 5 we are told that

each and every one of us has an obligation to put our life on a candlestick and not put it under a bushel. to raise ihigh. so that we can magnify the glorious god. it is, in fact, our responsibility, at this time of economic and cultural darkness in this country, it is our calling not to retreat to the sidelines, but to go to the front lines with our candle on a stick and to lifted high. and to show that we understand in that dekker ration of independence the second paragraph, quoted time and time from this podium, the central message there is that ours human-rights, our fundamental rights are not grants from

government. they are gifts from god. and anybody that tells you to retreat -- [applause] that tells you to retreat, anyone that tells you to call timeout on those issues, they do not understand why we are an exceptional nation. we are an exceptional nation. you know it. i know it. president obama might not know it. [laughter] but we are going to elect a president in his place that knows it. [applause] but we also know that while we are an exceptional nation, we are not exempt from limits.

moral limits. that limits. limits that basically are imposed by moral discipline and folks that understand that you cannot run faith and to god out of the public square and not destroy the very basis upon which our exceptional listen -- i -- sm -- exceptionalism is based. [appuse] i had an uncle. his name was d.r. hubbard. the first african-american to win an olympic gold medal in a track and field event. s, jesse -- before jesse owens. in 1924 he was to run in the 100

yard dash. there has been a transatlantic debate as to who was the fastest human being on the face of the earth and they were going to resolve it by and paris with my great uncle. when he got to paris, the international olympic committee would not allow him to run in the 100 yard dash for the high hurdles. both that you had to qualify for. that would not let him do this because of his color. as you know, eric little did not run because the final hundred yard dash was on the sabbath. he told my generation that one of the greatest investments in his life was learned by not participating and by getting to meet, interact, and cray with

their acquittal. there was a term that became our clarion call in our family. was fidelity of faith. fidelity the faith was a system. proud americans. fidelity to faith is what would lead us to take a stand for life. take a stand for marriage. take a stand to e of this crazy as in terms of the national debt. take a stand for freedom. i asked you to put your cand on a stick. unite and rushed the darkness of our time.

just as it derek lowe, we would be winners because of our fidelity to faith. god bless you. [applause] paul >> c-span's wrote to the white house continues on monday. it is live at 11:00 a.m. eastern here on c-span. >> each year, congress works to s the spending bill year. congressional chronicle, with easy to find information about your elected officials, daily schedules, each day's committee hearings, plus video of each

house and senate session. >> next, the latest on may's unemployment numbers. this is about 40 minutes. schedule. "washington journal" continues. host: kevin hall is the correspondent for mcclatchy newspapers economics. one administration called the economics a bump in the road. guest: is it a pothole, or a gaping hole filling up over the next several months? my instinct is that its a bump in the road and factors have weighed heavily on the growth, among those the crisis in japan.

the automotive is a big part of the manufacturing component. friday appointed to a slowdown in manufacturing. -- friday had data that pointed to a slowdown in manufacring. hopefully it will get better as prices come down. host: a lot of people make comparisons on the bigger numbers we saw and thenhese. is that a fair comparison? guest: no. the average of a three month is about 184. you are still creating more than 150,000 jobs over three months. that is the number you have to create to start eating away at the unemployment rate. and number that is 54,000 is really bad, because it is well

below the 150. no one thinks this is a good sign for this year. host: the differences between describing it as a pothole or a pit -- what do we have to see over the next months as far as whether one of those things comes true? guest: there are a bunch of indicators such as the second indicators such as the second quarter growth numbers. there is a sharp deceleration. the hiring numbers. consumer sentiment, retail sales. durable goods. a bunch of different elements point to whether or not the country is firing or misfiring. is it a slowdown like last year?

the question is what ammunition do we have? congress does not want to spend any mo money for stimulus. the federal reserve does not want to buy any more treasury reserves. you are going into a slowdown and god forbid a recession. host: would that be a double-dip recession? guest: yes, thats what it would be if we fell backwards. the problem with sluggish growth is that if something happened to a saudi oil field or violence in europe, and external shock could throw the economy in a tailspin. that is where we are vulnable. host: you talk about these outside influences. would we see a higher number than what we saw yesterday? guest: i do not think anyone is predicting a gangbusters

economy. -- robust numbers in a gang busters economy. there was a bubble in housing and an employment. people are asking what is full employment? -- full employment. some say 5%. that was the definition. most people are thinking around 7%. that changes the expectation. we as a society have not grasped as low as it has been. expectation is a big part of this. host: we are discussing the

economy until 8:30. here is how you can ask a question. the numbers are at the bottom of your screen. you can reach us on e-mail and a twitter. there was a response from a senator from tennessee talking about private sector jobs specifically. here is what he said. i apply to get your response. >> i want to talk about making it easier and cheaper to create private sector jobs here in america. america. we can start by helping companies make what they sell in the united states -- make in the united states what they sell in the united states. some corporations are making it hard to accomplish. last month, the national labor relations board made the boeing

company not buildn south carolina, suggesting that it cannot expand its operations in one of 22 states with right to work laws, protecting the rights of workers to join or not to join a union. host: what are the political elements concerning job creation? guest: debt issue of whether boeing could transfer toth -- that issue of whether boeing could transfer right to work e -- transfer to a right to work area is a factor. homeowners can not bowel -- borrow against your house with expection. these things have changed the equation for the consumer.

that is a fundamental reason why you are not seeing a lot of hiring of people. without customers, you cannot add work. host: there is a story this out greece lookingbi at their economic situation in the taking out another bailout. the taking out another bailout. year is one line. -- here is one line. you may want to consider a bailout. guest: the message you are sending is not necessarily the expectation. quantitative easing is a fancy

term for buying enough assets so you buy wn the yield. the treasury bond will pay 1% stead of 2%. it forces people to take risk taking. expectations are a big part of it. they can try to keep rates lower than what they expt. these are designed to keep things moving along. people should be realistic in their expectations of how quickly this economy can recover. recover. you cannot -- she and a creeg from harvard wrote a book called "this time is different" and they wrote

about 800 years of financial crises and each time people made the same mistake, it's difrent from our economy. we say we're the world's biggest economy, it's different for us. well, it's not. i worked from mexico during the mexico critea and we're following the same script. when you have the financial skeletal system of your economy crashed, it doesn't snap back right away. it takes time to reverse imbalances, to work off the debt. homeowners are working off debt. they're not working off by savings. it looks good on paper but a lot of that is banks for giving debt. host: kevin hall with us in the late 30. middleburg, florida, republican line. francisco, good morning. caller: i was in reference is this the employment 1% lower even though they added 54,000 jobs, i'm former navy marine

corps, i just got do retiring 22 years of service and graduated from my associates degree and my economics class, we're discussing a lot of this stuff last year, before the numbers keep changes. our instructors say lie is figure, figure is lie. if these numbers were correct, media and wherever else keep pushing the media. the numbers don't add up. the numbers don't add up. if you sit down and look at the track records, you vote -- you see that something is wrong. 54,000 added jobs at 9.1% unemployment rate and it's supposed to be dropping. no, i don't think so. i look around herwhere iive at locally. there are so many place houses that fore closed on, it's not even a joke. my property is worthless right now. i cannot sell the property for what it's rth. just like everybody else. we're stuck between a rock and a we're stuck between a rock and a hard place.

host: where are you going to school for? caller: i'm going on for computer networking system and administrator. host: was that your first career or a career switch for you? caller: that was my hope, a career switch but i'm going back to school to get my certification because nobody wants to talk do you when off piece of paper in your hand. host: thank you. guest: it's funny that you mentioned. congratulations on getting you degree. the good news is at least the jobs numbers that you're questioning but in those jobs numbers, one of the areas that are showing consistent growth has been professional and business service and your computer area is one of those that will be continue to grow. you're going to hamper by your geography because you're in a state that has been distressed and home sales are virtually the only sales. and i think that's a problem and one of the things that is characterizing this is that you have people who aren't able to pick up and move to another part

of the country because they've of the country because they've got their problem with the house. banks are sitting about a milln properties and you've got another million property in the process and all of this is banks not wanting to lead because two years from now, they're not sure what the house they're not sure what the house is going to be what they're giving mortgage at today. host: health care is an area that saw an increase of jobs. transportation, warehousing, 8,000 jobs and construction, up 2,000 jobs. is that constructive number good? guest: againyou have to look at these moving averages over three and six months and there's nothing that points to a rebound in construction. any positive number is good but i don't think we're about to see an explosion in residential and siness construction. the manufacturing numbers have been the most positive over a steady climb and they declined last month but i do think, even the national association of manufacturer said they thought

it was a temporary thing. host: now jobs going down, the cheap number is government jobs. 29,000 down followed by retail and manufacturing down 5,000nd leisure and hospitality down 6,000. guest: yeah. i don't want to defend the administration. someone else can do that. but if you look at what the economic stimulus did, they're going to be arguing next year in the presidential campaign whether it worked or didn't work. one of the things that clearly happened is you're starting to see these job layoffs nowle they would have happened last year, a year and a half ago if not for that stimulus money. if you had layered those job losses on top of the private sector job losses. so you know, a lot depends on how you're measuring success. if you're measuring the stimulus success as the economy roaring back to health, then obviously it was not a success. you're measuring it about keeping a bad situation from spiraling into a really disastrous situation, then you can argue who did that. ho: danny on our democrats line.

good morning. caller: good morning. last night on cnbc, there was a program on about the rise of china. it's on again sunday night. everybody in this country needs to watch. these job problems were predicted by ross perot. we've seen millions of jobs go off to asia and china and mexico and if we don't six that problem -- the only way we can compete is we lower our wage scales to the equivalent of china and that's about $3,000 a year. i'm not exaggerating. that's the real numbers. this country will go into a this country will go into a revolution. we've got many times and millions of people who are unemployed. we have people w have no hope of get iting a real job. the economist, the big coorations wanted this. they make money by global trade whether they pay cheap products

in china and they wanted this. the economists are making predictions based on what they learned from college but they've broke then supply and demand system. the demand side has been exported to asia. exported to asia. people can't consume in america if their wages are driven down. all they can do is pay their bills these days. host: we'll leave it there. guest: ihink a clarification that ross perot was wanting a great second sucking sound in mexico but he's wrong. it was going to china. china's succession to the world trade organization changed everything. the chinese model, the caller is absolutely right to focus on the chinese model. and it's not that we haven't benefited from it. if you read the last chapter of alan greenspan's book, he warned what he thought the wod would look like in 15 years when all the benefits of cheap chinese imports go away because china's

prices are rising. today, china is not the low cost producer. if you look at a fender guitar or a musical instrument, they're not made in china anymore. it's made in indonesia. mexico lost jobs to china because it no longer is the low-cost producer. this is the first time in wod history that we've had awe these countries doing well at the same time and not having plagues and scourges and wars and in fact, sadly, it's a curse of plenty. host: you mentioned alan greenspan, are you surprised he told cnbc yesterday looking for -- looking again. numbers as far as tax rates are concerned, he said he would support the idea of taxes going back to clinton area levels. did that surprise you? did that surprise you? guest: it surpriseed a little bit, i guess, do i think he's right is an interesting

question. we did a story thadidn't win a lot of friends but it pointed out four different measures that americans by historical standards are undertaxed. and if you wanted, you know, everybody's talking, the world's coming to an end. we've got to reduce the deficit. it's a way you get all of that done by going back to 1999 tax levels. raising a 3% rise in top tax rate isn't going to cost the sky to fall. we've had a very healthy economy in 1999. arguably, there were other factors that boosted the economy, the goebel situation, but -- global situation, there's so much demagogue in this stuff if you mixed spending cuts with irreparable increase in taxes back to where they were you could get that. host: barry on our independent line, good morning. caller: good morning. i served the military during the vietm era.

when jimmy carter was in, you know, oscar, that he was one of the greatest president ever, he took a bum deal with the iran situation, but, you know, when i was in new york, i was one of them people that got hired but through the seated program and they had some government programs and they also kept factories, you know, in the cities, in the urban areas, you know, back then and i believe it helped a lot of people getack to work. but one thing about the unemployment rate when you look at it and i think this is under the reagan administration. it only affected people from the -- but i come from the urban city where i seen the unemployment high and you don't count these people when you ok at it, it's like 15-20% in the urban cities and some rural areas was basically tore and people don't have the money. so i think the stats is unreal. and i think you can't blame barack obama's administration for what's going on if it's a ongoing thing and you need to

tax the rich because they're getting richer and the poor is getting poorer. so let's be real. let's come up with something like the seeded program that is going to keep these factories and businesses in our neighborhood. if the auto industry came up, then give these other companies a chance to come up and the small businesses are going down. that's what kept our communities going and we need to go back to those days that we can bring back our neighborhoods. host: kevin hall. guest: two point ts that caught me ear with what that caller said. one, being the urban unemployment place. if you look at the northeast, or newark, it's 1-5. there's no easy answer to this. one of the answer is support program, the safety net. all that is under threat with the -- from these steep cuts people are talking about for discretionary spending. there are no easy answers and on

top of that, you have a situation where lamar yankees situation where lamar yankees was talking about the boeing situation. when they start doing away with tax expenditures which are basically tax writeoffs, well, a bunch of american manufacturers get a lot of tax benefits for producing here in the country. what are you going to do about that if you're going to close these tax loopholes? >> the president in toledo, ohio, yesterday talking mainly about the auto industry but made reference to current economy situations. here's what he had to say. >> even though the economy's growing, even though it's created more than two million jobs over the past 15 months, we still face some tough times. we still face some challenges. this economy took a big hit. it's just like if you had a bad illness. illness. if you got hit by a truck, you know, it's going to take a while for you to mend. and that's what's happened to our economy.

it's taking a while to mend. and, you know, there's still some headwinds that are coming at us. lately, it's been high gas prices that's caused a lot of rdship for a lot of working families and then you have the economic disruptions falling the tragedy in japan. you've got the instability in the middle east which makes folks uncertain. there are always going to be bumps on the road to recover. >> and all of that, kevin hall, never mentioning the numbers at all. guest: no. he touched on the number, 2.1 million jobs in the last 15 months. that's a pretty remarkable number andt gets to attention because we lost 8 million jobs. he's got a tough road to haul. you achieve and you're still to an expectation that you know, it's beyond what you can achieve and people need to be realistic about at this president or the

next president can do. host: atlanta, georgia, good morning. jim, republican line. caller: yes. good morning. i'm concerned that so much of the focus is on tactical policies. we voted in politicians that allow these policies to happen where unemployment rate is high and not getting any better. but where is the focus on long-term or strategic initiatives? i have an 18-month-old son and no one is talking about this next generation and what is the unemployment rate going to be like when he's -- when he graduates from school? is he going to be able to find a good job? where's the focus on that? everything is focused on how to get the unemployment better next month and the month after. what about the future? guest: and let me add to thi. -- host: jim heinz saying what happened to the president's green job agenda? what's the amendment on that putting fast forward?

guest: it's been moving forward at a fairly decent clip. it's what you're going to do that has an effect. there has to be a market. you can't build something out. it's not like if you build it, they will come. you've seen a lot of good things happening. electric batteries for electric cars. we got next generation batteries. a lot of money has been leveraged for battery research. not so much in the ethanol. there was a lot of talk about alternative fuels. that doesn't seem to have gone anywhere. for your twitter comment, there are some areas that's worked are some areas that's worked well and other areas that's not so well. host: houston, texas, good morning. patty, demrats line. caller: yes. yes, sir. please let me finish, please, because i always get cut off. you know, the reason why i'm calling right now, it seems to me that everything is going on all of this disaster and

everything's going on. everything getting blown away like everything. the only company thing has been blown away and everything else there's a lot of job. and you still is saying but they still put all of the blame on the president right now. well, he's not doing enough. he's not doing this. this is not right at all here. because we did have that war. we had a good, good company when clinton came in. and evything's been happening all disaster right after another. and it seems to me that everybody is just like, well, blame it on -- getting it right away like -- he's 18. how is he going to do when gets a job if we need to start right now. there's people been working all their lives and serving their country and everything else. country and everything else. then they always want to cut the poor, poor, poor peoples off

their money. but -- host: valid points. if you're the president, you're going to take the heat. you're going to take the glory and the good times and the glory and the bad times. do i think obama has made his own situation worse by coming in with an unrealistic projection. he projected an unemployment rate of 8%. i don't think they realized how bad things were. guest: and that's going to b mething that will haunt hi next year on the campaign trail. i agree with the caller. the gist of what she's saying is people are playing politics when poor people are struggling to get by and are getting hurt. anybody sees this game being played all the time and it does, i feel what she's saying. you do get the sense that people forget the real working people. host: is there any forecast as far as how long we might see the current unemployment number we have? guest: well the federal reserve doesn't see it going below 8% until i think 2015 or 2016. that's five years from now. so that gives you a sense of how

unusual a predicament we're in and there are others who see it in 2020. i've got a 9-year-old. by the time my kid gets in trouble, you're still having an 8% unemployment rate. that's a very dismal short-term future. the future is a long-term horizon but we need to do a few things. a lot of things have to happen at the right time and the right way for us to get back to what used to be, what we consider normal. host: do they have any tools in the tool backs since to apply i at this point for the president and the congress? guest: that's an interesting question pause the stimulus, depending on how you measure it did or didn't help. i don't think there's much appetite and the debt is a real problem. i think we have one of the problems is this is all hitting us a. a time where boomers are gng into retirement. 75 million people born in 1946 and 1964 all are about to go into retirement. a lot them are retiring later.

so we're going into it with a structural problem with the medicare crunch but we also did things and people need to remember that we did things that made this worse. we lowered taxes. we have less revenue coming in and we did the part d medicare where we gave seniors care virtually no pay-in r. those are the things that outsized our budget deficit, not lending to foreign governments or even the wars. host: another response to yesterday's news came from republicans yesterday. a press conference. one of the responsibilities was jeff. >> if you look at the history of recessions in the post-war era, now, you have never seen a longer recession attached to a more tepid recovery. the net which is recurring under president barack obama. by any historic standard, this nation ought to be back to work. there ought to be more money in the pockets of american families

to send their kids to college, to start a small business. but there isn't. again, it is another day to point on their failure. host: the response to the history of that. guest: yeah. again, you can look at it two ways. you can say this is the loest recession attached to a recovery or you can look at it and say this recession and several wall street analysts have note there's been more hiring in a shorter period of time in this recession than any other time. the problem is we have not had an economic impact this great since the great depression and there's a growing body of research that suggests had the fed not med this aggressively under the bush administration, we would be very close to teetering on recession. people have to be realistic. this sort of talk is the demagoguing that doesn't help in terms of our understanding to this kind of situation we're in. host: independent like, david. caller: good morning. my question is how we're going

to recover from the -- from this recession when nobody is addressing the energy situation. right now, the whole economy is based on the consumption to oil and because we've had so much oil here for so many years, everybody's so spread out in the country and the oil supply is not growing any and now we've got three wars going on over in the part of the world where we get most of our oil from and i think all it's going to take is one catalyst, you know, to drop drive the gas up, 10 bucks a gallon we might see. i'm wrong when this happens, how we're ever going to get out of this recession. host: very good question. guest: the u.s. automakers are doing -- all the automakers are all moving to hybrid cars and hybrid electrics. if we get to one of those

crunches where you got a $7 or $10 barrel of gasoline, then the car makers have already put in place building their platforms to manufacture and where they're going to get these out the doors quickly. that's not going to help people get a new car. but i do think the car makers are thinking about this and i've done a couple of stories on this in the last year of how ford for instance, is building on a platform for its ford focus that th can do oun a conventional gasoline hybrid or straight electric battery. so they're preparing for any eventual tism that tells you they think the end of cheap oil is coming to an end. host: treasure secretary, you're talking to fram republicans about the situation. whereas far as the arguments from republicans and raising the bts, wouldn't cause any harm to the white house saying it wouldn't, other people in between. where do you see it taking place and what's the harm if we don't?

>> guest: if we don't raise the bt ceiling, then the question bt ceiling, then the question is how long has this drag on? it doesn't mean we stop paying the bond holders. but i don't think the bond market is going to sit tight and do nothing and see what happens. if we get to mid july, the consensus view is if we get to mid july and nothing is still happening, you're going to have the credit agencies give us another one last warning that if you don't get this done, we're going to downgrade your credit. the u.s. credit rating how our bonds are rating in terms of our ability to repay, if that falls, that cascades through the economy. consumer borrowing, business borrowing, everything goes up and once the downgraded, they're not going to upgrade the minute after the congress gets its act together. so i do think they're playing with fire here. again, there's nothing magical about the debt ceili. it's simply you've done it 10 times in the last decade. i understand the desire for spending cuts and i think what

you'll see, you have one or two optis. go to the wire and then it's going to -- they'll come up with a deal with steep spending cuts that extend past the012 election, i think that's what the administration would like of the the republicans would like to agree to a six-month election and fight again and then you get political hay out of it. that's the game that's being playedut do think that, you know, it has consequences. host: what's the current credit rating for the u.s.? guest: a.a.a. host: what could it be downgraded to? guest: a.a. it's not like they are going to put us to junk bond status. the united states s always had ale a rating. we quoted the former vice president of the fed. he said once you go down this path, then you've set in motion any time an opposition party wants to really get the president's attention, this is the vehicle to do it.

and it's a dangerous road to go down when you're playing with a full face of credit. host: kevin hall joins. he's the national economics reporter. correspondent west palm beach, florida. waldo, you are on the republican line. go ahead. caller: yes. i'm here. well, i hear your debate and i believe the nice thing in all this matter is it's time for america to -- [inaudible] the president has responsibility of most of the responsibility in all this -- not -[inaudible] this is coming from their congress. the congress never been actively responsible in any of the issue we got into the economy. it is predictable of what's happeng in america because there was plenty of recession when -- honestly, we are in depression. with the public opinion needs to understand is that america will

become poor and poor and poor because we facing a big issue that they only want to talk about us the cost of life nowadays increase in progression nowadays increase in progression [inaudible] they are going to grow in medical. guest: i think the last point, wage votes has been very flat. for a number of years now. and we've got also the income of quality that's widing dramatically and these are things that have transcended either democrats or republicans. as a society, people are beginning to take note of that in terms of being in a depression, it's defined 10% decline in economic growth or more. i don't think in technical terms we're a depression but i do think the middle class is strained like never before. a whole other question for a

whole other day, commodity prices and whether these markets are doing what they're supposed to do, which is determined a price b.g. versus casino. you look at the volumes that are being traded versus the physical products, whether it's grain or oil. host: maryland, independent line. jake, go ahead. caller: hi. i only have about 30 seconds. so i got speak in generation. so -- generalization. so pase take my overall question and not try to pick out one thing. i voted for ross perot twice and i think he was very richingte today it's ron paul who's telling the truth. this ongoing crisis was caused by investment which is caused by loose monetary policy. that economics says that bad debt mt be liquidated. you're going to experience pain of this debt liquidation either now or later. the medicine that you have to take just depends on when you're going to take it.

so we've had tight stimulus act qe-1 and qe-2 and nowe're talking about qe-3 last night on television. you say the fed sees unemployment high through 2016. if we had taken our medicine in between 2009, we would already be rebuilding. when are you going to start thinking about these type of things? god bless you. host: good question. when you think back to how when you think back to how latin-american crises were solved, it was through what the caller is advocating. guest: raised taxes, have a terrible tough period of one or two years of adjustment and then start growing. there are so evidence that worked isome cases. some cases, it didn't the -- and the political costs are always high. i've spent a lot of my life working in latin arica and chili is always the example. chili didn't take that i.

i.m.s. advice. they had a rainy day fund and when things got bad, they had an aggressive stimulus program but it was a program created that -- one of the fair stimulus of our program, a lot of the funds were distributed as they were highway distributed as they were highway funds. when you get that, it's money to use on whatever. it's not directed towas boosting productivity which has an economic belt. it's similar to what the japanese did in their debt crisis. they built bridges that didn't go to anywhere and didn't add a lot to the output of the country. and i think that's a fair criticism of our stimulus as well and you look at what the chileans have done during their down turns and built ports and highways that have opened up new areas. it's a lesson to learn for us. it's a lesson to learn for us. host: boulder, crofrl. kathleen, democrats line. caller: hi, kevin. thank you for c-span.

you guys are the best. you tell us whether the banking institutions that bored billons of taxpayers dollars, via the fed, have they paid those loans back and can you explain, i mean, other than cats having control of some of our congress folks is why there was little to no interest? can you explain that on those loans and whether they paid them back? and i wanted to ask "washington journal" if you folks could have some more programs where you help the americapublic get some real facts on the israeli plan yin conflicts that keep impeding any kind of real impeding any kind of real negotiate.

guest: most of the big banks have repaid all of that. if people want to get out just quick history, the way it happened was paulson, the then treasury secretary went to the largest banks, 13 or sof them and basically got them in a room and said i'm going to give you this money. and wells fargo one that comes to mind says we don't need this money. the government insisted on everybody taking so that markets wouldn't be picking out the next week's -- weak fish because bear stearns went down and lehman brothers was under pressure and people were looking at merrill lynch and everybody ended up marrying up. a big psychologist in the industry and oddly enough created berg sbinities and not a smaller one. but these banks did pay all the big banks except citibank is big banks except citibank is still the last one.

if you're suggesting there's a flop the banks, the op that the fed fund rates has been zero since late 2008, that amounts to almost free money to the banking system and they're not lending it. they're investing it. they're investing it. i saw something in the "wall street journal" that commod distrading was up 55%. distrading was up 55%. host: one more call. scottsdale, arizona, republican line, steve. caller: i was going toay that maybe we're just looking at this pessimistically. doesn't 9% unemployment mean 90% employment and maybe, you know, because we're in an automation age with, you know, the computers and robots, i mean, isn't it likely we're going to start having me employment just for that reason because of robots doing that now?

guest: good question. services, is why you've seen a drop in manufacturing in construction and why the services sector is now the leading employer and health care in particular. so that is happening. i don't think we're going have structurally 9% with the world's largest economy and most competitive. so i think the expectation is you are in that 5-6% range and that's why 9% is such a painful experience and an anomaly. this is not a normal rate for this economy. host: the next thing you look at as far as the telltale as far as the state of the economy. guest: energy prices. i don't think peopleppreciate fully how that feeds into the food prices. the federal reserve is worried about inflations but they look at core inflation, they don't measure food and energy but average americans, you know, food and energy is what it's about for most americans and there's a big disconnect there. going forward, what happens there? i mean, we have weak demand. we have -- there's no reason

energy prices should be where they are and yet, you know, wall street firms are talking about $ 130 oil in the third quarter of 130 oil in the third quarter of the year. that doesn't match up what [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> next on the indictment of john edwards. this is from today's "washington journal." for a few moments, we want to focus on the news from yesterday. john edwards broke law to cover up his indictment. j. andrew curliss is on the phone. can you explain what the prosecution is arguing and what

edwards defense is? guest: the prosecutors have kept it simple. they said all of the hundreds of thousands of dollars that went from -- to wealthy donors involved in the edwards campaign paid the expenses of his mistress for a time frame and should have been reported as campaign contributions, because they were made to keep the campaign going. the edwards' team says that is not what the law says. what you are seeing is a focus on the intenst. a big part of a criminal case is the intent to violate a law. the intent to violate a law. they have to know what it is and squint their eyes at it and say, i will violate that law. yesterday afternoon, standing

before the courthouse, after his first appearance, he says i never knew that i was breaking the law. host: hold on for a second. we have tape from mr. edwards yesterday. >> i regret for the rest of my life the pain and the harm that i caused. , and iot break the law th never ever thought of as breaking the law. host: as far as his argument is concerned, what will be the rationale from his lawyers? guest: they will attack him on several fronts. the main one will be the that the money is to hide the affair from his wife, and it had nothing to do with the campaign. they will say that there is a

lot of people to use money for that sort of thing, and it was not connected to the campaign. they have experts to say even if it was, it is not a criminal violation of the campaign finance law. that is not what the campaign finance law is about. it will be a battle of the experts for some time. host: is there any evidence that the money exchanged in this process was filtered through any campaign account? guest: not at all. that is is not a criminal violation of the campaign finance law. they looked at the campaign account in the money that went in and out. it was not part of any indictment. if it was all money flowing directly from donors in going

through an intermediary, an interior decorator in north carolina, and then the mistress or campaign staffer. host: as far as the department of justice's approach to this, why are they making this a criminal case? guest: this has gone pretty high up in the justice department', and they are convinced that this money would not have gone from these donors to edwards' mistress at the time that it did. this was late 2007, early 2008, before he dropped out. this money would not have gone but for the candidacy of john edwards. they are convinced that this qualifies as campaign donations.

host: he could take a plea agreement on this couldn't he? guest: he could. we are reporting today that it got down to a final offer that edwards could have pleaded to three misdemeanors, being the value of a dollar amount. it was rejected, because he likely still would have faced some prison time. host: what is the timetable now that the indictments have been handed down? guest: later this year, we should get to a trial. there will be a battle of experts and several attempts by the edwards team to have this thrown out before it would get to a jury. there could be a trial later this year. host: j. andrew curliss joining

us on the phone. he is a reporter with the "news and observer" in raleigh, n.c. the t we have m the discussion on the future of the middle east. later, a discussion on 2012 politics, the economy, and women in politics with former michigan gov. jennifer grant halholm. next, commencement speeches by

new york city mayor michael bloomberg, the first woman to work in japan after world war ii, and a member of the metal rock ninth that integrated the school, able and mountain climber, and an award winning neurosurgeon. >> he was known in the day as czar. it was not flattering, but he considered it flattering in deed. -- flyering indeed. he overturned a longstanding custom in the house that the minority would be unable parliamentary footing with the majority. >> mr. speaker on c-span is q&a. you can also download this and other q&a podcasts, one of our many signature interview programs. >> this year's graduating class

of george washington university heard from your city mayor michael bloomberg. he talked about some of the positive developments that came after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. he also urged graduates to express' freedoms and arguments that are not always popular. >> ladies and gentlemen, and give your speaker dr. michael r. bloomberg. >> i really am honored to be this year's gw consents and speaker, even though i hear that i was your -- commencement

speaker, even though i hear that was your second choice after charlie sheen. [laughter] apparently he was already booked warlock convention. locked -- i was excited when i got the invitation. i was hoping he was inviting me to stay the night that his legendary farm. not that i'm saying he is full of sheep. i want to be clear about that. i decided not to stay overnight even though some student did offer to grant me his single for $10,000. he said that was half of what he got for the inauguration weekend. i know this is a bittersweet day for all of you who are graduating. it will not be easy to leave a place where you could rub a hippo's knows, breakdowns with big george,