that, on one level, the entire conversation in washington has changed, that people are beginning to think seriously about how much government, the country can afford, etc., a way tout rather than looking for programs to expand. do you believe that there has been a change in tone in the city? guest: it's actually remarkable in many, many ways. you have the discussion really now today is, how much government spending can be cut, how much should it be limited, the growth of government. these are discussions that have not been seen in the past. a few weeks ago, the senate, by a large bipartisan vote, voted to end the subsidy for ethanol and allow ethanol to be imported without a special tax on it. that was an unprecedented vote. even the aarp has recognized publicly that changes need to be made to social security in the future. so these are -- they're kind of like preshocks for a political

earthquake. clearly there's going to be a change in direction. but i don't think anyone knows the answer to how it's going to turn out. host: we will open up our phone lines, and you can also reach us by to witter and by email as the conversation proceeds with david keating. we'd like your questions or comments for him. we'll go to phone calls in just a couple of minutes. you heard a number of people call us during theast segment, concerned about the ex-ploy -- exportation of american jobs overeast. i wonder what your opinion is about free trade deals and what role they have played in bolstering the economy or exporting jobs. guest: there's no doubt that free trade is something that has bolstered the economy here in the u.s. one way of looking at this, to make it easier to understand, is that the united states, one of the geniusesf the constitution and the founding fathers, when they designed the new united states of america was that we would have a free

trade inside the united states. so new york cldn' put on special tariffs or import quotas for products shipped from, say, virginia, and vice versa. so we've had a free trade zone here in the united states for the entire time of our country, and it's one of the things that's made our country great. the people in each state are able to do what they do best, and when everyone's able to do what they can do best and most sufficiently, everyone's going to be better off. now, that doesn't mean every person at every time is going to be better off, but as a whole, as a nation, indeed, as a world economy, we're all going to be richer for it. host: with regard to negotiations about the budget and debt ceiling, our first guest suggested that senate republicans are beginning to signal that there is some opening for discussion of tax increases in various individual programs, not so much looking at overall increases in the marginal rate, but finding ways to increase taxes -- say, for

example, the corporate jet tax. do you have a line in the sand about taxes? guest: well, look, we think that the key is to get tax rates down, and that is one of the keys to economic growth. we have a tax code where, whenever you mack a major decision, whether an individual or a company, you would be foolish if you didn't consider the tax consequences. . instead of maximizing the best investment to get the highest return on your money, people sit around and figure, well, what will the tax code get me in addition to what i might get from the investment? so we spend a lot of time figuring out how the benefits of the tax code instead of what makes sense economically. so the extent we can watch the tax rates and lower some of these tax codes, we can get more economic growth. that's the solution for the long run. you have to look at countries -- the countries dng well are

the ones that can afford the programs that a lot of supporters and congress might want. if we don't have the economic growth, we're going to be fighting over a smaller pie rather than something where everyone's benefiting in the country. host: before we go to calls, i want to talk about the attitude in washington changing. when congress comes back, the defense appropriations will be on the table. first of all, this is "washington post" this morning, pentagon costs are rising quickly. healthcare expense have outpaced those elsewhere. the c.b.o. projected on thursday that higher costs for weapons systems and healthcare will increase the pentagon budget by $40 billion over the next five years, at a time when president obama and many lawmakers are looking to cut military spending. that's ite one. item two, this morning in the opinion page of the "wall street journal," the whole top half of the page,onald rumsfeld, the peril of deep defense cuts is his ece, and he argues why all those suggesting that earmarks are a

potential target among others. then in the "washington times" today, winslow wheeler, we've had him on our program before, defense appropriations, pork and gimmicks as usual. democrats and republicans alike pretend that austerity is the new rule. here's what he writes, it's a $649 billion bill close to another post-world war ii high, pretending reform and frugality, members of the house appropriations committee, democrats and republicans alike, have packed the bl with pork and gimmicks. the bill would spend $17 billion more than last year, but the house is calling it a cut because it's less than the original request president obama sent to congress in february. what's your reaction to all that? guest: well, i would not be surprised if there's plenty of pork in the defense appropriations bill. i mean, that's been a grand tradition for many years. i remember even ted kennedy, who was generally an opponent

of defense spending, as long as the bomber was in part made in massachusett he was for that bomber. that's something politics as usual hasn't changed in all departments of washington, and the defense budget is one where you've seen ear marks historically. >> getting back to the earlier conversation, people are beginning to talk about cuts, but they're still safe? guest: well, look, i think part of this is, the committee realizes the big fight's going going to be over the debt ceiling limit. that's where the hard negotiations are going to be put out. and then they will probably be given a new number, and they'll have to revisit that bill that they've worked on in committee and meet the new number. so if that's what happens, it's probably a good thing. host: so first things first. guest: look, here's what each department or each function of government is going to be getting, and then work out what you think you can get, the most bang for the buck, so to speak.

host: let's get to calls for you. we're going to begin with a call from los angeles. michelle is a democrat there. you're on for david keating of the club for growth. caller: given that you made the comments about t republican candidate mitt romney has developed an unshakable reputation as a flip-flop per uses federal powers to coerce taxpayers, and tim pawlenty is hard to pin down, who do you like? guest: well, what the club for we haveohas been doing, published a series of white papers on many of the presidential candidates, all of those that have declared publicly that they ought are going to be running for office. the club has a political action

committee. we have not made a decision about which candidates to endorse and we may not endorse any candidate for president. we have made three endorsement already for u.s. senate candidates. jeff blake in arizona. in the house, steve king for representative in iowa. we are going to analyze all of the presidential candidates. there may be some that we will declare, and if we do we will publish a white paper on them, too. a republican of michigan -- that will make him the third sitting member of the house tossing his hat into the ring. he opted not to run for a third term last year. doou have any early reactions to his entry?

guest: we plan to publish a white paper ohisecord and i do not think it is going to be all that complementary. we think it is great that people are putting their hat into the ring and giving voters a choice. we look forward to what his platform is in running a presidential campaign. host: what do you think the main theme of the presidential election will be? guest: what we are going to do to help grow the economy. two, we have an unsustainable budget for the future, so what is going to be done with that? so this is something that will be decided in the 2012 election. the control over the house and senates going to be up for grabs. part of the debate should be should we solve these proems with massively higher taxes? you cannot pay for all of these programs by taxing the top 1% or

2%. or are we going to limit the growth and try to make the economy grow? host: next up, ketith is a republican. good morning. caller: good morning. on this tsa -- doesn't anybody realize we have enough law enforcement agencies from all of the state's that have local police, state police, county poli? these officers and these ex military -- they should put the tsa out of business because we have enough people in the united states because these law enforcement agencies when one gets on a plane, they are

authorized to carry weapons. they are trained in them. when they get on the plane, they can give them rubber bullets. when they get off the plane, they could be given their lead bullets back. it is an intrusion on the american people privacy. that would be a good place to start. host: thank you. cutting the government by cutting the tsa. i do not know how much we spend on the tsa. the question is probably how best can it be done and at the lowest cost as well? whether it is the current tsa or we have the airports or the airlines do it, i do not know but i suspect we could probably

make some deficiencies there, too. host: ted is an independent. good morning. caller: good morning. i think the jobs in the usa were cut because of jobs and wages. these are rich corporations and individuals do not like to pay decent wages and taxes, so they moved to china, japan, taiwan, wherever, korea. they are greedy and they are getting rich. the people that are left are still on employment. i think we need to put a moratorium on those boats that last year with taxes and wages because this country runs on taxes and wages. if we put a moratorium on them

to not let them send their goods and services back here and pay for, you know? then the government can help people that really need it, the ones that are drawing unemployment and the ones who ow how to create these things and do it. let them create the jobs. they are taxpayers and they believe in good wages. let's quit handing it out to wall street, the banks, and the top 2%. just everything with the oil companies and the subsidies and the places that they do not need to go. everybody knows what is wrong. all it is is a bunch of stiff- necked republicans and democrats that do not want to do what is right. guest: there is a lot there. i wou start by saying i would agree that there are tax policies making it more difficult for our companies and

our workers to be competitive in the international market. one of the things we can do is lower the tax rates that are corporations have to pay in the united states and we can be more competitive overseas. a lot of our companies are operating t only here in the united states but also overseas. when they make a profit overseas, they have to pay a additional tax on those profits. so the companies have an incentive to keep the profits that they have made overseas rather than bring it backo the united states. i think if we lowered that tax, a lot of these companies would like to invest that money in the united states. recommendingcomment the rule that is put on these other countries. that would start a trade war. if you are not going to take

products from our country, we are not going to take products from your country. we export a lot from the united states. we make some of the finest aircraft in the world. many airlines are using boeing equipment. i would not be surprised if you wod see other countriesot allowing boeing equipment to be sold in their countries or buy u.s. agricultural products. caterpillar manufactures a lot of earth moving equipment and construction equipment that is very popular around the world. a trade war is something like many wars, everyone is going to it.ud up poorer because of host: let's listen to senator harry reid talk about the budget negotiations. >> why have we done this?

why have we pointed out these individual tax breaks,? you add them together, they are worth tens of billions of dollars. iso appreciate my colleagues going down to the floor and laying out to the american public what we are talking about. guest: that is something i said earliein the program. we have a tax code that is inefficient. host: so you agree with him. guest: whahe wants to do is collect the money so they can spend more. these tax breaks are making our tax laws very inefficient and complicated. " we need to do is spur economic growth in this country. get rid of the tax breaks, lower the tax rates so people are not making decisions based on what

the tax code says it. host: the next telephone call comesrom cleveland. loretta is a democrat. caller m david keating, i want to change the conversation and bring it back on shore. my topic this morning is the deal, the bribe, the agreement, the pact, call it what you want, that the republicans in congress have made with grover norquitz. taxes pay for the cost of government. this deal, agreement, whatever it is, that the republicans signed with norquitz, -- my question to you is the oath that

congress signed -- is it to the people or norquitz? is this illegal? there should be an investigation on him. republicans say they are against a bailout, but they are for tax cuts and they fail to realize that tax cuts are mini bailouts. all of those bailouts -- $4 billion for the oil companies, $3.50 trillion went for jobs under the bush administration, and we did not get jobs. we got outsourced. i want to know when are the republicans going to be sponsible for what they are doing to the country. thank you. guest: i think the original dge by n was this pleg

grover norquist. like many groups, there are tons of groups out there that circulate pledges. basically, it says that both republicans and democrats to sign it to say they will not vote to raise income tax rates, nor will they vote to reduce income taxes and credits unless those reductions are offset by tax rate deductions. that is the pledge that he asked candidates to sign eight. other groups circulate other pledges on social security, abortion, the environment. these things are a part of the candidate's platform when they run, and the voters decide whether they want to send these people to congress or not.

i do not see anything illegal about the pledges. grover has not agree to give money to their campaign if they sign it. i believe his organization does not even have a political tion committee. i think the pledges are entirely legal and is something that is a part of politics. host: you might be interested in an op ed from the governor of massachusetts. the headline is -- mike on twitter wants to go back to the debate -- guest: there is no evidence of that. i would point to the prosperity of the united states. we have had a free trade zone,

and everyone accepts it is a good idea. certain states were seen as having certain advantages over others. another thing that i'd like to point out to people is we are all best at doing something, either individually or as a country or as a corporation. we would not want to pass a law at says only bananas could be grown in minnesota. bananas can be grown in minnesota but they cannot be grown very efficiently or cheaply. that is a simple example. yes, we could grow bananas and minnesota, but we do not want to do that because we would all be poorer because of its. host: this message also from twitter --

guest: yeah, i think that was something i said earlier. it would help the economy grow faster. i think that is one of the keys to solving our budget problem and is actually crucial. one way to grow the economy is to get the tax rate down. corporations would make investments based on how they can grow jobs instead of balancing the tax considerations. host: of maryland, you are up next to my duty is a republican critic caller: good morning. i love c-span as always. i am very concerned because i think we are being led by charlatans and magicians. there was an article in the washington post this morning about bank fraud. every day, every day, repeated the, we read about fraud in

afghanisn, iraq, pakistan, and now the congress wants us, after giving away our jobs, not fair trade, free trade agreements -- now they want to go back and give them away with korea. i cannot believe the direction that this country has gone in. we keep talking about corporate tax rates. that is the key word. "rate." they are notaying 35%. they are paying 4%, 6%, 9 and i am making up the difference. the irs is after a relative of mine who lost their job. they owe them $5,000. karzei and his brother have walked off with billions of

dollars and our congress cannot seem to stop it. guest: well, there is a lot there. obviously, a lot of these countries, and it is very disappointing to see fraud and hopefully over time it will go down, i do not want to make any excuses for it because there are no excuses for that activity. a lot of these countries do not have the same developed a rule of law that we have over here. even in our country, there have been instances of fraud and bribery and things like that. there were huge problems in its new jersey and in the past. in illinois, rod blagojevich is it going off to jail unless he wins his appeal. clearly, fraud is something that goes with politics and

government. hopefully, we can cut it to the most extent possible. you also said something about the trade agreements. here in the united states, we did not impose any import restriions on products from the central american free-trade agreement countries. and no import quotas or tariffs. at that agreement, those countries to lower their taxes or any restrictions they had on u.s. products. it was a total win for the united states. the same thing for the cumbia free trade agreement. we have no import taxes. this trade agreement would make itasier for u.s. products to be shipped. host: jimmy on twitter asks --

guest: well, i think tim pawlenty got it right when he said we should have a goal in the 45% growth. i do not think we can make their goal every year but it is a good goal to have. let's have everyone come up with the best ideas we can to get our economy growing a fast as we can. what was the second part of the question? host: about energy costs. guest: energy costs will impact our competitiveness around the world. if we could figure out a way to provide energyore efficiently in the united states, that would give us an advantage over other countries. host: next up is fort worth, a

democrat. caller: your comparison of trade agreements between the states and the trade agements between other countes does not make an ounce of sense because we live in the united states and what these companies have done it is at last the united states a then come back to us using cheaper labor. how in the world is thafair? it is just frustrating to me to see that you are sitting there talking about how good freed trade is for us when 300 million of us cannot buy anything in this country for our households made in the united states or very rarely. he would have to search for days just to find a coffee pot. how do you justify comparing the

two things between the states and other countries? besides that, this thing is just frustrating to me. how people like you can sit there and talk like this. the only trade agreements that we have made it that made any sense was nafta, between north america, canada, mexico, and south america in our own time zone. the rest of it does not make any kind of sense. guest: at the time, nafta was very controversial. the same arguments were made. there was an argument that all of the american jobs were going to go to mexico. it turned out not to be the case at all. joanne believes that nafta has

been a good thing, and it has been, not only to the u.s. but the other countries that have signed onto it. earlier when you talk about a free trade zone for the entire unit states, that was something that had some controversy at the time and a certain states were seen as having advantages over the others. itorked. we had a free-trade zone in the united states. we have a free trade zone with canada and mexico. it is going to work for all of us if we have freerade zones with other countries as well. that is not to say that there will not b problems. there will be dislocations as adjustments are made, but over the long run, it is going to make us richer in the united states and people richer all over the world. people trying to make a living

in other countries, i think it is good that they get out of poverty as well. the final point i would make is if we start this trade war and decide that we are not going to take products from other countries, we are going to massively and not only to lose jobs from exports closed off but prices will soar in the united states. it will be hard to secure these other products that are made overseas and we will see sharply higher prices. host: i want to tell u about our guest as we wrap up our time with him. prior to his position as the executive director of the club for growth, he was a senior executive in washington director. he served on the national commission of a restructuring of the irs. how did you get so interested in tax policy as a career? guest: that is a good question.

i guess a came partly through my studies in college and after college. i spent a lot of time reading up on economics. i really do believe that economic freedom is a key component of freedom. and the national taxpayers union was a place that i had got a lot of attention for working for rights and lower taxes. i thought it would ba great place to work. it was very interesting. i was able to do a lot of things there and with supporters on capitol hill. i also remember working on other things such as passage of the taxpayers' bill of rights, adding indexing to the reagan tax cuts in 1981, and that has made a huge difference over time. in the date of how taxes will be handled by congress. it has been very interesting.

host: a twitter user asks this question -- guest: well, actually, they are not the lowest in 60 years. after 1986, there was a bipartisan tax reform act with the income tax rate was 28%. today, the top rates are in the high 30's for income tax alone. the rates are close to 40%. if you count taxes at the state and local level, in many places, it is higher than that. if you look at when the country has grown and done particularly well, it is when we have lower tax rates. host: michael is an independent. good morning. caller: there are a couple of things isee go on. that is our constitution -- if

washington and jefferson were alive today with abraham lincoln and the assault of the mess we were in, what with a really say? and they would be shocked why we are in this in the first place. guest: i agree. we have not talked about this this morning, but one of the items up for debate on this debt ceiling is the idea of a balanced budget amendment. thomas jefferson wrote about a single amendment that he would like to add to the constitution, and that was a balanced budget amendment because he thought it was important to secure the financial security of the country in the future. i think he wasight. interestingly, a lot of the states have adopted restrictions on its debts or deficits.

while some states are in bad shape financially, se of them have a weaker balanced budget rules, by and large, the state finances are on sounder footing than the finances at the federal level. what is the difference? do we have a better quality of politicians at the state vel? i think some of them would argue that we do. i do n think we have much of a difference. barack obama used to serve in the illinois legislature. the differences we have a different set of rules at the state level and we have no limits at the national level. so i think it makes sense to have a balanced budget requirement. i think thomas jefferson would of said, "see? i told you so." caller: i think the whole thing it stems from democrat jealousy of almost everybody that makes it in america because we all

know democrats are leeches that sock on the rest of us. people who earned their money work for it and people like obama say you did not earn this money, it is my money. we always hear this jealousy about corporations and rich people from democrats because they are such losers. they cannot seem to run a corporation. we just saw the economic collapse. they are all crooks just like obama and clinton. guest: i cannot agree with a lot of those sentiments. there are many people who run businesses that are democrats as well as republicans. i do not think people's political outlooks has anything to do with how they can run a business. i think there is too much focus among too many democrats about

class warfare. i do not think it does our country any good to pretend we can solve our probls by raising taxes on the highest 1% or 2% earners in the country. there is not enough money there to balance the budget in the long run. it cannot happen. they are trying to mislead the country about this. if you raise taxes very, very high on those productive workers, that is going to have an impact as well and have an impact on prices. if you raise taxes on successful doctors and physicians, what do you think they are going to do customer they are going to try to raise the amount that they charge. there is no free lunch with this tax policy issue. if we raise taxes on the rich, i suppose they will raise their

prices or something else. it is just a way for politicians to hide the burden of what they are doing. i think it is pretty clear. host: melvin is a democrat. caller: first of all, it seems like every morning between the cond and third segment preaches republican talking points. jim was talking about democrats and putting money into successful businesses. basically, they are paying less taxes than other people wh are working for them in lower positions. secondly, this gentleman was talking about the irs and the

tax policy. most billionaires are paying the same percentage of taxes than a person making and $37,000 a year. most of them are not paying anything. when you have these individuals on, you need to have somebody on that can prove or come up with paperwork to prove their points rather than throwing out this information. thank you. guest: i would be happy to post someing on our website, and you can look later today, about the percentage of taxes paid by the top 5%, top 2% of the public compared to the rest. most people, especially if they have families, if they are earng $30,0 a year, they are not paying any income taxes at

all. it is hard to pay less than 0%. so, go onto our website, and we will point to some of the evidence about how much the rich are paying inncome taxes. host: the last call for david keating is from florida, a republican there. good morning, calvin. caller: thank you for taking my call. all of us in the united states who want to support this country do not want to buy eight any goods except american. i am surprised by all the cars that i see. we could propose our own

prohibition forll of these goods coming in by doing that. the second point i would like to make is in this country we need to show our representatives publicly funded their campaigns to get elected because the more they are funded by corporations, the mrore they are in the pocket of those corporations. we speak a lot about freedoms in this country, and we need to protect those freedoms. there are other freedoms that we seem to forget. even as a republican, i have to say i agree with ron paul because he seems to think that you can have a freedom without responsibility. to give an example, if the things we can do everything we

want, why doesn't he drive down the wrong side of the road? host: we are going to stop at that point. americans buying american. guest: it is a free country. a lot of companies to advertise that their products are american-made. if people think it is important, e information is available. many products have where the product was manufactured. public funding of campaigns, he suggested -- personally, i think that is a bad idea and i would not support it. i understand people who do support it and i understand their arguments. i not think it will be something that will happen anytime soon. i think the point that peoe need to take responsibility for their actions -- i hope that is something that everybody can agree with.

host: how do you think the next couple of weeks are going to play out? guest: i really do not know. it is a very difficult political problem to solve. you have the house of representatives controlled by one party, fairly conservative, and then in the senate, you have a split almost evenly between the two parties. did you have the white house controlled by a democrat. how'd you get these three political actors to get there? how do cobble together the votes in the house and senate for something that helps the country? i h hope that can be

then afghan ambassador to the u.s. eklil hakimi on the plan to withdraw 30,000 troops from afghanistan by september, 2012. and after that, dan iannicola of the financial literacy group talks about financial service providers. plus your emails, phone calls and tweets. washington journal, live saturday at 7:00 a.m. eastern here on c-span. >> tune in to c-span this independence day. writer misme lind and other panelists discuss if the united states can remain ninalted. >> at the political level, we're more divided. if you look at partisan polarization than at any point since the civil war in reconstruction. >> then the dalai lama and sister helen prajean talk about religion, violence and the death penalty and nixon white house insiders discuss his presidency's foreign policy. this monday, july 4, beginning at 10:00 a.m. eastern on

c-span. for the complete schedule of programs and times go to c-span.org. this fourth of july three-day weekend on american history tv on c-span three. we'll visit the smithsonian museum of natural history to learn about a 19th century u.s. government expedition to circumnavigate the globe and their treasure, 40 tons of specimens which became the foundation of the smithsonian institution. former first lady laura bush on her time in the white house, planning her husband's presidential library and her memoir spoken from the heart. then a panel including former clinton press secretary mike mccurry discusses j.f.k.'s relationship with the press. get the complete weekend schedule at c-span.org/history. and we have more now on differing views on the national debt and federal deficit. blanche listen -- blanche lincoln served as senator from arkansas from 1999 to 2011 and she joined us on today's

"washington journal" for about 45 minutes. rnal" continues. host: our next guest on this friday morning, july 1, is blanche lincoln who served in the senate from 1999 until 2011 and is now in washington and a d.c. -- in washington, d.c. guesfirst we used to this advertisement. it is the american dream dead? how would you answer that question? guest: absolutely not. i have seen the good and the bad. you know, i remember, as i do almost every day, but certainly right now as we celebrate the fourth of july, for whatever faults is that people may find with our country, it is still the greatest place and the greatest country that we could

be blessed with to live in. it is our responsibility. host: what makes it the greatest place? guest: of the fact that we can come together and talk about what the best ways to make our nation great. we got ourselves tied in knots right now but if we continue to remind ourselves how blessed we are to be here, hopefully, we begin to come together and realize that members of the senate or the house did not come here or should not have come here with the idea that they are going to create a work of art or solve the problem overnight. it is a work in progress, and there is a lot to do right now. we have to buckle down and do that. there are some things that you have to give in on to create a conglomeration of ideas to move forward. we have become so focused on this in the gratification of solving the problem overnight.

host: how do you see the next few weeks playing out? his description of the interest among the players at the negotiating table suggested he does not know. do you? guest: i do not think anybody knows what is going to happen. i join the american people in trying to reinforce the congress . allowing our nation to default is not an option. we have watched other countries that are at the brink of that. it is one thing to think of greece in this situation, but when you think of our nation at that breaking point, it is just unconscionable. it is not just the consequences for us as americans but for the global economy.

host: what we do say to the members about the negotiations right now? guest: i would say, first and foremost, this is a critical question at a critical time. be willing to work in a bipartisan way. it is interesting because i think we realize the value of working in a bipartisan way. we are joined by other congressmen, democrats and republicans. bill has been a democrat and republican. nonetheless, working together and realize that you have to take steps and have the checks and balances -- dealing with the deficit is going to take tough choices. it is going to be a balance of things. we cannot do it all with revenues or tax expenditures. you have got to look for that

balance. that is what i would be encouraging my colleagues to do, to look for that balance. put some benchmarks, some targets that you have to meet with consequences. host: what with the message before the gop? what would the message be for the gop? guest: i have certainly voted for my share of tax cuts because i believe in them. at the time when we had a surplus. just as a former chairman greenspan mentioned, we are in a different time right now. it is the complete opposite in terms of the surpluses that we had in that time when we were able to give people those tax cuts, we also had not been through 9/11 or had the extreme

expenditures and our military spending. you have to look at where we are at the time to solve the problem. we did that in 1993 when i was in the house. it is just like a doctor who sees a patient. every patient is different. host: a couple of specifics -- the president has argued for a while now to roll back the tax cuts that were inaugurated during the bush years. looking back on your voting record, you have passed different things at different times. what is your opinion about the bush tax cuts? guest: well, as the last of four children, my father said we were all very independent-minded. i do not know what you have to stay with the same remedy for whatever time it was. we are in a different time. let's look at what we need right now to grow our economy and to

grow jobs. we need to make good, sound investments. coming out of the election from the last cycle, people were frustrated out there. they were mostly frustrated with the fact that congress and washington -- they are just not productive. the lack of productivity up here. making investments in infrastructure, long-term investments that we know will grow the economy and help us get out of the hole that we are in in terms of job creation. host water some examples? guest: the faa reauthorization would be great. no child left behind. we are almost five years overdue. these are good, solid investment in infrastructure that not only would create immediate jobs but would also create jobs in the

long term. most people have a gps in their car. you get on the plane traveling commercially, there is a striking number of air travel where they don't have that. there are so many things there that would help us in terms of manufacturing, investment in infrastructure. whether it is the faa, the highway bill, education, the farm bill. multitude of different things. the trade agreement. i know you talked about that earlier. i was very supportive of a trade agreement. opening up trade with other countries -- we are in a global economy now. i very much supported fair trade.

we have got to work on the economy. host: you mentioned agriculture. did the senate make a recommendation on the ethanol subsidies? guest: i have to believe that we are never going to alleviate our dependence on foreign oil and moving to the kind of volume of renewable fuel if we do not allow everybody an equal chance. we put all of our eggs early on in the basket of corn-based ethanol. it needs to be -- and cellulose ethanol and biofuel. you cannot grow those industries and those technologies if they cannot be cost competitive. do we need ethanol? yes, we do, and we need to make sure we support it in a way that is reasonable and balanced.

host: let me get to one other big topic and then we will start taking calls. that is the medicare debate. what do you think of paul ryan's medicare plan? guest: i think there are too few big steps and not enough baby steps. i think it is critical for us. i was willing to vote on the medicare part d which a handful of our democrats did that with president bush because i could not imagine a health-care program for seniors without prescription drugs being integrated into it. was it perfect? no. did it take the necessary steps to get us started on that discussion and debate and the evolution of a senior health care plan that had prescription drugs? yes, it did. i think that is how we have to

approach medicare. a baby girl born today as a 50% chance or better of living to 100 my husband's grandmother passed away a couple of years ago one a week shy of 112 living in her own home. these are the things that we are dealing with. people are living longer. i was very engaged with care coordination, wellness, how we coordinate care for our seniors in order to make sure not only are they getting the appropriate care but getting it in the setting that they want and having the quality of life that they want as well. medicare is an issue that, coming together, we can work to make better. host: from georgia, a republican. you are on with blanche lincoln. caller: great show. only in america could somebody of limited ability, an

independent auditor for fortune 500 companies, and along the way, i was threatened about every way a person can be because i covered large sums of money for my client. in 2006, i want to go ask my bankers some questions that frightened me to death. in testimony before the financial crisis, the vice president of citibank admitted that their bank in 2007, 60% of the loans were known to be bad. in 2008, it grew to 80%. weeks later, the ceo's said citigroup was too interconnected and too big to fail, implying that we would have to bail them out again. isn't this a declaration that americans are now in slaved to

criminals customer that is my first question. the second question relates to your role in regulations just before you left. the stock market -- the financial accounting standards board changed the rules saying that toxic assets were no longer toxic and were only temporarily impaired. were -- theye wory found out there was not a market for them. this stems back to the modernization act in which congress gave the banking industry's exemptions from the state gambling laws and also insurance regulations. doesn't this mean our money is on the same footing as bad gambling debts in an attempt to cheat and lie our way to

prosperity? host: a complicated question. guest: i think first and foremost it is important to recognize that from the cma we have discovered there was a 600 trillion dollar market place that was acting out there with no transparency or oversight. we had no idea that there was that the volume of activity in those he didn't markets until we began to see the problems that existed -- hidden markets until we began to see the problems that existed. we put together a bill to ensure those tools would go through more of the kind of transparency and oversights that is used in the stock market. i thought that was necessary and i think is going to continue to be necessary. i think others believe it is important for us to do that. that is what we have been doing. untangling all of that is not

something that is going to happen instantaneously. you are exactly right that we were allowing some of those financial institutions to operate using some of those risk-management tools in a way that was unheard of. i think we have made a good step with the derivatives portion that we did in the financial regulatory reform bill to begin to unwind that and put into place the oversight, recognizing that risk management is an essential for businesses to be able to operate and be competitive. we have other countries now that are interested in what we did because they realize they are going to have to do something. you have seen in u.s. banks recently that have invested in some of these risky tools overseas, and unfortunately, have met the same kind of problem that date met before. we now have in place the tools.

provided we can give the sec the resources that they need to be able to do their job, we now have in place rules that will prevent that from happening in our country. i applaud the gentleman for doing a great job on his own, and not only understanding what is going on today, but using the tools and skills of the basics in terms of accounting to realize that as complicated as things may get, you still have to go to those basic accounting rules to understand what comes in and what goes out to make sure everyone is being held accountable. host: the next question comes from san francisco. caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call. i just wanted to say the debt talks -- they probably will continue to stall. the person that you had on earlier -- no one mentioned --

no one who called in recognize the fact that it was an entity set up as a pac. another thingm, too, is this country as far as if it is dead, this country -- if you look at what happened with germany and hitler and the propaganda machine that was out there, that is what is here in america. we have been propagandized and misinformed. most of us will not take the time to understand what is really going on with america and with our leaders that pretend to say that they are all trying to work together.

no one is working together with president obama. he has been over backwards to the demise of his own faith to try to work with the republican party, and they have drawn lines in the sand and have said absolutely not. host: thanks for your call. guest: first of all, hopefully all of us as americans as we celebrate the fourth of july are going to work together. i think that is what has to happen on capitol hill. i was always a bipartisan member and enjoy working with both my republican and democrat colleagues. we are in a crucial situation right now with the debt ceiling and the issues of the fall before us. we have to realize that it is not an option and we have to put together a plan that recognizes you cannot do it all by cutting the ing or, you know,

expectations and the revenue raising. we have to make sure we come together with a plan that uses all the tools and our toolbox. host: from colorado -- guest: well, i think some of it we saw coming, but also some of it happened -- if we can remember, 9/11 was not something that we predicted. military spending and some of those instances. there are a lot of things that are unpredictable. again, i go back to the responsibility that congress has and one of the things that i was always frustrated with is there

are the day-to-day housekeeping tools that we have to do. those are basically, you know, the kind of infrastructure investments that we have to be making that we have not been doing on a regular basis. all of those things need to be done, and they are a big part of making sure that we can keep the economy churning. trade agreements that have been sitting on the table forever. those are the kinds of things that we need to be moving along. those are the day-to-day laundry that we have to do. we also have to focus in on how we can deal with the circumstances that we could have not predicted. she is right. i voted for a constitutional amendment to balance the budget and multiple things that i thought would pull us back to dealing with whatever it was the mundane for the exception. we have to keep working towards

that. host: this is a good follow up from a viewer -- guest: no. and i do not know if health care was what cost me my seat. i got hit from both sides because i dared to challenge both sides. that was ok. i felt blessed to be able to serve my country. it was a great opportunity. that does not mean i give up just because i am not there anymore. it does not mean i stop preaching about the partisanship that is necessary. that is one of the reasons why i ended up at the firm and a bipartisan circumstance, working

with somebody like former majority leader bob dole and my other colleagues from the house. i find that everyone of those individuals came to the congress with the idea of solving problems and working in a bipartisan way. that is been my attitude all along. i will try to solve the problems in a way that is realistic. one day at a time, one step at the time, recognizing that we are in special circumstances that we find ourselves in. host: do you see yourself running for an elected office in the future? guest: i think it is a great opportunity for everyone. i knew i would not do it forever. as i said, much of the reason that i was sent home was because i challenge to both sides to really come together and a vote

for the solutions that move us forward. i do not regret that at all. host: chicago, joe, an independent. good morning. caller: my question is about something that i have not heard discussed and i am wondering why not. why could we not provide very focused tax breaks for companies that add jobs rather than cutting taxes would increase jobs? and possibly even increase taxes for companies that do not add jobs or actually cut jobs? guest: great question. one of the bills i introduced before i left and had worked on for a little bit of time was not only the research and development tax credit, which is really critical in our nation, where we do an awful lot of research and development and, with great ideas, but i went the next step and offered the tax credit for those companies that

not only did research and development but used the research and development to create jobs here in this country. they put that to the next step, whether it was manufacturing, services, technologies or whatever, and manufacture the product or provided that service in this country, then they got an additional tax credit. you are exactly right. sometimes we create the ideas or the technology and it gets many factored were sent overseas or something else. it is a great opportunity. host: for former senator blanche lincoln, oregon, john, republican. caller: how are you doing this morning? michael is in relation to the real-estate market. -- might call is in relation to the real-estate market modification, 22 words normally, but you might have something that is less, clear with the 22- word scripture, and that is in

isiah. she promised god she would rule for strickling 1000 years. -- strictly 1000 years. those angels have a gender in the back of the bible -- host: john, you started with the real estate market. what is the connection? caller: it is in is very clear in our owner, king james. host: ok, we will let that stand as a comment. he as an interpretation that we stand at a moment in history based on biblical meetings. good morning. caller: i don't even know where to start. i started out with a question and i'm completely someplace else. i think mrs. lincoln and did lose her seat over health care,

and her voting in congress represented that she did go more with the republicans then she did with the democrats and that is why she was voted out. i just don't understand how she can sit there so stoically and stair into the camera. you ask her question earlier about the bush tax cuts, and she went around and around and around, and you didn't have her answer the question. i would like to have her answer the question about it should be implemented now -- out if she thinks it should be implemented now. of course she is not going to answer, and i would like that answer. guest: sure. what i said to susan was why do we have to say whether or not we will use the bush tax cuts? why don't we come up with a new tax regime? we certainly need corporate tax reform, but we can look at multiple ways of how we construct our tax system in more

jobs-creating an opportunistic way for the american family. you won't find anyone on capitol hill who fought harder for the fundability of the tax credit for low-income families. senators now and i worked diligently on that for years in a bipartisan -- senators now and i worked diligently on that for years in a bipartisan way. there are single women raising children on less than $14,000 a year. they are working and raising kids and deserve to have the tax code work for them just as the tax code works for other people. but i just don't understand why we have to say we are either going to accept the bush tax cuts as they were. why not use the different times we are in right now? we are not operating in a surplus as we did when president bush proposed his tax cuts. we are operating in a totally

different time. come up with the types of tax initiatives that we know are going to meet with the needs and demands of today at a better way -- that's all i was saying. i don't think we have to be wed to former policies. we have to look at how policies affect the time and circumstances we find ourselves in now. host: to reset is and -- teresa is a democrat you're in columbia, ohio. caller: i would like to know why it everybody that comes on, they always cover each other's butts when it comes to congress. they know exactly what happens and where all the money has gone. when the bush administration was in office, right off the bat, when junior got in office, $3 trillion was missing. disappeared. why don't they just say the truth, what really happened to

the money and why they are stealing from the american people, because all the secret faculties and they have built that they don't want you to know about. everybody can understand everything that is going on if they would just do the research. that is all i have to say. thank you. host: response? guest: i just think the most important thing we have before us right now is that we live in a great nation, and it is our responsibility to do everything we can to strengthen it and make it stronger and more productive. i worked hard at in congress. democrats and republicans in congress today are working hard to do that. they may have different opinions. the most critical thing is that they come together in a bipartisan way to recognize the circumstances we find ourselves in and look for the solutions, and, again, put themselves to the test in those solutions. host: a viewer tweets --

you have to be careful about a national sales tax. it can be extremely regressive for the different levels of income, and certainly the circumstances that working families find themselves in today. the cost of living obviously -- if you are in the top .0%, in a foot brad, a sales tax on that is not as cumbersome c-span.org -- a loaf of bread it, a sales tax on that is not as cumbersome on you. host: we have about five, six minutes left with former senator blanche lincoln of arkansas. tulsa, margie, a republican. caller: good morning. first of all, my reason for

calling is that i have been listening all morning to everybody that is on. i just get real upset with all of the negative rhetoric, rich against poor. i was poor, raised a very poor person in arkansas, oldest in a large family. we worked our way out of it. i am not rich, but i'm comfortable. i like hearing all of this. i think it is tearing our country -- i don't like hearing all of this. that is tearing our country apart, demagoguing the rich. most of the people i know who have money and have worked hard for it. my husband and i worked hard for 8. we are not rich, but we really what we spend. words setke the bad against republicans by democrats, democrats against -- we are all americans.

and i think we need to remember that on this fourth of july. i am in my seventies, but i am still smart. we are studying the president's this summer. we are now up to fdr, during the period that i was born. you know, we have had these problems throughout our history. we have had presidents who have almost taken us down, then we get another one that people got smart, they'd vote for somebody, that will bring us back again. i think is what we all have to remember, stick with our country. there is an american dream. some people don't have it because they want to depend on someone else to take care of them all the time. i don't like what some people said to you this morning. i think you are very smart, i think you have been -- i have watched you, and watched you, as you said, " with republicans and the with democrats for what you

thought was right. i appreciate you being on this morning and letting me talk to you. guest: thanks, margie. thanks for being a good american and reminding us -- host: she is not giving her home-schooled granddaughter time off. a report card on how americans are doing with history will begin in about 10 minutes. raymond is a democrat. caller: i am also an independent. i vote both ways, i vote on the person. all the news on all the channels, i have never heard the perks that the big c e l's -- ceo's receive, or the golden

numbers when they retire out. they are receiving millions in retirement, and that has been reported. but they don't cover the major medical for the whole family while they worked at the company, dental and health care. they have a company credit card is a use for meals, gas, trips, even maintenance. they have cars that are either lease or given to them. even at what is not covered by warranty is covered by these credit cards. they can buy it later and sell it for profit. the company maintenance departments are painting these people's houses, doing their roofs, yard work, plumbing, electrical, brickwork. they pay for their vacations -- host: i'm going to jump in.

wrap it up. what is your concern? caller: we lose it as millions of dollars of tax -- host: ok, going to stop you right there. guest: well, one of the things we did it in the last congress is that we cannot control what corporations want to pay out in salaries to their executives or anybody. that is not something that congress is intended to do. but what we did do is we were able to bring down and limit a lot of that tax deductions for some of those benefits. we definitely saw that particularly in the health-care bill and some of the other efforts that we made, to ensure that they can still pay the bonuses and executive compensation, but the tax liability that had been exempt before was no longer exempt over

a certain level. there has been some good initiatives there taken that have been intended to kind of rain in some of that abuse or some of that excess that has been occurring. but you are good to notice that, raymond. host: reacto to mike murphy's tweet. guest: i don't blame him at all. going back to the question of the woman who wondered why i was -- she thought i was tap dancing a round of the bush tax cuts. i voted for it when we had a surplus. it is time to look at how we reform our tax code, particularly our corporate tax code. there is a great opportunity to change the way our corporations do business in the global economy. and to make sure that we see the benefit in our countries third job creation and investment in our economy. for personal taxes, we can look

at that as well. but i don't see why we have to be wedded to things that happened 10 or 15 years ago and continue to either continue those or pull back on them as opposed to looking at how we change to meet the needs of today. host: tennessee, vicki, republican. caller: good morning. i have watched c-span for a number of years. i have finally become totally , severely disabled for much of the disease, but i have worked all my life will ask what my doctors wanted me to work. i always believed i never taking, but trying to make it on your own. believe me, there are people who i think are born in poverty that cannot pull themselves out that we should help to a degree. but there are people who want to

cry out there, "give me, give me, give me." , is not passing anything goes back to the bush days when -- congress not passing anything goes back to the bush days when pelosi stood on tv -- i am choosing her, there were other people, mr. reid, dodd, but nancy pelosi in particular, stood on television and said "we are not going to help anything for mr. bush," or pass anything that bush had to say. i think this is a payback from the republicans and from the people. the people wanted the republicans in because the democrats were not going to do anything. now we are in a stalemate to where no one is going to pass anything that obama wants. i think it they are all going to

bring us down. plus, many economists have said because of the recession, who should have taken the first cut in their pay? it should at in congress. instead, they are getting pay raises. i mean, i agree wholeheartedly with the economists. you start of the top and give an example to your people. but congress has not. and to go all the way back to nafta that clinton -- he did not have a war during his years, but he put in nafta, and that started the economy going in the different direction. i'm not saying that there aren't jobs in the country and workers needed, but we didn't do anything about our borders because it was too good for the economy to get low wages and votes for what the democrats and

republicans -- for both the democrats and republicans. they disregarded it and let them steamroll in -- host: i am almost out of time and you are giving us a lot of complex issues here. naphtha -- nafta -- assessment of it and whether it is good for the economy. guest: i think it has been good for the economy. we were at a point where we had to engage with the global economy. it has been good in terms of exports, agricultural exports. we have to continue to engage in the world economy. free trade agreements like colombia, where they can ship goods into our country without any duties with the weather and yet we still remain in a position where anything going ism our country into there'irs not duty-free. i want to complement a lady from tennessee, though, because i appreciate her tenacity and hard work crew as the mother of twin

15-year-old boys who are starting to look for summer jobs, it is important to set examples. he set the example hard work and what it means, and you have been respectful -- you set the example of hard work and what it means and you have been respectful to those who are not able to do that. i appreciate that. but we cannot -- some of what you said about democrats and republicans and the way that they flip-flop and argue in the congress -- it isn't any good to build yourself up by pulling someone else down. it is only through hard work and being able to focus on the the things that have to get salt and being willing to work with other people -- have to get salt and being willing to work with other people to solve those problems. i think what the lady from tennessee has done with her life is a good recipe for what we have here, to lift ourselves up and be part of the solution and not part of the problem. host: i'm to get a final call

in, because it is from little rock. guest: 0, good. caller: thank you for your service. guest: thank you, jack. caller: plato opined that once people figured out how to vote themselves benefits, they would lead to the collapse of the government. what blame to you cast in terms of the situation we find ourselves in? ever since the baby boom generation became a voting bloc, they have reduced their tax and put an increase to their benefits -- reduce their tax inputs and increased their benefits. it seems like you're beautiful twin boys will be in a bad situation, not because of congress, but because of congress' reaction to the public. what you think about that? guest: to some degree you are

right. it is easy to get into a cell with most of what is it mean for me as opposed to what is in the -- for a s -- into a selfish mode of what is it mean for me as opposed to what does it mean for future generations. as a young single woman in the house, i wanted to help build something and strengthen our country. now as a parent i wanted even more so, and i have tried hard in the senate to work at how to solve those problems for future generations. the decisions we take here -- i don't anymore -- the members of the house and senate take are going to have long-lasting ramifications for future generations. it is absolutely essential that we all, whether it is members of congress or those of us voting, i understand that it is one step at a time that we solve

these problems. if we don't stay focused on it, if we are not willing to look at the future and think about others and see it as a collected body of americans as opposed to have and have-nots, or what do i get out of it, it is possible we lose this precious gift of the nation that we have. i hope this weekend and on the fourth of july that -- this gentle man, jack will remember that there are tons of parades and lots of opportunities to get out and reminders of how blessed we are to live in this great country, but the responsibility that each one of us have to make a decision at the voting booth, making sure we send people to washington that are going to make tough choices but are going to do so in a forward-thinking why not just about what it means to their immediate circumstances. host: the senate majority leader announced that the fourth of july break for the senate has been canceled in the hopes of

continuing to work on an agreement for the debt ceiling debate. i want to t >> saturday, on washington journal "wall street journal" reporter on the u.s. economy and recent job numbers. then afghan ambassador to the u.s. eklil hakimi on the plan to withdraw 30,000 troops from afghanistan by september 2012. and after that, dan iannicola of the financial literacy group talks about a recent poll taken by high school students on financial service providers. plus your emails, phone calls and tweets. washington journal, live saturday at 7:00 a.m. eastern here on c-span. >> shogush decided several days before mckinley arrived that he was going to kill him. he bought a pistol and he

followed mckinley's whereabouts in the newspapers which were reported in great detail where the president was going to be. and he began tracking him throughout the fair. >> on september 6, 1901, self-proclaimed an,ist leon shogush fired two fatal shots at president mckinley. looking at the president and his assassin and the changing era in which they lived on c-span's q&a. >> next, henry kissinger takes part fifth half fulfil -- left, henry fift

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♪ ♪ >> ladies and gentlemen, welcome to toronto, canada for the munk .he faith on china fund fel it is my privilege to feed your of moderator this evening. i would like a loaf of those watching this fate on-line flight now. -- i would like to welcome those watching and the faithful on line right now a warm hello

for the millions of people watching, leave, and live with this fifth day for every left australian broadcasting corporation. also the "financial times of london." hello to canadians coast-to- coast, our own affairs channel. it is play to have you as well. there are 2700 people have felt it second time in a row to these debates. all of us associated thank you

for your support and the simple idea to which this is created which is to create venues like this where we can gather to debate the big chill political issues -- the big geo-political issues. this would not be possible without the philanthropic creativity of two individuals. i would like to have you join me in a round of applause for the co-hosts, peter and melanie m unk.

[applause] for the moment we have all been waiting for, we have a motion before it, be it resolved the 21st century will belong to china. all we need now is our debaters. we will have those arguing for the motion, neall ferguson and david lee. [applause] now let's welcome their formidable opponents on to the stage, farid zakaria and henry kissinger.

[applause] to introduce our debaters, ferguson is well known to our debaters. he and charles krauthammer bes ted their opponents. he has added to his best- selling books with the publication of "the ascent of money." most important is, "civilization, the west and the rest."

[applause] our next evader joins us directly from beijing, china where he is the head of the global economics department. his family was displaced by the cultural revolution. he still has members of this. 28 years later, he received his ph.d. from harvard. one of only three directors of the central bank of china. he represents a new generation of leadership. he has 3 million followers on

the chinese the equivalent of twitter. [applause] zakaria is oen of the most thoughtful wefz

fifth day, there are 11 countries and china -- today, there are factions in china. in just 30 years from of china hoff economy has for of life after four of their the nearly 104. a little larger family fell all of the unjustified fears find enfeoff.

feathers china is a country who fail force the u.s. >> these two great thinkers agree that the chinese economic challenge is also a challenge to the germany and the world to have united states. he hopes, as he concludes in his book for peaceful co-evolution. but it's not just about china. the keys to the 21st century

really lie in the decline to have west. a financial crisis cause -- caused by excessive boring and subsidized gambling. a economic crisis, a political crisis exemplified by a game of russian roulette over the debt ceiling and a politician named implausibly weiner sexting pictures of his naked torso. the 21st century will be marked by an oversexed america. richard nixon got this point sooner than most. when you can just stop and think of what would happen if anybody with a decent system of government got control of the mainland, good god, there would be no power in the world -- you

put chinese to work under a decent system and they will be the leaders of the world. i salute the accomplishments of that administration in reopening chinese relations in 1972. no one contributed more than henry kissinger to that. so i don't ask you to vote against him but for his own analysis. i urge you to support the revolution. thank you. [applause] >> ore opening statement, please? >> thank you very much. that's a hard act to follow. my role in this debate has been to lower the average age of the

debating team. and i am going to try to do that as best i can without also lowering the average i.q. which i feel is also going to happen. so you will bear with me and henry will correct all the mistakes i make, including, i hope, firing his biographer. i actually was worried about a debate with henry because the man is a legendary genius. but part of debating is listening to the other side and i remember the story that i was told about henry and it was a journalist called too good to check. so i have never actually -- but it was a story that goes like this. henry has a legendary accent. and friends of his who are german say he has an accent even in german. apparently he has an older brother and he speaks normal

american english. someone asked the brother what explains this difference? he said it's very simple -- henry never listens. as i say, i hope this is too good -- real fact checking. i want to make three points about china. china not going to be the dominant power to have 21st search. the search is not going to belong to china for three reasons -- economic, political and geopolitical. economic -- one thing they've realized over the last few years i hope is nothing goes new a straight line forever. china looks like it was about to inherit the world but japan looked like that for a while. it was the second largest economy in the world. we were told all the tales about how the world was going to become japanese, we were all going to be eating sushi --

well, i guess we're eating sushi but the rest didn't work out. i'm not predicting any kind of chinese crash. i'm simply saying that china will probably follow that law of large numbers and regress at some point to a slow growth rate. perhaps a little bit later than the others because it is a much larger country but there are massive inefficiency built into the chinese system. they have a huge property bubble. they take in this foreign investment every month when india takes in every year and still it only grows two percentage points faster than india. if you think about the quality of chinese growth it's not as impressive as it appears. massive investment. a huge number of airports, high speed rail. if you look at what you're

getting out have -- of it in terms of return on investment, not as impressive. china has a huge problem. the u.n. came out with a report that pointed out that china is going to have a demographic clams over the next years. it is going to lose 400 million. there is no point in human history in which you've had a dominant power in the world that is also declining demographically. simply doesn't happen. if you want to see what a country in decline looks like look at japan and ask yourself how powerful is it? china's g.d.p. gets inflated because the cost of a haircut in beijing is less than one in toronto. but g.d.p. depends on foreign aid and oil and international

investments and aircraft carriers and for all of that you need real hard currency and that adjusts these numbers slightly. let's say that china does become the economy in the world. remember, japan was the second largers for decades -- largest for decades and i didn't see any grand design. you need to have the political capacity to be able to exercise this type of leadership. henry is going to talk more about these issues. but this is a country that is run by a political system that is in crisis. it is unclear whether the next succession that china goes through will look anything like the current one. if china has not involved -- solved the basic problem of what it is going to do when it creates a middle class -- when taiwan went through a similar process you saw a transition to

a democracy. when south c.e.o. went through you -- korea went through you saw a transition to a democracy. and china is a very large and complex country and imagine this kind of political and social instability in that process. and finally, one point about the geopolitics. and again, henry will talk more about this. people like to talk about the rise of asia. i grew up in india. there is no such thing as asia. there's china, japan, india. they don't much like each other. you are going to find that as china rises there is going to be a spiritted rise in independencea, in japan, in indonesia, in vietnam in, south korea. you have begun to see the stirrings of this. china is not rising in a vacuum. it is rising on a continue continent in which they are many, many competitors.

[applause] >> two very professional debaters landing it right both on the six-minute mark. david lee, you're next. >> good evening, ladies and gentlemen. as the only one from china i am extremely handicapped in this debate -- because -- i'm serious. we do not advocate debates, especially not against a sage. but today, i urge to you read all the bestsellers done by my co-debaters. they are much better at complaining the huge amount of changes in the process. by their books you'll get all the challenges on the changes. today i'm advocating their points, however, i would like to share with you three simple points summarized by three key

words. first key world is energy. what you are witnessing at most is only halfway done in the journey of chinese changes. what we'll see is continued change in china. why? because there's energy. there's still energy there in our gas tanks for continued change, whether it's economic or political. why? because the changes came from the spectacular clash between the civilizations, between china and the west as early as 170 years ago. the clash was total failure for the chinese. it came as a big humiliation for us from gene rations through generations. even today our young kids are taking these lessons. and these huge humiliations created huge amounts of reactions and overreactions in

the chinese, including the accomplishment of the communist party 90 years to the day. so after the founding of the republic 62 years ago, we've seen overreaction of the communist party as a government in the form of the cultural evolution, which did not do good for the chinese own interests. until 33 years ago, big change happened which we call reform and opening up. reform imapplies gradual evolution improvements in our institutions, whether it's political or economic. opening up means to learn from the west. just like fareed was challenging.

no detective, just do it. i wouldn't with a friend of munk detective. i would be a friend of nike shoes, however. just do it. through the past 30 years of change shows the power of reform and opening up. today i will tell you, young people are not satisfied with the progress the -- we've made. they're eager to push for more reforms, more opening up with the power of the internet. the first message, energy. energy is still there in the gas tank. what are we driving for? destination is the key world revival. it is revival of our great civilization 1,500 years ago. it's not a revenge with the west. it's not emulation. it's not to emulate the success of the u.s. in the absolute dominance of the world.

rather it's revival of the status to have peaceful self-confident, open-minded civilization. that destination of this change which is only at most halfway through. that's the second keyword, revival. the third key world is through. what kind of influence will china have in the world? maybe 0 years from now. i would strongly argue that the influence will be multidimensional. first, china's emergence has given hope to poor countries in the world such as people in africa. they say to themselves, look, china was so poor originally. being so constrained in natural resources. if china can make it, why not ourselvess? so we are giving hope to the poor fellows in the world. it gave us an alternative model

of social and economic institutions, different in the west, different from the u.s. in this model, compared with the western models, more weight is given to social welfare, to social well-being to, social stability rather than fewer individual liberties. the third dimension of influence is international relations. china's revival of the swavelization is giving us a new picture of international relations in which china is looking for peace and collaboration just like we've been seeing in the past two and a half years of the global financial crisis. so overall i wouldn't impose my confusion upon you. i would like you to draw your conclusion. continuous change with energy, big revival, and positive international influence. you draw your conclusions. thank you. [applause]

>> well, i can't believe i'm about to say this, but dr. kissinger, you have six minutes. >> for somebody who was brought up on german, six minutes are barely enough to place a verb. my colleagues up here have spoken of the magnitude of china. i admire china. i respect its tremendous achievements, and nobody can deny, and in fact, i would affirm what china has achieved in the 40 years that i've been able to observe it directly. but the issue before us is whether the 21st century

belongs to china. and i would say that china will be preoccupied with enormous problems internally, with domestically with its immediate environment and that i have enormous difficulty imagining a world dominated by china. and, indeed, as i will conclude, i believe that the concept that some country will dominate the world is in itself a misunderstanding of the world in which we now live. china has achieved great things economically, but it had to produce every year 24 million jobs. it has to absorb six million

people moving into the cities every year. it has to deal with a bloating population of 150 to 200 million. it has to accommodate a society in which the sofle regions are at the level of advanced countries and interior regions are at the level of underdevelopment and they have to accommodate all of this in a political system that must take care both of the economic change that has been produced and the political adaptation that inevitably has to result from these huge figures that are involved in the economic change. in the geopolitical situation, china historically has been surrounded by a group of

smaller countries which themselves were not individually able to settle in china, but which united could pose a threat to china and therefore historically chinese policy can be described as management. china has never had to deal with in a world of countries of approximately equal strength and so to adjust to such a world is in itself a profound challenge to china, which now has 14 countries on its borders, some of which are small but can project their nationality into into china. some of which are large and historically significant, so that any attempt by china to

dominate the world would evoke a counter reaction that would be disastrous for the peace of the world. and the quote that niall ferguson,, who of course, is my biographer, will have the last word no matter what i say here. [laughter] spoke about the military containment of china. so i would say that one of our challenges is to accommodate the rights of china. one of china's challenges is to accommodate itself to a world in which -- it has been through 18 of the last 20 centuries in the world that it knew best.

so if i may take the liberty of rephrasing what the topic before us -- the issue before the world is not whether the 21st century belongs to china. but whether in the 21st century, which china will undoubtedly get stronger, we in the west will work with china and whether china can work with us to create an international structure in which perhaps for the first time in history, a rising state has been incorporated into an international system and strengthened the peace and progress. i say in my book that based on experience, the prospects are

not optimistic. but on the other hand, we have never had to deal before with proliferation, environment, cyberspace, and other problems that can be dealt with only on a universal basis. [applause] and this is why i do not believe -- >> second on the clock to wrap up. no, please, take a few more sentences just to conclude your final thought there. >> my conclusion is that the issue is not whether the 21st century belongs to china but whether we can make it belong to a more universal conception.

[applause] >> well, ladies and gentlemen, as you've heard, a series of fascinating lines of argument have begun to crystalize. i want to ask both teams of debaters now to quickly respond to what they've heard in their opponents' opening statements. specifically what they've agreed with most. niall, i wanted to come to you first with your rebuttal. >> i'll just take one point -- and i assume you you don't want me to wander around the stage anymore. >> whatever you'd like to do. >> everyone else wanders around the stage. my question to fareed is, if you're right and if china is going to repeat japanese history, just think what that

means. considering japan's much smaller size, and considering china's relative lilo level of development, as both of you have pointed out. if you're right and china is going to reenact japan's economic history then it surely will own the 21st century. it will achieve an enormous share, not only of global g.d.p. but also global power. because unlike japan, china never lost its sovereignty through the kind of military defeat that japan suffered in 1945. so economically and geopolitically the prospects of china repeating japanese history should be a scary one for your side of the detective. >> fareed? >> since i'm an american trained in the oprah winfrey style, i'm allowed to come out.

if you look under your feet you will see you are all going to australia -- if you vote for our side. look, the symbol is simply to point out that nothing moves in a straight line. that countries, particularly as they ascend the modernization scale find they have problems. if you look at the number of countries that have able to get past $12,000 per capita g.d.p. over the last 100 years, it is a very small number, about five. lots of countries start to do well in basic manufacturing, the government begins to turn, then you have to modernize ever element of your society to move up to that final stage that singapore and hong kong have been able to do. china with the economic and political problems, with the demographic and geopolitical

problems it faces might find that that last period will be somewhat rocky and it may be complex and as henry pointed out, it may require that china stay internally focused and absorbed in a way that will not allow it to project this kind of enormous power. i don't doubt that china is going to be an enormous economy and enormous player on the world stage. the question is will it own the 21st century? will it dominate it? and i say for all those reasons it's not going to do that. [applause] >> good point. come back on this. it was a subject of a lot of debate before this debate, the japan example, the years of g.d.p. growth, and maybe more importantly, the chance that japan in the 1980's was a society like china. one that had a lot of energy like you describe china having

dood. why isn't japan's recent past china's near future? >> let me respond to your question and fareed's points and dr. kissinger's points all together. i think your arguments are already. these points were even better made 20 or even 30 years ago about china. but china has been growing and changing for the past 30 years, right? this point didn't change. my point is that today's china, the modern challenges are making changes. let's compare china with japan. in japan i don't think there have been any fundamental changes before the collapse starting in early 1990. in china we do see that. also, compared with japan, japan has been learning from china. japan was one of the primary cultures in the world while china has been, until the

spectacular crash with western countries. also on the point by fareed about economic growth. i agree that china can never grow at a pace of double-figured g.d.p. growth. the u.s. wasn't growing nearly as fast as china. the u.s. slowed down significantly long before the u.s. became a world power. however it was keeping growing. today's china i do see changes ongoing. dr. kissinger was referring back to the past centuries in china. fully agree. but in today's china we have been sending out a huge number of young kids coming to the outside world to study. how many young kids? imagine. six times -- not students study

in the u.s. and canada. these are sources of change. this is learning. people's skills have been learning. so i do think china's emergence will be different from the u.s. and also willle not receive the problems of japan. thank you. [applause] >> dr. kissinger, would you like to offer a rebuttal? >> china is changing. it's undoubtedly the case. if one compares cha -- what china looked like in 1971 to what it looks like today, it has physically changed and it has demographically changed in a fundamental way through the one-child family, which is changing in a way the values in

a predictable future. in about 30 years, there will be only two people of working age taking care of retirement people. in 2005, there were 9.2 people that were able to deal with the retirement people. so this creates a different set of attitudes. but one must not confuse magnitude with global influence. china will have to be preoccupied with the adjustments to urbanization. with the adjustments to democracy and with the adjustments to an international system in which it will be a permanent participate rather than the center of the universe as it has been historically

conceived. these are soluble problems but they should not be eached with the western notions of imperialism. historically, the chinese roll internationally has been based on gaining respect for its conduct. it has not been culturally geared to a global role. and i believe that for china to manage its environment, its domestic situation, requires cooperation with the west rather than attempt to dominate the west. [applause] >> you want to weigh in on this point also? >> i wanted to ask -- >> absolutely.

questions are encouraged. >> i wanted to ask niall a question. which i could have done this by reading all of his 46 books and finding quotation that is contradict his current position. but instead, i'm going to put this simply. niall is a very keane student of geopolitics and i wondered what he made of the fact that china is undoubtedly rising but not in a geopolitical vac kuehl. last year china has a good year. it had a good financial crisis, came out of it feeling confident. and the manner in which it behaved -- in copenhagen it humiliated the united states and the president of the united states and refused to sign up for a defeat on the islands it angered japan enormously. on the north korean sinking of

a south korean boat and they asked them to condemn it, they con used, enraging the vietnamese. that's just in one year, right? and that's when china isn't even yet gotten to the point where it is, in fact, the dominant economic power in the world. do you think all these countries are just going to roll back and accept chinese dominations or are you likely to see a spirited response from the vietnams and indonesias and south koreas and japans of the world in which this proposition doesn't look as rosie as it did? [applause] >> thanks, fareed, for that question. i've noticed in your recent columns in "time" magazine you've been dab until economics. so this gives me an opportunity to help you out. [laughter]

you see, the thing about china's growth during the financial crisis is that it fundamentally altered china's role in the world economy. up until the crisis the main story was that china was competing with other emerging markets -- markets for market share in developing countries like canada or the united states. it was an exportser of cheap goods and able to beat most of the competition with the so-called china price. and then the financial crisis struck and those developed countries went into recession or near depression. what happened? china engaged in the biggest and most successful stimulus in the world and in so doing its role changed. it seized to be a competitor with other emerging markets and it became their market of first resort. they found that the most dynamic market they could sell to was china's.

china's neighbors throughout asia, including india, where you were born, discovered a new china. not a competitor but a market they could sell to. and that trend is just going to keep on going, because the whole aim of china's latest five-year plan is to shift from exports to domestic demand to, consumption. that's why your idea that all these little asian countries are going to band together against nasty china is a total fantasy. they depend on china economically more than they ever have. have to go to seoul and talk to people in the region, talk to india's richest man, he'll tell you just how big the china business is now is for the rest of asia. that seems to be one very good reason why the 21st century is going to belong to china. because their markets are going

to belong to china. [applause] >> the debate is proceeding nicely. i'm going to go to you david quickly then back to fareed then we're going to start looking for a couple of questions. >> faree defense was right in observing the tensions in the last years. but we have to go deeper. more than the television surface. i'm sorry, televisions are important. especially pbs programs, which i like very much. look beyond the surface. at our aggressors. who were the provocative parties? it was not china. it was the japanese government which arrested in using domestic law against chinese sailors. about the dispute on the island. the chinese side was trying to make peace with the issue. take the issue of copenhagen

negotiations. it was the choings side trying to make meaningful agreement with other cungs. on this issue of negotiations, the chinese side is extremely hammed because whatever the chinese government commits to today or at that time the government has to honor. we had a change of partly." . the partlyments nullified agreement. i'm sorry, i can be very open and abrupt. it would show for the new president obama trying to go everywhere, negotiate and expecting congress to kill the deal. not the china. ok, i would suggest you look at other evidence. during the financial crisis in the past almost three years, it was china trying to stabilize the global financial system. during the peak days to have financial crisis, their currency did not decrease against the u.s. dollar, unlike

other currencies. also, china did not sell massive amounts of treasury holdings. it has been the most patient supposing the u.s. government, which has trouble and runs the risk of default. i suggest you to look at the big picture and also go underneath the surface. thank you. [applause] >> just a quick point. niall is an incredibly accomplished economic historian and understands the economics of araba -- asia so well. but throughout history, people have gone to war and countries have happened spirited geopolitical rivalries despite the fact they've been economically interdependent. the first great his honor talked about the war and his first explanation for the reason was honor and dignity.

it had nothing to do with economics. the you -- if you look at europe on the eve of the first world war, you saw an economy that was more independent by some measures than the countries of the world today. in fact, the level of economic interdependence between britain and germany was such that it was in some ways madness these two countries went to war. there was a very famous book written by a young historian who talked about the fact that perhaps britain should not have gone to war. that this was craziness for britain to do it and it was the pity of war. wait a minute. that historian was niall ferguson. >> yes, before we end the rebuttal portion of this debate, i'd like to allow dr. kissinger the last word. >> i don't know whether one can reverse the order of

participants up here, because i think it's three to one against my friend niall. our chinese friend is saying that china has suffered a great deal, has been provoked through a century of western exploitations and that it's not trying to dominate the world. as i understand what he is saying it is this -- when the west wants to discuss climate or the financial assistance, our tendency is to say china can be a stakeholder. it can be a participant in a system they did not themselves participate in creating.

so the issue is whether it is possible to create an international system in which china participates in the creation of it without dominating it. this is really what we're debating here. and if i understand the observations of our chinese colleague, he's not saying that china will dominate the world. he is saying china is making great progress and that china wants to be heard. and that in such issues as climate, the united states should not present them with a finished product and ask for its agreement. all of this we agree with on this side of the aisle. so if you would like to move your chair --

[laughter] we will welcome it. [applause] >> a fabulous debate. we're going to move into the question and answer portion of the evening. we're going to break it down into three sections. i think we agree there are three main depentions -- dimensions to the pros and cons of chinese rise. and to start us off in our first section on the economy, i want to go to someone in the audience who's written a number of best-selling books on economic themes, including "dead aid" a great bestseller here in canada and "how the west was lost." dambesa. if i could have your one

question, please. >> yes, thank you. my question is actually to mr. lee and mr. ferguson. until now a key piece of china's development strategy has been to use soft power to accumulate and access natural resources, land, water, energy and minerals. and effectively, china has been how aggressive do you think china will become in her efforts to secure natural resources? in other words, what is the likelihood that china moves from the soft power strategy of accumulating resources to one where she becomes -- depends more aggressively on hard power

and adopts more military and colonial like strategies of accumulating resources, particularly in the context of africa? [applause] >> it is great to have you here, and i hesitate to answer a question from you on the subject of africa. but it seems to me, having recently visited zambia, and last year having been in senegal and namibia, something very important is happening in africa in which china is leading a whole new developmental push, radically different in its nature from the aid programs that you so persuasively argued had been a failure when the west tried them. this is a developmental strategy based on self-interest. china is developing natural resources like copper because it

desperately needs copper to wire its vast new cities. but the effect in africa is by no means all bad. i think it is a really big misrepresentation to suggest this is a rerun of 19th century colonialism. >> that was a question when i went to zambia. it was not the answer that i found. that is not the chinese approach. they are investing, trying to make money. they are letting the money drive economic development rather than handouts and a culture of dependency. with this ultimately lead to conflict of the sort you suggest as in the late 19th century? it is conceivable, but i see absolutely no sign of it at the moment. there is only one country scrambling for africa right now, and it is china.

>> let me follow up on that great point by adding three simple observations. number one, intention. there is no intention -- china has been working hard, collaborating with african countries. look at the african summit, which was very popular about three years ago. most of the african leaders and business people are very enthusiastic about china's investment. second, capacity. look at the chinese reality. we are still an extremely poor economy. per-capita gdp is around $4,000. there is absolutely no capacity to colonize of these african countries, even if china was trying to do it. within china, there has been tremendous effort in pushing

for new technology to conserve resources, new technologies for energy efficiency, and their policies to enhance resource prices in order to encourage across the region. in my mind, and china will have new growth, a new pattern of modernization. >> isn't it one of the traps that nations that began to assume global power status: 2, which is their supply line, the resources they have to sustain with countries around the world to fund it their development. don't you think china is at risk here of either reaching beyond itself, having to project beyond

soft power, hard power to defend these lines of resources back to china? >> china will want to require resources for its industry as a natural evolution. whether it believes that in order to have access to these resources, it must also be militarily dominant, that is another decision. if you look at the rise of germany before world war i, the world would probably have been able to live with germany having the largest -- when it developed the largest naval force, it began to threaten the long-term existence of great britain.

so there are two challenges. we have to understand that china will get stronger, and we cannot react neurotically to every indication of chinese strength. but china has to learn some self limitations in the way it vindicates its interests around the world. both of these things have to exist. cannot be done by one nation alone. it has to be done collectively. >> china's investments in africa are very popular. i think it would be more accurate to say that china's investments in africa are very popular with its dictators. [applause]

yana a year-and-a- half ago -- i was in kenya and ask what the main concern was. they said the single biggest concern we have is that china is going around africa at making deals with africa's dictators with no questions asked and no accountability on any human rights issues. [applause] i would argue that certainly that is something they have to be worried about from a long- term, geopolitical sense. we discovered in the middle east that we thought we had very stable relations with all these countries in the middle east. it turns out we had very stable relations with all the dictators of the middle east. [applause] >> hang on, wait a second. remind me, are you saying that

the west does not ever deal with african these -- african dictators? i spoke to the minors in the copper belt who had no jobs when the state-owned mining system collapsed, and now have jobs because the chinese reopen the minds and extended them. it is not fair to say that china only deals with african dictators. deals with the government's it finds in africa, including the governments that western powers propped up for many years. beck's i make no apologies for the west. i am simply pointing out that china is doing what it is doing with the leadership class that may not reflect the wishes of the entire african public. >> would africa be better off if china did not invest there? i think that is the kind of hypocritical argument that if i

were in chinese, i would find quite annoying. >> your obviously finding it annoying even though you are not chinese. [applause] >> kegan on the economic theme -- keeping on the economic theme -- i will have to separate these guys. [laughter] i am holding in my hand what many people considered to be the quintessential consumer success product of the last decade, the apple iphone. it will be interesting to see how many fellow iphone users there are out there in the audience tonight. you have one, put it up in the air. look at that. [applause] this is a fountain pen, ladies and gentlemen.

>> this andino is manufactured in china by farrakhan -- by foxconn. the software that powers it was thought up by steve jobs and his team at apple. the design factor that makes this such a coveted device by millions of people around the world leads me to ask, can china do this? can china innovate in the same way and on the same scale as apple, google, rim here in canada? they have to do it if they think they can only 21st century. >> yes, remember, no country starting from being buried pork

innovate overnight. it is a learning process. learning whatever is good. something hundreds of thousands of students in the west learn, and then gradually innovate. china cannot innovate anything 30 years ago. now at least we have railroads. we have some automobiles that are not only cheaper but more efficient than gm. if it were not for chinese operations, gm would now have more u.s. money in being bailed out. it is a gradual process and in the long run, i am sure john will innovate. there are different levels of innovation. my vision of china is that yes,

we will innovate. however, coming from where we are, we may not be at the cutting edge of innovation, but you don't need to be at the cutting edge in order to be respected in the world. it gradually improve and the process will lead to somewhere. >> i have heard that story about the iphone so many times and it is simple western complacency. the idea that we will always have a cool ideas and they will always do the assembly line. that is so out of date. china is going to overtaken germany in the next couple of years because of a huge effort by china's educational institutions to raise the game in research and development, in inducing people with ph.d.'s

engineering, and that is going to work, ladies and gentlemen. >> you are right about this a lot and talk about on your show, can china at innovate without a free and open society? without universities where you have total freedom of thought at inquiry. without a culture that allows the mavericks, the steve jobs and others to emerge? do you think that happen? >> i agree that it is a mistake to assume there is some kind of genetic deformation that does not allow the chinese to innovate. of course they are going to innovate and do things that are interesting. the point that henry and i keep making, this is going to be a world of must -- multiplicity.

there will be a lot of innovation going on. if you look at apple, apple is generally regarded as the most innovative company in the world right now. apple expense on research and development in one year what it did in one decade what microsoft spends in one year. if you break apple in terms of -- look at a list of research and development spending, apple is 82. their innovations are in design and in the way in which the human beings use technology. that may be something you learn when you get a ph.d. in media studies. [laughter] >> by the way, this is true throughout history.

the invention of the sewing machine, the great steel was not coming up with the best machine. it was figuring out that you sell it to women on an installment plan. nobody had ever so machinery to women before. but will innovation may not be the search engine, it may be the advertising program that goes along with it. part of what innovation is is a strange combination of science in consumer behavior and business. the great invention that launched capitalism was double entry bookkeeping. it was not some scientific gizmo. of course china will innovate in its own way. there's something about the ecosystem of america. most importantly, and has the ability to question hierarchy, which is absolutely key. i hear all these people talking about education and the tiger mom way of parenting.

i have been for a nation's educational system that is pretty loudly -- pretty lousy. you just learned by rote memorization and the day after the exam, you forget everything you learned. learning is a continuous process and it does not make too ashamed of failure. the ability to fail efficiently is incredibly powerful part of innovation. china will innovate, but the u.s. has something very special about it. [applause] >> i want to move on to the second part of our question and answer session which is politics and culture. i would like to call on janice stein, head of the munk school

of foreign affairs. >> thank you very much. this question is to david lee n. tofareed. the world watched recently with astonishment as young people streamed into squares and streets in tunisia and egypt to demand political rights and to demand that authoritarian and corrupt leaders leave the scene. the parallels between our world and china are far from perfect. china is a mature society. the arab world is young. china created hundreds of millions of jobs, arab governments have not. but, china, like the arab world, tolerates almost note this sense -- almost no dissent.

there is growing income inequality in china. china is about to undergo a leadership transition. will there be growing demand for political rights in china, and how will the leadership coat? [applause] -- how will the leadership cope? >> i knew this question would come up. i don't need to be reminded of the arab spring. we knew this long before, since day one of economic reform. after economic success, people knew in china that there will be more voices, more demands for expressing opinions and political participation in decision making. that is why it is very clear from day one, people knew in china that economic and institutional change will go hand-in-hand with political institutional change.

the biggest myths understanding of china is that we do have political, institutional change, starting with the way leaders are being selected. today, the way leaders are being selected unpopular decisions are made or more participated in before. as we speak today, young people in china are able to express their opinions on the internet, and these voices are being heard and decisions are being changed. i would invite you to go to china, talk to young people, and visit chinese web sites, to understand the new wage reform is being done, the new way that people express their opinions and express their difference. [applause]

>> five years ago, i think i would have agreed with david, it was very clear in china that there was a movement toward very gradually limited but real political reform. i think that over the last five years, what you have seen its economic reform and growth, but there has been a drawing back of any kind of political reform. as events have seemed to take place around the world that suggest some danger such as the arab spring to maintain the political control, what you do not see in china is an opening up, an attempt to announce a series of ambitious political reforms. in fact, you see of closing down so that china -- if you type the word jasmine into google in china, you will come up against a blank page, because of fear that somehow the jasmine revenue, to revolution will take root in china. china has by some accounts a million people monitoring the

internet. i had an interview with wen jiabao for my program, a very important interview and i was honored to get it. the chinese government announced that because it was seen as very important. the premier made some very harmless comment about how china would eventually evolve politically. the interview was taken of chinese websites and ban on chinese tv. the journalists protested the fact that this had been censored. this does not strike me as political reform. this strikes me as a circling of wagons, a fear of what is happening next. [applause] clearly, china has been moving and getting -- giving greater freedom to its people. i do not doubt that at all. but have to figure out how they are going to create a political

system that accommodate the rising middle class in a world in which people are demanding greater and greater accountability from their leaders. in some ways when i look at india and china, i think to myself, china has all of the small problems. they have built the best roads and highways in the best high- speed rail, and have done it so magnificently that puts india to shame. but india has sought one big problem, what will it look like 25 years from now politically? it will be the same crazy, chaotic democracy that it is today. but what will try to be 25 years from now, politically? the communist party of china today is the most elite political organization in the world. everybody looks like david. they are all political engineers and ph.d.'s, but those people are not reflected in the political system.

it strikes me as a huge political challenge for china going forward. [applause] >> i think this audience wants to hear you on this question, to, and maybe pusher mine forward in the decades to come when there will be a decade of -- a generation of chinese without memories of the cultural revolution. how is that generation going to approach the challenges of political reform? will they embrace it or will they reentrench? >> i believe the next decade will see china wrestling with the problem of how to bring its political institutions in line with its economic development.

i think that when you have the vast economic changes, the migration of people, the spread of education, it is absolutely inevitable that that question will be one of the dominant issues of the new leadership that is coming up in a year and a half. what form it will take, whether it will be the form of parliamentary democracy or some new form the we have not seen yet, the outcome will have to be more transparent. i believe the next leadership change which is due in 10 years from now, will reflect this. this is also why do not believe

that a country that will be so preoccupied with its fundamental change will also have time to concentrate on dominating the world. [applause] >> the final block will be on geopolitical politics. >> i remember reading a book a few years back with a title like "the picture of freedom," in which a brilliant young journalist argued that there were problems with western democracy, and especially with western democracy, that were only going to get worse. hey, that was you.

we are making a big mistake. if we think there is one, universal model of western democracy that at some point between now and 2050, if you think that is what the future of the world is going to look like, you are going to be one very disappointed person. the chances of western-style democracy emerging in any of these countries has to be between 0 and 5% at best. the possibility of alternative models is something that was raised by david wright at the begin -- at the beginning in his opening remarks. i want you to think seriously about what it implies. singapore is not worrying about the jasmine revolution. singapore is the model. think of china as a giant, technocratic singapore in which the one-party state evolves itself in ways to avoid the

collapse of the soviet experience. the second point, and this is where differ, it is precisely when nations are struggling with problems of internal political reform and challenges from below that they are most likely to pursue a more selfish and aggressive foreign policy. this must be one of the lessons of modern history and indeed, of ancient history. that is one reason why i think it is precisely at this time of political stress that we are likely to see a more nationalistic china. that is one of the reasons i am arguing for this motion tonight. [applause] >> the start of our final section of these questions and answers on geopolitics, i want to call on someone who has thought long and hard about the practicalities of china's rise. he is william cohen, the former

u.s. secretary of defense. [applause] >> i would like to respond or reply to the reference to singapore by mr. ferguson. i was just there a couple of weeks ago and they had the so- called shangri-la dialogues. secretary gates was there, making a very strong statement about the need for the united states to remain deeply engaged in the asia-pacific region. the reason he made the statement was to counter or at least satisfied that asian nations, one of whom, young man i talked to that no one in asia wants to be dominated by china. there is no aspiration for the chinese dream before the american dream, but there is growing concern that as china continues to expand its economy,

it is also expanding its military. there is concern that the united states -- we will not be there in sufficient numbers or presence. they would like very much for the united states to become even more engaged. the question i have, is said the united states must look for ways to cooperate with china and there are a number of things we can always cooperate on. there are other areas of friction, be it taiwan or the south china sea. the question is, i suggest that we need to draw lines with china, but we cannot draw them everywhere. we have to be very careful in how we draw those lines. the question i have, would you suggest or support drawing the line at china's assertion of sovereignty over the south china sea? this does raise all the

questions that you mentioned in terms of indonesia, malaysia, and also the philippines and others in the region. and most ironically, vietnam, asking for the united states to play a role in helping to so i would ask you, is this an area you would recommend we draw the line with china and how would you draw it? [applause] >> to answer your specific question, i think freedom is a fundamental principle of american policy and has been a fundamental principle of the international systems. so i would oppose the notion

that any sea should be -- should be treated as a territorial issue. and secondly, there are of course a series of specific issues about the possession of a series of -- and hopefully that should be dealt with by negotiation but on the fundamental issue, i would apply the principle of freedom to south china sea as i would do any other open ocean. the second point i want to make, however, is this -- we can of course define the emerging relationship with china as an ability to draw lines and then see whether

confrontation succeeds along these lines. i believe that this would be extraordinarily dangerous to begin thinking of international relations as a question of military containment of china. it is not the question of military containment of china. it is a question of dealing with china's inevitable rise. china has to restrain itself within definable limits. we cannot have china solve our internal problems for us. we have to remain competitive. if we remain competitive, then the next challenge is to see whether a dialogue can develop between china and us and other countries that share our views

on what the world -- what we intend the world to look like five to 10 years from now. i keep asking the question, in his first book, if the leaders of europe had known in 1914 what the world would look like in 1990, would they ever have believed that what happened in sarajevo, tens of millions of casualties that resulted, similarly, i believe the leaders of the world now have to ask themselves and the leaders of china have to ask themselves, how the evolution, some of which we have discussed here and much more which could be considered should be managed in the way that is cooperative rather than confrontational. i conducted foreign policy on

balance of power principles. i know how to play that game. [laughter] so it's not that i wouldn't know how -- how we should play it. i want to ask the chinese -- i spoke to a chinese group. and somebody got up and said you're a great friend of china. but we also read your books. [laughter] and in your books, you talk about the balance of power. how are you going to manage the balance of power? and i said, look around yourself. look at the countries that border you. and ask yourself whether we -- it's not a problem but it's conceivable, what i'm suggesting is south china sea,

it's a clear case to me, that should not be claimed by any nation. but what we really should have is that the top leaders begin to ask some of the questions that have been asked around here, look at where we want to be five to 10 years from now. and rather than dealing with crisis management month after month. and being in a situation in which every time the leaders meet, there is a communique and two months later, one has to sort -- one has the sort of discussion we have here and where did the chinese go wrong, that's my fundamental view. so on the south china sea, it's clear where we should come out with respect to freedom of navigation. but it's a symptom.

what is required is an understanding that we are heading into a new world order in which there are now universal issues. and that this world order cannot be organized on the same principles as we -- as our customary conventional thinking. and this is where the relationship of china becomes so important. because china is rising. and the question is, can china learn restraint, and can we learn to accommodate a reduction of our previous influence? that is what we need to deal with. [applause] >> fareed, to pick up on dr.

kissinger's last words there, can america learn a pattern of restraint in this new phase, because i think part of -- for your side, arguing here, part of your contention is that for china not to own the century, in some ways it has to not come in conflict with the united states, at least not m military means. so give us your sense of where the american politte is at right now -- polity is at right now, are we ready to accommodate the rise or a more dangerous dynamic as dr. kissinger writes in the final chapter of his book that we saw in the beginning of the 20th century? >> you know, everybody tends to view the united states as having this vacillating foreign policy that's unable to get its act together and constantly shifting. and on china, i have to say i think that the opposite is the case. since henry kissinger opened china to the world, and opened u.s. relations with china, the united states has had a

remarkably consistent policy toward china. and that has been to integrate china into the world, to help china gain the knowledge, the know how, the technology, the capital, and the institutional frameworks that will help it become a productive, thriving member of the international community. we have followed that under presidents that were democratic, under republicans. we're managing extraordinary consistency of policy. even on those issues like red lines such as our relationship with taiwan. our relationship with the dal i lamb a -- dalai lama. every president has maintained a coop active relationship with china while retaining some core interests and values that we thought were important. i think that my greatest worry about u.s.-chinese relations right now is not the united states. i think the united states will continue to play that role and has been trying to do so. the united states has been willing to reform the i.m.f. and the world bank and all international institutions to

properly reflect the rise of china and other emerging market countries. let's be honest. the cents that haven't wanted to do it are the -- the countries that haven't wanted to do it are the europeans because it is their voting that will be diluted in this process. i think that the -- the greater danger is that china going through the kind of political transformation that henry has been talking about might find itself in a very different road. and here i'm only quoting back what nael ferguson was saying. quite rately, china is more assertive, more arrogant a growing sense in china that the policies that peng outlined are not as relevant. and said that was at a time when we had the soviet union that was our enemy and we needed the united states and needed it for polling and we needed it for capital. we have the capital and needed it for w.t.o. membership. we have all those things. we don't need those things.

so the great discontinuity is more likely to be chinese than the united states. >> david, that poses a vital question for your side. which is will china push on certain red lines? will a new generation of chinese leadership take those risks? >> well, the chinese side is very much waiting to work on this difficult issues. the chinese side has been saying we're not making new claims. we're waiting -- willing to work with murlt tim parties. -- work with multiple parties. however, we're not willing to work with interventionist american policy. the essence of the problem is after the global financial crisis, the competence, the competence level in the u.s. has been coming down so the u.s. side has been giving us very mixed signals. even though the white house has

been very clear in its policy, the congress, the congress, the candidates for the president are giving very mixed signals. saying that the chinese side are screwing up american issues. and many chinese people do not fully understand american politics. so they take this as a signal that the outside world are becoming more and more hostage. hostile toward the chinese economic and political emergence. that's the issue. i suggest the people in the west trying to understand the issues, trying to put this very small issues in a larger context and on the chinese side it is not changing. it is the western side. you have to solve your problems all together starting with the financial problems, starting with financial system, and then when you are more confident it's easier for china to work with the west. thank you. [applause]

>> you may not have heard the voice of chinese power before, ladies and gentlemen. this is what it sounds like. get used to it. because this is the kind of firm, self-confident and more assertive china that i have seen more and more in my trips to china and my encounters with chinese academics and statesmen in recent years. let's be clear. in all honesty, going right back to the question, does the united states have the option of drawing lines anywhere in asia in the way in a it did in the days of eisenhower or indeed in the days of nixon? i don't think so. the reason i don't think so goes right to the point you just made, david. where are the resources? look at the congressional budget office projections of where the united states is going to be. i don't know if you saw jim baker's article in the "wall street journal" today. in nine years' time, the united states will be spending more on

the interests, on the federal debt, than on national security. the c.b.o. has projections imagining what the u.s. would save if it reduced its overseas troop presence to 30,000. 30,000. now, in that world, and we are racing toward that world in this decade, right now, the idea that the united states can say to china, thus far and no further, and adopt a policy and military threat that idea becomes less plausible and that's the point of the debate we're having tonight. it's this way that power shifts. it's somewhat inperceptible but when it shifts, ladies and gentlemen, it talks a little bit like david. [applause] >> well, ladies and gentlemen, i want to be conscious of our time so i'm going to call on our debaters for their closing

arguments. they're each going to be given three minutes to make their case to try to sway any final undecided votes in this hall. and we're going to have our concluding remarks in the opposite order of our opening statements. so dr. kissinger, if you could please begin. >> the issue is not whether china will grow in magnitude. that will clearly happen. the issue is two-fold -- how china uses its growing capacities and secondly, whether the united states and its allies have the willingness to adjust to the new international environment. i see nothing organic in the situation that leads me to believe that china will dominate the 21st century.

china will play a larger role in the 21st century. the challenge is whether america can redefine itself after its century of progress. and similarly, how china redefines itself when if absorbs its economic growth. i believe we do have the capacity to draw lines. but we have to be selective in drawing the lines. and more important than that, we should try to move toward a relationship in which the lines that separate us are not the crucial element but the things we do together. [applause]

>> david lee, your three minutes, please. >> let me start by reiterating a point which i made in the opening remarks that the changes in china which have been going on for the past three decades, at most, are only halfway done. the country is still changing. we still have gaps in our gas tank and the changes will be more than economic. the changes must also be societal and political. also, i would like to remind you that that's the nation of china's emergence is not dominance in the world. by no means, china, there is only one dominance in the world. that is the u.s. today. that is not the dream, not aspiration of china, not the capacity of china, to emulate the success of the u.s. and the dominance of the world. it's simply not in the gene of our confucious tradition. i urge you to think from a

different perspective. forget about the 500 years of western philosophy, western perspective, to look at the international relations as winners and losers. instead, look from the lens of our traditional philosophers, confucious, they have been advocating for a harmonious world in which individuals are at peace with others in the world and in society, people are at peace with each other. and the countries are working with each other to solve international conflicts. so i urge you to look from this perspective to understand the ongoing changes in the chinese economy and society. finally, let me call upon you to have patience, to understand that we're not bystanders. we are also participants in the chinese economic and social and political emergence. when we become hostile, when we

worry about china's emergence, we worry about the relative decline of the u.s., of the west, we indeed create problems for the world. we indeed provoke the forces in china, the suspicious forces in china, indeed this work will become a very uncomfortable world. so in the end, i urge you to think about these issues again. china's emergence is not implying that china will dominate the world. the 21st century will belong to china. and also will belong to any countries, any nations, any people who are waiting to follow the flow. together we own the century. thank you. [applause] >> fareed zakaria, you're next. >> you know, we are going flew a crisis of confidence in the -- going through a crisis of confidence in the western world.

and this has been true often when we faced these kinds of new and different challenges. and when we faced nations that seem on the rise and on the march. george cannon, the great american statesman, and writer, used to write routinely about how he thought the united states would never be able to withstand the soviet challenge. because we were weak and fickle and we changed our minds and they were long seeing and they were far sighted and strategic. we were tactical and stupid. somehow it worked out all right. i think there is a tendency now to think the same of china, that they have this incredible long-term vision and we're bumbling idiots. there's a wonderful story that encapsulates this. i think actually in a conversation with henry kissinger, when asked what do you think of the french revolution, he said, it's too soon to tell. and everyone thought oh, my goodness, such a genius. he thinks so long, in centuries. it turns out we now know he meant in 1973, the french revolution of 1968, the student

revolution, and it was perfectly rational to say at that point it was too soon to tell. so don't believe that chinese are the strategic masterminds and we're bumbling. we have managed to bumble our way through -- despite the challenges from the kaiser germany, from the soviet union, from nazi germany, from japan. and i think what you will find is that the united states and north america are creating an extraordinary new model in this new world. we are becoming the first universal nation, a country that draws people from all parts of the world, of all colors, creeds and religious, and finds a way to harness that talent and build a kind of universal dream and it happens over here. it happens here, and it draws together people from all over the world. look at this panel. three of the people on this panel, neil ferguson, myself and henry kissinger are immigrants and found their fortune in the united states

because it welcomed the most talented people in the world. and allowed them to flourish in whatever way they want, even to denounce the united states as neil ferguson is now doing. [laughter] so i simply urge you to think about this. if we lose faith in ourselves, if we lose faith in the power of free and open society, we do much more damage than anything else we could do. we need to fix our economy. we need to fix all these things we can do. the congressional budget office used to predict that we were going to pay off our debt in 15 years, 10 years, ago. now they predict that we're going to be eviscerated. we'll see how it works. my point is don't lose faith in free and open societies. vote with your heart. [applause] >> neil, your final closing remarks, please.

>> well, ladies and gentlemen, we've heard tonight that china is likely to repeat the experience of other asian countries and run out of steam. maybe. but thus far, it has done far better than these other asian countries. china has achieved the biggest and fastest industrial revolution of them all. hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. i don't agree with david. i think this story isn't half over. maybe it's a quarter over. there's a lot more still to come. the second point i want to make to you is that the west's problems are far more serious than you have just heard from fareed. and one of the biggest problems is that kind of complacency. [laughter] as we speak tonight, ladies and gentlemen, the euro zone is falling apart and an experiment with a single currency is disintegrating mainly because of the insolvency of the cradle of democracy, greece.

as we talk, as we talk, the public finances of the united states are, if you do the math, which i do, more or less in the same situation as greece was two years ago. the trajectory of the debt is not differently. it may only be a matter of time before a fiscal crisis strikes the united states. the magnitude of which we will never have seen before. you know what? if we had this debate 100 years ago, just think, the motion had been that the 20th century would belong to the united states, who would have voted for it? it would have seemed certainly to any british debater preposterous. [laughter] those yanks, trivial, small military forces? yeah, they had a big economy, but not all the social problems.

look at their cities with the squalor and poverty. it would have been very easy to make the case in 1911 that america would falter as we've -- as we've heard china will falter. and yet it happened. it happened. first the economic power, then the geopolitical power. i want to conclude with a quotation. what if china gradually expands its economic ties, acts calmly and moderately, and slowly enlarges its sphere of influence seeking only greater weight, friendship and influence in the world? what if it quietly positions itself as the alternative to a hectoring and arrogant america? how will america cope? this is a new challenge for the united states. one for which it is largely unprepared, the words of fareed zakaria, ladies and gentlemen. and that, ladies and gentlemen, is precisely why china will own the 21st century. and you should vote for this motion.

thank you. [applause] >> all i can say is i'm glad i do not have a second ballot, a second vote because exceedingly hard-fought and well contested debate. and let me reiterate something that peter munk has said at past munk debates. it's one thing for any one of these individuals to get up on a stage in front of an audience like this and give a set piece speech. it's something quite different, though, i think, to have this sparring, this meeting of minds, and to do it with the eloquence and conviction that our debaters have done so tonight. so please, a big round of applause for the debaters.

[applause] bravo. bravo. bravo. bravo. bravo, gentlemen. bravo. >> one final comment, dr. kissinger, you have denied your public some very special talents that you've had in waiting until your 88th year to engage in a public debate. you were absolutely outstanding tonight, sir. thank you.

[applause] now, before we vote for a second time, let's briefly review where public opinion was at in this room at the start of tonight's debate. we had asked you, yes, no, and maybe, there are the numbers. 39-21-40. we asked depending on what you heard, and you've heard a lot this evening, some very convincing and compelling arguments on both sides, would you change your mind? 96% yes, possibly changing their vote. this debate is very much in play. you all have a ballot with your program. power ushers will collect them on the way out -- our ushers will collect them on the way out. i will announce the results short had i after 9:15 p.m. -- shortly after 9:15 p.m. in the free public reception and for

those of you watching online, the results will be on our facebook page, our twitter accounts and our website in a matter of the next half-hour. so again, ladies and gentlemen, to the reception, let's start voting. what? they're going to do it right now with a paper ballot. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> next remarks by san antonio mayor julian cast row and texas governor -- castro and texas governor rick perry. and charles boldin on the future of his agency, nasa.

"wall street journal" economics reporter discussing the state of the u.s. economy, sudeep reedy. reducing troop numbers in afghanistan with eklil hakimi and dan iannicola zutches a recent poll that shows high school students strongly distrust financial service providers. washington journal, live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> shogush had decided several days, really only several days before mckinley arrived that he was going to kill him. he had gone out and he bought a pistol. and he followed mckinley's whereabouts in the newspapers which were reported in great detail where the president was going to be. and he began tracking him throughout the fair. >> on september 6, 1901, self-proclaimed anarchist leon shogosh fired two fatal shots at president william mckinley. sunday, scott miller looks at both the president and his

assassin and the changing era in which they lived. on c-span's q&a. monday, on c-span, the dalai lama and vincent harding, martin luther king jr.'s speech writer, talk about nonviolence. they smoke to more than 10,000 people -- spoke to more than 10,000 people at the university of arkansas discussing the nuremberg trials, the execution of saddam hussein, and the death penalty. .

>> monday night on c-span, a look back at president nixon's foreign policy. topics discussed include communism and china, invading vietnam, and the war in the middle east. >> the discussion then in the newspapers were nixon's secret plan for peace, what was it? of course, he never talked about that. that was rockefeller pushing nixon to say something, to expose what his plan was. rockefeller didn't think nixon had a plan. i happened to be in the library waiting for trishia to change her clothes, we were going out. and he comes in after a hard day of campaigning, he was relaxing, he liked to listen to tchaikovsky and should i ask him or not?

well, i'm almost a member of the family. "mr. nixon, what's your plan?" "i'm anything to peiking, i'm going to moscow and that's how we're going to bring about peace in vietnam and in the world." >> watch this discussion monday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> the national association of latino appointed and elected officials, known as naleo, held its annual conference in san antonio recently. the keynote speakers were rick perry, governor of texas, and san antonio mayor julian castro. we'll hear from governor perry in about 15 minutes, but first, the address by mayor castro. at age 35, he's the youngest mayor of the 50 largest cities in the u.s. castro discussed why this is the best of times and the worst of times for hispanics.

[applause] >> good afternoon. >> good afternoon. >> let's begin by giving a big round of applause for trey martinez fisher! my state representative, i live in his district. thank you for the introduction and you know, well, we can tell rebecca forest we don't need 36 or 37 latino legislators, all we need it trey fisher. welcome to san antonio. welcome to america's seventh largest city. the second largest in texas, the fifth fastest growing city in the united states. i want to take a moment to really thank sylvia garcia, arturo vargas, all of the naleo board members and each and every one of you who are here for coming down to san antonio today

and the next few days to be part of a very special conference. all of us, as elected officials, i know, have a million different things going on, very busy lives, but i believe this conference will be well worth your time, your energy and effort. it's an exciting time to be here in this city. we have seen san antonio grow in the last 30 years from a city of about 700,000 to a city of almost 1.4 million. the city, over the last couple of years, has been ranked as one of the most recession resistant cities in the united states. our unemployment rate right now is at 7.5%, a full point underneath the state of texas and well underneath the nation. we feel very blessed about san antonio as a community. more special than that, though, is, i think that what defines san antonio is its fundamental character. this city is the kind of place

that, even though it's grown to a city of 1.3 million people, is the kind of place that, if you're in a restaurant and you sneeze, two or three people still say "bless you." if you're walking down the street here in the downtown area and you pass someone, they still look you in the eye. i won't name any other cities. but try doing that in some of the other big cities in the united states. there's a sense of connection, a sense of less guardedness than what you find in many other places. and that's because over the centuries, over many generations, folks from different walks of life, different backgrounds, different perspectives and nationalities have come together to create a confluence of culture where people live together well, they work together well, they pursue a common american dream.

it is, for san antonio, also, a very proud moment, because this city is the perfect place to host naleo. as trey mentioned, it's been the birthplace of organizations like maldef and southwest voter. it was the site of the first spanish language t.v. station, one of the first print media newspapers in spanish that continues strong today. in the present day, san antonio, the university of texas at san antonio, is the second largest u.t. campus and one of the largest number of classes of hispanics who receive a bachelor's degree. our medical school graduates

more hispanic doctors than any other school in the united states. over the generations, our community has seen the rise of icons in the community, like henry cicneros, the first hispanic mayor of a major american city. the story of san antonio has been one that i know every single person here who is part of naleo can be very proud of. we also gather, though, at a moment that is crucial for the progress of the latino community. and i have to tell you that these days sometimes i feel like i'm at the beginning of a dickens' novel. you remember "the best of times, the worst of times." a few months ago, we were greeted by official census numbers that proclaimed that

latinos fueled 50% of the growth in the united states over the last decade, not just in places like california and new york and texas, but also almost doubling in places like iowa and nebraska, georgia, north carolina, south carolina, idaho and so forth. and here in texas, contributing to 65% of the state's growth. we see, just because of sheer numbers, more latinos today receiving their college degrees, becoming doctors, lawyers, accountants, engineers, architects, all of the things that generations past had as the dreams for themselves, but oftentimes because of the circumstances of their time, were not able to accomplish. we see more than ever in the america of 2011 the fullness of the potential of the united states spreading out in front of the latino community, and places

like san antonio truly are the new face of the american dream. there was a song in 1977 that was popularized in 1979 by frank sinatra, the theme from "new york, new york." you know that song, "if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere." in the 20th century that was the case for places like new york. in the 21st century, that describes better places like dallas and austin and san antonio and phoenix and albuquerque and los angeles. it is an exciting time for our community. it also, though, is, to be fair, quite a challenging and distressing one. while we gathered last year, we knew of legislation in arizona,

f.p.1070 that was aimed at trying to go after folks who largely have tried to make a good and honest, hard-working life in the united states. since that time, more than 20 other states have taken up legislation similar to that. we've seen, in this state of texas, the call for arizona-type legislation. we have seen in this legislative session easily the most anti-latino agenda in more than a generation pursued without shame. we have seen the proposition of a voter i.d. passed by the legislature, a sanctuary cities bill, a re-districting map that does not respect the growth of the latino community in the state of texas and doesn't reflect the aspirations of texas in general, and all of that i

believe against the backdrop, against a veneer of success in texas, and so much that this state has to offer. let me explain that. today, texas is headquarters to more fortune 500 companies that any other state in the united states. today, our unemployment rate in texas is significantly lower than that in the united states. today, just about every state in the united states would like to be growing the way that texas is, and over the last decade, we grew more than any other state, grew by 4.2 million people. but, if you've ever had the experience of finding a coin on the ground, one that is shiny on the outside, the side up, picking it up and turning it

over, and finding a rusted out bottom, it's what you can't see right now in the state of texas that is so distressing for the latino community. let me give you a few facts. the texas education agency a few months ago reported that over 50% of the children in our texas public schools are latino. in the census numbers that were reported, of the one million new folks in our state 18 years or under, fully 95% of those young people were latino. at the same time, in the texas legislature, education funding has been gutted by $4 billion, even though the money was there

in a rainy day fund to do otherwise. texas already was 44th in term of spending per pupil, and our results show that. in the latino community, our dropout rate is more than a third. the number of uninsured children in our state is nearly 30% and texas is ranked 50th, dead last, in the number of uninsured, or insured children. we have the highest number of uninsured children. and 748,000 latinos are uninsured in our state. and so we have in 41 -- front of us these days something that looks like a pretty picture of low taxes and low regulation but when you start to look at the future of our state and

particularly the latino community, it is a completely different picture and it often goes unsaid. it often goes unanalyzed. as policymakers, though, it is not our job to just complain about reality. it's our job to change it. the future is certainly a cause for concern, but it's not a concern that is completely outside of our control. we have the opportunity, through engaging our constituents to ensure, for instance, that more of them get to the polls and vote, we must acknowledge as a community that those generations who have worked hard so that we could have the positions that we have, that they did not work hard so we can have a voter turnout rate that is significantly lower than any other group in the united states. we must bear some responsibility

for changing that. the fact is, that of latinos in texas of the united states voted at just the rate of african-americans, they could make a major difference, we could make a major difference in the policies that come out of places like texas. we must re-engage the parents in our community to be effective first teachers of their young children, to not rely solely on the school system or others to do the job that we can start off doing as parents so that they can be good shepherds and put their children on a trajectory to accomplish the american dream. and we can insist that we only support folks who are for making the right investments in the future, investments in education, investments in hire

hire -- higher education, investments in healthcare, investments in immigration reform. and those things that will truly ensure that those words in our founding documents of folks being created equal and the ability to pursue life, liberty and happiness, come to pass for all americans. it has been 33 years now since, in 1978, "time" magazine declared the 1980's were going to be the decade of the hispanics. three decades have past since then. but i believe that if we're serious in this room, that if we recommit ourselves to doing the hard work that it takes to mobilize our communities, if we work at that harder than ever, then we can help ensure not just

that these next 10 years are the decade of the hispanic, but really, that this 21st century america is a century of prominence, of global superiority, of excellence and economic prosperity for the entire nation. thank you. [applause] >> that is one good man. good to see you. thank you all for coming out,

mr. mayor, it's a pleasure to be in the beautiful city of san antonio. all of you that are here for your first time, welcome to what many would consider to be one of the most beautiful cities in america and one of the most dynamic. you look at the economic impact feat this city has gone through that's frankly a metamorphosis of becoming a real magnet for economic development and a lot of the players in that great play are standing here in front of us, sitting here with us today. but aaron, i want to thank you for your work in the legislature. i know there are a number of your colleagues that are with you today. will y'all hurry up and get out of town. i know there's florida legislators here and from other states and we have a special

session going on right now and i know for a fact everybody wants to go home and be with their families and get back to work. so, anyway, we're putting the finishing touches on a special session and these members of the legislature are playing an important role with it. one of the things that i would suggest that each of these not only legislators but the local elected officials that are here, the men and women who really make economic development happen in this city and in this state, it's about putting people to work in the state of texas. i mean, that's one of our things that i think that we're most proud of and rolling up your sleeves and getting the job done and that's what i'm so proud of the legislators for. so, how many of you are from out

of the state of texas? just a quick show of hands. that's awesome. welcome. as i said, you are in the job creation capital of the world. you might have heard us talking in texas that we tend to brag a little bit from time to time. aaron will tell you, it's not bragging if you can do it, is it? so we have been really focused on job creation over the course of the last 10 years in particular from 2001 to 2011, more than 730,000 private-sector jobs were created in the state of texas. and just to kind of put that into balance, the next best state managed to create just a little over 90,000 jobs during that same time span. i don't need to remind any of

you that during that period, our nation as a whole lost almost two million jobs. when people around the country -- i know that these members of the legislature go to national association meetings just like i do and traveling across the country and they get asked, you know, what's the secret of success in the state? why has it been easier for you and texas to create jobs than it seems it has been across the rest of the country? and the fact of the matter is, a great deal of the credit goes to just hard-working men and women that are out there and have been given the freedom to risk their capital because they know they'll have an opportunity to have a good return on their investment, and our state work force, it can truly feel the --

fill the needs of any company, no matter how demanding the job requirements might be, whether it's a high-tech job or what have you. representative martinez fisher and i will be at boeing here in an hour or so and again, sending the message that no matter what the need of your company is in this state, that you can come here and you can find that skilled work force. we do what we can to maintain an economic climate that attracts businesses, that industries that are looking to expand, for instance, the need to relocate, and it's, as the mayor said, it's pretty simple. it's about keeping the taxes low, having a regulatory climate that is fair and predictable, a legal system that doesn't allow for over-suing.

but again, it's that rank-and-file texan that truly drives our state's prosperity. whether it's companies that are big like boeing or a small mom and pop business here in san antonio and it may be in big cities like san antonio or it may be in a small community somewhere. it's those texans and we come from a variety of backgrounds but the fact is, we're all united. we're united with this common spirit, to make life better for ourselves, for our families. and texas has always been this unique place. people from all over the world have come here to pursue their dreams. according to the most recent census, we welcomed more than four million new citizens to the state of texas over the course of the last decade and that's helped us create a really unique culture here. it's a diverse group of people.

it's a diverse thought heritage that it's just a little bit different. i will suggest than any other place i've ever visited before but it's a culture that emphasizes good schools for our children, safe neighborhoods for our families and a chance to succeed based on your own merit. in texas, one's work ethic, their character, they can take it wherever you want to go. it doesn't matter who your parents are, how you spell your last name. it doesn't matter whether you're from the valley or you grew up in a shrimping family on the gulf coast of texas or even if you were raised, the son of a tenant farmer in a little community you never heard of before like me. no matter what or who you were,

growing up in texas, no matter your race, your creed, your heritage, you have a role model to look up to, someone who proves that any obstacle can be overcome, there's no limits to how far you can go. that's especially true for a hispanic child in texas. roughly a third of our citizens identify themselves as hispanics in texas, making them part of what is our state's largest demographic group by the next decade. and it's no stretch to suggest that the future of texas is tied directly to the future of our hispanic population. during my time as governor, i

have worked very hard to appoint the best, the brightest, the most qualified individuals in leadership roles across the state. it gave me great pride to appoint the first latina secretary of state in hope andrade. [applause] it gave me great pride to appoint the first latina to the supreme court in this state, justice eva guzman. [applause] it gave me great pride just last month to appoint the first latina to the texas court of criminal appeals, justice elsa acala. the young hispanics in texas can aspire to be the next rolando

fablos, the chairman of the texas racing commission, maybe the next roberto dehoyas who heads our economic development shop and one of my favorites, the head of the texas alcoholic beverage commission, jose querveose. is that awesome? that is the right job for that man. these are truly leaders. these are individuals who, you know, so many more in our public and private sector just like them, they really make me proud to be a texan. they make me proud to have associates and be able to work with men and women like them. hoping really makes me optimistic about the future of this state. indications are that our younger generation is getting that message about those

opportunities. their heading to school to pursue opportunities in record numbers. between 2000 and 2010, in that 10-year period of time, hispanic enrollment in texas universities increased by 88% compared to 48% for all the other ethnic groups in this state. over the same time period, the amount of bachelor's degrees, associate degrees and certificates earned by hispanic students increased by over 100%. hispanic owned businesses have been experiencing an explosive growth. you've seen it right here in this city. their numbers expanding by 40% during the previous decade and according to one study, generating 62 billion dollars in revenue just in the year 2007.

that same study indicated that hispanic owned business employed almost 400,000 texans that year. the sky's the limit. those of you that aren't from the state of texas, we welcome you. i can't get by without offering you the opportunity to come live in this great state. it truly is the land of opportunity. it will stay that way as long as we adhere to the principles and the values that got us here. the future of this state is incredibly bright because of men and women just like you. men and women who continue to be pioneers, individuals who love this state, love our country,

and will continue to make sacrifices to make it even better. god bless you and thank you all for letting me come and be a part of it today. [applause] >> next, nasa administrator charles bolden on the future of his agency. after that, henry kissinger takes part in a debate on china's future and then remarks by san antonio's mayor, julian castro, and texas governor, rick perry. there's three days of "book t.v." programming this holiday weekend on c-span 2. join a heritage foundation book

party for ann culture, her new book, "demonic." and linda hogan writes about the native american experience and the responsibility everyone has to the environment and the human experience. speaking at the national press club, nasa administrator charles bolden vowed to maintain america's position in the area of human space flight. the final mission for the space shuttle program launches on july 8. the former astronaut said he expects private companies will ferry cargo to the international space station in less than a year followed by human transport in three years. he's joined by mark kelly, husband of arizona representative gabrielle giffords. this is about an hour.

>> good afternoon, and welcome to the national press club. we are the world's leading professional organization for journalists committed to our profession's future through programming events such as this while also working to foster a free press worldwide. for more information about the national press club at www.press.org and to donate to programs offered free to the public, you can see our web site about that. on behalf of our members worldwide, i'd like to welcome our speaker and those of you in our audience today. our head table includes guests of our speaker as well as working journalists so if you

hear applause in the audience, note that members of the general public are in the audience so it's not necessarily evidence of lack of objectivity. i'd like to welcome our c-span viewers. you can also follow the action on twitter using the hash tag pound, npc lunch. after our guest concludes, we will have q&a. for our head table guests, i will introduce each of you and ask each of you to stand up briefly as your name is announced. beginning from your right. ken delechy, former deputy managing editor of the kiplinger washington editors. anthony shopp, the dynamic chair

of our events committee. jim ascker is managing editor with "aviation week and space technology." david weaver is associate editor with nasa. captain mark kelly, astronaut, two-time shuttle pilot, two-time shuttle commander, most recently commander of sts134, the final mission for endeavour, the only spouse of a member of congress who has traveled in space and one of only two siblings that has traveled in space and not just any member of congress, it's congresswoman gabrielle giffords. [applause] skip over the podium for a moment. melissa sharpno with news hook media, the very effective speakers committee chair who helps to get things going here for that committee.

leif harryman, organizer of today's luncheon, he's organized two luncheons in a short amount of time and we're grateful for your work with that. lori garver is nasa deputy administrator. elaine cami is editor-in-chief of "aerospace america." chris chambers, professor of journalism at georgetown university and commentator for "russia today" and rt america. mark brender, executive director of goi foundation and former national security assignment editor, radio correspondent and pentagon producer at abc news. [applause] today's newsmaker luncheon is not just about administrator charlie bolden, but also about

the future of nasa which he leads. it's about his vision, president barack obama's vision, daunting budget realities and how he will deliver. headquartered in the nation's capital, nasa also runs 10 field centers, seven test and research facilities around the nation, boasts of global leadership through a variety of strategic, domestic and international relationships. as we all know, nasa has a rich history of unique scientific and technological achievement although its most visible projects of late have been the space shuttle missions that have done much of the heavy lifting of the program for the past three decades. the shuttle program now ending, critics have been skeptical of what nasa will or might become. although our speaker insists there is no retreat from leadership in human space flight, but a shift to doing even more, more affordably, building on nasa's strength,

working with the private sector and partners. it is important to understand what makes our speaker tick, how he made it to the top of the nation's space agency, only the second astronaut ever in that spatial role. in just two weeks he'll begin his third year as nasa's 12th administrator, watch and celebrate the final space shuttle mission. his career included 14 years as a member of nasa's astronaut office. in 2002, president george w. bush tried to name him the agency's administrator but the pentagon insisted he was too valuable to them. born and raised in south carolina, his parents were educators, a theme that is ingrained in his d.n.a., according to his staff, which includes a drive to inspire

young people. his father taught history and coached football so our guest speaker was naturally involved in sports while his mother kept her son interested in the community and academics. he was to meet his future bride, jackie, when he was 3 years old. in high school, he was the waterboy for his father's football team. good practice for working in washington. then the trainer, manager and backup quarterback. he stepped in and saved the day for a state championship game in 1963 when the first string quarterback was injured. he grew up believing he could do anything with hard work and set his sights on an appointment to the naval academy, something that just was not in the cards in the old segregationist south. unable to get a recommendation, he wrote vice president johnson but was told to write back when he was older. after president kennedy was assassinated and johnson was president, he wrote again and two weeks later a navy recruiter knocked on his door.

at the naval academy, he graduated president of his class. in thailand, he flew more than 100 sorties in an a6a intruder in vietnam. back home in the u.s. stationed in california, he served in the marines and served a masters from u.s.c. in 1977. he was assigned to the naval test pilot school where he completed training in 1979. one of his mentors was ron mcnair, killed in the challenger disaster. also from south carolina, it was mcnair who convinced him to apply to the astronaut corps. in 1981, he qualified as only one of eight marines on the shuttle program and the first african-american marine to become an astronaut. he flew four shuttle missions, two as pilot, two as commander, including bill nelson, the first

hispanic-american in space. others included the mission that deployed the public space telescope -- hubble space telescope. he returned to the marine corps. in 1997, he was named deputy commanding general, the first marine expeditionary force in the pacific and in the first half of 1998, served as commanding general to first marine force forward in support of operation desert thunder in kuwait . in 1998, he was promoted to major general, named deputy commander of u.s. forces in japan, served as commanding general, third marine aircraft wing, miramar, san diego, and retired from the marine corps in 2003. his decorations include the defense superior service medal, distinguished flying cross and he was inducted into the u.s. astronaut hall of fame in 2006. he and his wife have two children, a son who is a marine corps lieutenant colonel and a

daughter who is a medical doctor and he is a proud grandfather, as well. give a warm and national press club welcome to a man who's worn many hats, including a helmet or two, earning his stripes in the process, nasa administrator charles bolden. [applause] >> mark, thank you very much for that introduction. i can tell that my mother, who is looking down on us from heaven right now, wrote it for you. she would love that. i don't believe much of it. it is an honor for me to be here with you today. to say i'm humbled is to put it mildly. looking out on this audience, recognizing all of you who are here, it's a very humbling feeling to be here but to have this opportunity to represent what i think are one of the two most incredible organizations on the face of the earth right now, that being nasa, the other organization is the united

states marine corps. so i'm especially proud, though, to be here to represent the nasa team to be joined by my deputy, lori garver, who is a long-time space enthusiast, and many of you probably know her because she ran the national space society for a while and is probably, if not as much, maybe more of a space buff than i am. we share something else in common. she has a son who's 16 named mitch who is a football player. he's a good football player. i was a lousy football player who just was blessed to have my starting quarterback go down so that i could get in a game. i could not throw. i could not run. i was a hittee quarterback as they call it and when my starting quarterback was injured, my father looked down the bench and saw me. i could see his heart just start to pound but he called me up and told me to go in and his only words to me were "do not throw

the football." and i will tell you, it was on the evening of the day that president kennedy was assassinated so for me, it was a day that i shall long remember, kind of a dark evening, especially, to be playing for the state championship in south carolina. but when he sent me in, and said, "don't throw the ball," i went in and did my best and as the game was winding down, my best friend, gary bell, came in with a play from the sideline and the play was 88 left, a pass play and i looked to the bench at my dad and i knew that gary had made this up because gary was a tight end so i figured gary had come in and called his own play and i looked at my dad and he said, yeah. so i called the play and faded back and threw this wobbly pass out there and the good thing was, gary was a really good tight end and he managed to catch the ball in the end zone and we won the game so i became

a local hero if only for a moment but that is my story of football. mitch is much better than i am. he is a very good quarterback and i kind of call him my adopted son sort of like or god son because i'm really impressed with his ability. also with us, you know, among the amazing group of astronauts who made the space shuttle program what it is today is captain mark kelly who's already been introduced. mark is a dear friend and probably more important is the husband of a dear friend, congresswoman gabrielle giffords. here chief of staff is here right now and pierre made a gift to me quite some time ago when i visited gabby in the hospital in houston once and people asked me what are all these things you wear. one is for my fraternity, one is a bracelet but this is my "i love gabby" band and i wear that all the time and i was telling

somebody, it has now become even more special because in a trip to europe last couple of weeks, we had an opportunity to have an audience with the pope and the pope blessed this so i counted it special for me. anyway. mark's already been introduced and you know what he has done but mark, i want to thank you very much for your dedication and for what you've done for nasa and the nation because it was very special, something you did not have to do and i understand the sacrifice you went through so i'm credible pleased that here with us today. [applause] and it goes without saying that our continued thoughts and prayers are with gabby. we watch her ongoing miraculous recovery and pray that continues. one week from today, nasa's going to launch its final space shuttle mission and we'll be

turning the page on a remarkable period in america's history in space, while beginning the next chapter in our nation's extraordinary story of exploration. from the early exploits of daniel boon, lewis and clark and robert perry to the breakthrough of alan shepherd and john glenn, americans have always been a curious people, bold enough to imagine new worlds, ingenuous enough to chart a course to them and courageous enough to go for it and the gifts of knowledge and innovation that we have brought back from the unknown have played their part in the building of a more perfect union. some say our final shuttle mission will mark the end of america's 50-year dominance in human space flight. as a former astronaut and current nasa administrator, i'm hear to tell you that american leadership in space will continue for at least, at least the next half century because we've laid the foundation for success and for us at nasa, failure is not an option.

once again, we have the opportunity to raise the bar, to demonstrate what human beings can do if we're challenged and inspired to reach for something just out of our grasp but not out of our sights. president obama has given us a mission with a capital m to focus again on the big picture of exploration and the crucial research and development that will be required for us to move beyond low earth orbit. he's charged us with carrying out the inspiring missions that only nasa can do which will take us farther than we've ever been, to orbit mars and eventually land on it. he's asked us to start planning a mission to an asteroid and right now our dawn spacecraft is approaching one of the biggest in the solar system, vesta, and we're scheduled to drop into orbit around that asteroid the middle of this month. what it finds out could help inform such a future mission to an asteroid. the president is asking us to

harness that american spirit of innovation, the drive to solve problems and create capabilities that is so embedded in our story and has led us to the moon, to great observatories, and to humans living and working in space, possibly indefinitely. that american ingenuity is alive and will and it will fire up our economy and help us create and win the future. now, but only if we put aside our differences and come together to work hard, dream big and imagine endless possibilities. the space shuttle is an amazing vehicle, amazing vehicle. and the incredible program it pioneered has taught us many things and helped make tomorrow's exploration possible. every shuttle mission has showcased the amazing talents and expertise of our astronauts in robotics and science. each mission was different. each was exceptional and

challenging and expanded our capabilities as a nation and a world. atlantis' destination next week, the international space station, or i.s.s., is the centerpiece of our human space flight activities for the coming decade and about what a centerpiece it. with almost a million pounds of hardware, measuring over the length of a football field and with an interior volume greater than a 747 aircraft, traveling at 17,500 miles per hour around the earth 16 times every normal earth day, it's occupied by an international crew of six actively participating in over 100 research investigations at any given time. in just a little over a decade, the i.s.s. has expanded our knowledge of man's ability to live and work in space and has become one of the most important beacons of international cooperation as it orbits our earth. the station is the pinnacle of

our current achievement, a stepping stone to the rest of the solar system and the tip of what comes next. the shuttle allowed us to build and support the station and the orbbitting outpost research capabilities are unprecedented. the station has housed more than 1200 experiments to date, supporting more than 1600 scientists representing 59 countries worldwide. every research investigation and all the systems that keep the i.s.s. operational help us figure out how to explore farther from our planet and improve life here. studies of how our bodies respond to a micrographity environment ensure we can live and work successfully as we travel farther from earth and help us better understand the impacts of medical conditions encountered both in space and here on earth. solar power and water processing are two examples of how we're learning to better operate spacecraft independent of

resources supplied from earth. we need to break the ties to our home planet and learn to live and work in space without direct dependence on earth. the i.s.s. can be a platform for us to learn these skills. technology demonstrations on the i.s.s. will support future missions and help us improve the reliability, for instance, of future life support systems, and all the many other things we'll need to understand in-depth to really become a space fearing people whole can safely reach our destinations, so when i hear people say or listen to media reports that the final shuttle flight marks the end of u.s. human space flight, i have to tell you, you all must be living on another planet. we are not ending human space flight. we are recommitting ourselves to it and taking necessary and difficult steps today to ensure

america's preeminence in human space exploration for years to come but we have to do things differently. for one, we have to get out of the business of owning and operating low-earth orbit transportation systems and hand that off to the private sector, exercising sufficient oversight, of course, to ensure safety of our astronauts. we need to focus on deep space exploration while empowering today's innovators and entrepreneurs to carry out the rest. this new approach is to getting our crews and cargo into orbbit will create good jobs and expand opportunities to the american economy and let me be crystal clear about this. i believe -- i believe that american companies and their spacecraft should send our astronauts to the international space station rather than continuing to outsource this work to foreign governments. that's what this administration is committed to and that is what we're going to do.

along with supporting the i.s.s. in commercial crew transportation, nasa will pursue two critical building blocks for our deep space exploration future, a deep space crew vehicle and evolvable heavy lift rocket and we will make the technology investments required to begin the era of deep space exploration today. our destinations for human beings beyond earth remains ambitious. they include the moon, asteroids, and mars. our investments in the systems, research and technology for deep space will prioritize a logical sequence of future human exploration missions and forge a tighter bond between robotic and human exploration. the debate is not if we're going to explore, but how we'll do it. not if there will be human space flight, but the right path to the next generation of systems. the shuttle is an expensive

system to maintain. it has served us well, incredibly well, but now is the time to cut the cost of transportation to low-earth orbit and foster the american aerospace base and its amazing potential to become a job creating engine for decades to come. nasa's 21st century mission will focus on the transportation systems that will carry us beyond where we have been, to new destinations and new milestones in the annals of human history. we're one week from an important space milestone but far, far from the final one. we celebrate the shuttle's 30 years' of success, longer than any other human space flight program. the shuttle has expanded our picture of what it means to be an astronaut and we salute the hundreds of men and women who have carried out the program's missions both in space and on the ground. we also remember the hard lessons that have helped us to

continually improve safety. we shall always remember the crews of sts51l, challenger, and sts107, colombia, who made the ultimate sacrifice. i spent 14 years at nasa before leaving and returning to head the agency. some of the people i respect most in the world are my fellow astronauts. some of my best friends died flying on the shuttle and i'm not about to let human space flight go away on my watch and i'm not going to let it flounder because we pursued a path that we could not sustain. it's vital that we keep exploring, not only so we can learn to live and work other places and find out what it means for us as the human race but also so the benefits of that exploration continue to return to earth. so we keep generating new knowledge about our planet and our universe and new solutions

to the challenges our planet faces on many levels. president obama has put nasa and several other technology-focused agencies at the forefront of innovation for our country. we're pleased to be an essential part of this national focus on research and development, which will greatly improve our future and give coming generations more choices in how they face planetary challenges and seek knowledge about the universe beyond. we will maintain and grow u.s. leadership in space and derive all the benefits that flow from it. tomorrow's space program is taking shape right now. earlier this year, i made a decision to base the new multipurpose view vehicle or mpvc, our deep space crew module, on the original work we've done on the on, rhine capsule. the spacecraft will carry four astronauts for 21 day missions and be able to land in the pacific ocean off the california

coast. it's designed to be much safer during ascent and entry than the shuttle. we're nearing a decision on the space launch system and will announce that soon. complemented by a host of technology developments, these two systems will open up the entire solar system to us. i've established program offices for both mpvc and nls, at the johnson center in houston and marshall in huntsville, alabama, respectful. we're going to work on upgrading the center's launch facilities. one of our most valuable national resources to accommodate more kinds of users and speaking of those facilities at k.s.c. and across the agency, we've had tremendous interest from our commercial space partners in reusing or leasing these assets and are close to making major announcements about them soon. the reuse of our unique nasa assets like the orbiter processing facilities will help

these companies keep their costs down and create jobs for the space industry of tomorrow. the mid atlantic regional space port is taking shape in virginia. one of the first customers will be orbital sciences corporation with its taurus ii rocket. last week, we issued a call for proposals for mission concepts studies of a solar electric propulsion demonstration, just one of the many technologies we need to advance and validate as we seek to reach farther destinations. consider how the architectural options for human exploration of the solar system will change as we develop space technologies for which there is wide consensus we need, better in- space propulsion, re-fueling depots on orbit, inflatable habitats, high reliability life-support systems, high bandwidth communications, adaptive avionics, radiation

protection, integrated human and robotic systems and precision navigation. our partners in the commercial orbital transportation services program, spaceex and orbital sciences continue to meet milestones. the new participants in the second round of our commercial crew development program have just met their first set of milestones required by nasa, and are on a path for continued success. recently, my deputy, lori garver, and i, have had the chance to visit facilities of some of our industry partners like blue origin in sierra-nevada. they're working diligently and the hardware and systems they're creating are amazing. the energy and ideas in the field are palpable, all of this, just the early days of our push into the next chapter of human space flight. in addition to this human space -- to our human space flight progress, we have a large number of amazing science missions coming up.