you are next. caller: what i kind of want to hint at, in some ways i feel as if the american public reflect upon them because there is this growing animosity of corruption and sort of almost exploitation in the united states from a citizen's perspective that stays aware. i feel on the internet -- i notice they represent this more. it is not that i feel -- well, i do not do any thing, but i see that they just sort of hack and sort of exploit but do not steal anything. can i get your comments? guest: just talking about hacktivists generally, not any particular group, people who want to use the network as a means of protest, which i

certainly appreciate people's right to protest. that is what this country was founded on. but by breaching computers, infiltrating networks, damaging networks, with its be wed the basements or by taking websites down, it is against the law. it causes damage. it causes billions of dollars of damage a year. i talked about some of the costs that businesses incurred that are passed on to consumers. for hacktivists to destroy networks to stand by and their cause, that is not good rationalization. we should protest lawfully, legally, and infiltrating networks is not that way. host: shawn henry, thank you for being here to talk to our viewers this week. we are going to wrap up our series on the fbi. we will be live from the crime

and punishment museum in d.c. breaking news this hour that president obama is calling for the syrian president to step down. in a statement issued moments ago, for the sake of the syrian people, the white house has said that the time has come for him to step aside. the united states will support an effort to bring about a syria that is democratic and inclusive for all syrians. secretary of state hillary clinton, live right now on c- span2 talking about the situation in syria. thank you for watching. we bring you right now live to coverage of the national business group on health, talk about a new survey about the economic impact on businesses and what they are doing to respond. thanks for watching.

>> to to work to control utilization and control costs and also attention to health improvement. so employers began seeing about five years ago they began to realize if you haven't fundamentally unhealthy employee or family member in terms of problems like obesity and diabetes and smokers and a whole range of problems, that in fact there's almost no way you can really control costs because they will cost more and more as they get older. so we see the best companies are doing cost management, consumerist strategies and attention to health improvement simultaneously. in addition as you all know the affordable care act has been taking effect and it affects the employers that we survey in significant ways. so there are two big changes. one, the mandates that the government requires of employers, for example covering

the adult children up to age 26. and also the benefit mandates that are beginning to come in. so they are saying you have to cover certain things or you can't have limits. those will drive up costs as well. but in fairness to those who don't want to say anything negative about the affordable care act, we have serious health care cost problems completely independent of the affordable care act. so we have to solve these problems no matter what the impact of the health care reform is. so that really is on top of a serious underlying problem. so no matter what happens with the affordable care act, we still are going to struggle with this massive problem. we surveyed our corporate members, some of the largest employers in the country, to find out what they are going to be doing for 2012. this takes effect january, 2012 and these are the options that employees are being shown starting probably next month,

september, when they get their open enrollment packages. so this is what they will see. so we asked them about the things we usually ask about and we'll give more details on that. 83 large employers representing over four million employees completed the survey. we have estimated medical trend. we asked them what is your trend for this year because they actually don't know 2011 until about a quarter into 202012 and the mean in 2011 was 7.4%. they believe that's what would be happening this year. and they are estimating for their own internal budgeting purposes that in 2012 the mean will be 7.2%. now, that sounds like it might have gone down, but keep in mind that's on the higher base. so 7.2% in absolute dollars is more even than the 7.4% was in

absolute dollars. and although we all talk about percentages, it's the absolute dollar amount that hurts jobs and hurts families. because their income is either flat or if they have lost their jobs they don't have any income, or they are maybe dealing with cutback hours. so the continued flat growth, growth of health care, is in fact up against an economy that we know is in serious trouble. so at this point i will turn it over to craig to bring us up to date on what we have learned about the impact of health care reform from our members. craig. >> thank you, helen. as helen mentioned one of the survey's key focus areas is plan design changes as a result of the provisions of the affordable care act. employers were asked a number of questions concerning a variety of provisions and what changes

employers are making or planning to make as a result. the first provision we asked the players about concerned auto enrollment. when players were asked which plan they would be using as the default plan from employees who did not respond during open enrollment. the responses were varied with 27% still undefeated undecided. the most common option was the most affordable or least costly to employees, 27%. 18% chose the least costly plan for the employer as the default option. in regard to employers maintaining the grandfathered status of benefit options going into 2012, 23% of employers will have at least one benefit option that will retain grandfathered plan status in 2012. while 19% will drop the grandfathered status of any benefit options that were grandfathered in 2011. in addition, nearly half of

employers had no benefit options in 2011 that had kept grandfathered status. leading up to the complete ban of annual benefit limits in 2014, 27% of employers are making changes to the annual benefit limits around preventive and wellness services for 2012. and 14% are making changes to annual benefit limits for mental health and substance abuse services. important to note that 59% of employers indicated they did not need to make any changes to their annual benefit limits for 2012. concerning the health exchanges, employers were asked whether they believe the health exchanges would be a viable option for certain segments of their employee population. notedly these perceptions were based on what employers knew of the health insurance exchanges as they were filling out the survey fielded in the month of june. over half of employers believe their retirees might find the health insurance exchanges as a

viable option. another 41% of employers believe that the plan might find ex chapings attractive. 2 % believe that no particular segment of their population find the exchanges a feasible option. regarding the provision increasing the hipaa wellness incentives from 20% of total plan costs for individual to 30% of total costs come into effect in 2014. some employers are already anticipating taking advantage of that change. 19% already plan to increase their level of wellness incentives above the current 20% limit in 2014. when the provision takes effect. in anticipation of the taxation of the federal retiree drug subsidies, those employers who currently receive the subsidy are still primarily reviewing their options. a few, 13%, have decided to drop primary coverage for retire years in lieu of wrap around or secondary coverage, while another 13% have or will move to

an employer group waiver plan as a result of the taxation of retiree drug subsidies. the next question employers were asked concerned medicare part d becoming richer and the doughnut hole progressively closing. of those employers currently offering primary retiree health benefits to medicare eligible retirees, nearly all will continue offering primary coverage in 2012. roughly 97%. although most, 61%, are considering dropping primary coverage in the future. the last question we asked employers pertaining to changes due to the affordable care act involve continuing participation in medicare advantage. of those employers that currently depend on medicare advantage, no employer had decided to discontinue participation in 2012 due to the phasing out of medicare advantage by 2017. although half of the respondents were still undecided at this time. however, 42% did report that they would be continuing their

participation in 2012, but would be reviewing their continuing participation for the future. beyond looking at changes being enacted due to the affordable care act, employers were also asked questions regarding tactics and strategies for controlling costs and improving employee health. while we will not go over all the results, helen and i will walk you through a few of the findings. the first of which is in regard to the most effective tactics for controlling health care costs as reported by employers. employers were asked to identify the top three tactics for controlling costs and the tactic most often selected as the most effective tactic was increasing employee cost sharing, followed closely by implementing a consumer health plan and wellness initiatives to improve employee health. when looking at which step or tactic was most often selected to be one of the top three effective tactics, wellness initiatives were identified by 64% of the respondents. now, regarding increasing employee cost sharing, 53% of

employers are planning to increase employees' percentage contribution to the premium cost. however most are claiming to do so by less than 10%. other cost sharing tactics being implemented by some employers include in and out of network deductibles, out-of-pocket maximums, and co-payments and/or co-insurance for primary and specialist care. with that i'll turn things back over to helen. >> thank you, craig. so i just want to highlight one point that craig made on this particular slide. that is in general because co-insurance has a kind of automatic i crease built in -- increase built in, as prices go up, if your co-insurance is 20% as opposed to flat dollar amount, you go to the doctor's office, they say it's $15, if your co-insurance is 20%, it's 20% of whatever the bill is. so on that -- the slide on page

17, it mentions that the increase was to the employee percentage contribution to the premium cost. and that is important. because it is not just a flat amount, it's the percentage increase. now, there's less of an increase for office visits, but more and more we see co-insurance, which is a more subtle way, if you will, to increase what the consumers pay. and it also, most importantly, and the reason it's done, is if you don't use co-insurance, the consumer has no way of really paying attention to what it costs. a visit could be a $500 visit with tests and everything, or $150 visit. you could have a $15 co-pay for both of those. but the minute build in co-insurance, you bring the consumer into the financial picture in a completely

different way. that's why we will see more and more of that. the co-pay will be the -- the public sector and unions will probably keep co-pay. and they'll be the only ones left. so we also ask about consumer directed health plan in 2012. and as you can see in the slide that you have, that in 2012 first of all the full replacement is 17%, that is where no other plan is offered. so you have a consumer directed health plan and that's your only choice. with you as an option, the amount of those who are offering that went up to 56%. so that is a significant change. and the number that said no, they are not going to do either, in 2012 it went down to 27% when it was 39% in 2011. so we are clearly seeing a march towards a more aggressive

consumerist strategy, and a growing realization that many employers and frankly i suspect the public sector, too, is coming to realize that if the consumer isn't actively engaged and has some financial stake, there is absolutely no hope for our controlling health care costs in this country. we also ask about the plan types. you may recall that there are health savings accounts, which are accounts that an employee owns, an amount of money setaside to use to pay for health care, which have been authorized in this country for some years, but kind of under attack a couple years ago. but they are alive and well. we have found that employers have moved in 2012, 75% of the plans will be high deductible health plan with a health savings account. and 16% high deductible health plan with what's called a health reimbursement account. a health reimbursement account,

big difference between an h.s.a. and h.r.a. is the employee owns the health savings account. the employee gets a health reimbursement account from an employer, but if the employee leaves the employment, then they can't take it with them. they can retire with it. so if they retire from that company or that organization, they take the h.r.a. with them, but otherwise they don't own it like they do with an h.s.a. so we also ask, we think a really hot topics these days, is on-site health centers, more and more employers at least in locations where they have a lot of employees, are opening or expanding their existing health care, on site health clinics. so we ask do you have one or more of these? and, yes, 37% of our respondents said that they had them.

and 16% said they don't but they are considering it. and 47% said no, no more are planned. but that's still a significant number. and if you have one we ask what services you provide. and the majority not surprisingly, 88%, provide occupational health. but 61%, this is the big change, also now offer health improvement programs. and even some, 46%, provide acute care services. so if you injure yourself or get a cut or something like that or something's gone wrong and you come into work and you -- there's a problem, you can stop in and get it checked out by the doctor or nurse if there is a doctor there, if there's a nurse there. there is often staffed by advance practice nurses, nurse practitioners, as they are by physicians. they usually have physicians in part of the time. 38% are offering primary care. so that's a big change.

and those are generally in places where there is a dearth of primary care access. remote locations or just places where there are not enough primary care doctors. also 30% provide employee assistance programs, these are counseling services, and sometimes help for problems, family problems, can't get along with your teenager, all sorts. can't get along with your spouse, domestic partner. that's the kind of thing they deal with. we see more and more on-site services and this is another significant trend. we also see that employers are encouraging the use of centers of excellence. so instead of just having employees necessarily always just go to the nearest hospital or the hospital their doctor admits to, more employers are looking into identifying exceptional hospitals, or health

systems and then encouraging their employees to use those. usually by paying more, higher proportion, of the cost. so maybe they have 80% coverage, they might pay 90% if you go to a center of excellence. if they have to travel they pay the travel costs for the patient and a loved one or caretaker to go with them. there are different ways that they do this. this slide on 22 talks about the different ways that they do that. do they reduce or eliminate co-pays? offer the program with no incentive but they emphasize the quality? and the rereason they do this is even if they spend more money on the individual hospital admissions, they usually have significantly lower complications, infections, having to redo the operation or having -- go someplace else, the so-called rework. so that's why they use those.

and second opinion services. we also see an interesting new change. pliers -- employers have been as i mentioned for about the last five years been receiving health improvement programs and being offered a lot of services, not only usually for free, but sometimes they even pay something off in their health account to take advantage of it. they might be given $100, for example if they take a health assessment, and maybe another $100 if they agree to talk to a coach who has identified risk factors for them. these are not employer direct -- they are not employees of the employer. they are health professionals who work for usually the health plan or a special service that specializes in that. so you can see on page 23 that they are not only offering these programs online weight management tools, tell phonic online health coaching for weight management, so for

employees you can see that 79% offer these to employees. 54% are offering them to spouses or domestic partners, and a full 33% even to children. so this is quite a big change in what employers are doing. we also, you can see, the online health coaching for weight management, 76% for employees, 57% for spouses of domestic partners, and 28% for children. so you can see that there's a big movement, basically, to do all of these things. we also have healthy lifestyle programs in 2012 and the next slide talks about the different ways that you are incentive, an employee is innocented -- incented. the cash incentives to participate in healthy lifestyle programs.

incentives and disincentives based on tobacco use status, so some employers have a nonsmoker's discount on the health plan or they may have a tobacco use surcharge. so they do it both ways. and they also have incentives if you achieve specific health outcomes other than tobacco. so if you lose weight, you participate in weight management programs. some of the other things that they are doing increasingly are in 2012, 76% are using prior authorization for the pharmacy benefit. so if you have a prescription for something that is especially very expensive or is only for certain clinical problems and some may be overused, you would actually have to have that authorized before it would be dispensed. also they are using quantity limits. an example would be with drugs. so perhaps some of these things you could use more often.

you might want to use more often. but they have a limit. there are some -- there are certain medications -- one of the ones that comes to mind is viagra if you are only going to get so many of those, they probably didn't ask the people what they wanted. they would be something where if it's expensive or it should be used in a more moderate way, they'll put limits in. in step therapy which you may be familiar with, 65%, this is where there are drugs which are very expensive and in fact should be only for a small group of clinical types, but tend to be prescribed more often. they are advertised a lot and that sort of thing. so they put in a requirement that says you have to try the less costly prescription first. if that doesn't work, we will move you to the next one. the three-tiered design is another. generic, brand name, formulary

brand. different ways to try to control the cost of prescription drugs. so you can see there's lots of ways that employers are trying to control costs. we are seeing more and more of a defined contribution model. and probably we'll see more. much of this is being driven by the understanding that the cadillac tax comes in in 2018, and starting last year, employers realize if they are going to avoid paying the really prohibitive cadillac tax, you may recall it's 40% on every dollar after a fixed or capped amount, so they have got to take dramatic steps between now and 2018 to avoid the cadillac tax. they don't intend to plan it. we also are adding consumerist type plans. more employers are offering them. they are recognizing they don't really have a choice. they've got to do that. and then focusing on comprehensive health improvement

initiatives. the weak economy, unfortunately we got even more bad news in the last couple of days, the financial and administrative burdens of the health care legislation, uncertainty about the future are all increasing pessimism and worry about health and other benefits. and pay. because every dollar that's put into health benefit is one dollar in forgone wages or other benefits. that's what economists always say and i think workers are beginning to understand that. we believe and i think most of our employers understand that we have to, afford interis tied -- affordability is tied to employees' premiums and household incomes. so they have and we have two really strong arguments for aggressively driving down health care costs. like the national debt crisis, we are struggling to solve. we also have to solve the health

care cost prices. as i'm sure all of you know, they are really intertwined. if we don't solve the health care cost crisis, there is no way we are going to solve the national debt crisis. so thank you very much for your time and attention. and we welcome any questions you have. yes. most of them are some years away. but they wouldn't be some years away if they don't -- didn't start acting last year. and there are some employers whose plans are so rich that they probably would already hit it if it were in play. i would cite sickly -- particularly the public sector. if you go to municipalities and counties and state government and ask them what their individual and their family costs are right now, and you get

a correct answer, you would be shocked at how many are really already virtually there. certainly will be there long before 2018. yes. >> question about the increase in cost that are projected. can one assume, then, that premiums would go up the same amount, the 7.2%? >> usually they pass-through whatever it is. so it is their share would go up 7.2%. all we know is we ask above or below 10%. but you can guess -- the reasonable thing to do would be to for for for the employee share to also -- for the employee share to also go up 7.2%. the cost sharing is 20% for premiums. there are some industries and someplaces in the country like the northeast and manufacturing where the employer pay as higher percentage. they pay-per-view 85, 87%, maybe

90%, but the average is 80%. and the industrys like retail and other parts of the country, texas has come into the news a lot lately, but i don't know it literally off the top of my head, but texas' cost sharing -- not state but for employees and employers. tends to be lower. >> you talked for a minute about the $11,983 average that you mentioned at the beginning. is that only employers in your survey? >> that's actually -- we get that figure. we did not actually ask the one in this survey. we get that from our other survey which we rolled out in march.

many of you -- because we rolled this out in march. so it's from the 2011 employer survey, purchasing value in health care. national business group on health. anybody who wants to see that, if you probably have it in your file someplace, i'm sure that ed would be happy to send it to you again. and that's where we got it. that information shows the mean and the all that. it's very detail. yes. >> a question on the annual benefit limits. 59% of employers are not making any changes for 2012. i assume that means that their compliance or for the most part employers are above whatever the law is? >> that's exactly right. most large employers didn't have any of the limits that are --

were contemplated in the law. they didn't have them to start with. and if they did, at least on the prevention, they made the changes last year. so most of them don't have to make changes. and i think that's why. >> 41% do. >> right. part of it -- the problem sometimes when you ask this of -- especially a large employer, large company they usually have multiple plans. by that i mean they might have -- if they acquired another company, for example, very typically a lot of big american companies do that, there's been a lot of consolidation, they might have different plans in different parts of the business. so they might be on -- they might have the base plan for the company, may have very few limits. but they might have acquired a company that had limits or they might have had a few limits they decided last year to go ahead and change. but it's more that they don't have -- they don't usually have

just one plan. >> do you know what that limit is for 2012? >> the benefit limit? >> yeah. there's certain -- eventually it becomes unlimited. it rises every year and i'm not sure -- >> yeah. i don't know that off the top of my head but we can get that answer for you. yes. >> employee morale and what do you think companies should do to offset potential disgruntled employees? >> thanks. the question, those of you on the phone, was what about employee morale? a couple things. first, most employers in the last couple of years have been making changes and they always try to help -- have the employees understand why they have to make the changes. and for the most part employees understand it because they see it in the news, they see it in

their own lives that prices go up and that health care seems to be immune from the normal forces of the market of ups and downs. but they also, most of them, especially in the last year or two, have been saying to them, listen, the consumer directed health plan will cost you less out of your paycheck. so there's a significant difference in premiums. so let's say you are in the h.m.o. or in a rich p.p.o. plan. an employer puts in a consumer directed health plan. what comes out of their paycheck for that is going to go down. and they try to explain to them. in fact they usually have cost calculators, they say, look, depending how you use the health system, you may be better off if you move to a consumer directed health plan. if you use the system a lot, you've got three or four kids, and they all have allergies and asthma and go to the doctor a lot, then in fact you may not be better off in a high deductible

plan without a health savings account. but if you are fundamentally a low user of the health care system, and that your family is, too, what you will save out of your paycheck, if you take that amount and put it in your health savings account, then if you do have -- if you do get sick and have high expenses, you would have -- would you have that money. helping people to understand they have more control over their use of the system. they have more control over their money. they have the option of taking less out of their paycheck. if you explain it direct correctly -- they are not going to love anything everybody does. they always want 100% pay for everything at no charge for premiums. so anything that goes away from that is going to make somebody unhappy. but most of them know that we are in an unsustainable situation. and one of the ironies of what's

happened in benefits, health benefits particularly, in the last eight years, is it used to be when you asked employees what's most important in a job, it would usually be like pay, my manager, and there would be a list and number six or seven would be health benefits. and because health benefits have become more valuable relative to employee's perception, about three or four years ago it hit number one. having health benefits was really important. and it was partly because they realized how much it costs if you don't have it. some of them learned it sadly the hard way when they had a child go off and have to be on cobra or they had a spouse or domestic partner who lost their job and they were on cobra. they began to see this is a lot of money. and my employer's been giving this to me. and i didn't really appreciate it and understand it. now that's changed a lot.

i think there's more realization that if we are going to keep coverage, we have to make changes. and the better the communication, the less demoralization. we also had this happen during the meltdown, when the meltdown occurred and we went into recession a couple years ago. people changed their views about what was really important. and many of them just said, i'm glad i got a job. so what people worry about and are demoralized by changes, especially when we are facing so much economic trauma, i mean you -- you have a house that is not worth what you owe on it. you have a child coming from college who can't get a job, i would go on and on, but all of that puts this in perspective in a way that we didn't used to have. yes. >> two things real quick.

you mentioned among the impact of the affordable care act, the mandate requiring coverage for employees children under the age of 26. and then elimination of also i guess a cap on costs. is there any re-- reflection about the increase in health care costs? >> certainly the age 26 change and the other changes last year, which took effect this year, it was estimated that across the nation it added a full one percentage point to trend. which doesn't sound like a lot, but it is. a full one percentage point. but you mentioned the cap. are you talking about the cadillac tax when you say cap? >> yeah. i guess -- any other provisions of it. >> ok.

well, srnl this past year for those who had limits of any sort -- certainly this past year for those who had limits of any sort, they definitely would have an increase. it may not be a lot because the biggest change was putting overall limit. and thank heavens, knock on wood, most people don't hit those limits. so it's not itself a big cost change, but adding kids up to age 26 was a big cost change in our opinion. the other thing that happened that wasn't just that they said you have to cover them until the age ever 26, they took -- age of 26, they took away the requirements for the coverage for young adults. so it used to be that you covered them, some did it to 23, some to 24, some to 25. but that child had to be financially dependent on the parent, had to be a full-time

student, couldn't be working for somebody else, etc., etc. when they put in the age 26, they took away all of those criteria. so they can be lying around the house doing nothing. they can be financially dependent on somebody else, including themselves. they can be married. they can have children. they can work for another employer that has very rich benefits. but they don't have to take it. and if they had to pay some cost sharing, they might stay on their parents' coverage. base it wouldn't cost them anything. -- because it wouldn't cost them anything. that was a big change. and change in principle, frankly. >> clarify that. were either of those things reflected in this survey? previously? >> the 1%? yes. so actually the -- i would say that the last year, the 2011,

this year, that would include one full percentage point. yes. it continues. >> with that in mind did any of the employers, i don't know if this was asked, change their pricing structure for family coverage because of that? >> yes. actually they usually -- most did. but you're right, that is something that -- do we have a question on that? got the data? but the answer is yes. if they didn't have it -- a little bit disaggregated, they didn't go very far. there are a couple of employers who actually charge on a per employee, per dependent basis. but that's very rare. but they certainly did. so this is prevalence of different types of tiers, this is in the full report which you have a copy of. will have a copy of. so employee only, family coverage.

so 85% have family coverage, employee and spouse is 72%. 23% have employee spouse and children. 12% employee, spouse, and two children. 9% -- so it's still about where it was. there was some disaggregating, but not dramatic. and i do know that there was a fair amount of talk about it. a lot of people kind of grousing about it said, we should change our tiering. in no instance did anyone -- because it wasn't -- you just don't do this. there would be no reason to say, for those people who are now the 23 to 26 we are going to add a category, that's not the way it works. even if you could do it. but if they only had, say, three categories, they might have gone to four. but certainly something they want to worry about. because one of the problems that happens is, you have to internally ask the question of what's equitable.

should a parent and spouse or partner who have four or five children pay the same thing as a woman who is the sole support of her child. if you have family coverage only, then basically the one with the one child is subsidizing the one with the lots of kids. so there's a lot of talk in the benefits world about what's fair and can we get to the place where if you choose to have four or five children, you will pay considerably more than someone who has only one child or two children. >> one other quick thing. preventive care the employers that did have the nongrandfathered plan and have to add prevnive care, is it broken down to see how much that added to the cost -- >> we don't -- c.b.o. and people

like that have done estimates of what the impact of that kind of change would be. but let me say it is not going to be -- nothing will reduce cost. and it will definitely increase costs. we just don't know by how much. and the big worry that employers have is that every time we open up coverage and we add a visit here and a visit there, two things happen that are very worrisome. the visits themselves cost money. and if everybody did everything at one visit a year, probably it wouldn't be that big a deal, but that's just not the way it happens. but the bigger worry is that the more screenings you do, the more you detect false positives, and also you detect sometimes problems that worry you to death

but really aren't problems. it's just you are screening more and you are screening more people. and you are screening more asymptomatic people. and screening ever asymptomatic people in some ways is very dangerous. which is why these ads that you see in the paper that come on in and find out you don't have cancer by having a whole body scan i know you have seen them because we have them in this area. that's the worst possible thing. first of all, it can't tell you that. it can't tell you there's nothing wrong with you or is something wrong, but, boy, if you get screened like that, they are going to find lots of stuff. when they do autopsies at the end of life, they find that people have all sorts of problems in them that never manifested themselves. and we have a lot of -- like with mammograms you could have fatty tissue in the breast that looks like it might be a lesion of some sort. then you have to go to a biopsy. there's a lot that can happen.

it's very important that the screening be only evidence based and directly related to the gender, age, and risk status of the patient. if you do that then you are not doing the inappropriate and excessive screening. which by the way is also driving up these costs. >> another question on the provision to cover young adults up to age 26. you mentioned it's increasing costs by 1%. would you say employers are bearing that more than employees? and are employers opposed to this? would they like to see that requirement eliminated? >> it's one percentage point not by 1%. it's a full percentage point. i think that most employers didn't think that that was a good idea. they weren't asked, i might add.

but especially i think it would have been much easier if they had just expanded it to 26 but kept the conditions in there. because the conditions are reasonable. you could argue especially on the economy and given the fact that a lot of uninsured people are kids out of college or out of school or out of work, that that might have been one way to deal with the problem of young, uninsured. but the problem was more taking away of reasonable criteria for who would be included in that. so i think they -- they would have preferred that it be more specific. >> so are employers absorbing that cost? or passing it on? >> thank you for asking it again. they are -- mostly absorbing it. because you can only increase costs so much in any given year. >> the dollar figure you used in

your march surveys in terms of how much is spent on health coverage, is there any -- was there any attention in either of these surveys to ask employers is there a way to quantify how much of that would have been paid in salary if it wasn't going to health coverage? >> no. i don't know that they could answer it. they don't have the data systems for that. i think that they would have a hard time answering that so we wouldn't ask it. but i think it's a really good question. and we have -- we do a number of employee surveys, surveys commissioned with survey research, firms of employees. and we have asked them in the past and we have seen other surveys that do this, to employees would you rather have more in your pay than in health benefits? if your health benefits were reduced you would get more pay.

much to my own dismay and i think surprise of a lot of people, they said they would rather have the health benefit. now, it did vary by age. which isn't surprising when you think about it. younger employees said they would rather have more money. but on average they still said we would rather have more on health benefits. that illustrates the problem in this country when we have this with the medicare debates as well. people don't really understand how much of what's in the health benefits is waste and overuse and really isn't medically necessary or appropriate. so built in to their costs and their forgone wages and benefits are cost that is are wasteful and if we could get the health care delivery system to change its ways, costs would go down with not only employees not being hurt, because nothing it be taken away from them, but actually be helped because a lot

of the ways to reduce costs in this country, improve safety and improve quality. so they would be better off, there would be fewer deaths from available medical errors and infections which are avoidable. there would be more focus on services and screenings that are medically appropriate. you wouldn't be getting more than you should be getting. you would be getting exactly what you should be getting. and we would save money. we have tons of data on this. so it's a problem that people don't understand. sometimes when you look at what's going on with the strike that's going on right now, they are in there saying we want more benefits. and in fact they could get more wages in they -- if they change some of the things in their benefit package to improve the productivity of the investment. the return on the investment. but that's not part of the debate. everybody just thinks give me

more. medicare, you look at what's going on with the national debt crisis and the reaction is don't touch my medicare. well, we could actually save hundreds of billions of dollars in medicare and we would not be hurting the beneficiaries. in fact, we would be helping them. but nobody wants to deal with that. politically or in terms of the industry would have to change quite a lot. for that to happen. i did see there was one great quote, i can't leave this because some of you may have seen this morning's "new york times," there's a story about health jobs and how it's been health care that's been growing. of course as employers we see if health care grows that's more charging us more. so while it's jobs, it's also incomes. that means costs. but this whole thing was about how the health industry is going to have to begin to think more paragraphs moanously like -- par

simoniously. one said while he expects the demand for health care services to rise, he believes he needs to deliver that care with fewer people at less cost. this is his quote, i think that is what the nation is asking of all of us. so we are together our employers and the survey illustrates, we are trying to move this battleship in the direction of improving quality, safety, and utilization, correct services while we also reduce costs. we can do that. these data actually are aimed at -- these steps, tactics they are taking, are aimed at trying to do that. for the 160 million people in the united states who are covered by employer-sponsored care. do we have any other questions? comments? if not, thank you very much. for joining us. thank you.

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011]

>> also in washington today, the administration has called on the syrian leader to step down, issuing a statement, president obama saying i strongly condemn this brew tality, including the disgraceful attack on syrian civilians. for the sake of the syrian people the time has come for president assad to step aside. we have posted the president's statement on our website, c-span.org. you can also watch hillary clinton and her statement about the syrian government. also the european union has weighed in calling for president assad to step aside. from congress, eric cantor, the majority leader, just tweeted a short while ago saying that under the assad regime syria has been in iran proxy, a supporter of terror, i joined barack obama in calling for mr. a sad's resignation. read that at twitter.com/c-span and look for the members of congress list. live coverage today coming up. later on today a look at the

shifts in political demographics in the u.s. that gets under way at 12:30 eastern. the american enterprise institute. later the gallup polling group reports on public opinion on the u.s. education system. that's live at 3:00 p.m. eastern. and on c-span2, this afternoon, the chairman of the national transportation safety board will talk about saveation safety. she'll address the airline pilots association. that's live at 4:00 p.m. for politics and public affairs, nonfiction books, and american history, it's the c-span networks. it's all available to you on television, radio, and online. and on social media sites. search, watch, and share all our programs any time with c-span's video library. and we are on the road with our c-span digital bus and local content vehicles, bringing our resources to local communities and showing events from around the country. it's washington your way. the c-span networks. created by cable, provided as a public service.

>> texas governor and republican presidential candidate rick perry was in new hampshire wednesday where he criticized president obama's economic and job creation policies. governor perry also questioned the current science involving global warning. he made the remarks at the politics and eggs breakfast in bedford, hard money new hampshire, on his second trip to the granite state since announcing his campaign in south carolina over the weekend. this is about 40 minutes. >> thank you. to all of you very cheery good morning. it is as we were walking in, what a fabulous day. i don't think it's this way in texas. the heat may be a little bit higher in texas. right now you all are really blessed to have this beautiful weather and it's certainly good to be with you. and this politics and eggs is an

intriguing idea to say the least. governor meryl, i just want to say thank you for coming. you really honor us. dr. merrill, i want to say to you thank you for -- i know i'm going to need this before we are done. i want to say thanks to you for your son's service. dr. merrill has a united states marine who has been serving us in afghanistan and one of the reasons we are here today to have the great freedoms that we do are young men like yours. thank you again. as has already been said, i'm blessed to be traveling with my wife. actually our griffin's wife and our daughter, but they are a little bit of sleepy heads this morning.

so we gave them a little bit of the day off to catch up and rest a little bit. we got great respect for this state and your first in the nation primary. i am going to be here a lot. and i'm going to be campaigning i think the right word is with fervor, you are going to see me a lot, you are going to see me engaging often in new hampshire, and particularly just coming and sitting and listening. but also trying to answer granite staters' questions about what we see as some of the big issues that face this country. i love any state that doesn't have a personal income tax. and i'm kind of jealous of you that you don't have a sales tax, either. that really makes a huge

difference. i'll talk a little bit about your economy as a whole. live free or die. i mean you got to love that. it's remindful of a little place down in texas called the alamo. that people were willing to sacrifice for the freedoms that they hold so dear. people have asked me, why are you running for president? and i'm straight up about it. i'm running for president because i want to get america working again. that's what we need to be doing in this country is working. our nation cannot endure another four years ever rising unemployment, rising taxes, rising debt. now we are told we are in a recovery. sure doesn't feel like a recovery. i know it doesn't feel like a recovery to those 9% much americans who are unemployed.

the millions more who can't find a job. those having to work full-time or those who just absolutely quit looking. it doesn't feel like a recovery to them. one in six work eligible americans cannot find a full-time job. that is not a recovery. that is an economic disaster. monday, president obama said that he had reversed the recession. gotten the economy moving back again. but over the last six months he had run into a little bad luck. at the same time some people dismissed texas job creation, there have been some over on the left that said the fact is that those 40% of the jobs created in america since the 9th of june -- excuse me, since june of 2009, was just luck. mr. president, america's crisis is not bad luck. it's bad policies from

washington, d.c. jobs come by keeping taxes low. by controlling spending. by reforming tort laws and ensuring that regulations are fair and predictable. president obama's policies which he claims reversed the recession increased unemployment, they exploded the debt, and they led to the first downgrade of credit in our country's history. now, apparently his new economic plan is to create an agency for jobs. we need new jobs. we don't need new agencies. we don't need a government solution. we need the private sector getting to work and getting the government out of their way. if you want to stimulate the economy, let small businesses and employers across all economic sectors keep more of what they make. that's the way you stimulate the economy.

and here's another thing that we do in texas and we do -- i should say, here's another thing that they need to do to really send a message across this country.yesterday i talked about freezing all the federal regulations for 86-month -- for a six-month period of time. there has been tension between washington regulators and employers. the situation has been deteriorating. the obama administration implemented 43 new regulations that cost businesses more than

$26 billion in this country. those types of regulation -- heating equipment, pool heaters. it will cost businesses and cost their customers. $1.3 billion. the new standard is to raise the price of a typical water heater at by $120. that is one example of a book full of regulations that are strangling the economy today. money is kept in reserves instead of investing in the economy. it is the threat of regulations to come, the uncertainty that is out there.

they see this coming down the tracks, this monstrous cost to them. it's a takeover of 1/6 of the economy of the united states and it must be repealed. the president lost rhetoric -- the president's rhetoric has changed. they have not delivered. no wonder that businesses are holding money in reserve and not putting it in the economy. we have led with a few simple principles. one, do notumber spend all of the money, and have a tax structure in place that is as low as you can keep it but still be able to deliver the

needed services. it should be fair and predictable. it is so important to us that predictability in the regulatory climate. have the legal system that does not allow for frivolous lawsuits. out spring, we added two ho tort reform by passing a powerful concept called loser pays. [applause] you may. over the years come we followed this recipe to produce the strongest economy in the country since june of 2009. 40% of all the jobs in america were created in texas. it is time to do the same thing in our federal government. those simple principles will

work as well in a washington, d.c., as they do in the state of texas. it is time to simplify our taxes. we have to quit spending money we do not have. we need to get our fiscal house in order and to restore our good credit. new hampshire, you know what works. this is called the new hampshire advantage. it involved the republican legislature, cutting spending instead of raising taxes. because of view and because of those courageous legislate towards, -- those courageous you have the best economy in new england. yesterday, the president said i

needed to watch what i say. i just want to respond back, if i may. mr. president, actions speak louder than words. my actions as governor or helping to create jobs in this country. to present's action -- the president's actions are killing jobs. let's open up for a few questions come if we can. thank you for coming. [applause] >> the governor is going to take some questions. >> i will repeat the question so everybody can hear back, even in the back. >> the congress and the

president in the last several weeks of summer have been debating the debt ceiling. we do have signed that? >> if i was president, it never would have come to that. cut, cap, and balance -- we wrote an editorial and we laid out the case for cutting spending, capping that ceiling, and passing a balanced budget amendment. i would not have signed it. we have to quit spending money. this is not rocket science. spending money we don't have continues to put more debt on young women like this woman right here. the idea that we will spend more money that we do not have, i

think sends the wrong message to every part of the economy. yes, sir. >> my question is we started out with. i have to spur others that are serving. we have been at war for 10 years and men and women are coming home and they need our help. there has been talk about the issue of the v.a. i wonder what your thoughts are to honor the men and women who are coming home. >> i am a veteran. we chose the wounded warrior project to be the recipient of our inaugural proceeds. we walked in a public way and in a private way to support those young men and women who are

coming home, some who been deployed four and five times. i don't know how many times your son has been deployed. i cannot tell you how magnificent they are. i travel to iraq and afghanistan multiple times. they are selfless and sacrificial. for us not to take care of them -- the way that we have to get our economy working again, get america working again and give -- lower the taxes and the regulatory impact on these job creators. i know what americans do. they risk their capital. you give people an opportunity to have a return on their investment, and it will could out there and create jobs and create the wealth.

that's what we have done in the state of texas. that engine is so powerful. for us to have the resources coming in to the federal government so we can't fund the programs for our veterans, you have to be able to do that. you can talk about all the programs you want. if you do not have the money to be able to put into those programs, and i suggest whether we're going to have an economy that is strong enough so that we have the offensive and tactical platforms in place so that people around the world know that america is strong militarily. we have to get the economy back. that is the issue in front of us. i know there will be diversionary talk. at the end of the day, we have to get america back working

again. making sure that the v-a -- we worked with a young man who was discharged. 100% disabled and he needed some substantial help and working to get the military to understand that that, " we made a mistake here." the governor -- the former governor of mississippi. those are the types of focus that we had on our veterans, and there is not a group of young men and women that deserve our focus, our thanks, and our support than our active duty military who then become our veterans. thank you, sir. yes, ma'am. yes. >> my question refers back to

when you mentioned about business taxes. can you explain to me why g.e. should be allowed to pay a lower tax rate -- >> i cannot. that is as easy as it gets. the idea that just because you have a good relationship with the political world in washington, d.c., and just because you get chosen to be on the governor's business council is not a good enough reason that you're not paying your fair share of taxes. when small businessmen and women are struggling to keep their doors open, and you have corporate entities like g.e. -- that is a great company and have some incredible projects. but the idea that they are not

paying their fair share from the standpoint of corporate taxes -- we need to go back and and simplify the tax code and lower the impact on people. i was talking to representative scott of south carolina 10 days ago. he has a piece of legislation that lowers and bronze it heading towards a fair tax. it is heading in the right direction that we have a national conversation about our tax structure and how simple fly and how would lower it. here is another issue from my perspective. corporate profits that are offshore that we taxed at 35%. we know for a fact that money is not coming back. they will leave that offshore. why not look and talk about how

you repatriate those dollars and have those dollars focused on job creation, but allow them to come back in a substantially lower rate than 35%. something like -- if it is going for job creation, like zero to get this economy working again. yes, ma'am. >> there is in a lot of things we cannot always agree on. medical malpractice. something that was not addressed and something that is driving up costs. [inaudible] i know you have addressed taxes. [inaudible]

>> medical malpractice, something that is -- texas -- we were a judicial hellhole back in the early 1990 bonds. we started addressing tort reform in 1995 with some good steps in the right direction. 2003 is when we made the big impact in texas and we put in place some serious protections against frivolous lawsuits. the doctor or the nursing homes would be protected from these out of sight settlements. there were a lot of people who said, this is not going to work. it will limit people's access

health care and the courthouse. none of those things came true. none of them. one of the result was predict last year -- 21,000 more positions -- physicians practicing medicine because they know they can go there and not be sued frivolously. 30 counties in texas now have an emergency room doctor. counties along the rio grande, litigious counties where women were having to travel for miles and miles to find and ob/gyn, to seek prenatal-type care. that is the result of medical malpractice reform, tort reform, that really makes a difference. and people still have their

access to the courthouse. they still have the ability to go in front of a jury trial. we protected against the frivolous suits. that is very important. i think that has to be done state by state. federal courts and federal law, tort reform, i support that and hope there are members of the legislature that will come forward with those types of programs. but state tort reform does not need to come from washington, d.c. yes, sir. [inaudible] >> community-based programs as an alternative.

one the most effective programs that the government runs is capital punishment. is there any -- can you foresee a point in which we decide this is not worth it? >> again, i think that is a state by state issue. it is interesting to have the conversations about all these different issues that people think a constitutional amendment needs to be passed for. if there are enough people in america and enough states that believe capital punishment needs to be prohibited across the country, then that will happen. if not, then state-by-state they will make that decision. texas has said they support capital punishment. i lay it out there as an issue for americans.

and state by state, if we want to pass a constitutional amendment, i will work harder on a balanced budget amendment to the constitution than i and a constitutional amendment to ban capital punishment. yes, sir. yes, sir. >> you wrote that global warming is contrived and the earth is experiencing a cooling trend scientists say false awful -- fossil fuel combustion -- if scientific data is wrong on an issue involving thousands of scientists, a dozen this call

into question the entire science discovery project that has formed the foundation? >> you may have a point. i think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects. we're seeing it almost weekly or daily scientists who are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change. our climate is changing and has been changing ever since the earth was formed. i did not buy into a group of scientists who have in some cases found to be manipulating

this information. the cost to the country and to the world of implementing these anti-carbon programs is in the billions if not trillions of dollars at the end of the day. i do not think from my perspective that i do not want america to be engaged in spending that much money on still a scientific theory that has not been proven. is it more and more being put into question from my perspective. yes, sir. >> in light of the terrible debt that the country has right now, notwithstanding the unfunded liabilities for entitlements, most of the debt in this country

can be traced -- it wasn't a problem until there was a federal reserve system. i'm wondering -- >> i got in trouble talking about the federal reserve yesterday. [laughter] i got lectured about that yesterday. [laughter] >> i wonder if you would be an advocate of at least auditing the federal reserve. >> there have been a number of candidates who have stood up over the course of the months and questioned the transparency of the federal reserve. whether you're the governor of a state, whether you're the president of the united states, or if an independent branch of government -- not a branch but an agency of government like the

federal reserve, they should open their books up, they should be transparent so the people of the united states know what they are doing and frankly i think if -- the mistrust that is there today, if they would open up and be transparent with the american people, it would go a long way towards either finding out whether there is activities that are improper, or that they have been handling themselves well. until they do that, they look -- there will continue to be questions about their activity and what their true goal is for the united states. yes, sir. >> thank you for coming to new hampshire. in this year -- in federal fiscal year 2007, the annual

deficit was $200 billion. the total gdp was $14.3 trillion. today, the annual deficit is $1.6 trillion. basically, we have been in a holding pattern since the end of the last republican budget. as president, will you do about fixing the problem? >> obviously working with the house of representatives and the senate's -- i am a biased -- i am a little bias but i hope we pick up more seats and have 60 republican senators to work with. that would make it a lot easier from my perspective. and then working with those legislative bodies to put a budget in place that is

balanced and start freeing up the private sector to create the wealth that it will take to pay off that close to $16 trillion national debt. but the legislator for whatever reason does not agree that that is the way that we should go, the president has one other powerful tool, and that is his to veto spending bills. i love this country and not to wear out the ink in a veto pen if that is what it takes. our children's future is more important than that. .es, ma'am >> good morning. i am a mother of a united states marine and i'm an advocate -- i

know your opening remarks in reference to our state model -- "live free or die." -- our state motto. i wonder how you recognize -- reconcile that with the mandate for medical treatment. if that was a mistake, then you reconcile your recent support of legislation or the state of texas now mandates medical treatment so, specifically the meningitis vaccine for college students up to age 30. >> my wife is a registered nurse. her father is a physician for 52-plus years. both my parents are cancer

survivors. we passed a piece of legislation in texas in 2007, the same year that i signed that executive order, to invest $3 billion over the next 10 years to find the cures for cancer. the issue for me was one of cancer. i made a mistake. clearly, in how we put that forward without working with the legislature. but it did create not only a firestorm but it also created a conversation between parents, mothers and their daughters, that i think was healthy, so that they could make that decision about whether they could have access. the legislator sent me the message. that was not the way they wanted to go.

i respected that and i still respect it today. the idea we have diseases that are killing our children and that we have proven vaccines like the one for meningitis and that we are not making it available, i think it's unconscionable. i think it is our responsibility to take care of the citizens of our states. it's a state issue and the texas legislature agreed with that. i signed that piece of legislation. if you do not want to do that in new hampshire, i respect that. but in texas, we think it is important to protect our kids against a number of diseases and we mandate vaccines for those. it goes to the legislative process.

i learned a good lesson about not getting in front of the legislation too far. >> you spoke about the private- sector in support of bringing our economy back in line. i'm wondering how and what your plan is to remove and transition the heavy government involvement in on constitutional matters into the private sector. >> it is not going to happen -- her question was how do you remove the regulatory impact that is very pervasive throughout our economy and how did you move our country back towards eight more federalist type of an approach. is that a fair way -- >> right.

>> yes, ma'am. in my book that the referenced, "fed up" -- you can find that at barnes and noble or amazon.com. [laughter] to me.ceeds don't go i talk about that in the book, that would have gone away from our roots and that the government, the centralized government and -- it is human nature to acquire more power. whether it is in a state or at a county or city level. we need to wean ourselves away from that. on the regulatory side, if i'm

blessed to be elected president of the united states, there will be men and women going into those agencies that are clearly pro-business advocates and that they will bring that philosophy with them. that is one of the things that's missing in washington, d.c. we almost have an anti-business climate there. the idea that the national labor relations board would stop a company like boeing from going into a right to work states like south carolina is beyond me. that is -- if you need a bumper sticker snapshot of what is wrong with this administration, that is a great one. so having -- i'm a pro-business governor. i did not make any apologies to anyone about that. i'm going to be a pro-business

president. i think that is the future of america, that we get this country working again. yes, sir. in the back. you get the last question, sir. yes, sir. [inaudible] >> thank you for coming. the question about the debt and deficit reduction. cutting back on -- [inaudible] helping the economy grow. tell us about the retirement savings -- >> i agree with your position. there should be incentives out

of government for specific things, whether it is energy and trying to get this country more energy independent. i think you should have a conversation about how we give incentives to those. there should be incentives for people to save so they can become more personally responsible. incentives work. we will have a great and broad conversation about which ones are right and which ones are not. people respond to incentives. we use them in the state of texas to help bring this is there to help compete with other states. those offshore profits that are being taxed at 35%, we should give those companies an incentive to bring that money

back to the united states to create jobs. thank you for letting me come today to be part of this debate. [applause] >> good job, governor. i want to thank the government for taking time out of his busy schedule to stop by. we wish him much success and good health as the journeys through the great state of new hampshire. he will spend a great deal of time here. i cannot think of a better gift than a texas-sized mug. right, governor? good luck. [applause]

>> i am honored to be here. yes, ma'am.

>> do you have a better plan? lovely. >> will you walk with me? >> i will.

more video of the candidates. track the latest political contributions with the c-span website. it is easy to use with twitter feeds and facebook updates from the campaign. plus links to c-span media partners. >> a look at our live coverage in about an hour. changing population will result in eight democratic majority in the years to come. that is live at 12:30. the public perception of public education. deborah hersman talks about aviation safety.

that will be at 4:00 p.m. >> for politics and public affairs, it is the c-span network, available on television, radio, and online. search, watch, and share all of our programs with c-span's video library. bringing our resources to local communities and showing events from around the country. it is washington your way. created by cable. provided as a public service. >> president obama this morning released a statement calling for syrian president assad to step down. hillary clinton made brief remarks shortly thereafter. >> good morning.

for months, the world has borne itness to the assad regime's contempt for their own people. syrians are demanding their universal human rights. the regime has answered their demands with empty promises and horrific violence, torture and opposition leaders, laying siege to cities, slaughtering thousands of unarmed civilians including children. the assad government has been condemned by countries in all parts of the world bank and look only to iran for support for its brutal and on just crack downs. this morning, president obama call assad on to step aside and announced the strongest set of sanctions to date targeting the

syrian government. these sanctions include the energy sector, and to increase pressure on the regime. the transition to democracy has begun and it is time for assad to get out of the way. no outside power can or should impose on this transition. it is up to the syrian people to choose their own leaders in a democratic system based on the rule of law and dedicated to protecting the rights of all citizens regardless of religion, sex, or gender. we understand the strong desire of the syrian people that no foreign country should intervene in their struggle, and we respect their wishes. at the same time, we will do our part to support their aspiration for a syria that is democratic,

not just, and inclusive. and we will stand up for their universal right and dignity by pressuring the regime and assad personally to get out of the way of this transition. as we have worked to expand the circle of global condemnation, we have backed up our words with actions. as i have said, it does take both words and actions to produce results. since the unrest began, we have imposed strong financial sanctions on assad. we have the sanction the commercial bank of syria for supporting the regime's illicit nuclear proliferation activities, and we have led efforts to isolate the regime from keeping them off the schuman rights council to achieving a strong presidential

statement of condemnation at the u.n. security council. the steps that president obama announced this morning will further tighten the circle of isolation around the regime. his executive order freezes all assets of the government of syria that are subject to american jurisdiction and prohibits american citizens from engaging in any transaction with the government of syria or investing in that country. these action strike at the heart of the regime by banning american imports of the syrian petroleum and petroleum products and prohibiting americans from dealing in these products. as we increase pressure on the assad regime to disrupt its ability to finance its campaign of violence, we will take steps to mitigate any unintended effects of the sanctions on the syrian people.

we will continue to work with the international community. if the syrian people are to achieve their goal, other nations will have to provide support and take actions as well. in the past two weeks, many of syria's own neighbors have joined the chorus of condemnation. we expect that they and other members of the international community will apple flight the steps we're taking through their words and through their actions. we are heartened that the security council will meet again to discuss this ongoing threat to international peace and stability. we're working to schedule a special session of the united nations human rights council dole examine the regime's widespread abuses. i explained how the united states has been encased in a relentless and systematic effort with the international

committee pursuant a set of actions and statements that make crystal clear where we all stand and generating broader and deeper pressure on the assad regime. the people of syria deserve a government that respects their dignity, protect their rights, and lives up to their aspirations. assad is standing in their way. for the sake of the syrian people, the time has come for him to step aside and leave this transition to the syrians themselves. and that's what we will continue to work to achieve. thank you all very much.

>> secretary clinton from earlier today. you can find the present's statement -- you can find the president's statement online and c-span.org. we look at the shifts in political demographics in the united states at the american enterprise interest --institute at 12:30. deborah hersman on c-span2 will be speaking this afternoon, addressing the airline pilots association and that is coming up at 4:00 p.m. eastern on c- span2. aught withry fr natural disasters. >> these assassinations were

welcomed, were congratulated by many pakistanis. these are not terrorists, not al qaeda, not taliban but ordinary pakistanis who feel that their religion is threatened, that the country is becoming too secular, that the islamic values are under attack, and that blasphemy is something to be defended with your life. >> sunday night on c-span's "q &a." >> the president is expected to make a speech on behalf of former governor ed rendell. this is from this morning's " washington journal." is gov. ed

rendell, former governorf pennsylvania, two-term governor and he is co-chaired of a group called building america's future. what is baf, governor grendell? guest: in january of 2008, gov. schwarzenegger, gov. bloomberg of new york city, and myself, started this organization dedicated to try to convince the country and the congress to d a long-term infrastructure revitalization program. interestingly, at that time, almost every developed nation in the world had either undergone or was presently undergoing a decade-long infrastructure revitalization program. spending real dollars going infrastructure at scale, not only bolstering the short-term economy of the countries but the long-term economic competitivenes our report that we release last monday was called "falling behind-falling apart."

20of our roads are inferior. the site of engineers ranked our nation's infrastructure as a and the roads and bridges d- minus. in 2005, the world economic forum -- world economic forum said we have the best interest of and the world and now we are 15th best. the air transport infrastructure is 32nd best in the world behind countries like malaysia and panama. in ports, 22nd. we are falling apart and behind our competitor nations and by falling behind, it is going to cost our economy and our economic competitiveness in the long run. mayor bloomberg and i dedicated to try to convince the people as well as our legislates doors

that we have to do something and do it very quickly and at a significant scale over the long term this next decade. host: how much do we currently spend onransportation infrastructure -- and specifically when you talk about infrastructure, transportation infrastructure? guest: it is and it isn't. we talk about infrastructure and rebuilding it, we are talking about more than just transportation but talk about broadband, the electrical grid, the dams and levees. a lot of things that go into infrastructure behind -- beyond tranortation. but to answer the transportation question, the congress around four years ago -- there was the surface transportation reform commission and they found we spend $84 billion a year, state, local, federal, and a little private money, and infrastructure, transportation. they recommended that we needed to spend $220 billion a year, so at an increase of about 140

billion just for transportation infrastructure. at baf, we think everything put together -- school buildings, you name it -- we need to spend an additional $200 billion a year. host: where would this $200 billion come from? guest: the good news it is not all federal money, by any means. a lot of it would come from the infrastructure bank the president has correctly talked about. if you fund it at $25 billion or $30 billion it could boost $500 billion of private-sector funding. american had funds and investors are ready to invest in infrastructure because it's got a stable return. chinese funds are looking to invest an american and the structure, and european funds. so, we think the $500 billion figure is easily obtainable. secondly, state and local governments picked up about 45% to 50% of the overall bill.

thirdly, what i would do is, you know there is $1.40 triion in taxes owed to the united states by foreign companies who are holding that money abroad. most of those countries want to repatriate -- they don't want to pay 34%. they are looking to pay 5%. 5% is too little. what i would do is have them bring it home at 15%, put all the money into our infrastructure program and that would produce another $220 billion. and if we spent $200 billion additional a year, this is the fact of people have tohink about. according to every expert, including our own transportatn department, $1 billion of infrastructure spending creates 25,000 jobs -- jobs at the roadside, waste water treatment facilities, but also jobs back at factories producing this deal, asphalt, concrete, the timber, that is necessary to do the things we need to do to

repair and revitalize our infrastructure. so, if you do that, $200 million of additional spending --00 billion of additional spending would produce 5 million new jobs in 10 years and that is the single most important thing we can do to revive the american economy in the short run and in the long run to make it competitive niche -- competitive. i was listening to mark from idaho who was complaining about a lot of the first stimulus money being unspent, and in most cases the money was spent and spent wisely. the president himself said it was a little slow getting off the mark. there is a solution. interestingly, when the governors, all 50, met with the president a month after he was elected, before he had become president, we met in philadelphia to talk about stimulus -- we all advocated strong infrastructure spending. the last stimulus did not spend nearly enough on infrastructure -- $69 billion out of $850

billion, 7%. it secondly, we urged the president to do something of use it or lose it. meaning, you gave the state a time period -- pennsylvania got a billion dollars. you say to pennsylvania if half of that money is not spent, if the job and hirings had not begun in four months, you lose that have. and if it is not done in 67 months, you lose that half. and it gets transferred to states who are using their money quickly and effectively. use it or lose it. it is amazing, if you tell a contractor i have a big contract for you -- that is the good news. the bad news is you got to get your bid in in one month as opposed to three and you cannot dillydally around. if you order that bid, you have to start working in two months, you would be surprised how fast the respond. host: the gas tax is 18.4%.

in your view, should be raised? where does it currently go? guest: first of all, we don't think you can raise the gas tax right now st because the economy is so bad and it would be difficult. but we do believe over long run it should be raised. it should be raised by a signifant level and we should index it to inflation. interestingly, peter, building america's future poll found that most americans think that the gas tax is indexed to inflation. that it goes up automatically each and every year. it is not true. the gas tax has not gone up since 1993. there is virtually nothing that we do or spend money on in our society that has not gone up significantly in the last 18 years. and the gas tax -- when the ecomy gets better, it should be raised. it probably should be phased in over two or three years. but we do need to raise the gas

tax -- again, in the short run. because a long run we have to find aetter way to pay for transportation because cars will be using less gas, cars that aren't going to be running on gas at all and we estimate sure they are paying their fair share. but in the end, you have to pay. you get what you pay for. interestingly, people seem to look at infrastructure a little different from other spending. in the november election, november 2010, arguably the most anti-spending conservative election we have had in my lifetime, 6 of the infrastructure ballot referendums were approved by the voters. even though it meant either additional taxes, additional tolling or borrowing -- 64%, in red states as well as blue states. charleston, south carolina, the rightist -- reddish devoted to increase the taxes twice, once

to revitalize the port of charleston which voters understood was so crucial to their wellbeing, and second, to help prepare a vital bridge -- repair a vital bridge that is important to the city's economy as well as the quality of life. we have not touched on how important infrastructure is to our quality of life and public safety. how many bridges have to collapse? , need levees have to break? how many pipelines have to blow up before we get around to doing what we ought to be doing? host: it you would like to talk to former pennsylvania governor ed rendell, now head of building america's future about infrastructure spending and job creation -- you can also tweet in, of

course, oan e-mail. on monday, president obama talked about one aspect of infrastructure spending that want to get your comment on. >> no one has been hit harder than constction workers. for us to say at a time when interest rates are low, contractors begging for work, construction workers lining up to find jobs, let's rebuild america out and we could be rebuilding roads and bridges and parks all across america right now. [applause] to put hundreds of thousands of folks to work right now. there is a bill sitting in congress right now that would set up an infrastructure bank to get that movement.

congress needs to move. host: i want to get your comment about the infrastructure bank proposal. guest: if we did infrastructure right, it is millions of jobs. the infrastructure bank is important. number one, it would make decisions on projects of regional and national significance based on merit. not the old political system of who has the most powerful congressman or senator. number two, it would access private sector dollars spending they want to come in and invest in american in for structure projects with there is a rate of return. number three, the president talks about capitalizing at $5 billion a year for the next five years at. that is important.

that need to be participation to act as leverage. it is absolutely needed and necessary. the president should do it quickly but. i got a great person to head up the infrastructure bank. former senator george cohen of which was a former governor and mayor and knows about infrastructure. he is a big infrastructure advocate. host: the first call comes from street louis, mississippi. curtis, you're on the air. caller: how are you doing? i ameeing some pretty good progress along interstate 10 from baton rouge to texas. i could not agree with you more .bout the bridges spendin

it is starting to crack and crumble. it is the year 200011. we do not need to have four- interstates. they ought to be fixed by now. guest: you do not know how right you are spending between 1980 and 2006, the last year we had these statistics, the trucks and cars on the road increased by 103%, but our capacity increase by 84%. it is in street to keep doing what we are doing. i think republicans, independents, and even some tea party advocates know there is a difference between government spending that is not effective and investments in our long-term infrastructure. there is no question about it. i think the president can get

infrastructure and some form of investment now to create jobs in that bill if everyone in the congress and the president himself is serious about deficit reduction. we need to get serious long-term deficit reduction are around the $4 trillion mark. we also have to raise a little bit of revenue. i do not think people think is right that corporations paid no federal tax. we have to change that. in the short-term as well as the long term, we have to invest in our future, things like infrastructure, research to create decent, american jobs. host: this tweet coming in to you -- guest: no, we are not. if we do the right things we

have to do to reduce the deficit and cut spending, we can, at the same time, invest. every economist has looked at that. the simpson-bowles commission, the deficit reduction commission, alan simpson has said we have to invest because right now we may be out of money, but i do not think we are, but right now for the average american, they are more interested in jobs and getting their brother in law back to work and getting their son on the payroll. that is what they are interested in. the most important thing for all of us to realize is we can do both. we can do enough investment right now to stimulate the economy and put people back to work.

if we do deficit reduction this much. we can do both, and we should do both. host: an independent from virginia. you e on with former pennsylvania governor ed rendell. caller: i really love pennsylvania. several years ago, made a trip from abington up through altoona to niagara falls. i went up 219. at that time, you had to go through a 100 small towns. are you familiar with that area? guest: i gave a lot of state money and the appalachian regional money to build up and eliminate those bypasses, to

build up 219 from the border all the way up to the new york state border. is a perfect example of a road that needs to be built, not just for our quality of life, but to make that region competitive. the state invested in buildings that road, and we are starting to do it. the interesting thing is i was accused in pennsylvania of being a big spender. i did spend money on infrastructure. today, pennsylvania has a 7.5% unemployment rate, almost two points lower than the national average. it is not an accident. caller: would you consider a toll road for 219? host: we will g an answer to that. are you a semi truck driver?

caller: i am retired now pending i had a smaller truck. the towns were so close together it tehe speed limits so low, took forever to get up there. i did not seek nationally advertised restaurants or motels. host: are you in favor of toll roads? caller: yes, i wouldn't paid big time to not go through those small towns with low speed limits. guest: you are absolutely right. you get when you pay for. you get it when you go shopping for a tv set, a washing machine, or a car. you spend $11,000 on a car, you are not going to get a car that runs at the same as a $20,000 car. if we want infrastructure for

public safety and our economy, you build significant 219. we tried to build id without tolls, but if you build a significant road, you will see the economic development grown- up all along that corridor. it would be great for business and e local people as well. a toll is a small price to pay for that. you can in fact get private dollars to invest to help you with the build out. that return on investment can come from tolls. host: i think all of us that live on the east coast have driven the pennsylvania turnpike at one point or another. where does the money go thats collected on that turnpike? guest: 100% of it goes back to

the turnpike itself, a small part to administration. when i first became governor, the turnpike commission came to me and said we need to raise tolls. i said ok that sounds reasonable. what do you going to do with the toll money? 100% is going to go into fixing the turnpike up. the pennsylvania turnpike is the oldest toll road in the country. so, i said, fine. how much do you want to raise it? 41%. they said, governor, that is what it would be if we raised it consistent to inflation since 1991. i got approval. a good seven-letters. -- i got seven negative letters.

host: the next call comes from rhode island. the democrats' line. caller: it is such an honor to speak with you. i am a big fan and a supporter of infrastructure. if you cld, i would like you to expand a little bit and speak to the importance of broadband, particularly for economic development in small, rural communities like ours. i think it is really critical. guest: the president has said he wants 98% of america to be connected by broadband, and he is right. we are not close to that particularly in rural areas. we need to build out our broadband system. there are several ways to do that. the private sector -- i am a fan

of the private sector bank the private sector goes where there are profits to be made. sometimes in rural areas, there are not enough customers to make a profit. there has to be a form of incentives for them to do it. there is no question. there is new technology. there is a company that is trying to use satellites to bring us out broadband coverage to 98% of the country. the at&t t-mobile merger is supposedly at&t is going to use a part of the spectrum that t- mobile has used to build out its network. we need to bring broadband to virtually every part of this country. do you know what we also need, laura? we need high-speed rail.

not everywhere in the country. we need in at least three corridors where i believed it would pay for itself. one is the california coastline. two, chicago. 3 is washington to boston. it averages 70 miles per hour. can you imagine if we had a high-speed rail line that averaged 170 miles per hour? if you could get from washington to new york in an hour and 20 minutes? no one would take the shuttle any more. it would do wonders for our air transport system. americans that travel to asia and europe, people would come back to me and say what is wrong th us?

why does spain have trains that go to ndred 20 miles per hour and there is nothing like that here? the chinese are spending billions of dollars a year to build out a high-speed rail network. host: ed rendell was t national committee chair in 2000. governor, the president has talked about this speech he would be given after labor day on jobs. what would be your advice? guest: heavy on infrastructure. use it or lose it. that is the way we could have the quickest impact. number two, do some infrastructure in long-term planning. most importantly at all, wrap the investment program in a big package that calls for serious deficit reduction across the

board. no sacred cows. some of the entitment programs have to be looked at. you can do it over the long term. simpson-bowles recommended changes in medicare and social security that did not go into effect until 2050. i would do it earlier than that because we need more of a significant impact. if you put the jobs bill into significant defici reduction where we raise revenue and close loopholes, i think everybody wants to see those loopholes osed. lets close them. a lot of unintentional damage to the country. there is revenue that needs to be raised as well as spending cutshat have to be made. if we do it all together in that

speech, the president will captured the nation's imagination, look like a leader, and then is up to the congress to do something that is going to put americans to work. host: would you like to clarify your comment about hillary clinton running in 2016? guest: the interviewer asked me if i thought hillary clinton would ever run president again. i said possibly and probably in 2016. she is not going to run in 2012. i know from talking to her, she believes the president has done a good job. she also says she is not going to run again for any public office. i believe she is telling the truth circa 2011. ihink those of us who care about her and think she would be

a great president, we might have a chance to persuade her to do so. host: mclean, va., bivia is on the republican line. -- olivia is on the republicans blind. caller: i am glad you are on the station this morning. i have comments to make that i wish you would address. one is the boston fiasco where they said they would spend $3 billion and it turned out to cost $15 billion and still growing. the idea is if you say you only have to snd $3 billion, people will approve it and then just keep increasing the amount. it is standard operating procedure for construction companies. the second thing is i don't understand the infrastructure

bank. i do believe in public-private partnerships, and i wish you would explain that further. also, i am so sad that you do not have some republicans on your committee. i think you haveome very strong democrats that understand the need, that there are republicans that do, too, and wish you would include some of your republican friends to join you in this effort. guest: in fact, governor schwarzenegger who is a republican, mike bloomberg had become an independent by 2008, and i was the only democrat on the group. we have enlisted a lot of members. scott smith to the republican mayor of arizona -- he and i have authored several op ed

piece is all around the country. we have a number of republican people who are part of building america's future. 1 very conservative republican has been a leader in preaching we ought to spend on infrastructure. there are republicans out there who get this issue, who get it loud and clear. it has to be bipartisan. infrastructure has always been a big republican issue. the infrastructure bank is not for the ordinary road paving and bridge rebuilding. that money would still come through the federal transportation act and go out to the states by a formula. would determine how that money is spent just like it

is normally. the infrastructure bank, the government money in there, that money would be used to write down interest on loans, maybe on a few rare occasions grants, but mostly loans. let's say we have a project -- michigan decides they need to build a whole new highway, but they need up front money from the private sector. the infrastructure bank would find who in the private sector is interested in doing that, work with michigan to leverage investment, and the banktself might long michin money to pay down the interest rate on its bonds or help with the private- sector to put in the money necessary. let's say the private sector was willing to invest 80% of the

cost, mich. 15% of the cost. the infrastructure bank would lower michigan the last five%. let's go to los angeles. voters voted to increase their sales tax by half a penny to do an incredible amount of infrastructure snding over the next 30 years. a leader on the infrastructure movement wants to spend that money up front now, but he needs money up front. the infrastructure bank could loaned los angeles the money and get a repayment from additional sales tax. there are many different ways that the infrastructure bank could leverage private money with a little governmen money. the european union clones out money and it makes a slight return. with a loan that money way below

interest rates what the normal loan would be. that helps enable projects to get off the dime. contractors do it all the time. in pennsylvania, we did it while i was governor. we could disqualify you for bidding on contracts if you had a pattern. you add constant cost over runs by the time you were done. he would be disqualified from doing that. -- you would be disqualified from doing that. bid the get rid of them. host: we are talking to former pennsylvania governor ed rendell about infrastructure spending. he is co-chair of building america's future.

next call comes from cape cod, mass., mike. caer: yes, governor, it is good to hear you speaking. i am a retired disabled veteran, and i agree with your high-speed rail systeid. -- system idea. i find if you want to lower the interest rates on bonds in order to boost revenues for infrastructure, you need to maybe consider temporary switching of the bond to gold system temporarily. it is going for $1,800 almost an ounce. guest: i do not know if that is legally feasible, but it would be a terrific idea. the caller reminded me one of

the things i would do if we launched into this 10-year infrastructure revitalization program that creates 5 million new jobs, i would take a hunk of those jobs and makthem available for our returning soldiers and sailors and marines from operation iraqi freedom and operation in during freedom in afghanistan. i was shocked to hear is that 30% of the returning veterans from those two wars are unemployed. they would make excellent construction workers. we should have a special program where we train them and put them into these decent paying jobs. host: governor rendell, do u understand where the governors of ohio and florida were coming fromhen they said no to federal funds for high-speed rail?

guest: again, i have not had a chance to speak to any of them. i know john k. sick from his days in e congress. they must have decided that the benefit from high-speed rail in their states was outweighed by the costs that the states would have to come up with to match the program. without being on the ground there, i cannot say if that analysis is right or wrong. theyere also afraid of cost overruns. what happens if it turns out to be three times x? that is the same concern debt gov. christie -- that gov. christie raised in new york. if that analysis is correct, you

cannot argue with them. i think ohio would be a state where some high-speed rail would be very valuable. i think that would be true in parts of florida as well. i do not know the cost benefit analysis well enough to comment on it. i would say that we should not build high-speed rail erywhere. there are places where we do not need a. in the three corridors that i talked about, you can bet that we have the density and the potential ridership. can you imagine what a high- speed rail line at 180 miles per hour would make? host: leonard is on the democrats' line. caller: good morning. host: please go ahead with your comments. caller: i know that everybody

talks about jobs, jobs, jobs. what they are talking about is people with college educations and going into computers and things like that. i am originally from massachusetts. what i was getting at is how about bringing back something from the roosevelt era like the ccc and the wpa? guest: first of all, again think the private sector can do most things better than the government. that is number one. number two, iwould take the creation of a huge government bureaucracy to manage debt. number three, it would be slow getting up and running. and there are things that i

think if i was doing a jobs bill -- i will give you a good example. we have to programs -- two programs. we hired mostly young people for one or two-year stints for those programs. they provide an incredibly important service. now, we could hire in that program almost 60,000 young people. by the way, high school graduates are the single worst demographic when it comes to unemployment. 60,000 young people, $900 million. if we'd least that money -- we released that money, those young people would be on the job by december 1. earning money, providing a service. that is a government program that exists already.

it could be used very quickly. and another thing that we could do quickly is fha, fannie mae and freddie mac own 300,000 homes that are in foreclosure. most of them need work. the federal government is trying to sell as homes with no market. what they ought to do is hire workers through the private sector to get rid of those homes quickly. put them out to rental. you can use those revenues to help us save it is signifint amount of the cost fixing them up. we could put those workers to work in two months. there are a lot of things we can do. the transportation financing program -- there is 300 there

is $3 billion that has been allocated that has not been awarded yet. let's get those sings out. that is 75,000 new, good paying jobs. let's get those things out tomorrow. there is a lot that the president can do. i hope the republins and conservative democrats act responsibly for the country's well-being. host: who is the biggest republican threat in the presidential race to president obama? guest: i think governor mitt romney. that is a ticket that would appeal to many voters. theink they've are strongest candidate because they do not scare anybody. gov. rick perry has scared the

bejabbers out of a lot of people. i am a mitch daniels fan. he and i used to testify before committees on the privatization of transportation assets. we almost >> watch more video of the candidates. see what political reporters are saying and track the latest campaign contributions with c-span's website for campaign 2012. easy to use, it helps you navigate the political landscape with twitter feeds and facebook updates from the campaigns, candidate bios and the latest polling data plus links to c-span media partners in the primary caucus states. all at c-span.org/campaign2012.

>> it's a country fraught with corruption, natural disasters, and islamic extremists. >> what was really shocking to me and many people in pakistan was that these assassinations were welcomed. were congratulated by many pakistanis. these are not terrorists. not al qaeda. not taliban but ordinary pakistanis who feel that their religion is threatened. that the country's becoming too secular. that the islamic values are under attack and that blasphemy, anything that insults the prophet or islam is something to be defended with your life. >> "washington post" correspondent, pamela constable, sunday night on c-span's "q&a." here on c-span we are live at the american enterprise institute to hear from two political scholars debating how

changing u.s. demographics are shifting the political landscape for 2012 and beyond. we are going to hear from ruy teixeira and michael barone of the american enterprise institute. it should get under way in a couple minutes. we'll have it live for you once it starts here on c-span. else where in washington today, the administration announcing calling for syrian president assad to step aside. the u.s. joining britain, france, germany, and the european union in a series of demands for the president, president assad to resign. president obama saying assad has lost all credibility as a leader. this ahead of the president heading on vacation to martha's vineyard. we asked our callers this morning, testimonyic callers on "washington journal" about the impact of the president's bus trip over the last couple of days. we'll show you some of those comments while we wait for this live event to get under way. picture of president obama in atkinson "the washington times."

picture of president obama in atkinson yesterday.

that is from "the washington times." here is "the new york times" this morning. far from the capital, obama finds his woes has followed him.

that is in "the new york times." and here is "the new york post" this morning. ee"washington journal" live every day at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. next up a couple of political scholars debating how u.s. demographics, changing demographics are shifting the political landscape. we are going to hear from ruy teixeira from american center for progress, and michael barone from the enterprise institute which is hosting the event right

now on c-span. >> good afternoon. good afternoon, everyone. welcome to the american enterprise debate. my name is carlen and i'm a senior fellow. the american enterprise debate topics have varied widely. paul ryan and david brooks inaugurated this series with the debate on how much government is good government. in our most recent debate the economist, tyler collin, faced off a philosopher on whether social media destroyed friendships. you can see all of these debates on the website at www.aei.org. the idea behind the debates is to offer a simple provocative question and bring two of the best people together. this is no small task and i'd like to thank and salute my colleague, my a.e.i. colleague who is sitting in the corner whose brainchild this series was

and kristen dash who works in the liaison shop for working to make this particular debate a reality. i'm excited to be moderating today because of the poll watcher at a.e.i., the democratic majority is central to the work that i do. there's another reason i'm very happy to be here. i wear another hat at a.e.i., um' the amateur historian of the institute and i watched think tanks grow and change for more than 30 years. think tanks play an important role historically as intermediateating institutions that provide the hard data on which policymakers can form opinions. but today's hyper partisan environment threatens to undermine that important role. i expect that our two debaters today probably disagree on many political issues, perhaps even on first principles. but they have in common a deep respect for the daa and for history. the knowledge of the ruy teixeira from the american center for progress and michael

barone from a.e.i. bring political demom gra if i and geography is unparalleled. they differ but they share a belief that debate can be civil and think tanks can play a construct yil role. on to our subject. in 1969 a small publishing house called arlington house published a book that made a very big impression. the emerging republican majority was written by kevin phillips. after graduating harvard law school in 1964, phillips came to washington to work on capitol hill for a republican congressman. he went to work for the nixon campaign in 1968 and he dedicated this book to richard nixon and attorney general john mitchell, then nixon's campaign manager. phillips talked about his passion for voting patterns, for, and i'm quoting from the book, american history, geography, politics, economics, and sociology that converge at the ballot box. michael and ruy share their same passion. phillips believed in the

cyclical theory of american politics. arguing that there were clear cycles of ideology, population movement, and reasonalism. 1968 he argued was a turning point for realignment just as 1828, 1960, 189 , and 19342 before had been. he did not believe the republicans had created a new majority in 1968, simply that the ingredients for one were there. phillips emerging republican majority in the 1970's was centered in the south, the west, and in middle american urban and suburban districts. he believed we were seeing the end of an era, the new deal democratic hegemony, and beginning of a new republican era, it emerged full-blown in 1980. in their 2002 took, ruy and his able co-author argued that we are at a similar turning point but one that will yield very different results from those of kevin phillips' predicted. they believe the republican era

is over and we seeing an emerging democratic majority, title of their book. the first signs could be seen in the early 1990's with bill clinton's victory, ross perot's independent candidacy, and the self-described i.n.s. pentz many of whom lean to the democrats. teixeira argues that unlike past political alliance, this realignment like the one that began in 1968 would be more gradual with forward motion and backsliding along the way. realignments happen, they argue, when the emerging majority party creates a new coalition by winning over voters from its rival party and increasing its sway over its own voters whose ranks have typically increased through birth, immigration, and economic change. they argued that majority coalitions are not necessarily homogeneous, and they use the lovely metaphor of an old city that is periodically rebuilt. the city may still be recognizable by its new buildings and streets, but it also contains older structures.

the new democratic majority includes some rage and bush democrats but also includes three groups that are becoming a larger and more powerful part of the electorate. i'll let ruy describe them. arguing against the proposition is my a.e.i. colleague, michael barone. like ruy, he's also a keen student of political history. he believes we are now in what he calls an era of open field politics where neither party will be dominant for very long. let me give you the ground rules for this debate. each debater will present five minute opening argument after which a bell will ring. and you will hear the bell. then we will have a 235-minute question and answer question -- 25-minute question and answer poured, i time i hope you will send questions on paper to the front of the room. pass them up. if you are -- you can also submit your questions on twitter using the slash tag a.e.i. debate, and then after we have

the 25-minute question and answer period, we will have five-minute closing statements. let the debate begin. ruy. >> thanks for that excellent introduction. and summary of my book. it was actually completely accurate which is not always the case when people summarize our book and thesis. are we going to get like not only the bell but like intermediate levels? ok. just checking. all right. what is the claim, then, that we are discussing here today? i think it's good to get some clarity on it. i'll take this from the flyer which i think was taken from something i wrote. america's demography is shifting in direction that will permanently benefit the democratic party. i substitute for that, for a long time, because i don't believe in permanent leans or permanent restructuringings of

american politics. and i'll say more about that in a second because one thing that michael has written which i agree there are no permanent majorities in american politics. i don't think that's very realistic to expect at all. there's no permanent majority in the long term because social structure changes, politics change, parties readjust, strategies adjust to fit the changed circumstances and nobody's secure forever. even in the medium term of course even a dominant party will not win all elections. maybe only 55% or 60%. so in that sense, too, there is not a permanent majority even in the short term. i want to sense if i can take that off the table. nor do i embrace what i might call classic or hard realignment theory which is associated with walter reed and some of his followers. there are these periodic 36-year cycles which shift american politics in like a dozen ways that produce just a completely new era, party system.

i think that is impirkically suspect as well. michael agrees with me. we both have read and enjoy the demolition job on classic realignment theory. that's not what i want to discuss, either. but i do want to argue for sure that if not a permanent or 36-year majority for the democrats, then we do have a demographically driven lean to the democrats that i think we will have for some time to come as these demographic changes continue to unfold. let me take a quick look -- only three minutes left. at these demographics. first of all majorities, i'll talk fast. 93% of population growth in the united states in the last decade was from minorities. 92%, they are going up as a share of population about half a point a year. they vote 75% democratic. by 2040 as most of you have heard, around then, we'll probably be a so-called majority minority change. the whites singaling down half a

point which is much less friend will i constituency for democrats. not all whites are the same. the white working class which is far more conservative is going down at the pate of 3/4 of a percentage point a year. three years for example -- three points over a four -- presidential cycle. like college graduates they are increasing their share, at least the voters, by about a quarter point a year. that is very important to keep in mind and kind of highlights the difficult mathematical situation for the republicans, which is that their chief constituency, the white working class, declining rapidly while majorities are increasing rapidly and why college graduates are decreasing an amendment. your shifting democratic voters for unfriendly republican voters. over the short term it is possible for the republicans to thread the needle by upping the share of the white working class vote. that's essentially what they did in 2010 along with some decline

in turnout and other factors among democratic constituencies. i don't think this can work for the long term. let me quickly zoom to the question of generation. we have the rise of a new generation called the millennial generation from 1978. they are the most liberal, pro-democratic generation. if you look in 2008, 2008 is the peak of their party idea advantage for the democrats, and then now we are near the trough. average over those two points, you get about a 20-point idea advantage for the democrats. that's pretty significant. this is a big generation. there are four million eligible voters from the millennial generation coming into the electorate each year and will continue until 2018 and eventually they'll be roughly 2/3 of voters according to my estimates. let me quickly mention some other groups. key sub groups of womenry are strongly democratic are growing. single women, highly educated women. about single women are approaching about half of adult women at this point. professionals, the grassest growing major occupation.

sec cue lars are the fastest growing religious group in the united states. estimates are by the middle of the 2020 they'll be almost a quarter of american adults. and in fact by this decade because of race, ethnic, and religious change, we will in fact no longer be a white christian nation. sorry pat buchanan, by 2040 white christians will probably only be roughly a third of the population of the united states. geographically we also see the concentration of all these trends i just talked about in the most dynamic, fast growing metropolitan areas of the united states and that's where you see the strongest trends towards the democrats over time. in conclusion, do i have 10 seconds left? demographic change is really profound. it tends to favor the democrats. i believe it will affect the republicans too by forcing them over time to move to the center. however it must be stressed that the democrats emerging majority coalition needs to be kohl son consolidated, yes, it's true, effective governance which is dramatically impeded at this point by the state of the economy.

i don't need to tell you about that. in such a situation even an nonmodernized g.o.p. which we face today can fair well. witness 2010. i don't believe such approach is stable over the long term. the country is changing. the grand old party must change with it or they will leave the democrats to reap the demographic benefits of social change. thank you. >> please send your questions up front if you have any. >> thank you very much. i want to salute ruy teixeira for his courage in making an argument for a permanent democratic majority after the 2010 election. and his book -- his very fine book that he and john co-authored was published just before the 2002 election. which turned out to be republican victory. i reviewed that for national review and after a couple little cheap shots about the 2002

election, i think i came to the conclusion that this was a serious and interesting book and a worthwhile analysis of the american electorate. and i think that's true of the points that he's making now. the -- since that book first appeared, we have seen in fact democratic majorities emerge. pretty strongly in the elections of 2006 and 2008. they in many ways resembled the demographic projections that ruy and john set out in their book and that he makes reference to today. but we have also seen a republican majority emerge in the election of 2010. a majority that bears a considerable resemblance to the republican majorities in the elections of 2002 and 2004. and i think in some ways if you look at the numbers and use the metric of popular vote for the house, which since the mid

1990's has been unlike previous decades, a good proxy for basic partisan preference, 2008 and 2010 are for the moment at least book marks with the 2008 being the maximum democratic result that we have seen in the last decade and a half, and 2010 being the maximum republican result we have seen in that period of time. in my introductions to the almanac of american politics, i took seriously after the election of 2004, the claims of republicans like karl rove and others, that a natural republican majority and enduring republican majority was emerging from the 51% republican victory of 2004. 51% was the percentage for george w. bush and republicans in the house popular vote. i took seriously after the election of 2008 the claims of democrats, including the political philosopher, james

carville, that a natural democratic majority had emerged from the barack obama, 5 % victory. the democratic percentage for house popular vote in 2008 was 54%. in retrospect, i wish i had taken these claims less seriously. in both cases they were refuted or at least cast in a considerable doubt by the results of offyear elections which president bush characterized in 2006 as a thumping. which i think can fairly be characterized in 2010 in the same way. and that the fact is that those -- james carville predicted 40 years of democratic dominance. the cheap shot answer to that is that it lasted less than 40 months. no election is final, but nonetheless i take a skeptical view of the idea that there are emerging majorities. one reason i have come to be

skeptical is that i think that changes in demographics are unlikely to achieve the magnitude necessary to give one party a natural majority and consign the other to minority status over a period of time. as democrats arguably were majority from 32 to 68. republicans 1932 to 1968. republicans arguably a natural majority from 1896 to 1930. i think demographic changes are just not enough to do it. ruy has mentioned some of those demographic changes. i have looked at some demographic trends in the past which i thought tended to favor republicans. some of those have not worked out at least so far. republican conservatives tend to have more children than liberals. on the other hand, as ruy points out, the millennial generation has come in.

people born since 1978 or 1980. have come in as a more democratic or less republican group than the older age group. that projection did not pan out as i thought. i do think that some of the trends that we are seeing may come to an end. projections of the racial composition of american population tend to be based on the idea that the near future will resemble the recent decades of the past. but i think it's entirely possible that we are seeing a -- we certainly have seen during the recession period an end of hispanic migration. the mexican government issued a report last week saying that the net out migration from mexico to the united states in the previous year that they measured was zero. that's a lot different from the numbers that we have been seeing which have been of the magnitude of 500,000 to 800,000 a year. whether that's going to come back, we don't know. my own view is that looking back

at migrations and immigrations in american history, people have predicted neither their beginning nor their end. the number of professional women working maybe it's not increasing, certainly not in the recession. so that i think that in conclusion that those demographic changes were not a shured that they are going to continue at the level that we have seen in the past. and even if they do, i think they are of marginal effect on the whole electorate. thank you. >> ruy and michael thank you for very concise, interesting presentations. please send your questions to the front of the room if you have them. if i don't get any questions to front, then i'll be able to ask all the questions myself. >> aren't we supposed to do responsibles? >> after. >> ok.

i'm sorry, you both have responses. >> ok. that's what it says on the schedule. we have to keep to the schedule after all. there has to be some order in this country as it sinks slowly into the sea. i just want to really clarify michael had a few digs at me in his presentation. i'm not talking about a permanent majority. i never used the term permanent majority. we didn't use it in our book. i never used it since then. in fact i think the whole idea of a permanent majority is sort of both intellectually unsound and empirically suspect as i have tried to say. certainly i would never have written a book as james carville did called for 40 years of democratic dominance. james may be a nice guy and means well, i think on the data side he doesn't pay perhaps as close attention to things as he

might. he's given to overstatement. let's leave it at that. that's not my position that we have a permanent majority. again i'm talking about a demographically driven lean towards the democrats that i think is here and will continue for a number of years to come as these trends, i think in fact will continue. i mean michael's right. they might not continue, but the question is, what's more probable? that they will continue or that they won't? now, a lot of people thought during the course of the last decade that once the smoke cleared and the duft settled and we got the census data from 2010 maybe we would see a slowdown in the ethnic changes in the united states. we did not see a slowdown. in some ways we saw a speed up. contrary to the expectations of some people these trends might slow down, they are not. as far as the eye can see i think we are likely to continue to see this transformation and diversification of the u.s. electorate. i do think they strongly favor the democrats.

michael mentioned the issue of whether the race, ethnic projections take into account possible fluctuations to immigration. they do to some extent. recently there are economically driven decline in immigration which will affect things for a time. the economy, let's hope, will oochtually come back and that will probably start to increase immigration from its relatively low level today. plus the race ethnic protections aren't just driven by immigration. they are driven by data oner if tillity. and hispanics tend to have much higherer if tillity than white americans and -- hireer if tillity -- higherer if tillity than white americans. --er if tillity -- fertility. than white americans. i think a lot of what michael is saying, and i don't disagree with it, is the world is uncertain. there are no inevitable outcomes

in american politics. but i think there are outcomes that are more probable than others. i think there are coalition that is are stronger than others. i think there are coalition that is are growing and coalition that is are declining. and on average that should benefit the party whose -- the demographic trends are feeding into. it should benefit the party that has a more natural, if you will, majority coalition should on average do better than the party that does not. again i want to stress just as i said at the end of my initial presentation that there is some important interaction effect with governance. there is important interaction effect with the state of the economy. what the democrats really need to do to consolidate their coalition, their emerging demographically driven coalition which i think is quite strong they need to govern effectively. they need to address the problems they have set out to do and help education and so on. strongly and well. i think they made a start on it. what's getting in the way right

now, we all know about it. nobody talks about anything else. we only talked about the deaths. now we are talking about jobs. it's the state of the economy. it's very difficult to consolidate a coalition in a situation where the economy is as bad as it is. nouferr however, if the democrats -- however if the democrats can put together a stronger performance on the economy, develop into sense a new growth model for the u.s. economy, i believe they are in an excellent position to consolidate the coalition whose outline i put forward to you today and based on that be more or less the dominant party for some time to come. i don't win every election or permanent majority in the year 2100. i'm just saying that for moving forward for a period of time some years, some elections for this decade we are looking at a situation where the democrats should be in a pretty strong position precisely because of the trends i have joust lined for you today. -- outlined for you today.

>> let me just look at a couple of categories that ruy and i both talked about here. he talked about race or nonwhites. one thing that as he he -- has definitely admitted in his writings is that not all nonwhites vote the same way. i think there's assumption among commentators that people of color are going to vote 90% democratic, like black americans have voted since 1964. that's not necessarily the case. black voters obviously continue to be very heavily democratic. i think one has to say that the long-term outlook is that we are not going to see as high a black turnout or democratic percentages ever again as we saw in 2008 and might very well see in 2012 when president obama's up for re-election.

i think that's going to be a high point for the democratic party of either 2008, 2012, or both. hispanics, the record is mixed when you look at different states you see very different responses. you see overall house popular vote for the hispanics was 60-38. democratic in 2010. that's not a killer margin for republicans. they still won the national vote popular vote, 52-45. rick perry, the governor of texas, who has attracted some attention recently, got 39% of hispanic votes in texas. that's a pretty good number for a republican. there were two hispanic majority congressional seats that elected republican congressmen. out ofed democrats in texas that year. governor rick scott of florida won 50% of hispanic votes. if you judge by the exit poll without the hispanic votes he would not have won. the democratic candidate would have won.

by no means all the hispanic voters in florida these days are cuban americans. arab shans 58-40 democratic in the 2010 exit poll. not an overwhelming percentage. they are concentrated heavily in democrat, what are now heavily democratic states, california, maryland, new york, new jersey, massachusetts. interesting data point. governor chris kristi, woodbridge and edison townships national park 2009. those are the highest percentage of people of origin from india in the united states. an interesting data point there. they apparently did not favor governor corzine's policies. on millennials, i think what we are seeing is a lot of flux. 66-32 for obama. that was a huge margin. party ideas now down from -- according to pew research there 60-32 democratic in 2008 to 60-32 democratic in 2008 to 52-39