for no fee, every student in the country, grades 5-12, joined the poll. we read those things that will make you successful in life. i encourage you to tax the system in october by encouraging every district that you know to take part in the poll. next, i want to invite you upstairs for our reception. thank you so much. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011]

>> the education secretary wade into the presidential race a bit today, saying that the school system in texas has release struggled under gov. rick perry. he is our guest on sunday on c- span on "newsmakers" as the new school year begins, he will join us. the airline pilots association is hosting its annual air safety forum. tonight, the federal aviation administrator will speak to the group and we will bring you those remarks on aviation safety

and security live tonight at 8:00 eastern. oklahoma republican senator, tom coburn is at home during the recess. he held a town hall meeting to hear from his constituents. from tuesday, this is just over one hour. >> are you all hearing something in the background? we have some kind of feedback going. that's better. welcome. the whole purpose for a meeting like this is for me to hear from you, to get input and criticism,

to get counsel and advice. i am not very proud of the work the senate has done this year. i don't think we have addressed the real issues facing our country. i think we have treated a lot of symptoms but not treated any disease and i'm going to sound a little slow and sluggish because i have taken all sorts of cold medicine because my granddaughter or grandson gave me a nice summer cold. as i leave tonight, probably will be shaking anybody's hands unless you want this cold, i'd buy would not recommend that. -- and i would not recommend that. my first thought is i don't think we have a problem in front of our country that we cannot solve. but i do not think most of the elected officials are interested in solving the problems. they are interested in addressing solutions to the symptoms that end up helping them.

i know that sounds like an unfair criticism, but if you look at the votes and look at what we have not done, if the whole maneuver in the senate by the majority leader -- there is a big difference between a real republic and a pseudo-republic that wants to play a game with the citizen and the electorate. so i am not happy with what we have been able to achieve. i am unhappy that hardly anything has gone through the senate of any significance and i'm happy with what went through two weeks ago. it actually did not solve the problem. let me spend a minute on that and then we will start questions. the problem is not the debt limit. everytime we come up against the debt limit, we increase it.

that is not the problem. the problem is we're spending money we do not have on things we do not absolutely need. congress is lazy. [applause] it does not do the job of oversight. we have a list. if you get a chance, i recommend you go to our web site and look at this. this is not a partisan attack on anybody. this is nine trillion dollars worth of savings backed by congressional budget office studies, the office of management and budget and the office of the inspector general. it is all foot noted and so pick some of it. the fact is, we cannot continue to do what we are doing. this is specific. this is a way to solve the problems in front of our

country. you don't have to agree, but at least it is a plan that will get us out of trouble. why is that important? we wrote it. my staff and i wrote it and we went through and researched every aspect of what is in it. you can go on line and see it and download it. it is totally searchable. you can look at every area. there are revenue increases, cuts and the defense department. it is across the board, but it will actually solve our problem. that is important because i think our grandkids are important. i worry about our grandkids -- i used to worry about our grandkids, i don't anymore. i worried about us. we need real action and leadership to address them. what it will require is the same thing that built our country and made a great. sacrifice on everybody's part. everybody will have to

participate to solve the problems because, quite frankly, we lived last 30 years and this country off the next 30 years, off our children and grandchildren. and the credit card bill is due. we cannot go get another one to make the minimum payment. so now is the time and is disappointing to see the lack of leadership coming out of washington to address the real problem. that's spending money you don't have on things that you don't need. so let's stop and we will try to spend this whole time answering questions. we have some microphones -- where are my guys? if you will raise your hand, they will find you and to get a microphone to you. >> my question is about what you just talked about -- you have a

gentleman, and i use the term loosely, holding the highest office in our land that openly lied to congress -- i will quote -- "the proposals that i have put in place will not be spent on people in this country illegally. one of your associates called a liar and he was censored because of it. we have proven tax dollars are being spent on health care of illegal aliens and the president knew that when he said it and congress. lying to congress is a criminal offense punishable by prison time. and you guys let him get by with it and you have yet to impeach him for the unconstitutional behavior and unconstitutional laws he has enacted. [applause]

>> all impeachment proceedings have to start in the house, so you have to mean house of representatives. is not a skies. number two, you may be absolutely accurate in your assessment. i am not sure. the fact is, we have a problem with illegal immigration and the only way to solve it is to control the border. you don't do it any other way. once you control the border, you can solve the other situations that come about because of the lack of that. that is not a republican or democrat problem. the decision to spend medicaid money on illegals is a -- is an oklahoma decision and you need to talk to them if you like medicaid money being spent on illegals in oklahoma because they are the ones who chose to

make that decision. make sure you are attacking them where you can be. i spent time on the border looking at and the story i was told by the border patrol as opposed to what i was told by the management of the border patrol services were 180 degrees apart. so somebody is not telling the truth about the border. i tend to side with the border patrol agents, not of the administration. >> make sure we get some of the people in the middle. >> thank you for your time tonight. i appreciate it. i am a proud democrat, but i am also a democrat who realizes there are some good people in the republican party and you are certainly one. you have proven that by your actions.

you have proven it by showing that you have a heart and care for people above the party. i also know you're not a norquist man. i have not read all 614 pages of your documents, but i have read the section by section outline, the savings and highlights. a want to tell you that in my opinion, this is a historical document. i don't think anything like it has been done before that i know of. you and your staff should be proud of it and be commended for it. [applause] i have two questions -- you have broken to some degree the norquist hold on the republicans in the senate. but he has a strong hold on the republicans in the house of representatives.

do you think there is any possibility of that getting broken any time in the near future? my second question is, what does the of future hold for back in black? >> two good questions. number one, americans for tax reform, i agree with 98% of what they say, but it is like any other principal position. when you carry it to a far extreme, it becomes idiotic. they have carried it to a position that is foolish to abandon salt with countries problem -- and doesn't solve the country's problems. what we ought to be doing, no matter what party you are and, is what is best for the country. what's best for the country is reforming the tax code so that people like apple don't get to

hide money in tax soldiers in the caribbean and general electric who gets all of these when the credits pays some taxes. the fact is 20% of the people in this country pay 84% of the taxes. one in five pay 84%. by the time they get their tax credit backed -- we need to change that. i'm willing to do that. i think we need to solve the problems in front of our country and quit worrying about what party someone is in and worry a band -- and who is in control the next election. will we need to worry about is are we going to survive? the only way to do that is to make the tough and difficult decisions that say let's have a fair tax code. i would like to have a national sales tax and get rid of all of this. [applause] to answer your second question,

i have -- you have a great staff in washington. it is recognized by everyone in the senate. what we put out in back in black will be the basis for what will happen in the future in our country for getting spending under control. it is fully documented and research and fully duggan to because people spent lots of hours of going the extra mile, past what everyone looked at and looked at of the real basis of why we are spending. we have 82 different teacher training programs run by the federal government. 82? why? we of 47 programs spending $19 billion a year. all of those overlap with one another and there is not one that says they are effective in terms of job training. why would we have that? we have 42 programs to teach

people financial literacy. the last people who ought to be teaching financial literacy is the federal government. [applause] there is easily $350 billion we could save in the federal government every year from waste, fraud -- $100 billion worth of fraud in medicare and medicaid in duplication and stupidity in the american government. $350 billion. that's twice what congress just did. the fact is that career politicians don't want to do the hard work and make the hard choices because every one of those programs have a constituency out there and they are afraid to stand up and tell them know. we have all got to be told know because we cannot continue to borrow 43 cents out of every dollar we spend.

the answer is to quit spending money and not borrow more. >> i want to congratulate all the people here. the first town hall went to was in an abandoned school district in broken arrow and there were 35 people there. it's great to see this many people interested today. i would like to make two points. one is that i wish someone would go back and teach the leadership in washington to speak plain english instead of all of this political correctness. in these debt talks, there was not one spending cut in any of the plans. people sitting around the kitchen table, their definition of a cut means and going to spend less than i've been spending. that is what we expect out of

washington when you tell us there's a spending cut. number two, i would like to see more support for the fair tax. there is a number of things you just discussed about a national sales tax and get over all of this bickering about what's -- what company gets what tax cut, etc.. [applause] >> just one short comments -- what they passed, i tend to try to run away from it every now and then. it is $832 billion more in discretionary spending. just so you know, $832 billion more. there is no cut. there is a $7 billion cut this year in the authorization for what we're going to spend on discretionary.

but that is more than made up for with increased spending on the out years. we could easily cut spending. go talk to people who work in the federal government. in oklahoma, they did a great job. go ask if you can cut and they will say yes. half of the fraud investigations we are doing in the permanent subcommittee on investigations come from federal employees to call our office and say did you know this is going on? i have wonderful investigators we send across the country when we hear from a federal employee, and we go dig it out. here is what we found on the latest one. one in 18 people in this country are getting disability. that doesn't count our veterans. 40 percent -- 40% are not disabled. the program will be bankrupt next year or the year after. i it's time people who are truly disabled get taken care of and people who are not get off the

rolls. [applause] >> let's make sure we go to the center. i'm looking for the microphone. where are you? come down to the center. >> i am steve davis and and i want to say i appreciate you and i'm pretty tired of people calling you dr. know. the thinking behind that is they are ridiculing you for your votes. they're ridiculing me and making fun of me and i don't like that. i have a suggestion -- and have some suggestions that will save money in our budget. i did little research and i looked at our budget. the justice department, if you take their budget and/the number of employes comes out to $250,000 per person. they don't produce a revenue, so that's just the cost we're

paying. the interior department is $279,000 per person fee take the budget and/the number of people. those are huge numbers. no company in the united states can operate what cost that much person. one thing we could do, i like your idea of changing the tax system. along with that, the assumption is it will save everybody a lot of money. how about we just dropped three- fourths of the irs people along with the rest of it? [applause] we have a system -- >> the fair tax actually saves 110,000 employees. if implemented, we would have a 110,000 fewer employees in the federal government. >> i have some experience with the internal revenue service. i am not an employee. >> most of the people here do as well. [laughter] >> my experiences there are a

number of them who are incompetent. you cannot fire them because you have the agreement that prevents incompetent people from getting fired. this goes across every agency. the faa, the fcc, the corps of engineers, the internal revenue service, the department of state, the department of justice, all the federal agencies have this. you cannot fire incompetent people. we need to change it. that would save a huge amount of money. thank you. [applause] >> we will come down into this section next. >> hello. i am and have this -- i have been to your office in d.c. a number of times to visit you. my question is, what can we do to help you accomplish what you need to accomplish? [applause]

>> that's a great question. first of all, let me stop for a second. i failed to think the community college for making this available to us tonight. you have so much power -- so much more power than you think you have. i gave a speech for a half years ago on the senate floor. the title was there is a rumble. there is a rumble occurring in america. you can hear the dissatisfaction. what has happened is more and more people have become aware. the best way i know to hold accountable is to get everybody aware. so that people will not tolerate the incompetence and in transience of washington.

everybody in this room has family that are necessarily active on political events. i'm not talking about campaigning. and talking about being knowledgeable. blending with you here and making a decision yourself rather than taking the pablum both sides give you. then communicating that to your family and friends in the state and outside the state. it is a wonderful thing to see a guy like ron johnson come to the senate. a new senator from wisconsin. he built a business from the ground up and he doesn't care if he ever gets reelected again. he is running to help save our country. he left the family and is making the sacrifice to try to change things because he knew he was unable to build the business because of the environment this country created. he sees it at risk. i think what you have to do is

stay informed and don't be timid about communicating what you believe to be in the best interest of the country. we can cheat history. you look at history, all republicans died. we can cheat them. we are the only republic that has ever come together that is this massive mix of everything. we have the ability to teach history and survive. the way you survive is get your fiscal house in order and the economy running so you can project the power and confidence necessary for our people to live in freedom. that is what has to happen. you control it. if you decide to sit back and not do something significant, your children and grandchildren will feel the impact of that.

>> thank you for being here this evening. i want to congratulate you on the research you did for back in black. my comment is -- harry reid would not let you submit a bill for an upper down bowed to apply that. it seems like you're going to have to be on every sunday morning broadcast for the next week or two and let the people, the american people know what that plan would save in trillions of dollars. then, the pressure would be on harry reid who may yet least give you a chance to submit a bill incorporating that. is that not possible? >> it is possible, but the fact this, there is a wide range of bias in the media. [laughter] they are not interested in promoting a plan that has us

live within our means. they're more interested in presidential campaigns which is -- we should not even be considering it. we have big problems in front of a son that's 14 months away. it doesn't matter right now. what matters is right now is over the next three to five months will determine to a great extent the future of everybody in this room. we ought to be after it, we ought to be nipping at the heels of everybody in congress to make sure they are doing that kind of work. next comes down here. we have someone on the military right here. >> i'm a disabled vet. i have a little bit of a problem with this article that talks about the cuts you are planning for the military. being an active military family, my husband, myself, and our son, part of the problem with the

military is that they get very little pay as it is. not only the disabled vets, but the ones who are retiring and the ones who are active military. you plan on cutting some of their benefits and you are taking people who are already on food stamps and welfare because they cannot make ends meet and you make it even harder on them. >> let me give you does statistics and i appreciate your concern. no one appreciates our military more than i do. but your facts are wrong. [applause] the average military non-combat -- let's talk non-combat. military person retires at 21 years. during that time, they have significant benefits and the salary equivalent as higher than the average earning in oklahoma.

that's a fact. don't take what we have said in isolation. what we have said is that everybody has to give. why do the military service? they serve to keep us free. how're we going to lose our freedom? we're going to lose our freedom because we will be economically bankrupt and the consequences will be a disaster. what's the biggest thing we do? the biggest thing we do is try care prime. that gives someone who retires from the military for 20 years health care for $250 a year. that is never promised to our military, but has been looked at in years. we can't afford it. the average person in here is $1,000 a month for health care. this is $250 a year. don't do just that. do everything so that everybody

participates. let's make sure we keep the commitments that were actually made and not the benefits that were not made as a condition of signing up. no where can you find in fact that we made that condition. no. 2 -- let me finish. number two, the secretary of the veterans affairs unilaterally signed an order that costs $42 billion. what he said -- no science to back this up. if you served in vietnam or korea on a ship and you have heart disease today as a veteran, we're going to call agent orange related that we are going to give you money. as a physician, i can tell you is that there is no correlation between agent orange and coronary disease, yet we're

giving out checks to people who weigh 300 pounds, don't take a look before, and don't care what they eat. there is money we could go and take care of someone who is a real veteran and solve the problem. what we have done is not have an appropriate look at our veterans. we just passed a new gi bill. it's one of the best things that has ever happened. so we're going to take from somewhere else to make sure the educational opportunity for people who serve this country is greater than anywhere else. we have done all of those things, but you cannot look at this just as one thing. you have to look at it in total. everybody, including congress, is going to have to participate. >> thank you for coming to tulsa. i want to thank you for your

leadership and i'm proud to have you as our center. -- as our senator. [applause] i don't know if you heard the name gave ramsey, but he should go to washington and help you guys out. >> here is our problem. let me just spend a minute. people who have been very successful in this country are not willing to sacrifice and get criticized and ridiculed as a u.s. senator. that is one of the reasons we have problems. we have people -- there's nothing wrong with career service. but when you have no frame of reference in the real-world, when you have not done the things the average american has done and then you are called upon to make critical judgments about our future, you lack the necessary repertoire and exposure to do that. so people like dave ramsey are running in social other people

who refuse to sacrifice. [applause] >> i have one criticism and that is that you are not on the republican presidential ticket. [applause] i'm very disappointed in that. >> i read recently that the united states gives in financial aid to el least three-quarters of the country and the world. some of those countries are openly hostile to the united states. why do we continue to give money to those countries? >> it great question. let me give you a little bit of detail. there are 16 countries that alone more than $10 billion worth of our debt. we are giving foreign aid to them. how the like that? 16 countries who owned more than $10 billion are dead. they are loading as money and

we're turning around and giving them the money they loan us back to them. obviously they don't need it very bad. here is the point -- this young lady is upset with me because she thinks i'm singling out the military. if we want to solve our problems, everybody gets to participate. all of us. no exceptions. all of us. where there is waste, and has to go away. where there is fraud, we've got to put people in jail. where there is abuse, we've got to clean up. where there is excess, we've got to minimize. then we will have a country that will be worth of the sacrifices of the veterans and the people who served. [applause] let me go back to one other

thing. our foreign affairs is at risk for two reasons. one is that it's out of control on how we spend money. the best way to have a great foreign affairs is to be a tremendously great economic power. if you are not an economic power, it doesn't matter how much money you spend. you're not going to get the respect and is not going to accomplish anything. we have to recover and the real embrace what's necessary to grow our economy. why are we at 9.2% unemployment? we are there because there is no confidence that the future is there so that the capital sitting on the sidelines will come in and create opportunity and jobs and wealth for people or actually looking for a job. we can solve those problems but that is leadership. it's not a republican or democrat thing. it's a lack of leadership in the

house and senate and presidency. it was there with bush, it is there with obama. >> i appreciate you being here. getting back on the military just a little bit. i have two sons serving right now in the air force. i have one on his way home as we speak from afghanistan. [applause] >> thank you for your service. i know there have been so many who have not made -- who have made it home, but not the way we want them to make it home. i appreciate the military. my father spent 26 years in the military and my brother just retired last weekend. in this spring, my sons were

told they probably would not be paid. it was delayed on them getting their paycheck. these are young men with wives serving our country. never did i hear that senators or the president or anyone was willing to take a pay cut -- [applause] or even those who have retired and maybe only put in four years or six years and are getting a monthly paycheck. not one time did i hear anyone say we should give an not the military because they are living on pauper's wages. that disturbs me. i think it deserves a lot of people. i realize i have not read your book.

i'm just learning about some of it. maybe this is more of a statement, but i think all of those in the senate and house and our president should step up and say we are willing to give and take off howled many ever thousands and thousands they make a year and get down to where normal people pause and come is. [applause] >> the biggest problem is why would we let the military become a pawn in the debate over the future of this country? once you do that, you know you do not have leadership. when it is designed to set up to create that kind of pressure and you use the military as a pawn instead of saying is an exception -- if you look at the

constitution, the number one thing congress is supposed to do is what? defend the country. all the rest of it -- 70% of what we do is probably outside of what our founding fathers ever believe we were supposed to be doing. i hear your statements and i think it is a symptom of a lack leadership and awareness of important. is most important is when somebody sacrifices and gives of themselves, they've got a great because they have given. we all know that who have been there. is we should never allow that type of situation where they become a pawn. not hear about it because the press not want you to know about it. a bill we had written saying no matter what happens

that the military gets paid. but nobody put out a press on it. the press didn't coverage. >> thank you to your service to our state. want you to take this but, i think there is a feeling across the country. feel our career listen to us. find it very frustrating that a letter. cannot send an e-mail to than my own representative or senators. i cannot even get a phone call through to them because they from my area code. there must be a secret to that. am not to if i want to or

mcconnell or someone that outside of my own rep. are not to. to hear you say we have more power than you think we have, however one thing that help would be term limits. take it see the power taken away from career think they are ensconced in washington forever. what do you think is the chance for a term-limits bill to make either house? >> let me give you a little on term limits. you go and read what our founders said, all of them except alexander hamilton believed in what is called rotation in office. that's another word for term

limits. not for their lives want to be in washington for a long time. [laughter] i agree with them. i am a believer in term limits. unfortunately, until you take control, and i'm talking about people, and you say in the senate is plenty. it's actually too much. i'm feeling aware of it right now. it might be the cold, but probably not. and take the fact is, one of the best things that ever country is the tea party. [laughter] -- [applause] because you have an earnest desire to know about the facts of what's going on in your

government. then, when you find out, you are aghast. if you go read dead gao report which i forced a year-and-a- half ago, it will blow your on all the duplication going on every year. the waste from all the bureaucracies that do exactly the same thing and nobody ever measure to see if they are accomplishing it. you take a back, you have to have a amendment and eat 67 senators. there are only three of us term limits it up there right now. that and a constitutional amendment. you do to constitutional amendments. to a constitutional amendment to budget and a constitutional amendment on term limits and we are cooking. term clare -- long

term care ombudsman. my job is to advocate for residence and nursing homes and residential care facilities. in the horizon, i'm really worried about protecting our frail medicaid and medicare facility. would like to know how congress proposes to balance the budget and still make sure our frail elderly in these protected and have trained, caring staff. that's great question. question i have for you is if you look in the constitution, where is of the federal government's role to do that? [applause] responsibility, not a government responsibility. [applause]

decide is federal responsibility, we more efficient about medicare which has $100 fraud, some of through those very same nursing homes and extended care facilities. number four, out the way we have designed medicare is that it is be very inefficient. the average medicare patient in country today pays only out $350,000. long do you think that's going to last? part a will be bankrupt in 2016. as the hospital portion. something has to happen. a couple of things that need to happen -- paul ryan took all of because he said we have a system where people can use of the markets to help get the best deal they can.

the media blasted him because he's changing medicare. with me tell you something. going to change because we cannot borrow the money to keep running the way it's running today. do we have a commitment to make we have to take care of the frail and infirm? yes, but we have a commitment to don't take away their opportunities as we do that and we can do a much more efficiently and effectively. we spend twice as much money on as anyone else in the world except one nation. one-third of it, one of every $3 care in this doesn't help anybody get well or prevent anyone from getting sick. obama care is not the answer. [applause] my website, you did with joe lieberman, a bill which changes it. we means test medicare and make

it participate. senior citizens in this room, never paid a penny for the benefit you're getting from medicare part b. its 13 trillion dollars you're to leave to your grandkids. for it. that was passed by a republican so prescription drug of his campaign. that tells you how sick we are in this country. it's fine to do prescription seniors, but where is pay for it? who's going to pay for it? all we're doing is kicking the can down the road and a grand kids, yet grandfather he never met, but he consumed $20,000 worth of drugs and you have to pay for it now. that's what medicare part b is. no one can doubt my commitment physician. i've done it for 25 years. the one thing you cannot say is keep doing the same different

result than not go bankrupt. it's not that there isn't a way to do it. take the fraud and excess profits out as do and some of the waste. you took $100 billion that is fraud and waste in medicare out, you could do a whole lot every year. that's only about one-fourth of it. we can solve those problems. they are not unsolvable. cannot have any one group me. if you are extended care, can't touch that. we're going to touch everything better, we cannot have recalcitrant people who say i like to fix this problem but don't you touch mine. i hear a lot. have about 100 e-mail's in my oklahoma ago like i am 72 years old and

live off social security and medicare. give up some that to help our country. thank you very much to those men. that's the spirit that built america. that's what we need. we don't have everybody saying me, give me, because we have a lot of give. we need that spirit coming back. >> good evening. being here. i appreciate your service. on monday, warren buffett made a strong comment, chiding congress for coddling the rich. he made a strong case that taxes on the very rich would not harm investments for the country. what are your thoughts? >> personally, there's a little check box that he can do and as he wants

to tomorrow. made $250,000 and above untaxed 100% of, you would not accomplish one-fourth of our deficit. they are beautiful words, but is our government is size it was 10 years ago and 20% bigger than when obama tech his oath of office. we have a government we cannot afford and the last thing we we eliminate duplication, fraud, waste, and stupidity is to raise taxes on people. [applause] >> thank you, senator, for coming to tulsa. there is a gao report from 2008 that says 55% of the companies

in the united states pay zero taxes, so if you are in this room and you had a job, you paid more taxes than those corporations. how do you propose getting that money back from the corporations that, for example, oil, you mentioned on hardball several weeks ago that you were open to wind, farm subsidies and ethanol. what about the billions accompanies get in tax breaks? >> i'm so glad you asked that question. prices be't gas there? >> how many of you know what the ax to fall oil and gas company's tax rate is in the debt -- in oklahoma and the nation. it is up 41.5%.

it's the highest on the s&p 500. of all the depreciation of all the tax advantages of everything, the tax credits and everything else, the oil industry call of all energy gets less than 8%. the tax credits they do get -- they don't get tax credits, they get accelerated depreciation. here is where the lack of knowledge is in america. the oil and gas industry through accelerated depreciation pay the exact same tax they would without a, they just pay it later because there a capital- intensive business that requires capital with a higher risk of not hitting the well so they can expand said. but ultimately, they pay the same taxes. that's the only benefit we truly give. the 92% of all the tax credits and deductions for energy go to

wind, ethanol, see wind, thermal, the vast majority does not go to the oil and gas industry. you can see what happens when you say that. let me tell you how to solve the problem. we ought to have the lowest corporate tax rate in the world. [applause] what we do is we get rid of them. i'm one of the few republicans who stood up and said if we can solve our problems, there will have to be increased revenue for the federal government. but that does not mean increased tax rate. in a smart tax system that will grow the economy and eliminate special-interest favors for industry, whether it's a hollywood or the defense department. if you go to back in black, you can see this is not a partisan thing.

everybody has got to participate. yeah of all of the special things in the corporate tax code that have been lobbied for. i staggered of all of them. i'm forgetting all of them -- and for getting rid of all of them. i don't want it out there on energy. the biggest tax credits go to wind. that is why ge did not pay any taxes. why should ge not pay any taxes on $8 billion worth of profit in a quarter? i can't understand that. i don't think anybody can. i think you are absolutely right. got to be fair and get rid of it. let's be truthful about what the facts are rather than because we're tired of gas being $4 a gallon, we're going to be up on an industry that has provided some value and several million jobs and to provide a ton more jobs if we, owned 650 million acres were allowed to drill and

the natural resources off of farmland. [applause] -- off our own when. we are the only nation in the world to have the amount of energy we have in coal, gas, and oil. in this country, it's > all of a combined in china, canada and saudi arabia combined. our government will not let us have the resources because we have an agenda that says you cannot use carbon-based fuels. that is stupid right now. [applause] where are we? we need to come back to the center. >> thank you for the opportunity. i appreciate your candor. i look u.s. a leader, regardless whether or not i agree with you all the time.

i don't agree with myself half the time, but i appreciate you. my question is not one to get down in the weeds. i'm the ceo of the metropolitan urban league and i have some specific policy questions i would like to talk about some point. i asked you over a year ago a question regarding leadership and what was going on in congress and it only got worse. i was halfheartedly asking last year, but i am serious and concerned tonight that what i see happen throughout history is with great societies, they crumble from within. that is what i am afraid of for my own children. i have had the honor and privilege of working with and working under division commander -- division commander david petraeus.

we lost our bearings as soldiers for a while, but the commander straighten this out and said you represent something magnificent. you represent the united states of america and you must maintain your bearing regardless of what is going on. we were in a roomful of people have good information that or possibly involved in the murder of soldiers. but we had to maintain our bearing. we had to make sure the mission was accomplished. so we sucked it up. i don't see that in congress today. i see too much bickering and pettiness and i see my friends and comrades across the ocean maintaining their bearings. it's not happening in congress. my message tonight is to go back to congress. tell them the people said straighten up. give me a military bearing and do the right thing for the american people. we are afraid of what is going to happen if we do not do the right thing today. [applause]

>> senator, i appreciate your integrity. -- i appreciate -- many of us got this as if it were your endorsement. is this your -- i think everybody got one. maybe they ought to put it in the trash can on the way out. [applause] >> [inaudible] >> where are we? >> we're coming right down here. >> every american, i believe,

between now and snowfall should read a book written in the '50s by a russian immigrant called "atlas shrugged." it tells so specifically everything that is happening in our country. but the big worry i have, as any bond lawyer knows, you don't leave a such a dog in the henhouse. suck egg 't leave a dog in the henhouse. it did not take us -- did not take much prescience to realize you did not invest in the financial industry before it burst. it was predicted by everybody that it is coming. it was caused by congress passing the community

reinvestment act. it set upon a malignancy in wall street where they were investing in strange derivatives that nobody had any faith in and certainly it is still going on, that we are forcing banks to lend money to people who cannot possibly pay a back. we get rid of that act? it caused all the problems we have today. >> the community reinvestment act, the basis behind it was based on previous discrimination, which was real. i'm not sure there is evidence of that today, other than economic discrimination -- especially as we find ourselves

in this country today. i think we compound our problems with the dodd-franc bill. we did not fix the fannie mae or freddie mac. you're $400 billion more that we will have to pay, and that is because congress decided they would not oversight things. again, going back to the constitution, is there any place in here that says that it is congress's position to make sure you have a home? you had the fannie mae and freddie may act, and congress was pushing that. every time we get away from this, we put ourselves at risk. it was not -- it was not

perfect and needed to be changed. i spent a lot of times reading "the federalist papers and actually reading what they said. we are so for a stream from what with -- what they thought we should be doing. it is amazing. i do not know how to answer your question other than i think you are correct, but we still have to have some way to guarantee we do not a red line districts. we can prevent discrimination without being stupid. [applause] last question, and then i am going to go eat dinner with my family. where are you? ok, right here. >> good evening. i am here on behalf of the alzheimer's association, and i wanted to say thank you for your support in the past.

also wanted to hope that you would agree with me that alzheimer's disease has become not only a public health crisis but an economic crisis as well to the tune of $183 billion annually currently, $1.10 trillion by 2050 as baby boomers age into the medical system. i wanted to say thank you for supporting funding for the national institutes of health, but more importantly, for holding the national institutes of health accountable and congress accountable for returning important data to us. i am for you this evening, my fellow advocates this evening, to support the of summer's break through act, which holds nih accountable to finding whatever amount it is we need to combat this terrible disease and also the hope for alzheimer's act, which improves diagnosis care

planning and advanced measures. can we count on you? >> the answer is no, you cannot. [applause] let me explain. here is my philosophy -- i think we ought to have the best national institute of health there is in the world, and we do. it is almost 2.5 times the size it was. the last thing we need is special interest groups telling scientists where they need to go. the man who did the genome project is a good friend of mine. i had dinner with him till and a half weeks ago. he said, "please, do not pass any more laws telling us what we have to do. let us follow the science to solve the greatest amount of problems, great solutions for the greatest number of people he can -- greatest number of

people." my mother had alzheimer's, recently died. we have so hurt the nih because now all the congressman who know nothing about this are telling the scientists what they need to be doing. what i think we ought to do is back off and say, "your charge is to take all this wonderful new science and help the most people to the greatest extent to the least cost the fastest way you can, and we will let you decide based -- what is important based on what you're seeing the progress in science. [applause] am certainly supportive, and i

on top of the latest research, especially the pace the other things going on, but i want them to decide. some of them are and some of them are not. what it is, that is great. have my support. it it is telling nih what you do, how you will do it, i will not support that because i want the scientists to go where is to find a cure. [applause] all being here. it is rewarding to see this many cable coming out. have heard a lot of things. you have an obligation to tell think i am wrong. rather than get mad and walked

you ought to do is an e-mail -- actually, i every e-mail that comes in our office. a lot of people did not believe that. [applause] send me an e-mail. get an me, but it takes me a long time to read those e- mails as well as be a senator. lot of time goes into reading the e-mail and preparing the you something you disagree let me know. as the later over here referred to, if you are from out of state, i'm not going to take my time to send you a letter back not represent people out of state. people here, and i my oath to the constitution. like get, but you can be sure it is my answer, not stafford -- staffer's. [applause]

you have been great. god bless you. good night. >> 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 early primary and caucus states. all on c-span.org/campaign2012. >> coming up sunday, the education secretary with the new school year about to begin. he is our guest on "newsmakers," sunday on c-span. plenty of summer reading ideas for you this evening. beginning at 7:00, author willard sterne randall talks

about ethan allen. that is at 7:00 eastern. later tonight on prime time, 8:00 eastern, focusing on the civil war, we will feature author adam goodheart. then jeffry wert. also, amanda for men and her book, which looks at written pose a role in that conflict. it all gets under way at 8:00 eastern on c-span2. it is 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, the 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, which is anything that insult the profit or islam, is something to be defended with your life. >> "washington post" corresponded pamela constable sunday night on c-span "q&a." >> the july 20 united nations declaration of famine in the two regions of somalia was not made lightly and truly reflects the dire conditions of the people in somalia. it is based on nutrition and mortality service, data that has been verified by the cdc, and on the basis of that, we estimate that in the last 90 days, 29,000 somali children have died. this is nearly 4% of the children in southern somalia. our fear and the fear of the

international community and governments in the horn of africa is that the famine conditions in the two regions of somalia will spread to encompass the entire eight regions of southern somalia. the next rains are september/october, and even if they are good, we could bear witness to another wave of mortality in the south do waterborne diseases. >> watch more from this senate hearing on line at the c-span video library -- online at the c-span video library. >> the white house asked agencies to propose ways to cut spending by 20% or more for the upcoming budget. this ahead of the september meetings of the budget committee. 12-member panel will begin meeting in the fall to look for ways to cut $1.20 trillion in spending over the next 10 years. the brookings institution held a forum to look at the committee's prospects. this is an hour and 20 minutes.

>> walk from the brookings. i have been in washington for 25 years. i have served in the legislative branch and executive branch and now at the think tank, and this experience led me to think there is nothing new that i possibly see in washington, and i have to confess that in the last year, i have been surprised on several occasions, not least in the past month or so, and in fact, that is what we're here to talk about, the biggest surprise, at least to me, for a long time is this committee and the way we dealt with our debt ceiling in this most recent iteration. here is how we will proceed. i will give a brief description of the agreement, which i will leave a lot out because it will take a long time to do the whole thing. it is full of asterisks and semicolons and all kinds of things that make it difficult. i specialize in simplicity, and that is what you will get. then, we will turn to sarah binder, a senior fellow here at

bookings. she is an expert on congress and on legislative politics, and she will talk about the history of supercommittee spirit it is sad to think that there actually have been previous committees like this one. it seems when congress cannot make a decision or force itself to the right thing, they need to appoint a committee or commission or so forth. sarah will describe that and talk a little bit about this particular committee and how it will operate. and, we will turn to bill, the great expert on taxes. he also is the author of several versions of the deficit and 10- year projections with all kinds of interesting baselines. in fact, bill can produce baseline's faster than congress can pass legislation. i think he had this thing out about a minute and a half -- after they reached agreement, a bill comes out with a baseline. shockingly, he is going to talk about baselines, and it turns

out they are a very big deal and completely unresolved as far as i can tell. then, we will turn to henry and judy. henry will say we have it all wrong. president has it wrong. congress has it wrong. we are doing totally the wrong thing, and he will tell us what we should do instead. finally, we turn to my good friend bill. for those of you under age 60, you might not be as familiar with him as some of us over age 60 are pure a bill was in congress for 20 years with the ways and means committee and was a ranking member of the budget committee for several terms. bill knows as much about the budget as anybody i have encountered in washington. he is now a guest scholar at bookings. bill will talk about what i think he can talk about better than almost anyone in town, and that is the politics. with that, let me just say a few things you keep in mind -- simple -- about the agreement. the agreement has three distinct parts. first of all, it raises the debt

ceiling, which was the point of the whole thing. in the history of the country, mostly that is what -- all these agreements did peary this time, we did two other things. second, we reduced the deficit, a crucial part of the deal and by far the most complicated. , we agreed to have a vote in both the house and senate on balanced budget amendments of the constitution. that will take place in the fall. the first part of the -- the second part of the deal is -- the first part of the deal is raising the debt ceiling. that is done about approximately $900 billion first, and then there will be a subsequent step, which will be between $1.2 billion or $1.5 billion. the point is whatever it turns out to be precisely, it will get us through the 2012 election, which was one of the main goals of the administration all along, so the president got at least that much here in the second and by far the most complicated part is reducing the deficit. that also comes in two stages.

first is that there is an immediate agreement to approximately $900 billion over 10 years. there are lots of numbers floating around. you can look at different baselines. maybe bill will talk about this. you can look at budget authority. the budget authority is $935 billion, but as i say, there are other baselines and so forth. that is the first one, and it includes interest. this is a great important point about the budget. the more we cut, the more we save beyond just the cuts in programs because interest is getting to be such a huge part of our budget deficit. we are headed toward 10 years from now perhaps -- bill knows a lot about this -- we could be paying $1 trillion just in interest costs. interest is a very big and important part of the savings. and this is achieved by putting caps on discretionary spending. this first step is out of discretionary spending, caps on

discretionary spending, both defense and non-defense. there is a fire wall between security and non-security, but that only lasts for two years -- 2012 and 2013 -- so there could be lots of interesting things that happen after 2013 and how these cuts in appropriations are actually made. then, there is the part that everybody is talking about and the reason we're here, and that is this new device that the leaders came up with, and that is the supercommittee, so- called, the joint select committee. but if it has the word joint, you know it must be important. that will result one way or the other if we actually live up to the agreement between $1.20 trillion and $1.50 trillion in additional cutting. the committee's 12 members -- six republicans, six democrats, six house, six senate, appointed by the prospective republican

and democrat leaders in the house and senate. a crucial point bill will talk about -- they apparently can choose whatever baseline they want. that turns out to be a very important issue. they can make changes. any changes in spending or taxes -- there was some dispute about that, but the text of the agreement makes it clear they could raise taxes, cut whatever they want to, so they have more or less carte blanche to do whatever they want to do. and it is a majority vote that the sides in the committee, not like the president's deficit panel. seven out of 12 votes wins. if you get a majority, you can pass whatever you want to. they have to report decisions by november 23, and congress must vote by december 23. they must vote without amendment, and it cannot be filibustered in the senate. these are about the best rules you could possibly have to pass something through the congress

of united states. in that respect, it looks like it could be a good deal. if they do not reach an agreement or if congress votes it down, there is an automatic -- we use the fancy word sequestration, which is a holdover of the grammar from the 1980's. there, the additional cuts would be $1.20 trillion. but discretionary and entitlement. there are some complex rules about what cannot be cut. for example in medicare, it can only cut payments to providers. i guess they felt we had such a strong record of delivering whenever we decided to cut provider payments that we would do it again. and there is a 2% limit. and there are a bunch of low- income programs that are protected. there is a brief overview of the deal, and now, we are going to turn to a history of these kinds of special committees and a few

words about the process of this committee. >> thank you, and thanks for including me. i thought i would start us off with three points about congressional commission is in general about this particular joint committee and a little bit about the implications of the membership of the joint committee. first point -- specially appointed congressional commissions typically fail. i would like us to understand a little bit about why these committees tend not to work. second, the supercommittee in fact differs quite a bit from previous incarnations of these congressional commissions or committees. i think it is important to understand why it differs and why those differences might be consequential. third, i think the members of the committee have a number of applications for what is likely or not likely to happen this fall. i would like to spend time thinking about making selections and what we can infer from that. let's take each of the spirit first, why do committees typically fail? what is different this time around and what can we learn?

it is not unusual for congress to kick the can down the road when it wants or is unable to solve problems. there are plenty of examples. there is an medicare commission in 1993. how would commission, 1997. none of these commissions succeeded in producing a plan that would be voted to the house and senate to consider. even when we do see episodes of success, sometimes we point to the 1983 greenspan social security commission, but when you look under the hood, it turns out that agreement was reached by people outside the committee. by the work of tip o'neill, the speaker with president reagan. when commissions are successful, such as the military base- closing commission, it turns at the mandate is very narrow. we can come back to the reasons why the defense commission might have succeeded. so why don't the solutions of kicking the can down the road -- why don't these commissions tend

to work? i like to think of political reasons, institutional reasons, and a little bit about the context in which these solutions are created. first, it is typically the deadlock over major issues of the day that encourages congress to kick the can down the road in the first place geared mostly to avoid blame for failing to reach a decision. not surprisingly then, commissions and committees tend to inherit the stalemate that created them in the first place. it is context, when we think about the politics that lead to a stalemate, we have in mind the part is an increase in polarization, both in policy differences between the parties as well as simple partisan key play that gives the parties strategic in to disagree with one another. parties see the problems differently. they see solutions differently, and even when they can agree on solutions, sometimes they have a tendency to disagree just because it is the other party. political incentives for legislators create these conditions in the first place and not surprisingly, the

commission's find it hard to overcome the politics that created them in the beginning. second, i think it is a set of institutional reasons why these commissions tend not to work. they are typically -- not always -- a typically created by executive order, not like the joint committee, which had the statutory basis. typically, when presidents set up commissions through executive orders, they are given a supermajority requirement in order to officially report. there provisions are rarely if ever projected procedurally. that is, they are subject to filibuster. there are subject to party control of the agenda on the house floor. the most successful commission is really the exception that proves the rule. the defense-base closing commission had a statutory basis. it was projected procedurally from being amended on the floor, and the decisions of the commission went into effect and let congress and president to disapprove or reject the recommendation. commissions created by executive

order cannot have these legislative authorities. right off the bat, most of these commissions are hampered by the way in which they are created. finally, in terms of contractual reasons why things tend to not succeed, commissions are really created in periods of crisis, and even if there was crisis, typically, it might be necessary to get an agreement, but it is really sufficient to compel the parties to sit down. ok, so how is this supercommittee different than what we have seen historically? it differs primarily in terms of the institutional factors mentioned you first, it has the statutory basis. the have the majority vote to report. no amendments on the floor. no filibusters from the right or left here in the house rules committee cannot hold a bill of the floor. and, of course, there are triggers written into the law as well. granted, congress has once again kicked the can down the road, but they rigged it so the plan explode if they fail to reach an agreement. why is that important? that trigger here affects the

consequences of failing to agree. typically, the consequences of stalemate -- some parties welcome the stalemate. they made in a city like toilet from refusing to agree. -- they may benefit elect ally from- electorial refusing to agree. the political factors that lead to failure are essentially still in place. finally, what are the implications of the makeup of this particular committee? two observations -- first, this committee, not surprisingly inherits the polarization we see in the house and senate. if you line up the house and senate members on ideological lines, we would see a cluster on the left and on the right, but nobody in the center. the closest you get is max baucus, democrat from montana, but even then, is rarely alone to the extent he is a centrist,

and that, of course, makes the charge card if they tried is to build a bipartisan coalition. second, i think it is important to keep in mind that party leaders left very little to chance in selecting their contingents. all four said a third tier party leader. they offer the tax committee chairs, budget committee membership. you may wonder where paul ryan is. we will come back him in a moment here from the democratic side, representatives of key democratic factions -- african- americans, latinos, and women. this committee will operate in continual consultation with party leaders and essentially informal vetoes from party leaders. the deal is immensely important to party representations and their electoral brand name. this is not a rogue committee. this is not some symbols, which we have sort of thrown off to

the side. this is not a home grown gain of six effort. the parties have deep stakes in the outcome of this committee. that means that the committee -- there will be a resolution here. the key question is -- to the parties seek compromise in their electoral interests in 2012? finally, keep in mind what paul lyons said -- i think it was yesterday, after he apparently refused three times to be on the committee -- he said we should not have a system where 12 politicians cut some agreement in the back room that restructure's the whole design of government in three months' time. he said this is a decision that should be brought to the american people. in other words, these are issues for the campaign trail, not the joint committee. if you add all that up, where does it leave us? i suspect, just like tarp, just like the april budget agreement and the august deficit deal, this will likely be another last-minute deal. do not put the turkey in the oven to early for thanksgiving. second, if there is a deal, it

will likely be leadership endorsed. finally, of course, the committee does not operate in a vacuum here there are many other deadlines this fall. it is possible that congress could rewrite the law. the committee here is not the last bite or the only bite at the apple. >> i would recommend to the audience that they buy their christmas presents early. >> talking about baselines can be a little bit on the tedious side, so let me try to justify it with two points. first of all, the committee needs to cut $1.50 trillion, or the automatic sequesters kick in. in contrast, the debate about the baseline is a $4.50 trillion question. it is actually much larger than

the cuts that the committee has to make. essentially, they have a $4.50 trillion question to begin with, and after that, they have a $1.50 trillion question to begin with. you can win the baseline argument, you may ask who cares about the $1.50 trillion. i'm going to give another example of what i want to talk about that is the tedious part. a baseline issue is basically if you need to cut $1.50 trillion, the question is -- compared to what? if you compare it to a baseline with the government has no revenue and spends 50% of gdp, it is easy to come up with $1.50 trillion, but you have to have a baseline to compare it to. as ron mentioned, the budget deal has all sorts of times and semicolons, but it left this $4.50 trillion question

completely undefined, so there is no guidance in the budget deal, in the legislation about what baseline people actually use. in terms of an example, think about this the following way -- suppose you have been eating badly the last -- let's say 10 years -- and you have been gaining a lot of weight, and you want to lose 15 pounds. we will not go with 1.5 trillion pounds. you want to lose 15 pounds. the question is -- compared to what? the way we usually think about it is compared to where i am right now, i want to lose 15 pounds. there is another way to think about it which is to say that i have been eating -- i've been eating badly for 10 years and i continue to eat badly, i will gain another 45 tons, so i will blues' the 15 counts relative to

the 45-pound weight increase. using one of the baselines will be the equivalent of increasing the debt limit -- the deficit by $4.50 trillion and then say i'm going to cut by $1.50 trillion. that is essentially what is at stake. that is the non-tedious portion of the call. [laughter] the standard base line is what is called current law. it is not actually literally current law, but it is close enough for most purposes. it assumes that all tax cuts that are supposed to expire actually do expire, except if you, which we will just leave aside. it assumes the alternative minimum tax is going to grow rapidly over time, sort of take over the tax system. it assumes congress will make the medicare cuts that it is supposed to by law but never does, and it assumes other things about military spending, discretionary spending is held constant after adjusting for inflation. the current law baseline is

basically the answer to the question -- what would happen if congress literally did nothing the next 10 years? hast no legislation, they just appropriated the same amount of discretionary spending each year. that is not a very realistic base line to use if you want to see where we're headed. ok? but it is a good baseline to use if you want congress to have to recognize the cost of any changes to tax laws or spending items that it enacts. it is the equivalent of saying, "here is my weight now. i want to lose 15 pounds relative to my weight now begin that means relative to the current base line. if congress does anything, it needs to start where it is then cut relative to the current law. using the current law baseline would be the equivalent of saying when you find yourself in a whole, the first thing you do is stop digging.

there is an alternative baseline that has been used a lot, and i feel some responsibility for the spirit as ron mentioned, i have been putting out all kind of bass lines for a long time. we have been doing this for over a decade now, even back when the government was in surplus in 2001. the current policy baseline, which is basically the answer to the question -- what happens if congress acts in the next 10 years the way it has in the past? sort of the business as usual baseline. i shall large and increasing deficits over time. the current policy baseline assumes the tax cuts get extended, assumes we do not let the alternative minimum tax take over the whole system. it assumes we do not spend as much in iraq and afghanistan over the next 10 years as we do now, that we face that down here and it assumes congress is incapable of making these medicare cuts that for the last 10 years it has shown it is incapable of making.

it is kind of a business as usual baseline. it is a really good measure if you want to see what have we are on if we do not change our ways. it is the 45 pounds gaining over the next decade if we continue to eat badly, okay? five point over the last decade has been we're headed in that way, and here is the evidence, the current policy baseline. you do not want to use that as a base line, though, if you are trying to reduce the budget deficit. once you reduce the budget deficit or once you want to reduce the budget deficit, that is the equivalent of saying, "i need to go on a diet." i'm not going to build in 45 pounds or $4.50 trillion of increase to wait for increased budget deficit before i start cutting the deficit. the current policy baseline has always been a good guide to where we are headed if we do not

fix things, but it is not an excuse to not fix things. all the committees always want to use the current policy base line because it builds in all these nice things -- the extension in the bush tax cuts, get rid of the amt. but it is not a serious approach to solving the budget deficit because it says basically that we will cut taxes first by $4.50 trillion and then start balancing the budget. ok, well why don't you just not cut taxes by $4.50 trillion? that would be the obvious rejoinder to that. again, we are talking about amounts that are three times as large as the actual $1.50 trillion that congress has to cut. just to make it more complicated, it turns out that the republicans this time around want to use the current law base line, even though that means the

bush tax cuts have to be paid for if they are extended, and democrats want to use the current policy baseline, even though that is sort of giving away the financing in the bush tax cuts. we can talk about the politics of that if you want, but let me just come up with three bottom lines to think about about the budget deal and the baseline. one is the baseline is where the action is. if you can get the $4.50 trillion change there, then you can carry a lot less about the $1.50 trillion in the supposed cuts. second is they should use current law as a baseline. there is none of this means they can or cannot reach an agreement. that will depend entirely on the issues that sarah mentioned, but it is important to keep your eye on the numbers which include including tax cases in the deal. they are talking of doing it from the current policy

baseline. that involves less revenue than sticking with the current law baselines and having no taxes in the deal. it gets very complicated, very orwellian, very tedious. but keep the weight loss example in the back of your mind. >> ok, so you can always up now -- you can all wake up now. >> bill use a weight-loss story. i'm going to use a medical story. you are a physician, and you encounter a person lying on the street in process of bleeding out, hemorrhaging all over the place. when you bend over, you tell this person to stop smoking and eat better so they will have a better chance for a long and healthy life.

the reason i am using this example is that i think it is symptomatic of a kind of policy derangement represented by the debate now going on in this city over budget policy. i would like to start with half a dozen facts and ask you where they think they leave you. one, obviously, the nation is in the midst of the deepest and most protracted recession we have experienced in the last 70 years. economic forecasters agree there is no real prospect for a significant economic expansion any time in the near future. fact three, is bad news is occurring in the face of not

quite but almost all out effort by the monetary authorities to be supportive of economic expansion. fact four is that over the past couple of years, fiscal policy nationally -- and that includes not just federal fiscal policy has become significantly more contraction mary -- that is, working against economic expansion during that time. the center on policy has produced a nice chart, which is available outside the room, showing that 37 of the 50 states in the united states, including all the large states that one -- won, have seen reductions in spending compared to levels that

prevailed in 2008 before the onset of the recession. the one exception -- texas, but texas will join this group shortly because they have budget cuts coming that will make them a contraction very physical force as well. fact five is that nearly half of the unemployed and a slightly growing fraction have been out of work for six months or more. that proportion also is a 70- year high. fact six is that, standard and poor's notwithstanding, there is little or no indication in financial markets that investors are seriously concerned that the united states will default on its debt. in witness of the current yield on current tax index bonds with a maturity of seven years, the

yield on those bonds is negative. people are actually paying to invest in them rather than requiring a positive rate of return. i say all of this along with the fact that we do in fact face -- right now, we face an immediate problem of great seriousness. that is a dangerously slack economy. we have to deal with long-term problem with measures that promise to aggravate the near term problem, which is in my opinion truly weird. i think it is important even as we consider how this committee

is going to function, how the process will play out that we not forget the weirdness of the priorities expressed in that policy. i think it would be truly perverse for congress not to agree to what i anticipate will be president obama's recommendation to extend unemployment insurance benefits yet again. and to extend the payroll tax holiday enacted earlier this year yet again as well. in my view, a combination of short-term stimulus including works we can finance at short- term interest rates together with longer-term deficit

reduction enacted now but to take effect only when the recovery is well established and unemployment has fallen to certain target levels. that happens to be the policy most of us have been urging for a long time. it is not a policy that christine yesterday embrace in the "financial times." she said, "what is needed is a dual focus on medium term consolidation and short-term support for jobs." that view is identical to positions taken by reputable economists which -- with such widely varying political positions as paul krugman and martin feldstein.

we do with deep concern and the task laid before the supercommittee, to cut up to $1.50 trillion in addition to the $935 billion agreed to in august. but there is an additional an equally important reason for concern. if the committee does not agree to cut, then some or all of the $1.50 trillion would be cut through the sequester, and those implied cuts would be through both discretionary spending and national defense spending to levels that would threaten basic economic interests in the nation. i have some graphics outside the show the magnitude of the cuts that would occur.

i'm going to conclude with one policy that i think bill will come back to and i think he will agree to. i think the best possible outcome for the debate over whether to extend the bush tax cuts with the deadlock so that they all expire, and at that point, we could begin to talk about how to curb tax expenditures, loopholes -- colorado what you will -- and use the revenue generated from them to lower rates by some amount. finally, i just have one brief comment on possible outcomes, based on what sarah described. i think a very likely outcome is that the supercommittee will agree to some modest, specific

cuts. but not to as much as the $1.20 trillion necessary to avoid sequestration. if that occurs, then there would be automatic cuts evenly divided between defense and non-defense. they might well be so large and so on acceptable that in the end, the agreement that was just reached in august might be one to which congress returns and reconsiders. >> thank you very much, ron. as advertised, i have sent. i am error covering congressman. i've been going straight for two decades. -- i am a recovering congressman. i laid that before the court in hopes for mercy. i would like to begin by suggesting that this budget area

is one of the arena in which the political parties have always tried -- not always in the senate, but mostly always tried to establish differences between each other. so it is not unusual to find the party is at loggerheads over a budget question. there have been glorious times in the past in various summits under reagan and bush and a wonderful time under president clinton when we actually had some surpluses. times a compromise between the parties, but in recent history, both parties have been pretty vigorous spenders, and now, we have the party is locked in this vigorous struggle over what is

going to be cut, if anything, and republicans have been scrapping with obama and the democrats on the continuing resolution for 2011. we will have another scrap on 2012 after labor day. we're talking today about the debt ceiling deal and the budget and special committee that has been put together. in the meantime, democrats are fighting back. they have not passed any budgets, and obama has put forth a framework without any meat on it. the problem is that the economy is down. deficits persist. that ratio is climbing, and wild parties have been arguing over domestic discretionary spending, essentially. the supercommittee is not going to change that situation very much. republicans have painted themselves into their little corner. no tax increases.

democrats have painted themselves into their little corner of defending social security and medicare as written. although they seem to be the main drivers of our long-term debt problem. the polarization of the party's end of the voters accelerates. the resulting stalemate causes the can to be kicked down the road, in that overused metaphor. party is obviously prefer to wait until after the election so they have an opportunity to pander to their constituencies. they are not interested in an immediate solution. they created this budget control act of august 1, which ron described as being byzantine in nature and which sarah

described some of the predecessor committees workings as well. as far as the constitution of that committee politically, i do not think it makes any difference. one of the panelists suggested they are going to represent the leadership, and that is my judgment, too. nobody on that committee is going to write a profile in courage by stepping out and voting with the wrong team. they are all going to stick together. that means they are going to play a round again extensively with domestic discretionary, adding this time some defense spending. but those players they as well be john and nancy and harry and mitch because that is the way they are going to vote. the target will not stabilize the debt, depending on which

bill will tell you which baseline to use, but it will continue to increase. they will wait for an election. the election is likely to bring us continuation of divided government and for the political stalemate while they jockey until the next election. in the meantime, our economic condition continues to worsen. in my judgment, the right kind of solution is that the supercommittee or the congress itself has to negotiate something with forcing traders to stabilize the debt in a dozen years and reduces it thereafter. i think our economy needs the certainty, and if, as henry suggests, you need to back low that it, that is all right with me -- if you need to back a load that a bit.

emmett rice will have to sacrifice some entitlements. they will have to stand for the stabilization of social security and some cuts in medicare that they really do not want to happen. in the meantime, the republicans are going to have to sacrifice some tax reform and throw some additional revenue in as well. at the moment, neither party seems willing to make such concessions, and as a result, i believe that the supercommittee will achieve its 1.5 trillion dollars goal -- $1.50 trillion goal, and as someone said, the trigger mechanism is a little frightening, i think both parties, but it will achieve it in the old ways on domestic, discretionary, and tinkering with a few entitlements that are least harmful to the rest of the world here in my political prediction is business as usual.

we will have spent at the end of the year almost a whole year arguing about 15% of the united states budget, and we will be prepared to spend another year next year doing the same thing. thank you. [applause] about all right, now, we're going to take time to answer some questions, and i will give people in the audience the opportunity to ask questions. the first obvious question -- can anybody on the panel imagine circumstances under which republicans would relent on taxes and democrats on changes in medicare? henry aaron is going to tell us how. [laughter] >> financial catastrophe. >> i agree. i think it takes a crisis. american government has usually been pretty good in a crisis and pretty lousy at all other times.

so perhaps that would do it. >> ron is channeling our colleague who is, by nature, extremely optimistic, and who said that her scenario, roughly speaking, is back the new ingredient here is the public revulsion about what happened the last few weeks or what did not have been the last few weeks, public concern about downgrading the crisis in financial markets about the weakening economy, and that could be the spark that causes a bigger agreement to take place. just to add to that, the most optimistic scenario, there is a

grand bargain, and it involves not only $3.50 trillion or $4 trillion, like they were talking about a few months ago, but also the stimulus measures that henry mentioned and they are aiming for $3.50 trillion or $4 trillion on this grand bargain and have a lot of room to provide stimulus now and still get in the ceiling. i do not know how likely it is to happen. i am not the right person to assess the political likelihood about it, but conceptually, one could see how that would work. >> fortunately, sarah is. i was looking forward to her answer to this question. you mentioned a line that everybody engines, which is partisanship really dominates in washington. is this really unusual historical? has there been a time when partisanship was so high? is there a chance that it could be reduced enough to reach some kind of agreement? >> no, no, yes, no.

this is not historical abnormal. we look historically, we look to the 1800's. we get conservative democrats. we have a liberal and moderate republicans that breed this politically -- that bring this political center. historically, we look a lot, with all due respect, to the great inventions of the 21st century, we look a lot like the 19th century. polarization is not new. it takes a while to dissipate. it takes a while to reproduce a political center. that is not likely to happen in the short term. what else are you left with? like we saw in the tarp episode,

the 600-point drop in the dow. either external shock matters for a lot. it is hard to see why the parties will want to give up their issues that define them and find their positions before an election. the scary part is this -- we are pretty far away from an election. it may be that the electoral incentives still keep the parties wanting to burnish their brand names. >> we keep talking about how a crisis by to them to get serious about fiscal policy. imagine if we went back to 2007. suppose the housing market totally collapsed and the stock market totally collapsed, and the fed let out all the stops and interest rates went to zero, and still, the economy

collapsed, and we had the worst downturn since the 1930's. europe was going to hell at the same time, and there was a worldwide fiscal crisis kind of emerging. would that not be enough to get congress to be serious about this? [laughter] if you had said that in 2007, i think we all would have said, "0, yes, of course. that is a ridiculous question. half of that would have been enough." yet, here we are, and they are still bickering about this stuff in the way they are. i think it points to what sarah was saying. these are really strong issues that are imbedded in the politics, and it will be hard to get movement. >> i think it is worth -- i want to come back and say that i think these answers confirm a derangement of the current debate. what you have here is general agreement crossing party lines

just among the panel that what is needed is short-term stimulus for long-term deficit reduction, and yet, the political process is unable in the face of the the thing is not quite as bad as they were two or three years ago, but still pretty lousy -- is still unable to strike that deal. >> by the way, audience, if you have not figured this out, the politics on this panel is represented by the order of seating. sarah is in the middle, and we are on the right and those other two guys are on the left. [laughter] ok, let's say they get a deal. they have to get a deal, right? there are going to change the law and all that, but let's say they get $1.20 trillion. i think that is somewhat plausible. that brings us maybe half way or 1/3 of the way for most people

think we need to go, and it still would not stabilize the debt, so then what happens? what is next? >> next comes an election. >> yes, but then after the election, we still have the problem i just laid out. what does congress do then? suddenly, they are all buddies, and they are going to cut a deal? >> no, what is different, though, is if you go back even to a year ago, but people were talking about -- people would say they do not want cuts and do not want tax increases. what has changed, the big thing that is positive that has changed its people are now talking about your deficit plan versus my deficit plan, all right? and hopefully -- in 2008, the two candidates ran on who had bigger tax cuts. that was a ridiculous debate to

be having at the time, and some of us said so, but the political system was not ready to have that conversation. i think in 2012, the election is going to be, to a large extent, about how to fix it. whoever gets elected will be able to claim they have a mandate. maybe we have divided government. the thing that is different is that it seems likely to meet as a non-expert is that the upcoming election will be about these issues so that to ever wins could do something about them after the election. >> the american people are saying do not tax you, it tax me. do not cut my benefits. they are going to tell my candid there's what you should do.

>> i never noticed candidates promise pain and suffering. the candidates will try to talk about other things. there is the possibility that the electrical what to hear about the deficit reduction plans. i hope and pray it takes place. and that that the rent money on it frigid i would not bet -- i would not bet the rent money on its. >> so are you write about nothing happening until after the election? >> i look do not want to be right about that. this was on the debt ceiling. in the past, there have been

some games. what is the effect of this episode on future debt ceiling votes/ will probably have one after the presidential election in a few months. are we going to go through this every single time there is an attempt to do something important? >> there is a widespread perception, right or wrong i do not know, that president obama was convinced that if the debt ceiling were not increased the situation would be utterly catastrophic. as president, he could not allow that to happen during his watch and that he would do what ever is necessary in order to avoid it. and that interpretation is correct -- if that interpretation is correct and the next person who faces this

choice has the same view that is attributed to president obama, lead the party -- then the party that is willing to allow the debt ceiling to expire have complete power over the agenda. that is one interpretation of how this whole process played out. it is for that reason it is very important for who ever said in the white house should take one of these positions. one is extreme and probable. this would be the right outcome. if it were to retain a debt ceiling, it is vitally important that the next time it happens

the president is willing to stand up to those who ask for concessions that he or she regards as unacceptable. >> the president has been willing to go off that cliff. for a brief shining moment, there was a time when the budget vote was also a vote on the debt ceiling. those are peaceful and wonderful years. people who have a very strong feeling have seen what a powerful vehicle the debt ceiling is. they were subjected to many more of these kinds of things.

i remember we got rudman on the ceiling. we will probably see more on this in the future before it slows down. maybe when sarah texas into another cycle of gentler times -- take us into another cycle of gentler times, the congress will get over its. it is not a great thing for the republic. it should be avoided. >> i do not want to equate this with the shutdown. we did see what happened when you take something hostage. i think part of them are becoming. i think it means they hold it

hostage in order to leverage this over the final policy out him. for the faa deal, the last expired in the middle of july. they went to the deficit deal and said there were some partisan issues. they said we would not do this to keep them there. >> there is another lesson. this is a fight between someone on the committee. i have seen various estimates.

107,000 will lose their jobs. who cares about this. a lot of people did care. there was a lot of pressure. they still cannot know exactly how it happens. they reached an agreement because of public pressure. this is what we do not have in this situation. >> it will not temper this. it may temper the desire to jump off a bridge. >> i would like to reach an agreement on something. we have a nice political diversity up there. he may be governing their. i notice you still have a lot of political instinct.

can you imagine that this is like having a huge bazooka. the politicians will lay it lying on the grounds. does anyone disagree? >> it is not a bazooka. it is a nuclear bomb. >> ok. a nuclear bomb. does anyone disagree tax cuts that will be true for both sides. they could raise its. this will play out more. it extends the debt limit.

it is totally a change. it is not defensive about what will happen. >> republicans could use this. they have the democrats split lyndon johnson on it. -- put lyndon johnson on it. it should require lesson a minute. it is right behind to. >> two really quick questions. have to find a director for the super committee?

there is an aspect of this bill or the debt ceiling could be conditions on the archive of the united states. are their constitutional concerns with that tax their -- with that? >> that is way too specific. >> he pointed to the issues here. there too many eyes on the committee. i do not know quite what is going on. it to be interesting to see what they can come up with. on the sure quite follow

balanced budget question. >> one of the ways it can be increase is it the archivist of the united states since the ratification a past balanced budget amendment. >> we need an expert. i suspect they followed this. it is actually sent to the states. >> appear in the front? >> could someone illuminate for me why people think that caps and triggers will have any impact upon the budget operation?

they have gone on for caps and triggers. >> the most cynical should do this. >> wants congress -- once congress votes, it can now not buy them who will say it is not a bad idea. they can be a round. i suppose this is a good

example. in this case, the promises are getting a little harder to get around. i believe that it will not be possible for its to avoid finding at least $1.20 trillion from the baselines. i do not think congress will dare renig on its sell. >> let me add one thing. >> in addition to that, there are people in the house that are extremely serious about the deal and do not want to see it

change. they are driven by tea party republicans. people are serious about the deficit. i think that is a new element. do you agree? >> i do. the purpose is to avoid making the decisions that need to be faced if one is realistically to do it. if it appears you have done something. whether or not there lot to take affect, you can go to the next election. the tell them you can do something hard and fast. i think the prospects were agreed to.

they think they are not good. there will be a smaller list of some that will be agreed to. do the fullng to menu. we might end up with three or 400 billion in cuts. it would then participate a sequestered for $1.20 trillion. it plays out over a period of years. i think it is quite likely that congress cannot bind future congresses.

as shown, it comes to us 2015. they were too unattractive. they can be tell it. they do not know how all of it would play out. it seems the may thing for do main thing may not be probable. >> you want to add something to dax?tackis >> we should think they're going to work perfectly. some are more uncomfortable and

awkward to change. the medicare spending and cuts that never happened, let me give you a political campaign story about why the medicare cuts might not happen. the medicare cut every year are supposed to be implemented. there is a very direct lobbying effort enacted every year by the doctors to get paid under medicare. with the discretionary spending cap, there is no particular group that has to suffer. there is a bigger lobbying effort.

we are not as keen to raise its. the meddling is likely to happen. it is coupled with the notion that the spending would be higher but had to be financed. i think that to be the strongest cap. caps would work. i agree that all of them are iffy. >> first of all, there is one lobbying group.

they are going to be out there. they are bringing it in right now. the rules have been in effect for about a decade. the adjustments for very small. it is one that really big that it's affected it. >> i have a better example. when it was enacted, it was the defense. they were followed for about five years. they laid a lot of the groundwork for some of the good years. they were not the whole show. in previous years, it worked

just fine. i think medicare would be harder. we would have to see what comes out. >> i do not think this will mess with medicare prepare >> what i'm hearing from the panel said they're starting to have this conversation for the first time. president obama originally said send me a clean debt limit bill. let's say he had prevailed. the thing they would come down on that? -- do you think he would have come down on that?

>> what difference does and ajax they were upset much as the political process. -- just as much as they were upset of the political process. i think we might have passed for another six months or six years. >> i am a student at dartmouth college. do you ever think we could go back to the oppression in 1990's. >> it is one of the few budget

that have tried to work for us. >> republicans brought back their own version of the takeover. this is exactly right. we had take out. it was in force. they worked because the cold war was winding down. the economy was booming by the mid-90's. there is success that depends on this.

everyone would agree with this. it had a good reputation. i think the congress would use it again. if congress wants to change something, they are going to do it. they will overcome anything. but good to the back. back.'s go to the >> it seems to me that there are a couple of balls letter bouncing around in the court. if he can help us go through it. there is an upcoming decision.

we have the expiration of a tax cut at the end of 2012. it was passing this year. could you comment on how you think all of those things will play into the work and debate of the committee and how those issues might do? >> let's talk about what he might do. >> you will see about what you saw for 2011. we have passed the appropriation. we will have a continuing resolution. that will be coming out of the house at a low level. it will be at war with the senate.

it is going to be pretty well stripped-down one. again.robably be handled we will probably be voting on that for 12 in the next year as well. it is no different than we handled it. >> the issue is whether they get handled inside or outside the debt deal. this depends on part of by the baseline. one of the shortcomings of the deal is that it describes what congress wants to do. the joint select committee can propose 1.5 trillion from

whatever baseline they decide. congress can vote those things up or down. nothing is stopping from congress to coming back the next day in reinstating it. there is no universal cap. on tuesday, yet to cut it by $1.50 trillion. i would guess that if there is a grand bargain that comes up it will include something about what to do with the bush tax cuts. if there is not, the committee will not do anything with them. they will leave it to be decided. >> speaking of binding future

congresses, the balanced budget amendment is three parts. do you think it will pass t? what iteration do think it will take to pass? will the debate over pending cuts have an effect on whether it will pass? thank you. >> if you answer the first question with a no, the other two are irrelevant. >> i will say no. >> what does it take? >> i do not feel we're near the supermajority to get the amendment passed. democrats pretty much put it off

the table. i think they have their name on it. and did not see that bridge being cross. >> it does not look like it is going to work. it takes a long time. >> thank you very much. we are going to have other events where the deal with the budget and the issues in the near future. keep tuned in. we hope to see you again. thank you. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011]

>> there harassing their air and safety foreign this weekend. randolph babbitt will be speaking to the group and about half an hour. we will have his comments live. with the new school year getting under way, our guest is arne duncan. >> what to me with shocking was that these assassinations were welcomed and congratulate td. these are not terrorists or al qaeda. ordinary pakistani to feel that their religion is threatened,

that the country is becoming too secular and that blasphemy is something to be defended with your live. >> pamela constable sunday night on c-span's "q &a" >> you'll also visit mount vernon weren't recent discoveries have shed new light on the george washington, the gardener, painter. susan eisenhower talked about her grandfather, dwight eisenhower. if the complete weekend schedule

at c-span.org/history. >> here is the key. we were stunned. it is so clear. if the schedule benefits cannot be paid, they will give only the payable benefits. that may sound like garbage. that is a real gut rancher. did that will hit in 2037. last may, there's more coming in than going out. you get to this point. he will get paid full benefits and not scheduled benefits. you can sue and moan and shrin eek but it will not do any good. we said we think you ought to help. they are bound together by the

love of airline discounts. insurance discounts. it has really picked up. sex over 50 is the cover. now it is sex over 60. the ad are about how to get something and not how to do not have to pay for it. read the aarp magazine. are there any patriots and year are just marchers' tax that is a harsh statement. i intended to be just that -- or rtyrs?arc i intend to do just that. let's watch more from this event

online at the c-span video library. day two political scholars debated on how the demographics will affect 2012 and beyond. they take part. this portion is about 30 minutes. >> good morning. welcome to the fourth american enterprise debate. i am a senior fellow. the american enterprise debate topics have varied wildly. they inaugurated this series with a debate on how much government is good government. -- piquancy all of the debate on the web sites. the idea behind the debate is to offer simple and provocative question and bring to have the

best people together to discuss it. and exciting to be moderating. -- i am excited to be moderating. there is another reason i am happy to be here. i am the amateur historian at the institute. i've watched think tanks grow and change. think tanks play an important role his starkly as injury dating to dig into mediating -- as intermediating this spirit i expect that our debaters probably disagree on many

political issues. they have and a common a deep respect for the history. this is unparalleled. this differs. they believe the debate can be civil and the think tanks can play a constructive role. in a day impression. he came to washington to work on capitol hill for a republican congressmen. he went to work for the nixon campaign in 1968. he dedicated his book to richard nixon and john mitchell. he talked about his passion for

voting patterns, american history, politics, and sociology. it converges at the ballot box. they share the same passion. he believed in the cyclical theory of american politics arguing that there were clear cycles of ideology. 1968 he argued was a turning point. he did not believe the republicans that created a new one. his emerging republican majority was south, at the west,. they believe there is seeing the end of an error. it emerge full-blown in 1980.

they argued that we are at a similar turning point. it will yield very different results from those that they predicted. there is the rise in a number of self described independence. they argued that unlike past political reliance that is dramatic, and this realignment would be more gradual with forward motion. realignment happened when the emerging majority party create a new coalition by winning over voters by the rival party.

they argue that there are not necessarily a modest is. they use the metaphor of an old city. it contains older structures. it includes some democrats. it also includes three groups after becoming a larger and more powerful part of the electorate. i will let them describe them for it. arguing against is my colleague michael barone. he believes we are in an era of open field politics when either party will be down. let me give you the ground rules. each will present by minute opening arguments after which a bill will bring. -- bell will ring.

then you have a question and answer time. it also some that your questions on twitter. after, we have this 25 minutes question and answer period. let the debate began. >> thank you for that introduction. also this summer and my book. army going to get intermediate levels ? what is the claim we are discussing today that it is good to get clarity. i will take this on the flyer.

they are shifting in a direction that will permanently benefit the democratic party. i do not believe in permanent means -- liens and restructuring. one thing michael has written is that there are no permanent majorities. i do not think this is unrealistic. social structure changes. parties readjusts. nobody secure forever. even in the medium term they will not win them. nor will i embrace the hard a

line in feeling. some of the followers were like clockwork. they will shift american politics. it produced a completely new party system. i think that is empirically suspect as well. there is a classic realignment theory. that is not what i want to discuss. i do want to argue that it is not a permanent or 36 your majority. we do have a democratic lean for some time to come. let me take a quick look. i will talk fast. 92 serve a population growth in the united states was for minorities. 92% are going up with the

population. it'll probably be a minority nation. it is much less friendly. not all are the same. the white conservative is going down at three a year. that is three points over a four year candidates. college graduates are increasing their share by about 1/4 point a year. that is very important to keep in mind. it highlights the mathematical situation for the republicans. in the chief constituency is declining rapidly while minorities are increasing rapidly. you are shifting in friendly democratic voters.

over the short term, it is possible for republicamnns to thread the needle. that is a system what they did in 2010. i do not think this could work for the long term. let me zoom to the question of generations. we do have the rise of the millennium generation. if you look at 2008, it pieces together the party idea advantage. you get about a 20. party idea for the democrats. that is pretty significant. there are 4 million eligible voters coming into the el ectorate each year. let me mention some other

groups. groups of women are strongly democratic. they're highly educated. they are approaching about half. steelers are the fastest-growing religious group. estimates are that by the middle of the 2020's there be nearly a quarter. we will no longer be this nation. christians will be roughly was less 3 of this. we also see the concentration of all of this. this is where you see the strongest trends. in conclusion, the muff crab cake -- democratic change is real.

it dramatically impeded the change. even under and modernize gop. the country is changing. they must change our they will leave them to have the benefits. >> are like to remind you to please direct your questions up front. -- i would like to remind you to please direct your questions up front. >> i would like to thank you for your courage for making an estimate for the 2012 election. his very fine book was published

just before the 2002 election. it turned out to be a republican victory. i reviewed that for national review. after a couple of cheap shot about the 2002 election, i came to the conclusion that this was a serious and interesting book and analysis of the american electorate. that is sure of the point he is making now. since it first. we have seen in democratic majorities in merge pretty strongly in the elections of 2006 and 2008. they resembled the demographic projections that he set out in his book. we have also seen a republican majority a large -- emerge in the election of 2010.

in some ways, if you look at the numbers it has been on my previous decades. it is a good proxy for partisan preference. 2008 in 2010 are booked marked with 2010 being the maximum. in my introductions to the almanac of american politics, i took seriously after the election of 2004 the claims of republicans that they were emerging from the 51 server republican victory. 51% was the percentage.

at six years after the election of 2008 the claims of democrats. they had emerged from the democratic percentage. i wish i had taken these claims less seriously. they are casting considerable doubt. they can fairly be characterized in 2010 in the same way. the fact is that it lasted less

then 40 months. i take a skeptical view of the idea. i think changes and demographics unlikely to exceed the magnitude necessary. they consign the sat is over a bit of time. the democrats were there from 1942 to 1968. i think democrats changes are not enough to do it. i tended to favor republicans. some of them have not worked out.

they tend to have more children than liberals. people born since 1978 or 1980 have come in as a more democratic are less republican group. that projection did not pan out as i thought yo. it was based on the idea that the near future will resemble the recent decades of the past. i certainly have seen this. they reported that the migration from mexico that the measured

was zero. there is the magnitude of 500 -- 500,000. my view is that people have predicted neither the beginning or the end. the number of professional women working is not increasing during the recession does democratic changes were not assured to be the level that we have seen in the past. i think they have a marginal effect. >> thank you for an interesting question.

i like to answer all the questions myself. >> you both have responses. >> we have to keep to the schedule. i just want to clarify the presentation. i'm not talking about a permanent majority. i never use the term. i've never used it in the book wars since. the whole idea of the permanent majority is there.

i've never written the book. they have given to overstatement paid we lean toward the democrats. it will continue. the question is what is more probable. everyone thought that once the smoke cleared and the dust scheduled we would see a slowdown. we do not see a slowdown. there are some expectations that

it might slow down. i think we're likely to continue to see this transcript -- transformation. recently there economic driven declines. but so but will eventually come back. hispanics tend to have higher fertility than white americans. it is largely because of that comment the percentage of hispanics is likely to increase substantially. the immigration issue does not

necessarily speak to the fertility issue. but think what he is saying is that there are no inevitable and outcomes. i think there outcomes that are more coalitions that are stronger. on average, that should benefit who the trends are feeding into. i want to stress just what i said at the end of my initial presentation. there has been important interaction. what the democrats really need to consolidate their coalition

is the they needed to address it. i think they made this. we all know about it. they have this. they have put together a stronger performance from the economy. it would consolidate the coalition his outline i could forward to you today. i do not mean their permanent majorities. they would be around them.

we are looking at a situation for the democrats. >> let me look at a couple of categories that we both talked about here. one thing he has amended is that they're not the same way. black voters continue to be heavily democratic.

this is what we saw in 2008. i think this will be a high point. >> the record is mixed with a look at different states. that is not a killer margin. rick perry, the governor of texas who attracted some attention recently bought 39 term of hispanic votes in texas. that is a pretty good number.

if you judge by the exit poll, they would not have one. not all the hispanics are cuban- americans. again, this is not an overwhelming percentage. they are concentrated in the heavily democratic state of california, with maryland and new york and the state of massachusetts. gov. chris christi, in 2009, that is the highest percentage of people of origin from india in the united states. this is interesting, they apparently did not favor john corzine. i think that what we