twitter.com/c-spanwj. the postal service could lose up to $10 billion and have less than one week's worth of money in the bank at the end of the fiscal year, according to the postmaster general. the writer of this story for " the washington post," joins us on the phone right now. caller: they have billions of dollars in labor and health care costs that must be paid every year that this year will probably total north of $7 billion. they are trying to get congress to change those rules so that they do not have to pay as much in advance. they are also looking to put an end to a bit of language in the appropriations bill that requires them to deliver mail

six days per week. dropping down to five days would save them $7 billion annually. it turns out that most americans are supportive of this. many do not see why they need to get mail delivered on saturday right now. it is simply that congress has not acted on it. there are other proposals that they have put forward, but then there are lawmakers who wonder why you would cut back on service during this time. host: when it comes to the history of congress helping the postal service in this kind of situation, how willing has congress been in the past? caller: they have been asking for this for least three years.

congress has not budged. every year around this time you see the postmaster general on the bill saying that this is what we need you to help us do. we are looking at closing post offices, we can only go so far. we need you, congress, since the post office is in the constitution, to give us the ability to sell things besides postage. the ability to not have to pay as much for advanced retirement. congress, four or -- for all sorts of reasons, health care reform, an election year, has simply ignored it. this year, amidst all of the other talk, they are banking on the possibility that now that

they are paying back as much as they can, the problem is that all of them are essentially starting to give back to the postal service some control over this period of the other is in the house, leaving things, demonstrating the potential gridlock that lies ahead. house and senate leaders can rarely agree on house legislation moving forward. >> there is a picture this morning of cliff duffy and tervor orlando. what has been their reaction? >> just a reminder, the hearing

on the post office live at 2:00 p.m., we're going to take you live to the press club, they're introducing mayor rudy giuliani . >> president george w. bush was largely out of sight that morning on air force one. it was our next speaker who assured americans that the country would survive. he had handled plenty of tough tasks in his career as prosecutor. our guest prosecuted mobsters and wall street financiers. he served as associate attorney general in the justice department in the reagan administration. when he became mayor in 1994, new york seemed overtake bin crume and urban decay. our speaker is credited with

reducing the crime rate and improving the quality of life, cracking down on squeegee men, panhandlers who would menace those stuck in traffic, and he cleaned up times square. it would be appropriate to call mayor giuliani "sir," he was awarded an honorary knighthood by queen elizabeth in 2002. he is also a prostate cancer survivor. he manages a company that helps people plan for and manage disasters. a political moderate, he ran in 2008 for the republican primary for the republican nomination and though he stopped opinion polls, he did not fare as well in the primaries. we're told he his not officially ruled out another

run for the white house, a decision he won't make until after the 10th anniversary of september 11 passes. he said if he did run, he would focus more on the economy than national security. "you have to talk about what people are concerned about," he told the ample p. "and what people are concerned about is the economy." our primary focus here is the state of the nation's security after the september 11 attacks as well as how to secure america's future. as i began my term as n.p.c. president, i made it a priority of my own to make sure we landed an impressive speaker for this occasion. please give a warm welcome to mayor rudy giuliani. [applause]

>> thank you very much. mark is the 104th president of the press club, i was 107th mayor of new york city. which means we both existed for a long time. i am very pleased to be here. this is always a difficult subject for me because the whole recollection of and thinking about september 11 is very complicated. it's complicated because it was the worst day in my life, worst day in the live of my city, to some extent, i imagine the country, pretty close to the worst day for the country and in some way it was the greatest day, the most glorious day, because of the display of bravery and fortitude and strength that people showed. i, as mark noted, have been given a lot of honors of various kinds, including being knighted. i do not use the title sir because my friends back in brooklyn would beat me up.

if i tried to use it. and if i ever have any hope of running for office of any kind again, i better not use the title sir. in fact, to appropriately use the title sir, i believe you have to renounce your citizenship. ain't no way. but a lot of the praise, honor, whether it was being knighted or being given awards by mrs. reagan, which i am very proud of, i feel humbled by that because i was standing on the shoulders of giants, of people who did the brave work and difficult worg and brages work. two of them are with me today because they worked in my administration with me. one is former deputy mayor rudy washington. he's one of four deputy mayors in new york city. he organized our effort to bring in heavy equipment that day to save lives. he organized our effort to

recover. he was totally dedicated and worked 24 hours a day probably for four straight months, he has suffered some ailments as a result of that, being at ground zero so often. he's one of the people that was affected by that, respiratory system affected by that. he handled that with consummate bravery. he recently made some news, or some trouble, if you want to call it that, by urging that they include a religious leader or religious leaders as part of the september 11 memorial next saturday. [applause] he was the commissioner of the mayor's office of emergency management on the day of september 11, 2001, ritchie had a long history of being with the fire department and the police department, had intimate knowledge of the communications systems of new york city and

the emergency response of new york city, he's one of the people that prepared new york city for whatever emergencies we could possibly think of. we had 20 or 25 emergency plans, we would practice them all the time and try to continue to improve our situation on the day of -- our situation. on the day of september 11, both rudy and ritchie with with me when we were trapped in a building, it took us 20 minutes to get out. we could have lost our lives, didn't think of it at that time. we were two and a half blocks away from the first building coming down. it hit our building. ritchie remained calm, professional, led our effort through that day, our emergency response effort, the recovery effort afterwards which many people don't understand was, i'm not going to say as complicated as the immediate response to the attack but almost as complicated and almost as dangerous.

everybody that worked there for the next three of four months had their lives at risk with the buildings that could have easily fallen down, with the fire best low the ground, the enormous heavy equipment. when we build a high raise in new york city, we lose three or four people because it's inherently dangerous to build a construction project. somehow we got through that four months without anybodying in seriously injured. some people are injured now and should not be abandoned. but we got through that time without any injuries and ritchie is one of the big reasons for that. if i didn't have people like rudy and ritchie, i wouldn't have been able to do it. [applause] how do you relate to september 11, whether the country is safer now or not as safe and what should be done about it,

first of all, i think it's worth noting that september 11, 2001, is a -- is an event that is a defining event for our country. whether we think it is or we don't, it is. because it's one of those events that people remember where they were when it happened. in my lifetime, i can relate to only two others, one before i was born and one when i was in college, the first one was pearl harbor, my parents and everyone of that generation would constantly tell you where they were when they heard about pearl harbor. the second one was the assassination of president john f. kennedy. i remember where i was when i heard about the assassination of john f. kennedy. i'm sure everyone in this room could recite where they were. and the third one is september 11, 2001. everyone remembers where they

were when the attack on the twin towers and on washington and other the skies of pennsylvania happened in. in fact, this is -- happened. in fact, this is almost completely accurate, yang of many times when i spent time in an airport, including in singapore and tokyo and in south africa, where people haven't come up to me and said to me, do you know where i was on september 11? and then aexplain to me in detail where they were. first couple of times that happened, i found it very strange. the answer is always, no, i don't know where you were. i know where i was. i remember pretty clearly where i was. i don't know where you were. but i decided that somehow i've become a repository for people feeling like they have to explain that. so it is a defining event for us. right now, as we enter into the second, you know, decade of the

21st century therks most defining event. it's had tremendous implications for us. it's having implications for us we still don't quite understand. i'm not sure we understood 10 years later all the implications pearl harbor had for us or all the implications the kennedy assassination had for us. but here are some of them. and some that i think we can learn from. the -- when people endure a traumatic event, one of two things happens. they either become almost immobilized by it or beaten by it or crushed by it or they grow from it. on the evening of september 11, i asked the people of new york, i think it might have been my last or second to last statement i made, the third press conference we had, we were all pretty exhausted, probably in shock, right, probably still in shock.

i said i want the people of new york city to emerge stronger for this. i remember thinking as i walked off the podium that i wasn't sure if that was an exhortation, an admonition, or a prayer. because i wasn't sure we'd emerge stronger for it. i thought we would. i hoped we would. i had faith that the people of new york city handle big things better than small things. if there's a pothole, or you don't get rid of their first three inches of show -- snow, they want to impeach you but if there's a train wreck or blackout or -- they just rise to the occasion. and people of new york really did rise to the occasion. they've been stronger and better than i ever thought they would be. new york city, which is -- focus on new york city which after all was the center of the largest attack, new york city

now has more people living there, new york has more tourists, new york city is economically sounder, even with the recession and the problems we're having now in our economy, new york city's economy is not as affected as the rest of the country. it's a more diverse economy. there's absolutely no feeling that i detect that people don't want to come to new york because they're afraid of the attack of september 11 or afraid of the realistic advice that new york city is a major target to this day. there's no one that doesn't believe that they won't attempt to attack new york city again. there was an attempt on times square a short while ago that luckily was foiled. so new york city is a great example of resilience. of american resilience. and resy yens is a defense against islamic extremist terrorism. an important defense. i believe that the terrorists

attacked us for at least two reason one of which they succeeded at and the second of which they miserably failed at. the first reason they attacked us was to kill many, many people. and they ended up killing almost 3,000 people. worst attack in the history of our country, worse than pearl harbor. so you have to sayed they skeded in doing damage to us. -- succeeded in doing damage to us. i don't know what my feelings will be on sunday who i saw i

turned to my communications director and asked her, asked

about numbers, what kind of help do we need and within 10 or 15 minute she got back to

me. we were walking to our new command center she got back to me and said. i don't get told this as often as i get asked about where you were on september 11. they said if i wasn't for your fire department i wouldn't have made it out of the building. when you're walking out of the building that's on fire and the men are walking into the building and didn't seem to be afraid and didn't run out on the first sign of evacuation. that ceyed incalculable number of lives. it meant there was an orderly exit, things far less traumatic than the world trade center have resulted in riots in which people died trampling over each other. not a single person did that happen to, that's because of the bravery and inherent courage of the new york city police department and individuals like rick, about

whom a movie is being made, who saved people by being the last one out. he said he would be the last one out and he never did get out. that prevented it from being worse than it was and maybe prevented the terrorists from achieving their, whatever weird you were in they -- number they had in their head. the second reason they attacked us was to break our spirit. it wasn't just to kill people but to kill people for a purpose. it wasn't accidental that they selected washington, d.c. and new york city, the capital of the united states, the political cap tl of the united states and the economic capital of the world. most of their hatred of us, our politics, our economy, our belief in various religions as opposed to what they believe is

the one true religion, our political right that we give to women, that we give to other people, these are reasons to hate us. so it wasn't accidental that they attacked washington and they attacked new york and the purpose of it was to break our spirit. to demonstrate how weak we are. to demonstrate how, by doing this, they would put our economic system in chaos, put our political system in chaos and they would show how much better a world ruled by theocracy could be. well, boy, just the opposite occurred. from the first moment of the firefighters walking into the build, not running out, to our political people all coming together, man, we should have bottled that. it's fabulous. i mean, i was the mayor of new york, i had all the support i

could ever possibly ask for from president bush. from the democratic members of congress. i had many gatherings of democrats and republican going down to ground zero, talking about how to prevent another one and how the american flags all over the place, being waved. i rode with president bush up west end avenue on a very famous day on september 11 14, 2001, after he went to ground zero, ritchie got into the car with me and commissioner kerig and the other commissioner, they traveled in the car with the president, one of them sat on his lap. and as we were going up west end avenue, they were flags all over the place. people yelling and screaming, god bless america. blowing kisses to president bush, we love you, president bush. i couldn't help it, looking at them, richard remembers them, i

said, mr. president, not a single one of these people voted for you. and i think four of them voted for governor patacki and me. it's not our point of -- our part of town. for a republican, it's not -- there is no part of town. except staten island. the reality is we achieved a unity most of us had never seen before. and it's pause of something not just, when i talked about how new york became stronger and new york became strong enough because they're noers -- because they're new yorkers and because -- and america became stronger because we realized how important our freedom is and how important it is to defend it and those are all wonderful things that emerged from september 11 and i have

absolutely no doubt that if, god forebit, we were attacked again, whether it happens under president obama, i certainly hope it doesn't, or happens under another president, that we'll have exactly the same reaction. president said about a year ago, and some people criticized him for this, but i thought it was the right statement. he said, america, something like america could handle another attack. he wasn't inviting one, or suggesting we were going to have one, he was just sating the obviously, that we could. and it's important for terrorists to know that. resiliency takes away a lot of what they think they're going to do to us. now why do i think the country has really not been attacked since september 11? well, i have to tell you, if i take myself back 10 years ago to the morning of september 11, september 12 and 13 and 14, p both of them will remember this, they were at all these meetings with me, we were being

warned of numerous attacks. on that very day, we didn't know if there would be another three or four airplanes that would attack us. a lot of our response, when people look at what we did and why we did it, a lot of our response was not just to say that many people at the site, but a lot of our response was to protect the city against further attack, which we were told was going to happen. and we were told it was going to happen right in the aftermath of september 11 and for many years to come. and there was every indication that that was the case. well, there haven't been a lot of attacks. there have been at least 40 attempts to do such attacks in the united states since then. a lot more than people realize. those are 40 that i can find from public documents, from my previous experience in government, i can assure you there are probably a lot more. but for one, which i would consider major hasan's attack

on fort hood, an islamic extremist terrorist attack, i have a hard time understanding why the government doesn't see it that way, since he was yelling al la akbar as he was kill -- awl la akbar as he was kill -- allah akbar as he was killing people, as a former prosecutor, that would be big evidence. i'll tell why why i think we were safe and what we need to do to continue to remain safe. one thing we have to do, we went on offense against them. starting with the war in afghanistan and the war in iraq. i think tying up al qaeda and other groups that would try to rival and equal what al qaeda would do in foreign wars was enormously effective in slowing them down. it also gave us a plethora of intelligence that we wouldn't

on stain if we weren't present there, if we weren't engaged in a war there. engaged in capturing people, questioning people. that intelligence was unavailable to us. before september 11. because we didn't have a major presence in that part of the world. the biggest fear that i have is that as we get to the 10th anniversary of september 11, people are going to believe it's over. there's nothing special about a 10th anniversary. i said this to one of the women who lost a husband on september 11 a few years ago. i asked her, how are you going to deal with the 10th anniversary. she said, it's no different than the ninth or the 11th or the day after. that's true, there's nothing special about then 10th anniversary. it just happens to be a numerical computation you can make. here's the simple fact about september 11 that should be

emphasized over and over again from now until this 10th anniversary is over. september 11 is not yet part of our history. pearl harbor is part of our history. pearl harbor is over. that war was bonn, our enemies have become our good friends. you can do endless analysis of it for historically -- purely historical reasons to learn from it but it's not part of our present reality. september 11 is present reality. the reason i mentioned before for which those people attacked us on september 11 live. the people who attacked us under that banner of islam, still want -- of distorlted islam still want to attack us under the banner of distorted islam. they have more reason to do it, maybe with more force, maybe with less, maybe they'll resort

to other i whats. we can't say, let's put this behind us. if we do that, we'll repeat the mistake we made before september 11, which is not evaluating correctly the scope and danger of islamic extremist terrorism. notice i use those words and use them often. i do because i have a simple belief. if you can't face your enemy, you can't defeat your enemy. if you can't honestly describe your enemy, there are distortions in your policy decisions as a result of that. there is nothing insulting to decent, good members of the muslim religion in my saying islamic extremist terrorism anymore thans of insulting to itanall -- italian american community to say the word mafia or that it would be insulting

to decent germans to say the word nazi. our failure to to it leads to mistakes that could harm us in the future. one mistake to avoid is political correctness. you can't fight crime and you can't deter terrorism if you are hobbled by political correctness. i believe that major hasan is an example of that. there's no way that major hasan should have been a major in the united states army after several years of spewing forth hatred for the united states of america under the banner of distorted islam. so if you want to learn from september 11, here's one of the first lessons to learn. don't underestimate your enemy, don't be afraid to face your enemy honestly and squarely. don't be afraid to discuss it hovepbsly and don't create within the bureaucracy, including the bureaucracy of

the military a fear of doing the right thing because it will be misinterpret -- misinterpreted. most human beings are not heroes. most human beings will not get a chapt for the profiles of courage. most human beings do what is expected of them. if what is expected of them is to ignore the reality, they willig forereality and we'll be worse for it. the second thing to remember as we come out of september 11 is, there is an impatience that has developed over the last two years to our military presence in iraq, afghanistan, and some other parts of the world. that's an understandable impatience. we've been there a long time and we've lost so many wonderful, innocent people, people who just want to serve their country and they're the

ones chosen to serve and they've lost their lives. so it develops an impatience that's understandable in a good country like ours. but here's what leadership is about. leadership is saying to the american people that we have to be present in that part of the world in spite of what public opinion polls say. we have to be present in that part of the world until that part of the world stops making plans to come here and kill us. season that why we were in germany? for as long as we were in germany? isn't that why we were in europe? isn't that why ronald reagan pointed cruise missiles at the soviet union in the 1980's? because that part of the world endangered our survival? if our leadership through republican an democratic presidents from truman to george bush the first understood that, our leadership now has to understand that. we need to be militarily

present in the middle east until significant numbers of people in the middle east stop planning to come here and kill us or killing us overseas and we should get the american people ready for that. we should make them understand the value to us in terms of intelligence, the value to us in terms of stopping things before they get to the point of people trying to kill us here in the united states or attacking one of our embassies abroad. we should explain to people how that has a deterrent impact to see 100,000 american troops in that part of the world a deterrent impact on miserable dictators. it would be nice if it were different, if we lived in a perfect world. but that's not leadership. leadership is helping us live in the world we actually live. in my final thought about it is, in addition to those things that we have to do, in addition

to the fact that we have done some good things both in the bush and obama administration in improving airport security and significantly improving intelligence, intelligence gathering and the flow of intelligence, which also had a big impact on preventing those 40 attacks and more and the good work that both president obama and president bush did in the long-term effort to catch bin laden, which was a significant achievement and the significant achievements we're having now, we do have a tendency to think that the next attack will be like the last attack. we've done a good job of preventing an attack like september 11 from happening. doesn't mean it can't happen but we've done as good a job as you can expect. our port security hasn't been improved the way it should and it needs that kind of attention. and we should get out of the mindset that the next attack is going to be like the last one and we've got to start thinking about, what else might they try to do? will they decide they can do

small attacks in smaller cities as a way of disrupting us? and we have to prepare for that. an we have to say to ourselves, that lev let our -- that we've let our economy and budget get so out of control that it's becoming a security issue. when this country has to worry about whether it's spending too much money on defending us, then this is a national security problem. and republicans and democrattings should figure out how to get beyond the fighting over old things and start to figure out, how do you create a budget people can have confidence? a budget that shows that we can get over our spending addiction, a budget that shows we can make some reasonable choices about how much money we're spending on health care, not to eliminate it but to get it under control.

if we don't do that, that's going to have an implication for how well we can defend ourselves. it's past time for that to stop being a political issue and become a national security issue. having said that, my primary memory of september 11 is of bravery. at least that's what i choose to make it. of how brave those people were. and i remember the first good thought i had on september 11 was seeing the picture of the firefighter putting the flag up on top of the rubble and the fire. and immediately what came to mind was iwo jima and i had just read tom brokaw's book "the greatest generation" and that book asked, could this generation handle what that generation was able to do? and just watching that picture, i sid to myself, -- i said to myself, they are the sons and grandsons of the people who

fought and won the second world war and it's not going to be any different. they're just as strong, they're just as powerful, they are just as much in love with america as their parents and grandparents were. and make it takes a time like this to bring that out. that's there. and this is the most exceptal country in the history of the world. that what -- what nation has ever fought wars for other people? empires are created, like rome and england, fighting wars to acquire territory for the empire. america has fought wars to liberate and help other people. no nation in the history of the world has ever done that. it is an exceptional country. we should love it, we should understand its failings and fix them but we should also understand that no human beings have ever done it better than

americans in the 20th and 21st century. it's never been better than this for human beings and we should be very grateful. thank you. [applause] >> we have a lot of questions, a lot of people, nice crowd for you here today. let's start with the personal side a little bit. someone asked the question, where did you personally find the strength to continue leading the city after 9/11? >> no one place. first of all, i don't think i had a choice. it was a question of, do i roll up in a little ball and have people showing me on television like that? would have been really embarrassing if the mayor

started crying. or do i just try to do the best i can? a lesson my father taught me very young in my life, which i share with other people all the time, i have no idea why he taught this emergency if you're ever in an emergency, ever in a fire, remain calm, that will give you your best chance of figuring your way out of it. and then he would go on to say, if you're not calm, pretend you are and it will help you be calm. i remembered that. i prayed a lot. i had no one biggest loss on september 11 but maybe the most jarring was father michael judge because it was the first one, we had re-established a command center at the police academy and someone informed me that the first person was discovered dead and was being carried out of the world trade center to st. peter's church,

father michael judge, chaplain of the fire department. he was a person i would think about that i would lean on to help me get through it to help me explain death to so many people because he did it so many times for me with the fire department. when i lost him, i really felt -- i felt almost like i felt when i lost my father. i'm now going to have to grow up and do this myself. but i guess you find the strength in the things that brought you up. then i would go back and think about other emergencies i handled and realized i knew how to do this. when i went home that night i read a biography of churchill, i wanted to see, how did someone handle something far worse than this, repeated attacks every single night. that gave me strength. and it did going through cancer.

if someone else has gone through it, i can go through it. ined to say@to the people of new york, if the people of london got through it, you can get through it. >> we have some questions, one about the on going threat from al qaeda and the shift that occurred, that have present before 9/11, and that is the fear of the threat from homegrown terrorists. what are your thoughts about balancing those two and where we are today with that. >> i think that they're both equally dangerous threats in some ways homegrown terrorists are more dangerous. they're more dangerous because they're harder to detect. if something is being organized overseas, particularly in the areas where we have a tremendous military presence which also means tremendous intelligence presence that follows from a tremendous military presence, the need to communicate that across the world gives us a much better chance of finding it, detecting it, sfopping people from coming

in, picking up messages. when it's done, homegrown is much harder to detect. i was in london the day of the attack in london, the four bombings in london. half a block away from the liverpool station when the first bomb went off. this is why people are reluctant to invite me to parties, things like that. that was homegrown u.k. terrorists. which i think shocked even them and their intelligence services are about the best in the world system of homegrown terrorists are very, very dangerous. but so far, most of them are still organized around islamic extremism and around their own desire to participate in jihad. so unfortunately, that's the area where you have to look for 90% or 95% of the terrorism.

if you just avert your resources from that, you can make a great mistake. >> what was your reaction to the death of osama bin laden and second, how have we managed the problem presented by pakistan? >> my reaction to the death of osama bin laden was a re-- was relief and a tremendous amount of pride in the way in which the united states handled it. i thought it was president obama's finest moment. i thought he handled it courageously, particularly making the decision to send the seals in rather than just engage in a bombing that would have left all kinds of questions about whether we really questioned him. i thought the decision making about the burial at sea were excellent. i thought it demonstrated that president bush's policies helped to yield the information that led to that and i think that has to be acknowledged. and i think it will make the 10th anniversary somewhat

easier. because when you bring someone to justice, there's something elemental about that desire in human beings who have been victimized the way these people were victimized. i think it will help. i think it will help to destabilize and eventually deconstruct al qaeda. i think that was all positive. i think pakistan is easy to criticize, complicated to do, both for the bush and now the obama administrations. i think there are allies of ours in pakistan and enemies of ours in pakistan and pakistan is a nuclear power. we have to play a game with pakistan, how to maximize the people helping us and minimize those who aren't. i don't want to get political, particularly, i don't like doing that around september 11

but i don't consider this political, i consider it important to say. i think part of the problem we have in pakistan and afghanistan is the silly timetables we put on things. you cannot fight a war with a timetable. when did this idea emerge? this is the dumbest thing and most dangerous thing you can do. imagine if we'd engaged in the civil war or the first world war, with a timetable. we'll fight nazism for three years, then get tired and leave. we're going to be in afghanistan until the sum over 2010 or summer of 2011. you can't win a war that way. secondly you give your enemies a tremendous blaring headline they really aren't serious. we really can wear them out. we can really wear them down. and finally, when you do that, you demoralize your troops and put them into much greater danger because they realize the

more pressure we put on them, maybe they'll speed up the withdrawal and they won't change their minds. you fight a war for an objective. objectives don't have timetables. what was the object i have in the second world war? defeat hitler. what's the objective in afghanistan? to make afghanistan safe so they stop plotting to kill us there. when should we leave afghanistan? when we accomplish that objective. that could be tomorrow or it could be six years from now. we should remain in afghanistan and iraq and in that part of the world until people in that part of the world, significant numbers of people stop trying to figure out how to kill americans. [applause] >> you referenced this in the beginning of your speech, mayor

bloomberg decide nod religious leaders will participate in the ceremony at ground zero. >> i respect mayor bloomberg and i appreciate what a good mayor he's been. i worked hard to reform new york city and i worried that would be changed. mayor bloomberg has carried on my programs and improved them. but i disagree with the mayor. i would allow four religious leaders to say a little prayer, since so many people want it and at least i personally witnessed how important religion was in getting people through september 11. what an important role it played. whether you're religious yourself or not. it played a tremendous role, having gone to so many masses so many religious services, so many synagogues, maybe 100, i don't know, and seeing how that

offered some strength to move on, i would say that religion played a significant role in getting people through september 11, whether you believe or you don't believe, it's just the reality. it would be simple to have a priest, a minister, a rabbi and an imam, the way we did at the service rudy organized at yankees stadium, which was emceed by oprah winfrey if i'm not mistaken. so just get -- say a little prayer. the microphone will not melt. if you say a prayer. and the first amendment of the constitution prohibits the establishment of religion and any interference with the free exercise of religion. it doesn't mean you can't say the word religion in a government building. we don't have to be hostile to religion, we just can't

establish one and require people to be part of it. at the sape time, we shouldn't be at war with religion as if it's evil and bad an awful which i think is an excessive reaction that probably has marleaued the last 30 years of our country. >> you said you don't want to be political. i'm going to hope that had to do with 9/11. we are in the political season, close to labor day, is the consensus right of -- post-labor day, is the consensus right or wrong that you're not going to run for president? >> how do i know? i'm not part of the consensus. i decided to put it off three weeks ago, it didn't seem to me right to answer questions like that then, but i'll tell you what i said before that, i would very much like to see a change in direction in our country. i am a republican. i was the first republican elected mayor of new york city in 25 years and first one to

remain republican in 50. i may be described as a moderate republican but i would ask people to read "the new york times" editorials about me and see how moderate i really was. i thought i governed economically as the most conservative mayor in the history of this city. george will said i was the most authentic conservative candidate because of my economic policies, welfare policies and policies on crime and security. but i -- and i think if i were to run, i would have a chance of winning the presidency. a chance. nobody ever knows. but i would have a hard time getting nominated. i'm a realist and i understand how the primary system works. so i would like to see if there's somebody that emerges that i think would be a strong candidate in the republican party for president if somebody does eamerica that i believe can win, i would probably support that person.

if i think we're tryly desperate, i may run. which is the way i got elected mayor of new york city. do you know what my slogan was? you can't do any worse. [applause] >> texas governor rick perry endorsed you in october, 2007, in your bid for the nomination. would you like to return the favor? >> i like rick perry much. i told him if he wants -- he was attacked my mike huckabee or somebody for endorsing me because i'm such a liberal, crazy, out of control republican. rick -- i could see myself doing that, but i don't know yet, i don't know enough about what he's going to say tomorrow night or the next two or three

nights, the debate, this is a very strange election compared to the one i was involved in because they only had like one debate. maybe two. and we don't know all their positions yet and how they can handle it and with looks like they have the best chance of winning the presidency. so i would rather wait and see what happens there. but i do have a lot of administration for rick. i campaigned for him when he ran for governor gevpbs kay bailey hutchison. very strong supporter of his. i'm a good friend of his. i think his record in texas is exactly the kind of record we need in the united states. but i'm not sure he's the right candidate yet. there's a lot to that. at this point four years ago, i was the nominee, i was going to run against hillary clinton. you see how accurate those are. >> you said you wouldn't be nominated.

what is it about the republican party that makes that difficult. >> i didn't say i couldn't be, i said it would be difficult. we'd have to be truly difficult. >> but what about the party? >> it's the organization of the primary system. the republican party is a big party, like the democratic party, it has all kinds of factors in it, far right, right, conservative, moderate, depends on where you are, if you're running a primary like new hampshire, it's one thing. it's going to be economic issues that define. if you're running a caucus like iowa, it's going to be social issues that still have enormous impact even if the economic issues are the most important they still pull at the soul of many people. it's the way the primary process is organized. the mistake i made last time was getting too focused on the idea of the national campaign and i would tell both rick

perry and governor romney not to worry so much about what the national polls are. i was at 34%, somebody else was at 30%. national polls don't mean anything. winning iowa means something. winning new hampshire means something. winning south carolina means something. and those primaries are tilted very much, at least 2-3, are tilted very much in favor of conservative republicans who are very strongly conservative on social issues. i'm simply not that conservative on social issues and aisle not willing to change just to become president. >> briefly, i want to follow up then with some of the lighter sides of what people want to ask you about, but briefly, can conservative win the electorate that tends to have to be won from the middle? >> i think this election will be determined like most re-leches of presidents based on our economy. the president' -- the

president's speech on thursday is his last chance to be moderate, to do a bill clinton which he has to do if he wants to be re-elected. but if remains tied to extremely unrealistic ideas about our economy and those unrealistic ideas are borne out by the poor ampleance of our economy, it doesn't matter if somebody is right wing, no wing or middle wing, they'll beat him. the american people will say, let's give something else a chance. if the election was right now, the president would lose to any of the top two or three republicans right now. he'd lose because the american people are fed up with the results. they'll, you know, take a chance on something else. if he doesn't show improvement in the economy, i think all the

rest of the stuff isn't going to matter that much. if there is improvement in the economy and he does pull a clinton in the sense, and i mean in the right way, in the sense of trying to govern in the middle, i didn't mean it in the disparage -- for the last couple of years, having been a critic of president clinton, i've been saying to myself, i want you back. you weren't so bad. you reformed welfare and you put 100,000 cops out on the street and understood how to compromise with us. and this has been a disaster. so gee, i didn't want to get too political. >> you took care of that. i appreciate that. one of our traditional housekeeping matters here, as a gesture of our thanks before we get to the final question, i'd like to present you with a true token of our appreciation.

>> the national press club coffee mug. >> here's our final question, the political system is heating up so is another season, baseball. you bought yankees world series rings. what are the chances you'll have another opportunity to do that after this postseason? >> here's my lucky yankee bracelet, i wore it in boston when we beat the red sox. i think the yankees are -- have gotten very hot at exactly the right time. it's like football, the team that wins the super bowl is usually the team that gets hot in december and january. the yankees have all of a sudden started to hit the way they're capable of. if you look at their battle averages after the all-star break, they're fabulous. jeter is batting like .330. he was supposed to be finished, now he's batting .330 since the all-star break. cano is batting .320, a-rod is

back and they brought up a rookie who in his third game hit two home runs to beat the orioles. so i'm worried about the red sox, always am. i'm worried about the rangers. and i'm worried about the philadelphia phillies, what a pitching staff. but i think the yankees can be in the world series and if they're in it, they'll find a way to win. >> how about a round of applause for our speaker. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> i'd like to thank you for coming here today and thank the press club staff, including the library and broadcast center for organizing today's event. here's a reminder, find out more about the national press club at our website, www.press.org. if you'd like, you can get a copy of today's program there. thank you very much, and we're

adjourned. >> more live coverage coming up in a little over an hour and a half. republican presidential candidate mitt romney talks about his jobs plan which includes lowering the corporate tax rate and eliminating the capital gains for middle income americans. president obama meanwhile will release his jobs plan on thursday night before a joint session of congress. we'll have that live this afternoon speaker boehner and house leader eric cantor have written a letter to the president an proposals that they have already approved in the house on their jobs plan. and the president will speak thursday night about his at 7:00 eastern. congress is back this week from their august recess. the senate meeting today. you can see it live shortly,

get under way now on c-span2. the senators will consider a judicial nomination as well as moving ahead with the bill changing u.s. patten law. the house meets for legislative work tomorrow and debate will begin this week on a bill to expand charter schools. also this week re-authorization of u.s. intelligence programs for the next budget year. live house coverage tomorrow here on c-span. also we are covering this afternoon a hearing on capitol hill about the financial situation of the u.s. postal service. postmaster general is among the witnesses scheduled to appear before the senate homeland security and governmental affairs committee. postal service is facing a second straight year of losses of $8 billion or more. and is considering cutbacks and layoffs. we'll have that for you later on on c-span.org and our programming schedule. this morning we talked to a reporter who has been covering the post office story.

>> simply put people stopped sending mail or not enough. they also had billions of dollars of labor and health care costs they must pay every year that this year will probably go for the of $7 billion. they are trying to get congress to change those rules so that they don't have to pay as much in advance for the future retirements of their hundreds of thousands of postal workers. they are also pushing for the last three years which is an toned a little bit of language in appropriations bills that require them to deliver mail six days a week.

dropping it down to five days will allow them to cancel saturday mail delivery and save them about $3 billion annually. if you look at all sorts of different public opinion polls, turns out that most americans are supportive of this. many americans still don't realize they actually would get mail delivered on saturdays right now. congress hasn't acted on it. there are several other proposals that the usps has put forward in hopes of somehow getting congress to help them along in cutting costs, but then of course lawmakers say why would you cut back on delivery at a time when you clearly need to be generating revenue? host: when it comes to congress' history of helping the postal service in this situation, how often does the postal service ask for this kind of relief? how willing has congress been in the past? guest: they have been asking for this for at least the last three years since things started to go south after 2006.

and congress hasn't budged. every year around this time you see the postmaster general come to the hill and say here's what we need you to do. we are cutting back, laying off workers, closing offices, but we can only go so far. we need you, congress, to control us, because post office is written in the constitution, to give us all sorts of different concessions. the ability to set our delivery schedule. the ability to sell things besides postage and envelopes and priority mail services in our post offices. the ability to not have to pay as much in advance for retirement. that will come in the future. but congress for all sorts of reasons whether it's the war, election year, or health care reform, or stimulus projects or tarp, this time of year has simply rebuffed them and ignored it. this year amid all the other talk about spending cuts, post office is banking on the possibility that finally now

that they are demonstrating they are cutting back as much as they can, they are hoping that congress will come along, too. the problem is you got four different competing pieces of legislation, two in the house, two in the senate, all of them essentially start giving back to the postal service some control, but the fact one proposed by the democratic senator from delaware, and the other one in the house by darrell issa should demonstrate the potential gridlock that lies ahead since these days house and senate leaders can rarely agree on legislation to move forward and finally vote on it. host: there is a picture this morning of cliff and the caption of the "washington post" story is they preside over two of the largest unions. what's been their reaction? >> they hang their hat on this very complex issue regarding

future retiree health benefits. and this c-span audience i think can understand the wonkiness and the details, in 2006 congress required them to start prepaying future retiree health benefits to the tune of about $5.4 billion a year. the argument by the postal service is if we even had to pay a fifth, we would be in a better shape. if we paid as we went we would be in better shape. we wouldn't experience these big of losses. the issue is -- what the unions have proposed is that back in the 1970's and 198 o's when the civil service retirement system, the old federal worker retirement pension system, for whatever reason, nobody has given me a good answer why, the postal service overpaid that fund by billions of dollars. some suggest $75 billion. some suggest much less. so what the unions and some

members of congress and what postal officials are hoping is that congress will say, look, because you overpaid this fund that doesn't have as many members any more, why don't we divert some of that money you paid too much into and move it to help prefund these retirement benefits for the future? doing so, the unions will say, will basically solve the financial problems overnight and allow them to refocus on building up their delivery networks and finding new ways to sell things americans would want to buy. and find new ways for americans to start using the postal service again. any discussion of cutbacks and service curtailments is something that the unions find unacceptable because inevitably it means cutting jobs. this is an organization that employs more than 520,000 people. the proposals that the postmaster general will roll out today suggest in the next four years he would like to take it down to an organization that employs just 425,000

people. and he's seeking permission from congress to basically break union contracts and lay off as many as 120,000 workers. which certainly wouldn't help things considering the employment situation. and certainly would change the face of the postal service forever. it's a very labor intensive organization. a very strong union. but in the last few years they certainly suffered as the postal service tries to cut back and largest cost is labor, and they are trying their best to find a way to cut back. host: ed o'keefe covers the federal government. thanks for your time this morning. >> in just a reminder, we are covering governmental affairs hearing on the postal service, the postmaster general is testifying. we'll have that for you later in our program schedule. that one of many hearings getting under way as the house and senate return this week to work. the senate's in this afternoon. they just gaveled in. the house will be back tomorrow.

but ahead of that we will hear from democratic leader nancy pelosi and other democrats this afternoon. they'll be talking about jobs. they have a news conference set for 2:30 eastern and we'll have that live for you here on c-span. in the meantime, part of this morning's "washington journal" focusing on school bullying policies. journal" "washington continues. host: the final segment takes a look of bullying in schools. our guest is catherine bradshaw. welcome. we brought you in because one thing we heard about in new jersey when it comes to their approach to believe in school. can you tell us what happened? guest: they have passed one of the toughest anti-bowling balls. clearly they are setting the mark to having a clear policy and outlining as that of prevention activities that schools can implement to prevent bullying.

host: who is involved in that? guest: the state department of education outline their policy in relation with community stakeholders. then they develop policies for the individual education agencies to outline in greater detail that would be implemented at the ground level. host: talk a little bit about the reaction from the school systems themselves, because from what i've read, there was quite a reaction. guest: right. clearly this will be a big change for schools. they're now required to implement prevention programs and policies to prevent bullying. there will be a district coordinator for bullying prevention activities within the state. there are a variety at activities there require them to report back on a regular basis. they will be greeted in a public venue in will be posted on the

internet. that is really increasing the level of accountability that is required under the jurisdiction of the stage. host: does the state offer money and assistance to make that happen? guest: typically no. these are unfunded mandates. host: for the state you mentioned, is that places where they put the rules in place but they offered nothing in assistance from the state or money from the state? guest: that is typically the case. maryland has an unfunded mandate where there is a stricter requirements to implement an anti-bullying mandate. while the state provides assistance, there is no resources directly allocated to them. >host: is there a federal policy? guest: the u.s. department of education outlines key components that they recommend.

they are outlined in core elements they would like to see and the different model policies that are aligned. there was a recent dear colleagues letter that was issued to remind schools in states around the difference between harassment and bullying and the potential overlap of those. that is an important issue as well. host: talk about the level of interest from the white house on this topic. guest: president obama held a white house summit earlier this year. she and michelle obama both spoke about the impact of bullying. -- he and michelle obama both spoke about the impact of bullying. president obama spoke about a personal story he had. there were parents whose children have committed suicide around bullying-related incidents. host: we will take calls in just

a minute. if you like to ask her about questions regarding bullying coming here is how you do so -- as you call, here is the president of the united states. >> as adults we all remember what it was like to see kids picked on and the hallways or the school year. i have to say with the name i had i was not immune. but because of something that happens a lot, is something that has always been around, sometimes we turn a blind eye to the problem and say kids will be skids. sometimes we overlook the damage it can cause. consider these statistics. one-third of middle school or high school students have reported being bullied during the school year. almost 3 million students have said they were pushed, shoved,

tripped, and even spit on. it is also more likely to affect kids that are seen as different. whether it is the color of their skin, close the where, disability they may have or sexual orientation. bullying has been shown to lean to absences or poor performance in the classroom, and that alone should give as bought since no child should be free to go to school in this country. host: your thoughts? guest: one thing that was critical about the white house summit was being able to highlight some of the problems. the president speaking about the prevalence and the impact of bullying. there has been quite a large body of research that you the verge of the past 50 to 20 years documenting the significance of the problem. it is not something you go through and it over, but it can have very profound affect in the short-term and long-term. that was well highlighted by the

white house event. host: of you were on twitter ask specifically does history showed that bullying has worsened? -- a viewer on twitter asks specifically does history show bubbling has worsened? guest: there are couple of different data points and sometimes they have different results. some show in increase of bullying come up but most data shows the front line has increased a little bit. one area that does seem to be increasing is around the use of electronics for bullying. while that covers a lot of the media and can have very significant impact, it is one of the least common forms of bullying that you would experience, but can have a very devastating impact because it is so widespread. caller: good morning. i have two questions.

has there been studies between private schools and public schools as far as the amount of bullying that has been reported? the second part of the question, if there is no disciplinary action that can be taking place in do not have the support of a private school -- government school verses a private school, what is the differences? i know firsthand, and i will not get into specifics, but if you do not have the support of the parents or the school system itself from a there is not a lot that can be done. thank you for your time, and have a great day. guest: thank you for calling. you raise an interesting question about public schools and private schools. we see relatively similar rates within those settings. sometimes you get smaller class sizes, which suggests a little bit of a buffer in terms of reducing the rates of bullying

because he could have increased adult supervision within that context. rather than broad differences between the different school types, i think it is more a product of having greater supervision by the adults in a smaller classroom setting. as you also alluded to, parent involvement is sometimes greater in a private school setting. host: the numbers are on your screen. florida. laurie on the democrat line. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. first-time calller. my original question was what is the exact definition of bullying, and how is this happening in our government in congress and in senate with the climate of our government at this time? guest: in terms of the definition of bullying of the original definition was outlined by a researcher. he highlighted three critical

features of bullying, one that it is behavior that is intentional, intending to do harm. that is repeated. right now the u.s. government is revisiting the definition because there has been some disagreement about that. i am participating on a panel that is set up by the center for disease control and the department of education to revisit the definition and make sure it is keeping us with contemporary issues. so there are a variety of areas that we need to pursue in greater detail as it relates to the definition of bullying. that has a significant impact on measurement. we do not have a lot of good data sets to be able to understand the long-term course of bullying and how prevalent it has been. many of the datasets we have had switched the measurement strategy overtime. host: you talk about cyber bullying. what is that? guest: that is bullying that

ochers through electronic devices. it could be over the phone. nowadays it is typically over the internet. it could have been through a text message or posting on a block or social networking site. blog or sociala networking site. where do we draw the line between telling a joke about someone verses actually doing harm that is intentional? that is a fine line and really important for us to delineate what is this having fun verses actual bullying? that often is a challenge for schools to be able to figure out different types of behaviors that kids will evasion on line. host: when it comes to different states involved in legislation, can they reach did when a student goes home and put

something on the students facebook page? guest: typically it has to happen within the school environment. there were a couple of cases recently were the judge threw them out, saying it did not create a disruption with the school environment and overturned previous policies that the school had made. a lot of things that went to happen on campus will have a significant impact in the kids' activities and life at school. it is very easy to think of a situation where a child might post something on a school that -- on a social networking side and might cause a disruption at school. host: this question has been asked. how do you know it does not affect development in some strange way? guest: that is interesting. some people report that it helped me be who i am today. there are some instances of that

i imagine, but that is not always the case, especially when your kids that experience chronic forms of bullying over time. it is relatively rare for people to reflect back on those instances and say it did not mean that much to them. in fact, when i do trainings and presentations i typically have people of all ages that can fight very specific details about a bullying incidents they were involved in. it is amazing the amount of detail they wrong -- there remember about it. -- that they remember about it. those that have very profound affect on them. host: and on the democrat line. go ahead. -- anna on the democrats line. caller: how could we set an example to our children when the senate and congress believe themselves along in their own ways?

that is not an example for our children to set. i do not think they set an example for our young people. starts in the home. guest: there is quite a bit of research of some of the factors you brought up, which we referred to as the social learning theory. children learn from other people. in the home is one of the places where children can watch their parents in gauge in bullying or other forms of aggressive behavior. the concern we learned through the media, watching television shows that what -- might model behavior. certainly if they're watching what is happening in politics they could see it happening there as well. what we want to do is have parents talk to kids about these issues and help them understand what kind of behavior is

appropriate and what kinds are inappropriate for them to engage in. host: mike of the independent line from safety harbor, florida. caller: think you, c-span. this is my first official call as an independent. on the topic, ms. bradshaw, please do not take this the wrong way, but i think your endeavors are greatly misplaced if you will. i think bullying has been around since the dawn of man. essentially your slowly creeping in on the first amendment rights. obviously there are other laws that exist. you cannot fight someone pierre did you cannot punish someone. you cannot libel or slander someone appeared that there are ready law on the books that insure that these things did not take place.

if a child is doing something, posting something on facebook or twitter, tough. the student can choose to ignore it or they can grow from it or learned from it. the one thing you cannot do is teach people that you have to watch what you say because someone else's feelings will get hurt. guest: you brought up the difference between bullying and harassment. that is very critically outlined in the dear colleagues letters. i want to highlight that we have a large body of research documenting negative impact that bullying has had. certainly the suicides that were highlighted in the media and were incredibly tragic for everyone, including the family's most directly affected. we get pretty rigorous research studies that document the short-

term and long-term impacts. those can impact our mental health, of behavior help come involvement in academics, ability to grab free from high school. there can be pretty profound of beck's. it is not a new problem. i will agree with you there. i think what has happened is now we have started to build the body of research and understand what impact it is having to be able to develop intervention and prevention programs to stop it. host: for states to have bullying policies in schools, generally what happens to the person found guilty of bullying? guest: there are a variety of different reporting mechanisms. for example, in maryland to states and schools are required to provide parents and students the opportunity to write down and document an issue of bullying. that insures there is a paper trail and follow through as a

result of that. bullying is not an easy case to understand. it is often complex and may take years to unfold and culminate into a fight that happens in the hallway for example. it takes a pair of amount of investigation on the part of the schools. there are a variety of different strategies that the schools can use. one popular one is zero tolerance. this can cut down on people reporting bullying, because they are predicted will get kicked out and not be any kind of intervention. so in some instances you really need to ensure the immediate safety of the victim. what we would recommend and what many states are moving toward our intervention strategies that

range from therapeutic intervention to address the core issues around the problem, might even include a restorative just this type of piece where the perpetrator makes up in some way for the wrongs that have been done. host: our schools set up to do that? -- are school set up to do that? guest: some schools are. typically requires training. we work with a variety of different curriculum programs that require the training on how to handle bullying situations and how to intervene and what to do when you have a situation of bullying of a victim. host: the topic is bullying in schools. melanie on the independent line. caller: i am calling to say there is an answer. the answer is that first of all if the child is being pushed, knocked down, cost over, which

my son experience, the first thing you have to do is do not wait, call the police, because it is a salt. -- because it is assault. if the parents are contacted through the police, it usually ends. the schools do nothing. they do absolutely nothing. they do not want to get involved. you know what they do? they suspend the victim and the aggressor. what the heck will that solve? if you're going to suspend the person who is being harassed. okay? that will solve nothing. the schools need to be educated. the teachers do not care. i do not care what you say, who are, they do not care. my son was harassed for the full time he was in school, from the

time he was into the garden way up. anyone who is to say most of the time they do not pick the kids that are strong, they pick on the kids that are weaker and the purpose of school is to help you to protect kids like that. the police are not taught that. host: what do you think about your state passing this will anti-bullying legislation? caller: i think it is a step in the right direction. until you could be poorly prosecuted by the law, it will not make any difference. host: this involves not only setting in place policies, increased the staff training, deadlines for reporting, and each school has to designate its head-bullying -- anti-bullying for nader's.

caller: it does not help. the only way it will stop is it parents get scared even of that my son is going to go to jail. guest: i think her worry is not that unusual. i hear similar reports from other parents. it sounds like her situation might have involved a child with disabilities. we know child with disabilities from 94% of reported bullying. there needs to be more work done to be able to help those kids cope with these situations and of all families of that. she uploaded to the role of police in the community. -- she referred to the role of police in the community. this will require community involvement and occasionally police involvement. it is important to recognize where do we crossed the line between bullying and assault?

we are hopeful the policy provides guidance around that. host: blend on the republican line. tulsa, okla., is next. -- glenda, the republican line. caller: will new policies be to address the school policy of the industry should so that teachers can have training and the legal system does not end up pulling the head ministration, teachers, a bus drivers, and holding them responsible for these out of character, out of -- well, you know when the children just go off? will there be new policies developed? guest: several of the states, a vast majority have already

developed policies, but i imagine they will continue to be redefined, especially with the guidance from the department of education, and that does include a recommendation around professional development for staff on how to handle this. you bring up an important issue about how a lot of this falls on the shoulders of teachers and other staff to implement the programs and policies. i recently worked on a project with the national education association, the country's largest teachers' union, and they're very concerned about this issue. we will provide guidance to their staff around this issue. we found a national study of members and found that a large portion had not received the training they need it, and they were seeking additional support in trading around this cover particularly around issues of cyber bullying and how to handle bullying among children with disabilities and those that

are gay, lesbian come and transgendered. there is a lot of burden on teachers. i come from a family of teachers, and i work very closely with teachers. we expect a lot of them. we expect them to teach children, a manager classroom, and now be able to the many police officers and implement these differ kinds of policies. there is a lot of pressure on teachers. 97 percent said they would intervene in a bullying situation if they saw it. most say they have effective strategies. bill is a bleak you say they have made bullying situations worse. when we ask students we get a very different picture. i do not think it is because teachers are turning a blind eye intentionally. i think in many cases there are a lot of pressures on them and our little scared of what to do and not to do. host: st. louis, missouri, david

of the independent line. caller: good morning. the situation at columbine high school prior to the shootings has been described to me as if you were not an athlete or someone who supported athletics, you were ostracized and bullied. while not absolving the responsibility for mass murder of the two young men who did that horrible deed, why haven't the jocks who bullied and of used them had their share of responsibility allotted to them, and why isn't anything being done about it? guest: you highlight a very important issue and the columbine high school situation. the first law passed regarded -- related to bullying was passed by georgia in 1999, the same year as the columbine shooting.

you highlight really challenging issues as it relates to culpability, and can we really go back inside bullying and the issue? i think that is a delicate issue, especially given the events that happened in the overall hurting in the community. i think it is very important for us to examine the role of social by minutes -- dynamics in these situations. quite often they're not social outcast. they have high status and are able to have control and power over other use by acting in bullying behavior is and aggressive. it makes a very complex situation and will require a lot of effort in involving used in the solution and not just as a disciplined approach. host: bob barr wrote about this. he concluded when he wrote about anti-bullying situation saying

it is legislation run amok again. is that a fair conclusion? guest: it is a very complex problem. there are a variety of social marketing campaigns that are being developed. i talk with out -- at councils that are getting ready to launch a national campaigns. there are ready ever purchase that happen coming out of the school building and policy level. we're trying to address this from a variety of different angles. it is going to be in a board next up to see how these policies are rolled out in the schools. i see variation, even in the state of maryland, to the state of which there implemented. some states took this to heart, and then they have incidents that are reported on the web.

in other states they held back and did not rule it out as much. i think the truth will be based on how these policies are implemented and the ability to which we're able to document the impact they're having on students. host: the policies deal with after fact, but do they deal with the peer pressure and try to persuade the students themselves in dealing with this? guest: that is one of the employment as rigid elements. it is recommended that states use anti-boeing prevention programs. there are rare variety of programs that have been implemented. some of which work well. -- there are a variety of programs that have them implemented. prevention is certainly where i

would put my money on this instead of a reactive approach. host: what in example of something that works well and one that does not work well? guest: 1 is the bullying prevention program and is a school wide approach to change the norms of toppling and retaliation within the school building that provides training to teachers and opportunities for students in the classroom to talk about the issue of bullying and really have their voice heard. it also includes youth, community, and family members. we have a paper that is just coming out documented the impact on both bullying, as well as victimization. host: next call, pittsburgh, pennsylvania. dave of the democrat line. caller: i have a two-part question. i want to know what if anything is out there to protect a child

from retaliation? my second question deals with what you do if a bully is a teacher or coached? i will hang up and listen to your comment. guest: i think you hit the nail on the head in getting children to report is the fear of retaliation. i know of some of the urban settings where i work in baltimore, there's nothing worse than being a snitch. that is what i hear from the kids. when the model policy say we want kids to report on each other and there is a culture in the community about not reporting on other events like that, you are really tried to overcome not just the kids perception, but a broader cultural norms. that is a real challenge. we need to have a variety of different ways kids can approach of these things, many of which are anonymous. we do web-based surveying

rhythmic a report about bullying in different locations. the adults can use the data to increase supervision or intervene in those different locations without necessarily even knowing the name, but they can know where it is happening and you is generally involved and be able to increase supervision of those hot spots. with regard to adults bullying students, it becomes a question of is it really bullying? we think bullying between youth same age, but whene you have an adult being aggressive towards a child, i would be more concerned in the area of getting into the area of abuse. sadly, i have been in a number of schools across the country where i have heard adults yelling at students of thing inappropriate things to them. that is certainly a disciplinary action that requires a different approach. typically it is something that is brought to the ad as traders attention.

five often in those situations it is a staff member that is that there and of the rope. perhaps they're feeling profound and do not have an effective strategies for handling the stress they are experiencing. i am not accusing their behavior, are recommending they get out of the field or get additional support, maybe mental health support to >> also the video library at c-span.org. we take you live now to capitol hill. minority leader nancy pelosi and other democratic leaders will brief reporters on jobs and the u.s. economy. >> get back to work for this congress. once again democrats are calling upon this congress to get to work to put the american people back to work. in the month of august we had a very extended opportunity to listen to our constituents. obviously their top priority is job creation and economic growth. protecting medicare and medicaid and social security. and to, again, strengthen the

middle class. i'll be very brief because we have a number of members to hear from. we have had long meeting of our house democratic leadership on how we go forward. we come to you with some excitement about the optimism we have for our three very distinguished members who represent us at the table of 12. congressman jim clyburn -- assistant leader clyburn, vice chairman becerra, and ranking member of the budget committee, part of our delegation to the table. congressman chris van hollen. we wish them well. we send them to the table with the highest expectations, with the best good will and without drawing any lines in the sand. we are looking forward to the president's speech tomorrow night, but we continue our own initiative on job creation. we think it's about getting back to basics, about the a, b,

c's, leader hoyer, i'll get it right yet, steny. >> madam speaker, majority leader sounds ok to me. >> the basic as the a, b, c,'s a, make it in american. mr. hoyer will elaborate on that, but it's very important for us to stop the erosion of our industrial manufacturing and our technological base. it's important to our entrepreneurial spirit, development of our small businesses, and to again to have it important not only economically but our national security that we are self-reliant. we have the tools of production to defend the american people. building america's infrastructure is very important. mr. clyburn will talk about that. that would be b. building america's infrastructure. both mr. hoyer and mr. clyburn

were talking about both of these basics, but we believe, again, the entrepreneurial spirit, keeping america number one, putting people to work are very well served by addressing the trillions of dollars in deficit in our infrastructure. broadband, water system, bridges. mr. clyburn will elaborate. and c, community recovery core. as you have seen in the past few months whether it's joplin, missouri, east coast, fires in texas, the storms in louisiana and the gulf coast, there's a lot of rebuilding that needs to be done. and many of our members have told us that they think -- hire youth employment. it might even be senior citizens young at heart who can help in the rebuilding of communities. and we think it's important, it can be an economic boomlet for these communities to have jobs created where people are hired

from that community to do some of the recovery. and so in that spirit more to come from our distinguished democratic whip, mr. hoyer. >> thank you very much, madam leader. all of us have just returned from the summer break and a lot of us didn't get breaks per se, but we visited with a lot of our people, both in our own districts and throughout the country. and it's no surprise that they are very, very concerned about our economy, about jobs, and yes, they continue to be concerned about the fiscal posture of their country. we need to address jobs and fiscal responsibility. in terms of jobs, we have had an agenda that you see referred to as the make it in america

agenda. you have heard us all talk about that, but it's not just talk. it is substance. it is saying that we want to make sure everybody in america has a sense, an expectation of success that they are going to make it. and they are going to make it because they can get good-paying jobs and that we are expanding our economy not contracting our economy. economists tell us one of the best ways to do that is to expand our manufacturing. now, america still is a manufacturing giant in the world. but our place is not where it ought to be, and we have lost some 11 million manufacturing jobs over the last two decades. those are good-paying jobs, and they resulted in other jobs being created as well. three items in particular we want to focus on, first is the manipulation of currency. manipulation of currency by china and by others that make

their goods cheap to sell in america, and american-made goods, quality goods, expensive to sell in our trading partners' countries. that's not consistent with the rules. it's not fair to our workers. and we want to make sure that we turn that around. secondly, we want to have a strategy, a plan. every team that wins does so because they have a plan of how they are going to win. what plays they are going to run. who is going to do what. how we create an environment in which manufacturing can expand. so we need a manufacturing strategy. we suggested legislation to ensure that we have that. and last but certainly not least of the over 30 or 40 different bills that we have in our make it in america agenda, mr. clyburn's going to speak about, and that is the infrastructure bank. the infrastructure bank is designed, rosa delauro, who

could not be with us because she's with her people who experienced the devastation on the kentucky shore, we -- connecticut shore, we need to make sure that we leverage significant amounts of private sector capital along with public capital in a partnership to expand and invest in infrastructure which america needs if we are also going to grow our economy and compete with our international competitors. i expect the president to deal with that in his speech tomorrow. lastly, let me say that we have mr. clyburn, mr. becerra, mr. van hollen who are participating in the deficit reduction committee, which we also believe, if you are going to reduce the debt you need to grow the economy, you need to grow jobs because that will increase revenue without any references to tax increasing and therefore bring down the deficit. i believe very strongly that this committee must be

successful. if it is successful, i think it will grow confidence in the private secretaryor and it will grow confidence in the international community. that america in fact can meet its challenges and meet them successfully. i hope all of my colleagues on either side of the aisle, and i know my three colleagues on the committee, will seek that end. let me now yield tocies -- the assistant leader of our party, mr. jim clyburn, to discuss among other things infrastructure and how we grow our investment and infrastructure and therefore grow jobs in america. >> thank you, mr. whip. madam leader, colleagues. those of you who have visited charleston, south carolina, in recent years you probably have seen a magnificent new bridge.

it is a talking point up and down the east coast. that bridge was made possible by a state infrastructure bank. the moneys gathered by that bank were leveraged to secure a ivea loan. -- a tifia loan. a faff structure. but in addition to getting rid of a dip lap dated -- dilapidated bridge, we were also able to heighten the span and widen the alleys so that now megaships can come into charleston and create jobs infin identify tum -- infinitum, for as far out as we can see.

that concept is a concept we believe ought to be employed at the federal level creating a national infrastructure bank that will be able to leverage moneyings -- moneys into the private sector and allow them to build roads and bridges. and i would hope that it will be infrastructure broad enough for water and sewage programs as well. those are pretty big-ticket items. but there are other infrastructure projects that we ought to be purr suing. that will create jobs at the state and local levels. and that's why a few -- two years ago, i introduced the rural energy savings program, that has been nicknamed rural star. that program is -- was made

possible by a sort of an incubator that took place in my congressional district and it was coordinated by four or five rural electric co-ops, a mavs program if it were to be widened -- a magnificent program if it were to be widened, would create 5,000 to 6,000 jobs renovating homes. in rural communities, for instance, many of which--many of the homes are basically double wides, and where families are paying $500 or $600 a month in energy costs, we have demonstrated in this program that those energy costs can be cut more than in half. and the moneys that will be

borrowed up to $7,000 per home would then allow these homes to be insulated, put on the roofing, put in new windows, new doors. it will causeer economy to take place at the building supply stores, as well as put brick layers, roofers, electricians, hvac people, back to work. at the time -- at the same time the savings realized will allow these families to pay back the loan at less cost than they were experiencing before the retrofitting took place. this same principal for rural star is available, more urban communities. we believe that it will lead to

a significant, up to 20 -- 25%, to 30% deficit reduction to these kinds of programs and will sustain us over the long run. so we are very excited coming back. i often hear people talk about the summer break. well, it's not always a vacation. i held town hall meetings during this break. and i am particularly impressed by the town hall meeting i had at vor he's -- vohrees college in my district where the unemployment is 17%. these people didn't want to hear me talking about cuts. they don't want to hear anything but jobs. they want to see us focus on jobs. they believe that if they can get a job, they will be able to pay taxes. their confidence will rise and

they will be able to help with deficit reduction in a way that would make all of us proud. i'm pleased to be back here to get on with this work and i'm pleased to be joining with my colleagues on this committee of 12, but i caution all of you that we are an appointed committee, three of us appointed by the leader, we are not the chosen 12, and therefore we are going to be limited by what we can do legislatively. with that i'd like to yield to the chair of our caucus, john larson. >> we just heard from james the apostle, one of the chosen 12, and actually in our caucus when jim clyburn speaks, the son of a preacher man, we listen with great interest and intent as we have this whole period that we have been home listening to our

colleagues. i bring a perspective from the northeast and as already mentioned the dean of our delegation is back in the state where we suffered tremendous losses along our shoreline within the heart of connecticut, amongst our farmers, and some of the worst business interreduction and power outages even greater so than gloria, but whether it's texas fires, whether it's hurricanes in the gulf coast, louisiana, mississippi, or the devastation we have seen and our members reporting the altering of the very nature of their communities in vermont, in upper new york state, and what we witnessed in patter -- paterson, new jersey, has underscored an important agenda item that we have in terms of putting this country back to work and focusing as jim and

steny and nancy have said on where the american people are and that's about putting america back to work. being home with their most interested in seeing congress take action. with every catastrophe like this, it's underscored by the need for action and response. with that comes opportunity. we believe that the opportunity here is for the community recovery core to take place. that means employing our youth. putting people, not creating of any new bureaucracy, but putting them back to work under fema. putting them back to work under the department of agriculture. putting them back to work especially back to work in our rural and urban communities where work is desperately needed, and especially amongs our -- amongst our young. all of the civilian conservation corps, but we think it's important we reach out in this manner and put

america back to work again. this sup will mark 10 years since september 11, and we all remember, because we gathered together on the steps of this capitol and came together as a nation. i say that because this is precisely what's needed at this point. not positions from either party, but a coming together of america. we are just proud to lead the way and note that our members that have been selected to be part of the 12 have got a tremendous assignment as the leader has underscored that needs to succeed. the public wants it to succeed, and we understand implicitly that job creation equals deficit reduction. nobody understands that better than my colleague, mr. becerra, our next speaker. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

it's time again that america work for americans who work for a living. and i firmly believe that the 12 of the us who are privileged to serve on this joint select committee understand exactly that. that perhaps our most important task is to put america back to work. and that each and every one of us has an obligation to commit almost to a bottom line that says that anything we propose must lead to job creation. that should be the standard. if what you are proposing loses a job in america, we shouldn't be moving on that. if it will create a job in america, then let's take it to the congress and to the president for a vote. there was a time when america created more than enough jobs for its people. we need to return to those days because there are americans

today through no fault of their own who are trying to figure out how to balance their budget. it's hard to believe that america will figure out how to balance its budget if there are 14 million americans today out of work through no fault of their own trying to figure out how to balance their budget. once they are back to work and they are doing their fair share as americans to pay their taxes, american will be put back on track. . and we will send a message to the president, hit it out of the park. the american people are waiting for that leadership that tells us once again that we're ready to lead not just the united states of america but the entire world back from this abyss. and so whether it's on this select committee or whether it's right there in the white house, we have to be bold and our priority is to create jobs.

too many people forget, the place where we're seeing job creation today, one of the sectors where we continue to see job creation, the health care sector. now, who would have said given all the talk about job destroying reforms that were enacted last year that we would see job creation occurring at this dismal time in the health care sector. well, the health care today is creating jobs, and one of the things that many of us believe is driving that job creation is the platform that gave some stability to the future of what people could expect through medicare and through health care generally. and so if if we're smart we'll take a look at what medicare can do not just in terms of providing americans decent health care when they're in their retirement but also what it can do to continue to create jobs because in the health care sector we are the result of this health care reform of the last year creating jobs in america. so it's time for us to do right by medicare as we do right by

the american workers who are ready to go back to work. with that let me introduce our ranking member on budget, chris van hollen. >> thank you, xavier. it's great to join my colleagues. as i said, two days from now the president will come before congress to deliver a speech on how to get the economy moving and how to get america back to work. and i know that he's going to need a partner in the united states congress to get that work done. i know everybody up here plans to work with the plan to do exactly that. i hope our colleagues throughout the congress, including the leadership of the house, will join the president as partners in that effort. i think it's very appropriate that earlier that same day there will be the first meeting of the joint committee, the committee that is tasked at looking at the economy and looking both at the short term and the long term. i think it's preept that they need that -- appropriate that

they meet that same day as as we laid out in legislation that's been introduced the fastest and most effective way to reduce the deficit is to put america back to work. if you look at the most recent congressional budget office report, they've indicated that for every .1% increase in the gross domestic product you've reduced the deficit by $310 billion. now, they project over the next 10 years the average g.d.p., average growth in the economy will be 2.9%. what those numbers tell you, if you got that growth rate up by half of one percent you would reduce the deficit by $1.5 trillion which is the target laid out in the legislation before us. so my point is this -- a

serious deficit reduction strategy has to include a major jobs component. it also has to include a balanced approach to reducing the deficit over the long period of time because we know that the challenge is large. but you need both and you need jobs, both the simpson-bowles report as well as the rivlin-domenici report pointed out we need to get this fragile economy moving again, both to put people back to work and also as a critical part to reducing the deficit. these things go together and i look forward to working with my colleagues on the committee, in the caucus, in the congress, republicans and democrats alike, to try and do exactly that and try and be a partner working with the president to

move the country forward. >> thank you very much, mr. van hollen, thank you, my colleagues. i'm always dazzled by the breath of commitment, the depth of knowledge, the degree of dedication that our colleagues have to make a strengthening middle class and making the future better for everyone in our country. as we talk about the abc's, make it in america really encompasses the whole thing. the particular bullet is about manufacturing in america, but mr. hoyer's point is captured all what we're talking about it, being it right here or at the table to create jobs to reduce the deficit. but none of it can really work unless we have addressed the human infrastructure challenges we face. we must have an educated work force. we must have public safety, and these are public jobs. the public space must be

respected if we are going to succeed, if we are going to keep america number one, if we are going to honor our commitment to the american people. and so we're looking forward to the president's speech. some of the things he has said over the past few weeks griffey us some idea of where he may be going. and one place i want to associate ourselves is his commitment to america's veterans because they make us safe and the home of the brave, the land of the free, the land of the free, the home of the brave. i have to sing it. [laughter] in any order. but in any event his commitment to our veterans, whether it's tax credits or encouragement to the private sector to hire our vets or whether it's the example set by the federal government or if it is, as i would like to see and as mr.

clyburn has taken the lead on, mr. -- one of our members, sandy bishop, has taken the lead on, whether it's urging the federal government to honor its commitment to contracting for our veterans as we honor them, to women and to minorities as well. i think congress with do a lot in a short period of time. we stand ready to help. we stand ready to compromise. we hope we can all make a difference. yes, ma'am. >> i wondered what you'll do about chinese currency manipulation? do you have new legislation on that or how do you intend to address that problem? >> well, we've had legislation on that passed overwhelming lieu the house of representatives, as you -- overwhelmingly through the house of representatives, as you know. some have legislation on that in conjunction with our republican colleagues who of course now control the agenda,

but because that was supported overwhelmingly and because clearly american workers making american products or selling services for that matter, but products have been disadvantaged by the manipulation of currency prices, not driven by the market but driven by uncompetitive and we believe violatively of rules. we hope the senate will move on that as well. we may have the opportunity to offer amendments on that issue. >> is that legislation that would brand them a currency manipulator or -- >> excuse me. the legislation does not deal with a specific country. clearly china we believe is in fact manipulating its currency. so as i said chinese goods are cheaper here and american goods are more expensive there which undermines our workers. but the legislation itself is not country specific. it says that any trading

partner that manipulates their currency to affect that end would be sanctioned under the legislation. >> and mr. chris has the discharge petition which i think almost all house democrats have signed but you'll have more on this on, what, thursday, with mr. kurtz. >> this is to mr. becerra. you said you want the president to go bold and show his leadership. he needs to start talking down to the nitty gritsy and the equations. how bold will the public will perceive, this has been a change in the context of our benefits and this is where the bulk of these cuts have to come from? >> we need to be bold in this supercommittee as well. i certainly believe if we're going to get america back on track you can't just fiddle on the edges. you have to really take on some of those sacred cows.

and if we take a close look at what drove us into these deficits, what turned us from having record surpluses in 2001 to record deficits in 2011? and if we go after the main drivers of the deficit we can not only put america back on track but if we do it the right way we will put americans back to work. so be bold, mr. president, be bold, congress, the american people are waiting for us to hit that home run or throw that hail mary pass. we can do it before. there's no reason why we shouldn't try. >> i have a follow-up to the members of the supercommittee. are you worried if the -- both those come at a cost and you have $1.2 trillion to $1.5 trillion in cuts. do you know how bold the agenda will be on the supercommittee? >> i can take a stab at that. no, not at all. in fact, one of the things we've been trying to say here

is that it's absolutely essential to put america back to work if you want to reduce the deficit. and, again, just about every economist out there will tell you we need to do two things. we can walk and chew gum at the same time here. we got to focus on getting america back to work because every day the economy is stalled is another day that not only are americans not able to provide for their families but it's another day where the deficit grows. and so you've got to get the economy moving again. those infrastructure projects, putting people back to work, repairing bridges and schools and roads and all those kind of things are very important part of it. it has to be in the context of a plan, a longer term plan to reduce the deficit. and that is going to be the charge of the committee to do those things, but to recognize that they're actually mutually reinforcing them. the faster you put people back to work, i say, the c.b.o. says

you will reduce the deficit at the same time. so that's going for a critical part. i think. of the work of the joint committee. just as important it will be to find a balanced approach over time to reducing the deficit. i think all of us -- the question was asked about going bold. i think all of us would like to set as a target for ourselves. even more than $1.5 trillion. simpson-bowles, real and domenici looked at projects over 10 years. the action congress took in early august was about $900 billion over 10 years. if we're looking for that $4 trillion market at the end of 10 years we have a lot of work to do but it against by putting people back to work. >> let me make at that comment. just frankly the president is on message and focused on the objective that mr. van hollen spoke about. so not only do i not think he's

going to make it more difficult, i think the president showed over the last six months as we dealt with the debt icks tension and deficit -- debt extension and deficit reduction and fiscal responsibility how close he was to that. i think frankly congress, republicans and democrats have a real ally in the president of the united states in moving towards a fiscally responsible outcome of this special committee and the vote hopefully which will occur in december. >> last question. >> the president this week is expected to roll out his jobs plan. [inaudible] result in more spending. i'm just wondering what's the solution? >> i think it's a message that the president will be taking to the american people. it's a way to not only create

jobs but to strengthen, again, our infrastructure. whether it's our water supply, brought to you by, it's not just -- broadband, it's not just roads and bridges. as mr. clyburn talked about, it's about home star and rural star which is weatherizing and other initiatives that will create jobs immediately. so, again, the basic premise that mr. hoyer and mr. larson has been totally relentless on is you reduce the deficit by creating jobs. you create jobs, you have to make some vefments to do so. what is special about infrastructure is you heard mr. hoyer and mr. clyburn talk about it has an infrastructure bank which will leverage fewer public dollars, of federal public dollars for a bigger purpose. so this is very exciting opportunity for us, and i hope that it won't be missed.

infrastructure has had a bipartisan support in the past. i hope at this very urgent time for our economy it will continue to do so. mr. larson, did you walk to speak, mr. clyburn? >> let me just use as an example the rural star program. that program as it's currently being undertaken in my district allows for $7,000 per family. now, we're doing a 10-year program. this program allows the $7,000 to be borrowed and you have to pay it back within the 10-year period, and you pay it through your monthly bill to the co-on. now, if you're paying $600 a month in utility costs today and that goes reduced as -- these are facts -- to $280 a

month, and you only got a $200 repayment on your loan, the family benefits between $150 to $200 every month. and within that 10-year period you got people who are going back to work, you are purchasing goods and services that are made in america, you are putting brick layers, hvac people back to work. they are paying taxes. you look at that overall, it is a tremendous impact on deficit reduction. it's all done within the 10-year period. so the concept is not anything we are dreaming about. it's being done right now. we are just trying to take it nationwide. >> mr. larson? >> listen, the "national journal" came out with excellent articles. 11 ways to put people back to work in this economy without impacting the deficit

whatsoever. 18 ways in which to invest in america and make sure that we're both growing that economy and accomplishing the goals that chris van hollen outlined. this is an enormous opportunity for congress. at a time, let's be frank about this, when the general public's impression of what happens here in congress is at an all-time low. but this is a point for us to rally together. much like we did on the steps of that capitol back on -- in the aftermath of september 11. it's a time for us to seize greatness as mr. becerra and mr. hoyer said, by pulling together as americans. and that's where i think the opportunity is here. it's bipartisan, but we're proud as democrats to lead the way. and as steny said, to have a president that's out there continuing to be an ally to both sides to make sure it's america that we move forward during this time of crisis. >> further response to your question -- thank you, mr. larson -- congresswoman delaur

is going door to door in her district following up on the damage from hurricane irene. but i'm sure they would be available any time to give you chapter and verse on how infrastructure, bank leverages public dollars in a way that represents a real savings to us. it's 100 days -- approximately 100 days until the product is -- what, november 23, mr. larson informs me it's 40 legislative days, something like that, is that right, mr. leader? he knows the floor schedule better than anyone. 40 legislative days. we have to make every one of them count in terms of growing our economy, to create jobs, to reduce the deficit. we have to make them count in strengthening the middle class. we have to make them count in demonstrating leadership of our country and removing all doubt that we will be responsible as we prepare for the future. and, again, we're very proud of the president, look forward to his remarks in a couple of days

and look forward to working with him to have success at the table of 12. that absolutely is essential and we are all committed to that success. thank you all very much. [captioning performed by natonal captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> and on jobs, speaker boehner and eric leader -- and eric cantor said they would be worthy of his consideration. that letter is now posted on our website and you can read it at c-span.org. and we'll have more about jobs coming up at 3:40 p.m., in about 20 minutes as we are live with republican presidential hopeful mitt romney talking about his jobs plan. that jobs plan also written about today in an editorial and we've linked to that on our

website, c-span.org. the coverage gets under way at :40. then, president obama will speak about his jobs plan on thursday evening in the joint session of congress, and we'll have that for you at 7:00. congress' return to capitol hill with the senate getting under way today with legislative business, and you can follow that now on c-span 2. they'll have votes later this afternoon on a judicial nomination and work this week on a bill that makes changes to u.s. patent law. the house comes in for legislative work tomorrow, and they will debate bills this week expanding charter schools in the u.s. and authorizing intelligence programs for the next fiscal year. live coverage of the house, of course, here on c-span. >> in 1844 henry clay ran for president of the united states and lost, but he changed political history. he's one of the 14 men featured in c-span's new weekly series "the contenders." this week live from ashland,

henry clay's kentucky home friday at 8:00 eastern. >> this weekend the 10-year anniversary of 9/11 on the c-span networks with live coverage from each of the memorial sites. new york city, shanksville, pennsylvania, and the pentagon. here's our live schedule -- saturday on c-span at 12:30 p.m. eastern, the flight 93 national memorial dedication ceremony from shanksville, pennsylvania. and sunday morning at 8:30, a memorial from the world trade center site with president obama and former president bush. on c-span 2 at 9:00, vice president biden from the pentagon. and on c-span3 at 9:30, hong those who lost their lives on united flight 93. "9/11 remembered" this weekend on the c-span networks. >> we will take you live to a north las vegas, nevada, in about 20 minutes or so for mitt romney's job speech. until then, as "the wall street

journal," nbc news polls came out on the presidency, we spoke to scott peter of the pew research center. in the newspapt and foremost, are asking opinion questions. what do people want? how they rate the president's performance in office? what did they think of the republican alternative? they also want to know how people are experiencing a daily life. house their financial situation changing, getting better or worse? what are the problems they think are facing the country?

all wide range of material that bears on important questions of the day. host: you have a whole country with opinions. guest: how can a small sample of 1500 people, the typical size of the public opinion poll, represent the general public? will we tell people is that we get everybody in the country who lives in a household that has some kind of cell phone service, or landline, an equal chance of being included in our poll and that is the basis for being able to take a small sample and generalize it to the broader public. the notion of random sampling is very commonly used. it is used by accountants looking for fraud, it is used in the medical profession. if you do not believe in rampant sampling, the next time you go to the doctor and he wants to

take a sample of your blood, say you do not trust samples. take all of my blood. you do not have to do that. a small sample will do. that is the basic principle that ensures that what we'd do even with 1500 people can predict the general public. host: most of our viewers remember what happened in new hampshire with the polling and the end result. guest: it was one of the most visible polling of years that we've seen in decades. there are a couple that stick in people's minds. if you are around in 1948, the polling indicated that dewey would defeat truman in that election. that did not happen and that led to a lot of rethinking of the methods that pollsters used. and a primary failure occurred,

it occasioned a similar reassessment of polling methods. it turns out based on a lot of evidence collected after that that it was a fluke. this was a consequence of the unusual circumstances of that primary coming on the heels of the iowa caucuses. it never happened again in the primaries. some polls to not do as well as others, but none of the primaries and certainly not the general law election produced a big failure. in fact, one of the things that makes us most confident that our method of electing a small random sample of people to represent a large population is valid is the fact that polling has a very good track record of forecasting how elections will come out. in 2008, many polling organizations came within a point or two of obama's victory for the same was true in 2004. the 2000 election was too close to call.

the polling was accurate then, too. we pass our final exams pretty regularly. host: scott keeter is our guest from pew research. the telephone numbers are on the screen. journal@c-span.org is our e- mail. caller: i like to ask the value of the iowa straw poll. and i have a comment after you respond. guest: it is not a poll like polling organizations conduct. it was of people they gather at a location. it is treated as if it is telling us something about the candidate's appeal and their

ability to mobilize their followers and so forth. but it does not bear any resemblance to the kind of polling that we try to do, which gives everybody in the country or in a particular state or wherever we happen to be polling, an equal chance of being included, whether they are motivated and interested in that particular contest or not. that is one of the major differences. host: and your followup? caller: i am a republican that used to work for ronald reagan in policy development and research. i am extremely frustrated with the file a straw poll. i do not know if you noticed in the paper, but ed rollins resigned and there is a big shake-up in the bachmann campaign. just so the public knows about this, what happened is that ed rollins brought in all of strawee's people for that

poll, front loaded everyone he could get into ames to raise a lot of money, and got the vote swung over to michele bachmann. guest: an interesting point. it is a contrast with the kind of polls that most news organizations do and other people, including the campaigns that themselves. there's not that opportunity to bus people into the polls. if we are reaching out and calling people at their homes or where they are with their cellphones and interviewing them, the fact that one of the candidates is more effective at doing that kind immobilizing is not relevant. it certainly is relevant politically, but we should take that as well -- pick that up as well. you point out an interesting contrast to the regular public opinion polls and the iowa straw poll. host: from twitter.

guest: a very good question. students of democracy have puzzled over it long before polling was actually invented. one of the debates of the founding fathers was whether or not the public really was capable of self government. so we do not have a direct democracy. we went up with the republic. it is supposed to be refined and enlarge through the medium of the congress. but even that begs the question, how the members of congress or the legislatures are going to be able to discern what the will of the people is, to refine and enlarge it. that is using madison's language group we think public opinion polls are one way to do that, recognizing that a lot of

people the recall may not have the intimate detail of policies, but nonetheless, may have a good sense of what the right or the wrong direction for policy actually is. host: "the wall street journal" released a poll today. how many calls have to happen to get the 1000 people? guest: we may take between 15,020 thousand phone numbers to begin with. a lot of those may not be in service. -- we may take between 15,020 to beginphone canumbers with. you also get a lot of people who simply never answered or refuse to take part in the survey. we're talking altogether about many thousands of calls, possibly tens of thousands of calls in order to reach the 1000 people to be interviewed.

host: from a viewer on twitter they ask this question as well, this person is james parker, he says how to contact people? -- he says how do you contact people? guest: we pick phone numbers better from the underlying databases from the telephone company. not that we have your name or address. we might be able to do that if your number is listed. if you have a cell phone, you are not listed in any kind of directory. when we dial it, we have no idea who will be on the other end of the line. we might reach your household, but not reach you. we tried to select the household in a way that does not tell people who are often at home and willing to answer. >host: can you get the same

number several times? guest: it is certainly possible. you think about the size of the population, and you have a baby a few billion public opinion polls being conducted every year, but it to a small chance of falling into any one sample, much less a couple of times. host: myrtle from texas on the democrats' line. caller: many times polls are used to structure the opinion of the people. if you ask questions a certain way, you could cause people to see things in a different way. and why are they used in such a way? i have seen that happen over and over again. guest: result is absolutely right. one of the toughest parts is writing good, biased, their questions. -- myrtle is absolutely right.

it is a very difficult thing to do. it is the fundamental aspect of human interaction. we know how difficult it is to use the right words, that we do not buy as the interpersonal relationships with some assumptions we have, that may not even be conscious to us. all of that thinking has to go into writing good poll questions. there are very concrete examples that one can point to. one of the most famous is the question asking people if they favored increasing welfare. if you get a much higher percentage of the public that they favor assistance to the poor than to welfare. welfare has a very negative tone to a lot of people. the question is how do we make sure the polls are not biased?

that involves a lot of judgment on the part of multiple people for our situation. we sit around the table with a number of different people, some of you have social background and some journalists and some that have some experience in the political world and look at the questions and think about them and how will the sound to someone who thinks very different of the way i do? we work, and then we test the questions on a small sample of people and listen to their reaction. if we hear anything that makes us think the question is not a fair one, we try to modify it. two-door larger point, the question of whether polling has been used or can be used to structure public opinion or to chase public opinion, i do not think there's any question about it, it is certainly. there are a lot of people doing

polls. a lot of people have the dog in the fight. they may went to structured the survey in a way that either makes it look like public opinion is of their baby -- favor. that is the way to fight back against that, look at the questions that were asked and ask yourself is that a reasonable way to ask the question? is there a point of you in here in the question? if there is, maybe you should not trust the polls. >host: some of the questions they ask in the pole today is asking whether you think the country is going in the right track or do you approve the way the president obama is handling it? then they asked about different categories. from those questions, how would you wait those of what would you say about the way they are crafted? guest: those are very standard kind of questions.

many of the right track or wrong track questions have been around for decades. they are generally understood to be fairly balanced. they have been asked in previous administrations. in that sense we have context in comparison. those are among the use his kinds of questions to write about. the hard ones to write about our policy issues that are on topics that may be fresh or new. one of the most difficult tasks we have of a policy issue in the past couple of years was how to pull on the subject of a carbon tax or the cap and trade legislation. we found very small numbers of people had any understanding of that issue. it was very difficult to try to characterize public opinion on that issue, because the words we will put into question could very much shape the way people would react, because there were working from such little

information. -- they were working from such little information . host: a question from twitter -- guest: we poll, americans at large, 18 and older. we think public opinion is relevant, even if it is someone who is not registered voters are likely voter. we're talking about election polling, we may want to focus of registered voters. as we get closer to election day, on likely voters. those of the people we think will show up and make a difference in the election. as we know, there are differences between registered voters in the general public. registered voters include a number of people who may not yet the citizens. it includes a lot of people that are only recently adults and have not gotten engaged in politics particularly. the larger group of all americans includes less-educated

people. those individuals may have views and opinions and values that are very different from those of registered voters. in general, and this is not always the case, but we find registered voter samples are somewhat conservative and more republican leading than samples of the general public. likely voters samples even more so. the specifics of how that matters may be dependent on the particular political circumstances. in 2010 for example the likely voter universe was a very conservative one, and we saw the results of that of the election of 2010. in 2008 the registered voter in likely voter universe was somewhat more liberal. the question somewhat depends on how things are going in the politics of the day. host: napa, idaho.

printed on the line. calle -- brandon on the line. theer: hosi questioned chicken lee goes to the massive bailout. half of the wealth in the united states is owned by the top 10 percent of wealth in the united states. how do people regard that with the upcoming election and so many people out of work? guest: that is in that area -- another area that is hard to pull long in some respects. the >> follow "washington journal" at c-span.org at the video library. we'll go to north las vegas to hear from republican presidential candidate mitt romney. it's just starting here on c-span. [applause]

>> romney! romney! romney! >> thank you all for being here this morning. i'm congressman joe hatch. many of you -- [applause] many of you may have heard news today of a tragedy in carson city. this morning a lone gunman opened fire in an ihop restaurant wounding and killing a number of nevadans. we learned that two of those nevadans were uniformed national guardsmen who were there. at this moment we are still learning more of the details of this horrific act of violence. as we gather today to consider the future of our nation and our communities, our thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their families and friends. i ask that we take a moment and if you would join me in a moment of remembrance for those victims and their families.

thank you. well, welcome and thanks for coming today. it's especially heartening you see such a great crowd to turn out and what a great honor it is to have governor mitt romney back in nevada. [applause] it is fitting -- it's very fitting that governor romney has chosen nevada to discuss his jobs plan, a state that has been hurt like no other by pollties that stifle entrepreneurship, investment and job creation. and it is exciting that governor romney is here today to provide his vision for a more prosperous america. [applause] so today we visit -- we visit a

facility created because john mccandless believed in his country and his family. he drove to nevada with a car full of tools. he worked hard, earning and saving enough money to take a chance. today, that chance employs more than 100 people. like any good business owner -- [applause] -- like any good business owner, john and his family made difficult decisions. john decided to continue working every day reducing his own paycheck so that others could keep their jobs and he's had to comply with new and often unnecessary federal regulations as government has become a larger and larger part of every business owner's life.

it's an honor, it's an honor to be here today at a facility built through hard work, dedication, determination and pride, and it's an honor for me to introduce to you the owner of mccandleess international trucks, john mccandle ss -- mccandless. >> this recent recession is not new to me. i was born in 16928. and a child of the depression. i worked since i was 7 years old. i had some exciting jobs. i lived on long island sound in new york, long island. i. on a good day i could make 20 cents. i used to pick up bottles -- beer bottles, usually.

people from new york would come, throw them out the window of their car and i would get a nickel a piece and a nickel would buy you a double dip ice cream cone in those days. i worked in a service station. i was made manager at the age of 13. it was pretty hard for the owner to find anybody better than i because of world war ii. and then i moved to mariesville, california. i picked peaches. i worked on a harvester. then i went to junior college there. before that i joined the navy. that enabled me to go to college. [applause] and in the navy i was an aviation electronic technician. i spent just two years in the

navy and got out of the navy, went to college on the g.i. bill, played football, had a football scholarship. and then all of a sudden i graduated and i thought, what am i going to do? and i did, i went to work for shell oil company but they tried to make a clerical worker out of me and i wasn't fit for that. as you could see my desk you'd know why. and the -- anyhow, i finally told shell oil peep i didn't like their jobs and they said, well, work for six more weeks in the morning and use the afternoon to find a job. and the next afternoon i found a job with international harvester company. and i went through the ranks there. sales trainee, salesman, zone manager and then branch manager

in phoenix. and then from phoenix i came to las vegas. as i said, with a ue hal trailer and four-wheel drive travel-all and i found a warehouse, made that my dealership for a year while i built the new one. international had a program where they loaned me the money to become a dealer. so i was at that location i think for 20 years. and then we moved out here in 1994. and at 82 i still go to work every day and my wife convinces me i don't have to come in on saturdays any more and she wants me to retire and i keep telling her it's twice as much husband and half the income. [laughter] despite the rough economy, i

haven't had any massive layoffs here. i laid off four people. and it really wasn't a layoff. they weren't doing the job, so they were drawing -- my service manager found jobs for the four people. so i didn't feel guilty about that. i still believe in the american worker. i got through the jimmy carter area and was so happy when reagan made me as an american feel good again. the troubles i have now are e.p.a. regulations, commerce department and the nlrb. i don't trust the insider politicians in washington. they have no idea on how things work with no real work experience. onward to introduce you to a man that has real experience for making things work and has

a real plan to get america working again, ladies and gentlemen, the next president of the united states, mitt romney. [applause] >> thank you. nicely done. and quite a story. >> thank you. >> thank you. thank you. thank you. thank you. thank you, john. that is an american success story. appreciate the chance of being in this extraordinary facility where a lot of hard work occurs. it is ennobling, it is great for human beings to participate in hard work. it's also great for the country as people work hard and are able to build a strong america that can afford a military that can defend us. my heart goes out to the military and the lives that have been lost today. we love and care for those

people who serve us. and thank you to congressman joe heck for welcoming us here in his district. appreciate his election and look forward to many more. now, this is going to be a conversation today. i don't have a text written. you can see what i got here. i got notes. i got some notes what i will tell you. i will be reading. i don't have a teleprompter. i use it a lot of times. [applause] i just want to talk to you about our economy, about what's happening to american families and what it's going to take to get america back to work again, not just over the next couple of months but over the next couple of decades. before i get into my plan i want to describe to you the vision i have for what this country ought to look like down the road. a number of things. one is middle-income americans, the average american ought to

have the highest income in the world. they calculate that as g.d.p. per capita. but let's just say simply our people should be the best people, best paid people in the world. that's number one. number two, it should be good to be in the middle class in america. you shouldn't have to wonder -- [applause] how you're going to meet your bills and how you're going to afford college for your kids and whether you can take the prescriptions that have been prescribed. it should be good to be in the middle class in america. america should be a job machine. jobs being created all the time, people looking for employees to join their enterprise. young people out of college able to get jobs right away. people coming out of vocational schools able to get jobs right away. even kids coming out of high school. we should have a job creating machine in america. we ought to see the world buying the things we make. we should be proud of the fact that they buy as much from us if not more than we buy from

them. and we also -- [applause] i also see america being on the leading edge of innovation. the time and again just like we've been in the past and when there's a new invernings, a new economy, a new era that is the very front of america, innovation and being the innovation leader of the world is probably the best leading indicator of what the future will be. and so with those elements of our vision in place we know one thing, we'll never question whether the future will be brighter than the past. we'll know that we're leaving to our kids a legacy of prosperity and liberty as america will remain as it's always been, an example of the world, a shining city on the hill, and the hope for the earth. that's the vision. [applause] now to john and a few of the other older folks in the audience like myself, that sounds a bit like things were

in the 1950's and 1960's and 1970's. and you might say, can't we just go back to the way things were back then? well, a lot's changed in our economy, globally over the last few decades. i hope we recognize just how much has changed and the fact that so much has changed says that the right course ahead is to adhere to the principles that made us the powerful nation we are economically but also to update our strategy, our economic policies in such a way that we can conform to the new realities of the new global economy. and you know some of these changes. 30 years ago china represented 1% of the -- of the economic conditions of the world. 1%. now they're 10 times that amount. 30 years ago america was overwhelmingly the largest manufacturing nation.

[inaudible] manufacturing nation in the world. about 30 years ago at the nobel prize awards, americans or people affiliated with american institutions won 3/4 of the nobel prizes. today it's less than half that amount. the world has changed. i mean, 20 years ago if you want to make a phone call at the airport you would take out a quarter and put it in the pay phone. today you got these things, all right. you got a smartphone. a pay phone you put your quarter in, oftentimes you had an operator that came on, told you to put in a couple more quarters and you were connected to another person if you could find them and you spoke voice to voice. if you happened to connect to a machine like a fax machine -- remember that screech? i mean, that was the machine.

today with these you're connected to the world. you can buy products from anywhere in the world. you can read what's being written all over the world. this is an entirely different -- entirely different economy than the kind of economy we knew in the 1950's and 1960's. and so our economic strategy has to be brought up to date and to make sure that we're able to provide the vision that i described. the right course for america is to believe in growth, growing our economy is the way to get people to work and to balance our national budget. the right answer for america is not to grow government or to believe that government can create jobs. it is instead to create the conditions that allow the private sector and entrepreneurs to create jobs and to grow our economy, growth is the answer, not government. my team and i spent a lot of

time thinking about things we ought to do to update america's economic strategy for this century. and we put together a plan which i'll describe here in a moment, and we've fuelly gone through an analysis to look and see what the impact of this plan would be on the american people and just to put this in context, in the first four years, if i'm lucky enough to be president, in the first four years this will grow the economy at approximately 4% per year for each of the four years. it will add 11 1/2 million new jobs for americans. that's what i want to see happening. [applause] now, let's just talk about how much the economy has changed globally and how we need to change our policies to take advantage of the changes. one is back in the 1950's and 1960's every business in the world wanted to be located here. this was the place business was done. this was the largest market in the world.

nothing else compared with the market of the united states of america. and so government could charge businesses whatever the heck they wanted in taxes because where else would the business go? this is where they were. this is where their capital was. their capital plant. their blast furnaces, their assembly lines, their transfer lines were all here in the united states. today, there are markets outside the united states that is growing very fast. america is not the only market in the world where enterprises want to participate. and so now we compete for enterprises, to convince them to come here and grow here and create jobs here. and so it's no longer a wise decision for us to have the highest tax rate for employers in the world. our taxes are higher than any other nation besides japan. the average of developed nations tax rates for corporations is 25%. ours is 35%. we have to bring our tax rate down to that same 25% level.

i will do that on day one. [applause] there's something -- there's something else we need to do that -- we do that doesn't make a lot of sense. again, this was from the mindset of the past. what we said in the past was, if you're an american company and you're making money over in some far country and let's say you got a bunch of money made there, if you want to make the money there and invest in that country, we'll let you do it tax-free. you don't pay any u.s. taxes. you just pay local taxes. if you want to bring the money home and invest here, then we're going to take you at our 35% rate. doesn't make a lot of sense, does it? so we got to change it. we got to change it. we have to end this repatriation tax and get money to come back to america to create jobs here and invest in america. [applause] now, we also got to help the american people, not just

american employers but the american people if we're going to help grow this economy. and if i were to ask you, who are the people in this country that have been hurt most by the obama economy, my guess is you'd say the middle class. i'd start right there. you'd say the middle class. and that's why as i look at some changes to our tax policy, the place i really want to make a difference is for the middle class. and one way i'd like to do that is to help people in the middle class be able to save their money. now, how do you do that? i will eliminate any tax on your savings, no tax on interest, dividends or capital gains. let's save our money for the future. [applause] now, back in the 1950's and 19650e7bsd1970's, why, could you put all sorts of regulatory burdens and government burdens and bureaucrat burdens on american business and, again, where else were they going to go? this was the biggest market in the world and so they just

swallowed it and stayed right here. today they can go to other places. of course it's still important to have regulations, to go up to the bad actors and get them out of the marketplace and make sure markets grow efficiently. but we got to stop this extraordinary weight, this burden we placed on small businesses, particularly and middle-sized businesses as they try and grow or they won't be able to grow, they won't be able to start and they'll go elsewhere. by the way, do you know how much the burden is? this is something that just shocked me. do you know how much we pay in taxes a year as a people? if you fake all the people in america and -- if you take all the people in america and all the companies in america and add up their income tax, the government collects about $1.1 trillion a year. that's the total amount. the government does a calculation, however, of what the cost is of regulations per year. now, don't forget the total of tax burden is $1.1 trillion. do you know what the total

regulatory burden is? $1.7 trillion a year. this is not just some little side issue. this is burdens on enterprises from growing and expanding and starting in america. and if i'm in the white house, the first thing i'm going to do on day one is say all those regulations that were put in place by president obama -- and by the way, his rate of adding regulations is about four times greater than president bush's was. . so all those policy he is put in place, i'm going to stop in their tracks. [applause] any of those regulations that cost american jobs, we're going to get rid of. number two, we're going to say to every department in government, if you have a new regulation you want to enact, you have to remove another regulation of equal scale. that's number two. and number three we're going to make sure congress gets in on the act.

what i mean by that is, if some regulator wants to put in place a new scheme, i want congress to vote it up or down. i want people we can elect or remove if we don't like them having something to say about the burden placed on american workers. now again, in the past, 1950's, 1960's, 1970's, our market was king. everybody wanted to be here. businesses that i knew were oftentimes thinking about international markets as sort of gravy, icing on the cake. this is where real stuff happened. today, some of the fastest growing economies in the world are outside the united states. do you realize that the global middle class is going to more than double over the next 10 years? so markets for our goods and

services are expanding extraordinarily. we have to rethink trade. there's also a reality associated with a nation that's a high productivity nation. we hear that term a lot, high productive i. -- productivity. what does that mean? productivity means output per person. how much stuff each western does in america, on average, we're the highest north world. but people in this country can do more and more per person, the question is why are we going to need more people with the -- if the ones we have are making more and more per person? the answer is, we'll find more jobs for our people if we can sell our goods tore nations. for a high productivity nation, it's good to have trade. as long as the people we trade with play by the rules. hopefully over the last two and a half years, the european nations and china have been

putting in place trade agreements with other nations. we have been sitting as if nothing is going on in the world no trade agreements negotiated, no trade agreements signed. that puts us behind. those nations that established linkages with other nations, they get distribution, the consumers get used to brand names and we come in 10 years later, there's not much of a market for us. this doesn't make any sense at all. i've established something i call the reagan economic zone. i'm saying those nations around the world that want to trade on a fair and free basis, that will honor our intellectual property, our patents, our designs, our know-how, if they'll honor those things and not cheat, they can come in this reagan economic zone of prosperity and by virtue of doing that, we'll trade in more places and american goods will

be seen around the world. one more thing i'll do, that is i'll clamp down on cheaters. china is the worst example of that. they've got -- [applause] they have manipulated their currency to make their products artificially inexpensive. it's hollowed out many of our businesses, i'll go after them for stealing our intellectual property and they'll realize if they cheat, there's a price to pay. we don't want a trade war but we don't want a trade surrender either. we have to make sure we have fair trade with nations willing to live by the rules and we'll insist on that with all of our friends. now you recognize in the energy world, we're an energy-rich nation but we're living like an

energy-poor nation. we have established in washington barriers by politicians who think they know better than the american people and american markets, established barriers that make it hard to use tell, hard to get oil, hard to get natural gas, virtually impossible to establish a nuclear facility a nuclear power generation facility. green jobs are great but where are those green jobs? and sometimes those green jobs cost more than other jobs. i want to get america's energy strbak to work at a price we can afford and i'll do that. let me mention one more thing. i've got a long list, i'm not going to go through all of them, but if you want to convince businesses, and by the way, what is a business?

it's jobs. -- it's john. if you want to convince people like john to say, i'm going to take my life savings and i'll go to my family and friends, loan me some money, i'm going to start a business. maybe it's big moneys trying to build a facty somewhere and they're deciding whether to build it in latin america or here in the u.s. somewhere else. if you want them to invest in america, they have to have confidence that america's currency and america's government are stable and we're not going to find ourselveses in a bad situation down the road. it's essential to get going downturn to stop spending massivive -- massively more money than you take in. you ultimately have to balance the budget. and so, and so my economic plan lays out how i will ultimately

get government to shrink, grow our economy, so investors will have confidence in america. now, this is a pretty complete volume of the work that we've had over the last several months. it's about 150 pages with 59 different policy ideas. there are a lot more where these came from. but we've got one for each of you if you'd like to take one and read it. if you don't happen to get one in our hand, you can go on amazon kindle, i don't know if it's free or not, i hope it is, you can take a look at it. it's in color on kindle. you can see the 59 steps i would take. this is a -- this is an effort really update our nick strategy for this century and the next century. this is recognition that the old ways have principles that

will work forever that growth is the foundation of economic prosperity, but that our tactics and strategy have to be updated from time to time, particularly in a world that's changing at the rate our world is changing. i'm asked, why is the obama economy so tepid? how has it fail sod badly to put americans to work? he'll be giving a speech in a couple of days. i haven't read it but i know what's coming. i've seen version one, two, three, four, and five. they're not working. i mentioned a moment ago that we're now using smartphones. not pay phones. president obama's strategy a payphone strategy and we're a smartphone world. so we're going to have to change -- what he's doing is

taking quarters and stuffing them into the payphone and wondering why it's not working. it's not connected anymore. your payphone strategy does not work in a smartphone world. i mean, we're going to hear about another stimulus, more quarters, trillions of them. he's stuffing the payphone and i know what the results will be. they won't be getting america back to work, they won't be restructuring and updating our foundation to we have the jobs we need, a middle class that's prosperous, kids coming out of school getting great jobs, leading the world in innovation, continuing to do so. these kinds of outcomes, that vision, requires dramatic change, not more coins in a pay phone strategy. now -- [applause] this is not just one silver

bullet, there's not just one idea in here. there are 59 of them. it is practical. that was not created by a professor working alone in academia. nothing wrong with that. this is a product of somebody who spent his life in the private sector. and has done business, competing with businesses around the world. it's -- i've got a lot of folks i've worked with on this. this is the result of practical work. it's a practical plan to get america back to work and to strengthen the foundations of our economy. it's also immediate. this is not something that's going to take years and years to put in place, day one, i've got five executive orders to put in place. i wonder if that works. see, look at that. magic of technology. day one, i'm going to put in

place five executive orders. the first one, is going to direct the secretary of health and human services to grant a waiver from obamacare to all a states so we can stop that in its tracks. the second one will put all of president obama's regulations on hold, until we see if they cut jobs. if they do, we'll get rid of them. the third one will open up production of energy across this country and get jobs as we do so and get americans back to work. the fourth one will send a signal that while we love free trade and we're going to open trade in a way no president has ever done, we're going to claverp down on china for not living by the rules they signed up to live by. we're going to make sure they get sanctioned. finally, we're going to say to america's workers that we're going to protect you with the right to a secret ballot and we won't impose unions on you if

you don't want unions and we're not going to have money taken out of your paycheck to support political campaigns you don't agree with. we're going to protect america's workers, all on day one. i'm also going to file five bills on the first day and look to congress to get them in place within 30 days. number one, we'll call it the american competitiveness act. it's going to lower the corporate tax rate from 35% to 25% so we're competitive with other neighs. we're going to open markets and sign immediately the agreements that are outstanding with other nations and we're going to work hard to open markets to our goods around the world and get american products around the globe. number three, domestic energy. we're going to be pursuing legislation that allows us to take advantage of drilling in places across this country that are now closed for drilling. we want drilling for oil and gas to create jobs and get energy no longer being supplied

by the dictates of the oil cartels. retraining. retraining. do you know how many government programmings there are for job training? we all know training for the jobs of tomorrow is important. do you know how many federal programs there are for job training? 47. 47. do i hear 48? eight different departments managing 47 programs. only five have been evaluated and the one that was been evaluated were seen to be of limited help. look, i want to take those 47 pams, collapse it down to one and turn it back to the states. the states ought to be running these programs, not the federal government. it says down there, down payment on fiscal sanity. i'm going to pass a bill that

will cut our discretionary spend big 5% and there's more to come. this is a business plan for the american economy. if we want to crow ate jobs, we need to have the best people in the world. we have the most innovative people, the best universities, this nation cannot be stopped. the only thing stopping us right now is government. we're going to say stop government and let's start growing again as a nation. now with all the talk i've just made about this plan, let me mention something else which you recognize, that is that the plan is not more than 25 or 30% of -- 25% or 30% of what has to be done.

if we're going to get american going again, we have to rely on other things. one is the american people. we have to work hard and smart. we're going to have to tell our kids to get the best information -- education they can, whether through vocational training or high school or college, we can't sit back and think we're entitled to the great wealth we enjoy. we have to work hard. [applause] we're going to have to stop demonizing other americans. one of the places where the president has disappointed me the most is the way he's attacked other americans. and found someone to scapegoat for any problem that exists. look, united we stand. if we disagree with other people, fine. talk about the disagreements. but don't turn other people into enemies. even the president, by the way, he not a bad guy. he just doesn't know how the economy works. he never worked in the economy.

and i have. so i'm looking forward to him come back into the real economy. it'll be mentioned, let me mention something else, that is, when you have a plan like this, and you have people ready to go work hard and pull together as a people, you also have to make sure you have leadership. leadership that knows what they're doing and how to lead. just having a plan, a plan can be written by anybody. it takes people and leadership to know how to execute a plan to make it work for the american people. i remember looking at companies like general electric back in the 1960's and 1970's under the leadership of jack welch. apple computer. what a company. even starbucks, there's stories there about the enterprises led by individuals. i said to myself once, what would happen if there were competition between jack welch of general electric and a second-year business student describing what it takes to turn a business around?

my guess is the second-year business student might win. but he wouldn't have a clue or she wouldn't have a clue what to do in reality. jack welch would know what to do. steve jobs was removed from apple, other people had ideas that looked good on paper. but he knows, he's done it before. i don't have the answers to all the problems that exist in america and around the world but i know how to find the answers. i also know how to lead. i was in the business world for 25 years. one of our first investment tuns in our company was whether

to put an investment into a company called staples. my team went around asking people what they taught of the -- thought of the idea. every person said it would not work. people said, people will not leave their offices to buy office supplies for a few bucks less. they want convenience. they want delivery. we proved them wrong. staples now employs over 90,000 people. they were wrong. i went to the olympics in 2002. the olympic games were held in salt lake city. there's one of our volunteers right there. he was one of our volunteers back in the olympics. as i came there, i came there in 1999, january or february of 1999, there were people who said, we ought to give the games back because they couldn't be successful. and people came together, that nation, that state and those people came together an i was part of that leadership team. we were able to turn the games around. dick ebersol, chief executive officer of nbc sport, said they

were the most successful olympic games summer or winter ever. [applause] i came to my state of massachusetts after that. we had about a $3 billion budget gap we had to find a way to fill. most people said you can't do that without raising taxes. i said we've got to find a way to do it without raising taxes. raising taxes hurts people and kills business. we found a way to do it and put away a $2 billion rainy day fund for the next governor to use, and he has. most of it. and you know, from time to time in my life i've been in rooms with people who don't think the job can get done, who get discouraged. i love proving them wrong. i have experience in the real world, solving real problems, with other people. i know what it takes to get people to work together. i know that unity is key. republicans and democrats have to work together. democrats love america too just like we do. we have different ideas

friments but there is common ground. we want to get americans back to work again. and i want to tell you, i will use every ounce of of my energy and every element of devotion to get america back to work. i'm concerned about middle income americans, the families all over this country that have really suffered under the obama economy. he's not a bad guy, he just doesn't have a clue what to do, in part because he hasn't ever done it before and i have. i've done it before and i'll use that experience to get america working again and i'll make sure you never have a question in your mind of whether the future is brighter than the past. it is. that's part of the american heritage. we'll keep that american heritage alive and leave a legacy the world will always remember. thank you so very much. i appreciate you being here today. [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

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already >> thanks for being here. thank you. thanks so much. appreciate your being here today. very kind of you. thank you. >> that was amazing, thank you. >> i'm a rescue pilot, you have my full support. >> thank you. thank you. hi there, how are you? thanks for being here, i las vegas love that shirt. >> close the border. >> absolutely. >> in my book i talk about immigration, take a look at that. >> how are you? >> we are with you. >> thank you very much.

>> there we go, that'll work. there we go. how are you? >> i voted for your father. >> i appreciate it, thank you. >> mitt romney, finishing up his speech in north las vegas, nevada, in front of the internabble truck company in north las vegas, detailing part of his jobs plan as -- his 59-point plan. he when through some of the major points of it. i'd like to get your reaction. if you're a democrat, call 202-585-3885. republicans, 202-585-3886. independents and others, 202-585-3887. you'll have a chance to see governor romney's speech again

this evening leading off our primetime tonight. this is joe. >> i think mitt romney will be elected. i think it's the greatest economic speech i've ever heard and i'll do everything i can to get him elected. i think he's incredible. >> what separates governor romney's jobs plan from other republican candidates you have heard? >> he's been in the private sector, he's created jobs. i think he'll be the greatest ronald reagan is my hero, i think he's that good. >> governor romney will be part of the debate tomorrow, as will jon huntsman who released a speech. to our democrats' line, olie. >> i liked the speech from a

moderate point of view. naturally, he's a businessman a moderate republican, and i like that he made it about resolving issues about the economy, rather than the standard republican talking point which is seem to want to roll back america to the 1800's or early 1900's. the president doesn't really seem to have a grasp on what's need. >> you voted for the president, you've heard mitt romney. what does the president say, not necessarily in response to mitt romney, but what does he have to say thursday night? >> i think the president needs to take bold and decisive actions about solving the economic problems that the country has and not just the typical solutions mentioned in

past speeches, the tax on employment, on wages, and so forth but actually really, you know, coming up with a plan that can really get the economy going. i think what is key is actually lowering the corporate tax rate. i think that needs to be done even though that's a few most democrats would not like. >> jake is in manchester, new hampshire. how are you doing? >> hi, how are you doing? i want to bring jon huntsman into the conversation, i've been a huntsman supporter for a long whim. watching romney's speech, when it comes down to the record and everything, i do not trust romney still. i don't feel he's genuine and look at the record, consider the record, governor huntsman was number one in job creation. mitt romney when he was governor of massachusetts, but number 47. when mitt romney talks about job creation, i just laugh.

it's that simple. i look at the republicans today and it boggles mir mind that people are supporting mitt romney when jon huntsman has a far better record. >> as we mentioned earlier, we covered the jon huntsman address last week where he laid out his jobs plan, the cornerstone of which was reduction of the tax rates, setting three basic tax rates of 8%, 14%, and 23%. let's go to kansas. this is joe. >> i am just concerned, how many jobs is mr. romney going to create and over what time frame? how much in the first year he's in office, second, third, fourth. does he have any projections on that? >> that's your question? >> yes. >> he didn't seem to make any

projections from what i heard in the speech but we're going to give you another chance to see it this evening at 8:00 primetime here on c-span. next up, to huntsville, alabama, is this virginia on our democrats' line. >> yes. i looked at the speech, it seems to me like the same old, same old. i notice he was going to talk about rescind president o because macare and this man had basically the same insurance when he was governor of massachusetts. i mean you know, talking is one thing, delivering is another. president obama has done everything in his power to try to get this economy moving and i know that the republicans -- if the republicans had worked with him, our economy would be in better shape than it is in today.

i'm a retired government employee, worked for the u.s. government for over 40 years and i have worked in the office of management and budget. the truth has not been told about our economy. our economy started failing back in 2001 and continues to fail. one thing, i'm going to cut this short but i would love to see president obama do that he hasn't done, investigate the money that they requested, all this money they lost in iraq, billions of dollars. >> ok, virginia, you make your point. thank you for calling in. we do want to remind folks about the president speaking on thursday night. we believe the focus of those comments will be the jobs plan the president will lay out. the joint session under way at 7:00 p.m., our coverage will be here. let's go to the independent line in san diego. >> my name is dale, i'm from san diego. i would like to know how -- how

he is going to address the powerful unions. they are a very progressive, very socialist institution. they have shown their political power in the past. he failed to mention that except for one small point on one of the boards during his speech. this needs to be addressed. i was wondering how he was going to address the power of this union movement. that is my question, sir. >> thank yous for your comment. we'll take a call or two more, the candidate, mitt romney, focused on a couple of areas, including drops the tax rate for corporations from 35% to 25%. he talked about trade agreements, energy production, also eliminating regulations, should he be elected, what he would do on his first day, first week in office.

he talked about creating something called the reagan economic zone and dealing with trade agreements. here's susan on our republican line from florida. welcome. >> yes. i don't think that he has said anything different. i've heard this rhetoric since 2000. republicans not working for we the people or the republican party. it's either too far left or too far right. there's no in between. i'm tired of having corporations being -- given tax breaks when they don't even pay their taxes. i'm tired of having the wealthy have their tax breaks. we the american people and middle class are shouldering the taxes here. in all the country. we should rebuilding our country. we should start building and

rebuilding our own country. >> we preesh the input. mitt romney mentioned his jobs plan and where it could be found. we have linked to it. if you go to our website and look at coverage of mitt romney, you'll be able to link to the p.d.f. version of all the plans he's playing -- laying out regarding jobs. we'll show you his comments again at 8:00 eastern here on c-span followed by comments from de-ic leader pelosi and other democrats as well where they preview some of the president's outline for his joint session speech on thursday. that's coming up tonight, mitt romney and the democrats following that. next up, we take you to london and the house of commons. they returned from their summer recess today, actually, yesterday, an it's first -- its first major business in the house was to hear a statement from prime minister david cameron on the situation in libya. of particular concern was the concern of documents relating

to libyan security authorities, the c.i.a. and the u.k. secret intelligence service, mi-6. documents found in libya detail cooperation among the u.s., u.k., and libya, and reference, quote, extraordinary rendition, end quote of torture of terrorist suspects. this is an hour and 20 minutes. >> for a statement, the prime minister. >> thank you, mr. speaker. with permission, i would like to make a statement on libya. when we met here on that friday in march, gaddafi's tanks bore down on benghazi. his air force has begun strikes against his people and his army had smashed through the area with loss of life. gaddafi vowed to hunt down people like rats using the full might of his own forces. i didn't think britain should stand by as gaddafi slaughtered

his people. nor could we allow a failed pariah state on europe's southern board we are the potential to affect our own security. the libyan opposition and arab league called for nato to protect the civilian population. together with the u.s. and france, we secured agreements were security council resolutions 1970 and 1973. with this clear legal mandate this house voted by a vote of 544 in fare of military action. today the libyan people have taken their country back. mr. speaker, i am grateful for the support that all sides of this house have given through the last six months and i'm sure the whole house will join me in paying tribute to the incredible dedication and professionalism of our pilots, sailors, ground crew and everyone in our armed forces that have been involved in this mission. but we should also pay a full tribute to the bravery and

resilience of the libyan people themselves. this has been their revolution and none of it could have happened without ordinary libyans from all walks of life came together and rose up against gaddafi. from the villages of the mauntoins, the alley ways and streets of benghazi, the libyan people fought with incredible cuverage. many paid with their lives. others have been seriously injured. the struggle is not over. they still face forces loyal to a dictator who last week threatened to turn libya into a hell. the long work of building a new libya is just beginning. what is clear is that the future of libya belongs to its people. the task of the international community now is to support them as they build that future. that means helping to finish the job, ensuring security, addressing the immediate humanitarian needs and supporting the longer term process of reconstruction and political transition to

democracy. let me address each in turn. first, finishing the job. britain has been at the forefront of the military operation to protect the libyan people. our aircraft have made over 2,400 sorties across libya, carrying out 1/5 of all nato air strikes against some 900 targets in gaddafi's war ma seen. our warships have aided this effort bringing aid to those in need. at its peak, some 2,300 british service men and women were deployed with 36 aircraft, including 16 tornadoes, six typhoons, five attack helicopters, specialist ares craft and helicopters. these were supported other the course of the operation by eight warships and a submarine. the job is not over. the free libya forces have liberated tripoli and control the key population centers but

pro-ka due fee quorses pose a threat and control towns in the south of the country. the national transitional council has been working to negotiate a peaceful outcome but their leaders explicitly requested that nato continue its operations to protect civilians until that's achieved. over the weekend, our helicopter struck several military command operations. for as long as gaddafi remains at large, the safety and security of the libyan people remains under threat. let me be clear. we will not let up until the job is done. first, britain and its nato allies will continue to implement u.n. security council resolutions 1970 and 1973 for as long as we are needed to protect civilian life. those thinking that nato will somehow pull out or pull back must think again. we are ready to extend the nato

mandate for as long as is necessary. second we will support the libyan people in bringing gaddafi to justice. mr. speaker, this is a man whose crimes are becoming ever more apparent every day and who is wanted by the international criminal court. there must be no bolt hole or hiding place from justice. he must face the consequences of his action under international and libyan law. turning to security, early signs have been encouraging. there's been some disorder focused on symbols of the former regime. they are moving to stand down fighters from souds tripoli. police are returning to the streets and the council leaders have been clear and consistent in cautioning against disorder and crucially against reprisal. britain and its international partners are helping too, working closely with the national transition council in securing chemical weapons sites and other areas. on the humanitarian situation,

britain has played a leading role from the outset. primary focuses are health, water and food. on the health front, hospitals are reported to be functioning well and staff are returning to work. britain is providing support through the red cross including capacity to treat 5,000 wounded patients. on water, thousands of people are still without running water, they are procuring millions of liters of bottled water and libyan shorts -- authorities are working to repair the water pipes. on fuel, there remain significant shortages but the situation is improving and the world food program shipment is supporting the council with 250,000 liters of fuel. mr. speaker, libya is a country

of 6.5 million people, one of the richest in africa, its proven oil reserves are the ninth largest in the world. libya is fully capable of paying for its own reconstruction. of course there's a role for foreign advice, help and support but i don't think we want to see an army of foreign consultants driving around in four by fours giving the impression it's something being done to the libyans rather than something done by them. they need their frozen assets back. we got security council agreement to release one billion pounds of dinars back and they have flown in much of that money. the international committee agreed to release several million dinars. and we expect the libyans to meet their pledge of

transparent financial systems. some people warned that the libyan people could not be trusted with freedom and without gaddafi will be chaos. what is emerging now, i believe, is impressive and encouraging. in a far-reaching road map and constitutional declaration, the new authorities have set out a clear vision and process for a new democratic libya. this is not being imposed from above. it is being shaped by the libyan people. at the paris summit, the chairman spoke of his determination to build a society of tolerance and forgiveness. a national conference will bring together all the tribes, civil society, men and women from east and west, united to shape this political transition. they are planning for a new constitution and elections within 20 months andry brtain is in discussions in new york about a new u.n. security council resolution to prore-flect the new situation. they must now be able to

represent their country at the u.n. as they did last week at the arab league. mr. speaker, i also look forward to building a bilateral relationship with the new libyan authority. we have close relations with the n.t.c. through our missions in benghazi and today we are going to re-establish full diplomatic presence in that city. our relationship with the new libya must deal with issues if the past. on the ground, this is obviously a matter for the scottish executive. i have made my position clear. i believe he should never been sent back to libya. on w.t.c. ivan fletcher -- yvonne fletcher, i want to see justice for her family. there is an ongoing police investigation and we want to know and we have been assured of the the libyan authority's cooperation. finally, accusations have been reported that under our government relations between

the british and libyan security services became too close, particularly in 2003. it was because of accusations of potential complicity by the british security services in the mistreatment of detainees overseas that i took steps in july of last year to try to sort this whole problem out. as the house will remember, we acted to bring to an end the large number of course cases being brought against the government by guantanamo. we issued new guidance to security and intelligence services personnel on how to deal with detainees held by other countries and we asked the judge to examine issues around the treatment and detemmings of terrorist suspects overseas and they said they will look at the latest accusations very carefully. my concern throughout has been not only to remove any stain on britain's reputation but also to deal with act sages of

malpractice to allow our security services to get on with the vital work they do. because they cannot speak for themselves, we put on record once again our enormous gratitude for all they do to keep our country safe. mr. speaker, the achievement of the libyan people gives hope to those across the wider region who want a job, a voice, and a stake in our their country is run. britain will continue to lead the argument for a u.n. resolution to build on the e.u.'s oil embargo, a message to the president must be clear, he's lost all legitimatecy and can no longer claim to lead syria. the violence must end and he should step aside for the good of his country. it is the libyan people who have liberated their country. there was no foreign occupying army. this is a libyan-led process assisted by the international community. many cynics asserted gaddafi would never be defeated.

the libyan people proved them wrong. it was a unique set of circumstances and not something we can or would wish to repeat all over the world but i have never accepted the argument that because you can't do everything, you shouldn't do anything. removing gaddafi from power was a major achievement. though the work is not yet done, the libyan people can be proud of what they achieved and we can be proud of what we have done to help them. i commend this to the house. >> can i start by thanking the prime minister for his statement. let me join him in paying tribute to the courage of the libyan people because this was their uprising. they knew the price that might be paid if they rose up against the regime yet they found the courage to do so and win through. we salute their bravery and sacrifice. but change in libya would not have come without action by the international community. let me therefore commend the

role of the -- the prime minister and the british government are have played in making this happen. british resolution 1970 and 1973 made the protection of civilians possible. it was a risk and it was the right thing to do. we supported it at the time and remain steadfast in our spoth and support it now. if we had not acted, mr. mr. speaker, we would have been spending recren months not talking about the progress of our action in libya but wringing our hands over is the the slaughter in benghazi as we did in times past. but this time we acted through and with the authority of the united nations. once again, it was to our brave british service men and women that we turned. as always, they have risen to the challenge. they represent the best of our country and again we owe them a debt of frat tude. -- of gratitude. there are a numb of questions about the security situation,

the political settlement now retired and others. but let me first say i agree with the prime minister that the inquiry must get to the bottom of the allegations we have seen about the vovepl of the security services in relation to libya. no part of the british state should be complicit in torture. the prime minister is right to say that there should be no art official deadlines for the end of nato actions. we should force a security council resolution and be engaged in action for no more than and no less than the time it takes to make sure that the u.n. mandate is fulfilled for the protection of civilians. mr. speaker, given the symbolic importance of the national transitional council taking up their place in government in tripoli, can the prime minister give a sense from the paris conference about when we might expect that to happen? because that will speak to the

security situation in tripoli. we also know that from past conflicts that security matters but essential is economic and social reconstruction and we agree it must be libyan-owned. i welcome the extra assistance of the government announced to provide help and reunite families affected by fighting. i'm sure the prime minister will agree that the u.n. will be important in this help and can he say what discussions he's had with the u.n. special envoy and how prepared he thinks the u.n. are to provide help? can he also share his thoughts on how the new u.n. resolution he talked about to provide recognition for the new government will provide a mandate for a longer term u.n. mission to support the libyan government? the prime minister is right to say that the oil wells of libya are a huge potential for its

people. given that the legitimacy of the popular uprising is because the libyans with in the lead, that should be a focus. we need to make sure it's handled in a way that's transparent and benefits the libyan people. on the former members of the regime, we agree we should provide full support to libyan people and the government in bringing colonel gaddafi and the leadership to justice either to the i.c.c. or libyan courts but we have also learned, mr. speaker from past conflict that the need for broad-based, inclusive process of reconciliation that the prime minister talks about are also the vital work of maintaining government services. can the prime minister share with the house his understanding of how the n.t.c.

is continuing to use officials from the lower level of government to keep basic services running? we also know that democracy takes root not just through the formal process of the ballot box but through a strong, vibrant civil society. can the prime minister tell us what plans there are for direct relationships between libya and organizations such as the bbc world services and the british council who could play an important role in helping build up civil society? let me finally ask about the lessons of this cop flick. the arab spring was clearly not envisaged at the time of the strategic defense and security review and has called on resources that have become obsolete. can the prime minister see a gain in looking afresh at this in light of events in libya? the international community as a whole is the effectiveness it

can have when it comes together and speaks in one voice. no two situations are the same and the situation in syria is different for a number of reasons. we support the use of all nonmilitary means at our disposal in relations to -- in relation to syria. he spoke of the need for a new u.n. resolution but can he spoke of the chances of the u.n. resolution and in the absence of that u.n. resolution what further steps can be taken against the regime? let me end thon thought, the overthrow of regimes in tunisia, egypt and libya, it is right that we are on the side of those foughting to enjoy the basic social and political rights we take for granted. let me end in agreement with

the prime minister, we should take pride in the role we have played in protecting the libyan people as they claim a better future and we should now help them as they enter the next phase, from popular revolt to stable, democratic government. >> thank you, mr. speaker. i thank the right honorable gentleman for his kind remarks and what he said. i think he's right to pose the alternative of what would have happened if we had stood back and done nothing? of course he's right to praise our be brave service personnel. i also like what he says about the inquiry about what needs to be done in looking at accusations of complicity. on his questions on stabilization and politics, let me try to answer the questions. on security, he's right to say no artificial deadline for nato. we must continue until the job is done. on the issue of the n.t.c.'s move from benghazi to tripoli

that is under way in parts of the n.t.c. have moved. i think it's important they move as a whole. we shouldn't try to second-guess everything that they do. i've been struck through this process that the n.t.c. often gets criticized and calls, would it do this or would it do that? it does always seem to rise to the challenge and it has been effective and we shouldn't underestimate the people working in it. on stabilization, he mentioned the u.n. role. it's important to differentiate between those who are trying to look at ways of inding a peace process before this conflict resulted in the fall of tripoli and those who are specifically drawing up the plans for a u.n. mission to libya. i think those plans are well under way. i think it's very important that we focus on those things the libyans want rather than what we think they might want.

it was interesting in paris, listening to the specific things they cared about most. clearly one of the roles the u.n. can play is make sure the elections when they come are properly observed and are free and fair. the point he makes about private companies is a good one. i think we should learn all the lessons from past conflicts as he says. in terms of maintaining government services, one thing the n.t.c. has been trying to do and i think has done effectively is to make sure there's no debarkification process, where junior official rrs encouraged to go back to work. it's early days and there will be huge problems at the end of a conflict like this. but the signs of things line rubbish collection and police back on the street, those things seem to be working. he asked about longer term relationships, the british council and others, clearly, once the security situation is

in better state, those relationships can be built from a strong basis. on the issue of the strategic defense review, i would argue having followed this very closely through the national security council on libya that met sometimes daily through this conflict that actually the case for what we're doing on the strategic defense review has been proved. it's been proved that it's the right decision to keep the tornado aircraft with the storm shadow capability and they perform magnificently over the skies of libya. typhoon has in many ways come of age. one thing that became clear was the need for greater eyes in the sky, for greater technical capabilities. that's provided for in the strategic defense review. having said that, after any conflict like that and intense period of mystery and government and humanitarian activity, he's right to earn the lesson and my national security advisor will be

leading a lessons learned exercise in terms of how the white hall machine operated and what lessons are learned. they will include the operation of the oil sell which did a good job trying to deny oil to the regime and make sure that the rebels not getting oil products got them. eventually the u.n. resolution on syria will continue to work, it's been difficult to get agreement to date. the oil embargo is an important step forward but i want to thank him for what he said, you can take pride in what british forces and british officials have done on this occasion. >> there's wide interest in the prime minister's statement. if i am to accommodate that, i require brevity. in pursuit of a helping hand, i look to an old hand. >> may i enjoin myself with the

praise of the prime minister for the magnificent performance of the british armed forces and the courage of the libyan people. it seems to me that matters are inevitably about to become a little messy in libya and it will be important for brit ain to offer what help it can in the spirit of cooperation and humility. >> i think that's right. i think it's very important that when people are looking at the humanitarian plan, the reconstruction plan, the plan for political progress in libya, we recognize it as something the libyans are doing themselves. we're there to help and assist but it's their plan, not our plan. i think humility on this occasion is right. >> mr. jack straw. >> thank you, mr. speaker. i praise the leadership that the prime minister and others have shown in this period,

there's no doubt that this was decisive in securing international cooperation and following it through. on the allegations made overnight, as far as secretary at the time, it was the consistent policy of the previous government, as his, wholly to be opposed to any complicity in torture or ill treatment or unlawful rendition but second to say, given the serious nature of these allegations, it is entirely right that they should be examined in every detail by the inquiry under sir peter gibson. >> first of all, can i thank him about what he says about myself and the foreign secretary and others. can i say on the issue he races, i think it's right that -- he raises, i think it's right that sir peter gibson look at this area. but i think it's important that nobody rush to judgment. in 2003, two years after 9/11, you had a situation where there was a libyan tro