seven days a week, all year long. the know what her tax rate is? she pays an income tax rate of 15%. why? because her income is described as carried interest. that is disgraceful that someone at the top of the food chain making the highest incomes in the world, running a hedge fund, pays a 15% rate and all that is the disgrace. let us get rid of all that sort of thing. i would even be willing to get rid of the corporate income tax and replace it with the value added tax, if necessary. general electric, one of the largest corporations in america, makes billion. it pays zero. let us not pretend anymore. we should move to a value added tax. every other country we trade

with take their 17% off on the goods they send us. >> i was talking to one of those groups that you think would be opposed to losing tax credits. some of them. tax rate. we think it might actually be better for us with this tax credit we are now getting. there is some of that talk going on in corporate america's mind. >> i am from the american university of central asia. my question is far from politics. what it buys can you give us a young and smart professionals and future leaders who will be changing the world and a couple of years to tell the u.s. about the whole world.

>> i think you should run for office. we need young people like you with that line to get out there and take on the verge of being a candidate and providing leadership. that is what we need. you need to get involved. when i look back on my own life, and look at the blessings and opportunities it i had -- my dad was a shipyard worker and my mother was an elementary school teacher in mississippi, and yetwhat is the american dream? it was the opportunity to go up there and take a chance, to put your name on the line and try to make a difference. that is what we need. we need young people like you that are educated, that are sensitive to international considerations, and try to make a difference.

learn all you can. i talked to a lot of young people, and when you see the opportunity, seize it, because it may not come again. i had my good times and my bad times. i made mistakes. i got in serious trouble. i was high on a mountain top and way down in the valley. i managed to climb back up with the help of a lot of good people. through it all, it was an incredible opportunity and an incredible system in america. we don't take an oath to the people of this country. we take an oath to the idea inculcated in the constitution. the only thing we need to preserve that constitution is young people like you that are prepared to get involved and try to make a difference.

>> j. paul getty once said that his the advice for young people was, go to the best school you can find and excel, then get the best job you can find an did your best to the workplace, and then strike oil. the key issue is, don't ever limit yourself. the only limits you are ever going to have are the ones you put on yourself. i come from a high school class of ninth in a town of 300 people, and went from that desk in that small school to a desk in the united states senate. that is pretty improbable. it. don't ever limit yourself. >> when you first ran for office, senator dorgan, how old were you?

>> i have a very unusual story. i have been a state what elected officer since 1926. -- since age 26. i story was in some ways worn from tragedy. an incumbent officeholder, a young, brilliant man had just been elected. people and went to harvard law school. he came back and ran for office in north dakota and one. -- and won. dakota. did. -- he asked me to come back, and i did. about a year-and-a-half later, he took his own life, a tragic situation. six weeks after that, the governor called me down to his office and i was 26 years old. he said i would like you to fill the unexpired term. i ran, i ran, and i ran again. i ran for reelection, ran for the house, ran for the senate.

i ran 12 times statewide and after a 30 year career, i decided to do some other things. i would not trade the experience. has been a wonderful privilege. >> i came to the city at 26 to be administrative assistant to my democratic predecessor in the house of representatives. he retired four years later and i ran at age 31 and served 35 years in congress. >> in puerto rico, we were allowed to vote in the democratic party primaries. considering this that, do you think we should be allowed to vote for presidency also?

>> or should it be a state? >> i think that should be up to the people of puerto rico. the people there have decided in the past and i guess it will in the future whether you want to be a commonwealth or a state. >> that has always been my view as well. we have had these issues presented to congress. whatew is, let's evaluate the people of puerto rico want. the you have an opinion? >> i just wanted to get your point of view, because i have seen my people but the point of view, and we are kind of undecided -- i have seen my people's point of view. some of us want to vote and some of us don't want to vote. i just wanted to see what was the congress'point of view in that matter. >> you are going to have to vote, and when you make up your mind, then it will be up to the congress.

>> my question is about the presidential election going on. did you think the view of rick perry and mitt romney matches up to the american public, and if they do when the presidential election in 2012, what issues could they face by the american public if some of their views are not compromised for the future of our country? >> are those the only two candidates? do you think another republican could potentially challenge mitt romney and rick perry? >> i have no idea. i am just speaking about them because i heard the said he was supporting mitt romney. >> when i was in the house of representatives, i represented the mississippi gulf coast, the saudis from corner of the state. it was a very easy population to represent, because my background was there.

when i got elected to the senate, i represent a very different constituency. the people and the problems were different. there once and desires were different. i spent a couple of years going around to different parts of the state, listing to people, what they needed, and trying to decide what i could do to be helpful to them. when you become president, in a primary you tend to identify this is my philosophy, this is where i stand and where is best for my family and my country. as you go forward, one of the good things about the american political system is, you learn. sometimes you do have to modulator positions. some things you were so sure about, you find out maybe that is not exactly the way it is

with the greater populace. i think you become a better candidate when you modify some of your positions, and then one day you are president of all of some of your preferred positions, you may not be able to focus on that, or you may have to downplay that a little bit to do some of the other things. ever-present and i have ever known thought he was going to be a domestic president, and everyone of them ended up with a hands. more effort in mexico and central and south america. i think we made a mistake by not paying more attention to our neighbors to the south. he thought he was going to do a lot more of that, and then there was 9/11 and everything was about terrorists and iraq and afghanistan. jimmy carter, the governor of

never would have dreamed what happened in iran. i guess what i am saying to you, in your primary you learn and go forward. you have to give. when you become president, you have to reach for a higher star and try to think about the greater legacy of your country, not just of you. what i am saying to you is, right now, you are going to see candidates in both parties have and to take positions that may make them uncomfortable. that is the politics of it. in the end, you also have to govern. that forces you sometimes to take positions that are different from what you would

the beginning. i apologize for the length of that answer, but i thought was necessary based on your question. >> i think it is largely romney versus perry at this moment. as has been the case on the democratic side from time to time, it is now the case on the republican side, when have these primaries that you think of them as sailboats. they put up a sale and sailed far to the right to navigate through those primaries. when the primaries are over, they will tack a little bit back to the center, because this country has a very strong center. i think the sailboat on the right has gone way off the edge of the map this year in order to please the people they have to please in certain areas to be successful in the primaries. they will come back somewhere toward the center. they want to appeal to that

small part of their party that will determine who the candidate want to come back and appealed american voters. >> the republican party will nominate the most conservative candidate they think they can get away with. if they go too far, they lose. the democratic party will go to the candidate as far to the left as they can. if they go too far left, they will lose. sometimes they feel like they overreact. subconsciously, they will switch it back some to try to keep more checks and balances in place. i really feel like the best government is usually when we party and the congress and the other. when i was majority leader, bill clinton was president. if you look at the legislative achievements of the late 1990's, you will be shocked at the variety and number of pieces of legislation we passed. >> like welfare reform.

>> we did save drinking water, portability of insurance, tax cuts, balanced budget. we actually had balanced budgets and surpluses. we rebuilt our defense. >> some think senate may go republican. >> we have about 10 minutes left. >> my question isabel the bill about the chinese media advantage here in the united states which was introduced earlier this year. while there are only to american journalist that are granted -- two american journalists that are granted permission in china, there is an alarming disparity between the numbers. what do you think of this alarming disparity? >> are either of the following this issue?

>> no, not this issue, but i have written a book that has a lot about china in it. it is more about trade, but it also deals with some of the other imbalances with respect to our relationship with china. china will have a significant influence on our future. the question is, what will that influence be? our approach to try has been engagement to trade and travel, believing that leads to greater human rights in china. there is a lot that concerns me about things in china and the lack of human rights. we keep working at it as a country, and i am not familiar with the imbalance of journalists, as you describe it. >> one of the hot tickets right now is the israeli-palestinian conflict. terms of american world politics

and our national security, what stance should we take and why? >> i think the united states has a critical and very sensitive role to play. has been very difficult for us to take a position that was as except in the arab world as it has been with israel. obviously we are very close in our relationship with israel. i do think the solution, as i said in the other discussion, really needs to be between the palestinians and the israelis. the administrations, but this one and the previous one, have taken a difficult stance to try to push that negotiation. i think it would be a huge mistake if the united nations were to step into the situation right now.

we should continue to press to find a solution that would lead to peace and stability. when you think of rockets being dumped into israel today, that is a horrible way to have to live. we need to try to find some way to have long-term peace and security for all the players especially for israel. washington. what bipartisan steps are being taken in pursuit of israeli and palestinian peace? >> i don't think there is great disagreement in the congress about our relationship with israel and our determination and settlement. i wish both sides would not get off and get to the table and negotiate. our country should as aggressively as possible push

that position. the only way to ever get an agreement is to sit and negotiate at the table. having preconditions' means you never get there. it is very important issue for this is a powder keg over there. >> every president tries to do that. president carter thought he had something. and president clinton worked on it, and george bush. i think it is important for peace. i think it is something we need to always be listening and learning about. i do not represent this country, but i will be meeting later to talk with them. i want to get his perspective on what is happening in that region of the world.

he is muslim. he is a diplomat. he has a unique perspective on that region of the world. where you find leaders are countries like morocco. i think we should be careful to listen to their perspective. we should listen to that as well as the israeli perspective. >> my question today is in 20081 of the boating groups that helped obama get elected was called the students and people -- my question today is in 2008 one of the voting groups that helped obama get elected was college students and people in this room. the think it will participate again? >> will president obama get folks that supported him three years ago to support him next year? >> this is not just an

enthusiasm gap. this country has lost some of the spring in its step. it has lost confidence. we have been to a very difficult time. we are fighting two wars. we have been to the deepest recession since the great depression. the day barack obama became president, that month we lost 675,000 jobs alone that month. he was handed a very difficult economy, a very difficult circumstances. i like barack obama. i think he has done as much as he can do to get some bipartisan help. he has been blocked at every respect. has he made all the right decisions? no. however, i think this country and the minority party in the senate owes him more than they have given him to help work through these problems, coming back to much mcconnell's statement.

his highest objective is to see barack obama defeated. my highest objective is to try to put this country back on track and try to put people back to work, and let american experience the success of providing broad opportunity once again. there is plenty you be concerned about about politics on both sides. barack obama is going to run for a second term. either rick perry or romney will be the republican nominee, in my judgment. over the next six or eight months, beginning next year, we will have a robust discussion about who we are and where we want to go, and who is best to take us there. i hope will not be discouraged about this guy who has tried very hard as a new president, having inherited the worst economy since the 1930's. i hope we will not be too discouraged about progress. this is a long, but tough slog.

i am convinced we will finally be on the road to better times. >> have we lost the spring in doorstep? >> i think the american people are worried about a variety of things now. and particularly small business people, community bankers that are going out of business. people are worried. they are worried about their own economic situation and they are worried about the future of our country. and i do know from past experience when we are challenged the most we will rise to the occasion. there is a lot of unique things about this country and the people in this country. we are unique. we are facing our challenges. it is more difficult, because the enemy is not so obvious. it is a sinister economic enemy. with regard to young people in particular, i think this will be an interesting campaign for the young people. i do not think they are

necessarily a lot for barack obama again. every four years, the students are very different. that is true at universities across the country. the generation that came along right after me, in the aftermath of watergate and vietnam, later became much more liberal in their views. i never knew anything about drug culture when i was at school. there was an era there where people have a very different perspective than one i went to school. the next thing i know, my son and daughter are at school. their generation looks a lot like my generation. there are ads and flows within the young people in colleges and universities. it will be different this time. most of you will be waiting to see who the republicans nominate, what he or she really

talks about, what they are saying will be different about the country. one thing that worries me with the previous administration and this 0 and need -- i worry about how these president's control their administration looks. president bush, at the end of his administration, i did not feel like he was in control of the transportation part, the energy part. the alphabet soup in the city -- i think the bureaus are totally out of control. even the white house has things happen. they will be there when the next president comes. that is one of many reasons why i hope we will change.

somebody needs to get this government under control and stop some of the out of control runaway regulatory policies being created in this country. >> how many of you will be voted for the first time in 2012? >> you will get the last question. >> in belgium, my question as a european in the united states, how is it possible a social plan in europe has so much opposition in the united states from both parties, either democrats or republicans? >> you are talking about social programs? "once a social plan similar to -- >> like health care? are you saying there are lessons

from europe? >> why are you so opposed to having one in the united states? it helps other people, and there is no opposition they're against it. >> let us take health care as one example. people pointed to what we have seen in canada, sweden, and european countries. why is it so different in our country, compared to the makeup of europeans? >> because we are so different. americans are very individualistic, very independent. we still believe, i think, the best government is the least government. the best government is the government closest to the people. i think the most important elected official in this country is the local supervisor who represents one county. they are called commissioners in some states. i do not want us to be like europe. i do not want us to be a

socialist country. that is not who we have been and i hope we do not become that. i think as an individual, -- i still have a minimum faith in the government. where money should be spent -- i like for people to decide how they spend their own money. a lot of people now want to spend more money from the federal level, on education and school buildings. i still believe the best education is determined at the local and state level. i ended up voting for notre left behind. i was hesitant. i did not like the testing, but i went along with it. but it needs reforming very badly. it has created some competition, or some good schools that do not meet certain bogus criteria and that getting downgraded.

i want education to be very important, but i have a problem when local education dictates -- is dictated from washington, d.c. >> i voted for the health care bill. 32 million americans now have health insurance. i do not think your health care ought to be a function of whether q are employed or not. the question of what should happen to someone who has no health care and get sick -- should the person died from it? we cannot do everything for everybody. but i would not in a million years decide to get rid of medicare. that is a social program that is very important. we need to address some of the financing issues. half of the senior citizens did not have any health care. do you know health insurance

companies that chase a year-old to insure them? i guarantee they do not. they like you. you look young and healthy. they would like to get your premiums because they know you are not going to shop at the doctor's office. old folks could not get health insurance that was affordable. so they lay in bed at night, worrying about the time when illness would strike. how am i going to deal with this? we put in place medicare. it is an important program. people are living longer now, healthier lives. we need to make some adjustments. i understand that. but this issue of social programs and what we can do at the city or national level -- we have already made decisions about medicare. people do not like medicare or social security. we will have a debate about that next year. that is healthy. it is about what we aspire for ourselves and our future. >> you have been in this town

dating back to richard nixon. you have four with a lot of presidents. i wonder if you can share with the students one experience with one president you have worked with on a personal level, maybe a political outcome. -- of a president that you worked with. ofi'm from the university central florida. i like to ask if you think our foreign military engagements affect our democratic process. in the first quarter, to you think that we will see a sun setting or least a curtailment of the civil liberties like the patriot act? >> senator dorgan. >> you cannot go back and redo history. we needed to take the fight to the terrorists effectively.

had we known what we knew later, we would not have attacked iraq. most of the intelligence turned out to not be accurate. but we did. and american soldiers were very brave and when their country called, they went. we did go into afghanistan because that is where bin laden was. 10 years later, we are still in afghanistan. we need to withdraw from afghanistan. we will never control the tribal regions of afghanistan. the largely corrupt government -- we need to fight terrorist where they are, not where they were. we are spending $10 billion a year in afghanistan nation- building. let's build nations in this nation. but you get involved in these things and never withdraw and never get out. the new have to explain why.

we should not be in afghanistan. we should begin moving out of afghanistan. >> i do not agree totally with what byron as saying. but it will sound a lot like it. we are trying to police too much of the world. we are still in germany. we are still in south korea. we are all over the world. it is time we do a little bit of a reevaluation of our international role and responsibilities are. we do need to pull back on some of our advanced capabilities. we should be prepared to be where we need to be in case of emergencies. but the american people think that it is time that we began to withdraw in a lot of places. not that we will become protectionists and red shirt -- and withdraw from the world, but a modernization of what our

role is, and when we went into sarajevo, you all are there, why do we have to go in? and i was talking to the president, honorific sort of situation in germany, and they said that is your role. that is what america should do. i just did not understand that. as a member of congress, i always tried to be supportive of the president. i do think presidents, whether clinton or bush or reagan, do have to make in the first instance a lot of decisions. i remember getting in good arguments with president clinton on the rules requiring that he had to give some cooperation with the leadership. i was very jumpy about that. i wanted proof of what was going to be -- why we were bombing a

particular site or factory. and he provided it. and i went along and supported it. it turns out that the intelligence may not have been all of that could. i am not being critical him, but i do think it is time that we about your weight what our role is going to be in the future. we should also at the same time make sure that our military is what it needs to be an our men and women in uniform have the most modern capabilities to save lives and prevent the loss of lives. >> in europe 30-plus years, if you have dealt with many presidents. one moment. >> as i was thinking about moments with ronald reagan in the oval office, the two george bush's, and it is hard to take a moment. i knew bill clinton when he was the attorney general for the state of arkansas, later became governor and president, i had

known him a long time. to show that politics is personal, republicans and democrats care about each other. they are our friends. i had lost a daughter, a devastating time in my life, and bill clinton and called and talked to me at night, and some while after that, there was a flood in north dakota and where an entire city was evacuated, 45,000 people. bill clinton came out there with us and we flew out in air force one, landed at this air force base and thousands of people were sleeping on cots and in key bomber hangers because the city

was under water. and i will never forget when bill clinton climbed on the stage, and these people waiting to hear what this president would say, and he got up in front of them and said, i want you to know something. you're not alone. you're not alone. this country is with you. it is one of those moments i never forgot, because i never got the impact on all of those people and what it meant for the leader of this country to come and save this country is behind you. >> i have a lot of things that i have very fond memories of, and a similar thing with president nixon when he came after hurricane camille to my home area, pulling out there that night, the whole area was devastated. i have memorable ones with president clinton, the most memorable when you are called at 2:00 in the morning. my wife would say, what does he

want? i would say, i do not know. it was a really interesting conversation, but the most memorable was in 1986. i was the republican whip in the house, mostly in charge of counting the votes for rounding up the votes. and i resisted the tax reform bill that reagan was pushing, in the form that it was in. i pretty much set not only am i going to not do the with work but i would vote against it. so i was in the oval office on his left, jim bakker on the other side of the desk. he is pressing me to support this bill. i said, mr. president, i do not think it is what i came here to do. it sounds like a lot of tax increases. i do not think it is what you came here to do. i do not think i can supported. we talked for a while, and he said, friend, if i cannot count

on the whip, who can i count on? and i leaned back in that chair and thinking, i am the son of a shipyard worker from pascagoula, mississippi and i am telling the world's greatest leader, no, i cannot help you? the gulf that i would even -- so i said, ok, mr. president. and i did. i did all that work and i voted for it and i considered it one of the two worst of those that i cast in my 35 years. [laughter] but it is memorable when the president is losing -- looking you in the face saying, if i can i count on you, the can i count on? when the president of the united states puts it to you like that, if you have to help. >> 350 students make up the center, and on behalf of the bipartisan policy center as well, thank you for being with

us. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> thank you, everyone. we need to move relatively quickly. thank you, everyone. >> in a few moments, a look at what congressional republicans are planning for the economy and jobs. in about an hour, a review of the supreme court's upcoming term grid after that, a tribute to the late former senator charles percy of illinois. a couple of live events to tell you about tomorrow morning. at 10:00 a.m. eastern, the joint economic committee holds a hearing on the federal debt and the u.s. economy. that is here on c-span.

and on our companion network c- span 3, former white house budget director alice rivlin testifies about job creation for the senate budget committee. that is at 9:30 a.m. eastern. more now about congressional republican plans for the economy and jobs. from "washington journal," this is about an hour. host: this morning, it is more about jobs, specifically what the congressional republicans put forth. this is a follow-up to our chat on the president's jobs plan we recently had dean baker is co- director of the center for economic and policy research. we are also joined by james sherk of the heritage foundation, a senior policy analyst in the area of labor economics. first broad question for each of you.

dean baker, how would you describe what republicans are trying to put forth on jobs? guest: essentially a do-nothing position. we have been hit with this calamity. the housing bubble collapse, we lost an annual demand due to losses in construction -- lost $1.20 trillion in an old man due -- in annual demand to losses in construction. you have to find some way to counter that. republicans say do nothing, don't have regulation our taxes, and i hope that somehow, out of whatever, we will see businesses create jobs. businesses do not work that way. herbert hoover tried this. it is not really work. you have to create demand, and it does not really happened. host: james sherk? guest: what you have to be doing is reducing barriers to business. you take the businesses -- the

barriers that government has erected. you have to remove them so that you have a better business climate. guest: we had them in place in the 1990's when we are creating 3 million jobs a year. obviously, those areas don't -- those barriers do not prevent the economy from growing and creating jobs. in terms of the stimulus, it is a matter of proportion. we are trying to counter $1.20 trillion in lost demand, and some professors at dartmouth did a good analysis of the stimulus and in their analysis shows there was more effective than the obama administration projected. guest: that is not what the administration projected at the time but they said if we passed it would be around 7% unemployment right now and obviously it is not the case. japan tried this for decades. stimulus package after stimulus package that make our packages look like to change. -- like chump change. they are still stuck in this slump. obviously, if you have something like the tech bubble going on, it is not an issue for the economy, but when the economy is economy, but when the economy is taking a body blow, you want to make sure you are

not doing anything to slow down growth. that is what the proposals coming out of the house are aimed at. host: let me get the numbers on the screen for our viewers. questions or comments for our two guest. james sherk, senior policy analyst with the heritage foundation, and also joining us is dean baker, center for economic policy and research. let's get a take of what john boehner is saying about jobs. here is a clip. >> the president's proposals are a poor substitute for the pro-growth policies that are needed for job creation in america, the policies needed to

put people back to work. host: any defense of the president's approach to jobs? guest: the problem is that it was not big enough to james referred to the prediction that unemployment would be at 7% and of course it is not. the problem is projection. they thought if we did nothing, the unemployment rate would not get above 9%. of course, it went to 10% and it would have gone to 11% absent this to be listed the problem you can blame on that projection, but that was not the fault of the stimulus. guest: look, deficit spending just has not worked. this is the slowest recovery since the great depression. not that we have history on the great depression, hoover was activist on boosting government spending and intervention. roosevelt was building a lot of

hoover's policies. all of that government intervention, it at length in an extended the great depression. we would have recovered sooner had not been for these interventionist policies. why are we having the slowest recovery we have had in basically living memory? the recession we have had with the most government intervention since the downturn. i think the government is applying the brakes to the economy. guest: the slowing recovery is due to the fact we have a different sort of recession. postwar recessions were from raising interest rates. we do not have a pent-up demand from housing and cars. we have a collapsed a bubble. it is a qualitatively different type of recession. it is much, much harder to get out of it. i take issue with your reading of the great depression. if you look at what happened with the new deal, the economy grew at 10% a year until 1937,

when roosevelt got the fear of god and said that we have to balance the budget. we had a very rapid economic growth, and the unemployment rate fell from 25% to 10%. nobody will be happy with 10% unemployment, but that is a very sharp fall. guest: the civilian conservation corps, the works progress and an assertion -- the works progress administration -- the unemployment rate was never below 18%. something else happened in 1937. the supreme court upheld the national labor relations act, which, whatever you want to argue for the merits, is very well established that unions are essentially chopped cartels, -- job cartels, whose purpose is to restrict the supply of labor in the industry. it has a negative affect on the companies they organized. you could argue that there are offsetting benefits, but this from professors and researchers at the minneapolis fed, this

was harmful to the recovery. houselet's hear from the speaker as he talks about the recent nlrb action on boeing. >> the boeing co. recently completed a plant that will create thousands of new full- time jobs for american workers, only to be sued by a federal agency that wants to shut it down. let me make sure i've got this right. american companies are free to create jobs in china up but are not free to create jobs in south carolina. host: dean baker, your response. guest: we have to understand what is at issue. the question is whether boeing deliberately used the threat of moving to north carolina as an anti-union tactic that is what nlrb is saying, we should investigate that and look into whether this was an anti-union threat. it is inappropriate, it is illegal, to say that if you x, y and z, we will move it

elsewhere. companies do that all the time. it is a violation of national labor law. whether or not the facts support that are not, that is what nlrb is trying to determine but let me get back to the issue of unions and the unemployment rate. you have countries with high unionization rates, much higher than the united states, countries like sweden, germany, denmark, norway, that have a very low unemployment rates, much lower than ours. there is a lot of research on this, and most of it shows that there is no correlation at all between unionization rates and unemployment. host: i have got to get some calls in. brookfield, massachusetts, you are up first. what, you are on the independent line. caller: thanks for taking my call. i have a question for the fellow from the heritage foundation. we keep hearing that we need to remove impediments for investment. it seems that there is a lot of cash around waiting to be invested in corporations right now.

i know you are going to tell me they are not investing because there is an environment of uncertainty, but there is always uncertainty in business. that is not an excuse to sit on your hands and not make investments. you have assets to invest. maybe the problem is they don't see any productive use for the assets in this country, and that is a scary thought, too. guest: i would largely agree with that. the problem is that the businesses don't see investment opportunities, and that is why they are not investing. if they thought that they could profit from these investments, it would of course do that. that is what businesses do, they try to make profits. you cannot centrally plan the recovery, citing we will invest in this company or that company. we don't have -- the government does not have the information. we saw this with solyndra. we saw this at evergreen solar. what we should be doing is removing the barriers that raise the risks to businesses,

raise the cost to businesses, thereby encouraging that companies take the risk themselves. we should not be raising needless barriers to business success. host: steven, welcome to the program. caller: i would like people to keep in mind that everything comes from the earth, and scholars can shuffle money around here and there and do all these things and talk about -- everything comes from the earth, and you have got -- we have got to create wealth and jobs -- everything has got to come from a mining, from farming, from drilling, it has got to come from the earth. you cannot just robbed peter to pay paul. you have got to take the wall -- bill weld -- the wealth from the

earth and bring it up, and that is the only way we are going to do it. you cannot keep shuffling money around. host: thanks for calling. dean baker, let's go to you for this. i wanted to dig into some of the details of what the republicans are putting forth. this is from the house republican conference, the ideas that they suggest will create jobs. a 25% top tax rate for people and businesses. they want a congressional review of regulations, something house has started doing and will continue to do this fall. they would like to see the columbia, panama and south. trade deals enacted. and also, expand domestic oil drilling and a reaction to what the caller was saying. guest: there are few jobs at stake with this idea of domestic drilling. we're not going to have energy independence. in a lot of ways, it goes the opposite direction. if you drill the oil out of the ground today, it is not there tomorrow. if we are concerned that at some

point the bad guys are going to cut us off, the most foolish thing we can do is to drill in out today. at the moment, weakened by as much oil as we need to in the world market. -- we can buy as much oil as we need to win the world market. why on earth would you rush to drill out? i cannot understand that. of course, there are great environmentalists. those of us who remember the bp spill, we know what those are. second, the top tax rate -- we have done this before. how many times, do the same thing? president bush awarded the tax rates and we had a horrible -- lord the tax rates and we had a horrible job growth. you go back to the 1950's, 1960's, 1970's, we have the top tax rate to 70%, very good job growth. at the idea that is the key to job growth does not make any sense. host: let me discuss what "national journal" says about this. they would like to see at delay in epa standard for cement production, from b -- farm

does, greenhouse gases. how would those create jobs? guest: the problem is that what these regulations are going to do is massively raise costs in regulated industries. we have had three decades of improving quality. there is cleaner air today than in decades. at a time when we have already made great progress but the economy is weak, you do not want to raise additional areas to -- additional barriers to businesses and sink money into investments that don't help them expand and grow the economy. we already seen it have an effect on jobs. in texas, just a few weeks ago, and energy company announced they would have to shutter two power plants to comply with these regulations. the national cement company was planning and investing millions of dollars and creating construction jobs at a new plant in alabama. they announced they had to shut that down because of the regulations.

when the economy is this week, we don't want to put barriers up into businesses that want to expand. another problem with these regulations is that because they are going to raise energy prices, that affects everyone. businesses have higher costs. consumers have less money in their pockets. it is not a sensible strategy. host: david, independent, you are on the air. caller: i am a high-tech robotics and information executive engineer. i have been doing it for about 20 years. the conversation left and right does not seem to deal with the causes. everything is focused on the symptoms. we have put together a different paradigm shift the week of the redistribution of work. -- that we call the redistribution of work. if you look at things in america today, what we do for a living forces acting in our economy -- there are not as many jobs for an educated people any

more. -- for uneducated people anymore. to read this edition of work -- the redistribution of work -- which put out of it that describes the paradox, what we -- the paradox of productivity, its effects, and what we can do in the short-term and long-term to deal with this factor. i encourage these gentlemen and viewers to go to redistributework.com, watched a short video, and see if it changes their perspective. host: redistribution of work -- what does that mean to you? guest: it is an interesting question, because one of the things that is striking about this downturn is the difference with other countries. germany has an unemployment rate today that is half a percentage point below what it was at the start of the downturn. it is that because germany has at better growth than the and -- and it states. it is not because germany is that -- it is not because

germany has had better growth than the united states. it is because they have a better work-sharing policy. they reduce work hours. that would make a lot of sense here. we have worked share programs in 20 states. we have unemployment assistance in 20 states for the take-, rate is low, but if we could promote that, and the jobs proposal includes work-sharing -- a government in germany that is a big promoter in this is a conservative government. there is no obvious public interest encouraging people to be unemployed rather than having them work short hours. i think this is very much to the mark. guest: the problem is, most of the studies published in peer review literature on his work share programs showed that they are relatively ineffective in reducing unemployment. it would be something that the evidence was stronger. i do not think that is the case.

i do think the caller has a good point in terms of what is happening to manufacturing. it is not so much trade that has led to the drop in manufacturing jobs. in 2007, up with a downturn, we were producing more manufactured goods in nine the u.s. than ever before. the move from the firms into the factories was good for the economy. the question is, what do these workers do? one of the problems we have in the economy is occupational licensing, where 1/3 of the economy is off limits. you need a license and is several years of education to apply for these jobs. studies even by liberal economist say that this is bad for job growth. we need to focus on workers displaced by new technology rather than shuffling jobs around. host: james sherk joined the heritage foundation in 2006.

educated at lulzsec college and -- hillsdale college and the university of rochester. we also a -- joined by dean baker -- educated at hillsdale college and university of rochester. we are also drawn by dean baker, who was a professor at bucknell university, worked at the world bank, educated at the university of michigan. has written several books, a long list of books. guest: keeps me busy. host: democrat, good morning. caller: i have one question that i keep hearing over and over again from republicans, the tax as corporations pay, if we could just get it down. i would like to know from the man from heritage, the name of a company, just one, that actually pays 35% in taxes after deductions in loop holes. i want an aim of one company.

if you cannot give me the name of one company, everything you say is disingenuous. host: put you on the spot here. guest: i think she actually has a good point. the statutory rate is 35% federal rate, plus 4% more in local rates. if you are -- there are different carve-outs and deductions that get stuck in it the tax code. the actual effective rate is closer to 18%. but if you are a new company starting up, you have not got all the experience and all the tax code deductions, you are paying the full rate, more or less. it acts as a disincentive to job growth. speaker boehner and president obama said that one of the things they would like to do is motivate the tax rate, the highest in the industrialized world, but eliminate these deductions and credits so that there are fewer barriers for startup companies.

host: we will put up more details regarding healthcare on the screen. the republican health care proposal, this from "the hill," wants to exempt health plans in existence before the 2010 health-care law from the law's requirements. any reaction? guest: this is kind of making a joke of the plan there was ample opportunity to change the plan. 50, 60, 70 republican amendments were accepted. the 80% requirement -- you want the insured to spend more than 20% of what you are paying them on administrative the fees on the process. it hardly seems like a very harsh conditions to say that they have to spend at least 80% actually providing care for customers. host: anything on health care you want to add? guest: just that obamacare has been a disaster. there was a poll recently done up small business owners showing what is it most harmful to hiring?

one-third of small business owners were picking this. the health-care law is the first greatest or second greatest obstacle. and it makes sense? what is the health-care market going to look like in five years? you don't know if you are a business owner. what are your costs going to be? you don't know. how you plan for the future if you have this enormous risk over your head? host: chris, rohrbaugh again, thank you for waiting. -- republican, thank you for waiting. caller: mr. baker, can you explain why the government must be a business partner with everybody who goes into business? how is the government so smart that they can pick winners and losers in the marketplace all the time? remember, ronald reagan said that the scariest words someone can say is, "i am from the government and i am here to help." i want to ask both guess one thing, when did millionaires and billionaires start at $200,000? from my math, that is far below

$200,000. i'm from new york, so i'm used to a lot of people promoting a redistribution of wealth and fairness and all that stuff, but my main point is that the government is not a business partner with us, should not be, i cannot be if we are going to be successful. guest: i am not sure workers means in the sense that government is a business partner -- i am not sure what chris it means in the sense that government is a business partner, and i do not know of anyone that holds that position. of president obama and others say they want to support business environment and you have things like the small business administration that has been around -- i would have to go back and look how long it has been around, but it has enjoyed bipartisan support. i have mixed feelings about it, but in any case, it is out there to support business. i am not sure if that is what the caller is attacking. the government in general is not great at picking winners and losers. it can sometimes have a useful role. we have great technologies like the internet that came from the

government, so the government can play a useful role in promoting technology. the government spends roughly $30 billion a year in biomedical research at the national institutes of health. republicans, conservatives, the pharmaceutical industry, they all seem to think this is money well spent. the government can do things in terms of creating a good environment for business, the good economic groundwork. i don't know anyone who is suggesting that government will take all the winners and losers. guest: you might want to talk to the president about his green jobs proposals. we spend tens of billions of taxpayer dollars on these countries, which, if they were a -- on these companies, which, if they were viable, the private sector would have happily invested in this technology in the expectation of bring profit. the reason they were not attracted was because investors were looking at these and said that there were no way that fees, is the secret as we've seen with evergreen is solar at this past week with solyndra, these companies have gone belly up. it was not a good use of taxpayer dollars. the caller is right.

the government should not be picking what its investment because it is politically popular technology. lower regulations and let companies put their own money on the line. guest: you are opposed to the small business administration? guest: i think the small business administration probably does a lot more than it should. host: question via twitter. guest: not necessarily. i'm actually from canada, and in canada to have nationalized health care. if elected business in canada, you hav -- if you look at business in canada, much higher taxes and then in the u.s. you're paying for it one way or the other. it is not free. somebody pays for it. as milton friedman once said, there is no such thing as a free lunch. host: use the headlines about the debt reduction plans. "the wall street journal" -- nearly half of the $3.60

trillion proposal will come from taxes. of one additional unit of ps from john boehner. -- i wanted to show you something from john boehner. john boehner says that tax increases are off the table, while it, if you look at headlines, tax increases on the president's standpoint are very much on the table. >> it is a simple equation. tax increases destroy jobs. the joint committee is a jobs committee. mission is to reduce the deficit that is threatening to operation in our country. -- threatening job creation in our country. we should not make its task harder by asking it to do things that will make the environment for job creation in america even worse. i hope the president will meet this standard. when he puts forth his recommendations for the joint committee next week. when it comes to producing savings to reach the $1.50 trillion target, the joint a select committee has one option, spending cuts and

entitlement reform. the joint committee can achieve real of a separate action by reforming entitlements and taking real action to preserve and strengthen social security and medicare and medicaid. host: dean baker, connect all this, if you can, to job creation. guest: the idea that tax increases will kill jobs defies volumes and volumes of economic evidence. we had much higher tax rates in the 1990's, 1960's, 1970's, we had stronger growth. we have countries that have high tax-to-gdp that strong growth. this idea that you can never raise taxes is just silly. guest: even keynesian economic theory says that if you raise taxes you reduce demand. other theories say that it will

be harmful. america has had the strongest economy in the world for a very long time to read part of that has been because there are those taxes and more attractive climate for investment and risk- taking. america as starkly as -- america has a historically at far higher rates for entrepreneurial start-ups. certainly been the european nations. when you raise taxes faceplate entrepreneurs -- faced by entrepreneurs, you have fewer start-ups. if the government takes more and more of the world, there is less incentive to take risk, which can be costly if the company goes under. host: maria, new jersey, independent. good morning. caller: good morning. i just want one of these, to tell me what we will have honesty about the dragon in the room -- globalism. what we're getting is window dressing. president obama said he has no silver bullet. he has at least three i can think of, and i am a person.

-- a layperson. he will aggregate all the trade agreement unfavorable to our country, get the consent of the senate, and he would have immediate results. the second thing is, he could agree that the federal reserve, which has been gambling with our money and paying foreign banks, should be investigated and, if necessary, abolished. the third thing is that he can call all the troops back from these wars of adventure and put them on our borders. actually, it is common sense. we have to be self-sufficient. globalism and the idea of international gangsters and fascists is ruining our country. buddy roemer and other people, even ron paul, have addressed it, until everybody agrees that this is madness, we are not going to get anywhere. host: let's hear from our guests, beginning with mr. baker.

guest: i want to jump back to a point at james made about tax rates and business creation. tax rates don't seem to have help all that much. in terms of the color bang's comment, i think of -- it globalism is that -- the caller's comment, i think global is and is a mixed story to the fundamental imbalance in the economy -- if you have a large trade deficit, as we do, somewhere around $600 billion a year, 4% of gdp, you either have negative public savings, the budget deficits everyone is so unhappy about, or-private savings. the savings rates we had at the peak of the housing bubble. there is no alternative to. i am very concerned to get the trade deficit down and the way you do that is to lower the value of the dollar, make u.s. exports more competitive, domestically produced goods will be purchased instead of imports.

if we got our trade of is that close to balance, that would create over 4 million in new manufacturing jobs. that would be a really good policy and i would love to see president obama embrace it. first and foremost, you want to balance trade, making u.s. goods more competitive in the economy. guest: herbert hoover tried this with the smoot-hawley tariff spirit and terms of shutting down trade with the world, very destructive to the economy. that is one thing that economists look back and say we should not have done that. the smoot-hawley tariffs were terrible for our economy. economists agree of all stripes. what did paul krugman get his nobel prize in? showing the benefits of trade. shutting down trade would not work any better now than it did in the 1930's. host: doris on the line for democrats, walk into the program. caller: thank you for

"washington journal." it every week you have that heritage foundation on. some weeks you have the heritage foundation and the cato institute. are these your new best friends going here? host: [laughter] caller: heritage guy said that 1/3 of businesses was health care. 2/3 said lack of demand with the rich to not invest in america. they invest in "emerging markets." those are in china and india. and then and they want to say they are not many class warfare. they refused to take away the subsidies for corporate jets that would bring in $3 billion, but they cut nutrition programs for infants and children by $830 million.

who is committing class warfare? host: james sherk, you want to respond? guest: there is a lot of room in the tax code to eliminate some of these deductions that are less efficient. that is, again, something that both of the speaker and president at they are interested in doing. that could be quite helpful. in terms of the broader point, look, who is it that creates jobs? entrepreneurs and investors taking risks in america. there's an awful lot of investment that takes place in this country, and we want to encourage more of that. to have a policy that has the government redistribute wealth and take money away from a successful entrepreneurs and investors, you can do that and that will have economic effects but it will not encourage more people to invest. you can do one or the other, by doing both and bonds, you are pushing and pulling a -- at the same time it -- but doing both at once, we are pushing and pulling at the same time.

host: we try to get a balanced opinion, so keep watching and you will find that out for yourself. dean baker, we will get your response to what "the washington post" is reporting. something called the reins act. "regulations from the executive in need of scrutiny" act, that is what they are calling it and putting it together. "the post" reports that 50-100 "major" regulations are enacted annually hear more from a speaker boehner. >> we will pass the reins act, which will require congressional review of any regulation that has an impact on our economy. house committees have identified dozens of the job-

crushing regulations that are keeping our economy from producing jobs. we will appeal the 3% withholding rule, which serves as an effective tax increase on those who do business with our government. we will stop excess of the federal regulations that inhibit jobs in areas as varied as cement to form dust. host: "job-crushing" regulations, he calls a. guest: there is a history of the negative impact of the -- of blowing up the negative impact of the regulations, most of which serve important purposes. my fear was the clean air act, -- my favorite was the clean air act, passed in the 1980's. before it was, you had all these people who said it would cost over 1 million jobs. someone did a study of that, and they look at the industries who had to be affected could they had more job growth than the industry cannot affected. -- then the industries that were not affected.

the epa just did an analysis of the gains from the bill and found that the gains were in the trillions of dollars in terms of better health. we have over 1 million people alive today because we have the onerous regulation, the job- killing clean air act, did not kill a lot of jobs. it kept a lot of people alive. host: james sherk, explain what the speaker said with the holding room. -- that 3% withholding rules. this is from "a little bit." -- this is from "the hill." this would be effective as of the start of 2013. as we read, the president wants to delay this, the republicans want to eliminate it. why is this going forward? guest: the problem is is essentially forcing small businesses to get a loan from the federal government, you -- to give a loan to the federal government, you perform services and you have to pay workers and pay for materials. of the government only gives you

97% of what it said it would pay you. at the end of the year, you get the final three%. in fact, you borrow money in the interim. you are given a no-interest loan to the government. -- you are getting a no-interest loan to that -- giving a no- interest loan to the government. it is a great deal if you are the government, but we should not be turning to small businesses to get forced financing. guest: we have a problem with non-compliance with taxes for small businesses. this is a way of getting a foot in the door. we know that they have to pay their bill brought by the way, most of us pay taxes every two weeks with our paychecks. host: frankfurt, frank. republican, good morning. caller: we need an industrial policy. just ask yourself a couple of questions. do you think if apple computer had to pay $10,000 a year in health care, they would have the hundred thousand jobs in china? -- i can remember -- they would have a 300,000 jobs in china? i can remember when ge -- i --

when they employ 200,000 people in these countries. they worked for them and we did fight health care. today, they brought 20,000 jobs back, or what put them out of business. -- health care would put them out of business. we do need an industrial policy. on the deficit, i am old enough to know that you pay 70%. we did not have a $30 trillion deficit after world war ii. eisenhower and fdr would probably have warren buffett and dick cheney waterboarded. a couple of guys like norbert' and moyner. the country is too important. we should have national interest. it is not about making money. i made plenty of it and i paid taxes. i just had $15,000 for my quarter. guest: the reason we have large

deficits today is because the economy collapsed. we did not have large deficits in 2007, 2008. it was when the economy collapsed could get the deficit went right through the roof. -- that the deficit went through the roof. that is really clear, and one of the things that amazes me is how much distortion there has been, with both parties. president obama says he inherited a trillion-dollar deficit paid he inherited that because the economy was collapsing. our per-person health care costs are more than twice the average of other wealthy countries. take the average for germany and canada and whoever else, we are taking twice as much per person. -- paying twice as much per person. that is the same thing as a tax. how was it different if money goes out the door for health care as if the government taxes it? for businesses, it is money out of their pockets. guest: there really isn't anything the government can do that will bring back the manufacturing jobs. it is automation, technology. because we have these new robotics computers come we can do the same work with fewer workers doing it. if you are one of the guys on the assembly line -- if you are

one of the guys who operates the machines, great for you. if you are one of the guys on the assembly line, not so much. there is not much that government can do to interfere with that. china has fewer manufacturing workers today than in the mid- 1990's, because they have had the same process of bringing in productivity improvements. the goal should be, how to be open up additional jobs for workers displaced by technology? one place to look at that would be on the occupation licensing, removing the domestic barriers to competition we have erected in the country. -- in the economy. there's not much the government can do to roll back the process of automation. guest: well, again, i think the main issue, i mentioned before, with the trade deficit, we don't want to roll back automation, but we can create 4 million manufacturing jobs if we add something close to balanced trade. most of our deficit is in many record goods. -- in manufactured goods. jim and i were talking before we came in here. we don think b -- don't think barbers have to be licensed.

host: go ahead. caller: my question is for james. i'm a veteran. i spent 26 years in the military. i want to know how clinton created 22 million jobs during his time. he raised taxes. bush reduced taxes and lost 8 million jobs. can you answer that question? you are talking out of both sides of your mouth. guest: thank you for your service to our attention. -- for your service to our country. whatever our political disagreements, thank you for that. president clinton took office when the economy was recovering from a 1991 recession. this is when you have far faster growth than the population. president bush took office at

the peak of the attack bobbled -- tech bubble as it was collapsing. those job losses were at the start of his watch. at the same time, you have a slowing down of the job growth. the issue was you did not have as many workers entering the workforce so you did not have the same number of jobs being created under bush and clinton. host: we have more from speaker boehner as a look at republican proposals for job creation. the speaker is talking about tax credits. >> there are two other components. one is the current tax code that discourages investment and rewards special interests. at a time when is clear of the tax code needs to be reformed, the first instinct to come out of washington is to come out with a new host of tax credits that make the tax code more

complex. host: dean baker, let's hear from you first on the idea of tax credits. guest: there are a lot of things you could do that would make it more efficient and fair. the vast majority of the benefits go to high income individuals. -- of the mortgage interest deduction. it seems like you would want to cap it at a lower amount around $450,000. make a credit rather than a deduction. if you are in the 36% bracket, if you are paying $20,000 in mortgage interest, that is picked up by the government. naked a credit -- make it a credit and cap it. i think it would be much fairer and cheaper. guest: i agree. the tax code is a mess. we should be removing credit and

deductions and lowering the overall rate. in terms of the broader point of the tax credits, europes has had 8% unemployment for the last generation. if you are france, 9% unemployment is the sun rising every day. i think we should learn from their experience. if you offer a tax credit, it affects who gets the job. it does not affect the number of jobs that it created. they may pick one person over another because one has a tax credit attached. guest: the record of europe is next. -- mixed. germany has 6.5% unemployment. the northern european countries like sweden and denmark have less than 5%. they generally have lower unemployment than the united states. europe has had some countries

with high tax rates that have still had good productivity growth and low unemployment that is better than the u.s. host: james sherk, you are from canada. this person says high taxes with national health care. hal is canada doing in the recession that we have here? guest: can get is a resource- based economy at a time when we did canada is a resource-based economy at a time when prices are rising. guest: like texas. guest: exactly, exactly. you have the mineral resources. their economy is doing quite well. they did not have the same housing bubble we did. they do not have to recover from that. some credit is due to the conservative government. i think most of it is the big fortune they have had of the way their economy is diversified. host: john, a democrat, good

morning. caller: i wonder if you are having a hard time explaining this because you are fighting against the american public's lack of understanding of the issues. an example is talking about with our currency auctions. -- our currency functions. i imagine all lot of people on the conservative side of the ledger still imagine we live on the gold standard for our currency. they do not understand how a fiat currency works. then they have political discourse and talk about just printing more money like it is the end of the world. well, that is what the government always does when you have a fiat currency. it prints money. i wonder if you feel like you are struggling against the lack of understanding of economic issues to explain your position. guest: that is a big issue. it is the job of president obama

to explain to the american people. i think he has fallen down on the job. with his original stimulus package, he made some effort to save this is the issue. we had demand with the house and -- with the housing bubble that has disappeared. the government has to fill the hole. he sort of did that. then he started talking about balancing the budget and how the government is like a family. it is not like the family. it is like a corporation. general electric is borrowing money this year and next year. they will probably barrault -- borrow forever. at some point, they may go out of business. -- they will probably borrow for ever. at some point, they may go out of business. the idea that the government is like a family is wrong. and it has the responsibility for creating demand in the economy. certainly no family does. it is a difficult thing to explain. someone spent -- semi-speech

from roosevelt where he is laying out that argument in 1936 -- someone sent me a speech from roosevelt where he is laying out the argument in 1936. host: go ahead. caller: last tuesday, there was excellent testimony given before the house committee on job creation by a man named peter scheff. -- schiff. he had a book that predicted much of what is going on in the economy today. he is brilliant. he just started a radio show on the internet. schiffradio.com if you are interested in what is going on in our economy today, tune in to his show. it airs at 10:00 eastern standard time. it is free. host: richard is on the line for independents.

caller: president obama's policies have been poisonous for our economy. the tax policies will not work. the economy is taxed way to match. president obama lost their gory presented a budget to congress -- president obama last february presented a budget to congress. it was voted down. 97-0. every democrat and republican voted against his budget. the health care bill needs to be repealed. there are over 3000 companies right now on waivers because they cannot do business with the health care bill. president obama said his bill -- his policies would make it energy costs go through the ceiling and they have.

when he came into office, gasoline was a $80 cents a gallon. now it is $3.50 a gallon. -- when he came into office, gasoline was $1.80 a gallon. now is $3.50 a gallon. small business is not helped at all. we are losing business is overseas every day. guest: gas was $4 a down one president bush was in office. you can -- gas was $4 a gallon when president bush was in office. you can play games with gas prices. i think it is silly. in terms of small businesses and health care, there is the survey of businesses for decades. they asked about the major obstacles. overwhelmingly they say is demand. one of the choices is regulation. roughly the same numbers save regulation under president bush. -- roughly the same numbers said regulation under president bush.

this idea that businesses are hunkered down and scared because of regulation, they do not say that when they're given a choice. maybe when it is time to vote for president obama, they will say that. that is for political purposes and not the way they conduct their businesses. guest: 25% say that is guest: 25% say that is the greatest obstacle the next one is regulation. 25% of businesses are picking what the government is doing to them. they say that is the single greatest obstacle. 25% are picking poor sales. that tells you it is time to roll back some of the red tape. host: let me jump in and get one more piece of tape from speaker boehner. he talks about spending. >> i am not opposed to

responsible spending to repair our infrastructure. if we want to do to support long-term economic growth and job creation, let's link the next highway bill to the expansion of american energy production. removing unnecessary government barriers that prevent our country from utilizing the vast energy resources we have and creating millions of american jobs along the way. host: let's hear from james sherk 1st. guest: want to be increasing domestic energy production. we have 800 billion barrels of oil we could be recovering but we are not because of bureaucratic obstacles on the gulf coast. i think it makes a lot of sense. we will repair bridges if they are falling apart. i do not think it should be viewed as stimulus. you are taking money from one

part of the economy and moving it to another. you are not improving things. a lot of the infrastructure projects were hiring away from other companies and not hiring the unemployed. the skills needed for infrastructure are different from those needed in general construction with the unemployed. guest: the study found it did reduce unemployment substantially where the stimulus was spent. you have stories of people jumping around that would have been hired anyway. this is a very skilled occupation. there is a limited number of people with those skills. it poses enormous and our mental -- environmental harm and does not create a lot of jobs. think of the bp spill. it will take thousands of years to repair the damage in the arctic zone. i would like to leave something

for our kids. it does not do a lot for the economy and does a lot of potential harm to the environment. host: let's look back philosophically. let's get in response to this question. what is the job of the corporation? to create jobs or grow? guest: they are there to make money. it is our responsibility as policy people to insure the ways they make money are going to be good for the country as a whole. guest: more or less, i would agree. corporations produce goods and services. they do it because of the competitive marketplace with the fewest resources used. there is more to produce other things. we want to reduce unnecessary barriers to creating the wealth. we do not want to be putting up roadblocks for businesses that can create wealth. host: the next call is from florida, michael, a democrat.

caller: mr. boehner said something about a cement plants -- va cement plants shutting down because of regulation. i am a retired truck driver. they are having so much trouble because the chemicals in cement never die matter how long a building has been up. the dust and chemicals from the planes for what they are suffering from. the bush tax cuts are still in. bush said the war would be paid for by the oil that we went into iraq for. small businesses will not give health care. thank god for the health care plan. you can work in a small business. it will ensure some people and not others. host: we have time for one final comment on the path for

job growth. guest: you want to give the government out of the way. the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again expecting different results. we tried the stimulus. it did not work. i think we should be trying a new path of reducing the barriers to business success and reducing the risks job creator space. guest: i was going to say the same thing. my reading of the evidence on stimulus is that it worked. you cannot contract loss of demand with the stimulus. it is not the right size. host: thank you to dean baker and james sherk. we appreciate your time. >> in a few moments, a preview

of the supreme court's upcoming term. in an hour and a half, attributes to the late former senator charles percy. after that, a discussion of bipartisanship in a time of divided government with former senators trent lott and byron dorgan. now, a forum on the upcoming supreme court term which begins in two weeks. hosted by the american constitution society for law and policy, this is an hour and a half. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011]

>> i am the executive director for the american constitution society. founded in 2001 acs is one of the nation's leading organizations in a rapidly growing network of lawyers and law students, scholars, judges, policy makers and other concerned individuals who believe in a progressive values of our constitution. as an example of the kind of work that we do, i am pleased to tell you about a project that we have started with the national constitution center based in philadelphia. together, we will put up a series of video podcast on supreme court cases that include interviews with litigants, will discuss their experiences bringing their cases before the high court, and scholars you can place those cases in a legal context. our first podcast will be on

florence and versus board of chosen freeholders of the county of burlington, which raises the question of whether a blanket policy requiring strip searches of everyone put in jail is constitutional. we will have more information about that series in the near future. so to today's program. the supreme court's october, 2011, the term has the potential to be a real blockbuster. already on the court's dockets are questions about whether the government can place a gps tracking device on a suspect's car without obtaining a warrant. the scope of title vii exception for religious institutions and whether the fcc's rule regarding fleeting expletives is unconstitutionally vague. but most awaited are the cases

regarding the affordable care act and the challenge to arizona's immigration law. potential before the court this term are challenges to california's proposition 8 which bans marriage for same-sex couples, and the university of texas's emissions program, which allows for the consideration of race among other factors in administration's decisions. -- admissions decision. we will have to wait to see whether the court decides to take up these cases. our panelists will discuss the coming term and highlight the cases and the trends they think you should pay attention to. now, i know we have listed tom gold seen as our moderator today, but he was called overseas on business but we are incredibly pleased and honored. sydney -- has agreed to step in to moderate.

neil, has served as the acting solicitor general of the u.s. he argued 15 supreme court cases, including his successful defense of the constitutionality of the boldivoting rights act. niel was a professor at georgetown university law center where he directed the center on national security and the law. he was one of the yen as professors to have received tenure. please join me in welcoming neil. [applause] >> it is a delight to be here and talk about a fantastic supreme court term with a fantastic panel of advocate and scholars. i do not want to waste too much time with introductions, because there are a lot of us on the panel and time is limited. let me briefly introduce the

panel and the order in which they will speak. we will first hear from walter dellinger, a former acting solicitor general. he will be discussing the global in positioning satellite case that was mentioned a moment ago as well as hosanna tabor. and then we will hear from neil kinkock, which was discussed the jerusalem and presidential powers and the arizona immigration case. he is a professor at georgia state and a former official at the office of legal counsel. we will next here from miguel estrada. is a partner at gibson dunn, a former assistant solicitor general that are geared 19 supreme court cases. he will discuss the mayo case, as well as a brief discussion about the affirmative action case that is pending involving the university of texas. i will briefly discuss and my

former capacity as a panelist, fcc vs. fox. then we will last year from said the necynthia jones. she is a professor at american university. last, we were here from sher yilyn eiffel. she will discuss the ineffective assistance of counsel cases pending in court. there will have five minutes. although, if any of the panelists what to ask questions to the speaker, that time will not count against the speaker, unlike supreme court advocacy. >> good morning. thanks for coming. i'm going to be talking about two cases in which i'm involved. i'm co-counsel for antoine jones. in the jones case, the police

federal officials put a gps device on the underside of antoine's car without his knowledge or consent and without a valid warrant. and they then used that device to track the movements of the car registered to his wife, had driven some by her and some by him for the next 30 days, taking a snapshot every 10 seconds of the location and uploading this information, which could be digitized and searched in various ways. there was a warrant which was not valid. it was not executed within a period of the warrant and within the district of columbia. evidence obtained as a result of

the relocation all information was introduced at his trial on drug charges. he was convicted, and appealed. the court of appeals for the district of columbia in an opinion by judge ginsburg held this was a search that should have required a warrant. the government argues, and first attempted to get en banque review, which the court denied, over dissent by the judge . and the government argued that under the court's precedents, no warrant is needed, that there is no fourth amendment issue raised by this, because it is not a violation of the fourth amendment, because all the information was introduced at trial, could be observed from

public thoroughfares. and the court relied upon an earlier case, the government relied upon an earlier case from the 1980's -- united states versus know, where the government placed a beeper and a container. and the container was taken by the suspect and they use the beeper to follow the car. and the court held that no warrant was required because it's simply aided monitoring of a public street. and there is no expectation of privacy when you are on a public thoroughfare. the argument that this was much more extensive than that, because it involved a 30 days' worth of data taken every 10 seconds, did not persuade judge silberman, who would granted en banque review. he said, an infinite number of

incidents is is zero times zero. there is no right of privacy being observed on a public thoroughfare. the fact you are observed every 10 seconds makes no difference. the government addition to the supreme court. the circuits have taken a variety of positions on this question. and cert was granted. part of the issue is whether a gps device is different from a beeper. a deeper is good for 100 yards. as the actual visual tracking. you have to have a human actually doing this. in one sense, the gps device is seizing the information itself when we opposed the grant of cert, we added a conditional question. if the court were to grant cert, it should grant on the second question, which was whether the government violated fourth amendment rights of by the act

of attacking be gps tracking device to his vehicle without his consent. that is a separate property- based interest in that -- did they seize his vehicle and used it as a transmitting device against him. in terms of, one of the arguments is that you may understand your neighbor can observe on a public street when you leave the house. what you cannot expect is that your neighbor will attach a gps device under your car and use three satellites to track your movements. >> you must live in maryland. >> [laughter] and in that sense, i will close the discussion that by saying in the effort to show how different this technology is from the use of a beeper or binoculars or whatever, are our work in progress a brief and that has to be submitted soon begins, "1978, the department of

defense lost a global positioning system or gps for the use by the u.s. military. the system operates 25 satellite orbiting the earth, each of which continuously transmits the position and velocity of every satellite in the system. the receiver on a gps device listens to the transmissions of the four clauses satellites, and through a process known as try lateralization determines the precise location on earth. it continues in a three- dimensional record of this philosophy over any period of time, as well as any person or object carrying the device. the data is communicated to a computer and translated onto an interactive map to generate a range of personal information about activities, including home, social, and work activities. if it is used for a long period of time, it will produce a pattern of movement for every

moment in that period. so which of these things is not like the others? yes . >> in the interest of keeping a discussion moving, i will ask you to discuss that later in the conversation . spend mostike to of my time talking about the sp1070 and not so much with mbz, which is potentially an important case. i would like to spend my time presenting the . in 2002, congress enacted the foreign relations appropriation act. -- authorization act. and included that in section 214, which is titled u.s. policy with respect to jerusalem as the capital of israel. one component of section 214 directs that the secretary of state list on passports and other records listing a place of

for u.s. citizens born in jerusalem that they be listed as being born in israel. in october, 2002, one man was born to u.s. citizen parents in a drizzle. and because he was born abroad to u.s. citizens, he is a u.s. citizen by statute. and his parents went to the u.s. embassy in tel aviv and asked that his certificate of record list histh abroad, place of birth as jerusalem. when president bush signed the foreign relations authorization act he included a signing statement saying that section 214 is unconstitutional because it infringes is a 30 to speak as

the sole voice of the united states and international relations and it violates his authority, his recognition of 30 under the constitution. the state department refuse to list israel -- his birth certificate, they listed only jerusalem. his parents filed a lawsuit in the district of columbia. the district court dismissed a lawsuit ultimately on grounds it presented a political question the court could not answer. he appealed to the d.c. circuit. they are firmed on political question grounds. and a third judget issued a concurring opinion in which she said this case does not present a political question, but agree

that the case should be dismissed because the statute violates the president's recognition power. his parents have appealed to the supreme court, and the supreme court granted cert. they sought cert on the grounds that the case is not present a political question. the supreme court granted cert, and directed the parties to breed an additional question -- does section 214 violate the president's authority under the constitution to recognize foreign powers? now, the recognition power, which i think is really what this case is about. there is not a very plausible argument that this case involves a political question. the best argument for the as is the fact that this circuit addressed the merits before it said it was a political question. [laughter] so the case really involves the recognition power. the recognition power is not

specifically granted in the constitution. instead, the constitution authorizes the president to receive ambassadors. but everyone understands that that role is premised on the president's authority to recognize which ambassador is the real embassadors if two ambassadors say i am the ambassador, presumably each representing a competing faction, which says that we are the ambassador. as for the president to decide which ambassador to receive and determine which is the legitimate government of the four nations. but the recognition power does not stop there. it is understood to authorize the president to determine what territory before nation includes. are the falkland islands part of argentina or great britain, for example? or is jerusalem part of israel or disputed territory, as to which we take no position?

the recognition power also has been understood to grant the president the authority to make policy as to how to go about recognizing or withholding recognition from a foreign government or as to a government's sovereignty over a bit of territory. that much is not controversial. what is controversial some extent is the question of whether or not the power is granted exclusively to the president. but there seems to be broad agreement that in fact that power is exclusive to the president. there is along body of precedent within the executive branch that makes the claim of exclusivity. there are a range of court opinions saying that the president has this authority exclusively. in which case, it seems like a simple and straightforward question. the president has the

recognition power. congress has infringed on the recognition power. the problem is that congress also has relevant -- relevant authority. congress has authority over naturalization. it is congress that determines that a person born abroad to u.s. citizen parents is a citizen of the united states under its naturalization power. and it is congress that has the authority to decide what kind of documentation is necessary, and that the government should issue to recognize that fact. and so congress has exercise that authority to say that u.s. citizens born in jerusalem are born in jerusalem, israel. so we have a conflict of power. and i think this case will raise an important characteristic of the supreme court. that is, the supreme court is populated to an extent i think is unprecedented by lawyers who have is their background arguing

separation of powers issues on the side of the president. we have new justice kagan who was in the white house counsel's office. justice scalia headed the office of legal counsel. justice alito was in that office, where his signature issue was signing statements . and chief justice roberts served in the attorney general's office working on these issues. i think it will order the court to look favorably on the president's position, but the way they'd do it could have dramatic consequences, because congress has other powers and the president has other is because of powers, like the commander in chief power. can congress use its spending power to limit the way the president exercises the commander in chief power? could congress say to the president, no money be spent for military operations in libya? or no money may be spent for

research in iraq. these are important questions that i think will be implicated by the way the court resolved the dispute. >> thank you. we will have a discussion about the arizona case later. we will hear from mr. estrada about patentability. >> now is a good time to go get some coffee. the patent act, which is enormously important to a lot of people that make a lot of money says in section 1-1 that any number of things that are invented mayb be pa tentable subject matter. these are things that are eligible for patents. there are other requirements. they have to be a novelty, etc.. but now we are talking about what gets into the ballpark as to things that might be pl

atentable. and it seems brought on its face, but for many decades there has been a doctrine in the case law, including before the current version of the statute was enacted, that says that no one may get a patent based on a law of nature. if an apple fell on your head, and you want to patent the law of gravity you are out of the law. that is part of the patrimony of humankind. you may not get a patent on that. you cannot foreclose that knowledge to others. so far so good. and so, now the caveat is that you may seek a patent on useful applications of a law of nature. most things that improve our

laws would not work if they tried to do so in defiance of the laws of nature. things do not fall of boards. -- upwards. and so there has been a long how farsion in case law in you have to go to have an application of nature that is useful and not merely an appropriation of law itself and does not foreclosure the utilization of the law of nature to others. so now we have a patent that was upheld by the supreme court that is a patent for the extraction of bodily fluids, looking at certain readings and thinking. and the question is whether that is something that is patentable. i wa -- what's going on is there are certain medications

that are good only up to a point, and then they start being bad for you. there is a very important area for doctors to try to take your bodily fluids and see how the drug has metabolize to see if you are in the correct therapeutic range. . . .

rrescinded. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. rockefeller: mr. president, i rise todayt, ih a deep sense of honor and a deep sense of sadness to speak billion of the late-senator charles haring heresy of illinois, who passed away this past disait with his family completely surrounding him. before i begin, though, i also want to speak about two other losses to the senate family which grieve me greatly. one of course is sarah ken dirk the beloved daughter of senator ted kennedy, and also eleanor mondale, the beloved daughter of the vice president and senator mondale. each of these two wonderful people died at the age of 51. and it's incomprehensible, it's

terrible, they're far too young to be taken from us, the percy and rockefeller family love flows to their families. mr. president, senator chuck percy was blessed to live a long and accomplished life. he lived to be 91. many of my colleagues know that senator percy was a distinguished republican member of the united states senate for 18 years. that being from 1967 to 1984, which was the year that i came into the senate. he was chamber, as people know, of the senate foreign relations committee and man with an absolutely vast -- vast -- talent that he poured into every aspect of his public service and his private business career also. and he was just extraordinary in that way. he had brains, he had vision, he had stem in a, he had -- he had

stamina, he had energy, he was terribly athletic. he could do anything for any amount of time and under all this was built this incredible discipline that made him do it all. most importantly to the senator, the one speaking, chuck percy was my father-in-law for more than four decades. since i was lucky enough to marry his unique and beautiful daughter sharon percy, who i might say at this point has many of the characteristics and natures and habit habits of senr percy that i'm ghg to talk about. it just worked out that way. she has those characteristics. he extended to me in every way the great gift of joining that family that he nurtured and watched over and cared for, protected all of his life. and for that, obviously, i'm forever grateful. i want to share a few remembrances of senator percy with my colleagues because many

of our colleagues here didn't know him. a few did, but most did not. also with the people of illinois, the two senators from illinois will have more to say on that, who put they are trust in him and with all the family and friends who are hurting from the news of his loss. chuck percy was absolutely unshakable in his belief in the future. he believed in our country, and he believed in our ability to make this world a better chance, if we would only put our minds and will and discipline to it. avenues believer and he -- he was a believer and he saw not through a glass darkly but through a glass brightly. it was his nature. and he was guided more by what was right than by party label.

in 2008, then-senator barack obama noted that his hope was that more republicans would look at current members of their party for inspiration and then compare them to abraham lincoln and chuck percy, two pretty good republicans, he said. what made chuck so magnetic and so successful was his determine initial share his apartment mix, to share his sense of promise with everyone around him, even at a very young age. chuck percy began his business career not at mellon howe where in fact at the age of 29 he became the youngest c.e.o. and president of any major company in america, but in fact he did it years earlier at the age of four. his family was impoverished.

they had been devastated by the great depression. they were in bankruptcy. they were living and shifted from place to place in some of the most difficult parts of chicago. so chuck percy at the age of four wanted to help. and he knew how to help. the entrepreneurial instinct and so he took cookies, baked presumably at home, and sold them on the streets of chicago for a very little amount of money, but he made money from that, which he then turned over to the family. he helped his impoverished family weather the great depression and pushed himself by force of will. to get an education, all the way through the university of chicago on scholarship. before his business career took off, like many men of his generation, chuck percy went off

to war serving his country for three years as a naval officer during world war i i upon returning home, he rejoined bell & howell and led that company from 1949 to 1964, through an astounding 32-fold increase in the expansion of sales. in what were then cutting-edge film products. it was a very famous company then. he launched his political career in march, part to get back into public service because he missed it, he yearned for it. one could argue that business might have been his real calling or maybe public service was, but to him he was interested in everything and wanted to do everything. so he had a chance to get back into public service. but he had no grand ambition. he simply wanted to find ways to challenge himself, always that,

and to help make the country better. chuck percy had a seriousness of purpose. as a young man he resolved to read all of the great books, and i mean that. in tomes. he had a professor -- and i can remember watching him do that listening to some of the discussions -- where he read the great books of his generation, generations that preceded, the master works as well as the constitution, the bill of rights, "the federalist" papers, and he not only read them but he discussed them ought with his professor, and it was a stunning, again, emphasis to drive himself to increase his knowledge to the highest level possible. but chuck also had a sense of fun and of sport. he loved to be active. he loved to ski, among other things, and as fate would have it, he was skiing in idaho when

then-president eisenhower called him in 1959 to see if he could be persuaded to work on a project to reinvigorate the republican party by leading a commission on national goals. it was an ambitious task, and rife with political risk. for chuck. but chuck didn't hesitate. his work helped pave the way for his election, in fact, to the senate, in 1966, not by design but because of its excellence and because of the depth of his wanting to understand what we had to be ready for by our 200th birthday in 1976. but even more than that, his report served as a template that i've mentioned for the reflection, for the soul-searching that went on in this country ahead of that 1976

bicentennial. he really cared about the 200th anniversary of america. everybody did. but he really did. and he wants to know what we could do better, what we could do more of, and that's what he used that commission for. he wanted america to be a better nation. as a senator, chuck percy took a strong interest in the economy and international affairs. he was chairman of the foreign relations committee. he traveled the globe, going to countries whose names are still hardly known at a time when very few senators were even traveling at all. he could do that as chairman of foreign relations, but he wanted to do that. and the he was good at it. and he would get into the tiniest crack of a little, small village to try and meet people, maybe even breaking cultural habits by trying to shake hands with people who were not allowed

to shake hands because they were considered too impoverished. nothing discouraged him, and he wanted to make himself a better person and a better senator. chuck was on a trip to inspect the battlefields of vietnam, even though he was very skeptical of that war. he was on a helicopter when his aircraft took fire from viet cong in a hamlet about 90 miles north of saigon. the helicopter lifted off for safety, but left chuck with four other men and just two guns between them to huddle against the ground as mortar shells exploded 15 feet awade and small-arm fires whizzed overhead. well, they came back and they rescued them and the story went on. he was fearless. chuck, when he came to the senate, he really took on the culture of the senate.

he didn't like a lot of what he saw. and i'm looking, as he speak now, at pages. he thought there was no reason why girls could not be senate pages, just as easily as boys. but that was the custom then. girls were not deemed to be able to do that. there was an attitude here in the senate then that the opportunity of being a page was suited for boys. and during the debate, interestingly, some senators worried about girl pages not being able to carry copies of the "congressional record" to the senate desks. he cosponsored the equal rights amendment and spent the better part th of his career arguing tt women should have the same opportunities as men. but senator percy new firsthand from the remarkable women in his own life, his own family, and remarkable women in his office

that women can do anything that men can do and perhaps better. in fact senator percy was furious when he found out the textbooks paid for by the federal government included sentences like -- quote -- "girls should be nurses and secretaries while boys should be doctors and business mern." close quote. chuck percy also cared deeply about helping less fortunate americans. please remember -- people think of him as always having been very rich. no, he was very poor. his family was even peer. he struggled. thea's he strugged for a long -- he struggled for a long, long tiesm he was pushed the first legislation to create homeownership for low-income americans. he focused on older americans. he wrote a book back in 1974 about the daunting process of

growing old in america. this is back in 1974. just nine years after medicare. and the shameful living conditions and hospital conditions that the elder poor had to face. his book was a call to action and a moral imperative to restore dignity to aging. chuck favored open government and sunshine laws. at a time when it was not popular. he felt strongly that a democracy -- in a democracy the military establishment should be held accountable and answer specifically to civilian leaders. he also opposed for the most part war and took many positions that undoubtedly hurt him within his peamplet but in fact he defied party labels, mr. president, adescribing himself as -- quote -- "ferven "fervently moderate." so aggressively did he seek out

even-handed n.a.s. it was known by those who knew him that at his dinner parties at his house, at about wide five a week -- i guess not during a session -- they were always equally divided between democrats and republicans, specifically, one democrat and one republican, and different parts of the government and business and everything. it was a matter of principle to him. he wanted to hear all sides. though he was absolutely resolute when he made up his mind. one of the things that i thought was most captivating about chuck was the fervor with which he held his beliefs. senator percy's desire to be president became to be well known. and he wrote actually about it publicly. but the timing was never quite right, and so that didn't happen. he lost his race for a fourth senate term in 1994, just when

this senator was coming in to the senate, and was one of several very difficult times that chuck percy faced with his life with courage and with grace. early in his life, number one, his family was literally penniless when his father lost a job, all of their savings, and then later at midpoint of his career he lost a beloved daughter, sharon's twin sister valerie, in an unspeakable and lethal crime that still tears at the soul of our family. and then in his final years, he was struck down by alzheimer's for a decade or more. there is no cure for alzheimer's. the end was fated. he was never downcast.

he was always, until he no longer could, trying to read, walk, do something, play tennis, have meals outdoors, whatever. but it was through the havel his die -- through the hall of his dynamic and full life that chuck percy became the man i've been privileged to know, admire and love deeply. chuck warmed to a challenge. he leaned in to life in every way, insisting for himself, his children and his grandchildren that the best part of living consists of learning, of improving, and trying to do better each day. his energy and his focus on this process, fueled in part by christian science. it was amazing, unmatched, as far as i'm concerned. he was an incomparable father to sharon and to her siblings.

he lived what he believed. very simple. never wavered in his unconditional support and love and sought and created truth. america benefited greatly from his life and from his service, and the entire percy and rockefeller families have been incredibly and indelibly shaped by his legacy and by his love. mr. president, i yield the floor. but first i ask unanimous consent that a statement from the percy and rockefeller families be submitted to the "congressional record" and placed just after my statement as if read. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. rockefeller: i thank the presiding officer. mr. durbin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: first let me extend my sympathy to my colleague jay rockefeller of west virginia, son-in-law of the

late chuck percy, of course his wife and senator percy's daughter shaurpb. they are great tprebdz -- daughter sharon. they are great friends. i know this loss, though they all found it inevitable, still brings pain to their lives. i hope the reflection of so many people on the greatness of chuck percy on the contribution to illinois and to america will help to in some ways alleviate the pain they are going through. i join my colleague senator kirk today in paying tribute to our fallen colleague and friend, senator charles percy, who died on saturday. he served illinois and our nation for 18 years here in the united states senate. although he ran against the two men who were my greatest political inspirations -- senator paul douglas and senator paul simon -- i always regarded senator percy as a friend and as an honest, honorable representative of our state of illinois. it's a little known fact about chuck percy that he was near

sighted in one eye and far-sighted in the other. that unusual vision was a good metaphor for his politics as well. he described himself as fervently moderate, a progressive republican. he said he was -- quote -- "a conservative on money issues but a liberal on people issues." end of quote. he used the word liberal in the days when you could get away with it. charles harting percy was born in 1919 in pensacola, florida. his family moved to the chicago rogers park neighborhood when he was a baby. his father worked as a bank clerk, his mother taught violin. the bank at which his father worked failed in the depression and percy family was force d into bankruptcy. chuck percy got his first job at the age of five selling magazines to help his family. he sold his mother's home made cookies door to door, rose at 3:30 in the newspaper to deliver newspapers and parked cars and worked as a janitor while in high school. he worked his way through the

university of chicago on a half-tuition scholarship and along the way had an economics professor, dr. paul douglas. in 1936, while chuck percy was still in college, his sunday schoolteacher encouraged him to enter a training program at the man's company, the company was bell&howell, a small manufacturer at the time of home movie cameras. after graduating from the university of illinois with a degree in economics, he went to work full time at bell and howell. at 23 he was elected to the board of directors. at age 29 he was named bell and howell president and chief executive officer, the youngest person to head a major american corporation up to that time. in 14 years under chuck percy's leadership, bell and howell extended its reach in the consumer electronics market. its number of employees increased 12 fold and its annual sales climbed from $13 million to $160 million. in 1964 chuck percy was a delegate to the republican of national convention, the same

year he ran unsuccessfully for governor for illinois. two years later chuck percy challenged that former university of chicago professor, paul douglas for his seat in the united states senate. i knew all about that campaign. it was my first. i was a college student and an intern to senator douglas and wefpbt back to work on his -- went back to work on his campaign in illinois when chuck percy challenged him. in the final weeks of that campaign i was with senator douglas in my hometown of east st. louis, illinois. he was staying at the holiday inn and he received word early in the morning that chuck percy's daughter valley had been murdered in their home. senator douglas, i remember this to this day, saw a church across the street from that holiday inn, st. henry's catholic church. and though douglas was a quaker and later unitarian, he said i'm going to that church to pray. he went in and he prayed for the percy family. he walked out the door and he

said in quiet tones to his staff, this campaign is over until chuck percy announces it will resume. and we will say nothing about this tragedy other than to express our sympathy to his family. what a different day in american politics. both candidates declared a halt to the campaign. it lasted nearly one month. it was the month of september. that decision showed a humanity and respect which is missing in too many occasions from today's politics. chuck percy went on to win that campaign. in the senate he backed consumer protection and environmental efforts, supported international nuclear nonproliferation. when you listen to his agenda of priorities, you find it hard to place it in today's very conservative republican agenda. a navy veteran, he was an outspoken opponent of the war in vietnam. it's an act of political courage that earned him a place on richard nixon's infamous enemy's list. he was the first senator to call

for an independent prosecutor to investigate watergate. 1970 he joined the foreign relations committee. a decade later when he rose to chair that committee, he explained his views on foreign policy this way -- and i quote -- "i don't want foreign policy developed just by one party and ride roughshod over the other party. i much more value a bill that has bipartisan support. that's what this committee achieved in world war ii, achieved in the marshall plan." chuck percy was reelected to the senate in 1972 by more than one million votes the largest plurality of any senator in the nation that year. he won a third term in 1978, running for a fourth term in 1984, he was challenge tphad bitter primary by an arch conservative, a man whose money came from out of state and was never really traced. although he won that primary, he would go on to lose the general election to my friend, senator paul simon, who won with 50.1% of the vote. that same year senator percy's

son-in-law, our colleague, senator jay rockefeller, was elected to the senate from west virginia. after leaving the senate, senator percy said his proudest accomplishment in office had been pushing for more opportunity for women in the federal government. his lasting legacy goes way beyond that. in 1970 it was senator chuck percy who persuaded richard nixon to nominate one of senator percy's former classmates for a spot on the court of appeals for the seventh circuit. five years later that former university of chicago classmate, john paul stevens, was elevated to the u.s. supreme court where he served with distinction until his retirement last year. i can recall when senator percy was in office. i had backed his opponent, senator douglas, whom he defeated in 1966. and i contacted his office. i was a student at georgetown law school. we had a group of democrats and i thought i will take a flier here. let me call his office and see if he'll meet with us. of course he said yes and the next thing you know ten

georgetown university law center young democrats were sitting in chuck percy's office. he knew it and we had a good time, a good exchange. that's the kind of person he was. that's the kind of politics he practiced. that's a reminder of what life was like not that long ago. after leaving office, senator percy became an international relations trained consultant, board chairman of an organization that administers education and cultural exchange programs. two years ago his daughter sharon, percy rockefeller announced that her father had alzheimer's. senator percy had been struggling with the disease for more than a decade. even out of office, he would call me from time to time usually with a request about washington, d.c. illinois was his love and chicago area always his hometown. but he had a passion and love for washington too and he worked hard to make this a better city. i want to offer my deepest condolences to senator percy's wife of more than 60 years lorraine, to sharon and jay rockefeller and all the percy children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. i feel honored to have been

schooled in politics in illinois during this era, to have known such extraordinary men when i was just a youngster, a college student starting out. knowing all of them and watching them in public service gave me an impression and an ideal of what this job should be all about. when i heard of senator percy's death, i know that his family had anticipated it but it brought back many memories of the fine contribution he made to illinois and to the nation. we are lucky to have men like him successful in so many ways devoting a major part of their lives to public service. we're also fortunate that they did it with such a feeling of responsibility not only to their state and nation, but also to be public servants in the best sense of the word, working with everyone to try to find solutions to problems. it's a lesson we need to relearn today. mr. president, i yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. kirk: i ask unanimous consent to suspend with the time limitation and continue for 8 tphopbts eulogize -- 8 minutes to eulogize senator percy. spoeup without -- the presiding officer:. mr. kirk: i want to eulogize senator percy who we lost on saturday, great and one of the most successful illinois senators. senator percy dedicated much of his life to serving our nation first in the u.s. navy and then for 18 years here in the united states senate. i think i'm the only member of the senate who actually voted for senator percy and volunteered in his campaign along with my mom when i was only 12 years old. senator percy, we knew, was a focused and disciplined leader who succeeded at nearly everything that he put his mind to.

he graduated from my alma mater, nuture high school and also lived in kenilworth, illinois, my hometown. he later went tour of duty of chicago. after getting a bachelors degree in economics, he joined a small camera company called bell & howell. he then led bell & howell starting at the age of 29, moving the company to making military cameras and movie projectors and then a new product called microfilm, as the leader of bell &howell, he was one of our greatest job engines of the state of illinois. employment grew 12 times under his leadership and earnings 32 times. but charles percy wanted to do more for his country. as we heard, at the request of president eisenhower, he helped write better decisions for america as part of the

republican platform of 1960. charles percy ran for governor in 1964, but he lost that election. in the not so proud tradition of illinois, that governor then went to jail and percy became seen as a corruption fighter in our state. now, just two years after that defeat, charles percy was elected by the people of illinois to represent them in the united states senate, defeating paul douglas. now, during that campaign, his daughter valerie was murdered in my hometown and his hometown of kenilworth, one of our town's only murders. it was through this tragedy that we saw so clearly charles percy's quiet dignity. in the senate, percy was first known as a proponent of a foundation to back homeownership for low-income families. he was the toast of this town in

the 196 0's, described by "the new york times" as the hottest political article in the republican party. he even led polls in 1968 for the republican nomination for president. senator percy, though, was at heart an independent who took on corruption in his own state and especially his own party. he moved to the first resolution calling for an independent prosecutor on the watergate scandal. "the new york times" reported -- quote -- "nixon fumed to his cabinet that he would do all he could to make sure mr. percy, who already voted against two nixon nominees for the supreme court, would never become president." senator percy fought corruption wherever he saw it, and in 1977, he took on white house budget director burt lance for back dating checks to gain tax

deductions. lance later resigned. senator percy was best known for his work as the chair of the senate foreign relations committee. during historic times, when the united states recovered its nerve, it stared down the soviet union and it won the cold war outright. he was a gentle man, disciplined in swimming every day and a devout christian scientist who read the bible each evening. senator percy was a strong, honest and printed man whose integrity remained uncompromised in nearly 20 years in the u.s. senate. he believed that accountability, checks and balances and transparencies should be the driving force of government. we will miss his moderate, fiscally conservative brand of politics. his legacy is one of genteel, thoughtful leadership, and his fight against corruption in the state of illinois is sorely missed today. i send my sincere condolences to

senator percy's wife lorraine and his children sharon and roger and gail and mark and their spouses, including our colleague, senator rockefeller. and to the grandchildren and great grandchildren and many friends and family that will mark his passing at the funeral on wednesday. senator percy was one of the best-remembered illinois senators. he represents a tradition in some sense followed by me, and as a former volunteer for his campaign and voter for him, we mark his loss today.

her presentation as being the head of the tea party is described as radical. having said that, the republican party has a t party influence in all of the important states. all of those or running for president have to find a way to get through a crevice that is farther right than it used to be on the republican side. it will have to move a little bit more to the center. i do not know if trent will agree to that. >> i'm going to support the candidate that i think can win. it may not be the one i prefer

philosophically. but that is where my pragmatism kicks in. you have to look over the horizon and look beyond your personal preferences and think about who would be a better president. sometimes it is a more conservative candidate. sometimes it is a more moderate candidate. i do not have a problem with those shades. that is why i got in trouble sometimes. >> who is the candidate? >> i'm supporting mitt romney. my state would vote for rick perry. i want somebody who is going to focus on the economy and understands how to do that. our best candidate is mitt romney. that is who i am supporting. >> my name is trevor and i am from oklahoma. my question is for senator lott, what exists in the world today

that is the greatest threat to individual liberty and personal freedom? >> let me take a 30,000 foot level. we have 30,000 nuclear weapons on this planet. the explosion of one of which would change the life forever on the planet as we know it. about a month after 9/11 2001, there was a c.i.a. agent nicknamed dragon fire who reported there was a piece of intelligence that suggested a nuclear weapon, a 15 kiloton russian nuclear weapon had been stolen from the russian arsenal and had been smuggled into new york city or washington, d.c. by terrorists and would be detonated.

for the next month there was a seizure in this town. you did not read about this. they didn't even tell the officials in new york city about this threat. there was a seizure around here. what if one nuclear weapon had been stolen and trucked into new york or washington, d.c. 2 400,000 people killed? if we do not reduce the number of nuclear weapons on this planet and take new steps to keep them forever out of the hands of rogue nations and terrorist groups, you will live at a time when a nuclear weapon is exploded. that's the ultimate loss of freedom because it will change everything on the planet. >> i am glad we have representation from

oklahoma. did you say you're an o.u. student too? >> rogers state university. >> did you play oklahoma in football? >> i played football from third grade to my senior year in high school. >> glad to have you. it is hard to disagree with what byron says. i do not want to go too far on this. i think the strength of the american people could withstand any kind of attack like that. i am pleased that both administrations have done things to prevent that thing from happening. it is a serious threat. when i think about my grandchildren, that is the most important thing in my life.

i get mad when i see things happening in government or in jackson, mississippi, around the world or anywhere that i think will be -- what it will mean for them. we see too many of our responsibilities to government to do everything for us, with us, anything that is reasonable. my predecessor in congress, a democrat but work for in the late 1960's used to say the greatest threat is not from within for -- but from without our borders. within our own ranks. we need to think about the freedoms and the responsibilities we have as americans to protect those first, last, and always. >> let's turn over here. >> my name is maria and i am a student from national university. my question is what is your perspective on possible immigration reform and do you think congress will come to an agreement to resolve this issue? thank you. >> we have come close a couple of times. never quite there, senator lott.

why? >> that was the moment when i decided to retire from congress. the last time we tried it. i was so ashamed of the conduct of the senate. we need immigration reform. it is not just about illegal immigrants. it is also about legal immigrants. i have tried to get people into this country. one of them was a lady from sweden who was a physicist to work on a program at the space center, a nasa program. you would have thought we were trying to steal united states treasury to get her into the country. it is hard to get a person without background from that country into the united states. we had such a shortage of doctors in my state, i would try to get canadian doctors into mississippi. it was a war. we need immigration reform. legal and illegal. when you think about how we kingdom more people into this country that want to come at have something to offer, that

want to work, they have everything you're looking for. they cannot get in here. yet, we seem to be unwilling to police our borders and control illegal immigration. then you get into the terrible problem of what you do with those that are here already? illegally. i do not think you can build a fence to keep people out. i do not think that you should round them up and throw them all out. i've had three death threats because i have said some things like that. i was trying to get a bill through that i thought would be good for the country. i would not have voted for it in the form it was in. that is what the legislative processes. you have amendments and you have debate and then you decide how you're going to vote based on what is in the package. we let it die on a technical ground. it was supported by president

bush, ted kennedy, trent lott. an eclectic group in both parties and yet we went down in defeat. the reason was -- when i look back on it, i didn't after action review. that is in military terms. some of you gentlemen look like you may be in rotc or have been in the military. what happened? we were doing ok on the process. we messed up on the communications. the minute our position had to be described in three paragraphs, the opposition was, it is amnesty. we were dead. we could not overcome that one word. we were going into details and procedural and parliamentary and substantive and details. we got killed. we need it. it is going to take a bipartisan effort. we need a president who will get down under the hood and get his hands ugly and dirty.

we need a congress that will try to deal with it responsibly. is it going to happen right away? no. there will be a window of opportunity in the early spring of 2013. i hope the next president and congress will confront this issue. it is difficult. it is complicated but we didn't get here to play checkers. >> go ahead with your question. >> i am from emerson college in boston. it is nice to meet both of you. i wanted to talk about how the media frames the debate. we see that it is framed in a win-lose scenario. i'm wondering if you could speak to that. is it worse now or the same song and dance? and we just keep repeating same mistake? >> i think the media reports almost everything that is in the news as a horserace. who is ahead in the backstretch and they just continue to report

which side is going to win rather than the real meat and substance of the issues. c-span is extraordinary. i think c-span is one of the great places where the american people get an unvarnished view of what both sides believe and how they feel about issues. in some detail. go to headline news or fox business or whatever you want to watch and what you see is these little snapshots and most of it is about who is winning. that is not very thoughtful. has it changed? it has changed dramatically. we do not know what journalism is anymore. anybody can call themselves a journalist as they have a microphone and a note pad. doesn't make you a journalist. who is fact checking all of that? nobody. with the internet and the 24-7 news hour and things going

viral, massive amounts of misinformation can move instantly to everyone. it is much harder to have a thoughtful, lengthy debate that airs out all sides on complicated issues. let me come back to the last question. i'm curious. how many of you have traveled to another country? i understand some of you are international. how many of you have trouble to another country? if you have left this country, if you're an american and you have gone to another country, and you look back in the rearview mirror, you understand what this country is and why in a plante where there is close to 7 billion people, why there are a lot of people who aspire to come to the united states of america? they see it as a beacon of hope. they want to go there. unfortunately, we of course

can't accommodate everybody. if we had no immigration laws at all and said come here, join us, live with us, we would be overrun by people on the planet who want to come and be a part of the american experience. we as a result have these quotas and so offer. and so forth. we are not able to police our borders. immigration is a very important issue. we need to get it done right and we need to enforce our borders, but we especially need to resolve the status of those who are here. a lot of young kids out there, some of whom are fighting for this country, whose status is not resolved. we need to do all of these things. it has not been done because it is very hard and very controversial, but it ranks among the five or six issues that have to be tackled by this country. >> on the question, the 24/7 news media, the coverage that we get now, particularly in the electronic media, is a big part of the problem why our leaders in

congress are having such a difficult time coming together in a bipartisan way and producing results on almost anything. but since you are students and you are studying political science and history, go back and study the history and see what john adams and alexander hamilton and thomas jefferson had to say about the media. the media just raked them over the coals. a lot of it, in the case of thomas jefferson, a lot of it up was malicious and untrue. the media has always been part of the problem of politics and part of why america is as great as it is. freedom of the press -- i hate it and i love it. >> hello. i'm a student at the university of tampa, florida. some people think the institution of the united states senate has become a problem, there are too many obstructionist tactics and procedural delays and it needs to be reformed. do you agree or disagree with that?

>> you knew the rules better than anyone else. >> no, not necessarily. i think that reform or ways to improve an institution should always be on the table. as a matter of fact, with cooperation from harry reid and mitch mcconnell, senator schumer and senator lamar alexander did come up with some reforms this year, and you can always find ways to do that. the problem is not the rules, not the institution, it is the people. i had that conversation and not standing in from the chamber where we were having one of these embarrassing roll call votes. we were voting on about 70 amendments, one after the other. every 10 or 15 amendments. it was just part of the process and it was embarrassing. we are talking about why are we here and looking so bad tonight? it was probably 8:00 or 9:00 at night. joe lieberman, chris dodd,

an independent, a democrat. lindsay grarges jon kyl from arizona and myself. kent conrad was there. we were discussing what the problem was and how we should change this to stop it. i said the problem is us, because we put up with so much stuff. we tolerate some of these things and don't really try to find a way to get something done. i take advantage of the rules. i used to do what harry reid does now and mitch mcconnell has done, you fill up the tree. when you fill up the tree, you block amendments from all other senators. that doesn't sound very democratic. it is being used more than it was in the past. i do think it is a problem when you get into a filibuster it halt the proceedings of even taking up a bill. maybe some of should be

evaluated, but it depends on your perspective. i used to think seniority was a bad idea when i was in the house until one day i woke up and i was close to being number two in the house. i was on the rules committee. well rose a freshman ricky on the back row, i would get so mad i could not restrain myself. when i was standing at the leaders chair, i saw a little different. the senate is a unique place. it is hard to get anything done, and it is easy to block stuff. but if you have true leadership and true commitment, you find ways. i would urge harry reid to stop finding things to fight over. find things that you can move along. if you look under the covers, there have been a few things they have done just in the last week where you see cooperation between harry reid and mitch mcconnell.

one of them was on the disaster assistance and i can't remember what the other one was. i keep pushing them to try to actually do a highway bill. it is something we need in this country. it would create jobs. it is not partisan, so stop trying to push the envelope and there is where you know you will have a fight and won't get it done. just like the president's saying past my jobs bill like it is. that is not going to happen, and he knows it. say to the congress, this is what i would like to have, but let's see if we can do the payroll tax issue, maybe the highway bill. what are the things we can do together, and then see if we can get those done. >> the senate was designed deliberately to slow things down and has been spectacularly successful. [laughter] >> did you want to follow up? >> no, thank you.

>> my name is ashley. i'm from new york. my question is in addition to his question. last week i was on the hill and i attended a subcommittee that seemed very bipartisan and they seem to get through a lot of different issues. the next that went to the full committee, and there were so many split right down the middle. i was wondering why you would think in this subcommittee there is more bipartisanship and when move up the lad r? >> which subcommittee or bill was it? >> it was the commerce and science committee. >> what was the controversy? >> it was not a controversy. that passed the bill through, but then it was all these amendments. oh, we're going to put them right on the senate floor. >> i was on appropriations for many years, and normally they try to say if you have a controversial amendment, don't bring it to the committee, save

it for the floor of the senate and we will have a debate on the floor of the senate, and of course the bill never gets to the floor of the senate. for the last two years, we made spending choices, established what the priorities were -- none of them got to the floor of the senate. that is one area where the senate is broken. we cannot continue that way. there are a lot of reasons for it, and i won't take the bait on trent of the notion about the president offering his jobs proposal, take-it-or-leave-it. the fact is neither side offers the american people something to be proud of these days. probably in an inappropriate way, i was giving a speech a while back and said both sides reminded me of the:about a man who drinks too much and his spouse scolds him. he drinks because she scolds, he

thinks. she scolds because she he drinks, she thinks. neither will admit what is really true. he's a drunk and she's a shrew. neither side really is offering the american people very much. the congress needs to get its work done. it needs to find ways to compromise on the tough issues that america needs decisions about. >> i am from the university of new hampshire. i would like to hear from both sides of the aisle on this question. what do you think is a major step that needs to be taken to truly reform our current convoluted tax code? >> i think we do need broad tax reform. we have not had a major tax reform bill since 1986 or 1987. we do need fundamental tax reform.

every congress adds a few more additions to the tax code. i won't describe them. it has become a mishmash and is confusing and overwhelming. in many respects, it is unfair. you don't support this group or that group. i have a lot of faith in the leadership of the ways and means committee and house, you have thoughtful members on all sides of the aisle. the same thing in the senate. you have max baucus and john grassley and john kerry. the philosophical balance is are there. they have had a lot of hearings. when i was on the finance committee in 2007, we were having hearings then in a run-up to what should be tax reform. tax reform, broadbased, fundamental tax reform takes at least three years to lay the groundwork,

have the hearing, the site where -- decide where you can close the loopholes. if they would look at this across the board and try to make a more fair tax code and take away some of the incentives, but then try to lower the rates for individuals and the corporate tax rate, i think it would be very good for the country and for job creation. one of the things i say to paul ryan, chairman of the budget committee, remember as jack kemp used to say, never say the word cuts or balanced budgets without saying growth. what is if you are going to do to have responsible budgets, but do it in such a way in terms of tax code and where you spend or don't spend that will provide growth to the economy? i think we have lost that second word. i would be for the broad based

fundamental tax reform. i think it can be done and could be done right now. i would like to see the committee -- the super committee say we will give the tax-writing committees eight months with a hammer at the end. you have to do it or else, to sit down and really have fundamental across-the-board tax reform. as republican, i would prefer it would be revenue neutral, but if they would get up and say we want a fairer tax code and it has to apply some revenue, i think even that would work. but give them time to do it sensibly, but it needs to be done now. if we don't get it done in the next eight months, then we are looking at 2013 or 2014. we need it now. >> this town is full of lobbyists trying to make sure that individual companies or industries get those tax breaks and loopholes. what would change? what would cause change?

>> it is hard to do. i was on the ways and means committee and helped write the 1986 act. that was hard to do. we lowered the rates. ronald reagan pushed for it. i give him credit. we lowered the rate and broadened the base. we got rid of a lot of special things in the code. it was the right thing to do. over all these years, i agree with trent. let's do tax reform, lower the base, broaden the base, get rid of a lot of the deductions. it also indicates that we tackle this question, let's understand there is a disgrace in this tax code, notwithstanding all the other things. warren buffett wrote a piece for the new york times. he is a good guy, the second richest man in the world. in his little office in omaha where they have 30 employees, they all volunteered to rate what rate of tax they pay.

turned out the second richest man in the world had the lowest rate of tax than his receptionist. that is just disgraceful. another example. what is your name, young lady? i want to put you in the place of a real human being because i don't want to name them. allie makes $3.6 billion a year. that is $300 million a month. is that $10 million a day? allie makes $10 million a day seven days a week, all year long. $3.6 billion. the know what her tax rate is? she pays an income tax rate of 15%. this is a real person i'm describing now. why? because her income is described as carried interest. that is disgraceful that someone at the top of the food chain making the highest incomes in the world, running a hedge fund, pays a 15% rate and all your parents are paying 25%, 30%, 35% tax rate. that is disgraceful.

let's get rid of all that sort of thing. i would be willing to get rid of the corporate income tax and replace it with a value added tax if necessary. general electric makes billions and pays zero. maybe that is a tax system -- let's not pretend anymore. let's move to a value-added tax, which we should do anyway. every country we trade -- we are non-competitive when it comes to the tax code. >> i was talking to one of those groups that you think would be opposed to losing tax credits. this group gets the benefit of some of them. they will tell you, we might not want to resist if we thought at the other end of this exercise we would get a lower corporate tax rate. we think it might actually be better for us with this tax credit we are now getting.

there is some of that talk going on in corporate america's mind. >> let's turn over here. one of the foreign students. welcome. >> i am from the american university of central asia. my question is far from politics. what advice can you give us, young and smart professionals and future leaders who will be changing the world and a couple of years to tell the u.s. about the whole world? thank you. >> i think you should run for office. we need young people like you with that line to get out there and takes on the burden of being a candidate and providing leadership. that is what we need. you need to get involved. when i look back on my own life, and look at the blessings and opportunities it i had -- my dad was a shipyard worker and my

mother was an elementary school teacher in mississippi, and yet i lived the american dream. what is the american dream? it was the opportunity to go up there and take a chance, to put your name on the line and try to make a difference. that is what we need. we need young people like you that are educated, that are sensitive to international considerations, issues like the one that senator dorgan had mentioned. and try to make a difference. learn all you can. i talked to a lot of young people, and when you see the opportunity, seize it, because it may not come again. i was one of the ones in political life -- i'm sure byron had it too. i had my good times and my bad times. i made mistakes. i got in serious trouble. i was high on a mountain top and way down in the valley.

i managed to climb back up with the help of a lot of good people. through it all, it was an incredible opportunity and an incredible system in america. it is the envy of all the world. we don't take an oath to the people of this country. we take an oath to the idea inculcated in the constitution. the only thing we need to preserve that constitution is young people like you that are prepared to get involved and try to make a difference. >> it is a great country. welcome to our country. j. paul getty once said that his advice for young people was go to the best school you can find and excel, then get the best job you can find and do better than anybody at that workplace and then strike oil. easier said than done.

j. paul getty was an oil man. the key issue is, don't ever limit yourself. the only limits you are ever going to have are the ones you put on yourself. i come from a high school class of ninth in a town of 300 people, and went from that desk in that small school to a desk in the united states senate. that is pretty improbable. when you see daylight, run for it. when somebody asks can you do that, yes, i can do that. don't ever limit yourself. >> when you first ran for office, senator dorgan, how old were you? >> i have a very unusual story. i have been in statewide elected officer since 1926. i story was in some ways worn from tragedy. an incumbent officeholder, a young, brilliant man had just been elected. he grew up in a town of 80 people and went to harvard law school. he came back and ran for office in north dakota and one. -- won.

i was not living in north dakota. he asked me to come back, and i did. about a year-and-a-half later, he took his own life, a tragic situation. six weeks after that, the governor called me down to his office and i was 26 years old. he said i would like you to fill the unexpired term. statewide constitutional officer at age 26. i ran, i ran, and i ran again. i ran for reelection, ran for the house, ran for the senate. i ran 12 times statewide and after a 30 year career, i decided to do some other things. but i'm very proud of it. i would not trade the experience. has been a wonderful privilege. >> you came to washington at a young age at the height to have watergate scandal. how old were you when you ran? >> i came to the city at 26 to be administrative assistant to

my democratic predecessor in the house of representatives. he retired four years later and i ran at age 31 and served 35 years in congress. >> in puerto rico, we were allowed to vote in the democratic party primaries. do you think -- considering this that, do you think we should be allowed to vote for presidency also? thank you. >> or should it be a state? >> i think that should be up to the people of puerto rico. the people there have decided in the past and i guess it will in the future whether you want to be a commonwealth or a state. but i think in the first instance, it should be left up to the people of puerto rico. >> that has always been my view as well. we have had these issues presented to congress. my view is, let's evaluate what the people of puerto rico want. >> do you have an opinion? >> i just wanted to get your

point of view, because i have seen my people but the point of view, and we are kind of undecided -- i have seen my people's point of view. some of us want to vote and some of us don't want to vote. i just wanted to see what was the congress point of view and that matter? >> you are going to have to vote, and when you make up your mind, then it will be up to the congress. >> my question is about the presidential election going on. did you think the view of rick perry and mitt romney matches up to the american public, and if they do win the presidential election in 2012, what issues could they face by the american public if some of their views are not compromised for the future of our country? >> before they answer that question, are those the only two candidates? is the race set or do you think

another republican could potentially challenge mitt romney and rick perry? >> i have no idea. i am just speaking about them because i heard the said he was supporting mitt romney. >> ok. fair enough. >> i think when you become president -- i'm give you one example. when i was in the house of representatives, i represented the mississippi gulf coast, the southeast corner of the state. it was a very easy population to represent, because my background was there. when i got elected to the senate, i represent a very different constituency. the problems were different. the people were different. their wants and desires were different. i actually spent a couple of years going around to different parts of the state, listing to people, what they needed, and trying to decide what i could do to be helpful to them.

when you become president, in a primary you tend to identify this is where i really am. this is my philosophy, this is where i stand and where is best for my family and my country. as you go forward, one of the good things about the american political system is, you learn. sometimes you do have to modulator positions. some things you were so sure about, you find out maybe that is not exactly the way it is with the greater populace. i think you become a better candidate when you modify some of your positions, and then one day you are president of all of people. some of your preferred positions, you may not be able to focus on that, or you may have to downplay that a little bit to do some of the other things. every president i have ever known thought he was going to be a domestic president, and

everyone of them ended up with a international disaster on their hands. i thought president bush was going to be able to make a lot more effort in mexico and central and south america. i think the united states makes a mistake by not paying more attention to our neighbors to the south. there is a huge population there. he thought he was going to do a lot more of that, and then there was 9/11 and everything was about terrorists and iraq and afghanistan. you can go back and -- jimmy carter, the governor of georgia, he had no idea and never would have dreamed what happened in iran. i guess what i am saying to you, in your primary you learn and go forward. you have to give. when you become president, you have to reach for a higher star and try to think about the greater legacy of your country, not just of you. what i am saying to you is, right now, you are going to see candidates in both parties have

and to take positions that may make them uncomfortable. that is the politics of it. in the end, you also have to govern. that forces you sometimes to take positions that are different from what you would have thought they would be at the beginning. i apologize for the length of that answer, but i thought was necessary based on your question. >> i think it is largely romney versus perry at this moment. i know there are some others out there. i think it is going to be romney versus perry. as has been the case on the democratic side from time to time, it is now the case on the republican side, when have these primaries that you think of them as sailboats. they put up a sail and sail far to the right this year to navigate those primaries because that's what they want to win. when the primaries are over, they will tack a little bit back to the center, because this

country has a very strong center. i think the sailboat on the right has gone way off the edge of the map this year in order to please the people they have to please in certain areas to be successful in the primaries. we'll see. they will come back somewhere toward the center. the last thing they want to do is scare the rest of the american people. they want to appeal to that small part of their party that will determine who the candidate is, but at the end of that, they want to come back and appealed to the broad range of the american voters. >> i have always said that the republican party will nominate the most conservative candidate they think they can get away with. if they go too far, they lose. the democratic party will go to the candidate as far to the left as they can. if they go too far left, they will lose. the american people have a way of kind of adjusting things. they feel like -- sometimes they feel like they overreact. subconsciously, they will switch it back some to try to keep more

checks and balances in place. i really feel like the best government is usually when we have the white house in one party and the congress and the other. when i was majority leader, bill clinton was president. if you look at the legislative achievements of the late 1990's, you will be shocked at the variety and number of pieces of legislation we passed. when you have that kind overp divided government. >> like welfare reform. >> we did save drinking water, portability of insurance, tax cuts, balanced budget. we actually had balanced budgets and surpluses. we rebuilt our defense. >> some think senate may go republican. >> we have about 10 minutes left. >> my question isabel the bill about the chinese media

-- is about the bill about the chinese media advantage here in the united states which was introduced earlier this year. there are 650 chinese broadcasters here while there are only to american journalist that are granted permission in china, there is an alarming disparity between the numbers. what do you think of this alarming disparity? >> are either of you following this issue? >> no. not this issue, but i have written a book that has a lot about china in it. i wrote it several years ago. it is called "take this job and ship it." it is more about trade, but it also deals with some of the other imbalances with respect to our relationship with china. china will have a significant influence on our future. the question is, what will that influence be? our approach to try has been engagement to trade and travel, believing that leads to greater human rights in china. there is a lot that concerns me

about things in china and the lack of human rights. we keep working at it as a country, and i am not familiar with the imbalance of journalists, as you describe it. >> one of the hot tickets right now is the israeli-palestinian conflict. terms of american world politics and our national security, what stance should we take and why? >> i think the united states has a critical and very sensitive role to play. has been very difficult for us to take a position that was as except in the arab world as it has been with israel. obviously we are very close in our relationship with israel. i do think the solution, as i said in the other discussion,

really needs to be between the palestinians and the israelis. the administrations, but this one and the previous one, have taken a difficult stance to try to push that negotiation. i think it would be a huge mistake if the united nations were to step into the situation right now. we should continue to press to find a solution that would lead to peace and stability. when you think of rockets being dumped into israel today, that is a horrible way to have to live. we need to try to find some way to have long-term peace and security for all the players involved. especially for israel. >> i am from the university of washington. i am posing a similar question to the gentleman over here. what bipartisan steps are being taken in pursuit of israeli and

palestinian peace? >> peace and bipartisanship. >> i don't think there is great disagreement in the congress about our relationship with israel and our determination and desire to see a negotiated settlement. i wish both sides would not get -- knock it off and get to the table and negotiate. our country should as aggressively as possible push that position. the only way to ever get an agreement is to sit and negotiate at the table. having preconditions means you never get there. it is very important issue for the world. this is a powder keg over there. we desperately need to see it resolved. >> every american that tries to do a deal with that, president carter thought that he had pushed through a basis for an agreement. and bill clinton certainly

worked on it. and george bush. it is very difficult. i think it is also difficult for peace in that part of the world. it is something that we always need to be listening and learning. i don't represent this country, but i will be meeting with the retiring ambassador from morocco. i want to get his perspective on what is happening in that whole region of the world. he is muslim. he is leading as a diplomat and he has a unique perspective on that region of the world. where you find leaders or countries like morocco or perhaps jordan, i think we should be very careful to listen to their perspective as well as the israeli perspective. >> i'm representing usc, go aztecs. in 2008, one of the voting

groups that helped obama get elected was college students. do you think he has done enough in the last couple of years to deserve our vet again in 2012? >> we have heard about the enthusiasm gap. what does the president need to do to get these groups that supported him three years ago to support him next year? >> this isn't just an enthusiasm gap about politics or president obama. this country has lost the spring in its step. it has lost some confidence. we are fighting two wars, we have been in the deepest recession since the great depression. the day that barack obama became president, on that month, we lost 675,000 jobs alone. he was handed a very difficult economy and a very difficult circumstance. i like barack obama, i think he has done as much as he can do to

get some bipartisan help. he has been blocked in every respect. has he made all the right decisions? no. i think this country in the minority party in the senate owes him more than they have given him to try to help work through these problems. coming back to mitch mcconnell's statement, his highest objective is to see barack obama defeated. my highest objective is to put this country back on track and put people back to work. and let america experience what comes with a broad opportunity once again. there is plenty to be concerned about about politics on both sides. barack obama is going to run for president for a second term. either romney or perry, in my judgment, will be the republican nominee. and beginning next year, we will

have a robust discussion about who we are and where we want to go. and who is best to take us there. i hope we are not discouraged, but this guy has tried very hard, having inherited the worst economy since the 1930's. i hope you will not be too discouraged about the fact that we have not had instant progress. i'm convinced that we're finally going to be on the road to some better times. >> have we lost the spring in our step? >> i think the american people are worried about a variety of things now. when i go home and talk to people, particularly -- this is washington speak, but small business people, community bankers, people are worried. they're worried about their own economic situation and they're worried about the future of our country. i know from past experience,

when we are challenged the most, we will rise to the occasion. there are a lot of unique things about the people in this country. with our mix that we have -- we are unique. we are facing a challenge that is more difficult because the enemy is not so obvious. it is the sinister economic enemy. with regard to the young people, i think this will be an interesting campaign for the young people. i don't think they are necessarily locked up with barack obama again. one of the things i have noticed over the years is that every four years, the students are very different. at universities across the country. the generation that came along right after me in the aftermath of watergate and vietnam and everything, they became much more liberal in their views, things that i never knew anything about her drug culture, but right after that, it was a problem.

there was an era there of young people that had a very different perspective than when i was in school. next thing i know, my son and my daughter, their generation, it looked a lot like my generation. there are all of these ebbs and flows with the young people and university students. i think it will be very different this time. i think most of you are probably going to be waiting to see. let's see who the republicans nominate, let's see what he or she really talks about. what they are saying is going to be different about the country. one of the things that worries me, both with the previous administration and this one, i worry about how much of these presidents control administrations. president bush, i did not feel like he was in control of the transportation department, the energy department, the things we are doing. the same thing now. the alphabet soup of the city,

the agencies, i think it is out of control. i think they are on an agenda of their own. many times, even the white house has things happen that shocked them because a lot of these career bureaucrats, they will be there when the next president comes. one of many reasons why i hope we change presidents, i want a president that says we will get this administration and this government under control. and stop some of the, what i think our regulatory problems. >> how many cast their first ballot in 2008? how many of you will be voting for the first time in 2012? how many will be voting? >> good. that is the best question of all.

>> from the university of brussels in belgium. my question as a european, how was it possible that a social plan that has helped so many people has so much opposition here from both parties? >> are you talking about social programs? >> a similar plan like europe -- >> like health care? are there lessons from europe? >> why is it so difficult for it in the united states when it helps a lot of people. there is so much opposition against it. >> let's take health care as a specific example because a lot of people point to what we see in canada, sweden, what are the differences? why is it so different in our country compared to the makeup of europeans? >> because we are so different. we are very individualistic, very independent.

we still believe that the best government is the least government. the government closest to the people. not necessarily in washington. i think the most important elected official in this country is the local supervisor. who represents a part of one county. you call them commissioners in some states. i don't want us to be like europe or a social welfare country. that is not who we have been and i hope we don't become that. i still have faith in the individual, but i have minimum faith in a government that decides where, socially, money should be spent. i like people to decide on their own money. like on education. people want us to spend more money from the federal level on education. i still believe the best education is determined that the local and the state level.

i get very nervous when the federal government starts -- i wound up voting for "no child left behind." i was hesitant. i listened to the establishment and i went along with it. it needs reform very badly. it has created competition in some schools that don't meet bogus criteria. they wind up getting downgraded. i want education to be important, but i have a problem when local education as dictated from washington, d.c. >> senator dorgan? >> i voted for the health care bill, i think that it's great that 32 million americans that didn't have health insurance now have health insurance. i don't think medical care should depend on your bank account. i listened to a debate recently where the question was what should happen to someone who has no health care and is near death?

should the person get health care? the audience shouted, "death, death." we can't do everything for everybody. but i would not in a million years decide to get rid of medicare. that is a social program that is very important. we need to address financing issues. prior to medicare being enacted, one half of senior citizens did not have health care. did you know that health insurance companies will not chase 80-year-old? i guarantee you they don't. they like the way you look. you look young and healthy and you will not the health care for a long time. they want your premiums because you will not go to the doctor's office. old folks could not get health insurance that was affordable. so half of them didn't have any. they worry about, is this a time that the illness will strike? how aim going deal with this? -- am i going to deal with this? we put in place medicare. it is an important program.

people are living longer, when to to make adjustments. i understand that. we have already made decisions about medicare. there are some that don't like medicare or social security. this country will have a very aggressive debate about that next year, and that is a healthy debate. who are we and what do we aspire for ourselves and our future? >> one more question, before we do, you have worked with a lot of presidents. can you share with these students one moment, one experience with one president you have worked with on a personal level. it might have been a political outcome, but give these students the sense of a president that you worked with. think about that question, go ahead. >> i am from the university of central florida. i would like to ask if you think our foreign military engagements

affect our democratic process? and in the post war period, will we see the sun setting or a curtailment of civil liberties-infringing acts like the patriot act? >> you can't redo history. we had to take the fight to the terrorists aggressively. they attacked our country. had we known what we know now, we would not have attacked iraq because most of the intelligence was inaccurate. nonetheless, we did. the men and women were very courageous. when their country called, they went. we did go into afghanistan because that is where bin laden was. 10 years later, we are still in afghanistan. i would make the point, we need to withdraw from afghanistan. we will never control the tribal regions, they have a corrupt

government and it is where terrorists were, not where they are. we got to fight terrorists where they are, not where they were. this country is spending over $100 billion a year in afghanistan nation-building. if you want a nation built, built in this country. -- build in this country. i feel very strongly about that, but you get involved in these things and you can never withdraw because you have to explain why. we should not be in afghanistan. it is time for us to begin moving out of afghanistan. >> i don't think i agree totally with what byron is saying. i think it will sound a lot like it. i think that we are trying to police too much of the world. not only are we still in afghanistan, we're still in germany, south korea, all over the world. it is time that we do reevaluation of our international roles and responsibilities are.

i think we need to pull back on some of the advanced capabilities. i think we should prepare an advanced force for where we need to, and in the case of emergencies and dealing with terrorists where they pop up. i think the american people think it is time to withdraw in a lot of places. not that we are going to become protectionist and withdraw from the world, but just modernization of what our role is. i remember getting into arguments when we were going into sarajevo. i kept saying look, y'all are there. you know the situation. why do we have to take care of this? i remember talking to the president of germany, and not the prime minister, the president. he said, that's your role. america is supposed to do that. i did not understand. as a member of congress, i always try to be supportive of the presidents.

i do think that presidents whether it is clinton, bush, or reagan, they have to make a lot of decisions. i remember getting into arguments with president clinton about the rules require that he had to act to get cooperation when he was going to bomb a couple places. i was jumpy, i wanted proof. what was going to be -- why we were bombing a particular site or factory. he would provide it. i went along and i was supportive, it turns out. the intelligence may not have been good, and i am not being critical of him. it is time to evaluate what our role is going to be in the future. we must also at the same time make sure our military is what it needs to be and they have the most modern capabilities and technologically capabilities and technologically capababilities to save