i was invited to do one of them, i would call the leadership of the other party and say i am willing to come up and do you guys, to, just so they knew i was not trying to play favorites. the final thing was to try and improve the relationship with thei said and some of my early speeches, including the commencement at the naval academy in the spring of 2007, congress and the press are the surest guarantee of american liberty. don't think of them as the enemy. to do so is self-defeating. what i started out doing december of 2006 and ford is i would tell officers, when you read criticism in the press -- first of all, that is the only way i find out what is going wrong in this building. [laughter] but when you read criticism,

before you get down into the defensive crouch, first asked if the criticism is correct. is it factually correct? find out the facts. and if the facts are wrong, then go back to the press and say, no, you've got the facts wrong. here are the facts. or alternatively say, you got it right. thank you, now i can deal with the problem. that is what i found out about the scandalous treatment of our wounded warriors at walter reed, it was a newspaper story on the front page of "the washington post." and the mrap of vehicles, but on the front page of "usa today" in 2007, that in 300 attacks in anwar not a single marine had been killed.

so i said, let's do this. those were my early agenda items. q, and-- iraq, iraq, ira then trying to repair some things inside the beltway. >> how narrow is that? when you look at the current challenges we see from all sorts of issues -- politics, economics -- do you still see congress and the media as the best hope for the body and freedom? >> what i said was is they were the best guarantor -- [laughter] of our liberty. one of my favorite quotes is from a frenchman who was writing about washington at the time of the revolution, toward the end of the day revolution. and he said -- he wrote "seven

years he has commanded the army and obeid the congress. nothing more need be said." >> i think we have some more from twitter. >> from iraq, and scarred -- currently a student. >> thanks, mr. secretary. i was from the beginning sort of a fan of the war but i don't necessarily agree with the way it was managed. if you were the secretary of defense at the time of the war and after, when the provisional authority was formed, how would you have managed the situation differently? >> first of all, as an old intel dive -- guy, i would have hoped i would have been a skeptic on the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction. i think that for preventive war,

the threshold for information has to be incredibly high. it has to be basically a lead pipe cinch. and i'm not sure that people asked the really hard questions. and i don't single out of those in the bush administration at the time. the reality, which a lot of people conveniently forgot, is everybody in the world believed saddam hussein had weapons of mass destruction. that is the only way you and resolution 1447 got past, even the chinese and russians voted for it. and part of the reason everybody believes he had weapons of mass destruction is because he wanted them to believe he had weapons of mass destruction, because he would rather risk to the danger of a u.s. invasion than to tell the iranians he did not have weapons of mass destruction.

so, we can rewind -- as i said in some remarks last night, and the national security review you don't get do overs. i do think disbanding the iraqi army and police was a big mistake. i think saying that anybody who was a ba'athist could not hold positions of power or any positions of responsibility completely ignored our post world war ii experience in germany where, if you wanted to local -- manage the local power plant, you had to be a member of the not -- nazi party or the ba'ath party, but that the not necessarily make you a torture of prisoners. >> twitter bank qwest -- twitter questions. >> eli ask -- what is the role

for u.s. higher education in america's foreign policy. mark asks, should education funding be at the same level as military? >> my guess is if you took education funding across the country, it is at or probably above the level of defense funding. first of all, i once gave a speech to the national political science association. and one of these professors got up and he said no -- kind of in my capacity as the former director of the cia -- and he said, well, how do you make use of our research? and i decided an honor -- honest answer was an odor. i said, i don't have time to read the stuff in my in box. what makes you think i have time

to read your research? i can hardly keep up with what is going on day-to-day. you expect me to start reading academic journals? so i said then -- you know how we benefit from your research? we hire your students. so, pay attention to your students as well as your research. because that is how we will benefit from your research. what you teach them is what they bring to the workplace. the place of higher education, foreign policy, there is no foreign-policy in higher education. the state of language studies is lamentable. getting somewhat better but it is still pretty sorry.

but i think actually higher education is doing an incredible job for preparing people for public service. because i look at the people coming to the military, and when i was director of the cia i would look at resumes of a selection of kids we were hiring and the only thought that would go through my mind is i am sure glad i don't have to compete with them. >> you spoke about this a little bit early. about how you would hope to see broader public service by more students. did you want to share some of those thoughts? >> i am an advocate of national service. i believe that every citizen should have to devote a year or a year and a half or two years, depending on what you do, giving back to the nation. between the ages of 18 and 30 or

18 and 26. you can pick. you can go in the military, be in a hospital, teach or mentor in an inner-city school or a rual -- rural school, or participate in activities like the cc and a national parks. there are a hundred different ways you can get back. the peace corps, so on. but i just think there is way too much emphasis on the rights of a citizen and too little on the obligations and responsibilities of a citizen. the draft took care of this for guys until 1973. but for every american young person to know they've got to give back, that this all does not get handed to you on a silver platter, i think it is

incredibly important, in terms of a sense of the nation. that is something i worry a little bit we are beginning to lose. >> this is cadets daniel harper from drexel university. >> my question is a little bit along the lines of the israeli- palestinian conflicts. and physical warfare we are used to be able to define players and weapons and downed trees, but as far as cyberspace those it is an little bit more difficult to understand who is what and who is responsible for what. how do we define the boundaries and who is a threat to our national security? what is your advice to the military community as a whole and also a future army officer in how do we go about understanding and defining a world where it is hard to understand who is responsible for what, who is what, who is connected to what and what is it

down the rate and an act of war? >> i asked those questions for four and a half years and never got an answer. [laughter] i asked the question when i first got to the pentagon, what act, what cyber intrusion, what magnitude of cyber intrusion would qualify as an act of war? does a stealing money out of a bank qualified? does this europe -- disrupting activities for a limited period of time qualify? those taking down of the national banking system qualify? i would say, yes, in that case. taking down the infrastructure? the electrical infrastructure? or the communications infrastructure? and i was asking these questions because we are in uncharted territory. and they -- there are no rules of the road.

we've got the geneva convention and we've got all kinds of stuff in terms of work there. and even in the spy world there are unwritten rules of the road between ourselves and the kgb. so everybody kind of knew where the left and the right borders were. not so in the cyberworld. another big problem is attribution. you automatically think, well, it came from russia or china. it might be some teenager in the fact, in the decade, still about $10 billion, or did about $10 billion worth of damage. so, this is an area where i think actually -- and this makes everybody in the national security community nervous when i say this -- but i also think there would be value in at least

getting together a dozen of the key players from around the world and saying, okay, maybe we should have some rules here so we don't inadvertently do something or purposely do something that moves from the cyberworld into the physical world. but it is a huge arena and it is only going to get worse. >> thank you. >> thank you. sera, an executive steven. >> i have actually been working for the department of defense for the past six years and when i walked around i noticed i am significantly outrated by my male counterparts. my question is do you think your department can better address the gender gap, and what else can the department to get more women in senior dod leadership positions? >> first of all, i am pleased to say the number three person in

the department of defense on my watch was a woman, michelle furnoy. my guess is somewhere down the road she will likely be the first female secretary of defense. and i think that she is -- obviously as the senior most women in the department, an advocate for women in the department. and i think -- this is one of the things, i was pleased on my watch to pin a fourth star on the first woman officer to a four-star general. there are more coming along. so, there are a number of women at the two-star and the three- star level that will move into the fifth-star slots in

increasing numbers. -- four-star slots. partially because the pool from which to the senior people are being drawn is becoming bigger, in terms of the number of women. the reality is, the military, as hierarch role as it is, you do have to go through each grade. and for man or woman, there is a certain minimum time in grade. but as we do things -- another thing that happened on my watch is the agreement for our arrangements for women to serve on submarines. it is an incremental, but it is moving. and i would say that as more and more women get into senior positions, they will, along with the male counterparts, the advocates for making that happen faster. >> anything else from twitter? >> a question from rachel. as a student for public

administration i am interested but how you dealt with the challenge of leading a large bureaucracy. [laughter] >> this is the subject of my second book. [laughter] because i have lived in three of them now. cia in the intelligence community, the sixth largest university in the country, and the largest and most complex organization on the plan at -- planet, with 3 million employees. let me tell you, it really ticked me off that my daughter supervises three people and made more money than i did. [laughter] which is good for her. so, that is a complicated question. let me just pick one aspect of it. first of all, all of these institutions have things in common they never think of.

for one thing, they all have alumni. and all believe they ought to have a voice in the way the place gets run. and, by the way, they may have bellyached and groaned the whole way through their time in the career or the time in school, but the day they leave it is perfect. and don't ever change anything again. [laughter] they also all have tenure. so, managing or leading a big, public institution is very different from a business. the one lesson about leading chains -- change, and i have tried to be a "change agent," but the lesson i have learned and applied in all three places

is to always remember that the bureaucracy was there before you got there and will be there after you leave. and they can always outwait you. and so, as a leader who wants to make change, you have to set the goal. you have to have the vision. but then you have to figure out a way to integrate the professionals into figuring out how you get to the goal. how do you make them a part of the solution so that when you are gone, they defended because it is their solution. this works as well with the professional military as it did with tenured faculty. because they were listened to and their ideas were incorporated. they bought in. and so, we made a lot of changes. but you can't do it without respecting and listening to the

professionals in each of these kinds of organizations and incorporating their ideas. they can't run the show -- and nearly all of them acknowledge they can't run the show, even the faculty -- but they do expect to be listened to. and if you do that, it is amazing how much progress you can make. >> and member of the national constitution center as corporate counsel from philadelphia. >> thank you for your time and remarks, secretary gates. as the only secretary of defense who has served two different political parties in the presidency, as well as being in the game for a long time and having the intelligence and realistic kind of outlook, do you feel that in our public sphere and domestic politics, that we can and will be able to elevate the dialogue, or are we in an environment because of the role of the media or

redistricting that this polarization is real? the do you have some words of hope and encouragement for us? >> actually, the answer to your question is in my brief remarks to not -- tonight, literally. and i am not optimistic. >> it is a challenge for all of us. a lot of will we try to do in the center is to focus on stability in discourse, and we are just watching it get coarser and coarser and it is very, very difficult. >> the trouble is people in public life need to do more of what i did. before congressional testimony or before a press conference i would have these murder boards

where people would fire questions at me. and i would answer the questions in the murder boards the way i really wanted to answer them, so then i can then answer them with discipline when i had to do it in public. so i would not say -- you know, that is the stupidest question i have ever heard in my life. >> this question comes from france. what is the repeal of -- was the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" a positive or a detriment? >> i think my judgment and the judgment of the chief is the way we have done it will make it a positive. it was a big cultural change. and part of the reason why i ask for the time for the review and the opportunity to survey the force was partly to identified troublespots and issues that we would have to deal with, so we

can mitigate them. but the main purpose was to buy some time for the military to have a conversation with itself about this subject. it had always before been discussed by two guys having a beer in a bar or in the barracks or bring something like that. and i wanted an open discussion with the whole force to talk about this. and where people could fear -- feel like they were heard and being listened to. and the interesting thing is that, you know, you've got to give the marines credit. their leaders were probably the most adamant about not moving forward, but wanted the decision was made to move forward, they are determined to do it better than anybody else. and faster. the whole marine corps was trained weeks before the deadline.

of course, they are the smallest of the services. but i think that the training and exposure and the big part of the training was the use of vignettes, hypothetical situations or situation that would likely occur and how do you respond. the key to this will be discipline and leadership. and it will be the nco's and company grade officers who will be the key is successful implementation. i am confident that it will move forward and it will work. but let's not kid ourselves. women were admitted to the force several decades ago and we still have a serious problem in the military with sexual assault. this will not be implemented completely free of any incident. but the key will be is how they

are handled and the dips -- disciplinary measures and make it clear it will not be tolerated. any more than sexual assault with men and women should not be acceptable or tolerated. we are working on the sexual assault issue. we still are working on that. and we will, i am sure, have some incidents with the result of the disappearance of "don't ask, don't tell." but i would say that 99% of our military, this is going to be a matter of mutual respect and dignity and just moving forward. one of my favorite lines is still the line from barry goldwater who once said it does not matter whether the guy next to you is straight, it is whether he can shoot straight. >> this is james from philadelphia.

>> i am in vietnam vet. i was in the air force and served in the strategic air command. i have been wondering for years -- 9/11, why did they drop a nuclear bomb in afghanistan of the area where bin laden was? did they considered? >> first of all, i was not there. but i doubt it was considered. partly just because the use of a nuclear weapon would have a huge negative impact around the world. which inevitably would kill a lot of innocent people as well. >> this is charlie withers from st. joseph's university. >> thank you, secretary. i had the unique opportunity to it -- having a unique opportunity to serve under presidents of different parties and i'm wondering if you could share the main differences between the bush administration and now the obama administration in regards to

military strategy and general philosophy of war. >> i honestly think one of the reasons the transition was fairly easy for me is that i do not think there were significant differences. remember, i joined the bush administration two years from its and so a lot had changed between 2001 and the end of 2006. and so -- the irony, there were a number of decisions like the new tanker decision and so on, that towards the end of the bush administration, i pointed to my successor -- punted to my successor, only to find i was the receiver. maybe it was because of me being there that there was continuity. but i think on the big issues

there was a lot of continuity. the way the counterterrorism fight was being fought -- if anything, president obama has been more aggressive than president bush, particularly in the use of drones pencil on. clearly on the legal side there are differences in terms of the rules pertaining to detainees and interrogations' and someone. but in terms of the military and military strategy, i think there has been quite a bit of continuity. >> this is actually from the university of pennsylvania rotc. >> first of all, sir, it is a pleasure to meet you at thank you so much for your leadership and service through my military experience personally. i am an instructor of leadership and ethics for the university of pennsylvania for midshipmen and i'm curious what kind of advice you have for a future midshipmen and cadets who would be the leaders of marine, sailors,

airmen, and soldiers the next couple of years/c have for them? >> i think one thing i have talked about it the academies that i attach importance to, particularly picking up on ethics, is in higher education -- in school, and predictably higher education and professional education now, at the tivoli professional military education, there's a lot of emphasis on team building, team spirit, working a problem as a group of people, group dynamics, and so on. i like to warn young people and some not so young people. that is all very good and --

well and good and it is important. but there will come a time in your career or you have to stand alone. you have to be the one to say this is wrong, or even harder for a military officer -- i don't have the resources to do this. i can't do this. that has to be a point -- there will come a time in your career where you have the responsibility and everybody else will want to do something different. and you will say, no, this is my responsibility and this is what we will do. and you have to be ready for that. that kind of independent thoughts and character does not occur overnight when you get your first star. it begins with the day-to-day decisions you make while you are still in school, still in the

academy. that time will come. and the question is whether you will be ready for it. >> the question from rachel is -- what do you think is a reasonable time line for drawing down troops in iraq and afghanistan? >> the timeline is already established in iraq, the agreement as currently exists all the forces will be out of iraq by the end of december this year. there is a discussion for leading a residual force of 2000 for training and assistance, but until there is an agreement with the iraqis they are planning on getting down to zero by the end of december. similarly we have a book and in

afghanistan. all combat forces from all foreign countries will be out of afghanistan by december of 2014. the question that seems to me is one of pacing between now and the end of 2014. the variable is how fast you bring our forces out. the other variable is how fast and what you can train the afghans. this is a conversation i have had with petraus and a lot of leaders -- petreaus and a lot of the leaders of the years. the hardest thing you will have to decide is that inflection point where these guys doing it adequately is better than us , and it excellenctly

turning over responsibility. there is no scientific formula in terms of how that happens. bringing the rest of the surge out by the end of next summer -- the afghan search for the most part will have lasted longer than the iraq surge. we will still have 70,000 troops in afghanistan in december of 2012. we are making, i think some good progress with the afghan army. the question i have is between the endless summer of 2012 and the end of 2014 -- so, for that 27 or 28 months, what is the pacing on the remaining 70,000 americans and how many allies

are there? since we have the book ends, we ought to give a lot of deference to the commander in the field in terms of that pacing. >> i think this will be our last question. >> and jennifer hill. >> thank you, dr. gates. >> i felt there was a big disconnect between those in the military who went over to serve our country and the people at home. i didn't feel that people on the whole front were brought in to that effort and were really disconnected from it. i wondering what you think could be done maybe in the future or even now to connect those at the holes -- home front with those serving overseas? >> i think this is a big problem, frankly, with an all- volunteer military.

i think that -- the disconnect is indicated by -- mitigated by the role the national guard played in these conflicts because they have not gone back to their bases and posts. they have gone back to their hometowns after they have served. and we now have the many in the national guard that have served two, three, and some more, rotations. i think that is a connection. i actually am not as pessimistic on this as a lot of people. i think the outpouring of respect and gratitude of the american people, when they have a chance, when they encounter

somebody in uniform is really quite extraordinary. especially when you compare it to what happened to my generation at the end of vietnam. a couple of examples -- dallas- ford worth airport. every single time an airplane comes in in bringing troops back from iraq or afghanistan, there are several hundred people from the dallas-fort worth area that meet the airplane, and just cheer. these are not necessarily people who have relatives in the service or anything. they are just volunteers. the various volunteer groups around the country that have sprung up. the efforts that the first lady and joe biden had undertaken to get people engaged in helping the families and those who are serving, i think provides an

umbrella for a lot of volunteer activities. i think most americans, regardless of their position on the conflicts, had a huge admiration for the folks in uniform and are looking for ways to express that gratitude other than just saying things for your service. and i think the challenge the pentagon has and the services have is figuring out a better way to channel that enthusiasm and to let it manifest itself. how do you do that in a structured way? we've made a lot of progress, but there is a lot of pent up desire around the country to do more. so, i think figuring out ways to connect is the challenge. and i think it goes both ways -- both from citizens but also from

government. >> a big piece of that is who serves. i know several graduations and other speakers recently you challenged organizations in parts of the country that don't typically send many people into military service, to do more that way. >> i gave a speech at duke last fall and basically said, okay, you are one of the elite universities, you have an active rotc program, how about some of the rest of the signing up? if you want some real responsibility at 21, how about putting on a uniform? i will give you real responsibility. you won't be working a xerox machine if you are working for me. we are making headway. i got a call from the president of yale a couple of days ago just telling me he had signed the papers that day to bring air force rotc back to yale.

the navy rotc is already back at yale. columbia is opening up to r.o.t.c. again for the first time since vietnam. i think there is no question on the part of the american people that we owe these young people. >> please join me in thanking the secretary. [applause] >> president obama's senior campaign strategist david axelrod spoke at a politics and eggs breakfast in new hampshire saying the 2012 obama campaign faced a "titanic struggle." you can hear all of his comments

at 8:00 p.m. eastern here on c- span. and live at the ronald reagan library to hear from the jersey gov. chris -- chris christie who was invited by nancy reagan. that is at 9:00 p.m. eastern. >> it should always start with an assumption that when a politician or a ceo is saying something, they are not telling the truth. now, they might be telling the truth but the burden should be on them to prove it. >> and eagle scout, held a brief stint as editor of mother jones magazine, directed and produced three of the top 10 grossing documentaries of all time and also the best selling author -- his latest, a memoir. sunday on "in-depth," your chance to call, email, or tweet michael moore live on c-span2. >> which part of the u.s. constitution is important to you? that is our question in this year's studentscam competition. make a video documentary five

minutes to eight minutes long entellus the part of the constitution that is important to you and why. be sure to include more than one point of view and video of c- span programs. entries are due by january 20, 2012. there's a $50,000 in total prizes and a grand prize of $5,000. for all the details, go to st udentcam.org. >> former president jimmy carter and his wife sat down for a conversation about current world issues and their latest ventures. they discuss the palestinian request for statehood, china, healthcare, and what advice president carter would give to president obama for working with congress. this is from the carter center in atlanta. just under an hour and half. since then -- >> since then the center of's programs have helped improve the lives of millions of people in just under 70 countries.

the carters are our hardest working volunteers, traveling around the world, working with our staff to monitor elections, resolve conflicts, promote human rights, and eradicate diseases, working side by side with the poorest and often forgotten people. their vision for a world at peace guys all of our work here at the carter center and serves as an inspiration for millions of people of around the world seeking a better way of life. so, it is with great admiration that we welcome president and mrs. carter. [applause]

>> thank you very much. i have had a very interesting summer. in june, i had my right knee completely replaced and then last month i had my other knee replaced. and i have been through a period of intense physical therapy and recuperation. i am doing well now. a couple more weeks i have to use a cane just for safety purposes. but i am doing ok and i will soon be home. but i am grateful -- sometimes grateful -- that i did it. there were times i was doubtful in retrospect. it is not an intense pain but it

is a constant discomfort, particularly when you are trying to sleep and did things like that. but will soon be over and i am grateful for it. the emory doctors did a superb job. this brings me down 9 to the subject tonight, a much more pleasant one. outline briefly what we have been doing since you have your last meeting, so i would do it to begin with. as i am matter of fact, the carter center has to raise cash money, almost $100 million, every three days, to finance our programs. that is our budget. and million dollars every three days. $100 million every year. a million dollars every three days, about $100 million a year. that is just our cash budget. in addition to that the enormous contribution from pharmaceutical companies and others that helps

us with the help -- health programs. out of the total budget each year of about $100 million in cash, about 80% is in the health program. this is something we didn't anticipate at the beginning. i did not know and rosa did not know what we were going to do we were establishing the carter center. we thought we would devote most of our time mediating disputes around the world. but as we explored the greatest needs on earth, and it's italy those not being met by others, we have found -- particularly those not being met by others, we have found this one being particularly in portland, health care. as the film dutifully showed, the elimination of the suffering of people from diseases that ought not to exist at all. because even the sometimes and medium-wealthy countries have

done away with all of these diseases. perhaps the only one was still remember, some of -- some of us, is malaria, and we have not had a for a long time, and 1940's, but it still exists. so hundreds of millions of people every year suffer from these diseases that should be eradicated, and that is what we do most of the time. as was mentioned in the film, are much highly publicized -- publicized effort has been to eradicate guinea worm -- the drinking of it in pure water that has eggs in it and a lukewarm about 30 inches long takes about 30 days to emerge and it is excruciatingly painful because of the loss of muscle tissue. and the people who have it, and they are school age, can go to school and farmers can go to the field. so it is a devastating economic and social blow. we started out with about 3.5 million cases of guinea worm in

asia and africa. i think 26,000 villages -- we have now been in all the villages. this year we expect to have not more than about 1000 cases in the whole world. [applause] last year ghana became free after 23 years. they have zero cases. this year mali and ethiopia will have one or two cases. it is very helpful neither one of those countries will have any guinea worm after this year. but it still exists in the southern part of sudan, where, for many years, a horrific civil war prevented are getting in there, and as you know saddam has now become an independent nation -- sudan has become an

independent nation and they still have some areas of intense conflict. that makes it almost impossible for our workers to go in there safely, on our motor scooters -- they get confiscated. that is a major remaining problem. but we are very hopeful. we will continue to work on it. we work with the government there and we hope to see an end of guinea worm altogether. another important disease is river blindness. we have treated now -- we have given a dose of medicine to 150 million people >> -- people. and when you give them one miraculous tablet given to us by merck and co., they don't go blind. but the disease still exist with worms and the bodies.

another disease, the number one cause of preventable blindness, we are working on it as well, particularly in ethiopia. last year there were a number of surgeries to eliminate that terrible disease. and the carter center was responsible for the performance of 30% of all the surgeries in the world in that disease and was also treated the diseases with a medicine that was given to us. we are making very good progress against that. we deal also with lymphatic -- use of a man with the tremendous foot or leg, we call it elephantiasis -- elephant itis. as well as in the neck -- malaria, as i mentioned. what we have done recently in the last few years is combined our effort against those diseases. because quite often in the same

village or region, we have several of those diseases and over a period of years we worked out a way to reduce the cost of treatment by combining our efforts. sending the same people to people suffering from different diseases and the world health organization estimates we cut down the cost to about 40%. we are making good progress in the field of health care. for instance, we put up millions of bed nets to prevent mosquitos from getting to the people at night and also killing mosquitoes when they land on the nets which has pesticides, and two diseases are carried by the mosquitos landing on the next. the other part of it is, i would say democracy and freedom. one of the innovations the carter center made, beginning in latin america, was to help

troubled countries have an honest and fair and save election. and we didn't realize at the beginning how terrible and all pervasive this problem was. countries, for instance, that have a totalitarian dictatorship and when they try democracy for the first time they don't know where to turn. they don't know how to draft a constitution and set up election commission to register voters because they have never done this before. the carter center provides that service. in some cases we have countries that have had democracy for a number of years, where one party becomes so powerful that they don't permit any opposition forces to arise, so democracy is threatened in those democratic countries and we will go and help them as well. we have done over 80 elections. this year we have been going to liberia. and we will be going to tunisia. you have been hearing about the

arab spring. tunisia will have elected next month. we are also looking at the democratic republic of congo and will help with the election there as well. some others project -- some of the prospects this fiscal year -- nicaragua -- we are delaware about that because they will not give us the freedom to monitor as we need to, and also egypt, we are still contacting them to see if they will allow us or any other international observers. we have tried to negotiate for peace. you see in the more controversial people i have met. i have been to north korea twice in the last year. also cuba -- we have a very counterproductive farm policy of trying to freeze out the cuban

people and depriving american citizens the right to go to cuba. the only nation in the world where the citizens can't go to cuba. it is an imposition, deprivation of our human rights, so our government does not let us go to cuba unless you have a special reason like education and so forth, or religion. so, we are trying to work out areas of peace. if we are dealing quite effectively, i think, with other areas in the world on peace efforts. we have a strong program in china. rosa and i will be going back to china in december. the most interesting and last one i will mention in the middle east. we maintain a full-time office in jerusalem, were mollet in the west bank, and also gaza. i think we are the only organization on earth that deals with all of the major protagonists, the major players, in the mideast conflict. we deal with israel.

we deal with the palestinians in the west bank. fatah. we also deal with hamas, who controlled gaza, and they are also located in syria. we go frequently to syria, egypt, jordan -- and i think we are the only ones to try any comprehensive way to bring about peace and i will be happy to answer any questions about that. those are some of the things in which the carter center is working. we have a busy schedule. now i will turn it over to the real boss who is waiting impatiently to speak, my wife, rosa. >> well, as john said, we have a program i think most of you know about because i talk -- talked about before. fellowship for mental health journalism. we arranged this of they can't be here -- it might of been by

accident. but i am glad they come. we work on stigma, trying to overcome stigma, all the time. this is our most successful program. the media has such an influence on how people feel about mental health, people living with mental illnesses, so the idea was to build a cadre of -- a cadre of journalists who knew the issues and can report accurately and balanced on the issues. we already have over 120 go through the program. this is our 50th year. we have every year six from the united states and we have gone international. our first country was new zealand. we had two for new zealand for five years. we help them with financing the program, and at the end of five years, they are on their own. and new zealand established a

really good program. south africa, we have two hear now from south africa and two from romania. south africa -- this is their fifth year, so we are having to say goodbye to our south african friends. we are really sorry about that. romania has another year or so. and somebody in the mental health program figured out our journalists have done over 1400 pieces on mental health. we have five or six books, all kinds of documentaries, tv and radio programs, print media, newspapers, magazines, and now are journalists are using blogs to get the message out. we have been listening to some of them today and they are really wonderful because people write in and one of the journalists had great photographs, working with military families, and the

military families need so much help. so, it has been good. i would even like for them to stand up. could you stand up? and also our advisory board is here. can you fellows stand up? [applause] and i might even have some of the task force -- john mentioned this to you, but he did not mention to you i have the best people in the country as advisers and on the mental health task force. i am really proud of them, proud of the fellowship program. we have started for the first time in a foreign country a mental health program in liberia. the carter center has been working in liberia for a long time, and after the war was over, we had been in. we are teaching the liberians -- helping them to set up a judicial system, and we have an

access to information to open up the government', and many other programs. and now we have a mental health program. all of this is in partnership with the government. and we just graduated our first class of psychiatric nurses, 21 nurses and physician assistants. and they are from six counties in liberia. our goal is to -- let me go back in little bit. we work in the countryside on the does -- rule of law. so when they graduate, they go back to the county's from which they came, to study. liberia has one psychiatrist. so there is great need. we chose liberia because we had been there so much. but also we wanted to try to see if we could do anything in a

country that is coming out of war, because everybody is traumatized. we are excited about that program. next month is our mental health annual symposium. it will be on the mental health needs of loanable children -- vulnerable children. we are looking forward to this program. we have really good speakers and people participating. and he was telling about his knees, so we have been home. it is is his first time out, actually. but last week i went to see michelle obama at the institute for caregiving and she has this program for families of veterans. i wrote her a letter and told her that so many veterans coming home with ptsd and traumatic

brain injuries and depression, and i have a program for bringing communities together to talk about or to assess what is in the community for those people with mental illness -- not only mental illness, but any kind of illness. i went with kathy, who has worked with me on private sector white house and she has been working with me ever since. she is on the task force. we had a really good meeting with her. we were at betty ford's funeral and she told me, she had gotten a letter saying she has a gap there so we are hoping she could work on that. next week i am going to the united nations to talk to african first ladies about

immunizations. i have worked and immunizations as long as i have worked on the mental health, except between when we left the white house and when an epidemic started in late 1989. i i worked with betty bumpers, who had a great program. when you go governors conference, the wives get together. spouses were all lives -- wives. i talk about mental health to try to get people to work on mental health. we had a really good immunization program in georgia when jimmy was governor. in the white house, we had been there about two weeks when betty called and asked if we wanted to

work on measles immunization. i said sure. she said later that she just wanted to see the inside of the white house. [laughter] but she is a lot of fun to be with. this is hard to believe. when jimmy was president -- i'm not talking too long -- [laughter] when jimmy was president, only 15 or 17 states required immunization by school age. betty said 15. i said 17. anyway, we were able to get it in all of the states. it was i think one of our really good accomplishments. late 1989, there was an epidemic that started in the chicago area with 100 people dying and so forth, and it was the little children because the school age

children and elderly people were safe because they had been immunized. the head of the center for disease control when jimmy was president was here with us. we still call him and fellow. we started a program called every child by two, trying to get babies immunized. we are still working on that. then i go to geneva -- tunisia. it is good to be back in circulation. there is one more thing -- we have had a spate of articles that had something to do with our house. i got this e-mail sunday that said -- was posted on the front page of the observer, the guardian newspaper, and britain. it is the sunday edition, and it

is a really good article. i wanted to tell you, this woman from whales came, and i wanted to read you what she wrote about our house. "where does jimmy carter live? close your eyes and imagine the kind of house a former president of united states might live in, the sort of residents be fitting the leader of the most powerful nation." got it? ok, scrub that clean from your mind and instead imagine the sort of house where a moderately successful junior accountant and his family might live. [laughter] then it says, "it is barely a town. a street might be a more accurate description. a single road going nowhere much i thought that was so funny. but then it was a really good article. -- a single road going nowhere much."

i thought that was so funny. but then it was a really good article. >> thank you very much, president and mrs. carter. we are all set for some questions. we will take as many questions as we have time for tonight, and we very much appreciate the questions that were submitted online, and we were able to choose some of those as well as some of the questions that you have submitted. first question -- "as an arab- american, i view and understand that the internal divisions in syria are such that a peaceful transition to democracy is very difficult. would you consider mediating in this conflict?" >> right now, it would be very difficult to ascertain who could speak for the so-called revolutionaries or dissidents or

demonstrators in syria. my understanding is we keep track of it pretty well, and they do not have much communication. >> for mrs. carter, could you give us an update on the status of insurance parity for mental health coverage? >> i am is so upset about what has happened to parity. it was passed in 2008, and there is still no final regulations. they issued temporary regulations in, i think, february of 2010, and they have not enforced those. insurance companies are doing anything they want to do. for instance, florida blue

cross/blue shield has discontinued all of that behavioral health care insurance. they say they are going to start another company and provide mental health -- behavioral health care insurance for those illnesses. but i think what they are doing is the bill calls for employers who provide mental health care -- well, it says they have to have it on par with physical health care. i think what blue cross/blue shield is trying to do is just start another company said they will not have to provide insurance on par with what they provide for health insurance. i talked to phyllis at the hhs

-- she is the point person -- and she told me she needed my help because she is the one who goes to the white house when they set priorities. she said every time she goes -- every month or so, i do not know how often they beat -- she is there and tells them that we need to get final regulations. they put it on the priority list and when the priority list comes out, it is not there. i hear it -- rumor is and i do not know whether this is right or not, but i think people believe that they are trying to wait and hope it -- hook it to the health care bill. if they do that, when they get into all of that controversy, it is just going to be awful. i am really distressed about it. >> this is one of the greatest achievements of mental health in the country, to get mental health insurance on parity with

physical health. the problem is when the bill passed, since then, the white house has not done anything to implement the bill. i think the health and education, labor and all the others that are involved in it would be very receptive to strong leadership from the white house. it just has not materialized. basically, nothing is being done in the meantime. insurance companies are going backwards, trying to avoid the impact of the bill. it is a very worthy thing. it ought to be put into effect. >> in the president's commission on mental health, that was one of my -- one of the things that we recommended, insurance for mental health issues, mental illnesses. so it is just really distressing to me. >> the carter center was instrumental in bringing a fair, democratic process to nepal. since the rewriting of their

constitution, and inclusion out former rebels in the parliament, how do you view the state of democracy in a call at this point? >> [inaudible] >> as a matter of fact, we did monitor the election. it was fair and honest and open and safe. the mouse won the votes and therefore had the chance to form the first government, but the outside forces, including the united states of america and india, as well as domestic forces within nepal, did not like that idea, so they put the whole process of writing a new constitution to replace the monarchy has bogged down. in the last few days, though they have finally decided on a new prime minister who is also a maoist, so we have another

chance to do that. almost all the other monitors have withdrawn, including the united nations. at this point, it is about the only outside force that monitors every day what is going on in nepal. i was there three times in one year to try to help put together this effort. my hope is that we will see in the future some progress made, but at this moment, they had a new start with a new prime minister and we do not yet know if he will be successful in continuing the formulation of a new constitution and permanent government. it is a worthy effort, one which we are going to stick with as long as we can get funding, but at this point, dormant with some hope for the future. >> it is something that is not good about our country. when we go into a country, we work with the national

democratic institute, which is an organization that goes in to train local observers. they go in for months before they get there and they train people in all the communities across the country, and when they were getting ready for this election that we did, and had the meetings in the countryside, if a maoist walked into one of those meetings, our people had to grab up all the refreshments -- the drinks or cookies or anything -- because [inaudible] that was just awful to me, one of the worst things that i heard, but it was right. we call them terrorists and the terrorists cannot partake of our refreshments.

>> the fact is once they are characterized as terrorist, the united states cannot deal with them. you may or may not know that until last june, nelson mandela was a terrorist, and he could not come through customs in the united states without a special permit you whenever we do not like anybody, quite often, our country says they are terrorists, and they are outside the purview of normal democratic associations and social events. that has happened not only in those two countries but in others as well. >> the state is scheduled to execute troy davis a week from tomorrow. you have spoken out in hopes the state shows clemency. what got you involved in this case, and why are you advocating for his life? >> rosa and i and the carter center ever since it was founded have been opposed to the death penalty as a major commitment. on individual cases, we have interceded, writing directly to

the governors involved or the party and parole board. we believe that in this particular case, there is enough evidence to the contrary to prevent this execution taking place. i have written a letter to the party and parole board. the governor in georgia does not have any authority over this, and we hope that they will reverse themselves or least there will be some way of legal action to the supreme court to avoid this execution, but georgia has very few executions now. all the time i was governor and president, there were no executions in the united states of america, as you all may remember. the supreme court ruled against the death penalty. but while i was president, they ruled that the death penalty was permissible in this country, and it has been implemented since i left. we're the only industrialized country on earth that permits the death penalty. as you probably know, the united states now has more people in

prison per capita than any other nation on earth. we have seven times as many people in prison per thousand as the european countries do. we have been very deeply committed as a nation, as a people in the last few years of incarcerating people, giving them life sentences for a third conviction and so forth. as a matter of fact, georgia has a life sentence now after two convictions. you are in prison for life. we have just gone overboard in putting people in prison and keeping them there. that is the basic policy of the carter center, which we have maintained. we do not know yet what the final decision will be. >> do you still enjoy hiking, fishing, and hunting? what is your favorite big fish story? [laughter]

mrs. carter, do you want to answer? [laughter] >> i will answer. i have a big fish story. i was in canada. i do not remember the river, but i fly fish. i love to fly fish. the canadian government presented us with rods and reels when we got there, and it kind of looked like a cork or something. if you caught a big fish, you could put it on your chest like this. we were doing an american experience or something. we had tv cameras with us. i caught a salmon. we had the french television there, i remember, because the man could not speak english. but i was really it in, and the real fell off in the vote, and

it was going around and around like this. suddenly, it stopped. we got this -- the man with the television camera in the vote to come over and he got some of that great state -- grey tape, duct tape, and he put it on backwards, and i had to take it off and put it on, and the solomon just sat there -- the salmon just sat there until it got it fixed. we got it home, and it weighed 25 pounds. >> president carter is going to pass on that. as the success of the revolution in egypt affect the long-term stability of the camp david accords? >> there were two -- people do

not know this, so i am going to give you a little history lesson. there were two agreements negotiated by me with israel and egypt in 1978 and six months later. first one is actually the camp david accords. the second is a treaty between israel and egypt. they are two separate things. most people refer now to both of them here as far as the camp david accords, this dealt with the palestinian rights with the leaders of the two countries agreed that israel would withdraw its military and political forces from palestine from the occupied territories and would grant the palestinians will autonomy and that -- full autonomy and that the united nations resolutions would apply. that was the camp david accords dealing primarily with

palestinian rights. six months later, we negotiated a treaty between israel and egypt, and that has been honored. the camp david accords have never been honored by israel. unfortunately, i left office soon after that. the israelis have never honor their commitment to the palestinians. they continue to build settlements. they continue to occupy the west bank and east jerusalem, and the palestinians have no basic rights. the peace treaty between israel and egypt was honored. sadat was killed shortly after i left office, and president mubarak wanted the peace treaty meticulously and so did israel. the peace treaty part has been honored and never violated. but mubarak looked the other way on palestinian rights. when he was overthrown and the

new government was initiated -- we still had to go through elections -- they honored the desire of the egyptian people to put into effect the cat david accords with its commitment to the palestinians, and that is what they are insisting on now. i think that the fact is that the demonstrations of the people against the israeli embassy in cairo -- as you know, it was overrun last week, and the israeli ambassador had to go back to jerusalem -- is a very great tragedy. the military group leading egypt now did not defend the embassy adequately. my guess is that the military leadership in egypt still want

the peace treaty with israel to be honored, but they also want the right of the palestinians to be recognized. to answer your question specifically, i do not believe the peace treaty between israel and egypt is in danger. i do not think they will go to war. as you may remember, with the peace treaty, egypt re-occupied their own sinai region. if it agreed to a limited number of weapons, and they have both abided by that rule. the only exception is that after the arabs during and after some disturbances in gaza, israel approved a reference that israel could bring into their own sinai region. the bottom line as it is a

complicated affair. the arab spring brought hope for democracy in the region. i hope eventually, this will bring about a change in the process to be negotiated between israel and its neighbors. >> what do you see as a transition in cuba if they allow free enterprise as a means to deal with the present economic reality? >> we have been to cuba several times. the last time, i met with fidel castro goes a brother -- fidel

castro's brother. as you know, he is retired, and he writes of bed -- op-ed's every other week or so, to the discomfort of his brother. this is just take a video or three days before he had his major assembly throughout cuba, and he announced the implementation of new economic freedom in cuba. my hope is that the expectation of the economic situation in cuba will continue to improve. they are heavily dependent now on financial support from venezuela. as you know, president chavez has been diagnosed with cancer purity has been treated twice

in cans -- in cuba and more recently back in venezuela. the major economic aid is in danger, but if that can be resolved by the two countries, i believe the new economic freedoms may help the cuban economic system. cuba has a superb health program. their life expectancy is higher and their infant mortality rate is lower than ours. some things they have done well, but what is still lasting is the right of the cuban people to elect their own leaders in a free and open and fair election. political freedom is still absent from cuba. incremental improvement and economic freedoms might help the country. >> given that china has achieved

such spectacular results, do you believe that china can have good results in writing the economy? >> that is the arena in which the carter center has been involved for more than a dozen years. as you may know, in the beginning of 1979, the vice premier and i announced diplomatic relations between our two countries, and that is exactly the same time we announced it on the 50th of december. on december 18, he announced openness and reform in china, a new system of economic and social life in china. it is out of that that china has made such great progress. before that took place, there was no religious freedom in china. there was no freedom of movement of the people in china.

it was illegal to burn any sort of money in any kind of industry or business. we have seen a great transformation and economic development in china and other things as well. i would guess that at this point, they are on the verge of changing their leadership. there will be new leaders coming in to power in china in 2012. rosa and i have met with the new prospective president of china twice. he seems to be very friendly and outgoing, but the fact is that what is -- similar to what is happening in the united states, the chinese political system has gotten extremely conservative. while there was a good bit of freedom of local elections and that sort of things, which the carter center has monitored now for 12 years, now, there is a general tightening up of political freedoms.

one of the problems the carter center has is we have a major website in china, both in chinese and also in english. it is perhaps one of the most widely used websites in china analyzing what is going on dealing with political freedom. we do not take a stance one way or another. we just report what is going on. the chinese government has been putting some pretty tight restraints on us recently. to summarize, it is tightening up, in the long run, though, it is almost inevitable that china will have to see some liberalization, some increase political freedom to follow up their enormously successful economic freedom. >> during your presidency, you were a supporter of nuclear power, even after the events of three mile island. given that the u.s. has once again broken ground on new reactors, have your views on this topic changed? >> no, i still believe very

strongly that nuclear power is one of the prospects for the future if it can be done safely, and i believe it can appear as a matter of fact, the three mile island incident took place while i was in the white house. there were predictions that hundreds of thousands of people would be affected adversely and many thousands would die. i knew this was not the case because i was a nuclear engineer, and i was familiar with the situation there. that sunday, we went through the three mile island nuclear reactor. we went inside the reactor control room and demonstrated that it was no danger there. obviously, though, if there is a laxity of safety precautions and inadequate design, as there was in japan, not anticipating that a surge of water could cover them up, then it is dangerous, but in general, i still approve the use of nuclear

power. we have two nuclear power plants being built in georgia to supplement those that are already operating. some of the states in our country right now that about half their total electricity from nuclear power and unless we develop some more acceptable approach to global warming than we have now, then i think nuclear power will be one of the things that will be used in the future with increased use of natural gas and other things. i am a nuclear engineer. i think i know what i am talking about. it has to be safe and carefully controlled, but nuclear power has a place in the future. [applause] >> being a contributor to the carter center for 10 years now, i feel like family. i a lot of the arab spring, will the carter center wrote more of its resources and talent to the challenges of that region, particularly egypt and libya? >> i have to say, the carter

center does not have any role to play in libya. i never really -- never was willing to have diplomatic relations with libya while gaddafi was in office, as i was as well. as you know, he was in power for 34 years, i believe it was. we will not get involved in libya unless the libyan people decide, which i hope they will, to have a democratic election or choose a new government, in which case the carter center would be in the forefront of offering our services to help monitor the election. my hope and expectation is as long as you sort of like, is to have the hope, the prayer that we can find peace for israel and its neighbors. it will always be my top international priority and my hope and expectation is that the carter center will play a major role, which will have to be flexible, of course, to accommodate the changes taking place that we can anticipate in

the arab world, predictably following the so-called arab spring. as i answered earlier, if there is an opportunity to help in syria, we will do so, without interfering otherwise. if egypt will let us come in, we will be there. we will be there anyway in a small way. we will be in tunisia next month, and we would be glad to help another way. we do not have any close relationship with our own government, which, as you know, will not deal with the palestinian issue and has basically withdrawn from any role in bringing peace to the middle east, but even if our own government does not do so, the carter center will make a major effort to bring peace to the middle east, yes. [applause] >> knowing all of the things that the two of you have done in your life, is there anything left for you to accomplish? [laughter]

>> we complained about an airplane once, and they told us that they have given us a free flight anywhere we want to go in the world, and we have never been into fiji. [laughter] i do not know whether we will take them up on that or not. >> we were returning from china and her seat would not go back and forth on @ plan and my overhead light would not come on, so when i got back, i wrote it little hand written note and said -- to the president of delta and said that i was not complaining, but i know he would want to meet future customers as happy as we have been, so he wrote me a nice letter back and said that we had

a free trip. i will have to get permission from john to take off. he has let me off a couple of months now to get my knee back in shape. one of the things we continue to do is raise our rapidly expanding family. we have four children, 12 grandchildren, six great- grandchildren, so we have a long way to go in consummating that reproductive effort we have made in the world. [laughter] >> i think we need to look at the schedule. president carter, tell us about the time you first realize you were in love with mrs. carter. >> well -- our personal friends probably know this, so i will be brief. i was a midshipman in the naval academy home on christmas leave,

and i was getting ready to be the first glassman, senior. i had known rosalyn since she was 1 year old, at which time i lived in the house next door to her and i was four years old. i used to peep through the cradle at rosa lying there, i presume. then, my family moved out, and i basically knew her through a friend of my youngest sister, but i never did dream of dating her because i was much older than she was. [laughter] on the next-to-last night of my vacation from the naval academy, i was dating the prettiest girl within 30 miles -- the naval academy uniform really paid off for me -- but her family had a family reunion and she could not go out with

me. so i was cruising around with my sister and her boyfriend looking for a date, and rosa was in front of the methodist church, and i asked her for a blind date, and she said okay and went with me. i will not describe the evening, but the next morning, i went into the kitchen when my mother was cooking, and she asked me how my neck was the i told her i was on a date. she asked what i thought her, and i said, "she is the one i am going to marry." next february, she came to the naval academy to visit with me, and i asked her to marry me, and she said no. [laughter] from february until may, she

dated every available boy in central county. finally, my uniform paid off and she said yes. we were married over 65 years ago. we have grown to love and know each other more every day, i would say. [applause] >> that is right. i was very young. [laughter] this was during the war. i was going to georgia southwestern college, and the only two young men in college who did not qualify to go to war -- so i was going with all

of these men, and i did not go with any of them. >> i was a better choice than two other people. [laughter] >> mrs. carter, are you pleased or discouraged by the degree to which americans and citizens of other countries are understanding depression and other mental health disorders? >> if that is true, i would be very pleased, but i am not sure it is true that other people know what depression is and our understanding it. many countries do not have any kind of mental health system here the liberian one was one psychiatrist in the whole country, no psychiatric nurses peer the psychiatric nurses we have trained have to be nurses to start with, and then we put

them through the training. i long for the day when people understand that mental illness is -- i started to say like other illnesses, but we have learned that the stigma against depression and anxiety disorders is going down a little bit, but the polls show that the stigma against schizophrenia, particularly, and the severe mental illnesses is even getting worse in this country, in our country. not much, but it is getting a little bit worse. this was a study done by columbia university and indiana university, i think.

it is not totally getting worse, but it is in some places. i think that because people are learning, and we are telling them that it is like any other illness and it is a disorder of the brain, and then they are afraid of a brain disorder. so we are trying to decide on how to pitch a stigma, and the journalists educating people and writing balanced reports are very helpful in that, but i long for the day when everybody except mental illness as a disease like any other. whennk that's -- that somebody with a mental illness goes to the doctor, and they are diagnosed, that almost always leave without hope for a better life, and i believe that is changing a little bit. i think they have always been

told they will have to live with it and maybe they can control it with medication or something, but i think that is beginning to change a little bit. now we know that recovery is possible. mental health treatment is beginning to be, instead of just controlling, moving toward the strength that people have and giving people with mental illness hope that they can have a better future. we're working now for more community centers and integrated care where everybody goes for any kind of illness, and i think that will do as much to overcome stigma as anything. i think if people in the community see everybody going -- people with mental illness raising families, going to work every day and going to the doctor just when they need help, they will get to know the

people and they will not have that fear factor so much, which i think is what holds back lifting of stigma. i think it is the greatest barrier. but i would be delighted. >> i think the fact is the western europeans are probably ahead of us. i would think that we would come next. the japanese that are fairly affluent have not made much progress on mental health, and the chinese are beginning to get interested in it more. but it is third world countries in which the carter center works mostly, they have practically no concept of successful treatment of mental illness. i would say the world [inaudible] >> childhood obesity is a major help challenge in the united states. what have you seen to be the

situation in the rest of the world? >> not as bad, primarily because people do not have food to feed. if you go to, say, north korea -- i was there not too many months ago -- you would not see a fat person in north korea except maybe the leader of north korea. he is a little bit plump. but people walking down the street i like they used to be in georgia in the 1930's where their overalls were very loose and you could not even see where the tummy was. but nowadays, everywhere in this country, obesity is becoming a crisis. there was a special program last night on television about the rapid increase of diabetes in the world becoming one of the most prevalent killers of people on earth, primarily because of obesity.

this is plainly in the rich world where people have access of food to eat and eat the wrong kinds of foods, and i think this is something that will have to be addressed may be but just a concentration of health education. as we experienced in the late 1970's, concerning the smoking of cigarettes. >> this question is to rosalynn. was it true that president carter won the thermostat set at 68 degrees in the white house during the energy crisis in the 1970's? i was in the sixth grade at the time living in new york city and was very concerned you were not warm enough in that big old house. >> you were right. and i think it was 65. [laughter] when we first got to the white house, i would go out the back

door. my office was in the east wing. go in the door, go upstairs to my office. when we left home, it was 9 degrees. it was a cold winter. i did that for about two weeks. one day, i was on the elevator, and the usher told me to go downstairs and go over to the building. he took me down. we went down -- all kinds of things down there. paint shops and electrical shops and bomb shelter. he took me down, and it had these big pipes -- steam pipes. it was so warm. [laughter] it was the only time i got warm. i will tell you one other funny thing -- there was a maid at the white house that felt sorry for

me, and she brought me some underwear, some drawers that i could wear like long johns except they were not long. >> we don't need to get too personal. [laughter] >> president carter, tell us about your role with the elders and how your work with the carter center has influenced them. >> almost four years ago, nelson mandela and his wife and some others focused on the elders, and they decided that they would take -- you might say political has-beens, people who had played pop -- prominent roles in the world -- and bring them together in order to cooperate on different issues.

the former president of brazil is one. a former president of ireland is one. the former president of finland is one. the former secretary general of nations is one. so there are 10 of us. nelson mandela is no longer active. we meet a couple of times a year and we address major issues that we believe that incumbent politicians are not willing to address. i would say that on the middle east situation, for instance, the elders are giving me 100% on the same approach to the middle east, the same concern about palestinian rights as the carter center does. it is a very loose knit organization. one of the things they promised us was we would never have to raise money. so we have a group of sponsors or advisers or counselors.

they provide all the money for the elders. we have a very wonderful and fairly rapidly growing staff located in london. we address issues of that kind. for instance, the last time i went to north korea, the elders went with me. this is something that a lot of incumbent politicians would not do, go to north korea. i think you can see a bigger advantage to it. we are still exploring different ways to serve, and i have been gratified at how closely the elders have worked with me, in compatibility with the carter center. >> what advice do you have for president obama on how to deal with the congressional issues related to the economy? >> well he is effective in a way that i was not. when i was present, i had a very

wonderful working relationship with both democrats and republicans, and we had a better batting average with the congress than any other president since the second world war, accept lyndon johnson was a little bit better than i was, but i work very closely with moderate and conservative democrats. some of the liberal spirit i worked closely with republicans as well appear the people i had trouble with were the very liberal democrats who the last couple of years were supporting senator ted kennedy, who wanted to run for president against me. i had a good working relationship with them. i think now, though, he is faced with a very difficult problem, with which all of you are familiar. there is one major difference between him and me as far as governing is concerned. when i had a major task to face as a president, with energy or with education, a new education department or things of that kind, the environment, i drafted

all the legislation in the white house with a very wonderful staff, and we would bring in the top leaders in the congress, but democrats and republicans, of that particular committee to work with us on writing the legislation. then we set up a new department of education. by the time we presented the legislation to the congress, the key leaders in the committees were already familiar with it and were basically supportive. obviously, congress changed the things that we propose. they always did. if they changed it to much, i would threaten to veto it or actually veto the bills. the other thing is that i was very deeply involved in the actual drafting of the legislation and i could take what i proposed to the public on television and speaking around the country and try to get the public to back me and overcome

the opposition that developed in the congress. this is not something that president obama has ever done until last week. when he got ready for the health program, he said let congress draft it, see what comes out, and we will work with it, and five different committees worked on the program, and it turned out to be the lowest common denominator of all of them. it is still very unpopular in the country, as you know. last week, he came up with a program to put people back to work. now he is going different places every day to sell his program, and i think that is the right way to approach the presidency. to use that dynamic " that of the white house, but also to take your proposal directly to the people and try to convince them that it is the right thing and let them convince the republican or democratic congress members who are recalcitrant. that is the only advice i would

give, and i think he has already done that on his own initiative, not because of me. take it directly to the public and try to override opposition by convincing the american people that his proposal is better than what congress is proposing. >> after 65 years of marriage, what advice could you give young couples to sustain a commitment made with great sincerity? and mrs. carter, how have you carve out your own path over the years while still maintaining this strong marriage? >> i think the best way to keep a marriage together is to give your partners based -- for me to give jimmy space and for him to give me space. we learned that late in our marriage. [laughter] whenever had thought about it before until we came home from the white house.

it was the first time we had been together all day every day, and it was difficult at first, but we learned and it worked. i do my things. he does his things. we do our things together, and it is good. another thing we do is we have been kind of isolated at times like when jimmy was governor. when he was president, you do not have friends to call on. you have some and you have a good time with your close friends, but lots of times we are together looking for something to do, and we started -- jimmy taught me to play tennis. he was a champion tennis player in high school. never read his father. [laughter] the things we do, we do together, like fly-fishing, bird watching, riding bikes. there's things we do together, and i think we just have a good

relationship together. >> i would say initially, giving each other space. we tried to resolve our differences before we go to sleep at night. [laughter] it does not always work. for a long time in our marriage, we would carry over an argument for several days. even longer sometimes. but i think making that commitment to at least try to communicate with each other and give each other plenty of space to develop your own independent life, sharing what you have in common -- those are three simple but very important roles. >> has a returned peace corps volunteer, i am concerned about the future of the peace corps. what do you think of its future? >> i think it has a good future. i have been working very closely with key members of congress, even in the last few months and weeks, writing letters to try to

sustain budgeting funds for the peace corps. i believe there is such a great need and so many supporters of the peace corps, including past volunteers, and i believe that the peace corps has a very good future. this is one of the areas of life that has been developed in our country that i believe is so good that it has a life of its own almost and has bipartisan support. my outlook is very positive. >> how did you mark the anniversary of september 11? >> we stayed at home, went to church. our church is a close-knit, small congregation. we prayed for the families of those who suffered and pray that our country was as peaceful as

possible and also to preserve civil rights and human rights, and we just observed it quietly but with sadness of the loss, and hope that our country will build on the tragedy of 9/11 to become once again the most admired and revered country on earth because of its commitment to the basic things that have always made us stronger. that is peace, justice -- i would say freedom, democracy. and alleviate the suffering. those are the things that made our country great. that was our prayer after 9/11. >> you mentioned the elections in nicaragua. could you speak to your history with daniel ortega? >> one of the first elections we

ever monitored was one there was a war orchestrated by president reagan. remember the iran-contra scandal and the sort of thing? the military forces were being financed by the u.s. government, so the carter center were invited in to monitor the out come and make sure it was fair and honest and it was. they were looked upon as the major favorites and lost the election, and they were so over confident that they were not willing to accept the outcome of the election. so i met with all the leaders in the middle of the night and finally induced ortega to accept the results, and that took him to see his major component, and

they embraced and agreed to accept the results of the election. two more times in the future, we were invited to monitor elections in nicaragua. ortega lost both times appeared in the last election they had that we monitored, he finally won. i would say that basically, the election was fair and honest. they are facing another election soon, and i was hoping we could go down there and monitor again, but we have had some difficulty in getting the nicaraguan government to give us unlimited access to all the aspects of the election process. at the last moment, they have come forward with some pretty good promises, but it may be too late for us to get involved. we will be there in some form, still dealing with a very unique and difficult, partially successful character named

daniel ortega. [laughter] i have known him fairly enough. thank you. >> what is your opinion about the possible outcome of the recent efforts and requests of the palestinians for statehood? >> we support this move very strongly. my hope is that the united nations will recognize the state code of palestine. it is the same avenue that the israelis took leading up to 1948 when israel was accepted by the united nations as a political entity that should be recognized. the inevitability is that the united states will veto this effort in the united nations security council, but the palestinians now plan to take their effort both to the security council, probably, but certainly to the general

assembly where all the members of the united nations have a chance to vote. my guess is that the palestinians will get 140 or 150 nations who will vote for their becoming a state. this will not change the occupation of palestine by the israelis, and it will just make -- if the united states does veto the security council, then they will not become a fully recognized member of the united nations, but they will become an unofficial recognized observer, and this would give them certain access to membership in international organizations, and it would be a step forward. i would not be in favor of this if the united states had put forward any sort of comprehensive peace proposal. as president obama has announced on two major occasions, one a freeze on all

israeli settlements inside palestine, and also, based on the 1967 borders -- if the united states had put forward that proposal as a basis for negotiation, then both the palestinians and the carter center would be in favor of peace talks based on those two issues, but the israelis are not willing to accept those proposals, and president obama is not willing to make that effort. so as an alternative to a deadlock and a stalemate now, we reluctantly would support the palestinian move for recognition, at >> one final question. what can you and the carter center do to help educate the members of congress on working in developing countries with respect for individuals rather than going in with a heavy hand?

>> practically nothing. [laughter] i don't think congress is receptive to any advice from the carter center. but i maintain a very close relationship to key members of congress. i was talking yesterday to one of the house members who has been trying to negotiate the release of someone being held by hamas. this past week, i also talked to senator john kerry from the foreign relations committee. i maintain a contact with key members of the house and senate. they contact me to figure out what the carter center is doing in different countries. we maintain a very close effort to inform members of congress when we do something we believe

is important that relates to foreign assistance or the work of the state department or sometimes even the defense department. when i returned from north korea on my last trip, i brought back and offer from a four-star general who is in charge of the military forces in north korea. he invited the united states to come over there with full cooperation of the north koreans to search for the remains of u.s. military people who died and were buried in north korea. when we have something like that to bring back, we have that kind of contact either with the administration, congress, or the white house. but those are of minor importance in shaping the policies or the attitude in washington.

i write editorials in the newspaper, which i am sure some of them read. i had an editorial published today dealing with the question we just got about the reason for our support of the palestinian movement in the united nations. after this takes place, calling on the international community, that this the international quartet for the end -- where the united states is a leader and the united nations and european union and russia is involved. they put forward a proposal based on the withdrawal of israel from the occupied territory based on the 1967 border. that is an editorial i published today. but to answer your question, i think the impact of our voice in congress in fact -- is very minimal. >> jennifer goes to congress and

briefs people, our people are working with the various committees. a lot of them ask for our people to come because they know we know a lot about different areas in the world. we do a lot of that. >> and with the state department. >> and with the state department. >> if you would please remain at your seats while the carters' leave, please join me in thanking president and mrs. carter for a lovely evening. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> i want to thank you for being here tonight, but i also want to thank you for your support. it is so important to us. we need your help, we have a lot of volunteers to come.

we need volunteers, but we particularly need your support for our programs. we could not do what we do without you. we consider you all partners and we're very grateful for your support. [applause] >> more white house coverage coming up this evening. david axelrod, the president's senior campaign strategist spoke today in manchester, new hampshire about the campaign. he says we have the wind in our face because the american people have the wind in their faces. you can see that tonight at 8:00 on c-span. after that, the governor of new jersey is delivering the keynote address at the perspectives on leadership forum at the ronald reagan presidential library and museum. he was invited to give that speech by former first lady,

nancy reagan. we will have that speech live at 9:00 eastern here on c-span. the house and senate are basically out this week. the house is returning on thursday to wrap up on at least a short-term continuing resolution spending measure. here is an update. what broke the impasse on disaster aid? >> i think it was the deadline. without further action by congress and the house, without further action by congress, the government would run out of money this coming friday. it was time to make a deal and the senate's leaders, the

bipartisan leaders, senator harry reid and mitch mcconnell, the minority leader for the republicans reached an agreement to continue funding for the government for another several weeks and then the senate quickly approved last night. now it will go to the house which is expected to approve it, though there might be some complications in the next few days. >> when will the house approved a short-term measure and get to the long term measure? >> we are talking about two separate bills. the short-term bill would extend for four days from october 1st, which is the start of the fiscal year, this saturday. it will extend until the following tuesday. the second bill would extend for another seven weeks until november 18th, just before thanksgiving. in theory, the house could pass the seven week bill and the four-day bill would become a

moot point. but the point is the house will take up the four-day bill when it meets this thursday, the day after tomorrow, in what had been scheduled to be a pro forma session. it will remain a pro forma session in that the four-day continuing resolution to keep the government operating, that bill is expected to pass by unanimous consent, meaning there will be no objection and there will perhaps be brief statements. but there will not be roll call votes. we should point out that when a bill comes out by unanimous consent, as is the plan for the four-day bill this thursday, under those circumstances, any member of the house, any one member can object and that would be the end. the bill would not be able to be taken up that day, in which case, since the government is

about to run out of money, the house leaders, republican leaders, would have to come up with a new plan. the house would probably come into session friday or over the weekend to make sure to pass this four-day bills and keep the government operating. while there is an expectation all this will be taken care of quickly, expediently on thursday, there is no guarantee. run out of won't money? >> assuming the staff -- there would be the money for fema, and the seven-week bill would have money for fema and the rest of the government. >> what does this whole exercise and debate say about congress's ability to come to agreement on $1.2 trillion in cuts by the deficit reduction committee? >> we've been reminded nothing is easy in this congress. as you and your viewers know, we

have a democratic-controlled senate and republican-controlled house. each of them serbs its prerogatives. we have a democratic president at the white house has its own interests. the republicans were elected last year and took control of the house and wanted to make change. they take every opportunity to deliver on their promises and that -- the democrats often object and we have seen on this debate on the continuing resolution, including the money for disaster assistance, that is often a problem to move any thing. therefore, the $1.2 trillion deficit reduction bill is going to be tough. >> you can read his work at

cq.com, thank you for the update. >> the house is back on thursday, expected to pass by unanimous consent a short-term continuing resolution. we will have live coverage of the house on thursday at 11:00 eastern. >> he founded several labor unions and represented the socialist party of america as a candidate for president, running five times, the last time from prison. eugene debs lost, but he changed political history. he is one of the 14 men featured in "the contenders" friday at 8:00 eastern. get a preview and watch some of our other videos at our special website for the series. >> next, a discussion on the prospects for agreement within the doing deficit reduction committee. the panel's task was finding it

least $1.2 trillion dollars in deficit reductions by november 23rd with automatic spending cuts triggered if congress fails to pass their recommendations by december 23rd. this is from today's "washington journal." >> they are doing a pretty good job on that and getting a briefing on alternatives and options. finally, there is a very close relationship in every case with the leadership in the house and senate and those three members.

host: howdahs politics enter into the mission to cut spending? guest: the first thing we did in 1985, all of the big deals that were done between republicans and democrats, was we got to know each other and we got to learn to trust each other. that maybe the most important thing this select committee has to do it the beginning. host: how much is going to be affected by president obama needing to see revenues and john boehner talking not no tax increases? guest: in both cases, they are reiterating what they have insisted upon for some time now. i think the views have hardened a little bit and there are three things related to that. first, what do you do with the president's jobs program?

does the joint committee have to offset it or address it? number two, they are running out of time. when you run out of time, you try to take the low hanging fruit and there's not a lot of it there. that reduces the number of options you have there. host: what is the time frame? >> ahead of the congressional budget office says he needs everything before the last week of october as they expect to get a score by november 23rd. host: is $1.2 trillion is the figure, where are they looking as far as cuts. guest: there are two kind of pessimistic ways to look at this.

this includes everything from the biden commission, and other people that they could take a look at. if you look really, really hard and do all of this, you get to about $1.3 trillion. if you aren't going to raise taxes at all and you are not going to deal with medicare or medicaid in structural terms, another $1.2 trillion is very difficult. > guest: changing the consumer

price index from the way we calculate it now, it also raises revenue. that's one of the reasons both sides don't like it. there are ways to do it, it's just extremely difficult. host: you can ask him questions by calling us at the numbers on your screen. for those ideas you were listing, what works best for you? guest: what works best in never never land is that they make real changes to the underlying structure of entitlements and take on real tax reform, closing most of the loopholes we have now and lowering the rates for individuals and corporations and come out with a tax code that at least moderately understandable to the average educated citizen.

when tim geithner could not do his taxes in the right way and he's the secretary of treasury and a very bright man, that tells you how complicated the code is. what we have recommended is support for medicare, understand more about medicaid's role in the state, a separate state and federal responsibilities, and simplify dramatically the tax code. if you do that, you can get the deficit close to balanced eventually. more important, you can get our national debt, which is increasing as a percentage of gross domestic product every year to 60% or less which is a pretty sustainable level. host: other administrations have talked out changing the tax code. do you see anything different coming from this one? guest: i do not. when you look at what tax reform means and two were three of the biggest elements in these loopholes are mortgage interest deductions, charitable

deductions, the high and cadillac health care plans, and there is a tax exemption for them, you look at state and local tax exemptions, all the sudden, i put together realtors, governors, and philanthropists and all sorts of organizations that hate the idea. host: so the committee looks at these or not? >guest: i think they decide not to look at these. i think what they will do because of all sorts of complicated things thrown at their played in the last minute, they will be hard-pressed to find a $1.2 trillion. host: our first call is from new jersey, on the democrats' line.

caller: it's sad we're talking about grown men who need to get to know one another before they come to an agreement. these are supposedly educated people. there are not teenagers. they should not have to sit and get to know one another before they decide important business like this. in the end, we all know it's going to happen. they're just going to end up cutting everything by percentage just like they did in england because obviously these people cannot -- they are so concerned with the way they appear to the world that it is impossible for them to come to any consensus. that's my comment. thank you very much. guest: last point is an extremely important point you make. yes, they are concerned how they looked to the world. there is a competing interests here. if they wish to keep faith with

the caucus, whether democratic or republican, which has great power over these men and women, that i think you'll be pessimistic in your outlook. but if in fact, as the gentleman says, the want to really look good to ratings agencies, to market participants, to citizens of the united states, to people who look to america for leadership around the globe, then they will take a larger view of their responsibilities and can do more. our hope has always been that media pressure, public pressure would increase the possibility that joint committee would do more than we expect it to do. i still believe that. i believe if the rating agency says you are on watch with negative implications, this will have impact. if you are one of the 12 that failed country and we have a negative market reaction, that

will have some influence. without public pressure, the gentleman is right and it will fall back into their old habits. host: what is the transparency in the work of the committee? guest: so far, not much. they've only had one meeting. they had public -- other than from the congressional budget office. host: arlington, va., you are on the line. caller: 5 like to quote larry briquette who wrote the coming economic earthquake, 1993. the time is approaching when the government can no longer fund its overspending without destroying the business base of america. when that time comes, there will be few options available other than the printing of more money. every nation that has gone this

route has sparked hyperinflation that eventually wiped out the middle class. i think we are at that point right now. it seems like our elected officials don't understand economics at all. hopefully, we will get somebody up there that has some common sense and has a business mind. only thingibly the that can save us. guest: there is a growing uncertainty about the ability of the west, not just the united states, to govern its affairs. we all know what is happening in europe. we all know that is far from solved. it was believed america would lead the way, that if the greeks would not do any kind of austerity and all, if they had no plan or italy had no plan, don't worry, the united states would come up with an intelligent plan. we have not done so.

we've had lots of suggestions. i work for the bipartisan policy center and i like what we have done, but there have another good suggestions. the gang of six, recommendations from the congressional budget office, every year they put out two volumes. the president's commission, there is not a lack of ideas. there is not a lack of ability. this special committee has tremendous power, more may be that any other committee in the history of congress. the problem is they may not choose to use it for many of the reasons that were just cited. we are spending an enormous amount of money. we are going through the most prolonged time of joblessness since the great depression. i was here in 1982 and was chief of staff of the budget committee in the senate. we topped out at 10.8%

unemployment during that time. we rapidly went from 10.8% down to 6.4% and everyone felt the recovery. people were getting jobs, businesses were hiring. we don't have that kind of energy right now in this economy. people are not hiring. businesses are doing exactly what you think they do -- they're saving their money and putting away rainy day fund. banks don't lend because they don't know what the regulations will be. there are structural problems, but if you could get back to what politicians are doing, i think they don't believe the american people are as down on congress as they are. i poll data every week and i'm lucky have been in politics for a long time and so pollster's share things with me. it's amazing to me how much congress suffered a black guy over the debt ceiling fiasco. -- suffered a black guy over the

debt ceiling fiasco. they are saying those guys don't know what they're doing. >> what is the effectiveness of putting this kind of work to a committee? >> it has done one thing for sure. it has made 400 members of the house, approximately 94 members of the senate jealous. if you go up on the hill and talk to people privately, the power of this committee is already making people nervous who are not on the committee. when do we get chance to participate? when do we have a say over when you are a ways and means committee member? it seems to me it will be very difficult unless there is an immense show of bravery based on these relationships. if i jump off of this cliff, will you jump off with me?

if i do medicaid, will you do taxes? host: and they can't do that until they see a document. guest: and they don't have a document yet. caller: i used to work [unintelligible] each congress cannot bind the future congress. that's a problem. i have a suggestion. in world war one and world war two, why don't we issue a new bond call patriotic debt reduction bonds and only u.s. citizens can buy them. this way, you save money that will flow out the money market funds to pay off the chinese and india. then buy it back and make it tax free for u.s. investors. what do you make of that?

guest: that is a good idea. the buy america bonds which are no longer in effect, while they were not completely tax free, there are very popular and did a fair amount of good. the notion of patriotic bonds, build america bonds, by america bonds is a good idea. it seems to me that it's very difficult in a time of such gross indebtedness for the country -- we were just barely able to continue the federal tax on gasoline that pays for our highway construction. that happened at the last minute. it was going to expire at the end of this month. we now have a temporary extension for six months and that shows you how weary people are doing almost anything in congress right now, let alone something innovative. host: a comment from twitter --

the best thing that could happen is they fail to come to agreement. guest: i agree. i don't agree that not coming to an agreement is good, but the across-the-board cuts, the so- called sequester, across-the- board cuts that might occur in january of 2013 if the joint select committee doesn't act, those cuts verge on really counterproductive for this country. many parts of legislation are exempt from the sequestered. defense would take a hit that even the most dovish members of the administration would find difficult to accept. certainly, it is -- it has bipartisan opposition already. but there is a problem of the joint committee doesn't act. that is not that this sequester will go into effect, but just like we saw 25 years ago, did discipline would be too tough

and congress will ignore it or change it. i think the great danger here is the joint select committee doesn't do something that then nothing will be done and the sequester in january 2013, no matter who is president, who runs the congress will in fact go by the wayside and not be enforced. donations to campaign contributions -- for the super committee, max baucus was the biggest recipient of financial sector money, collecting $6.2 million. -- host: how does that shade their discussions? guest: i've seen a variety of

ethics rules and regulations. i worked for a senator who got a lot of money from the energy industry. the reason he did was because when he was elected was very pro domestic energy. i think to draw a they got this money, therefore they have done it this way is a little bit backwards. what happens is, they have certain views in many cases and because those views draw the sympathy or support of groups, the groups want to get them reelected. i am not nighties. it does happen a lot of money makes a difference, but if you look at 12 people on the super committee, almost none of them are in electoral trouble. they come from safe districts or states or they are not coming back. you can't make to be a good case they're being bought and sold or beyond their natural philosophical inclinations.

host: our guest is a from the bipartisan committee and was on the senate budget -- senate staff budget committee. our next call is from texas, on the independent line. caller: thank you for taking my call. i would like to make a comment on exactly what i think is going on or what i see it is going on. number one, on the super committee you were just talking about, the gentleman from south carolina, cliburn, he said they don't have to abide by the constitution of the united states. i have called every senator and every congressman and the governor of texas appear and i have told him that in two years,

i can have anywhere from one to 5 million jobs here in the united states of america, but no one will even think about returning my call. all i get is an answering service. i can triple the economy. it's not hard to do. but i would like a reply on why nobody will even try to talk to a normal, average, everyday citizen. guest: i think there is a lot of frustration and a gentleman is right in one respect, when you try to get a hold of your senator and congressman and say which please listen to me? i am working person, i did not go to harvard and i'm not the head of ibm or the head of ge, but can you do a favor and listen to me? this has always been a problem for most members of congress and the house, is pretty poor. it is pretty rote, and one of

the reasons is they are so swamped by e-mail, twitter and snail mail. but the larger point of what is happening to the joint select committee is important to keep in mind. the staff is trying to insulate these members away from outside forces. we did that when we did reconciliation in 1981. we did it in 1985. do is make sure the information gets to the members and is usable and digestible, but is not tainted by any outside influence, whether it is money or ideology. in response to the notion of constitutionality, i don't know what james cliburn says, but i can tell you this special committee is bound by the constitution, and of discussion. host: who is responsible for making sure the committee gets that unbiased information?

guest: staff. you have a good staff director, he's done a lot of work behind the scenes with both parties in both chambers. so the staff is very good there. but remember this -- the staff is under tremendous pressure because of the short amount of time this group has. to do anything significant, you have to take a two-stage approach. you find 1.2 trillion and then you take the section in a law that created the committee and order the other committees of congress over the next six months to do fundamental tax reform, do medicare, medicaid, and other entitlement changes. you can do that. one thing people seem not to realize, especially in this town where we are insulated, millions of people around the

globe are watching. we have already been told by fitch and movies that they will join standard and poor's and downgrading united states sovereign debt if we continue to fail to make any progress on the debt or deficit front. we have been told that. s&p told us at -- s&p told us in april of people were shocked when they followed through. the person who made the decision that standard and poor's said very bluntly for five times during the summer, we are not kidding. you are on watch with negative implications and everyone said no my goodness they downgraded us. we're being told by don't world marketplace and ratings agencies and everyone else, we are watching you. if you think it's just going back home to ohio and getting reelected in ohio or to texas and getting reelected, you are wrong. this is a much bigger game with much broader stakes than you may

realize. host: does the $1.2 trillion include the expiration of the bush tax cuts and spending on the war? guest: that is a dispute going on right now. it's a baseline dispute and anybody rational does not want to a engage in that. the bottom line is they will have their work scored by the congressional budget office on what is the current law base line. if they do not do anything, the sequester will be carried out by the office of management and budget. 50% from defense. 50% from non-defense programs that are not exempt. that will be done on the current base line. they can play a lot of games inside the committee, but what they cannot do is ignore the law, which is the congressional budget office is going to score the product. that's the safeguard most americans can depend on. host: our next call is from new york on the republican line.

caller: i'd like to follow up on a previous callers comment. i would also like to know how do our elected officials function when trust amongst each other is not a primary decision making factor? the other thing i would like to know is, if that is the case and no one trusts each other, how is it allocated? is it trustor distressed? -- trust or distrust? guest: i worked for a firm on wall street that no longer exists. if you were a bond trader and said i will take $10 billion at one over and hung up the phone, you just made a deal. if you broke that deal, no one would ever deal with you again

anywhere on wall street. in that particular case, you had a reinforcement of trust, which is he knows he has to carry out what he's doing. if he breaks his word, he will lose his job and he will never be welcome back on the street again. in don't have that situation congress. people run individually, they run separate from their parties, the influence of 527s and other money has swamped individual money most candidates raise. individual trust, where we jump off together or where you slip your hand out of mind when i jumped is extremely important. i give you an example. we were not supposed to be able to make a deal in 1990. clinton ran the white house, republicans ran the senate, yet the chairman of the budget committee showed up at andrews air force base everyday. president bush showed up every

day and we worked out a deal. in 1997, we worked out a balanced budget agreement with clinton. the reason was you do a guy like bob dole or howard baker, if he said it, you could trust, based upon your knowledge of him and his history. but if you have never met and you are from washington state and the other guys from central texas, and you never even met each other, it's hard to believe you're going to hold hands when you jump off this building together. i think socialization is extremely important, whether it's important of to overcome the almost tribal strength of the caucuses, where if you do something different, you are not part of us, you are a traitor, i don't know. that is the fight now psychologically. it sounds very crude, but what

is more painful -- is a more painful to fail in public and the blame for something bad happening or is it more painful to go against the dictates of their caucus? host: is trust is the key factor, relate that to the senators here. >> they need to know each other. i know them both and they are both good people. they're both very different people. one thing that has cropped up is that patty murray is the chair of the democratic campaign committee. her job is to defeat republicans. chris van hollaen is the democratic chairman of the house cited his job is to defeat republicans. you have to overcome that serious mutual distrust to begin with. whether it can be done, i don't

know. the stakes are very big in 2012. republicans have the big cudgeled call tax and spend. democrats have the cudgel of you are going to push granny off a cliff and republicans are terrible people. they don't want to give up those clubs because they're so much at stake in their view in 2012 in the elections. but one question i have always have and i am fortunate to work with people like baker, is what are you going to govern over? when you win the election and your rating has been downgraded and people have to divest themselves of their holdings because they cannot hold non- aaa-rated paper, what are you going to say to them? what are you going to govern over? host: flint, mich., you are next.

caller: i'm very impressed and i want to give you more information, ammunition on your request. ami -- argentina was that tend wealthiest nation 100 years ago. bad politicians, huge debt, excessive regulations and socialist tendencies destroyed the country. we are doing the same thing. we have had 20 recessions in the 1900's until now. each took about a year or year and have to clear themselves out. only one went into a depression. that one, we threw money at. what are we doing now? we are repeating history everywhere. thank you. guest: that is historically accurate. this is a very unusual recovery. if you want to call the recovery. george soros opined, and he is rich in of to opine what

everyone's, that we are back in a double dip recession trade i don't think the figures yet show that, but there's no doubt governments in the west are under tremendous stress right now. the politicians are not meeting the challenge. you have to ask yourself, whether was bill clinton on -- remember, he took some challenges with his base and met them head-on. whether it was ronald reagan or bush number one, you have to ask yourself, are these a group of people serious enough to understand that it can happen here or are a day -- is any of this getting through, or is there an inertia, let's kick the can down the road attitude? i think there is such a split ideologically in our government right now that it's extremely difficult for centrists to

survive unless the leadership -- john boehner, nancy pelosi, much mcconnell, harry reid, are willing to stand up and say this has gone on long enough. we really do need to do something. like the congressional budget office says, we are headed toward a cliff. if we don't deal with social security, medicare, and medicaid now. five years from now, 10 years from now, the changes will be extremely painful, abrupt and expensive. host: a comment from twittered says it's impossible to raise the long-term debt unless you balance the budget. guest: that is true. we have -- i wish i could say our goal is to balance the budget every year. we find that to be a political illusion. our debt is a percentage of gdp.

for the last 40 years, it has been less than 40%. it's only in recent years we have seen it climbed 60%, 70%, 80%. some people say we're at 100% now and there is a fight among economists that is relatively arcane. the fact is we are entering dangerous territory. we say let's get it down to 60% of gdp. that's not great, but it is a level we think is sustainable. it is a level the international monetary fund and other organizations have said is fairly healthy. i don't want anyone to be under any illusions. demographics and the programs we put into place structurally cannot be paid for in the future with out enormous indebtedness, continued devaluation of the dollar, or eventually not doing much else

other than paying people their pensions, their health care bills and stuff like that. in the next 10 years, we're getting close to our interest payments and entitlements will do almost all the spending for the government. host: a call from arkansas on the republican line. caller: i believe very few politicians in the past and in the present have put country over their personal ones. i will give you an example -- johnson was one. he took the money is out of the social security fund and put them in the general fund. he did not do that for the american people. he did not do that for the country. he did that for one thing -- to make his books look better. so he could get a vote. the politicians have done that in the past and that's why we

are at. the gentleman from michigan was right. we are like argentina. we are like greece. there are very few people -- some of the tea party people, they are not the only responsible people up there now i can see. there are a few others, but most of them could care less. they want a vote and they will do anything for a vote. for me, that has been the saddest thing to sit and watch for 78 years. guest: will rogers said there is only one in her early criminal class in america and that was the politicians. the sentiments we hear today are not new sentiments, but they've taken on an edge and a banker we haven't seen in the last 30 or 40 years. americans are afraid, all they're afraid they're going to lose their jobs or lose their homes. you are a 45-rolled man who has done everything right, you have

done everything and lose your job, there's a good chance you are not going to be rehired for that job. somebody younger will get that job if and when a becomes available because the company will save money. we are creating a class of people, long-term unemployed, that we have not had since the '30's in this country. there is this fear and anger and edgy as you hear expressed from a lot of people around the country. the only thing i can say is this. there are acts of leadership that do occur. while he was not an elected official, no one would argue paul volcker did not show tremendous leadership when he battled inflation. he also had the help of ronald reagan and help of a congress that said ok, we're trying to cut deficits and get spending under control. it was not a deal made 141.

-- mayone for one. if we'd do this, do you expect the federal reserve to do that? one thing that want to say it will seem out of right or left field, one problem is we don't have very many veterans or people understand that kind of sacrifice in this senate or house anymore. to the extent you don't have people have seen real sacrifice, serious hardship, you don't find a lot of people who will bear relatively painful hardship. that's a larger social comment that probably does not paid -- does not play well on a show devoted to saving money. but i do find many of the people in congress different than when i started working there. worse than that, i find the antagonism among staff members

-- we used to say, you know how senators are or congressman are. but you and i have to make a deal. if i do this will you do that and will you talk your boss into it and let's get it done. now, you find a surprisingly deep ideological antagonism between senior staff and more so among junior staff. it difficult when you see a poisonous situation go down into the bowels of where people are supposed to make the ship run. if the crew starts feeling mutinous, you've got real problems underhand. i do see this ideological tensions becoming, affecting many staff members. host: memphis tennessee, the democrats' line. caller: where are all the democratic collars? i hear this man talking about

1982 when ronald reagan was in. this mcdonald's jobs they were creating. we went without a raise for 12 years. then here comes george bush who lock this on a 3% raise. how are the american people ever going to catch up in the middle class? old soldiers never die, they fade away. people like you and ronald reagan need to fade away because you caused this mess right now. guest: thank you for your comments. it is difficult to explain to the american people that its government has made promises that the government cannot keep. my brother is a disabled veteran of vietnam and he is a self- described conservative who lives in south carolina. so you get the idea.

when i said to him, bruce, we are going to have to cut back on social security, medicare, he wants a balanced budget, but he went crazy. i earned that. i left part of my leg in vietnam. i earned it. i know, but we made a promise to you we can't keep. both parties made it over 40 or 50 years. i'm here to tell you, you care about national defense or education or these things, if you care about those things, you need to know that if i keep giving you try care or i keep given new metal -- if i keep getting new medicare and medicaid, we cannot find teachers and research and infrastructure and the things we think about as basic government. we are all composite in this. the acts of cowardice, if you want to call it that, prompted by the extraordinary growth in the economy over the last 50

years has made it easy to say let's give them a 5% raise. no problem. job market is increasing, receipts are increasing. we now face a global challenge, economically that makes growth more difficult to come by. we have made promises over 40 to 50 years that we can no longer keep. that is just the truth. what do you want to do about it? it's all going to be nancy and painful. host: the final tweed is how is cutting the deficit create one job? >guest: it doesn't. what we recommended that the bipartisan institute -- all very serious people, we recommended a full payroll tax holiday both for employees and employers for the full year. that would cost about $640 billion.

facter, it's an undeniable that if you do not have growth, you do not have revenues. if you do not have revenues, it will be very difficult to balance the budget. there are three things we do -- accelerate growth, start admitting we cannot keep the promises we have made, and make the tax code rational once again. host: stephen bell what the bipartisan center, he's the executive director. you can find a link to their website c-span.org. >> of the white house coverage begins tonight with david axelrod, president obama senior campaign data strategist. he spoke today in manchester, new hampshire and we will have his comments at 8:00. then at 9:00, we will be live at the ronald reagan presidential

library where the governor of new jersey will give the keynote address at the perspectives on leadership forum. he was invited by nancy reagan. that speech is live at 9:00 here on c-span. next, a discussion on congressional redistricting. the constitution mandates a census be conducted every 10 years for apportioning seats in the house of representatives. with legal challenges popping up around the country, we spoke with a redistricting analyst. continues. host: our final segment will take a look at the topic of redistcting. our guest is tim storey. he is an analyst when it comes to redistricting. welcome. guest: you are welcome. delighted to be on the show again. this is a really good time to check in on the line-drawing

redistricting the states are going through. 19 states have completed their map. seven states only have oneeat. that is a total of six. we a over half way. the entire conversation this morning will have a giant astra it appended to it, because all of this is pending legal challenges, which are raging in a handful of states, inevitable in other states. have tor of the state's have their plan approved by the district court in washington, d.c., so we are over half way, depending on how things go with pre-clearance and how litigation turns out. host: you see it, what are the states causing the most concern and who are filing the legal charges? guest: the most high-profile

case on capitol hill and redistricting circles, because the outcome could have ramifications for all states is at texas. it is no surprise. they gave more seats in the u.s. house than any other state. when the census results came out we learned through the process that texas would be gaining four new seats. they have one of the earliest primaries of any of the states. it is scheduled for march of next year, 2012. more than a handful of states with march primaries. texas has the redistricting done very quickly reelected to the other states. it is also a section 5 states, so the plants have to be drawn d approved or pre-cleared by event the department of justice or district cot in washington, d.c., before they can become law. the legislature met and enacted

plans. they submitted them not to the department of justice, which is mewhat unusual, they submitted them to the district court in d.c. thstate has a choice in which entity gets to review the plan. there were nerous lawsuits filed against the texas congressional map. i think there were about 14. i could be wrong about that. they were a consolidated into one case in san antonio. that trial has already been held, but there is no decision. the judge in that case is waiting to see what the district court will do. what is really interesting is when the state goes for this pre-clearance and washington, the department of justice essentially becomes the plaintiff and the case. the department of justice has echoed they believe the texas not violate the voting rights in section 5. -- they believe that texas violates the voting rights in

section 5. some of the bigger states, there are a handful of states that are still to come. pennsylvania and florida are the two biggest everyone has eir eyes on. host: if y have questions about the process of redistricting, tim storey is our guest until 10:00. you can e-mail questions also at journal@cspan.org. who is gaining when it comes to the redistricting process -- republicans or democrats? guest: i am a little reluctant to say this team is winning or that team is winning. you know, you have to go to a granular announces -- anysis

of how the statesre turning out. i want to make two quick points. one is that redistricting sort of gives one party or another a head start in a congressional election, because inevitably districts will favor onearty or another. because the nature of how people vote and where people live. regardless of who draws the plan, and in some cases the maps are drawn by a commission -- in most cases they are drawn by state legislatures, but whoever draws the line, often times districts will be one way or the other. that gives the party a head start in the election. of course elections still matter. if you have to run a good can reach a campaign and raise money to get your message out. -- you have to run a good campaign and raise money to get your message out.

redistricting is one piece of that. having said that, there is a great deal of of people in this cycle of redistricting, partly because the redistricting in california where the process has changed from 10 years ago. when the map was released by the new commission that dropped the plan in california, the 14- member commission, when the plan was acted by the commission and now likely to be challenged in california, but it has been released in the plan used in the 2012 election, it pared 19 incumbents and the same district. they will not have to run against each other. many of them will wind up moving or running in other districts. you do not to live in your congressional district to run in it. you do not to be a resident of your district in congress. your opponent will point that

out. there will be a handful of incumbent versus incumbent matches in california. i think we will see a record number of incumbent verses incumbent challenges come either in the primary or gener election. host: we have a list of some of those incumbent districts. in illinois. n illinod jesse jackson jr. and illinois. -- in illinois. guest: right. what is interesting is you have to look at who drew the plan and what was the intent of the plan. another myth of redistricting is that it is all about gerrymandering and going after the other party. if you are the democrafrom the

an you will annihilate the republicans and viceersa, and that is not entirely e case. i am not naive, and i understand politics as part of this off, but the outcome of the process political. inarily a read auote the other day that said it is 100 percent political. regardless of how you approach the plan, it will be a political process. you do wind up with interesting incumbent matches. to me, the most interesting is an ohio. the plan that has not been signed by a governor as of today. it is not a final plan, but it house and senatete and hous and ohio. -- in ohio. e district is connected only

by a bridge along the northern shore -- southern shore of the northern part of the state of lake erie. that is definitely want to watch. and i also think there are some of these cases where you will see movement. none of this is final until they have to file their papers declaring their candidacy. some of the incumbent verses incumbent matchups may appear that way today, but could well be resolved because someone will decide i have represented the majority of this district, evenhough i do not live here anymore, maybe it is time for me to move. sometimes when your company you, you have to move your family, and members of congress will do that as well. host: first calller from georgia. good morning. go ahead. caller: good morning.

please do not cut me off. my comment is this -- it is 100 percent political i have no question it is. i go back to the year when [inaudible] it is a political move. it is to shake up the support that the democratic power took over. basically what i am asking is how is that they are changing -- like before we had early votin at this redistricting is time to find a way to disenfranchise voters because the outpour of the population, the people that came out to vote, how was it you are redistricting and changing things the wing it will benefit the republicans? guest: thank you, kimberly. we have to do redistricting. it is the mandate of the u.s. constitution. it is a process that has to be

done every 10 years. once we get the new census data. the census is taken in the year that ends in zero, come in different states approach the process differently. note to states do it -- no two states do it exactly the same way. kimberly's point is right that it is it's an extern the early political exercise come in different states have attempted ways to somewhat managed the politics, but it is really important to understand as well that there is a very extensive body of federal law that governs this process, s whether it is legislature's strong this map, republican or demrat, or a commission, a smaller group of people who do it offline, you always have of these criteria, these federal laws that govern the process.

states have to draw districts that are even in population. the reason we do this is because the constitution requires one person, one vote. but everyone is equally represented in the u.s. house of representatives -- that everyone is equally represented in the u.s. house of representatives. the voting rights act of 1985 guarantees whoever draws the line cannot drop plans that intentionally or have the effect of discriminating against minority voters, and of course that is where a lot of the with ofhe litigation is taking place. a handful of states in the legislature was gridlocked, partly because of partisan purpose, and now courts are drawing the plans. states have to drop districts that are relatively compact, contiguous, so all of the

territory is connected to a district. there is a great deal of legal parameters in which states operate. host: we have a tweet from florida -- gues well, two really interesting thing about florida. one is they have not enacted plans yet. the legislature is holding meetings as we speak. this week they are expected to release draft maps and florida. florida is a state, one of 16 states, where the entire county is covered by section 5. florida will have to be reviewed because a handful of counties are covered by section 5 of the voting rights act. the answer is somewhat yes, because florida it gets to decide, just as texas did and other states like north carolina, south carolina, georgia and alabama, who have

alenacd their plants and have to submit them to the department of justice or a district court in d.c., so there is a process before it will become law. the other interesting thing about florida is the florida voters acted in two criteria that the legislature must comply with, and that is when the legislature dropped the new congressional maps in florida and the new legislative maps in orida, they have to drop plans that do not favor or disfavor a political party or political candidates. that will be a really interesting process play out to see if there is a grea deal of change in how the map looks now in florida, which is what happened in california when they shifted their process to a different system. a great deal of change in the california maps. host: 4 worth, texas. terry on the democrats' line. -- fort worth, texas.

caller: if this was a bunch of people who are from texas legally and people that are not from texas. how can you cast their votes when they're not even allowed to vote? how is that even legal? guest: the senses has very established roles -- the census has very establish roles. it actually counts everyone residing in the united states, regardless of their immigration status, and people represent -- elected officials representing people and residents, so people of texas, including pple who are not eligible to vote,

because maybe they're here working on a work visa or they are und 18, they are still represented in the u.s. congress and other elected bodies -- city councils, commissions, and state legislatures. the census actually count everyone in the united states. this senses in particular in texas showed a tremendous surge and the population. -- this census in particular in texas showed a tremendous surge in the population. they added four seats because of population growth in texas. and another a advocacy group in texas, they are maintaining the new congressional plan in tas does not discriminate against the hispanic population in texas,

and that the majority of the growth in texas was because of growth within the hispanic community come and get that is not reflected in the maps. the department of justice agree with them. -- the majority of the growth in texas was because of growth hispanic community, and y that is not reflected in the maps. host: a tweet this warning about redistricting -- this morning about redistricting -- guest: that is a bit past the point. really focus on the u.s. house congressional districts in for get when you have the reapportionment -- and a quick clarification because people use reapportionment and

redistricting interchangeably, but they are different terms. reapportionment means they take the data and feed it into a formula called a method of equal proportions, and it is a mathematical formula that assigns one seat in u.s. hoe to every state and distributes the rest of the seats, up 435 u.s. house seats get distributed on population and the districts have to be drawn with the people are. in rural areas -- in fact, the census showed a continuing trend that urban and suburban areas are growing at a far faster rate than rural areas, so the rural representation in the u.s. house and in state legislatures is going to go down in the next election. there will be fewer districts of legislators from rural areas because the population is growing faster in urban and suburban areas, and that will be reflected.

the retro college is a win or take all in all states except for nebraska and the state of maine. maine has to congressional districts. whoever wins congressional district one in maine in the race for white house, the presidency get one of electoral votes. if you win the second congressional district, you get that vote. whoever wins the white in maine, you get the votes that come from the u.s. senators. everyone gets these based on the total number of u.s. house seats. the states that have gained in population like texas, florida, nevada, their vot will go up in the 2012 presidential elections. the electoral map will be different and 2012 that was in 2008 strictly because you got through a reapportionment cycle. -- we have went through

reapportionment cycle. states like nevada, texas, and florida are gaining seats in the electoral college. host: ohio is next. danny on the republican line for tim storey caller: i was going to ask you about texas, but that was answered already, so i want to ask you about ohio where i am from. what is the population in ohio? i know we of lost seats. we were like no. 7. -- i know we have lost seats. guest: i am sorry, i do not know what the top of my head with a population of ohio is. my recollection is that ohio has lost two seats in the u.s. house. a u.s. house seat will be roughly 740,000 people after this census.

all states grew between 2000 and 2010 with the exception of miigan, which actually lost population during that time some states grew much faster than others. what matters is that you are growing at a faster rate than the other states, so i do not know exactly off the top of my head where ohio stands in terms of the overall population, but it is a state where congressional delegation has been steadily declining. every reapportionment cycle for the past severalycles -- states like ohio, pennsylvania, new york, mich. -- states that once had very large delegations in the u.s. house up and seeing been seen as the drop of their representation in the house.

host: tim storey joins us. maryland on the line. caller: i want to say redistricting is a good idea, but i think you should have a commission of citizens that are on the board of elections of those areas where they live, and they shoul be the ones that should be selecting the redistricting, this way you have no political cronyism that will influence the process. another point, i see there is a lot of u.s. territory like texas' commonwealth of pr. these citizens have no congressional representation, but meanwhile they have people fighting in afghanistan. anyw, that is all i want to say. aguest: i will take the last point first d come back to the commission question. of course the district of columbia, porter rica reporter

do not haverico representation, and there have been varus proposals to make them estat to my knowledge those are not on the agenda right now in washington. to the question of the commissions, there are seven states that do not do redistricting within the legislature. this is how it was originally established when the constitution was drawn up in 1789, and the framers of the constitution established that legislatures would determi the time, please come and manner of the but collections, u.s. congressional elections. when the congress -- when the constitution was first adopted, the u.s. senate was adopted by the legislatures. that was undone by the 17th

amendment to the constitution. a handful of states, seven, including california -- california was the only state in e 2010 cycle of redistricting to change the process from the legislature drawing the maps to the commission drawing the maps. the trick is, i think, that there may not be a perfect system for doing redistricting. there are pros and cons to having legislatures draw the map and pros and cons to having commissioners draw the maps. states are always finding -- struggling to find a way to manage redistricting, because they are intertwined and inseparable, so how could you come up with a system that accomplishes what we need to do, but new maps in place for electi because the population shifts, but also manage this extraordinarily political exercise? host: phil on the democrats'

line. good morning. caller: good morning, and thank you for c-span's rvice. i live in debbie wassermann shultz district that is decidedly democratic. at the meeting were they expressed the fear that republicans committee is going through delaying tactics in order to not present maps until the 11th hour. they launched a series of public inquiry meetings around the state better still taking place, despite the fact that the redistricting guidelines you mentioned earlier were pass by over 70 percent of the voters re. and what about this tactic of delay? will this interfere with the upcoming election of 2012?

guest: each state's redistricting timeline is different of course. every state has to have in place for the elections in 2012 and november of 2012. it is not just november 2012, because states have primaries to determine who the parties will nominate to run and the congressional districts,nd those primaries are spread throughout the year in 2012. th begin in march and go through late august and maybe early september. there is a new law called the military and overseas boaters act that actually requires an even earlier time for getting districts in place in the election so that ballot can be mailed out to u.s. service -- people serving in the u.s. military overseas, as well as overseas residents. the time line is different in every state. over half the states have completed the process, but that is in large part because those states have strict time

nstraints bas on their schedule. hedul's florida is moving along in the process. one of 24 states that has not passed plans. there are two states that i think the legislature is meeting today, utah undine beard and a and maine.ther state one thing is for certain, if the plan comes out from the florida legislature that is not in compliance with the law, then courts have a fair amount of leeway to delay primaries if they feel the plan is illegal. plaintiffs in people who want to challenge that -- and people who want to challenge that if they feel they were not successful, have the recourse of the judiciary and states and fedal courts have of their amount of

jurisdiction will ability to change the election counter if they need to. it is an extraordinary remedy, but it is not unheard of. host: do you believe the use of committees will increase after this career around? guest: the use of committee for outside the legislature. that is a great question. we have only seven states to use some for up rigid form of board or commission for drawing confessional maps. -- we have only seven states who use some form of a board or commission for drawing congressional maps. in the 2000 round of redistricting arizona shifted to a commission. in fact, they have a five- person commission. it is a complicated process, but there is a pull, and then they choose of that member that is not republican or democrat. in the 2000 round of

redistricting did arizona, i think they have 3000 people apply to be on the commission. in 2010 they have fewer than 100 to be on e commission. there is a great deal of controversy right now about the independent commission in arizona, so we will have to wait and see how that plays out. we have kind of been on a cycle where we see one, maybe two states move in that direction each 10 years. i think there will be a lot of attention to it. one thing is for certain is that people will look at california. the commission in california is 14 members. it has a very involved process for determining commissioners. they operate under very interesting roles about how they enact a plan, not the least of which is the plans in active had

to get three republican votes from republican commissioners, three democratic commissione boats coming in three non- republican or democratic votes. you have to get nine votes to enact a plan, and three from each of the political entities. the coission was set up with five republican commissioners, five democratic commissioners, declined to state commissioners. frankly, some people are very unhappy with how the process has played out in california. others think it has really been successful. i think that is one we will look at to have academic studies and policy makers will look hard at the california process. host: kentucky, your next.

barbara on the democrats' line. caller: all of this rediricting in stuff is just in order to satisfy the tea party and whoever they bought in the district courts or supreme court or whatever. the colts brothers have bought everybody. in another year if the tea party wins, we will be no different from libya, syria or any other communist country. host: what about the influence of outside groups on the process? guest: most states in terms of redistricting -- it is a constitutional process that states have to go through -- but almost every state has established extensive rules for a process that really invites public input.

in fact, i think there is little doubt that there has been more attention to the process of redistricting in this cycle, 2010, morning-line pcess, than ever before. that is really one of the big changes. part of that is the tools available through the internet and online for awing plans is submitting them. mostly it's have established a process for people to testify about their communities and why they think they should be put into one district or the other. almost every state holds extensive public hearings, whether it is through the commission or legislature. this notion of communities of interest is really important, because at te end of the day these are representative districts. these people have to pass a vote after vote -- cast vote after

vote, and if there district is made up of very varying economic interests or some states have some natural regions come amount regions and coastal regions and that kind of thing or have a very natural economic situations where part of the state relies heavily on one industry or another industry, so it is important that policy makers or whoever draws the maps thinks about how you put the district together, because someone has to represent that. it makes sense to have a commonality, shared interest in things that bind people together so they can be represented in a practical way. states go thrgh an extensive hearing process to try to define what these communities are. sometimes of his ethnic communities or racial communities -- african-american community or hispanic community.

these are important components of building up the maps. host: william on the republican line. and caller: i was wondering if voter turnout plays into the redistricting of the county or state. veryw some districts ahave low turnout. do others with high turnout compensate during the redistricting process? guest: that is a really terrific question. and the lines are based strictly on the number people. turnout in terms of the number of people you put into a district would not be a factor. he would build the district around the total number population. that is all people, adults, children, everyone.

of course when you do analysis of the district, which inevitably the parties do and legislatures to, commissioners to, you will look up voter turnout as a factor. that is where the political analytics of it come in. host: ruth on the democrat slide in ohio. caller: the lady from kentucky, she said a mouthful. i would add to it that i am from ohio and the governor took over, the polk brothers brought him in at the last minute. i would like to talk about a gentleman named will it. he is called the white pride here. -- i would like to talk about a mullet.an named m m

host: do you have a question for our guest? caller: i was wondering if ther is some way in the justice and whoever is taking care of trying to equalize this out would know about our governors, who they are made up and what they are for? there was not one black person ever put in his cabinet. guest: governors have veto authority over be distracted plants that are drawn by legislatures -- over redistricting plans that are drawn by legislatures with one exception, north carolina. and so governors are somewhat involved. it is primarily a state legislative exercise. governors where the had of being

the head of their party, and of course, will vary from state to state. they will sometimes be involved and agreed there looking over partisan interest. both parties may do this, but really it is a predominantly legislative exercise. in terms of the respect of the redistricting plans, it is an important consideration because of the history of the united states with regard to race, so that is why the voting rights act was enacted in 1965. then there is a section 5 component, which applieso a small number of states -- 60 states. that was reauthorize in 1982 and again in 2007. the u.s. congress reauthorize section five elements of the voting rights act in 2007. that was approved by president bush in 2007. there are a number of legal

saguards with regards to how african-americans and hispanic and other minority groups are treated, and how their boats are taken into account in the redistricting process. votes are taken into account and the redistricting process. guest: the courts are very much parcel to this process. over 40 states were involved in litigation over redistricting and the 2000 round and the 1990 round of redistricting. the supreme court has held in at least a dozen high-profile redistricting cases in the past 20 years, and many people think the supreme court could be involved again, perhaps in the texas case. in fact, there are some challenges to the section 5 that i mentioned earlier. there are direct challenges to

that that could wind up of the u.s. supreme court. i think litigation is inevitable in most cases. there are a number of states, a least a half-dozen or more, that are ready involved in litigation for the plans in this cycle of redistricting. there is an interesting element of litigation. one is that the supreme court ruled that several courts have to be deferential to state courts when it comes to litigating redistricting plans. that is very clear. states have the first shot are reviewing and ruling on redistricting plans. that is one element. if you go to federal court, there is a unique procedure for redistricting, which is that they are hurt by a three-judge panel of the trial court level. -- are heard by a three-judge panel at the trial court level

that ruling -- sometimes judges have to draw up plans -- those rulings at the federal courts can be appealed directly to the u.s. supreme court. typically in the federal legal system you would have a trial of the district level, and that might be appealed to the u.s. court of appeals and might be hurt eventually by the supreme court. with redistricting, because of the timeliness of elections and keeping them on track and on schedule, you go from the trial court level directly to the supreme court. host: we have about a minute and a half left with our guest. caller: please keep me on the line for more than five seconds. and the only way you will get

about the district count coming your guest keeps talking about one person. you are one body, you get one vote period. whatever your views or at night, it does not mattertwo/ . two, the district should be contiguous. guest: the calller is right, this all comes back to one person, one vote. the constitution guarantees as an equal voice in oliver representative bodies. that is why we go to the process every 10 years. thank you very much for inviting me to be on the show, and i hope this was helpful. host: tim storey. do you have this information on your web site? guest: yes, if you look through

the times wabs, >> at 8:15 p.m. eastern, and they will be on book tv close call this afternoon, talking about their brand new book which talks about major challenges facing the u.s. competing globally, the information technology revolution, a chronic deficits, and excessive energy consumption. you can follow their conversation this afternoon on my end beginning at 5:30 p.m. eastern at booktv.org. david axelrod was in manchester, new hampshire today speaking of politics and eggs breakfast. that is at 8:00 p.m.. at 9:00 p.m., we will be live from california as new jersey governor crist christie speaks as the keynote speaker in eight

perspectives on leadership forum. that is at 9:00 p.m. eastern here on seaspan. >> should always start with the assumption that when a politician or a ceo is saying something, they are not telling the truth. they may be telling you the truth, but the burden should be on them to prove it. >> he is an eagle scout, was editor of mother jones magazine, directed and produced three of the top 10 grossing documentaries of all time, and also best-selling author. his latest is a memoir. sunday, your chance to call, e- mail, and tweak michael moore, at -- 11 noon eastern on the tv -- on the close the book to the" on seaspan2. make a video documentary, five minutes to eight minutes long, and tells the part of the constitution that is important to you and why. be sure to include more than one point of view and video of c-

span programs. there is $50,000 in total prices and the grand prize of $5,000. for all the details, go to the web site. >> julius genachowski lane to the u.s. economy and job growth with broadband high-speed internet today that the living social headquarters in washington, d.c. he remarked that broadband opportunities had been a bright spot in the slow economy, creating 2.6 is for every one lost. the plan is still awaiting approval in congress. this runs about 35 minutes. >> thank you very much for joining here to listen to chairman julius genachowski's speech. first, i would like to say thank you to chairman julius genachowski for allowing us to put on this event here. we're excited to be talking about these topics and how that

can help us to push forward. i have had the pleasure of knowing him for several years, and i am very excited about the initiatives he has been pushing. in addition, we have warren brown, owner and founder of the washington, d.c., area business with seven locations. we have also been able to work with cake love on three separate occasions and drove them tens of thousands of customers and hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue over the course of our business. they are a great symbol of how we can work together to spur new growth for local businesses by leveraging technology and driving people from the on-line world and the offline world. once again, to lie to those better watching from a web cast, and tv and streaming. i would like to talk about living social. the company has been around for over four years.

we started, like every business, as a small business in and ourself. we have been able to, fortunately, grow to nearly 4,000 employees worldwide, of which about 2,000 are in the u.s. we have over 40 million members, and we're live in 589 markets worldwide, helping to drive global commerce on a global and international scale. we also are continuing to go and hire that the rate of between 150 and 200 employees per month. we think we have a model that will continue to drive job growth throughout the u.s. and worldwide. what we do is we help small businesses attract and retain a new customers, which is the number-one problem for many businesses out there. how do i get new customers through my door? this evolution of global commerce, which is being fueled by innovations in broadband and growth is really what living

social is driving toward. not only are we growing enterprise, but we think we have the capability to allow lots of small businesses to grow in conjunction with us. much of our growth in the future relies on having a local real time global economy. and the mobile device becomes a local interaction machine for both consumers and small businesses that are out there. so i am very, very excited for real thing that we are able to do and how the country and the technology industry can continue to push ahead to drive growth that really has impacts in the real world, local businesses, and local jobs that are out there. with that, i would like to introduce warren brown to talk about cake love and everything it has done for him. [applause] >> good morning, everyone. thank you very much for having me. it is great to be here. i want is a thank you very much

to live in social, because we had a very successful run last week with 7500 vouchers sold last tuesday and wednesday. we're very thankful for that. cake love is my big rebound in 2002 and has seven locations around the washington, d.c., area. we based on site and have a retail store fronts. people can place orders in person, but we get a lot of ourselves through our online store. we do a lot of our business, communications, online processing of bills, you know, through the computer and with broadband. it is essential for us as a business to continue and to run and operate efficiently and with low costs by using broadband services. i can remember when we first started back in 2002, you know, dial-up was the way ahead to use the computer. it just took so much time to get everything done that was not

able to grow the business in an efficient way, you know, in any way. sometimes payroll with a four hours. i know it sounds crazy, but it did and i will have 13 or 14 people. now things are, thankfully, much faster. it has to do with the ability to jump online and do what we need to do and do what i need to do in a reasonable amount of time. i think the internet is very important for us to be able to market as well, through living social, so -- through social media, of course, like facebook and twitter. it is also a matter of being able to stream music in the shops so the staff feels happy and satisfied. they have something to listen to. being able to communicate through e-mail with all my different staff, because things are changing on a daily basis. just to keep up with orders and operations. for us, broadband is and is central to all, just as important as the phone, just as important as the mixer, just as important as the cash register.

and we rely on it every day. for me, the faster it is and the more reliable is that each of the shops, the more i am able to grow my business. that is really all i have. i would like to turn it over to chairman genachowski and welcome his remarks. [applause] >> well, thank you, tim and warren. i am going to speak to you for a few minutes, but the truth is, you two sum up everything as a year visit. thank you for taking the time for being here and for opening up the doors of living social. congratulations to both of you and your remarkable success. it has been barely two years since living social offered its first deal for a restaurant in chinatown in washington, d.c. i had a chance to see sam did started even earlier with a tiny

fraction of the number of employees you have now. since then, living sizzle has expanded to 550 markets and attracted more than 40 million subscribers. you create a product of real value to consumers and to businesses, particularly small businesses, helping them to expand their sales, lower their costs, and put people to work. living social itself has created nearly 2,000 american jobs in just the last couple of years. it is no accident that i am giving this speech here. for starters, we have got an unbelievable deal on the room rental. [laughter] of course, the bigger reason i am here is that the living social story is part of a larger story. to the same story you just heard from warren brown who is using living social and wireless tools to expand his big three from one store to 7, even in this tough economy.

delighting more and more customers and hiring more and more people. it is the story of detroit, where energetic entrepreneur were turning of a parts warehouses into tech centers and business incubators. and the lions are not the only comeback story. is the story of lou valley meat, a small business in the nebraska, that nearly tripled its work force banks to e- commerce. to the story brought in, high- speed internet, wired and wireless, and how it is transforming our economy in the way we live, creating jobs in large numbers, boosting opportunity all over the country, and driving our global competitiveness. for two years in this job, i have been speaking about how broadband is indefensible infrastructure for america in the 21st century. i have not been alone on this. each of my colleagues in the fcc has done the same. together, we haven't refocus the

agency on broadband and accomplished a great -- we have refocused the agency and accomplished on driving our broad and economy. first, why broadband is so vital to our near-term economic recovery and long term prosperity. second, how positive developments in the broadband economy give us a strong reason for optimism about our economic future. third, what we must do to expand abroad and access and adoption and ensure that america has brought an end infrastructure that spurs world's leading innovation, economic growth, and job creation. we are in a pivotal moment in our country's history. our nation faces tremendous economic challenges. millions of americans are struggling. more than half of u.s. families include someone who has been unemployed during this downturn. new technologies and hyper connected flat world means that some categories of 20th-century jobs are unlikely ever to return

to previous levels. it is understandable but many americans worry about our country's future, worried that it will not be as bright as our past. but it is also true that the u.s. broadband economy is strong and growing. opening doors to new opportunity every day. innovation in wireless and wired broadband is thriving, and private investment in internet applications and infrastructure is on the rise. new broadband-enabled industries, and with them, new jobs, are opening their doors every day in growing numbers, on mobile platforms as well as in homes and businesses and schools and hospitals. broadband is a bright spot in our overall economy and helps light a path to broad economic health and widespread opportunity. that broadband internet is transforming our world, which is something living social knows well, because you are on the cutting edge. facebook, twitter, i found,

tablets. app stores, android, kindle, the cloud. just five years ago, these things either did not exist or we had never heard of them. now to the hard to imagine life for business without them. they're fundamentally american innovations, invented here, rolled out here, and being supported to the rest of the world. these are many of the world's most exciting new products and services built on today's high- speed communications infrastructure. they bear the stamp, innovated in the usa. there is far more innovation ahead of us than behind. moving forward, we will not just talking to our devices. the will increasingly be talking to each other. with machine-to-machine technology. cars will have sensors that can take evasive action to avoid accidents. when an accident causes major traffic delays, your alarm clock will be notified to wake you up early so you'll get to work on time. your dishwasher will run when it is most efficient and least costly. people with chronic diseases

will have wireless devices and notify doctors about a 7 changing conditions. the changes being efforts -- ushered in about high-speed internet are least as promising as those brought about by electricity. instead of appliances on the electric grid, it is now applications on the information grid. tom friedman recently wrote that we are at the most profound inflection point for communications innovation in commerce since the gutenberg printing press. our ability to meet this moment and seize the opportunity to this new communications technology is critical to our economic recovery and our economic future. one reason i am confident about our future is that, as they sat in the book, america has a proven formula for adapting to change in growing our economy. they call this pharma led the five pillars of american prosperity. world's leading education, immigration policy that invite

the world's best and brightest. investment in basic scientific research and development. encouraging and entrepreneurship while safeguarding consumers. and the building and continuum of modernizing of our infrastructure. these are interrelated. in fruit -- improving infrastructure supports education and entrepreneurship and vice versa. success is always been tied together in the u.s. railroads and highways connect people to each other, facilitating commerce, unleashing ingenuity and fueling economic growth. telephones did this and we did not get here by chance. we got here by choice. in their time, those elements of infrastructure form of the connective tissue of and modernizing economy. today, to the broadband internet. abroad and infrastructure consists of the fiber, cables, sell towers, and airwaves that enable digital internet traffic to travel anywhere in the world.

$8 trillion is exchanged over these wired and wireless networks each year. if you shut down the internet, you would shut down the economy. the information, technology, and communication sector represents a sixth of our economy in the u.s. and growing at a greater percentage than our job creators. over the past 15 years, even taking into account the recent difficulties, the internet has enabled as much economic growth as the industrial revolution generated in its first 50 years. in the u.s., the internet accounted for 8% of america's gdp growth from 1995 to 2009. sens 2004, it has accounted for 15% of u.s. gdp growth. the internet is only growing in importance. since world war ii, a technological innovation has been responsible for more than half of our economic growth. in the digital age, broadband is our innovation infrastructure. broadband allows innovation to

come from anyone, anywhere. from the garage to the dormitory room. broadband of hours individual innovators and also creates an unimaginable ability to engage in collaboration. as stephen johnson has showed, that is the way many breakthrough inventions come about. broadbent substantially boost productivity, a key driver of sustainable economic growth. cloud computing is about to take productivity-enhancing benefits of broadband internet to the next level. i recognize that the positive link between innovation, productivity, and job creation can sometimes seem counterintuitive. the destructive impact of high- speed internet is as undeniable as the lost jobs at video stores, newspapers, or yellow pages. but the key factors that the internet is creating more jobs than it is eliminating. mckinsey recently concluded that

broadband internet creates 2.6 jobs for every one lost. 2.6 jobs created for every one lost. these are real jobs being created right now. companies like amazon, apple, and google have been adding jobs by the thousands. new businesses like linkedin and twitter are growing jobs at an even faster pace and that is an time promoting broader job growth by offering services that are helping people and businesses market themselves and connect with others. a recent study by the university of maryland put some numbers around the job creation leverage of internet companies. facebook employees 2600 people. a big number standing alone. the researchers concluded that counting the developers building applications for the facebook platform, facebook has been responsible for the creation of 182,000 jobs.

many of these jobs are software and other engineering jobs. and that is great, because we will not succeed in the hyper connected, hyper competitive 21st century economy if we're not educating, attracting, and employing world-class engineers. but as important, many jobs being created by the broadband economy are not engineering jobs and not just in silicon valley and other tech centers. broadband is enabling job creation a different skill levels and all over the country. living social is proof of this. yes, you have got great engineers. and in just the last three years, living social, groupon, and others in this space have created over 3000 street-level sales jobs in the u.s. in more than 200 different local markets and growing. and your products are helping bricks and mortar as businesses grow, including many small businesses. this is another point that is

too often overlooked. the way in which broadband internet is a catalyst for small business opportunity, helping local small businesses grow and prosper all over the country. consider ebay and amazon. they employ nearly 50,000 people directly. again, that is great. it is a small percentage of the small business jobs they are facilitating. more than 1 million entrepreneurs and growing, a large percentage of which are small businesses, are selling products on these platforms, generating revenue that help them hire and pay their employees. new platforms are developing to help entrepreneurs sell their goods, like etsy. a platform for a very, very small businesses. it is already generating $400 million in annual sales. last month in indiana i joined a coalition of companies called jobs for america to announce the creation of 100,000 new

broadband-enabled call center jobs in the u.s. of the next two years. all over the countries, many coming from overseas. many of these are at-home jobs and create meaningful employment opportunities for people with disabilities, veterans, seniors, and stayed home parents. pioneers have for years had the vision to use broadband to defy old barriers of location and create at-home jobs for people with disabilities and others. last month, when announcing 1000 new at-home jobs at his company, accept marketing's ceo said point blank that broadbent makes all this possible. it is reassuring to know that the internet is creating jobs at a faster rate than it is displacing them. but there are no guarantees about where those new jobs will be created in the global economy. the world is connected. capital can flow anywhere, and

jobs will follow. let's not kid ourselves. i hear this directly from my counterparts overseas. our global competitors want to be centers of broadband innovation and job creation in the 21st century, and they're focused on it. to make sure that the u.s. is getting a full and growing share of broadband-unable jobs, when it got to get our broadband infrastructure right. if we do not, we will still have a job losses here, but the new jobs will increasingly be created in other parts of the world. to be clear, a robust broadband infrastructure will not a loan guarantee that the u.s. remains the world's economic leader. this law housing challenges must be addressed, and our education system must be approved. but neglecting our broadband infrastructure will guarantee that we lose ground in the 21st century economy. and taking the right steps on broadband can generate jobs and economic growth even as the country tackles other issues. fortunately, we are well

positioned to lead in the global broadband economy. the u.s. captures 30% of all internet revenue worldwide and more than 40% of net income. we lead in broadband in addition overall. we gained the lead in mobile, a fast-growing and critically important sector. we have the highest number of 3g subscribers. thanks to successful fcc auctions and a digital tv transition completed successfully in 2009, we freed up specter for mobile broadband and are ahead of the world in deploying next generation 4g networks that will offer speeds we're accustomed to one wireline network. our apps economy is the envy of the world. with u.s. offer deal of -- developers lead the way, they're now more than 500,000 mobile applications available, and sales are projected to approach $30 billion by 2015. remember, it was not that long ago when the global applications economy did not exist at all. mobile, local, reale