and it will find its way to you. the idea that we fundamentally think media brands and understand how people find information is the game changer for our industry. and thank you, everyone. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> newt gingrich unveiled his campaigns platform yesterday in which she's calling the 21st century contract with america. that is next on c-span. ," on washington journal < topics included u.s. productivity. that is each morning at 7:00.

>> the head of the afl-cio will talk about jobs and the economy tomorrow morning. you'll get the brookings institution. live coverage starting at 10:00 eastern on c-span 2. >> republican presidential candidate newt gingrich laid out his vision for the country in a speech in iowa. the former house speaker is calling his 10-point plan the 21st century contract with america. it includes repealing the new health care law, making changes to the tax system and allowing younger americans to opt out of the social security system. in 1994, mr. gingrich was one of the architects of the house gop's contract with america. this event was held at a financial services company in des moines. [applause]

>> thank you. thank you, also, to the principal group. i'm delighted to be here, and to have a chance to share with you what i think is a very important concept. and i am particularly delighted that billie and bob ray would come honor us with their being here, because i think this is to some extent in the tradition in which governor ray served this state. it's an effort to actually talk about practical realities. what? these were not on? i wondered why i wasn't getting feedback. now is that better? the other way? are they on? >> yes. >> ok, so, all right. i apologize. i just started to say this is, i hope, in the tradition governor ray established when he was governor, because it's an effort to lay out for people

what we need to do in a way that we can all understand as citizens, and we can put it together. i am particularly glad that greg was willing to come and introduce me. i am delighted that he is supporting me, he's a dear friend, but i did not realize until last night when we were at his house that he had kept this. the original contract was a "tv guide" ad. tells you how long ago this was, we had a thing called "tv guide." [laughter] this was back in the early days before cable. every time we would pass something i would go to the floor and use a holepunch and clip it and that is copy is now in the smithsonian. but there's something i want to share with you. the only person who's actually understood this who has written about it was chuck schumer, the democratic senator from new york, who pointed out that the real purpose of the contract was a management for the republican party.

while that had a powerful political impact,we voted on all these things in 93 days. it enabled us to say you are here and here's what we are doing. it was a hugely successful. the largest one-party increase in american history in 1994. we gained 9 million votes over 1990 lose 1ocrats' only million votes. there's no attackgovernor ray when you see the ad in tv guide, we don't attack bill clinton. there's nothing pretty about it. we were serious. this was a document for adults. we thought you could treat citizens as adults. people like that. maybe politics is about hiring somebody to get a job done, not

about as the best 30-second attack ad. what do you really think we need to do i have been at this since august of 1958. my dad was a career soldier, serving 27 years in industry. we were in france when the french republic was killed by the paratroopers and general day gaulle was brought back. that was sobering to a young kid born in pennsylvania. in 1994, mr. gingrich was one of really hit me that countries can die without adequate leadership. between my freshman-sophomore years in high school i began studying three things the architects of the house what does america need to do to be successful gop's contract with america. would you explain it with sufficient clarity and that the american people will give you permission to do itthis event was held at a how would you implement financial services company in if they gave you permission des moines. i did this working, with ronald reagan and speaker the house and

as a volunteer adviser for the bush administration. [applause] i believe we are in real trouble, very broad based trouble. it's not any single thing. how many of you agree that america is on the wrong track? raise your hand. virtually unanimous. how many of you agree that getting back on the right track would be an enormous effort? how many of you agree that there is substantial interest groups will fight deeply against getting back on the right track? i just want to feed back to what you've just said, because this is the heart of why am proposing a 20% 3 contract with america. our challenges are enormous. i think the biggest since 1860. the difficulty of changing direction, for an enormous national government, whether it

is the courts, news media, the academic world, the bureaucracies, the laws, are going to be tremendous. there will be people who will fight desperately to stop us, because whether out of ideology or interest group, they don't agree. if you are serious about saving the country and moving forward, you have to start with that design. you have to say this is what we are trying to accomplish. it is a little like are you trying to develop a canoe for local ship or try to build a ship across the pacific. you better decide in advance what size you need. this contract is designed in a much deeper way. there are four parts to the proposed contract. this is the one i am talking about today in detail. the four parts give you a sense of scale. the first is the legislative part. what should be passed as law. the second, which we are beginning to unveil is called on

the first day. imagine that shortly after delivering the inaugural address, we take an hour and for one hour i sign between 50 and 200 executive orders. fundamentally shifting the direction of the u.s. government before 5:00 on the first day, all within a lot. for -- within the law. the first order would be to abolish all of the white house czars. there's a lot you can do pretty fast. ronald reagan signed an executive order which eliminates rationing gasoline and liberates gasoline within six months the prices collapsed. so there are things you can do which are decisive. third, we will need a training program for the transition team

and training program for presidential appointees. if you want changed on this scale, if there's no reason to believe normal traditional appointees have a clue what they are doing. they can run the old order and the old system. they don't know how to run this new system. finally, we need a citizen- centered model that uses social media. i don't ask anybody to be for me. if you are for me, you vote, you go home and say i hope the fix it. i asked people to be with me. for eight years we need to work together. we need to work together and remind congress what we are trying to get done. we need to make sure that as things don't work -- and some things will not work, so you have to have real-time feedback where people will send you an e- mail or get in on a conference call or participate if in a

video conference and say i know you meant well, but that is not working. you have to have constant evolution and constant change in order to implement what you are talking about. you can set a double direction that can be pretty stable, but you cannot implement in a stable manner because things change. you have to be part of the active feedback. if we implement the 10th amendment and return power to the states and citizens, as you shrink the washington bureaucrats, you have to grow the citizens. you ask us to turn power backs home, so that means you'll have more responsibility. the fourth part is how to build a genuine citizens movement that really is prepared to take a responsibility for our country? i think the change is so enormous that i went back and i said this was the one thing i wanted to read to you today. this is a message abraham lincoln since to the congress in december 1863. the civil war is not going well

and is totally different than he expected, carter. rights to congress, "the dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy presumes. the occasion is piled high with difficulty and we must rise with the occasion. as our case is new, so we must think anew. and act anew. we must disenthrall ourselves and then we shall save our country." the reason washington is a mess is that nobody in washington is prepared today to disenthrall themselves and take the risk of thinking -- in thinking new. there's a 23-page version of this at newt.org. this will evolve. this is not the final document. there are two differences between this and the original. the scale of change i am suggesting is so enormous that i

could not possibly as a single leader show you everything i'm going to do. so this is the beginning of a conversation, which by september 27 next year, the anniversary of the contract, we will have a final version. but this shows you the direction we're going and shows what you can participate in if you want to help design it. the second difference is in 1994 we stood on ronald reagan's shoulders. he was talking about welfare reform since 1966 when he first ran for governor. there were 780 pages of legislation and the contract. this little device has 780 pages of legislation. congress and dick armey and others did a great job of putting back together. we don't have the advantage of 30 years of reaganism. we don't know how to do some of the things i'm about to describe yet. these will take about a year to pass all of this, because we need to use -- we have had in

the current administration a similar package which no member has read. obamacare was so complex that speaker nancy pelosi said you have to pass it to learn what's in it. that is wrong. while i will propose these, i will fight with these, i will ask you to join me in passing them. they should come to a regular legislative process where subcommittees' hold hearings, they hold marcus, the report to the full committee, they go to the floor, and they have a chance to amend it, so the will of the american people is expressed the with the constitution suggests. that is a much harder process. that is not ramming things through. it is legislating. it is trying to actually bring to bear the intelligence of the american people to solve our problems. 10 areas. first, we need to repeal obamacare and we need to develop a common sense replacement for it. i have founded the center for

health transformation. there are all sorts of ideas in the paper on my web site. this is doable. the reason we have to repeal it is 2700 pages in the document. you cannot repeal part of it because you cannot trust the staff to tell you the part you want to repeal. there are about 300 pages that are pretty good. a little over 10%. but they should be part of the replace document. just repeal this immediately, this you can do pretty fast. second, we have to create jobs. the ronald reagan recovery was so dramatic that in this month, september 1983, third year of his presidency, he inherited a bad economy from jimmy carter just as obama inherited a bad economy from bush. the fact is reagan did not think leadership's job was to complain. he thought it was his job to solve things.

the result was this month in 1983 the american people created 1,100,000 jobs. the president has zero new jobs in august. there's a difference. ronald reagan had a plan. cut taxes, cut regulations, develop american energy, praised the people who take risks and create jobs. the opposite of class warfare. a policy saying i am glad you are going out to invest and start a company, i am glad your show every monday to run your small business. fundamentally different attitude. when i became speaker, we followed the ronald reagan model. first tax cut in 16 years, largest capital gains tax industry. two out of three people went back to work or went back to school. cut regulations. for four years, i helped create

a few jobs and ran a small business, but i did that as a business leader and not as a politician. the american people created 11 million new jobs. that was when i was speaker. i remind my good friends that it's more jobs in utah than under governor huntsman and more jobs in massachusetts and other g -- more jobs in massachusetts than under mitt romney and more than under rick perry in texas. first, taxes. we ought to have an optional flat tax. if you want to keep the current code and current mortgage deduction, then ok. if you like a one-page alternative, that can be developed on a revenue-neutral basis. it has been experimented with in rhode island. it gives you a choice. whittaker about choices. second, zero capital gains tax.

hundreds of billions of dollars poured into develop america. 12. 12.5% corporate tax rate. 12.5% will have general electric paying taxes because it will be cheaper to pay taxes than to hire lawyers not to pay taxes. farm equipment, office equipment. a specific goal, we want americans to be the best equipped, most productive workers on the planet so we can compete with china and women. finally, abolished the death tax permit. if we want businesses that are successful focused on job creation and not on tax avoidance. repeal dodd-frank immediately. i would try to get that done in the first weeks. it is a disastrous bill. it's 2300 pages which thus the

financial services what obama does to help care. it's killing small banks and businesses and crippling housing and creating a center of corruption at the treasury, micromanaging a large banks. it's a terrible bill. second, repeal sarbanes oxley, a bill which raises the cost of doing business in america without producing any new information that is useful. third, replace the epa with a new environmental solutions agency that focuses on economic rationality on cooperation with communities back home and on modern science. the best example is in iowa. someone in washington who had never been on a farm has written a regulation involving dust. part of the regulation suggests dirt roads should not create dust. [laughter] just look at what senator grassley has been saying. you cannot imagine an agency this out of touch with reality. i don't think it can be fixed, or twice a to replace it.

finally, i would replace the current fda with a 20% for food and drugs administration who a specific job is to be in the laboratory learning science and to accelerate getting new knowledge to the patient and not tendering it. -- not hinder it. as people get well, they want to live longer and live better. the u.s., if it had an fda that encouraged the developer of new solutions, we could dominate the world health market. if we did, those are high-value jobs that pay very well and produce a lot of capital to the united states of. it's the most important area and try to build a high employment, high-income economy. fullll unleash america's energy production. we have more total energy, whether you want to talk ethanol or oil and gas or coal or nuclear power or solar or

wind, if we have more than any other country in the world. more than canada. our government is anti-american industry. energy jobs papered high salaries. western pennsylvania, developing natural gas, $72,000 per your job. in louisiana, $80,000 per year in the gulf of mexico. these are good jobs. but the government takes them. i like them. one of my first goals will be to create american energy that keeps $400 billion a year here at home. i would rather have it go to iowa than iraq and to south dakota rather than saudi arabia. let's develop energy. i am for more revenue and just against higher taxes. the government gets royalties. you look at revenues. the american people on 69% of alaska.

alaska is twice the size of texas. if we own 69% of alaska, as 1.5 the size of texas. we are going to give you half of texas. pick the 125 square miles you would like to keep as parks and wilderness areas. terrific. that means we get to develop 250,000 square miles, an area the size of texas. can you imagine the net value in american jobs and in revenue to the federal? you get more revenue out of people going to work and lower costs because people are no longer on food stamps and welfare and unemployment and you get more revenue out of energy production and more revenue out of federal lands. all those increase revenue flow with no tax increases. fourth, you have to save medicare and social security.

i chaired the medicare reform task force of 1996 and we saved it for decades. i've been called at the center for health transformation. it requires new pinking -- thinking. every american should have the right to choose whether they want a personal sense of security -- personal social security account. herman cain has it right. i'm against making things compulsory. would you rather have -- you show a clip of obama saying that i may not able to pay your social security check. politicians may some morning not give you the money. would you like to have your own account instead that you can control? a system that has no escape build up. a system where politicians would

say they have to raise the working age or a system where they would not have a certain retirement age? 1,200,000 people over 75 are still working. if you don't want to retire, why should the government tell you that you have to? this is a 1935 model for an industrialized society which is gone. everybody currently in the system, ok, relax, we are not going to change it. -- that these two create, social security is fine for the next three years. they get two and half to three times as much money as they're going to get out of the current system. and medicare, very simple. we start with something that we publish a book on called stop paying the crooks.

you would have thought that title was clear enough that even in washington it would have led to serious conversation. it did not have any impact. the senate bill transformation published in three years ago. i was very confident it would break through. no impact. here are the numbers, just as we understand what we are talking about. if you have an american express card, they use massive expert systems to track fraud. so does visa and mastercard. how many of you have ever had a call to make sure you did the charge? and i am not making this up, just for the benefit of people in washington. [laughter] it is literally true. american express pays .03 of 1%

to crooks. as a taxpayer, you are paying three and 33 times to crops. -- 333 times that to the crooks. is between $70 billion and $120 billion per year. but it requires thinking to do it differently. it requires new approaches. i have talked to all three major cards and all three are ready to go to the the congress and explain it. the head of i.t. -- ibm did go to the president and explain it. it did not work. this is why lincoln talked about new thinking.

you have a paper based bureaucracy trying to keep up with crooks who have a and ipad. it is impossible. second, you give people a choice. why did you just passed tom price's law that says if you are successful and you would like to contract out, you are allowed to contract out. if you want to pay more to the doctor or hospital, you can pay more. every liberal will tell you that is impossible. medicare today is more restrictive than the british national health care service. why not allow people who are successful to have a choice? you could institute next year paul ryan's model of support, but make it voluntary. and then you say to the insurance industry and others, to you want to compete for the customers? fine. if you want to stay in the old system, fine, but we will give

you more and more opportunities to have better choices. we do not compel people to go to wal-mart. you'll hear some folks say, oh, senior citizens get too confused. you cannot allow them to have this many choices. the idea of walking through and saying to my mother when i take her to wal-mart, there are 250,000 items at wal-mart. maybe you do not want to go to all of the aisles. [laughter] she would think i was crazy. but the right to choose is different than being forced. there are ways to modernize social security and medicare that will save money in the system and allow people to get better interactions. you want to balance the federal budget and i want to recognize mike george. take it out. -- take a bow.

[applause] he is an example of why america is a unique country. his first client was going in 1981. he did pretty darn well. he made enough money. then he decided to take his own lot -- his own money voluntarily to organize and his promises that if you modernize the federal government, you will save billions. in order to apply modern management to the federal the 130nt, you end of thend year-old regulatory system and you can move every day with continuous improvement, which is part of getting to a quality system. this is a big, not a small idea. of i am the only speaker of the house in your lifetime to balance the federal budget. we paid off $405 billion in

debt. i am here as testimony to my own candidate saying to you -- [laughter] i know we can do this. and we should pass a balanced budget amendment so future generations are reminded not to say yes to every interest group that shows up. sixth, we need to control the border by january 1, 2014. this is not hard. anybody who thinks this is part -- i have written two novels about world war ii. i used to teach about it. from december of 1941, the victory f. japan to 1945 is five years. in 3 -- is years. it recently took longer to build a terminal at the atlanta airport. you can do that if you are

really rich and nobody threatened to. but if you have real competitors and you have real problems, it is useful to apply common sense. i have said, for example, there are 23,000 department of and security personnel in the washington area. if necessary to achieve this goal, i would be willing to move half of them to texas, new mexico, and arizona so that they can serve on the border. that would double the people available. but this idea that you cannot control reporter is nonsense. every country in history that wants to, does it. it is a matter of willpower. we want to pass and bill in 2014 to control the border. and you go do it. that does not solve all the problems. is the beginning of a process. we need to deal with the issue of appropriate immigration. we need to modernize the current visa system. it is actually more expensive to get a legal visa and it is to

sneak into the country. that strikes me as backcourts. -- backwards. we need a serious national conversation about national security. we are in vastly greater danger than anybody wants to talk about. and part of that danger is the rise of modern weapons. part of that is terrorist groups who hate us. part of that is the rise of china. part of that is international crime on a scale that we are not prepared to deal with. and which manifests itself, for example, in mexico. this conversation is tragic and dangerous that our leads are exhausted, our news media as timid, and as a result we are not having a discussion about national security. in some ways, it manifest itself in things like admiral mullen, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, who has just now said -- he has come to the conclusion

that pakistan is not our allies. that is a very bold thing to say in washington. it is a very obvious thing to say if you are anywhere else in the world. if bin laden was living for five years in a building on lyell from there -- a mile from their defense university, using that was physically possible without the pakistani government knowing it? of course not. and this proposal that we keep 3000 troops in iraq is, i think, very frightening. 3000 troops is too small to defend itself. it should be thought of as a target. this administration is making political decisions that risks the lives of young men and women in uniform and is profoundly wrong. my dad served 27 years in the army. i know what military life is like. it is wrong to put american debt risk for political reasons and leaving only 3000 troops.

we ought to either leave enough to defend themselves or get them all out. you leave a small group in a dangerous neighborhood and somebody is going to try to kill them. is a very dangerous thing to do. i wish we could have two or three debates only on national security. i will be making a speech that outlines the war later on. imagine a projected cost between now and 2015 of $20 trillion. -- between out and 2050 of $20 trillion. in washington, this would be a radical and even weird idea. that is what alzheimer's is projected to do. and after that, parkinson's, autism, mental health.

brain science will be the most rapidly accelerating knowledge. in the world in the next 25 years. experts say if you could send to postpone it, not cure it, but simply postpone it for five years because it is largely a disease of aging, you save somewhere around half, $10 trillion. if i could save $6 trillion to $10 trillion, would i do? -- what would i do? this is not an irrational conversation. in washington is weird. i cochaired for three years department -- and autism working group. -- and alzheimer's working group. it is the most feared disease for people over 55. at a financial level, it is 1.5

federal debts. i want to propose very dramatic -- this will be a speech in the near future and i would like to give it at the university of iowa on the scale of change that we need to fundamentally rethink how we explore brain science across the board. how do we help these diseases? the net payback will be several times the national debt in the next generation. and to have an industry helping the entire planet deal with these problems will create at an incalculable number of new jobs. the ninth one is the other one. there is no judicial supremacy. this is an artifact of the warren court in 1958. in the federalist papers, alexander hamilton says, the judiciary is the weakest of the

three branches and will inevitably lose in a fight with the two elected branches, the legislative and executive. in the judicial reform act of 1802, thomas jefferson, the secretary of state was james madison -- so you have to assume that the two of them knew something about the constitution. they abolished 18 out of 35 federal judges. they say, go away, you do not have a job anymore. some of them tried to file a lawsuit claiming it was unconstitutional. and the judges said, are you crazy? if we agree to hear the lawsuit, they will abolish our offices. is a huge fight. people forget that in the declaration of independence -- look at it some time and look at the number of citations of british judges. the second most popular complaint of the american people have turner taxation without representation was imperial british judges acting as dictators. when you have a judge who in san

antonio on june 1 issued a ruling that not only could students not pray at a high school graduation, but they could not use the word prayer, they could not use the word god, they could not use the word benediction, they could not ask the audience to stand, and he would arrest the superintendent if any student broke his order, that judge is about as anti- american as you can get. this is a country that was founded by a document that says, we are endowed by our creator. this is not about theology. this is about and and then the effort -- an unending efforts to fundamentally change america. we're going to have a very big fight over the proper role of the judicial branch, because the idea that appointed lifetime lawyers get to dictate the future of america is crazy. jefferson was asked about it at

one point and he said it would be an oligarchy. lincoln in his first inaugural, speaking of the dread scott decision, which would have eliminated slump -- slavery in the whole country, said if nine people can dictate to the exclusion of the other branches, we are not a free country. we need to enforce the 10th amendment. washington is too big. washington is too powerful. we are citizens, not subjects. washington is supposed to serve us. the only way to fundamentally change is to go step-by-step and take everything back home. in order to shrink the bureaucrats, you have to grow citizens. this is a fairly decisive first step. we will flush it all out -- flash it all out between now and some kemba 27 of next year.

-- september 27 of next year. the only way you're going to save this country is for the american people to save it. no single president, no set of politicians, no magic. just hard work, common sense, and a willingness to put the country first. i would like to, if i can, take questions. and josh, by the way, is learning some school credit today. [laughter] he is an example of what this is all about. my daughter, jackie, is here with her two children, my grandchildren, maggie and robert. politics is all about their

lives one day if we do our jobs. >> you said that you are not for state impose religion, but from what you said it sounds like you support religion imposing its ideas on the rest of us. i am very concerned that a branch of christianity has gotten some of its tenants into our laws, like stem cell research, linking foreign aid to reproductive issues and so forth. i was pleased to see -- i did not think you have a lot of social issues in your contract. if you are president, would you work hard to make christian social issues the law of the land? >> the two that you just cited are not necessarily christian issues. i think orthodox jews have as a profoundly believe in those issues providing a lot of other people do as well. i am very much for adults stem

cell research and i'm very much for stem cell research that comes from, for example, any device other than killing an embryo. but i'm opposed to getting in process of killing children in order to have research materials. if you look at what is happening with stem cell research, we have less and less demand that you have a thing except regular stem cells because we're learning how to use them. for some people i think that is an ideological fight, not a scientific side. i would not use the american tax dollars to pay for abortion. i do not think the people of the year and states should be paying for abortions. i am very much in favor of adoption. i was adopted. my father was adopted. i think we should make it very much easier and more desirable to be adopted. i did not desire to impose a particular branch of christianity. my argument about religion is

different. we said in our founding document we are in doubt by our creator with certain inalienable rights. should we teach children that are not? sure they learn what the founding fathers meant or not? abraham lincoln said in his inaugural address and he reverences god 14 times and has two quotes from the bible. can you explain lincoln without understanding that he read the bible every afternoon, or is it just bad history because we now have this politically correct model that says we cannot tell you anything about religious beliefs anymore? the idea about taking school prayer out in 1963 made the country better, i do not see any evidence that the children that do not spend a moment recognizing that they are subservient to god -- now the average guy in any way they want to. -- now they approach got and anyway they want to. i always tell my friends who do

not believe it in this stuff, how do you believe we came to be? we could have been rhinoceroses, but we got lucky this week? obviously, i assume that is better to be human than a rhinoceros. [laughter] nobody wants to see the headline, "gingrich shows anti- rhinoceros hostility." [laughter] >> i cannot see how $14 trillion going to $16 chilean national debt is going to be overcome. do you have any idea? >> you put simply what i'm trying to describe up here. for a while i carried a poster that says to plus two equals four. and i actually got that from a movie.

there were signs that people put in their windows in poland. the reason i carried it around for a while was to say to people -- lincoln says at one point, if you cannot get your opponent to agree that 2 +2 =4, you have other problems. we're currently on a trajectory to go money to the chinese and get our oil from offshore. how do you get to a balanced budget? we did this as a conscious act of wilke in 1985. we said -- 1995.

redounded in four straight years. how do you do that? pretty straightforward. spend less than you take in. everything else is details. you are increasing where you are taking in and i would do it by generating revenue without a tax increase. or you do it without -- by cutting spending and i would do it with little pain. if you get to where you are taking in more than you are spending, you have what is called a surplus. this is not theoretically hard. we did it in your lifetime. nobody in washington wants to think about it. can we do it? of course we can do it. but we currently have a machine whose entire existence is based on spending enormous amounts of money. in order to change, you are now going to have to defeat the machine. this is why sacramento is such a mess.

it does not matter who wins the election in california. the machine own suit sacramento. californians can i get a grip on their government. if you look at what i've done over my career, this is a very, very bold proposal. it is saying, for example, the whole idea of balancing the federal budget, we are saying to end the civil service system as it currently exists. do not make it impossible to fire someone who is incompetent. there is a series of very bold proposals here. if you are prepared to go through the level of change i'm describing, will get to a balanced budget and pay down the debt. if we will pay off the chinese and create our own energy so we do not sit -- need to send any money to brazil and we will be a much wealthier countries with greater national security. but it is real change.

it is not just more of the current model of washington bureaucracy. >> i'm a former marine and combat veteran and you said that 3000 people left in iraq would be a target. i agree with that. if the other way is to have nine or more, which where would you want to go? >> with the current president, i would go for nine. >> thank you -- i would go for none. >> thank you. >> i think the right now, the iranians are on offense in iraq end we are on defense. it is going to get worse, not better. the same problem with the embassy. the embassy is way too big, way to indefensible, way too expensive. it was designed for a different world. and the world that obama wants, it makes no sense to half the current american embassy in

iraq. it is much too big. it is over $1 billion. what are we doing? we have to rethink the entire region. general john abizaid, who i think is the only four-star general who speaks fluent arabic, said to a couple of weeks ago, we have a bigger strategic deficit than our fiscal deficit. i think people should take that really seriously. we are grossly underestimating how dangerous the world is and we have no strategy to match those dangers. it is a very serious problem for us. >> first, speaker, thank you for coming. i have been following you and some of the other candidates for the last couple of years or so. you seem to outline a lot of

specific ideas. can you explain your thoughts on why you are not being better received across the country in some of the polls? >> i'm glad you asked it now instead of a month ago because the polls have gotten better. [laughter] my family, we all went through a lot of conversations about whether or not to run. we started with the assumption that if i did run, i would get attacked prefer to sleep. certainly, june and july met that standard -- attacked pretty ferociously. certainly, june and july met that standard. and some of it is my fault. what i'm trying to do is very different. it is something i did with reagan in 1980 and something i did in 1994, that is, it's positive, ideal oriented campaign that reaches out to hold new groups of people.

for example, people interested in brain science, modern management, a new coalition in tradition -- in addition to the traditional republican coalition. and i made a mistake in early spring of bringing some very fine consultants. this is not about them personally. they're all smart people -- and anybody who watches money ball will know i'm talking about. they're all smart people doing .ne thing i no i'm not going to run attack ads. i cannot compete with the sum of money. -- with some of the candidates on monday. i can attract an enormous amount of volunteers and network them together, and in the process build a new way of thinking about governing america. i lost about four months being involved in that. the other thing -- i want to say this just right.

remember, we just talked with a former combat marine. this is a country in which the media is more comfortable spending two or three weeks on a congressman's truly bizarre tweets then it is on serious analysis. bring science could be the largest single breakthrough -- brain science could be the largest single breakthrough in saving medicare and medicaid. if you look at the front page story about the contract and you look inside, opposite it is its story on dementia. and i think every fifth person on medicare has dealt with a person in their life with extreme dementia. trying to get the news media to understand what i'm talking about makes you feel stupid.

fundamentally rethink the entire garment system. -- government system. rebalancing the constitution and the tree branches of government. if we can get the media to slow down, get away from gotcha questions, actually have some open debate -- i will make it clear, if i am the republican nominee, i will challenge the president to seven lincoln- douglas style debates of three hours each with no timekeeper no moderator. we are in enough trouble that we deserve to have a serious, adult conversation between the two competitors for the president of the united states and not have mickey mouse situations where reporters -- and if you look at some of the articles that have come out about how they have planned some of these debates, the level of cynicism on the part of some of the people asking the questions is disheartening. and it is unworthy of the united states of america. if you have a serious candidate who wants to talk about serious

issues, your first challenge is to get the elite media to decide that they will give up the cynicism and spend at least as much time on this as they do this stuff that currently passes for news. [applause] let me thank the principal port for having us here. i can take one more, ok. did you notice how obedient i was? we can take one more. [laughter] >> you mentioned deregulating and making it easier and less costly for companies to do business, but how do you go about regulating enough to hold people accountable and keep them from cheating the system and the

greatness without making it so hard and so costly to do business? >> i think that is a very powerful question. i think part of it is that you need more transparency and less -- fewer bureaucrats. and you need more ability to respond if they lie to you. i am not for a society in which there are no rules because i think people will on occasion be greedy and lie and cheat and steal. let's be clear. there are profound reasons -- supposedly, theodore roosevelt was reading about in sinclair's "the jungle -- reading upton sinclair's "the general." -- "the jungle." and he was reading the part

about the gentleman who fell back into the machinery. and he supposedly bad day the but the food and drug administration. -- that today developed the food and drug administration. i was a kid in world war ii and you could not always drink the water. i am for those requirements necessary as a base line. i am against turning massive power over to bureaucrats who inevitably politicize and are inevitably ignorant. they are a thousand miles away. you have to have laws that hold people accountable. you have to have laws that provide for transparency. we now live in an age where, frankly, with the internet and everything, you have enormous amounts of information flow have relatively low cost. that is why this gives you a way

to have a real safety and efficiency and productivity. it would -- we ought to be able to have all three. i will say this again. i'm not going to ask anybody to be for us. but if you want to be whitney, then -- if you want to be with me, then something between 2005300 executive orders will be filed -- between 250 and 300 executive orders will be filed the first day. and we can and arch of an anchor and children will once again live in the safest and most prosperous country in the free world. that is what we owe them.

thank you. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> you can see more "road to the white house" later today when governor rick perry holds a town hall. live coverage starts at 6:00 p.m. eastern, here on c-span. >> he founded several labor unions and represented as candidate from prison. he's one of the 14 men featured in c-span's new series, the contenders.

tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern. get a preview about did he say and -- about debs. >> a couple of events to tell you about on our other networks. today head of the afl-cio will talk about the jobs economy and our coverage begins on c-span 2 at 10:00 a.m. also education secretary arnie duncan will talk about the effect a longer school day and year could have on student performance. live coverage also at 10:00 eastern. >> now get regular updates of what's on the c-span networks on c-span now on twitter. get tweets once an hour including which events are live.

it's easy to do. go to twitter@c-span now. >> "washington journal" is next and we'll take your calls. chief admiral mike mullen steps down today. president obama and leon panetta will take part in that ceremony. our live coverage gets started at 11:00 a.m. eastern. and the kiezer foundation released a study showing health care premiums had risen over the past year. coming up we'll talk with reed abelson. then the bureau of economic