and the ability to be able to produce good, high-quality american goods. it can be profitable doing it is not a matter of going to college. college is a great thing. i encourage people who want to go to college and upgrade their skills but there are a lot of people who do not want to go and have other skills that need to be upgraded. they can produce in this society. in manufacturing is the perfect place for them to be able to exhibit those skills that we can turn this country around for everybody, from the bottom up in america. [applause]

i have a record that can go out and take on barack obama on this issue and build support in those key areas of our country and the swing states like pennsylvania, ohio, michigan, wisconsin, missouri, indiana. the states if the gulf for rick santorum you can go to bed. -- if they go for rick santorum, you can go to bed. we need someone who can take it to the president on the issues where the president has fallen down. as i have said before, we can do that better than anybody. we have a clean and clear record on issues of government control of your life where there is health care, whether it is the takeover of wall street, where there is cap and trade and the imposition of carbon restrictions, co2 restrictions, which, believe it or not, you

might find this easy to believe. as the grandson of a coal miner. i did not buy into this global or climate science which from the very beginning -- [applause] which from the beginning if you look at the data and the science, it did not look like climate science but political science. i stood up and said we're not going to go along with this. it is another attempt by the left to use some sort of junk science to take more control over people's lives. we're not going to do that. i was alone in this field, other than ron paul. i was alone in this field than standing up and saying i'm not going to buy and to cap and trade or man-made global warming but unfortunately, governor romney did. as governor he proclaimed loudly and probably they had put the first carbon cap in place for power plants in massachusetts.

so much for the contrast on that issue. we're not going to win this election because we're going to have the most money and we're going to be up president obama in state-by-state by spending four or five times as much money as he does. he will have more money and he will have the media on his side. so let's look at the canada who -- candidate who had the least money and did the most with it in winning an election. [applause] that is who we're looking for. someone who is able to win based on ideas and a positive vision. someone who did not go out and attack your opponent and tear them down personally or misrepresent their record.

just the facts, ma'am. just the facts. that is what we're running on. the facts of what i want to do for this country and our policies to create the opportunity to create jobs. we have an opportunity here tomorrow in michigan. here in kalamazoo to go out and do something big. shock the establishment. [applause] they are all worried, this guy is too conservative. all the pundits are saying to conservative but romney runs ads i am not conservative. those that fall short as a contradiction? i do not know if i am too conservative or not, depending on who i am talking to.

my daughter was talking to me about the story of the three bears. maybe i am just right. not too hot, not too cold. we have an opportunity to do in a sense what happened in 1980. in 1980, everyone was saying, you cannot elect the sky reagan. he is too conservative. he is a movie actor. he colors his hair and puts on makeup. why would we elect someone like that? he will be a disaster. we will lose and we have to beat jimmy carter, he was the worst in history. until now. [applause] jimmy carter was a disaster, no question and we had to win. but the american people

realized, the people in the republican primaries realized that replacing jimmy carter with something better was not enough. it is good. do not get me wrong. it is not enough. we need someone who is going to as ronald reagan did, remind us who we are, spur the american public to do big things, to believe big thoughts in themselves, why? we are big, we're great. we are americans. we can do anything. [applause] so, let's rally behind someone who is not running for president because they want to be the most powerful person in the country or the world. because they're running for president because i want you to be the powerful people again in this country. [applause]

so, tomorrow. i am asking to walk out of here and i will spend some time getting around and meeting and greeting everybody. if you have got your cameras, you got to put meat on facebook tonight. -- put me on facebook tonight. i cannot spend a lot of time because i have to do hannity at 9:00 p.m. so i do not have a ton of time. i will take some time to do that. thank you for coming here. i really do appreciate it. thank you. [cheers and applause] thank you come lago bless you. -- thank you, god bless you. thank you so much, god bless you.

thank you for all your help. >> i will be there. >> thank you. >> make sure you get some people about. -- to vote. thank you. >> what would you do about personal taxes? >> cut them 20%.

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012]

>> c-span's wrote to the white house coverage continues tomorrow night with results from the primaries in arizona and michigan. you will hear from the four major republican presidential candidates and can call in with your reaction. our campaign coverage includes the washington caucuses on the third. super tuesday voting on the six, and on march 10, it is the continuation of the wyoming caucasus along with kansas, the virgin islands, and warm. -- and guam. more than 1100 delegates are needed for the republican presidential nomination. the republican delegate count stands at 234 mitt romney, 724 -- 123 for mitt romney, 72 for

rick santorum, 324 newt -- 32 for newt gingrich, and 18 for president of ron paul. this count includes the republican national committee delegates who can support any candidate regardless of their state's poorer results. president obama has called on governors to invest more in education. the governor's are in washington for their annual winter meeting. this is a little less than half an hour. >> to the members of the president's candid and the white house staff, i want to tell you how much we governors appreciate your being here and we look forward to these meetings because we know that all of you as well as the president and vice president, in the same spirit as we do. that which unites us is a much more important and so much

bigger than that which divides us. we could not be any more fortunate to have as the head of the governors' association the government -- governor of nebraska. he has done a great job pulling us together and it gives me great pleasure to introduce him. [applause] >> thank you. we served together 10 years ago. we have great respect for each other. we want to thank the president and first lady and the vice president, dr. biden for an exceptional evening last night. jack and i also decided the reason we're here today is not to hear from jack or i. but to hear from the president and vice-president. in the spirit of governor beebe, we will keep the sure. it is my pleasure to introduce the vice-president of the united states, joe biden.

>> thank you. thank you all very much. the good news is you are not going to have to hear much from the vice president. you get to hear the president. one of the things first of all, i had a great night last night at the dinner. i had a chance to have some real conversation with you. for all the differences that we have politically, there is a sense of inevitability about america. my dad used to say no matter who is in charge, no matter how long, the american people are so much bigger and better and capable than any government or either party can be. a lot has changed. when we came into office, many of you came in the same time, we came into office and we were in free fall.

the middle class was and still is clamoring to just hang on. just to make it. and a lot has changed. what most has changed, we have 23 months consecutive of private sector employment. over 3.5 million jobs after losing over 8.5 million jobs. we disagree on some of the policy prescriptions, but there is two. want to make to you. one is that a lot of and i have had a chance to be in a number of your state, a democrat and republican. some states are fearing better and some states are doing just fine. it varies from state to state and based on your economies and what you relied upon to generate growth. one thing i think i heard last night from bunch of you, a dozen of view, a democrat and republican.

certain things that coming back. manufacturing is coming back in that united states for real. the point i want to make to you, there is a reason for us to disagree on policy. i do not think there is reason for us to be doubtful that there is inevitability to america regaining its strength and leading in the 21st century economically. i would like to put a couple of things in perspective. the governors have heard me say this when we were in california with the vice-president of china. we're in a situation where our economy is three times as large -- we are better positioned than any other nation in the world to dominate economically through the first half of the '20s -- 21st century. not because of who is in office. we are better positioned. if you look at the hard numbers. you see the -- we are in a

position that if we give our folks a fighting chance, i was saying this to the president. the american people are tired of being tired. it used to be an expression of the civil rights movement, sick and tired of being sick and tired. the american people are tired of being tired. they're tired of being told how bad things are. they're looking for us, all of us, democrats, republicans to let them know we think as well it is time to just get out. just get up and start to move. ladies and gentlemen, we're going to disagree on a bunch of things. one of the things we all agree on, we need a better education system. we're ranked 16th in the world now. the idea that we will be that way on where we are.

the idea that we could sustain that position and lead the world in the 21st century is not possible. we made great strides in terms of being less reliant on foreign oil than any time in the last 16 years. we've long way to go. the american people are looking to cooperate. you have to get things done. we're open for business in terms of cooperation. the president is open for business, i am open for business. you have a better idea, we will push that idea. the american people, as i said, they are ready. they're convinced we're able to take back what we lost. they're convinced we're able to lead the world. i would like now to introduce the guy to you who is leading our effort am looking forward to looking with all of you in an effort to do that, president barack obama. [applause]

>> thank you, everybody. thank you. thank you so much. everybody have a seat. have a seat. thank you, joe, for the outstanding work you're doing on behalf of the american people every day. i want to thank the members of my cabinet and the administration here today. i want to thank dave heineman and jack markell for the outstanding leadership they have shown. i am glad to see that everyone has recovered from the well time we had last night. it was wonderful to have all of you here. i always look forward to this event because governors are at the front line of america's recovery. you see up close what is working, what is now working

and where we could take it. the thing that connects all of us, no matter what part of the country where from and certainly no matter what part you belong to, that we know what it means to govern. what it means to make tough choices during tough times. hopefully it affords some common ground. we have all felt the weight of the decisions and the impact those decisions have on the people we represent. i first address this group three years ago, it was a moment as to mentioned when the economy was in a freefall. some of you were coming into office at that time as well. hundreds of thousands of americans were losing their jobs or their homes every month. businesses were closing their doors at a heartbreaking pace. our entire auto industry was on the verge of collapse. all told, the prospect of it going to a full blown recession were real.

there is no doubt that enormous challenges remain. -- remain. the fact is over the last two years, american businesses have created 3.7 million new jobs. manufacturers are hiring for the first time since the 1990's. the auto industry is back. our recovery is gaining speed and the economy is getting strong. and we have got to do everything we can to make sure that we sustain this progress. that means we have got to strengthen american manufacturing so that more and more good jobs and products are made here in america. it means that we have got to develop new sources of american energy so we are less dependent on foreign oil and nearly spikes in gas prices. and it means that we have got to make sure that every american is equipped with the skills, with the education that they need to compete for the jobs of tomorrow as well as the jobs of today. and that is what i want to talk to these governors a little bit about.

no issue will have a bigger impact on the future performance of our economy and education. in the long run, it is going to japan -- determine whether business stay here or not. it will determine whether businesses are created here, whether businesses are hiring here. and it will determine whether there is going to be an abundance of good middle-class jobs in america. today, the unemployment rate for americans with at least a college degree is about half the national average. their incomes are about twice as high as those who only have a high-school diploma. so this is what we should be focused on as a nation. this is what we should be talking about in the beating. the countries who out-educators today will out-compete as tomorrow. that is a simple fact. and if we want america to

continue to be no. 1 and stay number one, we have got some work to do. now, in the last three years, the good news is that we have made some important progress, working together. we have broken through the traditional stalemate between left and right by launching a national competition to improve our schools. and i think arne has done an outstanding job of saying we have got to get past the old dogmas, whether it is the dog was on the liberal or the conservative side and figure out what works. we have invested, but we have invested in reform. and for less than 1% of what our nation spends on education each year, almost all of you have agreed to raise standards for teaching and learning. and that is the first time that has happened in a generation. we have also worked with all of you, democrats and republicans, to try to fix no child left behind. we said that if you are willing to set higher, more honest standards, then we will give you more flexibility to meet the standards.

earlier this month, i announce the first 11 states to get a waiver from no child left behind, and i hope that we're going to add more states soon. i believe education is an issue that is best addressed at the state level, and governors are in the best position to have the biggest impact. i realize that everybody is dealing with limited resources. trust me, i know something about try to do with tight budgets. we have all faced some stark choices over the past several years. but that is no excuse to lose sight of what matters most. and the fact is too many states are making cuts to education that i believe are simply too big. nothing more clearly signals what you value as the state than the decisions you make about where to invest. budgets are about choices. so today, i am calling on all of you, invest more in education.

invest more in our children and in our future. that does not mean you have to invest in things that are not working. that does not mean that it does not make sense to bricks and china and move aggressively on reform. but the fact that -- of the matter is we do not have to choose between resources and reform, we need resources and reform. now, there are two areas in education that demand our immediate focus. first, we got to get more teachers in our classrooms. over the past four years, school districts across america have lost over 250,000 educators. 250,000 teachers, educators have been lost. think about that. a quarter million educators, responsible for millions of our students, all laid off when america has never needed the more. other countries are doubling down on education. and their investment in

teachers. we should, too. each of us is here because at some point in our lives, a teacher changed our life trajectory. the impact is often much bigger than even we realize. one study found that a good teacher can increase the lifetime and, of the classroom by over $250,000. one teacher, one classroom. and a great teacher offers potentially an escape for a child who is driving beyond his circumstances. the point is, teachers matter, and all of us have to realize -- recognize that, and we have got to put our money behind that. now, we want to help you every place that we can. at the federal level, we have already provided billions of dollars in funding to help keep hundreds of thousands of teachers in the classroom. and the cornerstone of the jobs plan that i put forward in september, a chunk of which has gotten done but a chunk of which remains undone, was to provide even more funding, so that you could prevent further layoffs and rehire teachers that have

lost their jobs. i would like to thank those of you in this room who voiced support for that effort. congress still is in a position to do the right thing. they can keep more teachers in the classroom, but you have got to keep the pressure upon them to get this done. the second area where we have to bring greater focus is higher education. the jobs of the future increasingly going to those with more than a high-school degree. i have to make a point here. when i speak about higher education, we're not just talking about a four-year degree. we're talking about somebody going to a community college and getting trained for that manufacturing jobs that now is requiring someone walking through the door, handling a million dollar piece of equipment. and they cannot go in there unless they have got some basic training beyond what they received in high school. we all want americans getting those jobs of the future. so we're going to have to make sure that they are getting the education they need.

it starts, by the way, with just what kinds of expectations and ground rules we're setting for kids in high school. 21 states require students to stay in high school until the graduate or turn 18. 21 states. that means 29 do not. i believe that is the right thing to do, for us to make sure to send a message to our young people, you graduate from high school, at a minimum. i urge others to follow suit of those 21 states. now, for students that are ready for college, we have got to make sure that colleges affordable. -- college is affordable. today graduates to take out loans leave college going an average of $25,000. that is a staggering amount for young people. americans owe more in state loan debt than they do in credit-card debt. there is so many americans out there with some much to offer who are saddled with debt before they start out in life. the very idea of owning that

much money put college at a rate for far too many families. this is a major problem that must be fixed. i addressed at the state of the union. we have a role to play here. my grandfather got a chance to go to college because americans and congress decided that every returning veterans from world war ii should be afford -- able to afford it. my mother was able to raise two kids by herself while still going to college and getting an advanced degree because she was able to get grants and work steady while she was in school. michelle and i are only here today because of scholarships and student loans that gave us a good shot at a great education. and it was not easy to pay off these loans, but it sure was an -- was not as hard as it is for a lot of kids day. my administration has tried to do our part by making sure the student loans program put students before banks. if tuition -- by increasing aid like the pelt grants for millions of students and their families and allowing students

to cap their monthly loan payments at 10% of their income which means their repayment schedule is manageable. congress still needs to do its part. by first call keeping student interest rates low. right now they're scheduled to double at the end of july of congress does not act. that would be a great -- a real tragedy for an awful lot of families around the country. they also need to extend the tuition tax credit for the middle class, protect pilgrims, and expand work study programs. but it is not enough just to focus on student aid. we cannot just keep on at the federal level subsidizing skyrocketing tuition. if tuition is going up faster than inflation, faster, actually, then health care costs, then no matter how much we subsidize it, sooner or later, we're going to run out of money. so everybody else is going to have to do their part as well. this is not just a matter of the

federal government coming up with more and more money. that means colleges and universities are going to have to help make their tuition more affordable. and i have put them on notice, if they are not taking some concrete steps to prevent tuition from going up, then federal funding from taxpayers is going to go down. we have got to incentivize better practices in terms of keeping costs under control. and all of you have a role to play by making higher education a higher priority in your budget. -- budgets. over two-thirds of students attend public colleges and universities where, traditionally, tuition has been affordable because of state investments. and that is something that every state takes pride in. that is the crown jewel, in fact, of our economic system is, by far, we have got the best network of colleges, universities, and community colleges in the world but more than 40 states have cut funding

for higher education over the past year. this is the peak of what has been a long-term trend in reduced state support for higher education. and state budget cuts have been a long -- been among the largest factor in tuition hikes at public colleges over the past decade. so my administration can do more. congress can do more. colleges have to do more. but unless all of you also do more, this problem will not get solved. it can be done, though. jacko malley -- jack o'malley. where is jack. martin. sorry. martin in maryland is doing some outstanding work on this front. he worked with the lead swisher to keep tuition down by controlling costs and cutting spending on colleges and you are seeing a real impact from the flagship university of maryland all the way down. a lot of you are starting to experiment with this as well.

we cannot allow higher education to be a luxury in this country. it is an economic imperative that every family in america has to be able to afford. and frankly, i do not think any of the should be a partisan issue. all of us should be about giving every american who wants a chance to succeed that chance. [applause] so, let me wrap this up by sang a few weeks ago i held, right here in this room and in the adjoining room, one of my favorite events and that is the white house science fair. we invited students from a lot of your states and a showcase projects that cover the full range of scientific discovery. we had a group of kids from texas, young latina woman who came from the poorest section of texas and yet were winning rocket competitions.

and they were so good because they could only afford one rocket. they could not test them and they have to get it just right. and their parents ran bake sales so they could travel to these events. you had a young woman who was from long island, had been studying mussels and wanted to be an oceanographer and won the intel science award while she was homeless. her family had lost their home and she was living out of a car and out of her family's -- on her family's couch, and yet still was able to stay focused and achieve what was just remarkable. there was a kid -- the kid who got the most attention was a young man named joey hudy of arizona. that is because jolie let me

fire off an extreme marshmallow cannon. we did it right here in this room. we shot it from here. we pumped it up, it almost hit the light. i thought it was a lot of fund [laughter] . -- a lot of fun. joe had printed out his own business cards. he left a bigger oppression. he was handing them out to everybody, including me. he is on the short list for a cabinet post. under his name on each card was a simple model, do not be board, do something. -- motto, do not be bored, do something. do not be board, make something. all across their -- the country their kids like joye who are dreaming big and are doing things and making things. we want them to reach those heights. they're willing to work hard. they're willing to dig deep to

achieve. we have got a responsibility to give them a fair shot. if we do, then i am absolutely convinced our future will be as bright as all this one. so this is something that i want to collaborate with all of you on. if you have got ideas about how we can make our education system work better, i want to hear them today and arne duncan is going to want to hear them for the rest of the time he is education secretary and the rest of the time i am president. thank you very much, everybody. [applause] >> the attorneys general of virginia and massachusetts debate the constitutionality of the affordable health care act. and in a little more than an hour, mitt romney and rick santorum campaign in michigan. and the meeting with the governors focusing on education. on "washington journal," will -- and discussion of the gao investigation into what are being called improper payments

by federal agencies. and then, a forum on negative political advertising. >> there are millions of decent americans who are willing to sacrifice for change, but the want to do it without being threatened, and they want to do it peacefully. they are the non-violent majority, black and white, who want change without violence. these are the people whose voice some want to be. >> as candidates campaign this year, we look back at 14 men and women who ran and lost. the contenders who had a lasting impact on american politics. >> can you remember the depression, when times were really hard and you left the door is unlocked? now we have the most violent, crime-ridden society in the industrialized world. i can't live with that.

can you live with that? >> the attorneys general of virginia and massachusetts on the constitutionality of affordable health care act. martha cokely at the press club -- coakley at the national press club for a little more than an hour. >> welcome to the national press club newsmaker series. this is the leading professional organization for journalists. i am bob filner. today's event coordinator. today, two outstanding and prominent attorneys general will lead a press club news maker. the affordable health care act, constitutional or not, is a pre lead to the march consideration of the law.

ken brings experience with his national leadership concerning the federal health care lawsuit. martha cokely has deep knowledge of the massachusetts legislation and will discuss federal law. he filed the first constitutional lawsuit to the supreme court against the affordable health care act before 26 other state attorneys general. cokely is the expert in her home state on romneycare and how does serve for does not serve for the president that follows. she filed a brief with the supreme court. reelected to her second term in 2010, martha has devoted her career to protecting children and public safety, standing up for consumers and taxpayers and fighting for equality, prosecuting dangerous criminals, and protecting consumers civil rights and the environment.

she has been appointed to the national fraud enforcement task force and both these attorneys general on this very matter ofk. ken was sworn into office january 2010. prior to this he served in the senate of virginia from 2000 to through january 2010. as a state senator and private attorney, he worked to improve the commonwealth's mental health system and has been a champion for citizens' property rights. he made government or transparent and accountable by sponsoring a lot to put the state's detailed budget on line in a format that citizens could understand. he is proud to protect consumers from scams and frauds and take sexually violent predators' out of communities. my wife found a correction. your web site said the most violent and sexually violent predators. she said, does he not do all of them? and put to gang members in jail and prosecute medicare fraud.

he has been talked about for hire virginia office but that is that today's subject. the attorneys general have been invited to address several facets of the cases the supreme court is taking up including the health care mandate, the tax bases, the general welfare aspect, severability, the law's provisions and other areas. the supreme court is preparing for three days of consideration march 26 through 28 with five and a half hours of debate and possible june decision. the press club event will be a timely preamble. we did not call the form a debate but that is what is with these two powerhouses on opposing sides. the difference is that after their presentations, the media will have at them and we will try to keep the questioning even and fair. only media and national press club members ask questions until and unless those run out which we will see what happens during the hour.

forumpe is that today's will serve as a primer for what the supreme court may consider as arguments for and against the bill and its provisions. many thanks to the staff of both attorneys general for their competent liaison and follow through with the club in arranging today's event. as a former white house and congressional staffer, i appreciate your work. i also want to introduce my wife pat. who helped with your web site and the event staffer for today. for ms. cokely, megan -- coakley, megan silverberg. and they have all been fantastic. you saw joann is out there and i want to thank the outgoing presidents. they are marvelous in their support to inform the public.

and want to introduce -- i want to introduce rich mann. rebecca vanderlin, my longtime executive assistant. and harry brooks. and so we are ready to go. i would -- in terms of questions, what we will do is after each attorney general makes the presentation, we will go to questions. please come to the podium and rebecca, you will get the names and identifications of the people as they come. we will set this up as a microphone for questions so c- span requested there will be sound instead of the usual faint you do not hear a question on television.

we will have the questioners come to the microphone and we will ask the questions that way. we will lead off with ms. cokely. >> thank you. i appreciate the opportunity to do this. we have to be good because we only have 15 minutes. we will try and do that and i look forward to questions. i think you for the invitation today. and to scan for joining me in this lively, i assume lively debate about health care reform and the supreme court's consideration of its constitutionality. i cannot imagine to better attorneys general to do this. i will be the john adams to his thomas jefferson. since representatives from our states were involved 245 years ago in writing the constitution, we happen to have a different view on this. we will be good representatives of those different views.

before i highlight why i believe and why i think the supreme court will find that the patient protection and affordable care act is constitutional, with a specific focus on the individual mandate, i would like to talk about what kinds of things we have been up to in the bay state relative to health care. the u.s. supreme court justice louis brandeis stated that a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory and try novel and social economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country. massachusetts experiment in health care reform five years ago has been recognized as a smaller version but clearly a

prototype of what the aca is. what has come out of our laboratory? you would think it was a frankenstein by some accounts. i would suggest and i want to talk about how it has been more successful than scary. how are free riders any different than farmer filburn? they are not. they ea even affect the national health care market. congress has an interest in requiring them to purchase coverage in a way that is necessary and proper for the overall marketplace. we think in these days the new hampshire plate is probably more to mitt romney's liking. we, like many states, were confronted with the health-care cost crisis.

the rate of uninsured in massachusetts is somewhere between 10% and 12%. but the cost of caring for the uninsured in massachusetts tops $1 billion. the rate of increase was on a spiral that seemed unsustainable. it was unsustainable. we also had, not uncommonly, will be called the free ride them -- free rider problem. we all know there is no such thing as a free lunch or a free rider, because somebody pays. healthy people were opting out of congress, opting in only when they knew there are going to require coverage. those of doubts shrunk the risk pool. they drove up premiums for everybody else in massachusetts. the so-called "free care" of 8% a year and lead to escalation of health insurance premiums and threatened to cripple our system. in massachusetts, there was a broad coalition of stakeholders,

including political leaders from both sides of the table. if you remember the picture of the signing, there was governor mitt romney right next to senator edward kennedy. we had our labor unions. we had nonprofits and for profits. we had business and consumer groups. the importance of this coalition in massachusetts cannot be overstated in solving this problem, and particularly the crypts of the chamber of commerce. we purposely did this in two stages. we said we would get everybody covered first, and then we would tackle cost. that was purposeful. the second phase of that is still ongoing. i am limited to 15 minutes, but it is important to understand our from work and what we were able to accomplish.

four pieces of the bill that you will recognize if you are familiar -- we demanded individual responsibility in the form of the individual mandate. this is the massachusetts parallel to the aca individual mandate. it seems to inspire the most benham, but in 2006 in massachusetts it look like a good way to keep the government out of health care. it is also notable that governor romney at the time not only thought the man it was constitutional, but thought it was good public policy. secondly, we demanded employer responsibility based on the size of the business. if you had 11 or fewer employees, certain things kick in. we expanded our subsidized coverage for our poorest residents. that is how we started to fill in the gap.

expand coverage of people on one and who could afford it, and make sure that those who could afford it or buying it. we established an independent agency to implement the law. as we consider the legal issues, the principal legal issue is whether congress had a rational basis to enact the individual mandate. we do not need to do that in a vacuum. we can see from the experience we have had in massachusetts that there is strong support for the congressional choice to require an individual mandate. in massachusetts, we have achieved a dramatic increase in access to health care coverage. we have the highest health care access rate in the united states, with over 98% of our residents insured. the national rate is about 15 points lower, and there are many states that have a lower injured right. we have seen a sharp decline in

the amount of spending on care. we are spending 33% less than in 2006. we have seen improved quality of care and improve care. significantly fewer adults who -- dental care, there has been a reduction in emergency room care. we agree the emergency room is an inefficient and expensive way to provide primary care. we have cut that because of what we have done in massachusetts. and insurance premiums have fallen dramatically for individuals in massachusetts. individual premiums grew 14% nationally from 2006 through thunen 9 areola hours fell. how as we address other cost issues, a cool,, we are looking and transparency and marcus function hah -- as redress other

cost issues, a coalition and are looking for transparency. massachusetts is uniquely positioned to speak to the actual economic effects of a comprehensive reform that includes an individual mandate. as for the constitutionality of it, i firmly believe it is not even a close call. i believe that after the commerce clause analysis, or especially after the necessary and proper clause analysis, the supreme court can and should uphold the aca. the only way for the supreme court to remove the mandate is to reverse at least 70 years of clear precedent. congress, of course, as recently as 2005 restated that congress can regulate activities that substantially affect interstate commerce. that is the third prong. that is what we agree this comes under. it is for congress, not the

court, to determine whether "activities taken in the aggregate substantially affect interstate commerce." the task of the court is to determine if congress had a rational basis for that conclusion in passing this bill. congress is given broad resumption. there is a national basis for a bill that passed. it is not just a theory. look to massachusetts. the court has long held that the business of insurance is within the commerce clause authority. the power to regulate commerce reaches even "practices affecting congress." although it is not unlimited, that is pretty broad. that was established in 1942. armer filburn. that case questioned whether

congress could mandate the participation of one individual farmer in the national wheat market. that case and the cases following it have set legal precedent for the past 70 years. they have been selected by members of the supreme court to uphold the authority of congress to regulate a national market place. in health care, every person in the united states will be involved in health care marketplace services. in 2009 alone, more than 80% of people in the united states were treated in our health-care system in one year. someone has to pay for that health care. the free rider may not be paying, but he is riding along. how are free riders any different than farmer filburn? they are not. they add up. they ea even affect the national health care market. congress has an interest in requiring them to purchase coverage in a way that is necessary and proper for the overall marketplace.

unless you are prepared to say that the filburn case should be overturned and all the cases following it, it is unconstitutional. -- it is constitutional. if inactivity is not commerce, you don't just have to listen to me. if you read the analysis stand decisions by two conservative justices, one appointed by president reagan, one appointed by president bush, they both soundly reject this analysis as being -- rather they talk about -- as being irrelevant to whether congress has commerce clause authority. rather, they talk about behavior in a marketplace rather than activity or inactivity. my colleague believes this is the invasion of the liberty interest. i respectfully disagree. he believes this is the equivalent of forcing people to buy a particular car. it is the equivalent of requiring people to have a car and who drive a car, to buy car

insurance if you want to use the car analogy. no one has suggested that requiring the purchase of car insurance if you are driving a car is unconstitutional. congress had a rational basis for concluding this had a substantial effect on interstate commerce, and that reducing or eliminating free riding was a helpful regulation of the health care market as a whole. even if you don't want to include it under the commerce clause and i believe the court can and should, i think you have a much tougher argument to say it is not constitutional under the necessary and proper clause. that clearly supports an individual mandate. it is a rational retirement for implementing many of the aspects of the a.c.a. not the least of which are the ban of pre-existing condition exclusions and banning discrimination and health insurance based on health stats. it is a way to make sure those elements of the statute can be effectuated.

congress found the individual mandate -- it was essential to effective health insurance markets in which improved health insurance products that are guaranteed and sold do not include coverage due to existing conditions. that places the mandate squarely within the authority to have necessary and proper clause. in conclusion, there are important real a policy decisions over health care reform. we had those in massachusetts. we don't always agree with them. this discussion about health care reform has been -- continue in this country. those conditions are just that, they are policy discussions. they should be carried out in legislatures in the press and manifested in elections. not every policy agreement deserves to be a constitutional challenge. wouldn't it be more productive to put our - tackle the problem of health care cost and quality for everybody in this country? congress has made its decision. those decisions are squarely

within its authority. i hope the circuit court will see this debate over its 8 1/2 hours through that lens, but i suggest if it does not it will make this court the most activist, interventionist court in a long time. i look forward to attorney general cuccinelli's remarks and questions from you. thank you. >> thank you and the national press club for hosting us and i'm pleased to be here with attorney general coakley and all of you. this is a critically important question for our country that we're facing here in the next few months and that the supreme court will deal with directly at the end of march and we will hear from them by the end of june. i'm sure about their conclusions. this legislation relates to health care and health insurance.

the litigation relates to liberty. there is a distinction. the federal health care bill necessitates a dramatic destruction of liberty in this country. we are focusing on a mandate that all of us must buy government-approved health insurance. however in the last three weeks, we have seen more evidence of the necessity for the implementation of this legislation that liberty be crushed and that is the hhs mandate to all institutions of faith that, regardless of their hundreds of years in this country of government leaving them to practice their faith consistent with their conscious this bill does not allow for that. it should surprise no one, even as shocking as that is, given

the invasion of liberty that this bill necessitates. i would also note to the litigation is an example of federalism in action. we are familiar with in the operation of powers the founders set up to keep the federal government from becoming too powerful. it is an internal who check. federalism is what i think of as an internal sec. -- internal check. what you see with the states suing the federal government is them trying to check the federal government over reaching the boundaries of the constitution.

that is set up to preserve the liberty the government was founded to establish. over half the states are suing the federal government today to protect the constitution from the federal government puree of raising the federal government. -- the federal government. and that is exactly what the founders had in mind when the federal government got outside of the constitution. you can read a good virgin jan madison walks through that. why that is part of the goal bring suit in this case. we are the first state to get a ruling that the individual mandate was, in fact, unconstitutional. our argument was and is that the federal government with regulate commerce under article one, section eight, the commerce clause. however, they cannot compel you into commerce.

and the federal government has never, ever, under the guise of regulating commerce, compelled americans to buy a product or service. that has never happened in our history. in fact, it is so historically unprecedented and when we have these questions that we lawyers call questions of first impression, there hasn't been a case like this before the supreme court because the federal government has never attempted to exercise a power like this before. we look back to the founding period to determine what were the intended parameters of the commerce clause. what did they intend to allow the federal government to do and what did they intend to block it from doing? in forming that analysis is the colonial period that led up to it, during 10 years prior to the american revolutionary war, we were boycotting british good. that was boycott that was heavily entrenched in virginia and massachusetts and continued up to the war.

many of the royal governors in the colonies then as well as officials on the other side of the atlantic wrestled with whether or not that boycott was treason or not. a very significant question, particularly if you were a boycotter. knowing the penalty for treason. the conclusion was that it was not treason. in some respects it came up close to the line but it was not treason. think about that. flip that coin over. that is an acknowledgement that the colonists rebelled against that they could not compel us to buy a product or a set of products. but we have a president who believes he can.

that is how historically unprecedented the exercise of power represented by the individual mandate is. it is not analogous to any other existing case that the supreme court has seen before. the congress could have taxed americans to achieve their policy goals in this bill. medicare is a great example of this. they tax us all, an excise tax on working, that is what the supreme court views this as. they take that money in and spend it on health care. but they did not have the political will to passed the monster of a tax that would be necessary to pay for the federal health-care legislation and the implementation of it. the political will to not exist to pass that tax. so they look for a gimmick. mind you, if you go back to a

computer and google up president obama, george stephanopoulos, it is not a tax. you'll pull up the interview with george stephanopoulos, that noted right winger, in which the president says this is not a tax increase. all my opponents say everything is a tax increase. we filed suit. he sent his lawyers into court and said, this is a tax. really? judges in more than one case, including virginia, have asked council for the federal government -- what am i supposed to do, council with the fact that your side argued this is not a tax and now you walk into court concern that you will lose on the commerce clause and say it is a tax.

there is no good answer to that. commerce has another way to achieve the policy goals. they chose to set up a legislative gimmick that is outside the constitution. it is an attempt to compel people into commerce so they can regulate them. read the commerce clause. it is a passive power. the government regulates commerce that already exists. it has other affirmative powers like raising an army out of nothing. that's why the draft is constitutional, but the individual mandate is not constitutional. when he was running for president, the president

commenting about hillary clinton's health care mandate, which was attempted many years before this. he said if things were that easy, i could mandate everybody buy a house and that would solve the problem of homelessness. it does not. he noted that that was not a power available to the federal government. he and his lawyers now say otherwise. the federal government's position is that your decision, your thought to do nothing, you take no activity at all, it is regulatable under the commerce clause as economic activity. economic activity is what shows up in the commerce clause cases since the new deal. there are four primary cases. two have been won by the bigger government side.

two have been won by the smaller government side. it is a pretty even slate. nonetheless, that notion of regulating economic activity runs through all of the case law. all of it. if deciding to do nothing -- the decision is your decision not to buy something. if that is a regulatable act, if that is a regulation of inactivity. thought, yes. activity, no. if the federal government may regulate that activity and regulation in commerce, there regulateg they can't under the commerce clause. the constitution set up a government of limited authority. people as close by as professor turley of george washington university a noted middle of the road constitutional scholar who predicted the government would win, said that federalism will be dead.

make no mistake about the consequences. the federal government has never identified a constitutional boundary for their power if the individual mandate is constitutional. that is why this case is about liberty, not health care. if you can be ordered to buy a car, asparagus, a gym membership -- the examples the judge came up with. my own view is if they order you to buy a car, it will be a g.m. car. they have a little interest in that these days. i know it will be a chevy equinox. i own a chevy equinox. you don't want to own a chevy equinox. that is not the way government

the filburn case, which attorney general coakley drew your attention to, is the outer reach of the commerce clause. former filburn grew 23 acres of wheat, he was allotted 11. he fed the other 12 acres of wheat to his hog. made bread for his family. because that withdrew his demand for wheat from the market, the supreme court at that time said that was regulatable. note, he voluntarily engaged in activity that affected the market. in this case, you are doing nothing. doing nothing. the commerce clause reaches very far today.

once you engage in anything commercial, chances are very high that the commerce clause will reach you. but it has never before been used nor allowed to be used to compel you into commerce. this is unprecedented. for states, the limited government states to prevail in this case, this requires not the change of one bit of supreme court law. we are within wicker v. filburn. to allow this individual mandate to stand requires a radical expansion of federal power under the commerce clause. the ability to compel americans into commerce is a dramatic expansion of the power the federal government currently has under the commerce clause. under current commerce clause jurisprudence, there are three bases for jurisdiction.

this is an area the congress can legislate. both sides agree that we are under the third of the three bases and that is that activities that affect interstate commerce may be regulated under the commerce clause. it is debatable on the supreme court whether that basis for jurisdiction should even exist. nonetheless, both sides agreed that that is the one we are under in this case. it requires activities. not future activities. coakley, i'm sure would say, someday you'll get health care. on that day, your activity may be regulated. but you may not be compelled against your will to deal with it before that point in time, once you have entered congress --

and mind you, this is a hard area because health care is so personal to people and we want to see the system improve. there are many things we can do to improve it. no improvement would be worth the sacrifice of the liberties that so many americans and died for over the history of this country and that the founders of this country worked so spectacularly well to establish, especially the ones from virginia. but we have a lot of history represented in our states, our commonwealths, in our case. james madison was the primary author of what we're now debating. there's a reason to read his portions of the federalist papers. that is where we are in this case. we're arguing about the outreach of the foundational power of the federal government and its exercised in way that

has never happened before. the comment about behavior in the marketplace, i would suggest brings you right back to the notion of having activities to regulate rather than being able to compel the activities. she used the example of auto insurance. medicare and social security are covered by taxing and spending for the general welfare. auto insurance is a power that the states have. the states may compel the purchase of health insurance. because they have been left powers the federal government does not have. that's why we have a 10th amendment. that's why we have limited the powers. the state's command you to purchase of auto insurance as a condition of the privilege of having a driver's license or

driving on our roads. that is a state exercise of power. not a federal exercise of power. there are many misconceptions like that. hopefully time will allow for questions that reach those. again, i want to thank bob and the national press club and attorney general coakley, and i think this kind of constructive discussion is a very beneficial. thank you for being here to participate. >> rich, could you set up the stand mic? we're going to be setting up a stand mic for people to come and identify yourselves. let me lead off the questioning. you both made outstanding presentations for and against the mandate. but what i think still needs to be addressed is the provisions of the bill and the question if the court were -- you can

respond to what mr. cuccinelli said. in terms of my question, if the court were to separate the mandate from the provision and allow severability, now you a situation where you have millions of kids covered under parents plan already and they are thrilled about that. you have seniors who are thrilled that their doughnut hole is being squashed and they are paying less for prescription drugs. you have no caps and oversight of the insurance companies. 85% of the premiums have to go to benefits, not to overhead and salaries. you the doubling of insurance premiums every 10 years. you have preventive care. you have some provisions. if you do the polling on the provisions, the american people

are thrilled with the specific provisions but they have questions on the mandate and the concept of the bill. so you have a split personality by the american people. what does court do about the fact that now these benefits have triggered? should the court allow severability of the provisions so that the bills can stay even if the mandate is knocked down? ms. coakley, why don't you go first? >> i think that so far the courts have ruled that it is severable. i think there would have to be a response to find other ways to pay for the other pieces of the bill that people do want and are important for access, quality and choice in health care. that issue will be addressed and i think it will be upheld. let me address one thing that ken said. i think he has made a big concession, if i understand his argument.

it said as long as you're no longer in the health-care marketplace, we cannot regulate you. if you never are brought to a doctor ever, i do not concede that is correct. for those people, that is a small percentage of people in 2009 use some kind of health care. that's my argument. everybody is in the health-care marketplace. if you agree with me on that, you can be regulated if use health care. the argument it is the congress' authority to regulate the market. that's how it is paid for. i think that is pretty clear. i know his argument is this is a liberty address. i think he has to do that because you have to get it out of that box of commerce clause.

he tries to make that argument. this is about buying a service or product. it really isn't. it is about how people pay for health care that they receive. regulating the marketplace of providing for a paying for health care is within the congressional power. >> why don't we both just stay up here? >> the consequences of martha's comment are very interesting. if you have a lot of time on your hands and read through the briefing, you could look from the motion to dismiss. the attempt by government to take the case out. we do that as attorneys general. the second round is on the merits. the government came in and said this mandate is critical and we cannot live without it. the whole thing collapses without it. they used the word lynchpin to describe the mandate. by the time we got to the

summary judgment face, they realize that that language to bring the whole thing down when we got to the remedy if the individual mandate was found to be unconstitutional. they tried to backtrack. it is very hard to backtrack once you have written it down. martha just said this is about financing of health care. realize what that means when you get to the remedy. if we prevail -- the private sector health care reforms which -- would have to fall because they cannot stand without the individual mandate. the federal government has conceded that. i would suggest that what martha just said is that because it is about health care financing, the elements about medicare and medicaid in the bill must also go. they must also go.

the third way to slice it in terms of remedy is that it all pales in comparison. bob walked through some of the polling. this was on popular when it passed and they got less popular afterwards. that is unprecedented here. the way the grand selling of achievements of this bill will occur is by the denial of your liberty and choice. you'll start to hear about the ipab that will decide. you don't get to decide. they will decide. these are what some people have called the death panels. that might be a big dramatic. when you can't get care that determines whether you live or

die, i see where the name comes from. that will be how those cost savings occur, the denial of opportunity for care that we now have. i've tried to solve some problems in my state. even with all of that, it is still the best in the world. unfortunately we will do a lot to undo that if this legislation stands. >> can i just respond? i think you turned your argument on its head. the people we're talking about who you say we cannot regulate are exactly the people who don't have those choices because they do not have health care insurance. their only option is to go to an

emergency room. we don't leave people at the emergency room door unless we want to change that license plate to live free and die. i think we're talking about a section of people who did not have coverage or choices and that is one goal of congress. and people who can afford it but decide to self-insure. then when they find they have a catastrophe, cancer or an accident that they can't pay for, we end up paying for it so there is no such thing as free care. let's not mix of policy decisions. >> you did. >> no, i didn't. can congress do this? that's issue today. i know you do not like it. but's your prerogative let's not mix up the argument. >> let's go to media questions. come up and identify yourselves. sort of stand in a line and identify your outlet. your name and your outlet. >> my name is russell with "corporate crime reporter." >> is this concerning the health care bill?

>> it is. >> you argued that the individual mandate is necessary to achieve congress's goal of universal coverage. there are single payer groups and doctors across the country who believe the individual mandate is unconstitutional because it is not necessary and that a single payer system could have achieved it. how do you counter that argument? >> that is a fair question. understand that in some ways my colleague made that argument for medicare. we could have done a single payer system. nobody wanted to do that. that was governor romney's arguments. we will make sure the people pay for their health care and

we will make sure people pay for their health care in a responsible way. you can have a policy argument about how we pay for this. should it be like medicare? should bit through individual mandate? congress made this decision partly because they decided it would make sense. i think our people, more than 2/3 of the people in massachusetts are very happy with our bill. it was briefly challenged as unconstitutional. that argument was quickly gotten rid of. the argument that we could not do it. i don't buy the states do it but the federal government cannot do it argument. if we're talking about the goals, making sure we sustain the cost, these are goals that congress can attempt to achieve. they are already in the marketplace. states want this because we have citizens and residents who go

between states and we end up paying for their care. people come to massachusetts for coverage. and so i think that the idea that congress can do this is separate from the policy discussion about whether there would be a better way to do it. >> we're drifting between policy and law. i would agree that the question for the court is not a policy question. the question is whether congress has this authority. martha rather swiftly just swept the federal government in with the states as far as the authority to do this. states were left with distinct areas of authority. health care was thought to be one of them. health, welfare, those are

called police powers, among others. they are the residual powers that were not delegated to the federal government in the constitution and those remain with the states. they will be if not eliminated, nearly eliminated if this case is lost. the reason is because if i can or you to buy a product to resolve my problem, i can figure my way through that problem just by compelling you to do things. >> we have christian from kaiser health news. others can come on up. >> address the constitutionality of the medicaid expansion. that the court will be considering? >> this is a good question. the question is whether or not what amounts to coercion and the argument is that it is coercion, that the medicaid expansion is so significant a burden on the state.

who have been participants mostly in medicaid for 47 years this year, because whether the expansion is so large as to amount to coercion of the states. they make extricate themselves and thereby give up several billion dollars of federal funding. the supreme court in the 1980's ruled against a coercion argument as it related to transportation dollars where the dollars or about 5% of the state transportation budget. they said it is possible that the federal government may reach a point using the spending power that amounts to unconstitutional coercion of the

states. the case that has gone before the supreme court includes that question. the supreme court has never found there to be unconstitutional portion of the states based on the strings the government attaches to the spending power. i would submit to you, if this case isn't the one for that conclusion, then the last 30 years or so of the discussion of that topic has been an academic exercise initiated by the supreme court. if this case doesn't do it, i don't think we'll ever have one that will fit the bill of compelling estates. co-certification the word the supreme court uses in an unconstitutional manner in using the spending power. that is the other constitutional question before the court. they have never found it yet. if it doesn't exist here, i

would suggest that whole theory of law is dead. >> is the expansion a problem for congress or one that the court should get into? >> i thing that ken has answered the argument in a way that it is only a factual question. it is not a legal question because it is an issue of the relationship between federalism and with the states do. all the states except medicaid money -- all of the states accept medicaid money. what is the actual burden? it will really is benefits that offset those costs. if that theory is out there, i disagree that this is the case for it. the idea of carrots rather than sticks is something that congress can do. it has been upheld. i don't see it is even close to that compelling border, but i do think that would be a requirement of states who argue that to make that factual case.

this is a factual issue. >> jimmy lewis, a freelance. thank you. attorney general coakley, you made the argument that we're in the market and if we show up at the hospital door, there is a requirement under the law to treat people. if the filburn extracted one individual from the general marketplace of demand, how would you respond to the requirement to provide care and how that is not separable under the filburn case because that individual demanding health care and the supply of that care is required by law?

>> you have partially answered that question. federal law requires that if you're a medical provider and you get federal dollars, if they come to your door, you must at least screen them and determine emergency treatment or transfer or do nothing, but not before that screening to determine their need. that's federal law cornering you in that position. every human being is in the health care market. that denies reality to a certain extent. i'm standing in front of you. i'm not buying anything or ordering anything. there are other things we need. for instance, food. the asparagus example. usually we go back and forth between asparagus and broccoli. it is neck and neck.

other things are necessities of life. transportation for many people in the world we live in today. housing, the example of the president used himself when he was campaigning. while being critical of hillary care from the 1990's. those are all other examples. using one of federal law to trap you to say, we're stuck here -- we have to be allowed to compel people to get us out of this situation. that is a non sequitur that the federal government has put in place. it does not address whether they can compel you when you choose to do nothing. the law ultimately is force.

that is how government governs. the compliance of the citizens. that's what's going on here. >> ultimately the law says if you don't get coverage, then you pay a penalty for it. you have a choice in that respect. i think ken's answer -- we're done this already. we can't boot strap that argument into saying you can't do this. we do pay for those people. that is a fact of life. either under state law or federal law, we do not leave people at the emergency room door. because we do it and because it is so expensive, using emergency room care it is incredibly inefficient and expensive. that is one reason why our free care costs have gone down 30% since we implemented it. we can do it.

the argument that people have a right to stay in our homes and say, i'm not buying the policy. that's not what this is about. it is making sure that people have it funded and pay for in an appropriate way, necessary and proper to affect the goal. >> if i can use that as an example. the entire argument for the government side was a policy argument. these are good policy goals and we need to do it this way. it is constitutional. that is not the way the constitution has been set up. congress chose not to utilize those. note for all of you, the disconnect on the pro- government side, the big

government side, there are lots of governments in this case, the constitutionality and the history of the provisions at stake and the argument be made for this power, they are policy arguments. there is no constitutional boundary to any of those arguments, as heartfelt as they are. and as heart-tugging as they are. >> i take that as ken's vote for a strong public option. >> one that i think came out that you both addressed was the tax question. regardless of george stephanopoulos changing his mind -- >> no, that was president. he was the interviewer. >> what i would like to address is that issue. what is the tax basis for the bill? is it a parallel to a tax? you can lead with that. >> this is a radical question

actually. if you think about it, if the government can compel you to do what ever -- forget commerce -- and then penalize you for not doing in it and defend that act under its power to tax, because they get money if you disobey, they can order you to do anything. anything. as it stands separately under the taxing power. this is a radical notion. only one judge out of the 16 that have addressed it has decided that he would find it under the taxing power. that defied my prediction. i thought we would go all the way through this case and not one judge or justice would do it but i am off by one so far. i will stick to that prediction among the justices.

i don't think a single justice will find this to be an exercise of the taxing power. >> i would agree with that for different reasons. most of the justices have said we don't get to reach that question and we don't get there because we find it is unconstitutional under the commerce clause. the ability to argue alternative reasons that congress is entitled to do something. we do it for medicare and social security and for income tax. if you don't pay your income tax, you pay a fine. federal government and the state government does that all the time. the reason this has remained a secondary slue, i think is -- issue, i think it is because it is a less controversial issue. ken said it wanted to do, they should have done under the taxing authority.

is this under the commerce clause something we can accept? i think courts will take it up. and find if they don't accept it they may find it is an appropriate use under the taxing authority. >> i have one last question. >> go back to when we filed on march 23, 2010. look at the next month's press coverage. it was all on the commerce clause. gradually as the other side figured out their presumption of victory began to fall away, they began to get desperate and look for other arguments. you will find it starts to crop up in mid-april. it didn't show up until 2010, this fallback argument. that's why it is here. it tells you they lost their argument in their own commerce clause arguments. the statements on the other side are grandly confident.

i would not wager anything this will be 5-4, one way or the other. the lineup of justices may not be as predictable as you think on the individual mandate. i think it will be a close case. we have thought that all along. the only reason is because of the presumptions of the federal government. it should not be a close case. it is a slam dunk against the federal government. nonetheless, they get tremendous presumptions in their favor. we'll see how it plays out. >> another side on the 5-4. that is an interesting question. should and is the politics of the politics of the court appointing power, is that really the basis that this will be ruled on or do you think it will rise to the patriotism of the situation? interesting question.

i would like you both to answer that. >> i would like to think so. i will not predict what the numbers will be. i think that it will be upheld. i will be surprised if it is not based upon the conservative members of the court who have upheld similar issues. for many of the justices who do not like the mandate, i think they will be hard pressed best upon their theory of the constitution in ways they have decided these kinds of cases. i think it will be difficult for them to explain striking down an individual mandate. but i'm prepared to wait to see what they say. >> we talk about judges and presidents who appoint them. it shouldn't surprise anyone that judges and justices tend to be closer to the world view of the president who is appointing them than to the other side. that doesn't tell you where people are going to wind up.

that will be the case at the supreme court level. i think it is a possibility. i don't presume at all that you're going to see anything that runs along party lines by way of appointers. the appointing president, party line votes. for those of you who have never been in a supreme court argument, whatever anybody thinks of these justices, there isn't a dummy up there. it is an impressive undertaking when you're in the room. the preparation they have put in is evident in every case there. the fact that they have designated five and half hours of argument tells me how significant they believe this case is and just how dramatic a ruling is for the constitution.

>> you would agree that you cannot draw from the questions they ask where they are going. >> i would agree with that. >> final question from mike fishman. press club member and physician. >> retired physician. my comment is directed to attorney-general cuccinelli. you argued that compelling people into commerce unless and until they actually seek services. my understanding of insurance is the premium is not something you pay to get a product at the time you buy it. you get it in case you need it somewhere down the line. it could be argued, and i would be interested in your response to this, is that every citizen of the united states is already in commerce with the health care system because there is the potential need for that.

the health-care system is there to meet the needs that might arise. >> if they are not yet in commerce. >> if they are prepared to use that system. if they count -- if somebody has a heart attack and they don't have health insurance, they will count on the local emergency room to go to it unless they were willing to waive never using that health care system during their whole lifetime. nobody would ever ask anybody to do that. unless they are willing to do that, they count on the availability of health care system should some emergency arise. therefore the fact that the potential is there, the health- care premium pays for a potential need that nobody would ask them to waive their right to. >> both of our guests will answer.

and if he could turn them into concluding comments. >> sure. you're really arguing what the federal government has argued and that is that you're always at all times in health care commerce and therefore we can regulate you. i would draw your attention to a judge in the district of columbia who ruled for the federal government and what she said was the mental activity was being regulated, that was her phrase, of those deciding not to buy insurance. the synonym for that is thought. your thoughts are being regulated. your decisions. i'm not comfortable with that. that would make a great george orwell sequel. it is not much of a constitutional policy. if your assertion is correct, and the supreme court accepts that as what defines the market for purposes of this case, then

i think you're probably right and the government will be granted this power that it has never before had or exercise to compel people to buy this product. you could have made the same argument for food. where does it end? holmes transportation. liz can go on, and then we can argue, an -- list can go on, and then we can argue, what is health care? those are questions the supreme court is going to answer. this power has never before been exercised, and it goes way beyond.

i urge you to read the case. pay for it. somebody pays for it. you cannot expect to go to the emergency room and say i have $15,000, $20,000. whatever it would cost. we do not want you to do that. a national health care marketplace. it is constitutional, i believe. i believe the court will find the it is constitutional. i appreciate my colleague's walk back into history. i think you can look at massachusetts. john adams played a role in the constitution. i know the commerce clause is

different. when you look at the authority, the goal that the commerce clause allows for. i don't think there is any question that the analysis behind farmer philburn encompasses this activity. it will be up to judges who have more experience than ken and i. i appreciate this opportunity. this is what our country allows for. i would say that to allow for this kind of debate in the congress and in our own communities to make sure that

people have access to good health care and that we can cut costs on that is an important debate. >> we thank our talented and prominent attorneys general and now we know why you are among the leaders in the nation in your field. the press club expresses its deep gratitude to attorney- general cuccinelli and attorney general coakley and we hope the american people are informed about what the debate will be for five and half hours in the supreme court. thank you for attending and we are now concluded. [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> and a few minutes the chairman of the sec. the new america foundation hosts a forum on negative political advertising. several live events to tell you about today from our companion network, c-span

3. this includes lis a jackson testifying at 10:00 a.m. eastern, -- lisa jackson testifying a 10:00 a.m. eastern, and then hillary clinton will take questions about her parts of the budget from members of the foreign relations committee. the securities and exchange commission chairman mary schapiro on her implementation of new financial regulations. this event is a little more than half an hour. good >> good morning. i am very happy to welcome all of you to washington for sec speaks 2012. i am particularly honored to once again served as the co- chair along with my friend and colleague, the director of the

division of corporation finance. one of our principal jobs is time keeping, so to get us off to a good start, let's move to the program. the conference covers to days, and we will be presenting a number of panels from various offices to discuss issues, developments, trends, regulations in the work over the past year. we have invited commentators from the industry and academia to give their views on each panel. many outside commentators have previously served as commissioners or in other capacities so they can offer perspectives from inside and outside. over the course of the day you will hear from the sec chairman, mary schapiro, and from other commissioners. we will be offering workshops, small and breakout sessions at the end of each state.

the workshop will give you an opportunity to ask questions of the staff on topics of interest to you. we encourage you to ask questions during these workshops, and despite the fact of our conference is untitled sec speaks, i must say the views and tie it -- the views of the individual speakers will be their own, and not necessarily those of the commission or any of the various divisions and offices. to start, it is my honor, my distinct honor to introduce the 29th chairman of the sec. not many people realize this, but when she returned to the sec in january of 2009, it was mary shapiro's fourth appointment and a testament to your excellent

justice in -- judgment that those appointments were equally divided. two were by republican presidents and two by democrats. her talent for understanding complex issues has been vitally important as we work to become more agile and a defective steering -- and affective during one of the most demanding moments in our history. she increased communication of all times and won broad support from elected and political leaders on both ends of pennsylvania avenue. she has brought not only a record number of enforcement cases but a significant number of actions involving highly complex and sophisticated transactions, including many are rising from the financial crisis. she launched a national program

that combines more tactics with computer algorithms said rank risk, allowing us to effectively targeted examinations and protect investments. market stability offered by dog- frank, working around the clock to implement an unprecedented by dodd-frank, working round-the- clock to implement an unprecedented agenda. they pulled an aging technology infrastructure into the 21st century, over seeing significant improvements in management and operation that allow the sec to devote an ever higher percentage of budget to core functions and inspired a new enthusiasm for a historic and important institution. chairman shapiro treats public service as a calling and accepts

her responsibility not as overt and but an opportunity, we did not as a burden but as an opportunity and found ways to stabilize markets in ways that will make our financial system the pillar of a growing economy. she knows her job is not about numbers. it is about people, creating opportunities and building a more prosperous country for us all. please join me in welcoming someone for whom it is an honor and a pleasure to serve as sec chairman. mary schapiro. [applause] >> thank you so much. that was overwhelming, and i am not sure i deserved it all, but i am very appreciative. it is a pleasure to be here. i look forward to this as an

opportunity to review recent activities and how we have evolved and how the changes benefit the markets. 20 years ago, the financial world was a very different place. the dow was inching towards the 3000 mark. derivatives were very and -- were barely on the radar, and all you could do on a cellphone was talk. for most of the staff, the biggest disruption in living memory was the black market crash of 1987, and your cataclysmic experience, but one that tailspin -- sunnier cataclysmic experience but one and pales in comparison with 2008. i knew the sec would be challenged colonial it has not been challenged before,

challenge to address risks that could jump from market to market like wildfire, incinerating each in turn, a challenge to bring up pre-prices mindset into a post- crisis era, and the ability to step up to its role affectively. given the scope of the crisis and the fallout of the madoff scandal, it is no surprise some were calling on the agency to be disbanded, but policy-makers understood the importance of our mission, to protect investors and insure our markets. from my earlier years with the sec, i knew well that the individuals who serve aren't a dedicated antel -- whose serv are a dedicated and talented

team able to rise to the occasion. i knew we would come through, and i am pleased with how far we have come, so i would like everyone who works for the sec to stand and be recognized. [applause] thank you for your service. our commitment to help draw a consensus inside and outside the sec and a better solution was not to shutter the agency but to strengthen it, to demand better our action from us and for us to embrace needed reform and to adjust to the world in which we are operating, and that is what the team set out to do. we redesigned the team, investing in technology and capital. we put in place a new operating

strategy rooted in an entrepreneurial attitude and a collaborative approach, and we immediately began to execute on an agenda that would better protect investors and reduce the chance of another systemic shock waves.

"washington journal" continues. >> every monday morning we bring you our feature segment, "your money. we put the spotlight on a federal program with a special focus on who is involved and how much it costs. this morning we the improper payments by the federal government, how to get those back, how it all works. my guess is beryl davis of the government accountability office. >> improper payments are any payments that should not have been made or were made in an incorrect amount. but the definition of improper

payments also includes payments that are due to documentation errors or insufficient documentation. for example, if i could elaborate more, if i were to be paid as beneficiary of a federal program, and i will give two situations. in the first case, i may be paid $110 and it is determined that $100 of that was an inaccurate amount of payment. but the difference, the $10 difference i was overpaid, that is one situation of an improper payment. paid $110 but it was determined that there was some missing information i did not provide -- my social security number, the number of beneficiaries i had, my income. there is certain information that might have been missing on my application, and the entire $110 would be identified as an

improper payment. in fact, it might -- i might have been there legitimate perception of that money, because of the lack of the petition, it is classified as improper payments. host: howdahs this specifically happen? is it on the end of the federal agency, the person trying to get the federal money? how do these things slip through the tracks? -- through the cracks? guest: there are many root causes of improper payments. action has been taken to identify categories of improper payment route causes. the agencies are now trying rather aggressively to their root causes into three categories. i might mention that last year in 2011, the total amount of government improper payments was $115.3 billion. some of that might include improper payments that are

strictly due to lack of documentation. this was somewhat good news because the year before it was $5.3 million more. so there actually was a reduction last year in the improper payments. host: let's look at improper payment by agencies last year. health and human her services at -- and human services $65 billion. the department of labor, $14 billion per social security, $9 billion. agriculture, $5 billion. guest: the health and human services areas -- medicare, medicaid, those comprise more than half of the one under $15 million of improper payments. -- of the $115 million of improper payments. 1.2 $5 billion was recovered through audit programs, and of more than half of that, 7 and 79 million was due to medicare.

host: we're talking about improper payments that the government has made with our guest, beryl davis, who just mentioned federal agencies spent out a hundred $15 billion in what are known as improper payments -- about $115 billion in what are known as improper payments, last year. if you would like to call in and talk about this topic, here are the numbers -- let's look at high-error programs. you mentioned that medicare and medicaid come into play here. medicare fee services, $29 million but the $29 billion last year. host: dig into these numbers here. what does that actually mean? guest: if you look at the top 10

programs responsible for improper payments last year, they comprised about 1 1/7 million dollars, 1 1/7 -- they comprised about $107 billion. the unemployment insurance number is due to people who go back to work but they continue to receive benefits. many of the top 10 programs are -- you will see there are documentation errors, administrative errors, someone might not have put the data in the computer correctly. as i mentioned earlier, someone may have left off information from their application regarding a specific situation such as the previous employment, the number of children they have, etc. so many of these are due to administrative verification eras -- errors, it may be that information got on the application but the agency was not able to support that through an independent database.

so there are a number of reasons. this is why a government accountability office is focused on drilling down to the root causes of improper payments. this is critical to be able to identify the course of action plans and identify preventive means of avoiding the pay and chase way of doing business, where you pay somebody and go after the money after the fact. host: anthony joins us from annandale, virginia, democrats line. heard a reporter 60 pitches, an outline for an affidavit -- a report, 60 pages, an outline for affidavit, and they set me back a report -- now 2012, and since then, since i never followed up on it, they also submit the

exact same 60-page information to the gao, and they never even acknowledged my sending a letter to them. i finally called them, and the person there was to convey to death person -- was a tone-deaf person. i'm mad -- i wonder how you recruit -- how you accrue your losses. guest: if you would like to send that information, i will do some research and find out what i can for you. i would be happy to look into it. host: does the government find out about cases of abuse or error or fraud from tips? is that a way that information

comes out? guest: certainly tips are one method of identifying part -- improper payments. the agencies have their own programs, such as data analytics, where you look at trends come and take these huge databases and data and look at trends that might indicate fraudulent payments. you also have opportunities to share information between agencies. a good example might be the pell grant. the pell grant is looking toward the treasury department to assist it in the sense that they can pull up the irs data. when an applicant fills out an application, either he or she or their parents can actually pull information from the air -- from their tax database and put it in the loan application. you see a lot of agencies trying to make better use of sharing information, and that is really critical.

another example might be, as i mentioned earlier, unemployment insurance. the $5.3 million reduction, the largest piece in that was due to a reduction of $3.8 billion in unemployment insurance due to the lower program outlays. that program, again, because it has people that go back onto the payroll and are no longer needing unemployment insurance, they are looking at associating with health and human services, which has a new database, comparing their database with the health and human services database to try to find potentially people who can come off the payroll. host: beryl davis, with the government accountability office. this is our "your money" segment. james, independent line, in common, mississippi. good morning. caller: i wanted to ask her --

in the case of the government, with housing and the usda department and development for complexes and things like that, you know that you participated in the program correctly, and over several years you begin to see a deterioration of the complex or apartments that you live in, and you report these issues to the people that you represent and they sort of like put it on hold because you know we're living in the low-income areas, and the federal government assists in these programs and you speak out about these commissions and you ask a more the money is going for the repairs, for upkeep of the

complex and they give you 500 or 600 different pages to fill out, and then you are being persecuted for speaking out, what do you do in cases like that? for several years we have been speaking out about the slumlord's coming into these apartments, especially here in call-in, mississippi, and they just keep giving us the run around and also harassment. i have spoken with the usda department about it, and they are looking into it, but what did you do when you know it is wrong and they are holding you up and say we cannot -- you know it has been going on for 10 or 25 years? guest: the best thing you can do is work with the agency itself, and there are proactive people within the agency, advocates for individuals such as yourself who may be able to help you. i would not be able to specifically assist you in this

particular situation, looking toward the agency and asking for their assistance might be the best vehicle for obtaining help. host: the gao did an analysis of improper payments. explain what the role of the gao is when it comes to policing this or keeping tabs on that money that was paid out and should not have been. guest: the gao is considered the congressional watchdog. it is responsible for looking at how federal moneys are spent, looking at programs for effectiveness and efficiency across the federal government. it produces probably around 1000 products appear in the form of reports said testimonies. report -- spend testimonies. we are partial, fact-based, not partisan. we have high professional standards we have to comply with. host: democratic caller bank in

atlanta, georgia. caller: my concern is about fraud and medicare. my mother is on medicare and i want to care for her but i worry about all the fraud. she goes into the hospital for a few days ed they bill anywhere 20,000 -- and they built from anywhere from $20,000 to $40,000 a visit. she has a nurse come to the house once a week. they are charging something like $70 an hour. i note they don't paid nurses that kind of money. multiplied at time -- multiplied that by the hundreds of other people who are on medicare, i wonder if anything is being done to crack down on.

guest: i think we have two issues here. what is the amount of the payment. sometimes there are billing rates that are higher than what the government pays. again, i am not an expert in the area of healthcare services so i cannot piece is a big as to whether or not the payments are too high. -- i cannot be too specific as to whether or not the payments are too high. the other issue of fraud, we are looking at the different reasons for improper payments across all of the agency's. there are 79 programs in the agencies that contribute to that $150 billion figure each year. we look at that, but there were relatively few cases of fraud. that does not mean that fraud doesn't exist. there are actions that are being taken now to identify fraud, and once fraud is identified, to put a stop to it.

on twitter direct us to a story in "the washington post." $77 million computer system to detect fraud before it happens a prevented just one suspicious payment by christmas, saving taxpayers exactly $7,591. senator tom carper delaware wonders, did they leaeve out some zeroes?" guest: i cannot speak to that specific issue you are talking about. the agencies are looking at how to better align their huge databases with matching databases and, as i mentioned, these analytic techniques where

they can identify patterns of fraud. in this particular case, it may be that the software is been -- has not been in place long enough. there is reason to ensure that any investment on the part of the government is made wisely. when you poke your hardware, software, anything you think is going to have a benefit down the road, there should be a good cost analysis to determine if that will be a meaningful benefit. host: the director of medicare's anti-fraud program suspending and that itone way is unfair to a great technology on ua single statistic." david, massachusetts, independent, good morning. caller: good morning, libby.

what is your role as far as auditing government spending? second, based on the amount you put out as far as improper government payments for last year, how much of that is inappropriate spending cuts congressional salaries -- towar congressionalds salaries? guest: i think i can help to understand and answer your question by telling him how the payments -- the estimates, about. these are estimates reported by the agency. i might digress for a moment and say that the government accountability office has a number of programs now and audits that are taking place related to reviewing improper payments in the area of medicare, medicaid, the department of defense.

to get back to how the estimates are comprised, the different agencies are required by law -- there has been a lot of that legislation the last decade that is moved forward in identifying improper payments. they have to be developed using a statistically valid samples. it is an estimate of estimated payments that, again, are due to statistically valid samples. host: beryl davis, we're talking about $150 billion of improper payments last year. on the scale of government payments in general, we're talking about a success-failure rate of how much? guest: 4.7%. the total outlays for those programs is $2.50 trillion. host: 95% perceived success rate?

guest: correct. host: phil, republican in fort worth, texas. caller: good morning. i don't see under chart how much money we are wasting an illegal aliens, wasting what food stamps and all the free stuff they get at the county -- host: philip, are you concerned about the law itself or people breaking the rules? caller: i am concerned about people breaking the rules and taking benefits from our kids and our citizens. they take our jobs, they take our kids' jobs. our kids' on a planet rate is way higher than the regular unemployment rate -- kids' unemployment rate is way higher than the regular unemployment rate. host: one caller talked about congressional salaries and how those can be improper payments.

guest: correct. there is definitely a difference between what the law states is an improper payment and what some people might consider to be improper payments. looking at what the agencies are doing to mitigate improper payments, they -- the law requires an agency that has activities of more than $1 million annually it to have our recovery audit contractor program in place, where the program is required to go out an audit and find if improper payments have been made. they are required to report improper payments if they meets certain threshold by law. they are required to perform a risk analysis to determine which programs are susceptible to the improper payments. the more recent legislation passed in 2010 now requires inspector general of each of the ies to look at what the

improper payments might be in and to determine whether or not there has been compliance with the act of 2010 regarding the identification of improper payments. host: michelle asks us on twitter whether the gao has oversight of the defense department. maybe you could talk about when it comes to a proper statemenspg -- improper spending. guest: it is important that you raise the question, because this past year there were commercial paper programs with the department of defense that were not included in the government- wide estimate. they worked -- they were developing their estimating methodologies. this year, there were nine new programs that were added to the total of the programs that had

estimated improper payments. one of those was fairly significant, the drug program that added $7 billion to the total. host: mark, democrats' line. caller: good morning. i have a question for ms. davis. what is your view of obamacare? does she think that law has to do with the medicare fraud thing going on throughout the country? i am just wondering, does that needed to be repealed in order to make things better for the rest of us throughout the country? guest: because i work for the government accountability office, we have a very strict standards about auditing and sharing in reporting information. we report to congress, we report to various agencies. our records are public. you can go to our website at

gao.gov and see all of our testimonies and reports. i cannot speak specifically to that break any statement i make needs to be relevant to the work we do have the government accountability office. host: the recent analysis of improper payments in 2011 shows there were $150 billion set out improperly. can programs accounted for about $7 billion, -- $107 billion, 90% of the problem. delaware, brandon, independent line. caller: great show again, c- span. i wanted to speak on the point of improper payments. i don't think anybody disagrees on what an improper payment is.

i think where the disagreement comes in, like you said, what the government says is improper payments, because there is no doubt that just about every american citizen has given an illegal immigrant money or something that an own american citizen cannot get is an improper payment. according to the government, it is and not. that is what we need to fix first, what is an improper payment. also, when people get improper payments from unemployment, they can pay that back with unemployment. what sense does that make? host: you raise the question of how improper payments are paid back. we talked earlier about this idea of the law and whether or not improper payment is something people want to see, objective or not. let's take the second part of what brandon had to say, how do you get the money back? guest: if the individual is

continuing to receive the benefits, a feature benefits can be reduced. it is more difficult -- an example would be a contractor that received payments for it services or products provided. the payments can be withheld. but it is more difficult with an individual paid in -- it is up to the agencies to determine how best to retrieve the money. there are contract audit agency's that they pay a contingent fee to to recover the fund. host: should someone be sent to jail, fined or penalized if they were given improper payments? that gets to the question of whether or not it was intentional or not on the part of the recipe, but if they were ignored, could they get in trouble? -- if they were ignorant, but they get in trouble? guest: absolutely, that they could. host: ed joins us.

where are you calling from? caller: lowell, massachusetts. host: you are on the air with beryl davis. caller: i have one area of what i consider to be fraud that is very difficult. i happen to work in real- estate and i go to houses where people are receiving assistance. they get appliances. appliances that are supplied to these people, washer and dri er, it was like $205,000 for a washer and dryer is applied to these people on assistance. the average american cannot afford that. it is just throughout the whole system like that. people administering these programs have as the philosophy

that we are going to get as much money as we can and they over do it on anything. guest: that is a very difficult question to answer, but i would like to take it to a much higher level. we are talking about stewardship of taxpayer dollars. a lot of questions, your question, other questions that have come in, address that need. the government accountability office is looking carefully at that. we've done many reports over several years with the goal of encouraging agencies to reduce and eliminate improper payments to the extent that they can. but yes, the government takes taxpayer money and has responsibility to spend those dollars wisely. that is one of the important objectives of the government accountability office in helping to identify areas where programs

can be more effective, efficient. host: virginia, democrat, go ahead. caller: yes. er about theain medicare program. i will be 85 this year. i remember when lyndon johnson and the ama was trying to get the law passed for medicare. so many government programs are run by the federal government, so mismanaged, it is unbelievable. i remember the ama was so deadly against the medicare program being put into law. the doctors and most of the republican senators at that time. i remember clearly. i will be 85 this year. so many programs that are

mismanaged in the federal government. i was at the doctor's office last year. i don't take any kind of prescriptions. right away the doctor says, "you have not been here in about nine years." i had knee surgery in 2001. save money, the same surgery, in santa barbara, california -- i was living there at the time. this doctor that i went to for my physical, yearly physical in california, he wanted to put me through all these tests. i said, i don't have any problems, i don't take any prescriptions. white you want to run me through these tests? he said, "i have to put you through the computer here so i know how to manage to." i had an ultrasound of my

stomach, and terrorism in the stomach, i had a chest -- aneuryism in the stomach, i had just c -- chest x-ray -- host: i think we lost connection to his phone line. guest: the government accountability office has a health care team that focuses on medicare and medicaid. that is basically what they do. it we are interested in ensuring that the agency is doing whatever it can reduce improper payments. we take that very seriously. host: our guest, beryl davis, is with the government accountability office. she testified before congress earlier this month. what was the message you are

sharing with congress, and what did they want to hear from you? guest: the message i shared with congress is that much has been done, and a good example is the reduction this past year of the fight with $3 billion -- the $5.3 billion -- most of that was unemployment insurance. there are many things that need to be done. a good example is better estimating methodology is. -- methodologies. there are programs that are not completed their estimating methodology. the total may go up. another thing to look at is agencies that are really having difficulty even putting estimates it together. the children's health insurance program is temporary assistance for needy families, both of concludede not this year and they are very important to help him services programs. tanf has difficulties because it

has to work with state government. medicaid is one of the other major participants in the large $115 billion figure. it also was a partnership and statehe federal it governments. it is important to work with agencies and that level. basically, to look at the root causes of improper payments -- agencies and doing a better job of that. if you find at the root cause, you can take corrective action. if you do not find out why it happened, you will not be able to solve the internal control issue. looking at data matching, data analytic techniques, program design. program designed to be a big issue. medicaid, for example, because there are so many different eligibility requirements, creates a lot of difficulty in

overseeing those programs. there are things that can be done regarding dataset detection. we talked about recover audit programs. other means might be data mining. looking at the estimating methodologies, how we can work better with the state government in contention with the federal government. -- conjunction with the federal government. host: texas, welcome. caller: i have been practicing health-care law for 16 years. and turning to a corporate compliance company that is built on a federal contractor program, and those providers -- most providers want to prevent fraud, wire to prevent over- utilization. but in an effort, a very well placed effort, to regulate and andent and fignd fraud

overpayments, i have seen real access by four contractors -- excesses by federal contractors. i am sure there are good and capable people, but the program has basic flaws. what is it sent investigators to senseiew -- omne is its investigators to interview former patients, patients from two to it four years ago, some of which have completely recovered, some of which, unfortunately, have passed away. especially in the area of home health care. i have seen under the majority of cases non-qualified, non- health professionals, go in an interview the patient or their

care givers. and in some cases engage in repetitive questions to the patient that in many cases are in the late 70's, early 80's. trying to elicit a disqualification. this is all civil. it is not criminal fraud. they also audit the files. i have seen cases where they have lost copies of clinical files given to them by the provider. host: what have you learn from your experience and what you witnessed? what do you want to talk to beryl davis about? caller: well, a program can be well designed, but the way it is and limited, the way i have seen with dozens of providers, not taking medicare, interests are choosing to take private pay. guest: you certainly have raised

a good point. it is not strictly program design. there are issues of the implementation program. yes, medicare and medicaid, health and human services is a huge department and the program's there are very large. both in the magnitude of the debate will stay intact and reach and the taxpayer dollars being spent. -- magnitude of the individuals they impact and reach and the taxpayer dollars being spent. certainly the government accountability offices g due is doing its best with oversight to do audits of other reviews, making recommendations to congress. there is legislation passed that is moving us in that direction. host: question on twitter.

guest: well, we do what we call follow-up audits. i would hesitate to call them "post-mortem," but what we make recommendations, week follow up to make sure those recommendations are implemented. in most cases, the agency's take our recommendations seriously. sometimes there may be said to -- there might be statutory barriers. but we follow up and make recommendations. host: beryl davis its financial management and insurance director at the government accountability of this. gao.gov is the broader website, and there is also a website, paymentaccuracy.gov.

callero to a democratic in south bend, indiana. caller: ms. davis, i would not want your job for all the tea in staff but dyou have meetings. how many people it's a to you directly? -- answer to you directly? do you have sub-directors? how'd you have a meeting to find out about these problems? guest: thank you for that question. the gao has approximately three outer thousand employees. -- 300,000 employees. i have a number of assistant directors who work for me. we do something called a matrixing, which means i will also work with people in health care, work with people on strategic issues, i will work with people in other areas of

the organization. we don't have a clear, linear identification of individuals working for us. we worked very well as a team together and that is what makes our product so voluble, that we bring in all this expertise. we have actuaries on staff, economists on staff. host: twitter -- can that happen? guest: certainly, it sells like it could happen and has happened. hopefully, situations like this are very infrequent. the fact that it was identified is a very positive step. people are now looking at what the issues are and how they can correct the issues. host: beryl davis of the government accountability

office. this is our senate where we are looking at payments by the fed -- or government this is our segment where we are looking at payments by the federal government. as our guest pointed out, less than 5% of federal payments --

.

>> so, i look forward to continuing the conversation and i very much thank you and everybody for being here today. thank you it a lot. [applause]

>> my own editor said to me many years ago, who is that? see if we can hire her. we didn't, though. our loss. jane, i did not you were here. hiding in the third row. jane from "but new yorker." i am going to start with jane. jane has written a great article in "the new yorker"about the

ultimate bad boy of negative advertising. as you pointed out, willie horton had in 1988, he said a few in this cycle. >> you showed one. the themes he has been hammering on our baggage for newt gingrich and that both gingrich and santorum are washington insiders who cannot fix the problems. when you look at this, you begin to think that nothing ever changes in american politics. but in a way, when i look at those ads and the daisy @ in particular, -- the daisy ad in

particular, they are relatively predictable narratives. it is not that exciting, and not that funny. one big right to the jaw. >> i was very interested. he is kind of just a normal guy. toss a little bit more about him. >> you never know what you will find when you do a profile of someone. i was expecting dr. evil and a hater. somebody who rebelled and anchor. people kept telling me, he is just a great guy. he is so funny and really delightful company. you would never know. i said, he is making millions. he lives in the suburbs. he has a family.

he coaches girls' and soccer. it was not ordered up the way one might expect. it was more interesting that way. the point of being a reporter is to try to figure out what the truth is and not make up. it was interesting, because what came across to me is that he was somebody for whom the end justifies any means. it is not a moral issue for him to hit really hard and sometimes quite a below the belt. one of the ads we showed is false. it says that newt gingrich funded china's brutal one child policy. he did not. that was just completely inaccurate. there is no penalty. a special right now. another thing i learned is that he has made a career specifically of doing not for

campaign, but for the outside, independent expenditure groups. that the most dirty ads because the canted as i have to say, i paid for this, i approved it. -- the candidate does not have to say, i paid for this. i approved it. >> to see a different quality? can you draw a distinction between what a candidate will do and what his supposedly and chordate committees have? >> i think that is absolutely the case. s tend to becs add much more negative. mitt romney can gather it is positive american message and

introduce himself as a personality, and and meanwhile there is this super pac that is just hammering newt gingrich in iowa. i think that certainly damaged him there. it took him until south carolina to have his own super pac. >> and then it made difference. >> absolutely. it is interesting. if newt gingrich just had to rely on his own fund-raising abilities, i do not think he would have lasted as long as he has. the super pac, in some ways, equalizes the field. >> i think it has definitely extended the race and a fight. can you talk about it is not a worry so long as there is equal money? we tend to focus on the presidential race where the does tend to be equal money and they can bury each other alive.

you're more of an expert on this than i am. i went to north carolina about a piece on what happened in 2010. i think after citizens united, we're beginning to see an equal money where you can really see people defined by secret groups who are putting of negative ads -- putting up negative ads. sometimes in local races there is not an equality in money. >> i think if you look at 2010, the top 10 senate races, there was a picture that showed this. the 50% of barr, there is almost even advertising on each side with one exception.

there are a couple or the democrats have an advantage or the republicans have an advantage -- nothing significant. when is it is about 2010, we're used to talking about 20 or 30 competitive races could we have something like 100 races in play. the democratic candidates and democratic party outspent republicans, but the republican groups even that out. when you looked at at all, it was pretty even in terms of television advertising. the other sorts of spending that goes on the campaign. there are some dishes a little bit of an imbalance. but overall, republicans may be outspent democrats by a very small amount in 2010. >> when watching the original ads from eisenhower, of course, the rhetoric is the same, in

many cases watching the more recent ones, have you seen anything that really has the distinctive nastiness, or we in the same glidepath? >> [inaudible] i do not think so. we've not seen anything revolutionary in this creator of negative attacks. you said earlier. i think the real problem with political advertising is how on imaginative and formulate it is -- formulaic it is.

you see the same thing over and over again. i think advertising is ready for another revolution of creativity. there is a need for it. at one time they spent $25,000 on the spot with 50 million people watching. but by the end of the week, 100 million people saw that spot. it is incredible. it is very hard to do that. instead of running a one time, they run it 20 times. this drill it into your consciousness. i think there is a chance to do cat -- to do advertising that captured people's imagination.

>> they're always going to be formulaic. you're either for change or against change. you have all the creative wizard to you want. but thinking makes it crucial point. criticizing my own career, i made a career out of counting bonds. the number ads that were created. the quality of the ad really matters. especially now, when there is so much advertising, if you have a signal that is that noise, the creative step becomes very important. the showed a couple ads from the cycle. people can say what they think is the most effective one, but what i think we're going to see -- and bill be angry if i called the tom brokaw at, -- and they will be angry if i call it the tom brokaw at, we will see more as like that of the candidate

speaking in their own words. not so much of the creative was a tree or the cool graphics. what we saw in the virginia race six years ago -- with all these cameras here, right? a short time ago, in 2000, presidential candidates were doing events which were not recorded with no videos. there is now no house-senate, presidential candidate, who is doing an event, no matter how small, which is not a report by someone, whether it be on their iphone or something else. see those'll start to things come into our advertising. >> i interviewed someone who is a young republican ad maker who was against the rules to directly have recanted it attack -- candidate attack the opponents by name.

also, two things. i came across instances within not only had trackers were following the candidate, but the two ambush interviews for the opposition did an ambush interview of the candidate they're trying to herd. showing up with a video camera and is asking questions that the candidate hadn't thought about at all and then using it. "candidting to be life camera,"all much more negative. >> some of negative ads can backfire on the person who sponsors them. the rick perry at were is walking across the field and talking by his views on social issues. he hurt himself with that ad.

i think he wrote about that briefly. >> he was accusing the war on religion, but it was directed to iowa conservatives. but because of social media now, it's immediately went a viral the moment he put it on youtube. to give a subject for mockery. it became this whole thing on line. i think the internet is this chaotic form or anybody who does not like something can find a clever way to market. if enough people do that, it becomes a collective response to an advertisement that really undermines the message. it creates a countered narrative nationally. he was trying to speak to iowa conservatives, but had a message

that was received poorly by the national audience. >> there's a spot that was ran in michigan was pretty negative. the response to it was so furious, it may end up destroying the man's campaign. i think that is a good argument for letting the market regulate itself. i tell my students, how you know when you have gone too far? you will know. they will let you know. [laughter] >> this long infomercial against ne.omney, the king of bai it did not have its intended a fact. >> it was kind of a boomerang. >> it boomeranged.

people picked up on immediately. the people said this is not what they're meant to be talking about. because of social media and how hard -- how easy is to find everybody. >> they can be picked apart much faster than they were years ago. the ad that hits you could have a predictable reaction. that could have happened before. >> no. i think youtube has revolutionized that. particularly the little girl in the daisy girl spot, now 50 years old, she dashes to the spot shoes and until the year 2000. -- she did not actually see the spot she was in a until the year 2000. " with the audience of been for daisy girl if you to have been

around? -- what would the audience have been for "daisy girl" if youtube had been around. >> was that a negative ad? >> it goes both ways. larry mccarthy made that ad. he is very good at finding the emotional story line and filling it into 30 seconds. this was an ad that shows a girl whose mother was killed in 9/11. and she met on like a rope line or something. he was wonderful in putting his arms around her and telling her how hard it must've been and how sorry he was and how much he would do to protect her. she speaks, and i think her father speaks. it is an ad that really goes

right for the heart in one sense, but the negative part also creates a sense of fear based on 9/11. according to the way it has been described, it had a huge effect in delivering a high note to bush. ohio was an important swing state for the election. he sees it as a negative thing that plays reprehensible on 9/11. it has been debated both ways. it is somewhat in the eyes of the holder, i think. you know. >> i thought that one was one that was more memorable than what we're seeing right now. >> there is an interesting story behind that. i was working on a project with a friend of mine. that ad was made as a fund-

raising tool. it is not a bush campaign ad. they're using it to raise money. and then erase a lot of money. and they were like, wow, this is a powerful ad. i think it is a powerful ad, but we also ought to be really careful of over ascribing the effect of these ads. "there was this one magic bullet that won the election." it did not win the 1964 election. powerful. it's not lose the election. in 2000 and 2004, was it that d that the johna kerry -- no. if you talk to people who run campaigns, they are working at the margin.

when you ran a presidential election by 537 votes in florida, the margin matters in american politics. i do not think it is these wizards sitting around a holiday in focus groups and find a perfect message to work, and that message, put a bunch of money behind it, and automatically wins election. >> does anyone see the evidence that this is now trickling down? i was looking at the numbers of last couple of months. there's some statewide ads run the country. places like austin, atlanta, baltimore, seattle. is anyone setting the presence of those as this goes to the local level? >> we definitely notice in tracking the local level once there was a lot of negativity. i am a too old professor, but

this is a great project for someone to write a dissertation on. with the tone is, with the topic is, and whether other sorts of strategies have trickled down. >> before, you had to rely on television to put an ad on. it is an insufficient use of money. but you cannot do something cheaply on youtube or on internet, cable, what ever. there are a lot more cheap ways to communicate then-now. >> the target for a lot of these ads is the press. it was always the case that campaigns with air and at maybe once or twice and the press would write about articles. "daisy" is degrees example of that.

but the first swift boat ad that was aired, it aired a couple hundred times in very small media markets in ohio. it was not a national by. it got huge attention from the free media. >> they did not want to give a bigger audience. >> the bush campaign at the time was equally scared of that at. they were equally scared at the time. it was the same thing with john kerry. neither them responded. they both thought they did not have to. he is just beating up on himself for how it was the biggest mistake he is ever made, not responding to that ad. >> if your wife was raped and murdered would you support the

death penalty? no. empirical evidence shows -- >> when you talk to experts out there, i think tony schwartz as one of the original geniuses of political ads. this is the argument and i have not looked into every ad. the thing about the willie horton ad is it resonated with dukakis as being a wuss on crime. it was not a part in the race, but it resonated on voters. i do not know if you could do a negative ad on someone that it completely redefine some and get away with it. maybe that is with these john kerry ads did. he was considered a hero and it turned him into a war criminal in vietnam. >> of a thing to do caucus at own residents.

i want to tell us that for a while here. is very good for the business we are in here. someone wrote after the 2008 campaign with the negative ads, what we learn with positive ads? that mitt romney losses photogenic family? that mike huckabee is unabashedly in favor of christmas? that rudy guiliani will kill terrace with his rare hands? or that barack obama's serene wisdom would make on the look like bill o'reilly? what is wrong with them. they work. in 1982, he said, they work. is there any reason they're not a useful information device for voters? >> they are quite useful. obviously there is the one thing that was inaccurate in the super

pac at against newt gingrich from romney. otherwise, they're probably giving people useful information that they had to have about his background. >> the test for all these ads is, are they true? and, are they important? >> there is true, and then there is true. mark twain talks about lies, damn lies, and statistics. there's this whole other category for political ads. there is pejoratively true -- yes, it is true, but totally taken out of context. >dukakis -- yes, that furlough program to replace what he was governor. but it was invented by his republican predecessor and 45 states had the same program. is that necessarily fair?

without the context, it is very misleading. i think as well lot of these ads are. i think that is what a lot of these ads are. >> media consultants will tell you, if you give them a couple of beers, that a lot more lies are told in positive ads than negative ads. "in a family man," "i love my country," "i love christmas." those and not things you can check. and as you find someone poured drinks santa claus, you cannot disprove that. -- and unless you find someone

torturing santa claus, you cannot disprove that. using the media and others to set the record straight. that is why i agree that negative ads are not a bad thing -- they are a good thing. they engage people in with a positive that's, frankly, i do not think they do. >> are there serious problems in america? yes. lack of incentives for our political leaders to pay attention to long-term problems? sure. our statements taken out of context and political ads? yes. participants -- are statements taken out of context and speeches, news reports, 100 years ago in yellow journalism? absolutely. i think the key thing is, and you know, i grew up in

massachusetts with a mother in democratic politics. i think you can pick on democratic massachusetts politicians. at some point, our system demands a someone responding. dukakis had the money and the chance to respond, but decided not to. john kerry had the money, the resources, the access to the press to respond -- they decided not to. there are plenty of ads that i think personally are awful. i think they are clearly inaccurate. but i do not think it is my job or your job as a journalist to say, okay, i've lost that at, i do not less that ad. and yet sometimes, the market does not work. let's be honest. there are a lot of reporters out there with a lot of money out there. i think it is hard to say that sides and i getting their say. >> we're talking about something

that it is important to remember. everything we're talking about our messages that are broadcast to a large audience. there clearly targeted to an audience. it is not like most people, if you're flipping the channel, will encounter these advertisements. the dark corner of political advertising is direct mail and what is coming down the pike in this man no -- nano targeting. look what al franken did in minnesota. 1004140 specific messages. -- 140 specific messages. it comes so late in cases that there is no way you can respond to it.

>> we need to schedule another session on google targeting. that is a great idea. before we take questions, a onetime but going forward in the campaign year. the romney super pac has gone into machine with nearly $2 million. centaurus super pacs have answered that with almost half of that amount. ron paul has taken another $1 million. i think in the last couple of days, barack obama's campaign has spent one quarter of a million dollars in michigan attacking romney. would someone like to sketch out where the next four or five months are going -- i am looking at can. -- ken. just take us through august.

>> in the austin powers boothe he goes back in time and says, if you do not give me $10,000, i'll blow the world. we're going to seed $2.5 billion, conservatively. it could be $3 billion spent on local television. >> presidential? >> that is soup to nuts. dogcatcher to the united states. >> we want to hold to this. how to tell because it and how much will be negative, given current trends? >> i think that is interesting. i think the obama campaign, people love written about this, will be very much like the 2004 bush campaign. i think the obama campaign will be overwhelmingly try to define whoever the republican is. the republicans will have a choice, whether they want to

talk about themselves, or whether they think they to go after obama more. one of the things is sought in 2004 is the kerrey campaign did not bear any negative ads. the democratic groups -- people forget the groups existed before three weeks ago. media fund, move on, big $20 million gift given by george soros. those ads were overwhelmingly negative on george w. bush. if you talk to people and the kerrey campaign, they will say, we might have been better off if our allies had built up a set of going after an incumbent president. why is that the case? attitudes are pretty well form about george w. bush. attitudes are pretty well formed about barack obama. they're people who like commander going to vote for him. they're people portrayed to dislike him and will not vote for him.

there's a very thin at swap of undecided voters. their attitude towards barack obama will probably add to the control of advertising. what is going on the economy and what is going on in the world. at the margin, how those people could be influenced -- we all pay attention to this stuff. there are still people who will decide the presidential election in november 2012 to absolutely have not tuned in. i'll give you example of the super bowl. not as an advertising example. people only watch the super bowl. for some who watches every game of the nfl, you of a favored team. for someone who is watching everything going on the primary now and pay attention and going on websites and listening to rachel matt know and rush limbaugh, you are not an undecided voter. you like one of these sides. at some point, people blike my

wife will decide who is going to win this election. like my wife at the super bowl. she's very sophisticate with politics, but she does not watch every nfl game. >> but you are looking at so much more money. it is hard to tell. you cannot really see what is going into certain kind of groups, you know, the 501c4. it is hard to chart. >> most of the money has been these big givers. >> i think a lot of it is going to be privately held corporations. i think publicly held ones have to deal with issues of stockholders and a lot of public attention. but you see people like the koch

.rothers that a strong political agenda and the ability to use as much of that as they want. that can make a difference in the race. we've not seen how it will play out. the outside groups is what i will be watching. the amount of money they have to play it is more than before. >> the question is, are the koch brothers going to spend more than they would have? >> or a lot of other people are going to get in because this is a lot easier to do this time around. >> near tivoli, we're already seeing the contours' as the gop primary is continuing. my colleague and restore about whether or not romney has already been pre-destroyed.

very vigorously by his republican opponents. there were things that are written when they entered into eight gingrich, anti-romney at the next day. the messages being picked up by these republican opponents. >> this is all the pre-game. the real game in the general election is going to be amazing. i think,-. >> the president's party has 50 opposition research is working for him. people are going to be going door to door. ok. we're going to do some questions. i will start in the back. yes sir, in the black. please wait for the microphone and identify yourself. >> jim snyder, and also one of

the former colleagues of tim cook. he was one of my dissertation advisers. one comment. a copy of -- a caveat. the presidential alexian is the most important, but only one. local and state politics are qualitatively different in federal elections. it is such as a matter of trickle-down. what works in terms of analysis at the national level. it is often very different. unfortunately, as an academic who wants to work in a major university, you have to focus on presidential elections.

it is unfortunate. sometimes wish to be very cautious about what we make steading this one type of election. my question relates to something different. in order to get these ads on the air, it has a three local the way. i have been involved in literature in more than one decade. i've never seen a steady about how broadcasters exercise their discretion and possibly abuse their power. is there inside information as to when these ads are going to run? many marketing director's work for politicians, campaigns, give them advice, giving them a heads up on negative campaigns. both sides can do this, it is fair -- not necessarily. broadcasters to exercise discretion.

there are lots of anecdotes in literature about broadcasters exercising these discussions, but i see no academic studies. so, the question is, do you feel the gateway to getting on the air, the local broadcasters are significant players in any way in shaping what happens? i do not think it happens in a presidential election, but i think at a local level that a lot of discretion with the carry and do not carry. >> the third party ads, they're not in touch to say everything they want. broadcasters have more control over what they air and what they do not. in some cases, those broadcasters want to exercise their right to insist this be an actor. a lot of times it takes a loss

to buy the canted it forcing that station do that -- by the candidate forcing that the station do that. they have that right. >> i am an independent. the message i get from all of you is that negative is not up this year. if you look back to a standard, it has been there. my question is, what is going up? is it spending per capita on advertising? is it that negative ads are more misleading? having super pacs advertising will lead to a greater percentage of misleading ads? and lastly, i think ken mentioned that he did not think his role was to criticize -- not criticize, but when there are misleading ads that the voters have to decide, but that

the press is supposed to go after misleading ads to correct them? >> i am not the press. the press and does discuss these ads. i think they do. if anything, they probably discuss the ads too much. thank god, my career, but it is like cat nip for some people. what is different about this year? i think this would be a nice segue into the discussion about why commercial advertisers tend to not go as negative. this is an unusually negative primary. the reason why people 10 to not go negative -- tend to not go negative in a primary, is because sometimes you have

multi-people races. there was the murder-a suicide in iowa with dean. i think a bit of santorum can be explained by a romney and gingrich going after each other so heavily in iowa, there's not much advertising in new hampshire, in iowa, south carolina, in florida. what happens is, i am making this up, i will hear from people who know what they're talking about -- one of the reason why burger king might not contradances because if they do that, it benefits wendy's. there is no disincentive for going negative. i do think there has been an unusually high level of negative advertising in this particular presidential primary. i think that is what is different.

also, the ability of -- as jane was saying, they're obviously a big deal. it used to be, you win a primary, you got momentum, and then it would take you a week or two to raise money to get on air. now, a win can be a five million-dollar check within 30 minutes. and that to be wired right to the television stations. the speed with which that momentum and a change to happen is very quick. >> we were talking a bag its season on the website one day and and at the next day. and a partner at you read about was the service by al gore. a quite period of time now. >> i am a freelance writer. under citizens united, how do in a foreign entities are not putting money into american politics?

>> well, under citizens united, there is a disclosure. it allows -- the super pacs, a lot of people seem disclosed -- there seems to be confusion that people think the money is not disclosed. the money is disclosed. but there are other categories that are on margins. the 501c3 and 501c4 -- 501c4's you do not know where the money is coming from. they were somewhat muddy before citizens united, but citizens united was basically a green light that people who have a lot of money that to what -- that

want to give money secretly, could. now notice taking the risk. they're just throwing the money out there. that is how i looked at it. >> i am now with the senior creative people. we're talking iraq the history of negative advertising -- and we were talking about the history of negative advertising. with citizens united, isn't there much more of it along with the connectivity we have to do with the internet and everything else? isn't there a much greater flood of it so that while it might not be different in content, it is different in quantity? >> listen, i think one would have to -- and i am careful of speaking about things without the data.

i imagine if you back to the 1940's, 1950's, 1960's, you had a much more robust print journalism. multiple papers in particular markets. some of those newspapers were more directly partisan then we would be used to now. fox news as a new station or msnbc as a musician, that was the norm for many newspapers have a did coverage. is there more negative television advertising? absolutely. are there more negative things being said? i do not know. what was said at the bar before? what was said at the speeches before? at places of worship before? what was said in partisan newspapers before? what was set on the radio before? i do not know. i do not have the empirical evidence. but i guess so be suspicious

that it was the good old days. >> the money just keeps going up and up. you talking about a $2.5 billion. it was nothing like that. compared to inflation, it is one of the sectors that is booming, apparently, is campaign advertising. >> the big effect of a lot of these campaigns, the twin of mccain fine gold and citizens united decision. what has really done this week in party spirit if you look at the size of the pie, the size of the pie in terms of spot advertising on television has not grown tremendously. there's obviously the internet and other ways to communicate. but the slices of the pile are different.

party controls have gotten much smaller. this slice that this group controls is much bigger. the decision in mcconnell versus fcc and then citizens united, together with they have really done is made it 4 parties to be major players. >> if you look at the groups, who is in the groups? the super wealthy. the people who can give $1 million is a lot louder or $10 million. >> can you tell me about people who try to be positive? obvious to discuss the example of newt gingrich piously said he was not going to do negative ads, getting hammered, and the

deciding it is a great thing. but in 2010 in colorado of the guy who did that spot in the shower. if you trumpet yourself as being positive, does that make any headway with voters? is there any evidence on that? >> that entire governor's campaign was based and that. yes, there were negative ads, but without his positive message, the whole thing was based on the idea of hope and change. it is interesting to watch of the very few phidias of the obama campaign -- the very few of videos put out by the obama campaign to try to continue that positive message and highlight his accomplishments as a president. put it out there in net -- in and in farm or there's a lot of criticism. >> how -10 as really be in a

debate when ron pollack directs santorum and said, you are a fake. that is going to conclude. i want to thank you for having us. [applause] >> in a few moments, mitt romney and rick santorum campaign in michigan for that state's primary today. and washington journal is live at 7:00 eastern to take your calls about the congressional agenda, the 2012 campaign, and what kind of food should be available at the schools than the machines. several live events to talk about today on our companion network, c-span3. the two hearings include environmental protection agency administrator, lisa jackson, testifying. that is at 10:00 a.m. eastern.

and at 2:00 p.m., secretary of clinton, willy o answer questions about her budget. >> a budget $900 million in the red. in shreveport right now it is mostly cloudy at the airport. shreveport'sing to news radio. >> this weekend, buttv and american history tv explore the history and culture of shreveport louisiana. but both the red river campaign of 1864. and then the look at the over 200,000 books house at the ellis

you shreveport archives. and then a walking tour of shreveport and a motor city. sunday at 5:00 p.m. eastern. a look at the base's role on 9/11 and a history of the be-52 bomber. from the pioneer heritage center, medical treatment and medicine during the civil war. shreveport, louisiana, this weekend on c-span2 and c-span3. >> michigan and arizona hold their primaries today. mitt romney,, campaigned today. this is a little more than 20 minutes. [applause] >> thank you. what a welcome, thank you so much. [applause]

you touched our hearts, thank you so much. what an honor to have the governor introduced me. to have this young lady here with me. she and i went to elementary school together. she was in second grade, i was in fourth grade. i did not notice her. when she was almost 16, i noticed. she went to a party at a friend's house and she came with somebody else. i look to that guy and i said, i live closer than you do. can i give for a ride home? he said, yes. we have been going steady ever since. [applause] >> this is wonderful. i cannot see your faces very well because of the lights. it is wonderful to be in michigan. we grow up here. i tell people -- i had a little

pink transistor radio. i walked all around the listening to tiger baseball. we love michigan. we are michigan bred and born. when mitt is the president of the united states, guess what state we will care about. we will be partners with this governor over here and we will help bring -- [applause] we will help bring michigan back. we love michigan. i spent my summers climbing the sleeping bear dunes and swimming in lake michigan. i have known this guy a long

time. we have five sons together, 16 grandchildren. when i was a young mom, he was so wonderful to make sure i knew my job was more important than his. i appreciated that. i have the feeling his next job will be more important than mine. [applause] everything he has done, he has done a with excellence, integrity, and success in everything he has done. in business, they turned to him to turn things around. in the olympics, they asked him to turn things around. in the state of massachusetts, he does not borrow money and does not raise taxes.

that is what we need to have happen in washington. i am ready for some sanity to be brought back to washington. i cannot wait to see this guy do it. [applause] >> she is amazing. i should stop right there. i really appreciate your willingness to be here tonight. i know he will make a difference tomorrow. i need you to vote, at least once. get out there and vote tomorrow. this is a race about the nature of america. what kind of america we will have for ourselves and leave to our kids. we have a president who has been making some promises. he said he would cut the deficit in half. he doubled it. if we let him borrow $787 billion, he would hold unemployment below 8%. it has not been below 8% since. he said he would cut taxes for

middle-income americans. have you seen those taxes? we have a president who is out of ideas and out of excuses. in 2012, we will get him out of office. the course he would take and the course i would take could not be more different. he just gave a state of the union address. he did not mention the deficit, even as nations in europe are in peril. if i am president of the united states, i will cut spending and i will finally balance the budget. i will do what your governor is doing. i will take programs and eliminate them.

is this program so critical is worth of borrowing money from china to pay for it? if not, i will get rid of it. the first thing i will get rid of is obamacare. [applause] i am also going to work to get jobs in america. there are a lot of things you can do. lower all regulatory burden. he has added regulations 2.5 times his predecessor. one of the things you have to do is get taxes down. particularly for small business. [applause] i do not know whether you know this or not, but there are a lot of businesses that are not taxed as big corporations. they are taxed like individuals. the taxes of the business are the individual tax rate. he has proposed raising the top individual tax rate from 35% to 40%. that will kill jobs.

that will kill small business. i will lower taxes for americans by at least 20%. [applause] i will get america working again with regulations that work and encourage the private sector. taxes that allows small businesses to grow and hire more people. i want to talk about energy. we spend hundreds of billions of dollars every year out of our economy to buy energy from other nations. this president says no to drilling for offshore oil, makes it harder to get coal out of the ground, fails one of the easiest decisions the president has ever had to make. should we be getting oil from canada? canada?