to authorize protection of civilians in the no-fly zone. the circumstances in syria are quite different. the circumstances in various countries within the arab world have evolved in a different way. there is no such unity in the security council and the circumstances on the ground are quite a bit different and more complex with an opposition that is struggling to unify that does not control a clear and geographically identified swath of territory, as was the case in the east, and libya. therefore, very regrettably and much to the frustration of the united states and many others in the international community, the security council, the international community has not been able to respond robustly

and swiftly. we have saw even to go to the step of implementing meaningful sanctions, and we will keep at it. thank you all very much. >> coming up tomorrow on our companion network, c-span2, 4 center george mitchell is speaking before the government security conference. live coverage starts at 9:00 a.m. eastern. later we go to the white house where president obama will sign into law the bill to bar members of congress from profiting from inside information's. live coverage at 11:50 a.m. eastern. >> beshear we ask students to

create a video asking what -- explain what part of that constitution was important to them, and why. >> today we go to wisconsin to speak with sinclair richards. hi. >> hi. >> you chose the first amendment and related to the new cigarette warning labels. >> i believe there were 12 images and their work realistic. they showed the long-term effects of smoking. it was a story that is not being told that much in the media. >> you included examples of the old and new labels. what was your goal? >> all the images in the past were so glamorous. "you should do it because the it is cool."

now they have the same images but techniques that are used to market their smoking is really, it doesn't make sense because it shows on realistic images -- unrealisic images. people to not start smoking altogether. i think our group agree with all their standing and with the company stood for. >> in interviewed citizens, the mayor, and students. how did those students help you sides to this issue? >> i think it helped our documentary get a lot of the points of view. it showed a lot of different

people in different situations. >> will we like people to learn -- what would you like people who watch your documentary to learn? >> if people were thinking about smoking to look up the label. "oh, my gosh, i do not want that to be be." "this could really be be." that would get people to stop and think about what they are doing. >> thank you for talking with us. here is a portion of her video. >> sending this message to smokers. it just got a lot easier. stark images that illustrate on

every pack of cigarettes. for years, we watched tobacco rates fall in the country. in 1965 were at a situation where over 42% of americans smoked. by 2004, it had fallen to just under 21%, a fairly significant drop. in recent years, despite the well-known health risks, youth and adult smoking rates have been flat. they have been dropping for decades and stalled at about 20%. >> you can watch the entire video as well as all videos and continue the conversation on facebook and twitter pages.

tomorrow, americans for prosperity on the house republican budget proposal. then david shapiro and this week's supreme court decision, finding that police can strip search a suspect arrested for minor crimes such as an unpaid traffic ticket. also, the article about the challenges black politicians face with white voters. washington journal is live on c- span every day at 7:00 a.m. eastern. >> rick santorum came in second tonight in the republican primaries in wisconsin and maryland. mr. santorum got 30% of the vote in maryland and 38% in wisconsin. he was not on the ballot in the district of columbia. he spoke to supporters following the release of the primary results in pennsylvania, just

outside of pittsburg. ♪ [applause] >> thank you so much. it is fun to be home. here with karen and the kid, that is not all of karen's family bought most of it. [laughter] her parents had 11 children. it is great to be here with friends and family. we have now reached the point where it is have time. have the delegates in this process have been selected. who is ready to charge out of

the locker room for a strong second half? [applause] it is great to be here in southwestern pennsylvania. i grew up in a steel town about 20 miles northeast of here. how about a shout out to? this area, like the town of people in it, forged steel to build this country to help win world wars and not if we just build it, we forged people with strong values about what made america great. you can applaud that, too.

[applause] i can always be interrupted for applause. this is why we came here. this is what we want to go back to southwestern pennsylvania to kick off the second half. this is a part of the country to where america started. not only do we forged steel in this day, we forge liberty. this was forged right here in in pennsylvania.

there is no place for this value is -- where the values are more and still been in this great commonwealth. ladies and gentlemen, this great commonwealth has given a tremendous amount to our country. if you look at the history of our great state, of not only the declaration and the constitution created here, but we won key battles. washington crossing the delaware to save. -- to save the revolution. some have said that all of the significant people have spoken in this race so far. [boos] general washington knew that not all the cigna began people are -- not all of the significant people are those

elites in society. the where rank officers. what general washington understood, some of the best plans for what made this country great. we have listened to real significant voices of everyday americans. he crossed the delaware. he turned the tide of the revolution. ladies and gentlemen, pa. and tap the other people in this country have yet to be heard. -- and have the other people in this country have yet to be heard. we're going to go out and make sure they are heard. we know who we are. [applause]

[crowd chanting in distinctly] we know who we are. we know the stock we are made of. we have contributed a lot. great deeds have occurred here. great pennsylvanians have been born here. i went to every one of those counties every year. i understand the greatness of the people of this state. i understand how important this race is in pennsylvania. this is called the keystone state for a reason. we are the keystone.

we are the place for which our country was built and great things continue to happen here. great things like in manufacturing and oil and gas production that is turning our economy are around and creating opportunities for us to grow our economy because of lower natural-gas prices. we're seeing manufacturing comeback in spite of the crushing burden barack obama and his administration has put on this nation. [boos] we need someone who understands what liberty is all about, someone he will go out and fight -- someone who is going to go out and fight to make sure that the biggest and most crushing burden that this administration has put on us, one that was debated last week about government taking control of your health and dictating to

you what you will do, how much you will pay, what insurance you will get, and even the practice of your faith will be dictated by the government. [boos] we need someone in this race who will go out and make the clarion call for liberty, someone who has stood tall and oppose government health care. this is what obamacare does and what his agenda of government control and his attempt to do cap and trade or he will dictate how much energy and health care he will use, this is a fundamental change in the relationship between the people and their government. if we're going to win this race, we cannot have little differences between our nominee

an president obama. we have to have clear contrasting colors. in last 120 years -- [applause] in the last 120 years, we have had one time or the republican party has defeated a democratic incumbent. time and time again, the republican establishment and aristocracy have shut down the threat of republican party and -- have shoved down the throats of the republican party and people across this country, moderate republicans, because we have to win by getting people in the middle, there's one person who understood we do not win by moving to the middle. we win by getting people in the middle to move to us and move this country forward. [applause]

not only do we know who we are and what we stand for, but you know who i am. you are going to hear a lot of things being thrown as happened in all the other states where we have seen a whole bunch of negative campaigning. we have gone across this country with the most improbable of odds and with limited resources except one in which we have had incredible resources. that is human resources. the people of this country have stood up and followed because they have seen someone with a positive vision, someone whose convictions are also forged in still not on an etch a sketch. -- forged in steel, not on an etch-a-sketch.

[applause] you will be seeing the negative ads. you will be getting the robert shiller calls -- the robo calls. you know how hard i work. you know how strongly i believe in the games that the value of -- in the dean is that the values of -- in the thing that the values of southwestern pennsylvania have instilled in me. i come from a steel town of immigrant parents. my grandfather worked in the mines, someone who lived in government housing on the d a grounds and saw the great sacrifice of our men and women, serving them as they served our country. you know me. they will say all the things that i am someone who does not

stand up in what i believe in. you know me. [applause] i ask you over the next three weeks, and this is not have time. no marching bands. we are hitting the fields. the clock starts tonight. we have three weeks to go out there. we will win this state. after winning the state the field looks a little different in may. the one time that we did when in -- that we didn't win in -- that we did win in the last 120 years, the republican party had the courage to go out and nominate someone who all the experts and contents and republican establishment costs said could not win.

it was too conservative. he lost almost every early primary. he only won one until may. everybody told him to get out of the race. this was that in 1976. they said, get out of their race,we need a moderate. in 1976, he did not get out of the race. he was able to stand tall and when the state of texas, which -- and win the state of texas, which we have every intention of doing. [chanting "go rick go"] he took that to the convention.

he fell short. in the fall, republicans fell short. we nominated another moderate. cannot galvanize our party and bring those votes to our side to get the change. four years later they fought him again. we need another moderate. we have to defeat this incumbents. let's not make the mistake of 1976. but bypassed that era -- let bypass that era. you can help me now go pennsylvania. thank you very much. got less you. -- god bless you. thank you. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012]

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [playing "rick santorum is our man" by the harris sisters]

[playing "rick santorum is our man" by the harris sisters] ♪ >> former governor mitt romney

was the winner tonight in the republican primaries. maryland 48%, wisconsin, 43%. mr romney spoke in milwaukee, wisconsin, where he was introduced by a wisconsin representative and house budget committee chairman paul ryan. >> hello, and thank you, wisconsin. first off, we have a lot of special people to thank. we want to thank the good people of america tonight. i want to thank my friend, the chairman of the romney campaign, bob ehrlich. i also want to thank co- chairman louis pulte.

we also want to thank the good people of washington d.c.. when you have done this deliver all of those electoral votes for mitt romney tonight. here in wisconsin, i want to thank senator ron johnson. i want to thank my good friend, congressman jim sensenbrenner. and i want to thank the romney co-chair, alberta darling and ted candidates. thank you for all of your hard work. i also want to thank my good buddy, mark green for what he has done for this campaign tonight.

we all know that president obama cannot run on his record. and after the 2010 election when the voters told him to change course, did he moderate, did he do that? no, he double down on his partisan agenda. if he cannot run on his record and if he will not change course, then what does he have left -- it cannot run on his record and if you will not change course, then what does he have left? we found out today he is going to try to divide us in order to distract us. i seem to remember him saying that he would be a nightmare, -- a uniter, and not a divider. this is one and the worst of his broken promises.

we do not need a campaigner in chief. we need a leader that america deserves. the presidency is bigger than this. he was supposed to be bigger than this. we need solutions, not excuses. we have a president who takes the lead in not one that spreads the blame. we need someone who appeals to our dreams and aspirations, not our fears and anxieties. we as americans deserved to choose what kind of country we you want and what kind of country we want to be. it is not too late to get america back on track but our country on a path to prosperity. guess what?

we have a leader who can do that. we have a leader that will give americans that choice. we have a leader that will put our country back on the right track. tonight wisconsin have spoken. republicans are unifying. we are united because we believe in the american idea. we believe that we have a leader that is right for this moment. that is the man i am introducing to you as the next president of the united states, mitt romney. [cheers and applause]

♪ >> thank you. thank you. congressman ryan is a great leader, a wonderful speaker. but he will not take ann's place, i will tell you that. [laughter] thank you for providing this. this has been quite a night. we won a great victory tonight

in our campaign to restore the promise of america. you're not like to find americans with bigger hearts. as i have been traveling across the state, i visited with far too many whose hearts are filled with anxiety. so many good and decent people seem to be running hard just to stay in place. for many, every day it puts them a little further behind. it is that way across so much of america, too much of america. under this president to watch, more americans have lost their jobs than during any other time frame during the depression. many have lost their homes. a record number of americans

are living in poverty. 30% of single moms are living in poverty. new business start-ups are down to the lowest level in 30 years. and that is where we generally get job growth. you know our national debt is as a record high. when you drive from tonight and -- drive home tonight and you stop by the gas station, just take a look at the prices. ask yourself, a former years of that? -- four more years of that? [boos] i agree. it is important to understand one extraordinary fact. president obama thinks he is doing a good job. he actually thinks he is doing a great job. he thinks he's doing is starkly great job. like abraham lincoln and lbj and fdr. he did not say this on saturday night live. it is enough to make the think that years of flying around air force one, telling you that you

are doing a great job, that is enough to make you think you may become a little untouched. that is what has happened. this campaign will deal with many complicated issues. there is a basic choice we will face. the president has pledged to transform america. he spent the last four years laying the foundation for a new government centered society. i will spend the next four years rebuilding the foundation of a society led by free people and free enterprises. [cheers] the different divisions we have i think are a product of the different lives we have led, the values we had. when you is a community organizer and communities were hurt, his reaction was to turn to the government for help.

he saw free enterprise as the villain and government as the solution. he never seem to grasp the basic point that a plant closes one a business loses money. he is also attacking the very communities he had wanted to help. at least that is how it works when america is working. under barack obama, america has not been working. the ironic tragedy is that the community organizer he wanted to of those hurt by a plant closing became the president on his watch more jobs has been lost since the great depression. in his government centered society, the government has to do more because the economy is said to do less. when you attack business of delphi success, you are going to -- and you vilify success, you're going to have have less

this is an less success. the debate becomes about how much is to extend unemployment insurance. he guaranteed there will be millions more unemployed. and barack obama's government centered society, of tax increases that only become a necessity but also a desire tool for social justice. there is a finite amount of money. in barack obama's government center society, government spending always succeeds. there are other nations that have followed this path.

it leads to chronic high unemployment, crushing debts, and stagnant wages. this is beginning to sound familiar. i do not want to transform america. i want to restore the economic values of freedom and opportunity and limited government. [cheers and applause] it is opportunity. it is opportunity that is always driven america and defined as as americans. i am not naive enough to believe that free enterprise is a solution to all of our problems. nor am i naive enough to doubts that it is one of the graces -- one of the greatest forces for

goods. free enterprise has done more to the people out of poverty to build a strong middle class, to educate our kids, and to make our lives better than all of government combined. [cheers and applause] if we become one of those societies that attack success, why not become certain that there will be less success? the promise of america has always been that if you worked hard, and had the right values, it took risks, that there was an opportunity to build a better life for your family and next generation. this means that government has to be smaller and have strict limits. obamacare violate both of those principles, and i will get rid of it. [applause]

taxes have to be as low as possible. in line with those of competing nations, designed to foster innovation and growth, i will cut marginal taxes across the board. we understand that regulations are necessary. let's keep taxes down for employers. they have to be continuously updated, a streamlined. regulators have to see their jobs as protecting economic freedom. washington has to be an ally of business, not the opposition of business. [applause] workers have the right to join unions. union should not be forced upon workers. union should not have the power

to take money added members' -- out of members paychecks to support politicians who are favored by the boss is. [cheers and applause] out of touch liberals like barack obama say they want a strong economy. in everything they do, and they showed they did not like business very much. the economy is simply the product of all the businesses added together. it is like saying you like an omelet, but you do not like eggs. we have to build successful businesses of every kind imaginable. president obama has been attacking successful businesses of every kind imaginable. we have always been a country of dreamers. one team helps another.

-- one dream helps launch another. if the streamers are rewarded -- if the dreamers are rewarded with prosperity, we use this as a a reason to dream big as well. this is a lot worse by the mistakes and failures of the president's leadership. if the bill before us a steeper, and -- if the hill before us is a little steeper, we always been a nation of big steppers. i then all of the country from -- i have been all over the country from student unions to kitchen tables, from bridegrooms to boardrooms. -- factory break rooms to board rooms. i've heard frustration and anger. but they have not thought about giving up, not on each other, and not on america. [applause]

we have a duty. placed upon our shoulders by the founder of the nation, a sacred duty to restore the promise of america. join me in the next step toward that destination of november 6, when across america we can give a sigh of relief and know that the promise of america has been kept. the dreamers can dream 0 little bigger. help wanted signs can get dusted off and put in the front yard, and we can start again. this time we will get it right. we will stop the days of apologizing for success at home and never again apologize for america abroad.

[applause] together, we will bill the greatest america we have ever known, where prosperity is grown and shared, not limited and divided. an america that guarantees that hours is the door -- that innovation and greatness always knocks on first. there was a time not so long ago when each of us could walk a little taller and stand a little straighter because we had a gift that no one else in the world had. we are americans. it meant something different to each of us, but it meant something special to all of us. we do it without question. so did the people in the rest of the world. those days are coming back. that is our destiny. so join me, walked together,

take another step every day until november 6. we believe in america. we believe in ourselves. our greatest days are still ahead. we are, after all, americans. god bless this great country, god bless you, and god bless the united states of america. thanks for the victory in wisconsin and maryland and the district of columbia. thank you, guys. thank you. ♪ ♪

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♪ >> our "road to the white house coverage continues on able 24 with contests in connecticut, delaware, new york, pa., and rhode island. may 8, indiana, north carolina, and west virginia hold their primaries. poland on may 15 by nebraska and oregon. arkansas and kentucky on may 22,

and texas on the 29th. all the candidates on the road to the white house at c- span.org/campaign2012. coming up next, president obama addresses the american society of news editors. then a forum on fbi counter- terrorism and counter -- cyber security efforts. that is followed by christine lagarde on efforts to contain the financial crisis in europe. live at 7:00 a.m. eastern, washington journal take your calls and comments. for the first time since launching his reelection campaign, president obama criticized republican presidential front runner mitt romney by name in a speech on the 2013 federal budget.

president obama called the house republican budget plan radical and a trojan horse disguised as a deficit reduction plan. the republican budget, approved by the house last night, cuts $5.30 trillion over the next 10 years. for cuts in spending and entitlements. his remarks are just over an hour. [applause] >> during the 2004 democratic national convention, our keynote speaker, then a senate candidate from illinois, introduced himself as a skinny kid with the unnamed. in 2006, as the junior senator from illinois, he spoke to our

annual luncheon about his vision for america. two years later, in 2008, as a presidential candidate, he spoke again to the annual luncheon. after his speech, i asked him a question from the audience related to how he might deal with obama bin laden if elected. in his always genteel way, he asked, might you be referring to osama bin laden? it was a slip of the tongue heard or read on the world, thanks to the likes of our digital age and youtube in particular, i will not soon escape that embarrassing moment, even four years later, but we do have the answer to the question. [laughter]

today, there is no mistaking his name, and even i cannot mess it up. it is mr. president. president obama made history as the first minority to be elected president. even many who opposed his election felt proud of our country as he took the oath of office. as president, he inherited the head winds of the worst economic recession since the great depression. he pushed through congress the biggest economic recovery plan in history and led a government reorganization of two of the big three auto manufacturers to save them from oblivion. he pursued domestic and foreign policy agendas that were controversial too many, highlighted by a signature into law of the most comprehensive health care legislation in history. the budget plan's proposed by the president on the one hand and republicans on the other hand are not even on the same

planet. many democrats believe that his agenda does not go far enough, and most republicans believe that it goes way too far. while we thought the 2008 white house race was a rough-and- tumble, the 2012 race makes it look like bumper cars by comparison. our country has become even more polarized. the 1% and the 99% are at each other's throats. campaigns are now funded by a secretive, multimillion-dollar super pac. what is next? the only thing anybody seems willing to compromise on is -- i cannot think of anything. really, who would want this job in the first place? we are very honored today to have the man currently holding the office and aspiring for it for another term, and with

apologies to al green, my new favorite singer. ladies and gentlemen, the president of the united states of america. [applause] [applause] >> thank you so much. thank you. thank you very much. please have a seat. good afternoon and thank you to dean singleton and the board of the associated press to inviting me here today. it's a pleasure to speak to all of you and to have a microphone i can see. [laughter] feel free to transmit any of this to vladimir if you see him.

[laughter] clearly, we are already in the beginning months of another long, lively election year. there will be gaffes and minor controversies, there will be hot microphones and etch-a-sketch moments. you will cover every word we say and we will complained vociferously about the unflattering words you write, unless you are writing about the other guy, in which case, good job. but there are also big, fundamental issues at stake right now. issues that deserve serious debate among every candidate and serious coverage among every reporter. whoever he may be, the next president will inherit an economy that is recovering, but not yet recovered. from the worst economic calamity since the great depression. to many americans will still be looking for a job that pays enough to cover their bills for their mortgage.

to many citizens will lack the sort of financial security that started slipping away years before this recession it. a debt that has grown over the last decade, primarily as a result of two wars, to massive tax cuts, and an unprecedented financial crisis will have to be paid down. in the face of all these challenges, we will have to answer a central question as a nation -- what, if anything, can we do to restore a sense of security to people were willing to work hard and act responsibly in this country? can we succeed as a country where a shrinking number of people do exceedingly well while a growing number struggle

to get by? or are we better off when everyone gets a fair shot and everyone does their fair share and everyone plays by the same rules? this is not just another run-of- the-mill political debate. i have said it is the defining issue of our times and i believe it. it's why i ran in 2008 and it's what my presidency has been about and it's why i'm running again. i believe this is a make or break moment for the middle class and i can't remember a time when the choice between competing visions of our future has been so unambiguously clear. keep in mind, i've never been somebody who believes government can or should try to solve a

problem. some of the know my first job in chicago was working with a group of catholic churches that often did more good for people in their communities than any government program could. in those same communities, i saw no education policy, no matter how well crafted, can take the place of the parents love and attention. as president, i've eliminated dozens of programs that were not working, announced over 500 regulatory reforms that will save businesses and taxpayers billions, and put annual domestic spending on a path to become the smallest share of the economy since dwight eisenhower held this office. since before i was born. i know the true engine of job creation in this country is the private sector, not washington, which is why i have cut taxes for small business owners 17 times over the last three years. i believe deeply that the free

market is the greatest force for economic progress in human history. my mother and grandparents to raise the value personal responsibility. i also share the belief of our first republican president, abraham lincoln. a belief that true government, we should do together what we cannot do as well for ourselves. that belief is the reason this country has been able to build a strong military to keep us safe, and public schools to educate our children. that belief is why we have been able to lay down roads and highways to facilitate travel and commerce. that belief is why we have been able to support the work of scientists and researchers whose discoveries have saved lives,

unleashed technological revolutions, and led to countless new jobs in new industries. that belief is also why we have sought to insure every citizen can count on some basic measure of security. we do this because we recognize that no matter how responsibly we live our lives, anyone of us, at any moment, might face hard times, might face bad luck, might face a crippling illness or lay off. so we contribute to programs like medicare and social security which guarantee health care and a source of income after a lifetime of hard work. we provide unemployment insurance which protects us against unexpected job loss, and facilitate the labor mobility that makes our economy so dynamic.

we provide for medicaid, which make sure millions of seniors in nursing homes and children with disabilities are getting the care that they need. for generations, nearly all of these investments from transportation to education to retirement programs had been supported by people in both parties. as much as we might associate the gi bill with franklin roosevelt or medicare with lyndon johnson, it was a republican, lincoln, who launched the trans continental railroad, the national academy of science, the land grant college. it was eisenhower who launched the interstate highway system and new investment in scientific research. it was richard nixon who created the environment protection agency. ronald reagan worked with democrats to save social security. it was george w. bush who added prescription drug coverage to medicare.

what leaders in both parties have traditionally understood is that these investments are not part of some scheme to redistribute wealth from one group to another. they are expressions of the fact that we are one nation. these investments benefit us all. and they contribute to genuine, durable economic growth. show me a business leader who would not profit if more americans could afford to get the skills and education that today's jobs require. ask any company where they would rather locate and hire workers, a country with crumbling roads and bridges or one committed to high-speed internet and high-speed railroad

and high-tech research and development? it doesn't make us weaker when we guarantee basic security for the elderly, sick, or those who are actively looking for work. what makes us weaker is when fewer and fewer people can afford to buy the goods and services are businesses sell. when entrepreneurs don't have the financial securities to take a chance and starting a business. what drags down our entire economy is when there is an ever widening chasm between the ultra rich and everybody else. in this country, broadbased prosperity has never trickled down from the success of the wealthy few. it has always come from the success of a strong and growing middle class. that is how generation who went to college on the gi bill, including my grandfather, helped build the most prosperous economies world as ever known. that is why a ceo like henry ford made it his mission to pay

his workers enough so they could buy the cars that they made. shown why research has that countries with less inequality tend to have stronger and steadier economic growth over the long run. yet, for much of the last century, we have been having the same argument with folks who keep peddling some version of trickle-down economics. they keep telling us that if we convert more of our investment in education, research and health care into tax cuts, especially for the wealthy, our economy will grow stronger. they keep telling us if we strip away more regulations and let businesses pollute more and treat workers and consumers with impunity, somehow we will all be better off.

we are told that when the wealthy become even wealthier and corporations are allowed to maximize profits by whatever means necessary, it's good for america and their success will translate into more jobs and prosperity for everyone else. that is the theory. the problem for advocates of this theory is that we have tried their approach on a massive scale. the results of their experiments are there for all to see. at the beginning of the last decade, the wealthiest americans received a huge tax cut in 2001 and another huge tax cut in 2003. we were promised that these tax cuts would lead to faster job growth. they did not.

the wealthy got wealthier, we would expect that. the income of the top 1% has grown by more than 275% over the last few decades to an average of $1.3 million a year. but prosperity sure did not trickle down. instead, during the last decade, we had the slowest job growth in half a century. the typical american family actually saw their incomes fall by about 6% even as the economy was growing. there was a time when insurance companies and financial lenders did not have to abide by strong enough regulations and found ways around them.

what was the result? profits for these companies soared, but so did people's health insurance premiums, patients were repeatedly denied care, often when they needed it most, families were enticed and sometimes just plain tricked into buying homes they could not afford, huge, reckless bets were made with other people's money on the line and our entire financial system was nearly destroyed. we tried this theory out. you would think after the results of this experiment in trickle-down economics, after the results were made painfully clear, the proponents of this theory might show some humility. might moderate their views a bit. you would think they would say, you know what? maybe some rules and regulations are necessary to protect the economy and prevent people from being taken

advantage of by insurance companies or mortgage lenders. maybe, just maybe, at a time of growing debt and widening inequality, we should hold off and giving the wealthiest americans another round of big tax cuts. maybe when we know that most of today's middle-class jobs require more than a high-school degree, we should not get education or lay off thousands of teachers or raise interest rates on college loans or take away people's financial aid. but that's exactly the opposite of what they have done. instead of moderating their views even slightly, the republicans running congress right now have double down. they have proposed a budget so far to the right it makes the contract for america look like the new deal.

in fact, that renowned liberal, newt gingrich, first called the original version of the budget radical. he said it would contribute to right wing social engineering. this is coming from newt gingrich. this is not a budget supported by some small group in the republican party. this is now the party's governing platform. this is what they are running on. one of my potential opponents, governor romney, has said he hopes a similar version of this plan from last year would be introduced as a bill on day one of his presidency.

he says he's very supportive of this new budget and he even called it marvelous. which is a word you don't often hear when it comes to describing the budget. [laughter] it's a word you don't often hear generally. [laughter] here is what this marvelous budget does. back in the summer, i came to an agreement with republicans in congress to cut roughly one trillion dollars in annual spending. some of these cuts were about getting rid of waste, others were about programs we support but cannot afford given our deficits and our debt. part of the agreement was a guarantee of another trillion in savings for a total of about $2 trillion in deficit reduction. this new house republican budget, however, breaks are bipartisan agreement and proposes a massive new cuts in annual domestic spending. exactly the area where we have already cut the most.

i want to go through what it would mean for our country if these cuts were to be spread out evenly. bear with me, i want to go through this because i don't think people fully appreciate the nature of this budget. the year after next, nearly 10 million college students would see their financially cut by an average of more than $1,000 each. there would be 1600 fewer medical grants, research grants for things like alzheimer's, cancer and aids. there would be 4000 fewer scientific research grants, eliminating support for 48,000 researchers, students and teachers. investments in clean energy technologies helping us reduce our dependence on foreign oil would be cut by nearly a fifth.

if this budget becomes law and cuts were applied evenly, starting in 2014, over 200,000 children would lose their chance to get an early education in the headstart program. 2 million mothers and young children would be cut from a program that gives them access to healthy food. there would be 4500 fewer federal grants at the department of justice and the fbi to combat by the crime, financial crime, and helped secure our borders. hundreds of national parks would be forced to close for part or all of the year. we would not have the capacity to enforce the laws that protect the air we breathe, the water we drink, or the food we eat. cut to the faa would likely result in more flight cancellations, delays, and the complete elimination of air- traffic control services and parts of the country.

over time, our weather forecasts would become less factor because we would not be able to afford to launch new satellites. that means governors and mayors would have to wait longer to order evacuations in the event of a hurricane. that's just a partial sampling of the consequences of this budget. you can anticipate that republicans may say that we will avoid some of these cuts since they don't specify exactly the cuts they would make. but they can only avoid some of these cuts if they cut even deeper in other areas. this is math. if they want to make smaller cuts to medical research, they have to cut even deeper to things like teaching and law enforcement. the converse is true as well. they want to protect child education, it would mean further reducing financial aid to people who are trying to afford college.

perhaps they will never tell us where the knife will fall, but you can be sure that with cuts this deep, there is no secret plan or formula that will be able to protect the investments we need to help our economy grow. this is not conjecture. i am not exaggerating. these are facts. these are just the cuts that would happen the year after next. if this budget became law, by the middle of the century, funding for the kinds of things i just mentioned would have to be cut by about 95%. let me repeat that. those categories that is mentioned, we would have to cut

by 95%. as a practical matter, the federal budget would basically amount to whatever is left in entitlements, defense spending, and interest on the national debt, period. money for these programs that have traditionally been supported by bipartisan basis would be basically eliminated. the same is true for other priorities like transportation, homeland's security, and veterans' benefits for men and women who risk their lives for this country. this is not an exaggeration. check it out for yourself. this is to say nothing about what the budget does to health care. we're told medicaid would simply be handed over to the states. that is the pitch. let's get out of the central bureaucracy, the states can experiment, there will be able

to run the programs a lot better. but here is the deal the states would be getting. they would have to be running these programs in the face of the largest cut to medicaid that has ever been proposed. a cut that according to one non- partisan group would take away health care for about 19 million americans. 19 million. who are these americans? many are someone's grandparents who, without medicaid, will not be able to afford nursing home care without medicaid. many are children. some are middle-class families with children with autism or down's syndrome.

some are kids with disabilities so severe that they require 24- hour care. these are the people who count on medicaid. then there is medicare. because health care costs keep rising and the baby boom generation is retiring, medicare, we all know, is one of the biggest dryers are long term deficit. that is a challenge we have to meet by bringing down the cost of health care overall for seniors and taxpayers who share in the stakes. but here's the solution proposed by republicans in washington and embraced by most of their candidates for president. instead of being enrolled in medicare when they turn 65, seniors to retire a decade from now would get a voucher that equals the cost of the second cheapest health care plan in their area. if medicare is more expensive than at private plan, they will have to pay more if they want to enroll in traditional medicare. if health care costs rise faster than the amount of the voucher, as, by the way, they have been doing for decades, that's too bad.

seniors bear the risk. if the voucher is not enough to buy private plan with bit specific doctors and carry need, that's too bad. most experts will tell you the way this voucher plan encourages savings is not through better care or cheaper costs, the way these private insurance companies save money is by designing and marketing plans to attract the youngest and healthiest seniors, cherry picking, leaving the older and sicker seniors in traditional medicare where they have access to a wide range of doctors and guaranteed care, but that makes the traditional medicare program even more expensive and raises premiums even further. the net result is our country will end up spending more on health care and the only reason the government will save any money is because we have

shifted it to seniors. they will bear more of the costs themselves. it is a bad idea. it will ultimately end medicare as we know it. the proponents of this budget will tell us we have to make all these draconian cuts' because our deficit is so large. this is an existential crisis, we have to think about future generations, so on and so on. decade on lower tax rates. we are told that these tax cuts will supposedly be paid for by closing loopholes and eliminating waste full deductions. but the republicans in congress refused to lift a single

loophole but they're willing to close, not one. and by the way, there is no way to get even close to $4.60 trillion in savings without dramatically reducing all kinds of tax breaks that go to middle-class families, tax breaks for health care, tax breaks for retirement, tax breaks for home ownership. meanwhile, these proposals and tax breaks would come on top of more than a dollar trillion in tax giveaways for people making more than two and $50,000 per year -- more than $250,000 per year. let's step back for a second and look at $150,000 pays for.

a year's worth of prescription drug coverage for senior citizen plus a new school computer lab plus a year of medical care for returning veterans plus a medical research grant for chronic disease plus a year's salary for a firefighter or police officer plus a tax credit to make a year of college more affordable plus a year's worth the financially. $150,000 would pay for all these things combined. investments in education and research that are essential to economic growth that benefits all this -- all of us. for $150,000, it would go to

each millionaire and billionaire in this country. this budget says we would be better off as a country if that is how we spend it. this is post to be about paying down our deficit? -- this is supposed to be paying down our deficit? it is laughable. the bipartisan simpson decibels committee that i treated, which the republicans were for until i was for it, that was about paying down the deficit. i did not agree with all the details. i proposed about $600 billion more in revenue and $600 billion -- i am sorry, it proposed about $600 billion more in revenue and $600 billion more in defense cuts than i propose in my own budget. but it was a balanced effort

between democrats and republicans to bring down the deficit. that is why, although it differs in some ways, my budget takes a similarly balanced approach. cuts in discretionary spending, in mandatory spending, and increased revenue. this congressional republican budget is something different altogether. it is a trojan horse. it is disguised as deficit reduction plans and is really an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country. it is thinly veiled social darwinism.

it is antithetical to our entire history as the land of opportunity and upward mobility for everybody who's willing to work for it. a place where prosperity does not trickled down from the top, but grows out for from the heart of the middle class. by getting the very things we need to grow an economy that is built to last. education and training, research and development, our infrastructure -- it is a prescription for decline. and everybody here should understand that because there are very few people here who have not benefited at some point from those investments that were made in the 1950's and the 1960's and the 1970's and the 1980's. that is part of how we got ahead. and now we will be pulling up those letters for the next generation. in the months ahead, i will be

fighting as hard as i know how for this to truer vision of what united states of america is all about. absolutely, we have to get serious about the deficit. that will require tough choices and sacrifice. i have already shown myself willing to make these tough terraces when i signed -- tough choices when i signed into law the biggest tax cuts in history. the overall spending next year will be lower than any year under ronald reagan. i am willing to make more of those difficult spending decisions in the months ahead. but i have said before and i will say it again. there has to be some balance. all of us have to do our fair share. i have also put forward a detailed plan that will reform and strengthen medicare and

medicaid. by the beginning of the next decade, it achieves the same amount of animal health savings as the plan proposed by simpson-bolles. it does so by making changes that people in my party have not always been comfortable with. but instead of saving money by shifting costs to seniors like to the republican congressional plan proposes, it will go after excessive subsidies to prescription drug companies, gets more efficiency of medicaid without gutting the program. it ask the wealthiest to pay a little bit more. new incentives for doctors and hospitals to improve their results. and it slows the cost american costs by strengthening an independent commission, one not made of bureaucrats from government or insurance companies, but doctors and nurses and medical experts and consumers who will look at all the evidence and recommend the

best way to reduce unnecessary health care spending while protecting access to the care that the seniors need. we also have a much different approach when it comes to tax. if we are serious about paying down our debt, we can afford to spend trillions more tax cuts for folks like me. for wealthy americans who do not need them and were not even asking for them and that the country cannot afford. at a time when the share of national income flowing to the top 1% of the people in this country has climbed to levels blast scene in the 1920's, those same folks are paying taxes at one of the lowest rates in 50 years.

as both i and warm but have pointed out many times now, he is paying a lower tax rate and his secretary. that is not fair. it is not right. and the choices really very simple. if you want to keep these tax breaks and deductions in place or give even more tax breaks to the wealthy, as the republicans in congress propose, then one of two things will happen either these higher deficits or it means more sacrifice for the middle class. seniors will have to pay more for medicare. college students will lose financially. working families who are scraping by will have to do more because the richest americans are doing less. i repeat what i said before. that is not class warfare.

that is not class envy. that is math. if that is the choice of the members of congress want to make -- and we will make sure that every american knows about it -- in a few weeks, there will be a vote on what we call the buffet rule. it is a simple concept. if you make more than $1 million annually, then you should pay at least the same percentage of your income in taxes as middle- class families do. on the other hand, if you made under% $250,000, like 98% of american families do, then your taxes should not go up. that is the proposal. you will hear some people point out that the buffet rule alone will not raise enough revenue to solve our deficit problems. maybe not. but it is definitely a step in the right direction. and i intend to keep fighting for this kind of balance and

fairness until the other side starts listening could i believe this is what the american people want. i believe this is the best way to pay for the investments we need to grow our economy and strengthen the middle class. by the way, i believe it is the right thing to do. this larger debate that we will be having and that you will be covering in the coming year, by the size and role of government, this debate has been with us since our founding days. during moments of great challenge and change like the ones we're living through now, the debate gets sharper and more vigorous. that is a good thing. as a country that prizes both are individual freedom and our obligations to one another, this is one of the most

important debates that we can have. no matter what we argue or where we stand, we have always held certain beliefs as americans. we believe that come in order to preserve our own freedoms and pursue our own happiness, we can just think about ourselves. we have to think about the country that made those liberties possible. we have to think about our fellow citizens, with whom we share a community. we have to think about what is required to preserve the american dream for future generations. and this sense of responsibility to each other and our country, this is not a partisan feeling. this is not a democratic or republican idea.

it is patriotism. if we keep that in mind and uphold our obligations to one another and to this larger enterprise that is america, then i have no doubt that we will continue on our long and prosperous journey as the greatest nation on earth. thank you. god bless you. god bless the united states of america. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> thank you. thank you, everyone. thank you. >> we appreciate you so much being with us today. i have some questions from the audience.

the republicans have been sharply critical of you as well. americans want both sides to stop fighting and get the job done. >> i completely understand the american people's frustrations. the truth is that these are imminently solvable problems. another christine lagarde is here. the kind of challenges they face fiscal is a much more severe than anything we can confront if we make some sensible decisions. the american people's impulses are absolutely right. these are solvable problems the people of good faith came together and were willing to compromise.

the challenge we have right now is that we have, on one side, a party that will book no compromise -- and this is not just my assertion. we had presidential candidates who stood on stage and were asked would you accept a budget package, a deficit reduction plan, that involves $10 of cuts for every dollar in revenue increases -- a 10-1 ratio of spending cuts to revenue. not one of them raised their hands. think about that. ronald reagan, who was a recall is not accused of being a tax- and-spend socialist, understood repeatedly that come when the

deficit started to get out of control, for him to make a deal, he would have to propose both spending cuts and tax increases. he did it multiple times. he could neither did through a republican primary today -- he could not get through a republican primary today. let's look at booles-simpson. i proposed less revenue and slightly lower defense spending cuts. the republicans want to increase defense spending and taking in new revenue -- and

take in no revenue. if you essentially eliminate discretionary spending, not just cut it, everything we think of as being pretty important, from education to basic science and research to transportation spending to national parks to do environment of protection, we would have to eliminate them. i guess another way of thinking about this -- and this bears on your reporting -- i think there's oftentimes the impulse to suggest that, if the two parties are disagreeing, the near equally at fault and the

truth lies somewhere in the middle. and and equivalents is presented, which reinforces people's cynicism about washington in general. this is not one of those situations where there is an equivalence. i have some of the most liberal democrats in congress who are prepared to make significant changes to entitlements that go against their political interests and who said they were willing to do it. and we could not get a republican to stand up and say we will raise some revenue or to even suggest that we will not give more tax cuts to people who do not need it. i think it is important to put the current debate in some historical context. it is not just true, by the way,

of the budget. it is true of a lot of the debates that we are having here. cap and trade was originally proposed by conservatives and republicans as a market-based solution to solving environmental problems. the first president to talk about cap and trade was george w. h. bush appeared now we have a party that essentially says we should not even be thinking about environmental protection. let's gut the epa. healthcare, which is in the news right now, there is the reason why there is a little bit of confusion. in the republican primary about health care and the and did -- and the individual mandate. it originated as a conservative idea to preserve the private marketplace and health care

while still ensuring that everybody got coverage as opposed to a single-payer plan. suddenly, this is some socialist overreach. as all of your doing your reporting, it is important to remember that the positions i'm taking on the budget and a host of other issues, if we had been having this discussion 20 years ago, or even 15 years ago, it would have been considered squarely centrist positions. what has changed is the center of the republican party. and that is certainly true with the budget. >> [inaudible] the need for a lower deficit and lower taxes.

how do you respond to that? >> she is absolutely right. when i travel around the world to these international forums, i have said this before. the degree to which america is the one indispensable nation, the degree to which -- even as other countries are rising and their economies are expanding, we're still looked to for leadership, for agenda-setting. not just because of our size and our military power, but because there is a sense that, unlike most superpowers in the past, we tried to set out a set of universal rules or a set of principles by which everybody can benefit.

and that is true on the economic front as well. we continue to be the world's largest market, an important engine for economic growth. we cannot return to a time when, by simply borrowing and consuming, we end up driving global economic growth. i said this a few months after rose elected at the g-20 summit. -- after i was elected at the g-20 summit. driving economic growth by taking imports from everyplace else, those days are over.

we do have to take care of our deficits. i think christine has spoken before and i think most economists would argue as well that the challenge, when it comes to our deficit, is not short term discretionary spending, which is manageable. as i said before and i want to repeat, as a percentage of our gdp, our discretionary spending, all the things that the republicans are proposing to cut, is actually lower than it has been since dwight eisenhower. there has not been some massive expansion of social programs, programs to help the poor, environmental programs, education programs. that is not our problem. our problem is that our revenue has dropped down to between 15% or 16%, far lower than it has been historically, far lower than it was under ronald reagan. at the same time, our health care costs have surged and

demographics show that there's more and more pressure placed on financing our medicare and medicaid and social security programs. at a time when the recovery is still gaining steam and unemployment is still very high, the solution should be pretty apparent. even as we continue to make investments in growth today, for example, putting some of our construction workers back to work rebuilding schools and roads and bridges or helping stage rehire teachers at a time when schools are having a huge -- or helping states rehire teachers at a time when schools are having a huge problem

retaining quality teachers in the classroom, all of which would benefit our economy, we focus on a long-term plan to stabilize our revenues at irresponsible level and to deal with -- at a responsible level and to deal with our deficit in irresponsible way. and that is exactly what i -- in a responsible way. and that is exactly what i am proposing. during the clinton era, wealthy people were doing just fine and the economy was stronger than it had been. and let's work on medicare and medicaid in a serious way, which is not just taking the cost of

the books, of the federal books and pushing them on to individual seniors, but let's actually reduce health care costs. we spend more on health care with not as good outcomes as any other advanced developed nation on earth. that would seem to be a sensible proposal. the problem right now is not the technical means to solve it. the problem is our politics. that is part of what this election and what this debate will need to be about. are we as a country willing to get back to common sense, balanced, fair solutions that encourage our long-term economic growth and stabilize our budget? it can be done. one last point want to make that i think is important because it goes to the growth

issue -- if state and local government hiring were basically on par to what our current -- all part to past recoveries, the unemployment rate would probably be about a point lower than it is right now. if the construction industry were going through what we normally go through, that would be another point. part of the challenge we have right now in terms of growth has to do with the basic issues of huge cuts in state and local governments and the housing market still recovering from this massive bubble. those two things are huge headwinds in terms of growth. if we put some of those construction workers back to work or we put some of those

teachers back in the classroom, that could actually help create the kind of virtuous cycle that would bring in more revenues just because of economic growth, would benefit the private sector in significant ways, and that could help contribute to deficit reduction in the short term, even as we still have to do these important changes to our health care programs over the long term. >> president, you said yesterday that it would be unprecedented for the supreme court to overturn law passed by an elected congress. if the court were to overturn individual mandate, what would you do or propose to do for the 30 million people who would not have health care after that ruling? >> first of all, let me be very specific. we have not seen a court overturn a law that was passed

by congress on an economic issue like health care that i think most people would consider commerce. they'll like that has not been overturned -- a lot like that has not been overturned at least since locklear. that is pre 1930's. the point i was making is that the supreme court is the final say on on the constitution and our laws and all of us have to respect it. but it is precisely because of that extraordinary power that the court has traditionally exercised significant restraint

and deference to our duly elected legislature, our congress. so the burden is on those who would overturn a law like this. as i said, i expect the supreme court to actually recognize that and abide by well established precedents out there appeared to have enormous confidence that come in looking at this law, not only is it constitutional, but that the court will exercise its

jurisprudence carefully because of the profound power that our supreme court has. as a consequence, we're not spending a whole bunch of time planning for contingencies. what i did emphasize yesterday is that there is a human element to this that everybody has to remember. it is not an abstract exercise. i get letters every day from people who are affected by the health care law right now, even though it is not fully implemented. young people who are 24 or 25 who say, you know, i just got diagnosed with a tumor. first of all, i would not had it checked if i did not have health insurance. and i would not have had it treated if i were not on my parents' plan. thank you and thank congress for getting this done.

i get letters from folks who have just lost their jobs. their cobra is running out. there in the middle of treatment for colon cancer or breast cancer and they are worried that, if there cobra runs out and they are sick, what will they be able to do if they cannot get health insurance? the point that was made very ably before the supreme court, but i think that most health care economists have acknowledged, it assures that people will get coverage even when they have bad .... one way is the single-payer plan. everyone is in a single system like medicare. the other way is to set a system in which you do not have people who are healthy but do not bother to get health insurance and then we'll have to pay for them in the emergency room. that does not work good as a

consequence, we have to make sure that those folks are taking their responsibility seriously, which is what the individual mandate does. i do not anticipate the court striking the stem. i think they take their responsibilities very seriously. i think what is more important is for all of us, democrats and republicans, to recognize that, in a country like ours, the wealthiest and most powerful country on earth, we should not have a system in which millions of people are at risk of

bankruptcy because they get sick. or and waiting until they do get sick and then go to the emergency room which involves all of us paying for them. >> you have been very generous with your time. we appreciate so much you being here. >> thank you so much, everybody. [applause] thank you.

>> today, americans for prosperity on the house republican budget proposal. then david shapiro on this week's supreme court decision. police concerts search a suspec.

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>> ladies and gentlemen, the president of the united states of america. [applause] >> thank you so much. thank you. thank you very much. please have a seat. good afternoon and thank you to dean singleton and the board of the associated press to inviting me here today. it's a pleasure to speak to all of you and to have a microphone i can see.

[laughter] feel free to transmit any of this to vladimir if you see him. [laughter] clearly, we are already in the beginning months of another long, lively election year. there will be gaffes and minor controversies, there will be hot microphones and etch-a- sketch moments. you will cover every word we say and we will complained vociferously about the unflattering words you write, unless you are writing about the other guy, in which case, good job.

but there are also big, fundamental issues at stake right now. issues that deserve serious debate among every candidate and serious coverage among every reporter. whoever he may be, the next president will inherit an economy that is recovering, but not yet recovered. from the worst economic calamity since the great depression. to many americans will still be looking for a job that pays enough to cover their bills for their mortgage. to many citizens will lack the sort of financial security that started slipping away years before this recession it. a debt that has grown over the last decade, primarily as a result of two wars, to massive tax cuts, and an unprecedented financial crisis will have to be paid down. in the face of all these challenges, we will have to answer a central question as a nation -- what, if anything, can

we do to restore a sense of security to people were willing to work hard and act responsibly in this country? can we succeed as a country where a shrinking number of people do exceedingly well while a growing number struggle to get by? or are we better off when everyone gets a fair shot and everyone does their fair share and everyone plays by the same rules? this is not just another run-of- the-mill political debate. i have said it is the defining issue of our times and i believe it. it's why i ran in 2008 and it's what my presidency has been about and it's why i'm running again. i believe this is a make or break moment for the middle class and i can't remember a time when the choice between competing visions of our future has been so unambiguously clear.

keep in mind, i've never been somebody who believes government can or should try to solve a problem. some of the know my first job in chicago was working with a group of catholic churches that often did more good for people in their communities than any government program could. in those same communities, i saw no education policy, no matter how well crafted, can take the place of the parents love and attention. as president, i've eliminated dozens of programs that were not working, announced over 500 regulatory reforms that will save businesses and taxpayers billions, and put annual domestic spending on a path to become the smallest share of the economy since dwight eisenhower held this office. since before i was born.

i know the true engine of job creation in this country is the private sector, not washington, which is why i have cut taxes for small business owners 17 times over the last three years. i believe deeply that the free market is the greatest force for economic progress in human history. my mother and grandparents to raise the value personal responsibility. i also share the belief of our first republican president, abraham lincoln. a belief that true government, we should do together what we cannot do as well for ourselves.

that belief is the reason this country has been able to build a strong military to keep us safe, and public schools to educate our children. that belief is why we have been able to lay down roads and highways to facilitate travel and commerce. that belief is why we have been able to support the work of scientists and researchers whose discoveries have saved lives, unleashed technological revolutions, and led to countless new jobs in new industries. that belief is also why we have sought to insure every citizen can count on some basic measure of security. we do this because we recognize that no matter how responsibly we live our lives, anyone of us, at any moment, might face hard times, might face bad luck, might face a crippling illness or lay off. so we contribute to programs like medicare and social security which guarantee health care and a source of income after a lifetime of hard work.

we provide unemployment insurance which protects us against unexpected job loss, and facilitate the labor mobility that makes our economy so dynamic. we provide for medicaid, which make sure millions of seniors in nursing homes and children with disabilities are getting the care that they need. for generations, nearly all of these investments from transportation to education to retirement programs had been supported by people in both parties. as much as we might associate the gi bill with franklin roosevelt or medicare with lyndon johnson, it was a republican, lincoln, who launched the trans continental railroad, the national academy of science, the land grant college. it was eisenhower who launched

the interstate highway system and new investment in scientific research. it was richard nixon who created the environment protection agency. ronald reagan worked with democrats to save social security. it was george w. bush who added prescription drug coverage to medicare. what leaders in both parties have traditionally understood is that these investments are not part of some scheme to redistribute wealth from one group to another. they are expressions of the fact that we are one nation. these investments benefit us all. and they contribute to genuine, durable economic growth. show me a business leader who would not profit if more americans could afford to get the skills and education that today's jobs require. ask any company where they would rather locate and hire workers, a country with crumbling roads and bridges or

one committed to high-speed internet and high-speed railroad and high-tech research and development? it doesn't make us weaker when we guarantee basic security for the elderly, sick, or those who are actively looking for work. what makes us weaker is when fewer and fewer people can afford to buy the goods and services are businesses sell. when entrepreneurs don't have the financial securities to take a chance and starting a business. what drags down our entire economy is when there is an ever widening chasm between the ultra rich and everybody else. in this country, broadbased prosperity has never trickled down from the success of the wealthy few. it has always come from the success of a strong and growing middle class. that is how generation who went to college on the gi bill,

including my grandfather, helped build the most prosperous economies world as ever known. that is why a ceo like henry ford made it his mission to pay his workers enough so they could buy the cars that they made. that's why research has shown that countries with less inequality tend to have stronger and steadier economic growth over the long run. yet, for much of the last century, we have been having the same argument with folks who keep peddling some version of trickle-down economics. they keep telling us that if we convert more of our investment in education, research and health care into tax cuts, especially for the wealthy, our economy will grow stronger.

they keep telling us if we strip away more regulations and let businesses pollute more and treat workers and consumers with impunity, somehow we will all be better off. we are told that when the wealthy become even wealthier and corporations are allowed to maximize profits by whatever means necessary, it's good for america and their success will translate into more jobs and prosperity for everyone else. that is the theory. the problem for advocates of this theory is that we have tried their approach on a massive scale. the results of their experiments are there for all to see. at the beginning of the last decade, the wealthiest americans received a huge tax cut in 2001 and another huge tax

cut in 2003. we were promised that these tax cuts would lead to faster job growth. they did not. the wealthy got wealthier, we would expect that. the income of the top 1% has grown by more than 275% over the last few decades to an average of $1.3 million a year. but prosperity sure did not trickle down. instead, during the last decade, we had the slowest job growth in half a century. the typical american family actually saw their incomes fall by about 6% even as the economy was growing. there was a time when insurance companies and financial lenders did not have to abide by strong

enough regulations and found ways around them. what was the result? profits for these companies soared, but so did people's health insurance premiums, patients were repeatedly denied care, often when they needed it most, families were enticed and sometimes just plain tricked into buying homes they could not afford, huge, reckless bets were made with other people's money on the line and our entire financial system was nearly destroyed. we tried this theory out. you would think after the results of this experiment in trickle-down economics, after the results were made painfully clear, the proponents of this theory might show some humility. might moderate their views a bit. you would think they would say,

you know what? maybe some rules and regulations are necessary to protect the economy and prevent people from being taken advantage of by insurance companies or mortgage lenders. maybe, just maybe, at a time of growing debt and widening inequality, we should hold off and giving the wealthiest americans another round of big tax cuts. maybe when we know that most of today's middle-class jobs require more than a high-school degree, we should not get education or lay off thousands of teachers or raise interest rates on college loans or take away people's financial aid. but that's exactly the opposite of what they have done. instead of moderating their views even slightly, the republicans running congress right now have double down. they have proposed a budget so

far to the right it makes the contract for america look like the new deal. in fact, that renowned liberal, newt gingrich, first called the original version of the budget radical. he said it would contribute to right wing social engineering. this is coming from newt gingrich. this is not a budget supported by some small group in the republican party. this is now the party's governing platform. this is what they are running on. one of my potential opponents, governor romney, has said he hopes a similar version of this plan from last year would be introduced as a bill on day one of his presidency. he says he's very supportive of this new budget and he even called it marvelous.

which is a word you don't often hear when it comes to describing the budget. [laughter] it's a word you don't often hear generally. [laughter] here is what this marvelous budget does. back in the summer, i came to an agreement with republicans in congress to cut roughly one trillion dollars in annual spending. some of these cuts were about getting rid of waste, others were about programs we support but cannot afford given our deficits and our debt. part of the agreement was a guarantee of another trillion in savings for a total of about $2 trillion in deficit reduction. this new house republican budget, however, breaks are bipartisan agreement and

proposes a massive new cuts in annual domestic spending. exactly the area where we have already cut the most. i want to go through what it would mean for our country if these cuts were to be spread out evenly. bear with me, i want to go through this because i don't think people fully appreciate the nature of this budget. the year after next, nearly 10 million college students would see their financially cut by an average of more than $1,000 each. there would be 1600 fewer medical grants, research grants for things like alzheimer's, cancer and aids. there would be 4000 fewer scientific research grants, eliminating support for 48,000 researchers, students and teachers.

investments in clean energy technologies helping us reduce our dependence on foreign oil would be cut by nearly a fifth. if this budget becomes law and cuts were applied evenly, starting in 2014, over 200,000 children would lose their chance to get an early education in the headstart program. 2 million mothers and young children would be cut from a program that gives them access to healthy food. there would be 4500 fewer federal grants at the department of justice and the fbi to combat by the crime, financial crime, and helped secure our borders. hundreds of national parks would be forced to close for part or all of the year. we would not have the capacity to enforce the laws that protect the air we breathe, the water we drink, or the food we eat.

cut to the faa would likely result in more flight cancellations, delays, and the complete elimination of air- traffic control services and parts of the country. over time, our weather forecasts would become less factor because we would not be able to afford to launch new satellites. that means governors and mayors would have to wait longer to order evacuations in the event of a hurricane. that's just a partial sampling of the consequences of this budget. you can anticipate that republicans may say that we will avoid some of these cuts since they don't specify exactly the cuts they would make. but they can only avoid some of these cuts if they cut even deeper in other areas. this is math.

if they want to make smaller cuts to medical research, they have to cut even deeper to things like teaching and law enforcement. the converse is true as well. they want to protect child education, it would mean further reducing financial aid to people who are trying to afford college. perhaps they will never tell us where the knife will fall, but you can be sure that with cuts this deep, there is no secret plan or formula that will be able to protect the investments we need to help our economy grow. this is not conjecture. i am not exaggerating. these are facts. these are just the cuts that would happen the year after next. if this budget became law, by the middle of the century,

funding for the kinds of things i just mentioned would have to be cut by about 95%. let me repeat that. those categories that is mentioned, we would have to cut by 95%. as a practical matter, the federal budget would basically amount to whatever is left in entitlements, defense spending, and interest on the national debt, period. money for these programs that have traditionally been supported by bipartisan basis would be basically eliminated. the same is true for other priorities like transportation, homeland's security, and veterans' benefits for men and women who risk their lives for this country. this is not an exaggeration. check it out for yourself. this is to say nothing about what the budget does to health care. we're told medicaid would simply be handed over to the

states. that is the pitch. let's get out of the central bureaucracy, the states can experiment, there will be able to run the programs a lot better. but here is the deal the states would be getting. they would have to be running these programs in the face of the largest cut to medicaid that has ever been proposed. a cut that according to one non-partisan group would take away health care for about 19 million americans. 19 million. who are these americans? many are someone's grandparents who, without medicaid, will not be able to afford nursing home care without medicaid. many are children. some are middle-class families with children with autism or

down's syndrome. some are kids with disabilities so severe that they require 24- hour care. these are the people who count on medicaid. then there is medicare. because health care costs keep rising and the baby boom generation is retiring, medicare, we all know, is one of the biggest dryers are long term deficit. that is a challenge we have to meet by bringing down the cost of health care overall for seniors and taxpayers who share in the stakes. but here's the solution proposed by republicans in washington and embraced by most of their candidates for president. instead of being enrolled in medicare when they turn 65, seniors to retire a decade from now would get a voucher that equals the cost of the second cheapest health care plan in their area.

if medicare is more expensive than at private plan, they will have to pay more if they want to enroll in traditional medicare. if health care costs rise faster than the amount of the voucher, as, by the way, they have been doing for decades, that's too bad. seniors bear the risk. if the voucher is not enough to buy private plan with bit specific doctors and carry need, that's too bad. most experts will tell you the way this voucher plan encourages savings is not through better care or cheaper costs, the way these private insurance companies save money is by designing and marketing plans to attract the youngest and healthiest seniors, cherry picking, leaving the older and sicker seniors in traditional medicare where they have access to a wide range of doctors and guaranteed care, but that makes the traditional medicare program even more expensive and raises premiums even further.

the net result is our country will end up spending more on health care and the only reason the government will save any money is because we have shifted it to seniors. they will bear more of the costs themselves. it is a bad idea. it will ultimately end medicare as we know it. the proponents of this budget will tell us we have to make all these draconian cuts' because our deficit is so large. this is an existential crisis, we have to think about future generations, so on and so on. they will bear more of the costs themselves. it is a bad idea. it will ultimately end medicare as we know it. now the proponents of this bill will tell us that we have to make these draconian cuts

because our deficit is so large. this is an existential crisis. we have to think about future generations. and that argument might have a shred of credibility were not for their proposal to also spend $4.60 trillion over the next decade on lower tax rates. we are told that these tax cuts will supposedly be paid for by closing loopholes and eliminating waste full deductions. but the republicans in congress refused to lift a single loophole but they're willing to close, not one. and by the way, there is no way to get even close to $4.60 trillion in savings without dramatically reducing all kinds of tax breaks that go to middle- class families, tax breaks for health care, tax breaks for retirement, tax breaks for home ownership. meanwhile, these proposals and tax breaks would come on top of more than a dollar trillion in tax giveaways for people making more than two and $50,000 per

year -- more than $250,000 per year. let's step back for a second and look at $150,000 pays for. a year's worth of prescription drug coverage for senior citizen plus a new school computer lab plus a year of medical care for returning veterans plus a medical research grant for chronic disease plus a year's salary for a firefighter or police officer plus a tax credit to make a year of college more affordable plus a year's worth the financially.

$150,000 would pay for all these things combined. investments in education and research that are essential to economic growth that benefits all this -- all of us. for $150,000, it would go to each millionaire and billionaire in this country. this budget says we would be better off as a country if that is how we spend it. this is post to be about paying down our deficit? -- this is supposed to be paying down our deficit? it is laughable. the bipartisan simpson decibels committee that i treated, which the republicans were for until i was for it, that was about paying down the deficit. i did not agree with all the details. i proposed about $600 billion

more in revenue and $600 billion -- i am sorry, it proposed about $600 billion more in revenue and $600 billion more in defense cuts than i propose in my own budget. but it was a balanced effort between democrats and republicans to bring down the deficit. that is why, although it differs in some ways, my budget takes a similarly balanced approach. cuts in discretionary spending, in mandatory spending, and increased revenue. this congressional republican budget is something different altogether. it is a trojan horse.

it is disguised as deficit reduction plans and is really an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country. it is thinly veiled social darwinism. it is antithetical to our entire history as the land of opportunity and upward mobility for everybody who's willing to work for it. a place where prosperity does not trickled down from the top, but grows out for from the heart of the middle class. by getting the very things we need to grow an economy that is built to last. education and training, research and development, our infrastructure -- it is a prescription for decline. and everybody here should understand that because there are very few people here who have not benefited at some point from those investments that were made in the 1950's and the 1960's and the 1970's and the 1980's. that is part of how we got

ahead. and now we will be pulling up those letters for the next generation. in the months ahead, i will be fighting as hard as i know how for this to truer vision of what united states of america is all about. absolutely, we have to get serious about the deficit. that will require tough choices and sacrifice. i have already shown myself willing to make these tough terraces when i signed -- tough choices when i signed into law the biggest tax cuts in history. the overall spending next year will be lower than any year under ronald reagan. i am willing to make more of those difficult spending decisions in the months ahead. but i have said before and i

will say it again. there has to be some balance. all of us have to do our fair share. i have also put forward a detailed plan that will reform and strengthen medicare and medicaid. by the beginning of the next decade, it achieves the same amount of animal health savings as the plan proposed by simpson-bolles. it does so by making changes that people in my party have not always been comfortable with. but instead of saving money by shifting costs to seniors like to the republican congressional plan proposes, it will go after excessive subsidies to prescription drug companies, gets more efficiency of medicaid without gutting the program. it ask the wealthiest to pay a little bit more. new incentives for doctors and

hospitals to improve their results. and it slows the cost american costs by strengthening an independent commission, one not made of bureaucrats from government or insurance companies, but doctors and nurses and medical experts and consumers who will look at all the evidence and recommend the best way to reduce unnecessary health care spending while protecting access to the care that the seniors need. we also have a much different approach when it comes to tax. if we are serious about paying down our debt, we can afford to spend trillions more tax cuts for folks like me. for wealthy americans who do not need them and were not even asking for them and that the country cannot afford. at a time when the share of national income flowing to the

top 1% of the people in this country has climbed to levels blast scene in the 1920's, those same folks are paying taxes at one of the lowest rates in 50 years. as both i and warm but have pointed out many times now, he is paying a lower tax rate and his secretary. that is not fair. it is not right. and the choices really very simple. if you want to keep these tax breaks and deductions in place or give even more tax breaks to the wealthy, as the republicans in congress propose, then one of two things will happen either these higher deficits or it means more sacrifice for the middle class. seniors will have to pay more for medicare. college students will lose financially. working families who are

scraping by will have to do more because the richest americans are doing less. i repeat what i said before. that is not class warfare. that is not class envy. that is math. if that is the choice of the members of congress want to make -- and we will make sure that every american knows about it -- in a few weeks, there will be a vote on what we call the buffet rule. it is a simple concept. if you make more than $1 million annually, then you should pay at least the same percentage of your income in taxes as middle-class families do. on the other hand, if you made under% $250,000, like 98% of american families do, then your taxes should not go up. that is the proposal. you will hear some people point out that the buffet rule alone

will not raise enough revenue to solve our deficit problems. maybe not. but it is definitely a step in the right direction. and i intend to keep fighting for this kind of balance and fairness until the other side starts listening could i believe this is what the american people want. i believe this is the best way to pay for the investments we need to grow our economy and strengthen the middle class. by the way, i believe it is the right thing to do. this larger debate that we will be having and that you will be covering in the coming year, by the size and role of government, this debate has been with us since our founding days. during moments of great challenge and change like the ones we're living through now, the debate gets sharper and more vigorous.

that is a good thing. as a country that prizes both are individual freedom and our obligations to one another, this is one of the most important debates that we can have. no matter what we argue or where we stand, we have always held certain beliefs as americans. we believe that come in order to preserve our own freedoms and pursue our own happiness, we can just think about ourselves. we have to think about the country that made those liberties possible. we have to think about our fellow citizens, with whom we share a community. we have to think about what is required to preserve the american dream for future generations.

and this sense of responsibility to each other and our country, this is not a partisan feeling. this is not a democratic or republican idea. it is patriotism. if we keep that in mind and uphold our obligations to one another and to this larger enterprise that is america, then i have no doubt that we will continue on our long and prosperous journey as the greatest nation on earth. thank you. god bless you. god bless the united states of america. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> thank you. thank you, everyone. thank you.

>> we appreciate you so much being with us today. i have some questions from the audience. the republicans have been sharply critical of you as well. americans want both sides to stop fighting and get the job done. >> i completely understand the american people's frustrations. the truth is that these are imminently solvable problems. another christine lagarde is here. the kind of challenges they face fiscal is a much more severe than anything we can confront if we make some sensible decisions. the american people's impulses

are absolutely right. these are solvable problems the people of good faith came together and were willing to compromise. the challenge we have right now is that we have, on one side, a party that will book no compromise -- and this is not just my assertion. we had presidential candidates who stood on stage and were asked would you accept a budget package, a deficit reduction plan, that involves $10 of cuts for every dollar in revenue increases -- a 10-1 ratio of

spending cuts to revenue. not one of them raised their hands. think about that. ronald reagan, who was a recall is not accused of being a tax- and-spend socialist, understood repeatedly that come when the deficit started to get out of control, for him to make a deal, he would have to propose both spending cuts and tax increases. he did it multiple times. he could neither did through a republican primary today -- he could not get through a republican primary today. let's look at booles-simpson. i proposed less revenue and

slightly lower defense spending cuts. the republicans want to increase defense spending and taking in new revenue -- and take in no revenue. if you essentially eliminate discretionary spending, not just cut it, everything we think of as being pretty important, from education to basic science and research to transportation spending to national parks to do environment of protection, we would have to eliminate them. i guess another way of thinking about this -- and this bears on

your reporting -- i think there's oftentimes the impulse to suggest that, if the two parties are disagreeing, the near equally at fault and the truth lies somewhere in the middle. and and equivalents is presented, which reinforces people's cynicism about washington in general. this is not one of those situations where there is an equivalence. i have some of the most liberal democrats in congress who are prepared to make significant changes to entitlements that go against their political interests and who said they were willing to do it. and we could not get a republican to stand up and say we will raise some revenue or to even suggest that we will not give more tax cuts to people who do not need it.

i think it is important to put the current debate in some historical context. it is not just true, by the way, of the budget. it is true of a lot of the debates that we are having here. cap and trade was originally proposed by conservatives and republicans as a market-based solution to solving environmental problems. the first president to talk about cap and trade was george w. h. bush appeared now we have a party that essentially says we should not even be thinking about environmental protection. let's gut the epa. healthcare, which is in the news right now, there is the reason why there is a little bit of confusion. in the republican primary about

health care and the and did -- and the individual mandate. it originated as a conservative idea to preserve the private marketplace and health care while still ensuring that everybody got coverage as opposed to a single-payer plan. suddenly, this is some socialist overreach. as all of your doing your reporting, it is important to remember that the positions i'm taking on the budget and a host of other issues, if we had been having this discussion 20 years ago, or even 15 years ago, it would have been considered squarely centrist positions. what has changed is the center

of the republican party. and that is certainly true with the budget. >> [inaudible] the need for a lower deficit and lower taxes. how do you respond to that? >> she is absolutely right. when i travel around the world to these international forums, i have said this before. the degree to which america is the one indispensable nation, the degree to which -- even as other countries are rising and their economies are expanding, we're still looked to for

leadership, for agenda-setting. not just because of our size and our military power, but because there is a sense that, unlike most superpowers in the past, we tried to set out a set of universal rules or a set of principles by which everybody can benefit. and that is true on the economic front as well. we continue to be the world's largest market, an important engine for economic growth. we cannot return to a time when, by simply borrowing and consuming, we end up driving global economic growth. i said this a few months after rose elected at the g-20 summit. -- after i was elected at the g- 20 summit. driving economic growth by

taking imports from everyplace else, those days are over. we do have to take care of our deficits. i think christine has spoken before and i think most economists would argue as well that the challenge, when it comes to our deficit, is not short term discretionary spending, which is manageable. as i said before and i want to repeat, as a percentage of our gdp, our discretionary spending, all the things that the republicans are proposing to cut, is actually lower than it has been since dwight eisenhower. there has not been some massive expansion of social programs, programs to help the poor, environmental programs,

education programs. that is not our problem. our problem is that our revenue has dropped down to between 15% or 16%, far lower than it has been historically, far lower than it was under ronald reagan. at the same time, our health care costs have surged and demographics show that there's more and more pressure placed on financing our medicare and medicaid and social security programs. at a time when the recovery is still gaining steam and unemployment is still very high, the solution should be pretty apparent. even as we continue to make investments in growth today, for example, putting some of our construction workers back to

work rebuilding schools and roads and bridges or helping stage rehire teachers at a time when schools are having a huge -- or helping states rehire teachers at a time when schools are having a huge problem retaining quality teachers in the classroom, all of which would benefit our economy, we focus on a long-term plan to stabilize our revenues at irresponsible level and to deal with -- at a responsible level and to deal with our deficit in irresponsible way. and that is exactly what i -- in a responsible way. and that is exactly what i am proposing. during the clinton era, wealthy people were doing just fine and the economy was stronger than it had been.

and let's work on medicare and medicaid in a serious way, which is not just taking the cost of the books, of the federal books and pushing them on to individual seniors, but let's actually reduce health care costs. we spend more on health care with not as good outcomes as any other advanced developed nation on earth. that would seem to be a sensible proposal. the problem right now is not the technical means to solve it. the problem is our politics. that is part of what this election and what this debate will need to be about. are we as a country willing to get back to common sense, balanced, fair solutions that

encourage our long-term economic growth and stabilize our budget? it can be done. one last point want to make that i think is important because it goes to the growth issue -- if state and local government hiring were basically on par to what our current -- all part to past recoveries, the unemployment rate would probably be about a point lower than it is right now. if the construction industry were going through what we normally go through, that would be another point. part of the challenge we have right now in terms of growth has to do with the basic issues of huge cuts in state and local governments and the housing market still recovering from this massive bubble.

those two things are huge headwinds in terms of growth. if we put some of those construction workers back to work or we put some of those teachers back in the classroom, that could actually help create the kind of virtuous cycle that would bring in more revenues just because of economic growth, would benefit the private sector in significant ways, and that could help contribute to deficit reduction in the short term, even as we still have to do these important changes to our health care programs over the long term. >> president, you said yesterday that it would be unprecedented for the supreme court to overturn law passed by an elected congress. if the court were to overturn individual mandate, what would you do or propose to do for the

30 million people who would not have health care after that ruling? >> first of all, let me be very specific. we have not seen a court overturn a law that was passed by congress on an economic issue like health care that i think most people would consider commerce. beenll like that has not overturned -- a lot like that has not been overturned at least since locklear. that is pre 1930's. the point i was making is that the supreme court is the final

say on on the constitution and our laws and all of us have to respect it. but it is precisely because of that extraordinary power that the court has traditionally exercised significant restraint and deference to our duly elected legislature, our congress. so the burden is on those who would overturn a law like this. as i said, i expect the supreme court to actually recognize that and abide by well established precedents out there appeared to have enormous confidence that come in looking at this law, not only is it constitutional, but that the

court will exercise its jurisprudence carefully because of the profound power that our supreme court has. as a consequence, we're not spending a whole bunch of time planning for contingencies. what i did emphasize yesterday is that there is a human element to this that everybody has to remember. it is not an abstract exercise. i get letters every day from people who are affected by the health care law right now, even though it is not fully implemented. young people who are 24 or 25 who say, you know, i just got diagnosed with a tumor. first of all, i would not had it checked if i did not have

health insurance. and i would not have had it treated if i were not on my parents' plan. thank you and thank congress for getting this done. i get letters from folks who have just lost their jobs. their cobra is running out. there in the middle of treatment for colon cancer or breast cancer and they are worried that, if there cobra runs out and they are sick, what will they be able to do if they cannot get health insurance? the point that was made very ably before the supreme court, but i think that most health care economists have acknowledged, it assures that people will get coverage even when they have bad .... one way is the single-payer

plan. everyone is in a single system like medicare. the other way is to set a system in which you do not have people who are healthy but do not bother to get health insurance and then we'll have to pay for them in the emergency room. that does not work good as a consequence, we have to make sure that those folks are taking their responsibility seriously, which is what the individual mandate does. i do not anticipate the court striking the stem. i think they take their responsibilities very seriously. i think what is more important is for all of us, democrats and republicans, to recognize that, in a country like ours, the wealthiest and most powerful

country on earth, we should not have a system in which millions of people are at risk of bankruptcy because they get sick. or and waiting until they do get sick and then go to the emergency room which involves all of us paying for them. >> you have been very generous with your time. we appreciate so much you being here. >> thank you so much, everybody. [applause] thank you. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] cable satellite corp. 2012]