i everybody is committed to oklahoma. just like i am not committed to your state the same way you are committed to mind. there is something unique when you live in a state instead of just visit there that makes you passionate about that pot hole, that bridge, that intersection. that is why it is is essential that we work to take the control out of this room and put it in each of our states. people that live closest to that bridge make the decision about that bridge rather than somebody who has never visited our state. the people back in my town that fill up with gas today, the cd sticker and they know 18 cents is going to help pay for roads. i think they should know it

actually paid for a role and help them in their transportation. it is a simple request that we honor every gallon of gas that every american purchases to make sure that goes back to where it actually goes back to on may 26, 2002, there was a tragic accident in oklahoma where a barge hit a bridge and took out a 580 foot section of that bridge right through a major highway cutting across the center of america. 64 days later that bridge was opened. we will make sure it is streamlined and all -- people pay attention to it that a streamlined focus was put on that.

it was cheaper. we got the road open. and we have a good bridge there again. streamlining, efficiency, local control and decision making, and a couple of things that would revolutionize this process for us. no year marks and no tax increases. -- know your marks and no tax increases. and this control back to the people that drive these roads the most. >> in response to what you said, i will put in the record a study that shows the last four years states have been getting back more than they put into the trust fund. i will share that with you so you can feel good about that. i do not think there is any objection to that.

we will do that. >> thank you. i also want to associate myself with the comments from my friends in florida and from oklahoma. when the federal government decides to build something quickly they can do it. that is a choice being made. those choices have proven that we do not have to have the environment suffer because they want to get work done. it is evidence straight and forward and right in front of our face. for some reason the whole idea of a project must take 14 or 15 years to get done, the american people wonder what is wrong with this process. the wonder what is wrong with the government and why it does not work. we have examples why it does not work. i appreciate the two comments

that were made. we can have both. we can have a streamlined approach. we can have construction and do it correctly. we ought to be working toward that end. i hope we can do that together. i look forward to working on this committee. i t why for the opportunity to be here. >> now we have come to our final speaker unless others come back. >> it is truly an honor to be here today. it has been awfully nice to hear a majority in this room truly want to put america first. we need to link arms and get a bill through. i look forward to working with my colleagues in the house and the senate on this crucial

legislation. maintaining 21st century infrastructure is important to our economic competitiveness. however, given our current environment, we need to ensure this makes more efficient use of taxpayer dollars without adding to the debt. this is the new reality. i have had the opportunity to witness how removing unnecessary red tape could improve our infrastructure and how prudent investments and research can yield game at changing innovations to make our roads and bridges safer and more durable. i look forward to working with chairman mica and all those in the senate to update our transportation systems and provide the best infrastructure and a small bowel you for the taxpayer and insurer transportation projects yield

long-term benefits. i would like to thank chairman hall for his leadership. i would like to think speaker bayer for the opportunity -- speaker john boehner for the opportunity. >> the house just started a vote. chairman michael will make it one minute close. then we will go on our way. i have enjoyed listening to you all. i would like to give you a minute's worth of a feedback. >> i am very pleased that everybody has had an opportunity to approve -- participate. we have had an open conference

here. everybody has contributed and everyone has a little bit of different ideas. i think the important thing is we blend them and maintain our principles. everyone continue to be a part of trying to get this concluded. finally, let me say thank you to the staff. i was a senate staffer for five years and worked also for a member of congress before that. i know their hard work and dedication, how can bring us together today. i appreciate you all taking the lead working with members. we can accomplish something very successful for the american people. i look forward to working with senator boxer to get this done. >> thank you very much each and every one of you. for those left, please, relay my

thanks. what i heard here today -- i heard no lines in the sand and i heard a lot of passion on certain issues. we did not hear the rhetoric. we just heard the speech from the hard about what is most important. what i want to say to you is, i will do everything i can to improve the senate bill. i want you to know it does streamline dramatically. it does reform dramatically. it is fully paid for. these are important things. on the issues we have expressed our views on one side or the other, we will work together until we get this done. we will be back here. we may be able to a degree and get signatures on a conference report.

if necessary we will be back here in 20 days. i am excited to working with all of you. i respect all of you. i am thrilled you all came and spoke today. thank you. we stand adjourned. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> mitt romney give the commencement address today at liberty university. we will show that at 8:00 eastern on c-span. now, a discussion about the upcoming advanced placement exam. from "washington journal," this

is 40 minutes. >> we're also joined by a teacher from the same school. they're both here for the reasons to cram for the exam. it takes place when? tuesday, this is our civics annuity. a little investment with lifetime dividends. what will they be facing next week? >> they will be facing 60 multiple choice. >> the point is to be a good citizen. here ability to write as a citizen but you get college credit if you pass the exam. >> are some of the larger topics.

>> foundations, federalism -- the three branches of government, public opinion, socialization. host: let's show you a sample question to see what the students are facing. host: there is a lot out there. what is the most accurate? guest: democracy is unthinkable without political parties but the constitution says nothing about it.

political parties today are the fundamental linkage institution that can next week the people with the government. host: are these types of questions the types that students will see? guest: yes. i know we have a students on the line. we are looking forward to enter their questions. host: how a bill becomes law will be part of the tests. students, if you want to participate, we have set up the line for high school students only. 202-737-0001, 202-737-0002. if you want help with this, we will squeeze in as many as possible in this segment. here's your chance to do so. the lines are lit up this morning. let us go straight to chicago, illinois with tony. what school do you go to? are you there?

caller: bowling brook high school. i have two questions. why was the senate a bill to cut short -- [unintelligible] guest: your question is about the filibuster in the u.s. senate. you should know that the senate has a feature called on limited debate known as the filibuster. it allows any senator or group of the minority side to talk theoretically forever. guest: when you talk filibuster,

make sure you know how the senate can end it. a closer vote of 3/5 majority -- hard to reach today. host: cleveland, ohio. caller: hi. i would like to give a shout out to my government class. what are 527's and what is their role in the presidential election? guest: in the media, they are calling them superpacs. in our class, we are treating them as the same thing. this is an independent expenditure group which means they are outside of the traditional campaign finance limits. this allows corporations and individuals to give unlimited amounts of money to these 527 groups. they can not be coordinated with a campaign of the candidates. that is the clear distinction. this is an independent expenditure group. guest: one of the misnomers in campaign finance is the bipartisan campaign reform act

created 527's. they closed the soft money loophole, which allowed unlimited money to go to the superpacs. host: some of the questions are as modern as 527's and some go back to the founding of our country. spokane, washington. hello. good morning. go ahead. caller: i would like to give a shout out to my ap government teacher. hello? host: what is your question? go ahead. caller: i would like to give a shout out to my teacher. [unintelligible]

host: we are talking about court cases. i could not hear you. guest: the test on tuesday will have court cases. let us not panic. too many to learn all. there are a few we will highlight. marbury versus madison established judicial review. the authority to rule acts of congress or the president unconstitutional. mccullough versus maryland and deals with the national supremacy. mccullough versus maryland is very important to national supremacy. host: michigan. good morning. caller: hi. i want to give a shout out to my ap gov class. a member of the president's

cabinet -- host: we are having a hard time hearing the questions. guest: when i teach about the cabinet, we look at the relationship between the cabinet and the president. the president's closest advisers come from his closest of staff. the executive office. the cabinet tends to be a mixed bag for the president because the secretaries have loyalty to their own cabinet. to their own agency. the cabinet is not as strong as one would think. guest: one of the things you can note about the cabinet versus the white house staff is that the white house staff does not have to be approved by the u.s. senate. it allows the president to surround himself with more loyal aides. like mr. larsen said, increasingly, presidents get their day to day advice from

his staff. host: how does the test of presidential powers? guest: it is all about power. when you talk about government, you are talking about who has the power. is it in the people? we would like to think so. the first three words are after all, we the people. host: just to give you an example of an issue of presidential power coming here is senator tom colburn talking about the issue of presidential recess appointment. [video clip] >> what we are about to see today is the placing a partisan principals on both sides of the idle ahead of the principles of advice and consent and the senate's role. unfortunately, our leader did not respect the senate's role under the constitution with the

last four nominations in terms of recess appointment. and, we can debate that but the fact is, the institution, whether it is republican or democrat, the number-one thing that needs to be protected or the rights of the senate as related to the other branches of the government. i think that is unfortunate and i think that is part of our problem today. as we fail to trust one another to do the right thing. host: that was senator tom coburn. here is a call from maryland. curtis. good morning. caller: i would like to give a shout out -- ok. how have the implied powers of our president increased throughout history?

guest: these are the informal powers of the president. they are not referenced in the constitution. the idea that the president, especially with the media, can speak to the american people for broadcast and internet and being able to shape public opinion really is giving him power to shape what is going on. guest: the thing to remember is that you are right. the formost powers of the president today are not seen in his explicit powers. not in the constitution. the implied powers. some would call an inherent powers. let us think about executive agreements. executive orders. executive privilege. these are day-to-day activities by our president not mentioned in the constitution. host: would that be multiple choice or essay? guest: both. that is one of our predicted questions. the informal powers of the president.

guest: multiple choice is definitions. understanding what executive privilege is. in the free response question, it would that be unreasonable for them to ask, trace how power has increased over time, balancing formal powers and informal powers. host: here sean from california. caller: hi. this is sean. it is 6:30 a.m. in california. all of my friends and i got together to do this. we wanted to shout out to our school and our ap gov teacher. how does the bill of rights apply to the states through collective incorporation? what pieces of legislation implemented this policy?

guest: if you are thinking like this at 6:15 a.m., you are going to be fine next week when you take your ap test. selective incorporation, this is one of our favorite topics. it sounds to me like you are good at it. selective incorporation is the technical term that teaches us how the bill of rights has been applied to the states. originally, they protected us from the federal government. with cases that have happened, the court has used the due process clause of the 14th amendment, not bringing all bill of rights at one time into the federal jurisdiction, but little by little, the supreme court has applied the bill of rights to the states using the due process clause. guest: a classic case that exemplifies that is one in ohio or the supreme court said that state and local places must abide by the fourth amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure.

host: when does study begin for this test? guest: we have students across the country who took this from august until december. then some students picked up a semester starting in january until now. it is a lifestyle, pedro. [laughter] host: ohio. good morning to michael. caller: hi. i wanted to give a shout out to my teacher. what's up? olmstead versus the united states, what is that? in 1928. what was that about? guest: this is a court case i am not sure i have ever seen on the test. if you can use it, god bless you, my friend. i do not think this test will be a gotcha type question. it is not a history test.

we know that for sure. many of you took the displacement history class, there are many gotcha questions. this will be a straight black and white type of exam. guest: any court case will be connected to some kind of bigger concept. whether it is separation of powers or protection of civil liberties. take the clues from the questions. you have an obscure court case, take the clues from the question and apply it and give an educated guess. guest: when court cases are on the exam, you will have an option. for those students out there panicking that there are a lot of cases to look at, you'll be fine. guest: i wish we had an option on that one. guest: i love federalism. i am predicting there will be a

federalism question on the frq's. it using the metaphor of marble cake. marble cake federalism really suggests the national state and local governments work together. a lot of times, we think of federalism as a layer cake. national government does this come state does this, local government does this. in our country, it is corporative. it is like a marble cake. all the responsibilities are melded together. take education policy, for instance. we might get a policy of congress that the states must enforce and local governments actually participate in. guest: we have been predicting a federalism question for a couple of years. how is federalism embodied in the elections in the u.s. versus things that the u.s. constitution requires?

like suffrage for women in the 19th amendment versus what state and local governments require in terms of where you both. we have predicted one of those questions. at politco prep -- guest: watch the news and c- span. in the "new york times" they talked about initiating a voter identification lot to vote. indiana has one that in the supreme court but because of the voting rights act, the obama administration has said that that would violate the voting rights act of 1965. it is a great example of how federalism works in the elections and help watching the news today on c-span, tomorrow, read the newspaper, you will find answers for the frq's and it will reinforce what you have studied by giving you prime some examples. host: hello. caller: i want to give a shout out to ap gov class and i wanted to ask what were the two clauses relating to the freedom of religion in the first amendment?

guest: the first amendment protects many different things including your right to religious liberty. one of them is your right to exercise your religion. that is the freedom of exercise. we have two clauses. the establishment and the free exercise. these are critical. you'll be asked that distinction in the multiple choice. supreme court has ruled many cases on this, of course. a wall of separation. there are two concepts. free exercise allows me to exercise their religion of my choice. the establishment clause to protect me from a state religion. host: this is twitter -- guest: the iron triangle relates to policy and the bureaucracy. it is a way to understand policy-making. it involves the executive agency. that law is graded by congress through congressional committees.

a special interest group is trying to influence both the executive agency and congress and trying to shape policy. that is the iron triangle. guest: issue network is the key. do not be surprised if you see that rather than iron triangle. a host: nevada, timothy. caller: good morning. i would like to shout out to my teacher for doing a good job this year and my question is -- what are the advantages of incumbency versus the challenger? guest: incumbents have the advantage. they have the advantage because they have more name recognition. they are able to collect more money, campaign donations, especially from special interest groups on capitol hill. and coming, and also have the advantage because they are unknown factor. they can go to your district in can visit your school. challengers do not have that benefit.

they can send free office mail, not campaign literature, but free office mail to their constituents. guest: it distinction on incumbency i would note is that a larger number of votes you are trying to secure to win an election though less high incumbency rates. income as rates in the house are higher than the senate and lower than for the president. this is why in our election coming incumbency is not as critical a factor as it would be in the congressional election. host: on twitter -- guest: the electoral college is based on a winner-take-all. we see this in congressional elections, also.

what that does is it provides no incentive if you finish second or third. and, so, their roles and theories that essentially that provides a disincentive for third parties to start. guest: the thing i would focus on is a plurality. we have plurality elections. butand, so, their roles and

theories that essentially that provides a disincentive for third parties to start. guest: the thing i would focus on is a plurality. we have plurality elections. the most votes wins. we have been following elections in france. they had to go though a runoff because in the first series of elections, no clear winner was there. they need in the majority. we saw francois hollande and sarkozy go through second runoff. winner-take-all. the third-party's is very difficult. host: i will throw a question out. how does the filibuster limit to majority rule? if you are paying attention, you might have heard this. you have one of five choices. host: again, if you want to take a stab at it, let us know. georgia, carolyn is next. good morning. caller: hi. i want to shout out to our teacher. he is the best guy ever. if you are watching this, you better come with us after the exam on tuesday. host: is he paying? caller: we will pay. [laughter] what is a bill of attainder and why is it important? guest: there were three

provisions that dealt with civil liberties. habeus corpus, bill of attainder, and ex post facto. we do not need a bill of rights, some say. the bill of attainder guarantees you the right to a trial. habeus corpus guarantees you to be told why you are being incarcerated and ex post facto protect you from retroactive justice. host: this is something we blogged about yesterday. we looked at what the original constitution does to protect civil liberties, things like preventing bills of attainder and ex post facto laws versus what the bill of rights did to protect civil liberties. very fair question. host: chicago. good morning. caller: i was the first question but i did not get to ask. how much power do they actually have over the people? guest: who is they?

[laughter] host: let us go to massachusetts. caller: i would like to give a shout out to my ap gov class. does congress help its constituents or the national government and how do you guys think that devolution and bureaucracy impacts those? guest: let us do with them one at a time. when we look at members of congress, that have multiple roles to play. they write laws. they provide oversight for the rest of the government. they provide constituent services. all three are valuable. constituent services speak to the idea that as a member of congress, i am here to represent you.

let us not fault them when they come home and deal with a constituent who need a passport or someone who has never ceased their social security benefits. this is constituent service. this is what we elect them for, to represent us in front of our government. devolution is an antiquated term. it goes back to the 90's. it is important because it speaks to federalism and the role of the national government. devolution was used by conservatives in the 90's and still is to describe the political philosophy that government should be limited. the national government should be a decrease in size and state government should increase in power. guest: an important topic that comes up about constituent services is the difference between the house and the senate. the house, with its two year term was invasion to be about local issues. the u.s. senate, with six-year terms, they were supposed to be focused on national issues. host: cheyenne asks -- guest: you are talking about

the way the supreme court reaches decisions. we would like to think that our supreme court is above politics. justice is blind. we do know that there are two primary theories of how the justices come to their conclusions. one is judicial restraint. some call that regionalism. the other side would be activism. they feel they should limit their opinions to what the words of the constitution say and what the original intent was of its writers. that is conservatives who hold that view. activists are those judges to feel that the constitution is a living document, it breeds. it changes. dare we say, it evolves. supreme court justices evolve their opinions with time. how we looked at freedom of speech 100 years ago should be different than today. guest: there is a latin phrase

for let it stand, or judicial precedents, you should know that. host: california. good morning. hello -- let me push the button. good morning. caller: i would like to shout out to my fifth period class. guest: you should know the basics. every piece of legislation that becomes a law has to pass both chambers in identical form before it goes on to the president. you should know that committees, especially in the house, play a vital role. every piece of legislation that is introduced is assigned to some committee. that is where most bills die. they die in committee. there pigeonholed and they never move out of the committee process. those are the fundamentals. guest: if your teachers are making breakfast, that is the bill making process. it is not pretty.

it is an ugly process. clearly, the opposition always has the advantage. guest: is this a big weekend in which teachers get involved in preparing? guest: there is camaraderie in preparing for an ap exam. it is one of the special parts of have ap students. we see it in our own classrooms. make it more than the class. make a lifestyle. host: if they do well, how much -- guest: it is the equivalent of taking the course in college. there are points value to get passes. some institutions will accept it. if you do your best, you'll do better in college. host: -- guest: we have gone through the

nomination process. how do the political parties choose their candidates? the republicans and the democrats do it differently. on the democratic side, we talked a little bit more about it superdelegate role. that is a filter. both republicans and democrats allow you and i -- we the people, to choose their candidates. there are caucuses and primaries. the democrats, more than republicans, also had a superdelegate. these are party leaders and officials who also lend their date.e of candi guest: the key point in the nomination process is that conventions are less important. they still exist. they are the place where we nominate the democratic and republican candidates for president. it is where we write the party platforms, which are the issues dances. for the last 40, almost 50

years, the most important step in the nominations process are primary elections and caucuses. they allow ordinary voters to go out there and pick their preferred nominees. host: longbranch, california. this is cayley. good morning. are you there? caller: i would like to give a shout out to my fourth period class. what is the difference between fiscal and monetary policy? guest: this is how they stop me in class. i am not an economist. i am not sure who are the economists. fiscal and monetary policy is an important distinction between what our national government and what the obama administration is responsible for and what our federal reserve is responsible for. it is supposed to be independent of the political process. monetary policy is what the federal reserve does. they worry about interest groups and money supply. that is supposed to be somewhat independent of the political process. that is monetary policy. fiscal policy is really government. taxing and spending.

making decisions based on the budget. if you follow obama's budget versus the republican budget, that is the debate over fiscal policy. guest: monetary policy is deciding what the value of money will be. especially interest rates. fiscal policy really is two different groups you might want to know about. the omb, which advises the president, and the cbo, the congressional budget office, which runs the numbers on this policy. host: -- guest: not on the american test. runoff election is how we elected the president in france and the mayor of chicago. you have a two round election. the first round has multi- candidates.

if any candidate gets a majority, 50%, they automatically win. otherwise, the top two candidates run off against each other, thereby guaranteeing a majority. we have a direct election. today is where we the voters are indirectly affecting the president. -- indirectly electing the president. it takes 270 electors to be elected president. host: california. josh, good morning. caller: i would like to give a shout out to my second period class. can you go into greater detail about sunshine law and what is their significance? guest: does congress revisit the decisions they made in the previous year? that is a sunshine law mentality where laws have to be revisited. frankly, we can only hope. the government is so complicated.

once it is passed, it is hard to repeal. guest: there two laws involving the sun. there is a sunset provision. most pass unless it has an expiration date. the chief sunshine law is the freedom of information act that allows citizens to access information from its government. thereby ensuring more transparency of government. host: -- guest: students should know about the federalist papers, both 10 and 51 and also the idea that they were written by supporters of the ratification of the the constitution. those who wanted a stronger central government.

host: nobody has answered the question. here are your possible answers -- host: if you want to try it, let us know. florida. caller: hello. good morning. how much of the federal budget process timeline do you think will be on the test and what are some important notes? guest: the budget reform act sets up the process today. the president proposes a budget, the budget is written by congress and has to be approved by the president. one of the things the law did is it disallowed presidential funds.

if congress appropriates the money, the president has to spend that money. guest: i would focus on the terms like mandatory spending. those types of things. entitlements. whenever the congress deals with a budget, they are dealing with women's. they do not start from scratch. the majority of the budget has already been determined by these entitlement programs. social security, medicare. these are mandatory spending items. the discretionary piece of our federal budget is relatively small. host: off of twitter -- guest: there is another one of the panic questions. there are millions of federal government employees. do we need to know all of them? let us hope not. they will occasionally throw in a surprise. the solicitor general is the main surprise. he is in the department of justice and it is the attorney of the federal government.

the solicitor general is responsible to go before the supreme court and argue the state's cause. the united states cause. the attorney general is a department's secretary, the head of the justice department. guest: the solicitor general reports to the attorney general. we know that the most recent supreme court justice had been solicitor general. she was president obama's for solicitor general. host: ohio. good morning. how are you? caller: good morning. host: how is the studying going? caller: pretty well. i would like to give a shout out to my teacher. can you please explain the difference between the speaker of the house, the majority leader, and the party? -- and a party whip? guest: i would love to. when you look at congress, you do not have to look at the leaders. you asked a terrific question. i would know the distinction both in the house and the

senate. the most powerful person in the house of representatives clearly is the speaker of the house. run by the majority party. currently, the republicans have the majority of seats in the house sense of the speaker, speaker boehner, is a republican. his primary duty is to determine the calendar. keep this party together and determine the calendar so the republicans are allowed to vote on those issues that benefit the majority party. the majority leader in the house is the floor leader. once the legislation is out, the majority leader is the conductor of the orchestra. making sure the parties together. -- the party sticks together. the wit is the bean counter. they go down to make sure the party is held together. the party discipline is tight. if the discipline is fragmented, he will go to the leader and say we need to delay the vote. guest: carrots are rewards and sticks are punishment. guest: on the senate side,

there is no speaker. the most powerful leader on the senate side is the majority leader. he does the calendar orchestrates the senate. host: california. good morning. caller: period 4 -- thank you to my teacher. could you explain how supreme court cases are selected? guest: in order for a case to be heard by the supreme court, it takes four of the nine justices to agree to hear the case. granting a writ of certain. 8000 cases are appealed. they hear about 80. different justices have different procedures. some like to go through each of them. others like to delegate that to their law clerks. it depends on the chambers. guest: what increases the

chance of a case is if there is a conflict at a lower federal court level. host: kentucky. this is shelley. hi. caller: hi. i would like to shout out to my teacher. mr. alan white. what is the main constitutional issue between the president and congress over the decision to go to war? guest: you should know the checks and balances when it comes to the military and were -- and war- making. one of the very often misunderstood aspects of american government is that the president has to approve a declaration of war. that is not the case. only congress approves the declaration of war. we have not done that since 1941. guest: the primary powers of the president as founded in the constitution -- they deal with foreign policy. the president does have a leg up in sending troops and those

types of things. there is a balance. let us not forget that congress declares war. guest: congress also approves money for the military, which is one of the ultimate checks and balances. even as commander in chief, he can deploy troops but he has to rely on the money congress approves. guest: congress has the power of the purse. host: new jersey. elizabeth is the last call. caller: hello. [unintelligible] guest: i heard something about political parties. guest: this is the blue slip and senatorial courtesy. there is more than just the supreme court in terms of this. all the lower levels of the court has to be approved, this is something we have blogged about. the senator for the state has a great amount of power to suggest names for the president

and also sometimes possible federal judge nominees at the lower level. guest: the senatorial courtesy is much more likely for the district judges, less so for the supreme court judges. host: we did not get anybody to take our response but we had one on twitter as far as the question. -- guest: she is correct. host: congratulations. thank you for participating. i know we could not get everybody's questions. if you need more information, where can they go? guest: we are answering questions at politico prep. google that. we also have another website, citizenu.org. students can also vote on the best civics vocabulary word in the country. host: thank you.

coming up tomorrow, we take a >> tomorrow, we will have calabrese. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> president obama talks about job security. nom will havee kno the real leaders. >> it will take longer than

any of us would like to have the economy recover. but there are things we can do right now to help create jobs and restore some of the financial security that some families have lost. the other side is not so optimistic. they think we can do is cut taxes, essentially for the wealthiest americans. and going back to the corporations pick their own rules. but i think they're wrong. we tried to their own ideas for decades and it did not work out so well. we cannot go back to the same policies that got us into this mess. we have to move forward. money to build an economy where hard work is rewarded, where you can have your own job, on your own home, even give your children a chance to do better. 20 to push congress to get there by passing a few common-sense policies.

now we need to do more. that is why we made congress a handy to do list, just like the one i get from michelle. it is short, but each of you will help create jobs and build a strong economy right now. first, congress should stop giving tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas and use that money to cover moving expenses for companies that bring jobs back to america. second, congress should help the millions of americans to work hard and made their mortgage payments on time refinanced their mortgages at lower rates and save at least $3,000 a year. third, congress should help small business owners by giving them a tax break for hiring more workers and paying the higher wages. small businesses are the engine of economic growth in this country. we shouldn't be holding them back. we should the making it easier for them to succeed

pierre for, -- to succeed. fourth, companies are hoping americans to work and lessening our dependence on foreign oil. fifth, creating a veteran's job corps. our men and women have served our country with honor. i need you to call your members of congress, right the minimill, tweet, and let them know we cannot afford any longer to get things done. tell them no is the time to take steps we know will grow our economy and create jobs. you are working harder. your meeting your responsibilities. and your representatives in washington should do the same let's push congress to do the right thing. keep moving this country forward

together. thank you. and have a great weekend. >> hello, i am christi noem of southsti dakota. i returned to school in 2008. it was great to walk across last saturday. commencements are happy occasions, but i could not help but think of the challenges that this year's graduates will face. last week's unemployment figures were a reminder that our economy continues to struggle. over half of the recent college graduates can i get a job in president obama's economy. one reason is policies like the

president's health care locket it makes our economy worse by making it harder for small businesses to hire more workers the president claims to be leading us ford, but he has stuck. instead of working with the republicans to restore the economy, the president is ignoring the tough truces and trying to distract from the real issues. when the house recently passed legislation to prevent student loan rich from dublin, the president claimed that, by targeting an obama-care slush fund, the republicans were slashing support for women's health. independent news organizations quickly debunked these allegations. what's more, the president has twice cut money from this very same slush fund. most recently, in his own budget. this is just further proof that he is politicizing this issue to distract the american people. the challenges that young men and women face in this country need to be addressed, not exploited for political gains pared like any mother, i want to

know that our kids and grandkids will have even greater opportunities than we had and that the free and prosperous america that we grew up in is still going to be there for them. that is why republicans are focused. we are focused on helping put americans back to work, to plan for america's job creators. in the house, we have passed several energy bills to address the gas prices and create jobs. we passed a budget to lift the crushing burden of debt. we passed small business tax cuts and the bills' training in red tape so we can get government out of the private sector's way. also, more than two thousand house bills awaiting action in the democratic-controlled senate. if the president is truly serious about doing what is best for women, for young people, and all americans, working on these jobs bills should be our focus. one of the main reasons i finish

school was to set an example for my children that is as good a reason as any to going to washington to put a stop to this nonsense, to work and the real issues and to work together to get our economy back on track. action is a real jobs plan that preserves the american dream. it is a gift that every mother would appreciate for her child. happy mother's day and thank you for listening. >> republican presidential candidate mitt romney give the commencement address today at liberty university in lynchburg, va. will show that night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> these men go through things and have scars that no one can understand except each other. >> the first thing that startled us was the relationship between harry truman and herbert hoover who were such politically different men and who ended up forming this alliance that neither of them would have

anticipated. they ended up being enormously productive and formed a very deep friendship. the letters between them later in life were really extraordinary request it may be the most exclusive club in the world. michael duffy and nancy gibson on the private and public relationships of the american presidents. >> this week on "the communicators, a look at the to the communications commission as two new commissioners prepared to join the agency that regulates communications by radio, television, phones, satellite, and cable and that overseas aspects of the internet. >> for the first time in nearly a year, the federal communications commission will have a full complement of commissioners. as it pie