he says, trust me, i will come up with reforms that address the tax preferences that high- income people have. there are not enough preferences for high-income people to begin to pay for that. the governor's position is contrary to that of his two most senior economic advisors, both of who has said the only way we can finally resolve the deficit issue is by including substantial new revenues, not new tax cuts. >> i am shot that a candidate does not listened to his advisers. [laughter] >> i want to bring bob in here. what we saw from your commission and from so many independent groups who have tried to solve this deficit problem is a mix of

tax and spending cuts. whoever is the next president, will they have to adopt something like that next year to solve this problem? >> i think so. that would be the wisest course politically. the problem is when you look at samson-bowles -- simspon-bowls, which came out with the same basic approach. you have to look at the long term. you have to look at social security. and on tax reform to, you have to broaden the base and lower the rates. that was the key and our commission to getting agreement. how low could you go on the rate that would attract republicans. i can bring that to my people and say that we are improving the tax code, but so long as we

are doing tax and adamant reform as well to bring down the long- term spending, but the key is filling inthose details. we lowered the top rate to 28% and then we had a 16% rate. we had specific proposals about how you would broaden the base to do that. that gets lost over. -- glossed over. we use some of that for deficit reduction. that is something that has to happen. when you look ahead to say if romney is looking at the ryan budget as a model, he has two rates, 25 and 10, but in order

to do that you have to wack the heck out of tax expenditures. implementing that it is easy to say close loopholes for the rich. ok. once you start to do it it will be very difficult. you finally figure out you will probably have to have a mix of things to get which way you want to go. >> we have a few minutes left before we take audience questions. immigration, what can we expect? >> nothing quickly. [laughter] the president will try again for brought immigration reform as he has in the past. i do not know if we can pass it through congress. >> education. romney has an interesting different kind of education plan. can we actually expect to see

them move? >> yes, that is an imperative. education and health care are large sectors that cost us an enormous amount of money. >> the president will focus on expanding access to college education, ot -- to higher education as well as the continuing reforms associated with the funding of notre left behind. >> the housing market. any chance nbc a change -- that we see a change in housing from the next turn to attack the president has been trying to move step by step -- the next term? the present has been trying to move step by step to support people who are in danger of losing their homes. this is an important policy.

it is difficult politically. i hope the election outcome will give him the basis to go further than he has, but it is a sharp contrast. i do not think you'll see a large housing policy because we have 300 housing markets that are in different states of health. it is better to avoid a one size fits all policy. >> climate change. can we expect to see anything from either candidate? >> i do not see that as a top priority in an era where we need economic growth or something that is easily to get across the line politically. it cannot be at the top. >> i think the president will be -- i think this will be as sleeper issue for the president. the peepa is on a revelatory

special. -- schedule. that will create a new debate on the alternative to the epa regulations. >> the last question -- what is the most important domestic issue you do not to the candidates talking about enough? >> social security. i do not say that is the most important issue, but it is the most you do not hear any discussion about. >> let us open it up to the audience. >> you have talked at length

about the constraints on job growth in creation. this question concerns something brought up earlier -- the skills gap. you have 30 million people out of work. about one-half of a percentage point is to to the skills gap. it is clear that the work force these and of great. which candidate offers the best vision for this kind of thing? >> i would have answered -- lifetime learning. it is clear this recession has harmed the careers of young workers dramatically. the weight-loss industry section -- the wage loss in this recession is concentrated on young workers. there is not anywhere a strategy about getting them back with the

skills they need to succeed. all of the research evidence says some may never returned to the labour force. >> it is a very serious issue. as senator, the president supported a initiative that would provide grants to community colleges to keep their computer labs open and staff in the evenings and weekends for any american adults to walk in and get free instruction in i.t. skills, which is a good place to begin. he has not percent as president. i would love to see that. i think this is an important issue. whoever is president will see a real big discussion of it in 2013. >> it is important to talk about deficit reduction as well as economic growth. there has got to be something positive as well as not always

being cuts. we have to talk about a growth agenda as well. >> this is part of it. we have time for one more. >> i am with hispanic link news service in washington d.c. the presidential race includes an incumbent who is black, and possibly a president lee race that may have a vice president who is hispanic. it includes a comment by a cover story in "time " that is aimed at hispanics will elect the next president of the united states. a key issue deals with the war on women. we have on the panels 12 people,

all of whom are white and male. can we conclude that national journal does not buy you the views and the expertise -- >> the last panel i did was all women. what i appreciate the question, i certainly disagree with your characterization. you bring up an important question, which is how will either of these candidates -- >> [inaudible] [unintelligible] >> i'll be curious to hear how they think the presidential candidates would govern on these domestic social issues as seen to be so important in the discussion of this war on women. sir, thank you.

>> why did not the national journal give us a more diverse panel that could talk about the issues other than 12 white males? >> we appreciate your present -- question. thank you very much. can we answer the question of how the candidates would govern on social issues? part of the early the issues of abortion and contraception that dominated headlines over the last two months? >> what you would see from governor romney is if assist on the things we actually share in terms of hispanic aspiration toward economic success. women have been harmed in a big way in this recession.

there has been some overstep by the president. i think he would avoid that. >> the president would continue to govern based on the principle that we respect religious organizations, but we also respect the rights of women to have access to contraception in their insurance policies, and that employers do not have the right to tell women that they cannot get that through their insurance policies unless they are a church, and i think it is a very clear distinction between the governor in the president's, and one that i suspect both sides are quite comfortable with. >> one of the things up about

the and sustainability of the current situation is that the programs that did squeeze are the domestic discretionary programs. that is what the fight is about. those are the easy targets. that part of the budget gets squeezed to nothing. the extent that the federal grant makes investments -- government makes investment that will grow the economy is the part of the government is under the gun. more to talk about police focused on deficit reduction. >> this is another area of contrast the president has proposed increases on these areas in the context of larger deficit reductions. the rise in budget would cut education 20%, job worker training 25 percent -- 20%, now the governor has not committed themselves to those details.

that is the position of the congressional republican. >> the key here is there has been no leadership on the entitled programs of you have budgetary room to do the kinds of things that rob was talking about. unless we get serious white house leadership to get programs under control, it will not matter what is under control. >> thank you very much for your times. thank you to your attention. thank you so much. [applause] >> president obama is attending three campaign fund raisers with former president bill clinton this evening in new york, which has raised more than $3.50 million.

they spoke at a fundraiser in a private home. they will appear at an event called barack on broadway. they will also be at the waldorf-astoria hotel live on c- span and about 10 or 15 minutes. until then, we spoke with poli fact about some of the claims about the candidates. >> we are pleased to have bull adair back on the washington journal -- bill adair on "washington journal." >> it is a product of the "tampa bay times." we research claims that are made by candidates, political parties and groups, and rate their accuracy on a truth-o-meter from

true to false. we have a network of news organizations around the country that also work with us so we have 11 state sites. our newest is in new hampshire. we have them in key states like florida, ohio, and wisconsin. we checked the claims and help poeple make sense of --people make sense of what is true and what is not. >> the 2012 campaign is pretty much officially under way. now that the primary is over, you were here during the primary to discuss some trends. what do you see now that the general election is under way? >> one trend that we have seen is the political groups that are

putting out political messages are kind of laying down the foundation for their general of election campaigns. they are using many of the same talking points so thweir supporters -- so their supporters are laying down the same sort of points that romney is macon -- making. likewise, the democrats and the liberal groups are doing the same thing, laying down the points they want to make about obama and romney. the general election, election which we used to think of did not start until labor day, is under way now. we have a lot to check.

we are seeing new ads practically every day that we want to check. >> if you have a question, give us a call on the republican lying. -- line. you may also call the democratic or independent line. questions about work that they have done or faxed that you suggest for them to look into. we will take those calls. her is an obama at about -- here is an obama at about romney's work at bain capital. >> i was a steelworker for 30 years. we have a reputation for quality. it was american made. we were not rich, but i was able to put my daughter through college. >> having a paint job that you could support a family on is important. >> that stopped with the support

of the plan with bain capital. >> an capital was the majority owner. they were responsible. romney was involved in the influence that he exercised over these companies. >> take us through your fact checking. >> this one was tricky. some are tricky because there was not one single fact stated in that. there were vignettes. we took the press release about that and took a statement that said, "after they bought the company, romney loaded it with debt, close the plant, and walked away with a healthy profit, leaving hundreds of employees out of work in their pensions in jeopardy. " we look at each part and determined it deserved a rating of mostly true.

they did heavily loaded with debt, they close the kansas city plant, and made a profit. we did not write a true because there are some outside factors. the market for still had tremendously declined. -- steel had tremendously declined. another one was romney had left bain before gst steel was closed. it was mostly true. >> let's look at and ad that did not get quite of a rating. and obama ad that says romney opposes gay adoption. >♪ >> sex couples should be able to get married. >> i do not favor marriage between people of the same gender. i do not favor civil unions.

♪ >> take us through the fact checking. >> the fact we checked that mitt romney would deny gave people the right to adopt children. we waited that false. we found that there just was nothing in what romney had said to support that claim that he had been consistently opposed to gay marriage, but also have consistently said he respected state adoption laws, including laws that allow couples to adopt. nothing to support that one. we raided that falls on our tuth-o-meet -- truth-o-meter. >> richard of a republican line.

>> i have been looking at this website, the real delegate count for 2012. they have run the at 620, and ron paul at 196. it is a long way to tampa. is anyone investigating ron paul? it says he has more donations from the current military than all other candidates combined, including the president. the shenanigans that went on saturday in shreveport, louisiana where ron paul that 62% of the delegates, and they elected a new chairman. the old chairmen had a man on the process kit -- with a prosthetic hip thrown to the ground.

websites mention a lot of stuff the go on behind the scenes. can you comment on that? >> do you do much work on ron paul? >> not at this point, but in response to the military donations, we have back checked that. we have get to it -- we have given that a true. we waited this back in july, and it earned a true. we are focused more on romney and obama perio. romney is the presumptive nominee. there is no way ron paul to get the nomination. we are focused on covering the general election campaign. we check of the people who speak up in american politics such as pundits or talkshow host. we will check the leadership in congress and our state sites

czech state leaders. governors, candidates for governor, candidates for congress, and the u.s. senate. >> with the collection coming up, the economy is planning a big role in the campaign. talk about your work on the new economic scorecard. >> this was a different kind of politifact story. one of our writers who specializes in economics decided instead of telling the story is a bad checks, we would lay out the numbers for people -- checks, we will lay out numbers for people. our lead scorer -- our lead story is a scorecard on the economy. it presents the important statistics that show the health of the economy over the past four years. we started in 2008. we had a benchmark. we have looked at every january cents. it is really fascinating some of the things -- one thing that

has gotten word is our food prices. -- worse is our food prices. others are encouraging and others are not so encouraging. this is a neutral work -- lok at how we do. >> it is the yearly food prices you were talking about. you take a loaf of right -- loaf of white bread and ground chuck. were you looking mostly at the numbers that did mos computers or fuzzy in these ads? >> we tried to get a good sampling of lots of different things. we looked at the budget deficit, debt, mortgage rates. mortgage rates are down to 3.9%. who could have imagined mortgage

rates been that low? other numbers have not gone so well. unemployment is still high. 8.2%, most recently. it peaked at 9.7% in 2010. so it is an interesting chart. we shaded a different way so you could see what has improved and what has not. >> let's go to brian on the democratic line in michigan. >> hi. is a true that the politifact has listed almost 7 out of 10 of the pants on fire were given to

republicans as opposed to democrats? is that true? >> i can say i do not keep score. asking me that question is like asking an umpire who is out at home more, the ganges or the red sox? i look at every -- the yankees are the red sox? >our goal is not to sort of paint one party or the other as telling more falsehoods, but to give you information to draw conclusions. people have looked at our data and reach various conclusions. i do not spend a lot of time looking at that because it is more important that we focus on doing the best that checking we can and the he had individual claims and reading them on our meter. >> you are run under the st. petersburg times in florida.

>> the paper is not call the tampa bay times. we are a business unit of the tip of the times. these are report -- tampa bay times. these are political reporters who are not affiliated with one side. we are independent. every day we pay two or three of the most interesting claims that have been made, and we research and rate them. >> how long does that take? >> a typical fat check takes one day to 1.5 -- a typical fact check takes one day to a day and a half. it can be difficult work. someone says why don't more news in -- news organizations do that? because it is hard. the tampa bay times has unwilling to make that commitment for five years, which is really extraordinary. we have 13 news organizations

around the country that have also dedicated reporters and editors to allow the fact -- politifact. it is the most extensive fact checking effort ever in american politics. >> is that expanding to battleground states in 2012? >> absolutely. we are in very important states, florida, ohio, wisconsin. we are in virginia. we also opened in new hampshire over the weekend. there is a state that is not always predictable in terms of how it goes in the general election. to me are still looking to add some more state parnis a share. what it takes is a news organization that wants to to our fact checking. >> how many faxed to you check

in a given week? >> i would say total probably 12 to 15, if you include our state partners. overall, we have checked when than 5000. in over five years. gary is in the independent line. >> obama is not up to the challenge of this country, but nothing is every time he tries to pass something for the middle class, the gop always has to bring up the thing where we cannot pass it if you are going to increase taxes on the rich. college students are going to have to pay double on interest loans. they say, we do not care.

it does not matter if you're good -- it does not matter. specific fact you have questions about it? >> i think obama did not break any promises. he just cannot get anything passed. >> 5 brings up the obama meter that you are tracking the president's promises. >> after the election we decided we would create a new device, another meter that would track the campaign promises to the president made. it turned out he had made more than 500 specific promises to individual constituencies, everything from her children with autism to fight in western

wildfires, so we compile everything in that database, and we periodically looking at them and raise them as a promise kept, a promise to grow, or in the works. goprice 182 promises kept, which is 82%. >> compromise is about 11% and promises broken is 14%. this allows you to look at his promises in different ways. you can see all of his promises kept. you can see the promises he has broken. you can see the gop pledgeometer. >> you have to be bipartisan about that. >> we are all about holding officials accountable for their words, and promises are as

important as actual statement, so we felt we could do a new form of journalism are researching and rating them, so i think this is a good source for people, and obama has been attacked for breaking his promises. many of the broken promises are from difficulty in passing things through congress, but we laid out the facts for you and give some helpful guidance and overview. >> let's go back to some of the fact you have kept. this talks about obama failing to stem the foreclosure crisis. good >> we must help millions of homeowners.

>> one in five mortgages are still under water. good >> if you are making less than $250,000 a year you will up.see your taxes go >> your rating on that add up? >> we did four fact scheck's -- checks. we look at the claim that he broke his promise to help homeowners facing foreclosures. give we waited about mostly true. and we did a lot of research on this one. it talked about not just the benchmarks are those he said of himself, and there were some other claims that came rapid-

fire. the one that obamacare creates 18 different taxes and we found to be false. it is not like 18 taxes on an individual. many of them are in the health insurance companies or the wealthy. the claim that millions could lose health insurance coverage or be rated in a government will be founded false. this is the popular talking point. they are misstating what the congressional budget office stated in our report. good government pool gives a dire sounding account. there was another one that obama promised to cut the deficit by half and has not come close. we rated that true. good >> our caller has been

waiting in the republican line. >> you were talking about news people not doing any fact checking. from what i see, in b.c. does it every day. the only problem is an -- nbc does it every day. they close their right eye. if you are not nearly non- partisan, you can verify things that are not true. did you know the first thing you talked about was about steel co., and you know mitt romney was not involved when the plant closed, and there were a lot of factors that caused the plant to close.

>> to answer your question is exactly, that is why we rated that claim mostly true. there were some factors beyond what they were responsible for, but overall, they were contained in the statement that it was accurate. to the question about liberal conservative, are you biased, a caller will ask me who i voted for in the last election, and i think that speaks to the passion people have about politics, and people have strong feelings, and people have a tendency to say you ruled against my guy, and you are biased. read our work, and consider what

we have said. you may not always agree with us, but i think it will make you smarter. >> dave is next on the democratic line. yobut the article you brought up about gay marriage, you chose to go down also. this is a fact i would like to ask, because i am curious about the mormon religion. is it true that mormons use to believe that we are cursed and that mitt romney's grandfather was married seven times and his great-grandfather had 12 wives? >> you go into the candidate's personal lives or the use it to their personal statements on the campaign trail?

-- to use it to a personal statement on the campaign trail? >> we do a lot of fact checking from e-mailed that often passes on claims about religion and personal things. we checked the claims that were made against john mccain and about his service as a prisoner of war, and we checked a lot of claims about obama and the claims that he was a muslim, and there was one e-mailed but said the book of revelations portrayed the anti cries in a description that sounded remarkably like a rock obama -- the anti christ in the description it sounded remarkably like a rock obama. that was not true. we will fact check shane e- mails -- chain emails.

caller: i hate to get off topic, but it takes so long to get into you. i am from tampa bay area, and i wanted to check for a couple of facts. in the preamble of the constitution it says to secure the blessings of liberty polyethnic -- of liberty. good on this thing of religions, that is a religious aspect. >> now we go live to new york for a campaign fund-raiser with president obama and former president bill clinton. it is one where they are speaking tonight. >> thank you. [applause]

thank you very much. i am the warm-up act for the president, and i will attempt to bring him on while you are still warm. i want to thank eric for his elusive statement on the case of what is at stake in the selection and for his service in the states of new york. good thank you keith wright and stephanie for coasting this dinner, and carol mo'nique, -- maloney, thank you for your friendship and everything you have done. i believe on his last days in the party, thank you for being one of the best democratic chairmen in the entire nation.

i want to thank my longtime friend jon bon jovi for performing and being there for us. [applause] here is what i want to say to you. most of my life has nothing to do with politics. i work in my foundation and around the world. i work with democrats and republicans and independents, and half the time i do not know who i am working with politically, but i do spend hours studying economic trends and what is going on in america, and i care about the long-term debt of the country a lot of your gut i was the only man to give you -- long-term debt of this country a lot. i hope what i say to you will

have some weight, because i want you to say to everyone you see between now and november. i do not think it is important to reelect the president. i think it is essential to reelect the president for the future that our children and grandchildren deserve, and here is why. when i left office, we returned to the trickle-down conference. big tax cuts, mostly for people in my income group. i love saying that. since i never had them before, i did not know what it was like, and we've doubled the debt of the country again, and after totally anemic growth for seven years and eight months, on the

day before the financial collapse, median family income was $2,000 lower than the day i left office while the cost of health care and college had gone up, and then all of a sudden december comes and goes -- september 15 comes and goes. president obama was the only person ever to be elected before the first tuesday after the first monday in november. the bad news is he was elected president on september 15, 2008 company in the teeth of the worst recession since the great depression, a collapse of enormous proportions. the last 500 years such financial crisis has taken five or ten years to get over, almost

always 10 years. he said the vow to try to keep his original dream to return broadbased prosperity and to do it in a way that made a world with more partners than pure adversaries, and he did it under on imaginable circumstances. is my opinion that he has performed extremely well under very difficult circumstances, and i want to tell you why. he set about to do what was necessary to prevent a financial collapse, to begin to create jobs again, to save 1 million or

bs fortate or local johnso health care and fire departments. he set about to bring american manufacturing back, to make america a leading nation in the korean energy revolution that is sweeping the globe now -- in the green energy revolution that the sweeping the globe, in which only the republican party seems to deny it is necessary, and he set about to reform health care, knowing it was a moral, health, an economic issue because we are 18% of our money on health care. none of our competitors is over 11.8. that is one trillion dollars a year that could be going to hire new people, and he did it while trying to make college more affordable because we have

dropped from first to 15th in the world in the last decade, and the percentage of adults graduating with degrees, and while doing that, he presented a plan to deal with long-term debt of the country, understanding that when you have a total financial collapse, interest rates are zero, no private investment, you cannot have austerity now. you remember those austerity budgets? they came about for three reasons. spending controls, revenues, and economic growth. if you do not have economic growth, no amount of austerity will balance the budget because you will always have revenues go down more than you can possibly cut spending, so what he did was to say growth today, restraint

tomorrow, here is my budget, so build the economy, then take the burden of the debt off our children's future and avoid exploding interest rates and declining living standards it would impose on our children's future, so where are we? he offered politics of cooperation. he said, we will do an individual mandate. all of a sudden, they were not for it. all of the republicans who co- sponsored the bill were forced to vote against statehood -- again sist it. he said, let's have an

infrastructure base so we can have private and public capital like other countries do. it has always been a bipartisan area. once he was for if they were all against it i. where are we in spite of that? in the last 47 months, this economy has produced for 23 million private sector jobs -- 4.3 million private sector jobs. that is about what it produced on a monthly basis during my two terms coming back. why do the numbers show 3.7 million? because congress refused to pass a bill to send money to localities to keep teachers on the job, to keep firefighters and police officers on the job. i was in wisconsin the other

day. 73% of districts have laid teachers off. that is the austerity policy. the obama policy is that 4.3 million private sector jobs is 60% more private jobs then came into this economy in the seven years and eight months of the previous administration before the financial meltdown, and you need to tell people that, and what happened with manufacturing, it is growing again for the first time since the 1990's. an article said we are going to have two or 3 million manufacturing jobs in the next three years. jobs flooding back into this country. what happened to clean energy and? governor romney goes out to a company that had a loan that did not work out and says, this is a bust. we rank first or second in the

world in every survey in capacity to generate electricity from the sun and the wind. clean energy fell twice the size of the rest of the economy. this weekend germany became the first country in history to generate 23 gigawatts of electricity from the sun. i will tell you what it means. that is as much as 28 nuclear power clarence -- 20 big nuclear power plants. gif we did what they did, that s 1 million jobs alone, and that is what president obama has done on the job front, and where he could cooperate with people, the

auto makers, they restructured the auto industry, and what happened? we have 80,000 more people making cars today than when he took office, and we save 1.5 million jobs that would have gone down the tube. america is back in the car business, and then labor management, the environmental groups, and the government got together and agreed on a schedule to raise car mileage standards, to doubled them, and it will create 150,000 new high- tech jobs. in health care just before you let meead on this issue carmin give you two or three facts. for the first time in 50 years health-care inflation has been at 4%. it has not been that low in 50 years. it has been killing people economically. americans got $1.3 billion in

refunds on the insurance policy. 2.6 million ill people 26 years of age or younger are on their parents' health care now because of the bill the president signed. i spent a lot of time with people in the health-care business, with doctors and people who manage medical practices and people who manage insurance plans. i do not know of anyone who wants to repeal obamacare. i do not know anybody who does not believe we should start paying for performance and not a procedure in health care and improve our quality, and that is what people in the health-care business are doing today because that law passed, and finally, every day -- never a day goes by

that i do not see an article about the burden of student loans, but when student loan reform is implemented, the cost of loans will go down and no one will have to drop out of college because of the cost, because everybody will be able to pay their loans back as a small fix% of their income over 20 years. at one bill can take us back to number one in terms of college graduates because no one will ever have to drop out again. and his plan to reduce the debt as extraordinary spending restraint, including in medicare, as modest tax increases, and is phased in as we grow the economy. his opponent who says he has got a better idea was governor of the states that was 47 and the

country in job growth. he promised he would reduce the debt, but when he left office the debt was going up, and his plan is to go back to the bush program, except on steroids. good cut out everything that helps middle class people, cut out everything that helps poor people, and all non-partisan analogies say the plan were they have 1 trillion dollars to what the debt is going to be over the next who years if we do not do anything, and all the plans say if the president's plan were implemented, it would reduce the debt by several trillion dollars if we do not do anything, but gross now, restraint later.

the romney republican plan is austerity and more unemployment now and blow the lid off later at a time we are worried about higher interest rates. what is the difference here? shared prosperity verses continued prosperity and high unemployment. constant conflict and divide and conquer. this is a big clear election. it is important to say he has done an amazing job of making our country more secure, more safe, more peaceful, and building a world with more partners than adversaries, and that is very important. [applause] he has had to get this done well

people as recent as last week were still saying he was not born in america. he has had to get this done with the house of representatives that had one of the tea party members planning members of the communist party, and neither the nominees or the leaders rebuked him for saying that. this is not the 1955 period of lis joe mccarthy could skate on the fact there were at least -- this is not the 1950's. at least mccarthy could not say their work who some communists are round. no one has been a communist in more than a decade. you have to take the facts out there, take the facts of the economy, health care, education, and the fact is we have gotten economic policy that has a real

chance to bring america back. why did you think long-term interest rates -- republicans will say obama is such a big spender and interest rates are going to go of the roof. interest rates were one quarter of 1%. they are giving away the money. you are laughing, but why are they doing that? people believe america has a solid economic strategy for the long run, and you would have thought republicans would increase austerity and jobless policies of what they used to call old europe? i never thought they would say, let's to the eurozone economic policies. we are laughing. this is serious.

too much politics is fat-free. think about the world you want free.hildren -- is bfact think about the world you want your children and grandchildren to have. you have got to have the right captain of the ship, and i am depending on you to take care of future generations by making sure that capt. is president barack obama. bring it arm. -- bring it on. [applause] ♪ >> hello, new york. thank you.

well, thank you, everybody. thank you. thank you. thank you so much. thank you. everybody, have a seat. thank you. i plan on getting four more years, because of the. let me say some thank yous. first of all, you had an outstanding attorney general, please give him a big round of applause. he is doing the right thing on behalf of consumers, working people all across this great state. he is having an influence all across the country. i want to thank my dear friend, john bon jovi, who has been a great supporter. [applause]

i have to say that the only thing worse than following john is following john and bill clinton. i want to acknowledge carolyn maloney. [applause] thank you. thank you for the great work you have done. i want to thank all of you who have helped to make this event possible. most of all, i want to thank the guy behind me here. president clinton and i had a chance to talk of a dinner before we came up. -- over dinner before we came out. we talked about a lot of things. we talked about basketball. we talked about our daughters. we agreed you cannot be daughters -- beat daughters.

[applause] sons out there, we love you too. we both agree we have improved or gene pool because we married outstanding women. [applause] but, whenever the topic, whatever the subject, what i was reminded of when i was talking to president clinton is just how incredibly passionate he is about this country. and the people in it. you do not talk to bill without hearing at least 30 stories about extraordinary americans who are involved in clean energy or starting a whole new project

to teach kids math or figuring out how to build some new energy-efficient building. you name it. it is that passion and connection that he has to the american people that is infectious. it is a curiosity and a love for people that is transforming the world. i could not be prouder to have called and president. i could not be prouder to know him as a friend. i cannot be more grateful for him taking the time to be here. [applause] i thank him for putting up with a very busy secretary of state. [applause]

now, the reason i am here tonight is not just because i need your help. it is because the country needs your help. if you think about why we came together back in 2008, it was not about me. it was not even just about the democratic party. it was about a common set of values that we held dear. a set of beliefs that we had about america. a belief that if you are willing to work hard in this country, you should be able to make it. you should be able to find a job that pays a living wage. it should be able to own a home, send your kids to college,

retire with dignity and respect. that everybody in this country, regardless of what he looked like, where you come from, whether you are black, white, gay, straight, hispanic, disabled, if you are willing to put in the effort, this is a place where you make dreams happen. by you putting in that effort, not only do you do well for yourself, you build the country in the process. we have seen that those studies those values were eroding. the bedrock contact we make with each other was starting to diminish. we had seen a surplus, a

historic surplus, wasted away on tax cuts for folks who did not need them and were not even asking for them. suddenly, it turned to deficit. we had seen two wars fought on a credit card. we had seen the recklessness of a few almost bring the entire system to collapse. there was a sense that, although a few of us were doing a really, really well, you had a growing number of folks who were struggling to get by. what we set out to do in 2008 was reclaim the basic american promise. it was not easy. many of you who supported me,

you did not do it because it was easy. when you support a guy named bachus and obama -- barak hussein obama, you know that is not a sure thing. you sensed the country was ready for change. we did not know. we knew there had been a decade of problems. that since this man had left office, we had been going in the wrong direction. we did not realize how this would culminate in the worst financial crisis since the great depression. the month i was sworn in, it hundred thousand jobs were lost. we have lost -- 800,000 jobs were lost. we had lost 1 million before the election place. we did not give up. we did not quit. all across this country. who dug in.ks

they focused on what was necessary. i do believe we implemented the right policies. when folks said we should let detroit go bankrupt, we said, no, we are not going to let 1 million jobs go. we are not going to let an iconic industry waste away. we brought workers and management together. gm is back on top. with some more market share than we have seen in a long time. manufacturing is coming back. even though that decision was not popular, we made the right decision. we made the right decision in starting to free up credit again so that companies could borrow. we made the right decision when it came to insuring that all across this country, states that

help to keep teachers and firefighters on the job. we made the right decision in making sure we used this opportunity to rebuild big chunks of america. we made a lot of good policy decisions. the reason we can back was because of the american people. because of their resilience and strength. they made it happen. they decided, maybe i will retrain for school. small businesses decided, i'm going to keep my doors open. one of the great privileges of being president is to go into every corner of the country. you see people from every walk of life. it makes you optimistic about the american people. last 3 and asese

half years, it has many more optimistic. we have all of the ingredients for success. it is because of them we have seen more than 4 million jobs created, more than 800,000 jobs this year alone. because of them, we are seeing more manufacturing jobs coming back since anytime since the 1990's. but, this is where you come in. all of that work that we have done, all of that effort, that stands to be reversed. we head had an opposition that has had a different vision of where we should take america. they had it from the day i was sworn in. they made a determination that politics would trump what was needed to move this country forward. they have tried to put sand in

the gears of congress ever since. now they have a nominee who is expressing support for an agenda that would reverse the progress we have made and take as back to the same policies that got us into this mess and the first place. the reason we are here today, we are not going back. we are going forward. [applause] we have worked too hard and too long to write the ship and move us in the right direction. we're not going backwards, we are going forward. that is what we are doing, new york. we are going to do it with your help. [applause] the reason they think they might be able to pull this off is

because things are still tough. there are a lot of folks still mired in out there. too many folks still looking for work. to many people whose homes are still under water. we know we have more to do. that is why i am running again. our job is not finished yet. this election, in some ways, is going to be more consequential than 2008. the choices are going to be starker. when i ran in 2008, i was running against a republican who believed in climate change, immigration reform, campaign finance form, had some history of working across the aisle. we had disagreements.

even during the midst of a financial crisis, there was an agreement of the need for action to create jobs. we do not have that this time. by opponent, governor romney, he is a patriot american. he has seen enormous financial success. he has a beautiful family. his vision of how you move this country forward is the same agenda as the previous administration except on steroids. it is not enough to just maintain tax cuts for the wealthy. we are going to double them. we are going to do even more of the same. it is not enough just to roll back the regulations that we

have put in place to make sure the financial system is transparent and working affectively. we are going to do even more to eliminate regulations that have kept our air cleaner and water clean and protected our kids for 20 years, 30 years. when you look at the budget they have put forward, they are not just talking about rolling back obamacare, they are talking about rolling back the new deal. [laughter] that is not an exaggeration. so, there is an enormous amount at stake. we are going to have to make sure that in this election, we are describing clearly what is at stake. we should not be afraid of this

debate. we have the better argument. we have got the better argument. it is not just a matter of being able to say the change we brought about in lifting the auto industry, that is something we are proud of. it is not just the 4.3 million jobs. it is not just two 0.5 million young people have health insurance. it is not just that millions of young people are getting grants, they have the capacity to go to college. it is not just the track record proud amassed that i am of, it is also the fact that when you look at our history, america has not grown. it has not prospered with a philosophy such as, you are on your own. that is not how we built this

country. the reason we became an economic superpower is because for all of our individual initiatives, all of our entrepreneurship, all our belief in personal responsibility, despite all of those things, we have understood there are certain things we do better together. creating a public system that works so that everybody gets agitated. we understand that. understanding that we build a transcontinental railroad. he understood there are certain things we do better together. investments in the national academy of sciences. investments in land grants. eisenhower building the interstate highway system. my grandfather and his

generation going to college on the gi bill. these things we did together. it created a platform where everybody had a chance. everybody had a fair shot. everybody did their fair share. everybody played by the rules. if you look at our history, the reason why we have the best capital markets, the reason why wall street is the center of finance, because we had rules in place that made as the most transparent. investors could trust if they put their money there, they would not be cheated. you had entire infrastructures that allowed our capital markets to is the lead. that has been a strength, not a weakness. throughout our history, there have been certain things we have to do together. what was true in the past is

true now as well. that is what is at stake in this election. i am not going to go back to the days when suddenly of young people cannot afford to go to college, just to pay for tax cuts for me and bill clinton. we are not going to go back to the day when 30 million people cannot get health insurance. where young people cannot stay on the parents policies. seniors suddenly find prescription drugs more expensive. we are not going to go back to the days when women do not have preventative care or we eliminate funding for planned parenthood. we are not going back to those days. i want my daughters to have the same opportunities as our sons. i want our women to have the

same ability to control their health care decisions as everybody else. [applause] we are not going back. we are not going to go back to the days when you cannot serve in our military and admit to it is you loved. we are moving forward with an agenda of dignity and respect for everybody. we are not going to go back to the days when people thought there was a conflict between economic growth and looking after our environment. we are not going back to those days. [applause] but, we are going to have to fight for it. this is not going to be an easy race. because of the citizens united decision, we are spending hundreds of millions of dollars all across this country, and

president of numbers -- unprecedented numbers. there has never been this amount of spending before. in newspaper just printed, somebody abided negavtive ads. 7% of our advertisements have been positive. -- 70% of our advertisements have been positive. 70% of theirs have been negative. people are still scared about the future. what the other side is counting on is fear and frustration. that that is going to be good enough. they are not offering any new ideas. all they are offering are the same old ideas that did not work then, they will not work now.

even when it comes to their big issue, the deficit and the debt. as president clinton just mentioned, the truth is the two presidents over the last 30 years, 40 years, who had the lowest increases in government spending, you are looking at them right here. they are on the stage. [applause] they are on this stage. the agenda we put forward which says, let's put people to work right now, rebuilding roads and bridges and the vintages back in the classroom to accelerate growth -- and putting teachers back in the classroom to accelerate growth. that is a recipe that works. we have seen it work before.

we saw it work in the 1990's. that will allow us to make sure we can still invest in our future. as i travel around the world. and the president clinton does as well. you talk to people -- nothing gets me more frustrated than when i hear reports about america's decline. a run on the world, there is nobody who would not trade places with us. we have the best universities, the most productive workers. the best entrepreneurs, scientists, we have all the ingredients we need to make it work. now we just need the best politics. now we just made the best politics. that is what this election is going to be all about.

the bottom line is this, all of you, you are going to have to work, not just as hard as we did in 2008, we are going to need to work harder. one of the things we learned was that for all of the negative ads, for all of the politics, for all of the distortions and nonsense, when folks come together, when citizens come together and insist it is time for a change, guess what, change happens. what was true then it is just as true now. i want you to know that it is true my hair is gray aer.

i have not caught up to billy at. -- bill yet. we end up showing a few dings along the way. that is inevitable. i am more determined them up and i was in -- now then i was in 2008. i am more inspired by america now. i have seen more of this country. i have seen its strength and its passion. i have seen what is possible. i have seen the changes we have already brought. it should make as confident about the changes we can bring about in the future. it means that we are going to be able to do even more to double

clean energy. it means we are going to be able to do even more to bring back manufacturing. we are going to do more to put people back to work. we are going to do more to make sure we are in asian of laws and immigrants -- a nation of laws and immigrants. i am only going to get it done because of you. i used to say that i am not a perfect man. michelle will tell you. i will never be a perfect president. no president is. i promised you i would always tell you what a thought, where i stood. i would wake up every day, just thinking about how i can make the lives of the american people a little bit better. i worked as hard as i knew how to make that happen.

i have kept that promise. i have kept that promise because i still believe in you. i hope you still believe in me. [applause] if you are willing to join me this time out, and knocked on doors and make phone calls and talk to your friends, i promise you, we will finish what we started anin 2008. we will not go backwards. we will go forward. we will remind the entire world why the united states of america is the greatest nation on earth. [applause] thank you, new york, i love you. god bless you. god bless america. as a [applause] [applause] ♪

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> scott walker faces a recall election against the milwaukee mayor. we will bring in last week's debate tomorrow at 6:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span. tomorrow night, will have live election coverage of the recall results, including a victory in a concession speeches. that is on c-span 2. >> over the past four years, a pulitzer prize-winning author has been researching and writing his 10th book. the research included traveling the globe and speaking with his relatives.

he also toward the family homes in kansas to find the origins of his mother's family. it comes up in bookstores on june 19. we will give you an early look, including our trip to kenya, as we traveled with the author. joy and a sunday, june 17, at 6:00 p.m. eastern time, and later at 7:30 that night. >> new york times assistant business editor gretchen morgenson talks about the fed into prices. she co-authored the book -- the financial crisis. he co-authored the book -- she co-authored the book "reckless endangerment." this is just over an hour.

>> welcome to today's lecture but gretchen morgenson, "absence of accountability for the 2008 financial crisis." a service director of the college. -- i served as the director of the college. this is part of a monthly lecture series. the kirby center marks an extension of the commitment to teach in the constitution.

to teach in the enduring and -- the kirby center seeks to inspire citizens to return as portables to the central place in american public life. -- those principles to their central place in american public life. if you are viewing this online, or via c-span, you can submit a question by e-mailing us at kirbylecture@hillsdale.edu. i will now ask bailey jones to introduce our speaker. she is completing an internship here this summer as part of the washington internship program which has sent our undergraduates students to washington for a study a broad

program, as we like to joke. [applause] >> gretchen morgenson is the assistant business and financial editor at the new york times. in 2002, she received a pulitzer prize prior to joining the times, she worked as an assistant managing editor at forbes magazine. she has authored and co-authored several books. she received her b.a. in english. today, she will be speaking on the topic of the absence of accountability for the 2008 financial crisis. please towbin me in welcoming -- joined me in welcoming gretchen morgenson. [applause] >> thank you so much pitted it is a joy for me to be here and to learn more about the remarkable college.

i have a junior in high school who is shopping for colleges. i am going to do a little bit diligent. i appreciate the invitation to come and speak today about the issue of accountability for the financial crisis. we are still trying to dig our way out of it. it is something that few people would have predicted that four to five years after the events of 2007 and 2008, we are still trying to understand what happened, who did it, why, and how. just going back in time a little bit, i was at forbes magazine for many years before i joined the new york times. one of the draw is of my jobs was i could write about companies doing the right thing, as well as companies doing the

wrong thing. since i joined the times, it has felt to me like it has been all scandal. we had the long term capital management hedge fund debacle. we had the internet bubble. we had accounting scandals, enron, world come. booms and busts, bank failures, it has been an amazing 14 years. i have had a ringside seat for all of it. nevertheless, i did feel the material that was thrown at me and other journalists in the years leading up to the crisis made all of the previous crises seem like child's play. now, i feel like i am an archaeologist at a historic site, still digging, uncovering overwhelming evidence of deeply

unethical activities that flourished during the mortgage mania. simply put, the amount of land and cheating that went on during the years leading up to the crisis is almost unimaginable. i am not sure we even know all of it yet. first, we had lenders who made loans to borrowers who cannot repay them. the loans carry the enormous fees and profits. they sold them to wall street. the executives did their part by putting a toxic loans into mortgage securities. those who bought the securities were told that the loans were high-quality. that they met certain standards. this was not true. when the loans failed, the only request that these investors had

was to sue the firms that sold the securities. then there were the ratings agencies who, according to some, knew that the loans were questionable. they assigned high grades to the securities that held them anyway. the money generated was too compelling. borrowers played their part. desperate to get in on the rise in real estate market, there were too happy to fit about their income -- they were too happy to fib above their income. while these activities were going on, financial regulators, the people charged with identifying and eliminating problematic practices, were cheering on the miscreants. even after danger signs had

become obvious, officials at most regulatory agencies seemed bent on protecting the financial innovation that had fueled the crisis. they recoiled at the blocking of complex of mortgage products on the grounds that they could increase the benefits of home ownership. it was claimed to be a win-win for everyone. they rhapsodize about the marvels of derivatives and how they spread risk rather than concentrate it. looking back, that was a whole lot of bad stuff. those were just the practices during the boom years. since then, during the bus, we have had a raft of bad behavior, dubious practices surrounding

the foreclosure practices. representatives of banks forged legal documents, filed phony papers with the court, and flooded hundreds of years of property law. taken together, the boom and the bust, i would argue this is a breathtaking series of ethical breakdowns and compliance the years. it led to one of the most shattering financial crisis in our history. importantly, it has generated deep questions about whether our country and those in its upper echelon of business and government have lost the moral compass. populist capitalism, like our system, is hugely beneficial to the vast majority of people.

an ethical tradition is needed for it to work. when you have senior executives walking away with hundreds of millions of dollars, leaving shareholders and innocent taxpayers holding the bag, it becomes extremely dangerous. as more and more jobs disappear across the country, the outside pay amassed by corporate executives becomes even more polarized in. this is especially so when taxpayers are asked to bail out reckless companies. the question that remains to be in third, it will have to be tackled by people far better than i, is why did greed and unethical behavior goes so viral during his recent period?

one explanation lies in a rejection by some business leaders of a very powerful social contact that many of their predecessors had embraced. that is, a duty to others the other than simply to oneself. according to this, people recognize that they had amends' sway over investors -- recognized that they had immense sway over investors. they help themselves to a higher standard. it was an understood -- unwritten rule. it seems to have been supplanted by the notion that personal profits are supreme, and that making it to the top means having the largest bank account. we also, importantly, seem

entrenched in a system where moral behavior is condoned because it is not illegal. instead of asking if a deal is appropriate for everyone involved and do in the gut check of wondering whether you would cringe -- and doing the gut check of wondering whether you would cringe if the details were laid out on the front page of the paper, they seem to view their ideas more narrowly. if you can argue it is profitable and not illegal, go for it. who cares if it is immoral or wrong or hurt people. i have an old new yorker cartoon that sums this up. in it are a group of executives seated in a boardroom. the man at the head of the table is saying, "it is not a lie if

it makes us money." lies that made some people a lot of money were a crucial element of the credit crisis. mortgage brokers selling bonds to customers who did not understand them. firms peddling securities to clients who were not told of their fall to structures. ratings agencies slept in -- slapping high grades. very few of these participants have been held accountable. indeed, these players continue to argue to anyone who will listen that their customers come first and that their due diligence is strong. these arguments are stunningly disconnected from reality. joseph stieglitz said "america's

financial players created risk. this allocated capital and encouraged indebtedness all while imposing high transaction costs. they brought our entire economy to the brink." to this day, we hear regulators and those in the industry extolling the praises of financial innovation many of the innovations that were praised in the years leading up to the crisis did contribute to its depth and damage. credit default swaps and clever as that politicians are two exit -- and collateralized debt allocations are two examples. this is not what financial innovation should create. prewitt innovation -- true

innovation should help society, not hurt it. rather than raising risk, financial innovation should have helped these people mitigate the risk of homeownership. instead, they help a small band of industry participants profit at the expense of the rest of us. in spite of this, and we continue to hear from bankers that tighter regulations of the financial sector will cripple their innovation tennis is -- innovative tendencies. they continued to resist regulation designed to prevent taxpayers from having to bella any of the companies in the future. this failure to admit culpability is bad enough. it has also been worsened,

exacerbated, by an even more disturbing failure by the government to assign responsibility for this mess. holding people who were central to the crisis accountable for their roles in it has seemed too difficult for our government, regulators, and prosecutors to do. let's consider the case of one man, the former chief executive of countrywide the financial, once one of the zero largest lenders. -- of the countries largest lenders. he was sued for insider trading. people alleged he had pronounced his company healthy while privately deriding the company.

he seemed to understand the risk his company was taken. -- taking. publicly, he maintained that his company was first-class and financially sound. all the while, he was selling shares he had received as compensation. he sold $500 million worth of stock over several years time as the crisis was approaching. the sec said he sold the shares improperly. he knew the danger that was facing his company. yet, and a year later, in 2010, they struck a settlement deal requiring him to pay just $22.50 million.

that is $22.50 million against $500 million in stock sales. that is a pretty good trade. meanwhile, the rest of the fines that were levied, $45.5 million, were paid by bank of america. what is the lesson we can take away from this example? it while the getting is good -- get while the getting is good. during the financial crisis, it seems that we have been too happy to lower the bar for what constitutes bad behavior. one of the arguments for why there has not been more criminal prosecutions is that the actions taken by people in positions of power were not technically

illegal. it was not right or proper for the head of a large financial institution not to understand the risks that his underlings were taking. was it a legal? perhaps not. that is why some people say we see no prosecutions of those who marched lehman brothers, countrywide, and merrill lynch off of the cliff. neither was it correct or proper to sell a mortgage security to customers that had been devsigned to fasil. bentsen argues did it closed -- banks argue that they disclosed all of the information. they maintained it cannot run afoul of securities laws. the as -- they maintain that

they did not run afoul of securities laws. eric holder said, "much of the conduct that led to the financial crisis was unethical and irresponsible. we have discovered that some of the behavior, while morally reprehensible, may not have been criminal." he is explaining what everyone wants to know, why there have not been more criminal prosecutions. it is hard for many people to accept this argument. it is too hard to believe that a financial debacle so large and so destructive did not involve any criminal activity. i certainly am the first to say that i am not a prosecutor.

i do understand well how difficult it is to mount a criminal case. because so many people have been hurt by the destructive activities and their outcomes, it is disturbing for many to see leaders of american corporations walk away from the wreckage and unscathed. yes, they have suffered losses in their stock holdings. many are facing private litigation. the damage that they have done to innocent taxpayers, borrowers, and shareholders, is nothing short of titanic. these wrecking crews appeared to have paid little for their transgressions. the trouble is, if prosecutors did not pursue a wide array of illegal activity, you wind up encouraging more of the very destructive behavior. by not punishing these practices

quickly, firmly, and forcefully, you incentivize the miscreance to push the envelope even further. if there is no penalty for the legality, there is none for immorality. again, it is hard to month-to- month cases. -- to mount criminal cases. only one official had been sentenced to jail time. lee farkas.s refocu he was sentenced to 30 years in prison. they were certainly not at the center of the financial crisis. it is possible, of course, that

additional indictments and prison sentences will be forthcoming. the fact that so few people have been held accountable for this mess by the spring of 2012 makes some people wonder if there is something more pernicious at work. perhaps an effort to protect some of the primary participants. this is not an idle question. given that so many high power players were involved in the practices. many healing from wall street and washington, digging too deeply into the mess could touch somebody participants. one might ask whether the government really wants to identify who did what to whom. with regulators at the federal reserve, the comptroller of the

currency, and the sec so involved in allowing the bad practices to go on, you would wonder whether a government investigator might not wind up probing himself or his colleagues. it is my belief that many people know that if they launched a full-blown investigation the spotlight might soon come to their doctor. -- door. it is important to point out that our current situation, with zero prosecution, stands in contrast to what went on that during the crisis of the late 1980's. that was a time when hundreds of banks failed. in the wake of that mess, a government task forces referred 1100 cases to prosecutors,

resulting in more than 800 bank officials going to jail. many of these people were chief executives, not lower level flunkies. among the best known, the ceo of lincoln savings and loan in arizona, and david paul. here is another datapoint i find interesting. in the early 1990's, president bush made it clear that finding fraud was a top priority of his administration. he directed the justice department to make these cases with vigor. if we fast-forward we find the opposite approach. in the spring of 2000 it, but just as the storm was gathering, the fbi scaled back plans to assign more field agents.

that summer, weeks before the collapse of fannie mae and freddie mac, the department of justice rejected calls for a task force related to mortgage related investigations. leaving these cases understaffed. only much later did the justice department establish a more general financial crimes task force. why have there been so few prosecutions that succeeded out of this mess? some of the prosecutors i have spoken to argue that the types of fraud perpetrated were easier to litigate. those cases were characterized by embezzlement, self dealing, and other bad behavior that was more easily identified and

exposed. we do know that wall street likes to great complexity. there is no doubt the securities involved in this debacle were far more convoluted. i think a more interesting reason for the failure to prosecute lies in an answer i have been given by some prosecutors. it brings us right back to the colossal regulatory failure that fueled the crisis. we all know that regulators declined to weigh in -- ran in dubious practices. the failure head buyer consequences. -- had dire consequences. this regulatory incompetentce lead to a lack of prosecutions in the aftermath.

that is because so many of the overseers failed in their duty is to compile the kinds of information that traditionally is used to build successful criminal cases. in effect, the same dynamic that helped enable the crisis, weak regulation, asleep at the switch, also made it harder to pursue fraud. let's go back to the presses to talk about how important regulatory referrals are to successful prosecution. in that time, the fbi opened 5500 criminal investigations using regulatory referrals. as i mentioned, by 1992, there had been a love and hundred criminal prosecutions of major bank fraud bosh been in 1100

criminal prosecutions of major -- been 1100 criminal prosecutions of major bank fraud. one of them is william black, a professor of law at the university of missouri. he was the federal government posts of director of litigation during the crisis. he told me that the relaxed regulatory approach, "created an exceptional environment." there were no criminal referrals from regulators, no fraud working groups, no national task forces. instead, we have had silence from the highest levels of government. a former federal judge in new

york who had been head of the justice department for less than a year discussed setting up a task force with deputies. he decided against it. announcing the decision of june, 2008. there have been attempts to put money into investigation. two years into the crevices, congress passed the fraud enforcement and recovery act, allocating one chris $65 million -- $165 million for new financial crisis cases. congress took away all but $30 million of that later. but all this together and you can see how this contributed to our current and frustrating situation where participants seemed to have skidded away from

the scene untouched. equally disturbing, the fed needed to put resources into law enforcement -- the failure to put resources into law enforcement shows a dangerous suspicion. there are two sets of rules. one for washington and the powerful companies that contribute to their reelection campaigns, and one for the rest of us. even when the top security cops have a clear standard, they come up to suddenly short. -- decidedly short. congress set up to hold executives accountable. under the sarbanes-oxley act, the sec was encouraged executives where it hurt, in the wallet.

it was supposed to keep managers honest. they would have to hand back incentive pay, like bonuses, even if they themselves did not fudge the accounts. that was the idea. the records just embarked worse than the bite. the first case bosh records suggest a dark worse than the bike. -- records a barked worse than than the bite. most of the cases involved stock options. they produced big recoveries. in the wake of the financial crisis, the dollar recovered have amounted to an asterisk. the sec pursued 18 executives at

10 companies. it has recovered $12.2 million from 9 executives. other cases are pending. half of the companies pursued have been small and relatively obscure. for those interested in accountability, the case brought by the sec against new century financial, now defunct, is a severe disappointment. a partner at a law firm and the bankruptcy investigator uncovered seven different types of accounting fraud. it fattened the pay of top executives.

during those years, he found brad morris, the chief executive, collected %2.9 million in incentive pay. when the sec brought its case, recovered only 540 two thousand dollars -- $542,000 from mr. morris. the examiner told me he found violations in the investigation. he laid them out as clearly as possible. how assiduously the sec brings these cases cannot be more important. that is because only the sec can bring cases under section 304. companies cannot and neither can

shareholders. even when it does crack down on wrongdoers, the sec does little to discourage them from becoming recidivists. according to an analysis by my colleague, nearly all of the biggest financial companies in the nation, goldman sachs, morgan stanley, jpmorgan chase, and bank of america, had settled fraud cases by promising that they would never again violate an anti-fought offraud law. all were found to have done just that if the years after. -- that just a few years after. at least 51 cases in which the sec concluded that wall street firms had broken anti-fraud laws they had agreed never to breach.

this ban 19 different companies. in the face of this, the commission has not brought any contempt charges. i think when we consider these facts, it should not come as a surprise that trust in the nation's institutions, both public and private, have been decimated as a result of the crisis and its aftermath. the credit crisis was a two- pronged failure. first, the failure by the private sector. second, the abysmal regulatory performance. the phillies by people at the highest levels of our financial le -- the failures by people at the highest levels of our financial system to understand the risky practices being used.

this refusal to recognize peril when it was staring them at the face meant that ben bernanke was far behind when the crisis began to metastasize. it seems pretty clear to me and to a lot of readers i hear from that many people in positions of power seemed to have lost their sense of duty and obligation to others. there is a meat first approach that dominates today. i do not know how to force people in high places to forgo profits for propriety. i do know that those of us in the media can help by shining light on the dark corners where such practices often flourished. at least some of the people who blew up these institutions must

be held accountable. investors, pensioners, employees, and taxpayers, all have been hurt by reckless risk- taking. it will be beyond exasperatingly if the people who created this disaster and profited from it are allowed to slide off into the night. i would like to close with a quote from a 19th century economist and writer that seems especially on point. he said, "when plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it."

that is what we are all up against. we must not allow it to prevail. thank you very much for your attention. i will be very happy to take questions from the audience. [applause] this person's hand shot right of. >> i am local here in virginia. the one question i had. would we have had a stronger financial system with those people out? >> if the banks had been allowed to fail, would we be in a better position? it is a difficult question to answer. i will answer in two parts. the way i would have liked to have seen this play out if i could start it again would be

for the government to allow bear stearns to fail. bear stearns was a smallish firm, it was extremely heavily into mortgages. it had made it bed. it had taken great risks. it had made amends profits. i think the fact that the federal reserve pushed jpmorgan chase into the shotgun wedding sent a pernicious message. it was that you will get help. you will get selvage. you do not have to pay the price of failure. i think bear stearns would have been a less damaging failure if it had been allowed then lehman was. it was a larger firm with more interconnections. if i were to want to go back in

time and change how things were done, i would like to see how things would have played out. if it were allowed to fail, people would have gotten the message quote. there was a six-month period in which little happened. it was they come before the storm. -- the calme before the storm where we had these nonstop phil years. there was a six-month window of opportunity. it could have been used to be more aggressive. that is one answer to your question. the other answer is, we have to get to a position where these large firms are not so interconnected that they can actually make the argument that if they fail they could bring down the financial system. it is clear that everybody who

was running the country believed that if they were allowed to fail, they would bring down the financial system. when you talk to people about lehman brothers, they felt that was the lesson from lehman. the thin layer of the money- market fund. that was clear. the reaction to me should be how can we get these banks down to its size that is manageable. that will not imperil the entire financial system. we have got to know where with that kind -- we have gotten nowhere with that kind of an approach. that is unfortunate. >> i am with the madison coalition. i noticed there were two groups you did not discuss. if one of the elected politicians -- 1 are the elected

politicians. >> that is a weeklong discussion. >> they spent taxpayer money to bail all of these folks out. if you look at barney frank and chris dodd, they offered a bill allegedly to solve the problem. the other group was you did not mention the business media. one of the things we count on it is when politicians misbehaved as they do, when the private sector then as the rules as sometimes happens, -- bends the rules as sometimes happens, should we not blame the business media for not blowing the whistle? >> i agree with both of your themes. the role of legislators cannot

be minimized. it is a long conversation. i did tackle it in my book with my co-author. we were quiet unsparing with the details on just how fannie mae was the leader in teaching how to neutralize the regulator and make sure they were able to make all of the decisions about things like regulatory capital. meanwhile, get rich while they were doing that. that is a huge topic. one that has not been addressed in any meaningful way. as far as the business media, i would agree that we did not do as good a job as we should have in the years leading up to the crisis.

i think there may be a couple of reasons for that. first, there is the mindset that you have to have. i am a tough reporter. i like being a tough reporter. it is hard. you have to have a backbone. you have to have an editor who is willing to stand up against the pressures. you have to have a different mindset. you do not want to be a part of the party. you do not want to be invited to people's houses who you cover. you do not want to feel like you a part of that scene. there are people who get sucked into the idea that they can be friends with the people who they are covering. i did not do that kind of a journalism. i think it is unfortunate that there are people who do. i will also say that newsrooms have been devastated by the internet. you will have far fewer newsrooms who have local

reporters covering local scandals. far fewer reporters covering business. far fewer covering everything. the numbers did not work anymore. the revenues are not there. you have to laypeople of. that is an element -- lay people off. that is an element that has to be recognized. i did raise flags early on. when fannie mae had their accounting scandal. i talked about mortgage crises, credit default swaps. i know what you have to take from people when you take these large institutions on. it is not fun. if you want to a ticket, expose the truth, that is what journalist -- if you want to at the ticket, expose the truth, that bosch educate, expose the

truth, that is what journalists are supposed to do. there are new kids coming up all of the time. i am hopeful we can change the dynamic. >> a question from an on-line fewer. she asks, you have called for greater criminal prosecution against the perpetrators of the financial how would criminal charges be just? considering they have broken the law? >> this is a question of, did they break the law? i am -- i cannot make the conclusion there was illegality treated it is hard to imagine you cannot bring some cases even for regulators to bring cases under sarbanes oxley. the degree to which there has been so loyal regulatory or

criminal prosecution sends a bad -- a bad signal. the case i mentioned seems to be a prime example. sort of walking away from what looks like a pretty fact- oriented, fact based case. perhaps eric holder is right. perhaps there was illegal activity. i do not think -- i think that is a perception that people do not support because i think early on, my reporting and my colleagues' reporting shows there was a sense at the highest bubbles that we should not pursue these institutions until we got on a firmer financial footing. there was a sense we did not want to aggressively pursue prosecution while we were trying to find our way in the dire

months of 2008, to those nine. that led to a lax approach to the idea of prosecuting some of these cases and we have time limits and we have all kinds of statutes of limitation that is running on these cases, whether we're talking civil or criminal. there is a danger in saying, let's not do anything right now until things settle down and get more, -- calm. the danger is you let precious weeks and months go by and information you need to make a case go by. what professor black has told me, there were civil cases and regulatory cases that were not made strong enough. you have a different perception out there about accountability.

>> wait for your microphone. about thealking corporation and would like your thoughts on this. corporations, executives are supposed to be responsible to the directors who are responsible to the stockholders. the directors are often picked by the chairman. they socialize the net before and their spouses have dinner and the director is expected to say, you are overpaid. which is hard to do. behind that is the stockholder who is supposed to vote the rascals out. i could buy a stock on the phone and sell it in 10 minutes.

i have no incentive for stand and fight. has anyone thought about some way to inject the true scrutiny in the corporate process that is not there right now? have you ever heard it thought or discussed by anybody? >> lydell we have more aggressive shareholder activism or even policing, shareholder policing of boards. there is this sense and that is accurate that boards are cronies of the management and maybe they are there to justify what their decisions are but the ceo pay keeps ratcheting up and very few people held accountable when there are disasters that are not covered. one of my biggest -- one of the things that is the biggest

dysfunction in the system is something you're alluding to. to hold these people accountable and hold their feet to the fire. if i hold 100 shares of exxon and i vote against the pay package, that will have no impact whatsoever. if i am fidelity and i am voting shares that are held on behalf of thousands, millions of people across the country, you will have a lot more clout. these companies do not really take this on as a goal or a purpose. i find that to be very disturbing. they're running other people's money and yet they're not acting responsibly in holding boards accountable. holding boards accountable is the only way that you can start to get to the point where you can hold the executives accountable. we have seen this year a little bit more action on practices.

we have seen some pay compensation deals that were rejected by a majority of the shareholders. that is unusual. that seems like a star and an idea of being -- shareholders expressing their views. it is a slow process and if we do not have the help of the people who are managing our money for us, if fidelity or vanguard or name your fund company does not want to rock the boat, perhaps they have other dealings with the companies whose shares they own, that is a problem and that contributes to the laissez-faire approach. maybe social media could be a way to get shareholders together

to act as a group. that would be great. that would be a great outcome of social media but i have not seen it yet. this is a glacial process to even get shareholders to vote against pay packages. i am as frustrated as you are. >> washington's response to the financial debacle was the dodd- frank legislation. now the dodd-frank law. what is your assessment of that statute's potential to keep such debacle's from happening in the future? another way of putting that is no one knew what it was doing and obama did not know what he was doing when he signed it. >> the dodd-frank law was -- it is 2000 pages of impenetrable,

complex details that end up not protecting us anywhere. and maybe even not protecting us a bit more than we were leading up to the crisis. i like to compare it to glass eagle -- glass-steagall. dodd-frank is 2000 pages long. i do not think dodd-frank will protect us for 10 years. there are key failures in dodd- frank. there were silent on fannie mae and freddie mac. second, they did nothing about to big to fail. dod and frank -- dodd and frank will sit they put together the resolution authority. a lawless 8 -- allow an unwind

or -- we will unwind this through the resolution authority. it requires the committee to boat to in fact to resolve and unwind the institution. i think that is a step that many people would not choose to take. it would be -- it is easier to bail it out. it is easier to make the taxpayer pay and deal with it later. that is to make the hard decisions to let a firm get on wound. -- unwound. these are firms that have friends in washington. i am dubious the resolution authority will work as well as

dog and frank -- dodd and frank think. there were some failures and some good things about dodd- frank. 200 pages of whatever, i do not think that has put us that much closer to a period where the taxpayers can sleep at night without having to worry out -- to worry about bailing out to corporations in the future. >> president wilson famously argued the economy becomes so complicated that we need a

bigger [inaudible] to rein in accesses. with -- yet we see the tea party that once it is moller bertran. it seems you are talking on both sides of that spectrum. it would have been better if we had not bail out these businesses and let them suffer from their own bad practices but you want to hold people accountable, responsible. we need more from the administration to do that. >> letting them fail -- if they failed, that would be the first step to accountability. but you're right. it is a fine line to walk. you cannot have zero regulation. it cannot have too much regulation. where is the happy medium? i have never made the argument that there was not enough regulation on the mortgage industry or financial services industry going in the years leading up to the crisis. there were plenty of rules on the books that regulators did

not pursue. you have to have people in this job within appetite to regulate and to go after the problems they see. you have got the same -- you have to have the same as the bankers who are dealing with. manyy believed -- many did believe they have the banks on their risk assessment and there were presenting regulation -- regulators and let regulators work with that instead of the of regulator be sort of the watchdog or policemen. there were rules that were completely ignored by regulators. i do not feel that we need more

regulation. we just needed people with an appetite to regulate. which we did not have. they were in many cases ordering with institutions the idea of reducing capital. you have to have people that were willing to regulate. barney frank had been a particularly difficult and obstreperous with the regulator that was put in place.

he was tough and -- in congressional hearings. he would wail, really made life difficult for the regulators. we asked him, what was the idea of being so hard on this guy, he is trying to do his job. i felt there were trying to be too adversarial, he said. i said, adversarial. it kind of sounds like a good thing for a regulator to be. no, no, there were too adversarial. that is not the right idea for a regulator. it is like a journalist. people who did not like what i write, the adversarial. the regular should not be part of these institutions there regulating. about how it is viewed and seen

by members of congress who oversee these people. that was kind of an eye opener for me. i would argue for more adversarial relationships than less. >> i do not see any hope for -- newlin >> did not say that. >> what do you think is the ultimate answer? >> the ultimate answer to getting us out of this bailout cycle? >> i think we just have to see a few cases. it would not take a lot of cases. it would not take 100 cases. it would take one prosecutor to

make people sit up and take notice. i think it is a multifaceted question. it goes to the question about investors. it is massive and there are a lot of feelings it every step of the way. what can we do to try to change those dynamics? this is the toughest question i get sick and i am very disappointed to say that i do not have a ready answer -- that i gets and i am disappointed to say that i do not have a ready answer. it feels like individuals are up against increasing powerful -- power on the other side. i am not without hope, but i think the idea is that people have to take some of this on themselves and whether it's is complaining to your fund company

if you do not like they vote your shares, of voting no against excessive pay at companies. it is a message that you can send, but it is -- there is a sense that it is not going to get a lot of traction. that is unfortunate because we are the people paying the price. >> thank you very much for your time. [applause] >> thank you very much. >> tomorrow, a senate panel looks at the employment of veterans by federal contractors. live coverage at 10:00 on c- span. a hearing examines anti-poverty

programs. live coverage gets under way from the senate finance committee also at 10:00. up next kind remarks from chris matthews of in s nbc -- of m snbc. later, a campaign fund-raiser for president obama in new york with former president clinton. >> on a personal note, michelle and dire grateful to the entire bush family for their guidance and their example during a transition. george, i will always remember the gathering you hosted for all the living former presidents before i took office. your kind words of encouragement. you also left me a really good tv sports package. [laughter]

i use it. >> last week, portraits of former president george w. bush and laura bush were unveiled at the white house. >> and dolly madison famously saved this portraits of the first george w. [laughter] michelle, if anything happens, there is your man. >> watch the entire event online at the c-span video library. >> remarks from chris matthews at the ford presidential foundation journalism awards ceremony. he describes his experience working for tip o'neill and is a critique of the obama and mitt

romney campaign. this event was held at the national press club. chris matthews was born -- served in the peace corps in africa from 1968-1970. after coming to washington, he worked as a u.s. capitol

policeman before working for members of congress and then as a speechwriter for president jimmy carter. he worked in washington for a san francisco newspaper from 1987 until 2000. he parted -- he started his talk show in 1997. in 2002, he started the syndicated weekly talk show. he is the author of 6 books. please join me in welcoming chris matthews to the national press club.

>> congratulations. i could not believe you were a little nervous. go into afghanistan would really get to me. scott, you are great. i was always blown away by the reporters. commentary is easy. reporting is work. i wanna talk about what is going on today and the way it used to be. i always tell people in the

20's, it is all true. times have changed. i feel the responsibility to always tell people about the past. my parents always did that. there were always talking about the war. housing was never as good after the war as before the war. politics is different today, and i do not think it is better. the only thing we do here is make deals. good deals. compromises. it is called legislation. that is what we do here. we keep our points of view, but we find a way to govern this country. that is what we do.

it is important how we run this great country. sometimes people come here with another point of view. the only point of view is to make the government work. i think it takes a couple of things. you have to listen to the other side even if they are lame brained. you have to listen. you have to listen to the tea party, they might have something, maybe. you have to listen. it is like being married. [laughter] the guy's got all the good girls, listen. you have to be willing to negotiate because you will never make a deal or arrive at an agreed upon direction for the country. we would just have chaos. right now it is something like that. i want to talk about jerry ford and tip o'neill. tip o'neill was one tough boss.

i knew how tough it was. tip o'neill had one great quality that made him a man of the house, he loved it. he loved that place. it is like san francisco, if you love san francisco, they will love you. the one key entry would go to san francisco, tell everybody love this city and you will be incredibly welcome. loving the city is what reminds everybody. what makes you a man or woman of the house is you love the house. i once told jerry brown -- he asked why anybody would run for the house. i told him the camaraderie. he had no idea what that was. hanging out with the men and women of the house is what it is about, sharing the community. they were both floor leaders. they like to be ready action was.

they liked the cloakroom. the democrats had their cloakroom chez ramone but everybody would go there for lunch. he loved junkets. it is the best thing in the congress. it is a time for the husbands and wives to get together with each other and creates a wonderful friction remover. you are able to get mad at someone else but your wife will say you like that guy. it is amazing how it cools things down on both sides. jackets are expensive but after two weeks, you'll probably be friends. he also liked the food in the dining room. he loved anything they had been there. he loved the gymnasium. he would grab a handful of cigars and said to his secretary -- you had to be

there. they love the other members of congress on both sides of the aisle. a few people bother him greatly. there is a group of three stooges and they are a moving group. gingrich has a permanent membership in the three stooges and bob walker as well. there is a phone call for mr. walker and he takes the phone call and this is out worked. it did not happen often but it was somewhat mirthful. jack murtha was the one who did it. his friends were not all democrats. he had some really close friends, george bush senior was a close friend. they both loved the house

because the house was something that george bush won completely on his own he did not get in there because of coattails of president reagan. he got elected on his own and that means a lot. i think that's why gore tried to do it but he did not quite make it. i can probably guess what he thought of dukakis. he really liked bush and he loved bill conchie, he and bob michael were buddies. he really loved gerald ford. he talked about him all the time. he said he is loving the good

life in palm springs. he dresses for dinner now. he doesn't fit in. it was great. it was always about status. i could tell when his real friends or around because it his face would break into a real non-political smile. club, like a little boy's like a tree house. they were proud of the people's house. compared to the august u.s. senate. tip o'neill said it was filled with the 88 sons of the rich. i loved it when he talks like that. he used to cut the lawn at harvard. he is to cut the lawn which years in the 1930's. the overseer would get him to work.

i think he would sit around and even members of the congress would save seats. there were not all close. the great thing about the house compared to the senate is you have to stay in touch because they have elections every two years. you also have to worry about a young opponent in urban areas. tip would read, "the globe." i have a great respect for

people who lead when it is tough, when you are politically incorrect, not when it is you everyone light. ronald reagan will be remembered for his consistency end his career that preceded his popularity, just like churchill. your rights respected for being right long before was popular. they don't want people adjusting every year to what is popular. they love people who are consistent. tip o'neill was like that. when i was with them, those years were brutal. he said be nice to president reagan. that was tough. he was not popular.

liberalism was not in fashion but we did pick up 266 seats in 1982. it is tough to get our plans with everybody hated you. tip o'neill wound up getting great popularity but it was tough. jerry ford did something as president that i didn't like. he pardoned nixon. when you think about what he did, it was very unpopular and cost and the presidency, he had the courage to do what was right. if we let the richard nixon problems remain our problems, we would never have gotten out of it. it would have been three more years at least a fighting over him. instead, he said let's start over. i think that was an example of country first. that is not a bad motto. i was warned when i went to

massachusetts and looked in the first pew at st. john's where tip o'neill was christened and was married and buried to see jerry ford in the first pew. it was nice to see that. they stuck together. tip would have been there for jerry, friend. that is the way it was in politics when i worked in that. i got to love this cycle of the week of the house of representatives. monday was always come back today. tuesday was the general debate, wednesday was amendments, thursday was always final passage, and when all members would comment, it was just like in mr. smith, they would come in and watch closing debates between people like jerry ford and tip o'neill when they were giving their best and everyone would be there. it was great drama. i remember one thursday night -- they had a hot debate, a really hot debate on thursday night.

one guy had been yelling red- faced at the other guy from the other side of the aisle. they're debating heatedly. as the room began to empty out and everybody went to catch their playing thursday night, it was like an accordion closing, everybody is leaving, this guy walked across dial and said to the democratic member, what are you doing this weekend? it was the guy he was yelling at. he said say hello to your wife for me. that is what it was like and that's what was like the way jefferson wanted it, the way madison wanted it, and that's the way it was with jerry tip, the old days. i want to thank you for letting me begin my conversation about current events that are not as pleasant.

i want young people here and there are some of them here, where are you? i'm a grandfather. it is all true. it really was like that, thank you very much. [applause] >> now for the fun stuff. do you feel that political talk shows like yours is responsible for the growing lack of civility in our discourse? [laughter] >> not at all, it gets off your chest. i think it can. there is a tendency of people to only watch the road show. i think you want to look around. take a look at fox once in awhile. if you don't like it, take a look at it and make sure you don't like it. i think you're crazy -- the days of walter cronkite are over. that's the way it is will not work again. it is too many points of view.

i just finish the cronkite book which is excellent. he had a point of view and we all knew it. he was a liberal the whole time and we all know it. he did not know we were aware of it. he is a great reporter and an honest reporter body had a point of view. those points of view or more transparent. there is more knowledge if you watched television, you cannot tell the difference between fact and opinion, that is rare because almost everybody can. i think al sharpton is known for his points of view. they know what they're getting when they watch him and i know where i am standing very i think people are smarter. they no opinion. they know facts and i think they want three levels every night did the 1 fax, the news, they wanted around 5:00. but what now. the wants and what it means that i want to know what you think. what my shirt to find out what you think. we fight over facts.

i say every fact must come from a quality newspaper. it may come from ap but i don't want to hear it comes from anywhere else. i want facts. we do announcements and we want to be smart on the analysis and with the opinions. i tried to do all three. i find that people tend to vote after they watched me. i cannot imagine being able to follow my show without reading a good newspaper. secondly, i cannot imagine watching a show like mine and not being committed to vote. it forces people to read the paper, if you like it, george stephanopoulos is damn good on sunday. put it together. i don't know anybody gets angry after watching television. many people get confirmed in their views.

there is some dittohead thinking. i don't think they are growing. [laughter] [applause] >> how would you rate your show -- left or right? >> i would say we are 40 yard line. my voting record is not consistent. i've pretty much advertise how i voted my views on a lot of things -- i thought the iraq war was a disaster. i am right on that. fiscal policy, i want to see a long-term -- i want to see my daughter work for the debt commission. i think the president should have staked out a position on day one.

if he had done that, he would've been better off. he should have gone with the keystone pipeline for jobs. i cannot think of the environmental reasons because nobody has said what it is. he should have sold more health care and explained why it is important to the middle class. we already have a health-care program for poor people called medicare. this is a program to be fair to the middle class and force them to pay their share. he never sold that way because he had to keep the left happy. it was a conservative proposition and never sold properly. i think it is pretty critical. i think the have put it together. i have been doing this longer than anybody. i have been on live television since 1994 every night six

times a week and everybody has figured me out. i think people are smart. you get to know the person after a while. i think. >> what do you make of the changes taking place in the media? what about the decline of traditional newspapers and the role of new media? >> i love newspapers and editors. i don't know where i would have been without them. there is nothing like turning in a take out these friday afternoon and getting the call back that i have two or three questions. where did to get this? was this officials? it is great. you get the call back that you are free. you are off the weekend. i love to be edited. i tried to edit the people --who wrote this? there is an expletive there.

i have an instinct for what may be wrong and get everything but you don't have a corrections page on the internet. i want to know who the editors are. can i just have opinion pieces. fact checking, i worry about it. i always worry about weekend wire people. young people don't know the history and they will let things get by them and it drives me crazy. the controversy over a spy. there is some controversy. he was a spy. i like to see adults editors. in social medea, i worry because people come up with something they throw on a blog.

what are you not pay attention to blogs? don't read any of them. that would be my view. is that liz over there? i did not count you. you are a real journalist which is different than somebody in their basements asking for pancakes said it brought down the government. first of all, get a job. [laughter] high making enemies now which is part of my life. i like journalists, i love trade reporters, i am fascinated by the ability every day of a1 reporter is that right for the first page and they are astoundingly good and their editors are great. what goes into these newspapers in the news section is spectacular. the quality of the op-ed pages

in the times and the journal -- the times and the post are really good. the screening that goes on the best cases, we have great journalists. i get up in the morning and i read "the washington examiner." it has a lot of little items and it has some right wing people that are good. then i read "the washington post." i read a different ways. i checked a style page. i always read the op-ed page and then i work my way to a section. there's a stop on a page right before it -- al kamen is fabulous. i read "the times." you have to get your speed up to read the times.

you have to get ready for the times. by an ambitious, go to the journal but my wife reads that. she is in business. if you put that together, you know a lot. if you want to know more, turn on your xm radio and listen to one of the three news network. i flip around and it is fabulous. i go from cnn and check fox because some of them are ok. [laughter] o'reilly is a mixed bag. he is not just a right winger. he is an angry irish guy. there's something to him that i find unnervingly truth sometimes. i like his attitude. people have to put -- i give

this speech to everybody -- and there will not be an uncle walter to tell you exactly what is what. the big networks had established liberalism as their base true north. that is what they were, walter cronkite and edward r. murrow. it was a point of view. they laughed at goldwater. cronkite mocked him the way he pronounced his name and it is true. barry goldwater said today -- you know where he stood. the idea that there was objective reality is a mistake. >> obama promised the public and journalists you have the most open administration in history. as he delivered? >> i don't know what the question is really. >> transparency -- >> i don't know what the relative scorecard is. is that something we could find

text do you have a point of view on this? >> i am moderator. i don't have a point of the [laughter] u. when he came to office, he said he would be the most of but -- open and be having press conferences and be open. >> i don't count them. he beat me at jeopardy a couple of weeks ago. he has a lot of press conferences. people are not dying for more press conferences. i don't that is a big issue. i think mitt romney is used to a business press. they only seek journalists when they want to see them. i don't think he spends a lot of time answering questions at the rope line.

it is not a big issue with me because i am in commentary. reporters have to deal with this by getting up close to them. i don't have the ability to judge that. >> why has compromise become so unacceptable in congress? >> because of the way the voters are behaving. i grew up in a ticket-splitting state and pennsylvania. you would vote for the state representative and senator because you wanted your kid to get a state scholarship. you would vote for the congressman because you are hoping that your kid would go to the service economy that's where it worked when i origin where i grew up. it was also a purple state where you have almost every election except two of the 20th century were split.

if a governor and senator were running that year, it would go both ways. it was like this all the time. bill scranton could be popular and jack kennedy could win the state big. there are no ticket-splitting states left free this year will see less ticket-splitting than ever and people will vote straight. massachusetts could be the exception because scott brown is in the running. he may even be slightly favored. people will generally vote for the president if they vote for claire mccaskill. i look of the tricky mass trickiness. had the vote for george allen and barack obama? that's a tricky one. the other thing is the way our districts are broken up by

neighborhoods which are segregated. as a younger person, the only person you have to fear is the person to your left. the tendency is to heads toward the save and of your party's spectrum. if you're a liberal, you are probably 100% rating. in politics, it is safer to be with your base. these men and women tend to vote with their base. it is the safest mode and you figure you'll fight it out for the independence. a member of congress just got beaten any said there 40 house seats that are up for election but the rest are taken. you can i use -- you cannot lose

a general election. california has a new system or the top two vote getters get to run in september. that will not be a big surprise. the voters are -- because we have been apportioned and gerrymandered, you don't have many seats. you have been in places like bucks county. these are selling seats and eric toth. -- these are -- there are 40 seats and they are tough. how many seats are like that? dingle is still here. these guys are here for a long time. massachusetts does not change. you have these one-party districts and you have this kind of voting or the don't want to risk going to the senate because a young kid will come along and says he sold us out. luger just got bombed, bob

bennett got bumped. orin hatch could get bombed in utah. it is sad, i think, that you cannot put it together yourself the way reasonable people do. they don't buy the blue plate special. voters love union and they are pro-choice and they go down the list and every single thing, they are against free trade. there are some but they are about 30%. we just go down the line left or right. i like it when people say on one issue they are not with the party. you hardly ever hear that. then you are marked as some kind of pro-life nut. if our voters become independent, we will have more independent politicians, i think.

that's a sobering isn't it? >> what you think the biggest mistakes of the obama and romney campaign have made so far? >> romney has not made many mistakes. he has the strategy of being the last man standing. it does not try to sell his personality. [laughter] it is like roller derby. just not the other guys off the court. you cannot hide from the incoming. it was a relentless negative advertising. it was done by these super packs like restore our future. he got the nomination through a process of elimination. i have not seen mistakes from him because he has won every contest.

they are all endorsing him to various degrees. women are coming back. the republican party has starkly falls in line. they don't fall in love, they fall in line. democrats have to like you. republicans are an organized political party. which is unusual. growing up as a kid in the early 50's i watched the conventions and there was a woman at the head of the convention that asks the delegates to clear the aisle and i never did. that was the democratic convention and at the republican convention when they were asked to clear the aisles, they did. they are obedient. the democrats look at who's popular. the republican party would not run a guy named barack hussain obama. bush, let's go for a wild guy, bob dole.

the republican party insists on you being around a long time having lost a number of times and being beaten up and gone through this horrific cases and when you're through, they run you. they finally ran john mccain. he is the perfect republican. these other guys come out of nowhere. bill clinton? it is unbelievable. when you lose as a republican, they run in next time. in the democrats you lose, they shoot you. that's why people like al gore have to grow bear to go into a cave somewhere nobody knows where michael dukakis is right now because no one has ever asked. if you lose the democratic

party, you are finished. you lose the republican party, come on back. jack kemp is available. let's put on a ticket in 1996. let's bring dold back. 20 years later they brought him back. who wanted that? it is a different culture. the democrats are a hot hand political party. if republicans had run john mccain the first time, it would have been interesting. if nixon had won in 1960 before the end betterment, it might have been different. they wear them out and they get better by the time they get in there. you have to completely back to everything. on the mitt romney is driven by hard principle. whatever they wanted in a commencement speech, he would give them. he tells the neocons everything they want to hear.

he will do the same thing with grover norquist on tax policy. nordquist is allies say the name. donald trump is proof of the pudding. anything he wants to get, it is unbelievable. he is like the golden idol. why? he wants to keep the party together and wants all elements of the party. he said he wants 50.1%. if you want transparency, you'll get it from him. he tells you how he will win the presidency. he will accept what these guys want and will become independent of them every gets in. that is the trick part. he is a moderate. i think he is a practical guide but how many deals will he strike? the obama mistakes have been pretty obvious.

he should have explained health care bill as a moderate republican plan coming out of the heritage plan. it is not socialized medicine. he should never have let that get started. he never should aboard the used stimulus. it is the worst word in politics. it -- it says it is wasting money. stimulus means nothing. it means road building, stop that mean something, not just pain of states and localities by muting their bills. eisenhower build the interstate highway system. saysbama * -- has to do ira rebuild the automobile system and now i will rebuild the highways. both trends are all over asia and we have amtrak. we should catch up in the world in our public sector.

the jobs that have disappeared last four sector have been in the public sector. private-sector job growth has been there but it has been offset by pullbacks and laos in the states and localities across the country. it is ironic that nobody knows that. interest rates are 0 and people are sending them money to germany. invest in infrastructure and put people to work. i'd think he should do it until the republicans to no say. they are saying no to everything he is saying. he said, but something big. does not think big enough.

just like truman did discuss, call the house back into session and posed a problem. we have this many people unemployed, let's put them to work. let's do it. at least then, the public would know what the election is about. that would be and my advice on how he can fix it. [applause] >> we're almost out of time but a couple of housekeeping items to take care of. i got one more for you. i want to remind you on june 9, the press club is having its 15th annual 5 k race. there will be pancakes. tony horton will be here. >> how many miles? >> and 3.1. you don't even have to sign up. i would like to present you with our traditional coffee mug. my last question -- what do you think about how you are portrayed on "saturday night live"? >> darrell hammond is a genius.

he is unbelievable. before they start at 11:30, they are alive. hammond was prowling around as dick cheney in the oval office. he was already in character. i like him doing me, too. thank you. >> thank you for coming today. thank you to the national press club staff. you can find more information about the national press club on our website. thank you. we are adjourned.

>> scott walker faces a recall election against milwaukee mayor tom barrett. tomorrow night, we will have live election coverage of the recall results. a discussion on the 2012 presidential race and the role that domestic policy will play. we will hear from a campaign adviser for mitt romney and a pollster for the obama reelection campaign. this is 40 minutes.

>> they have to win the election in november. we're going to explore how the issue today will affect the election campaign. we have a stellar group. >> as a campaign -- [inaudible]

he is the former price -- former press secretary for john boehner. peter brown is the assistant director of the university polling institute. it is the most unlikely of household words in the world. he is also a former journalist with experience covering the white house and campaigns. welcome. as we have heard over the last hour, there are very substantial issue differences between president obama and mitt romney on a range of issues. of those differences, which do you think will be the most important in shaping a general election campaign? >> i think it will come down to -- let me thank everybody for being here.

joel is one of the best in the business, and so is peter. i am grateful to be up here. i think it really does come down to the view of the role of government. if you look at the economic debate, if you look at the health-care debate, i think with the recent argument about free enterprise and the governor's background and comparing it and contrasting it with the president, i think the role of government is going to be one of the big differences. republicans believe the role of government is to encourage and incentivize the private sector. to help grow the economy.

we see the obama world view as being one where the government has the central role in deciding the winners and losers in the economy. if you look at those debates, even sometimes issues like energy, it is a similar contrast. >> the most important difference, what are the values that informs the vision that each of these men bring to the case? because of that, it is going to come down to is going to fight on behalf of the people who have been struggling the most? who is going to create an economy that is built to last and will restore middle-class security?

so that the folks to use to be able to climb up from the working class can do so again. i think those of values, that contrast is pretty stark. president obama believes we need to have an economy that gives everyone a fair shot. mitt romney is very -- very clearly believes if we take care of those at the top, that is what we have to do and everything will take care of itself. >> the ideological frame whose side are you on? is it a government problem -- is government of problem or a solution? art either of those frames more relevant to voters? >> there are two sides of the same coin.

i need to think the national journal for giving me a phd. i do not have one. there are two sides to the same coin. you have the notion that this is about the role of government. this is about who is on your side. it is the same thing. this is about the economy. the economy is issue the -- the economy is a lot of stuff. it is unemployment, a health care, a whole host of things. what kevin andi would like to present you with -- you do not have to be stupid. >> does either one inherently

matter more to voters? the ideological goal of a government? -- role of government? >> what is more persuasive is what voters think will work. this is -- elections in swing states is about who is closest to the ideological center. this is one where swing voters will vote by who they think can solve their problems. >> let me follow-up on that. regardless of who you intend to vote for, who would do a better job on the economy? comparing mitt romney and obama, it generally speaking, mitt romney runs even or sometimes ahead. what is the basis for that advantage? >> you are right. we asked another question.

is president obama likable or not? >> americans think the president is more likable. they think mitt romney is better for the economy. which wins out? >> what is the basis of before his advantage? -- is as a shadow of derivative of dissatisfaction with obama? why -- >> if unemployment was 7%, this would not be an issue. it is a derivative of where the economy is in the eyes of people. that is what drives it. >> ken mitt romney sustained the advantage? --can mitt romney sustained the advantage? i understand there are other dimensions. mitt romney has even or ahead.

>> i do not want to take your questions. you can take peters constructs, there are components of how people contextualize and assess the economy. it is not just who they think has good ideas on the economy. who did they think understand the problem is people like me are facing? bill is going to make sure there are not to sets -- who was going to make sure there are not two sets of rules? these are all variables that go into the equation. it is not just about whether you like president obama or not. job approval ratings have been higher, why people's economic confidence ratings are also higher. the biggest percentage increase since election day of any president. there are a confluence of

factors that people bring to this discussion. >> if you look at the poll numbers, it gives you these divergent assessments where obama will have significant advantage for standing up for the middle class, promoting policies that help all americans. but, on who might get the economy moving faster, mitt romney has an advantage. there are many factors. how do you assess that kind of landscape? >> i agree with a lot of what peter said. it comes down to the question of, we have this attributes versus issues question. this is going to be -- i agree that president does score very well. people judge him harshly on his performance. this election is going to be a

monster.com election. >> which means? >> is this somebody that i really like or somebody that can get the job done? the president has a hard time selling an argument of epoch -- economic optimism when people are not feeling it. the numbers on whether people feel that we are in a recession, whether or not they feel the economy is in recession, it is very high. even though it may technically not be. the president has a giant cannon -- canyon between his message on the way that people feel. that is why mitt romney is doing well on the issue of the economy because he is talking about what he would do to address the enormous anxieties people have about everything from rising costs to a stagnant growth. we just saw numbers that reside

-- revised down the gdp under 2%. job numbers are coming out tomorrow that will not meet the growth of population. those are the dynamics that are driving these numbers. whether not debate people think it is a recession or economist think it is a recession, the fact of the matter is what the american people know. they understand that we did not get into this crisis overnight. we will not get out of it overnight. they have understood that since 2008. you can go back and look at polling that was done after the 2004 election, working and middle-class america, they already knew that things were out of whack. in places like massachusetts, where the governor -- their incomes went down under his governorship. if he is running as mr. fix it and you have a governor that to

the state from 36 to 47th in job creation, twice the rate of the national average, you have a pretty tough argument to make. >> starting with bain now moving to the massachusetts record, at the obama campaign is trying to challenge mitt romney is credentials. through his private career and his career of gov. has looked out for the few at the expense of the many. how effective will this line of argument -- how effective can it be to raise questions about his credentials for the voters who are also dissatisfied with obama? >> everything matters at the margins. on the economy, the question is not what the gdp number is, it

is what the people in ohio, virginia, what they think about their lives. is it getting better, it is it getting worse? two is responsible? >> generally speaking, those numbers have been improving, have they not? >> they have improved. >> still very bad. >> can it be sustained? can those number bs sustained if the job growth continues to slow down? that would seem to me at least why obama is in a better position now than he was six or eighth months ago, you very v more optimism about the trajectory of the economy. >> from november to early march period, that's plateaued. didn't going down but it is not growing like it was. that's why we're seeing national polls that are a dead

heat. it is a dead heat. >> i think we all agree on that. >> joel, do you -- how significant is that forward-looking assessment in terms of whether people are going to be willing to give the president -- >> i think people are very forward looking. i think they know we have gone through an unprecedented time in the lives of most americans who are going to be voting. that small sliver of americans who voted in the 1930's and are going to be voting this time. they felt a lot of things that happened in the first decade of this century. dealing with credit card company who is suckered them into credit card rates with rate changes in the dead of the night. i think they are going to be looking at what president obama did to fix some of those things, rescuing the auto industry which governor romney, a business expert said let them go bankrupt.

the only way it could be saved was the way president obama did it by getting concessions from the companies and unions to go forward. i think people understand that we are going forward. everybody knows the progress hasn't been as rapid as everyone would like. they want us on a path that is going to take us forward. they don't want to go back to the same policies that didn't work when governor romney was in massachusetts and based on his record and that he is proposing to do all over again. >> health care was an issue between romney and other republicans. it hasn't come front and center yet. if the supreme court strikes down part of all of the law how does that change the debate about health care? >> it is interesting what you said about the primaries. i had lunch, coffee with some of the reporters. they said look, your guy is not going to win because of health care. i remember saying over and over

and over, all through those coffees, lunches and dinners. health care will be an issue but not the issue. i think that was largely proven through primary. >> you got to pay for your own meals. >> no longer meals. just drinks. i'm sorry. just trying to segue to my other point. i think the public opinion on obamacare has calcified. i don't think there are many people out there who have a persuadeable opinion on this. they either like it or hate it. it has become symbolic on how many voters view the obama administration through the lens of that particular bill. it was very expensive. it was a chaotic partisan process. it was too big. it hasn't done what it promised to do. i think any real litigation of it is for the obama

administration. >> what role -- would that cause the president or republicans to defend it more vigorously? >> i think a lot of how the discussion takes place depends on what the court says. i agree with kevin. the fact that it is an issue, it is not the only issue. thes going to be an issue through which voters will assess clearly the values of each candidate. do you believe insurance companies ought to be able to deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions or not? they will cut off your coverage when you need it most. >> big government versus on your site. peter, let me ask you about a different health care issue. one of the things that have benefited republicans in recent

years is a steady movement in their direction among older whites. especially wite seniors. 58% voted for mccain in 2008. 63% voted republican in 2010 house elections. on the other hand, we are seeing consistent resistance in polls to the idea of converting medicare into a yum support or voucher system which governor romney has embraced even when there is the option of traditional medicare. how did a threat to the republican gains among white seniors, if at all, governor romney's embracing of the proposal will be? >> if the supreme court does something to stop implementation then both candidates will have to say what they are for. i would assume that the governor will be for -- allowing that people with pre-existing conditions get

health care. you can be pretty sure the government will be for not having lifetime caps. so that if the court throws out part or all of the law, the two candidates are going to have to say what they are for. not what happened in the past. what they are for. you know, one assumes on the goody stuff, the stuff that everybody is for, which is not lifetime cap or certainly not -- >> it is not clear that you can do those things without an individual mandate. >> it is certainly clear you can say it in the campaign. [laughter] >> it is hard to do when you know why he put it in in massachusetts. >> my question is about medicare. in the movement away from democrats, it is going to tense under obama. how big an opening does the medicare debate allow you to

talk to some of those voters who have moved away? >> i think the difference here is the president's approach on medicare as it has been on most budgetry issues is we have to take a balanced approach. when we find savings through fraud and the things that republicans have talked about through providers, the republicans ran a campaign against obama cutting medicare. the president has take an balanced approach to how we take programs like medicare and make sure they are stronger for future generations than not. i think an issue around vouchers and changing what has been a guaranteed benefit for seniors is going to be a prime discussion during the course of the campaign. i think it is going to play into it because it is going reflect an approach that extends beyond that to other issues. >> i have wondered, kevin, as republicans are doing better with these older whites and it is possible again with this election, even with this, romney would win 60% of white

seniors. does that make it more or less like they a president romney would pursue a ryan-type vision which is still heavily resisted by -- even though they would be exempt, all polling shows -- >> i disagree with the notion that you have proxy debates over legislation that belongs to somebody else or is named by somebody else. i believe that when you get into a presidential campaign you have the opportunity to talk directly to voters about your framework of principles and researches that you would support. i think the governor has talked about a lot of the principles that he agrees with, whether it is ryan or some of the debt commission recommendations. i think that is where we go back to something that joel mentioned earlier, which is a very value-driven debate. i think you can win a lot of these seniors and a larger swath of the electorate by changing way the status quo is operating in washington. that provides an opportunity.

i used to get that all the time. when the ryan bill was proposed or there were debt limit proposals on capitol hill, we tended to terrorist idea that you had to come in and have an up or down yes or no on any of these discussions that we were having in washington, d.c. and instead talk about what it is that you fundamentally believe as far as government reforms, spending reforms and deficit reforms, people outside of washington. they are not stuck in this emotion to commitment rally on capitol hill. >> i think that, you know, you want to focus again on the medicare issue and how that relates to seniors, and the whole ryan budget. there is a related issue to the ryan budget and governor romney's embracing it. it is going to blow a massive hole in the deficit. for a lot of those white voters that you might think care only about medicare, giving more tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires that are not paid

for is going to add $5 trillion to the deficit. it might be hard for them to defend. that piece is going to be impossible for them to defend. >> if we're having a debt and deficit dedate from here until november, we will be in extremely good position to win. >> before we go to the audience for questions, let me ask a broader question to sum up this part of our discussion. when we think of that last 8%, 10%, the people out there who are persuadeable, how important are these differences in ultimately driving their decisions? like performance, assessments of these individuals, how important -- how close do the candidates line up to what voters want line up to the ultimate choice they make? >> i think every voter who is still undecide and who is still soft in who they are going to

support are going to be critical to the efforts that are going to be made by both campaigns. you have to have a clear sense of who they are. what kind s of things are important to them. what is going to persuade them. we have a pretty good handle on that. we feel pretty confident about where we head towards november with those folksened that the contrast that we're talking about in terms of our economic values going forward is going to be pretty favorable. >> and does the issue contrast key? >> again, i think these things work together. the issues illustrate who you are, what you stand for and what you believe in. they become great contrast points for us whether we're talking about giving $60 billion in tax subiedies to oil companies again or talking about undoing wall street reform which governor romi wants and president obama doesn't. i think it becomes a framework

for where you're going to take the country. >> how do you address personality issues? are they separate? >> they are not separate. in different years, they make up different percentages. i think this is a year where personality is not as big a deal. the president does have an advantage on it. here is the other thing. 8% or 10%, different people in different states. colorado is a lot different than ohio. in virginia, they are a lot different than florida. and i think that -- so there is a different way of going after these people. >> personality is not as important but performance and issues. the backward-looking referendum versus the forward looking choice on issues. how do you see the importance of those two -- >> i'm not sure i understand. >> you said the personality is less important. the kind of issue debate. the forward looking debate about what each of them would do over the next four years versus the more backward looking assessment of obama's

performance? >> the backward-looking assessment sets the question, can i believe what these two guys say and who do i give more stock to their ideas? so you can't do it separately. they are part of a -- >> well, i see it as big versus small. it is amazing to me having watched the 2008 campaign that barack obama ran as a centrist doing very big things and bringing transformational change to washington. what we are seeing in the 2012 campaign is it has been driven by a lot of microtrends. let's say this about student debt and say this to women about contraception. that has been a difference for me. the campaign that is going to win, that is going to persuade those last 8% who have yet to make up their mind, it is going to be the campaign that is forward looking. the campaign it is a talking about big things.

file like we're at an advantage now because for all the scrutiny that we sort of expect on the governor's record, whether he was in his business -- they are talking about things that happened in 1994 when voters are acutely focused on what's happening in 2012. they want no know what is my life, my economic situation going to be like, my future going to look like on november 6, 2012. that's what we're focused on. we're going to try to keep it a big discussion about the direction of the country. >> quick point. i would reject kevin's premise that we're focused on small things. president obama went out and said this is a make or break moment for america's middle class and those working to get there. this is going to be a challenge and fight over who is going to create an economy that is built to last, which means it is durable, long-term and has real jobs. not about making a quick buck or a boom or bust cycle or a bubble economy.

it is about middle class people in america and what they expect and deserve. >> i i see that a lot of folks are saying let's get the persuadeable voter by tweeting this and making this big thing on youtube. >> let's go over here for the first question. and i'm going reserve the right to ask one final question after the audience. >> i'm a reporter with "catholic news service". how does either the voter or either campaign take into account what any president can do looking backward or looking forward with congress in gridlock? does that enter into people's thoughts about how they are going to vote for a president? how does that enter into the way you campaign based on, you might have the most wonderful ideas in the world, but if you can't get it through congress and may not be able to get it through congress, if congress

remains as intransigent. >> there is no question -- i'm sorry. there is no question that voters come to the process today with heightened cynicism for a host of reasons. they get immeshed in the news cycle. it is viral. vibrant. arguing nonstop on television in their faces. they bring a lot of cynicism. they also recognize that congress has put impediment up after president obama. i'm not saying that becomes determine native how they decide. but they know it. how congress went down 20 points. to where they stand today and it has never moved. you have an electorate out there that is very mindful because in the past three years what a president says doesn't just get done whether you a democrat in congress or a republican. it is very interesting.

i don't know if you have seen any polling data on this but i have. 2/3 of americans think the republicans control congress even though we have a split house because effectively they do. the filibuster in the senate has enabled the republicans to block anything and control the agenda in either house for a of years. >> we haven't asked this question in this cycle but i will tell you in previous cycles -- and this will surprise you. americans think they like dividing government. that's what the poll says. >> we've had results to that effect as well. unclear what it means. >> good morning. my question is regarding small business and most job generation coming from small business. can the panel differentiate the difference between the candidates on policy relative to small business? >> i think governor romney believes if you look at the way he talks about the tax regimes that we have, the regulatory regimes that we have, just over

the overall world view of what government's role is in helping spark growth and development in the private sector, you know, he believes that we should have more of an incentivized business to make their own decision and make better decisions and grow and hire their own people. the world view that we believe that the obama campaign has and the democrats have which is they often view the business sector as one where we have to take a punitive approach, whether it is the tax regime or the regulatory regime as far as success. i think that is just one of the main differences we have. obamacare as a vehicle for that discussion. taxes and regulations in there are hurting the ability for small businesses to plan and grow. that's the kind of debate that is affecting a lot of these local, regional and even our -- our national economy. >> look, the reality is that president obama has cut taxes and created tax incentives for

small businesses close to two dozen times in his administration and we have had over 24 months of private sector job growth that are happening with small businesses. we have manufacturing growth. greater than it has been at any time in 15 years. these are small businesses. the reason is because we believe, unlike governor romney, that to spark and spur manufacturing and small business entrepreneurship, you have to invest money in research and development. you have to create those incentives that allow them to take risks. you have to make sure there is lending there. we just signed the bill that had bipartisan support and president obama renewing the export and import bank. we had to fight republicans over it. so i think when it comes to looking at our track record and what we would do going forward with small businesses, there is nothing punitive about saving the auto industry.

i think we have a pretty good record and a pretty good contrast. by the way, again, when you want to go back and look at the record of what happened, governor romney in massachusetts, i don't know if he thought it was punitive when he cut over $4 million in investments for manufacturing but i'm sure there was a of job losses. >> i want one more from the audience. if we can get the microphone to the front and then i'll ask my last question. >> i have a question about the tom mann article. whether republicans are really the problem. has that made any difference in the political debate and give you a chance, mr. mann to comment on whether you think mr. romney agrees with that, how you might describe that

finding? >> without phrasing it as the problem -- there is no question that both parties are more i'd logically hom only house in than they were a decade ago. it is more of a coalition. they rely more on the voice of moderates. the republican electorate is more homogenous. that produces a more uniform set of elected officials in washington and there is greater homogenating and greater centrifugal force. there is greater pressure and concession to democrats as a part of building coalitions to get things done. that is a reality that i think a president romney would face. i don't think, you know, i

don't think norm and tom mann have had a big impact on the collective thinking to have house republican leadership. if you don't put like a -- a spin on it, they are not telling john boehner anything that he doesn't know. generally speaking, the republican little bit rat is more -- more moderate than the democrat. it is producing a a an ideological push. it creates greater resistance to deal with the other side no one raised their hand when asked if they would take a 10-1 spending cut to tax cut. it was a reflection from ule this from the base up. >> i haven't read the piece that you are referring to but the president had -- both houses of congress were democrat for two years. he produced a bill that they

continue to reject in obamacare. now the democratic senate voted ghetches bill in -- against this bill in unison. they have not passed a budget in how many years? >> i think you asked the effect? in highway, florida, -- ohio, florida, colorado. 99% haven't heard of the book. it is one of those inside the belt way things. >> my final question was kind of related to that. for the last hour and a half, we have heard -- and we have seen evidence that romney and obama are deeply diverge informant the path they offer to the -- divergeant in the path they offer. at least since 1980 if not 1964. on the other hand, the other

thread through this conversation, this could be the election that divides the country in half. whoever wins winning by a tipping point margin at the presidential level. the likelihood that everything will be more closely divided after the election than it is today. my question to each of you is when the parties are so deeply divided but the country is so closely divide, how does that work? how are we going to go forward in 2013, regardless of who wins, if we have a tipping point congress and an difference in what each side wants to do? >> in january, 2009, president obama had 70% approval rating. you don't get to to that point, 70%, without some republican support. a big chunk of independent support and having built up your base on the democrat side. i think that was very quickly squandered because for someone who had promised to govern as a

post partisan, i'll never forget when went down top democrat retreat in february of 2009 and offered one of the most partisan indictment of republican -- what was principled substantive opposition to the stimulus bill. only on the first couple of weeks of his administration. i think the failure there was to really -- they had mastered the pageantry of bip but it -- of bipartisan but never really mastered the pageantry of it. they have to go about building up that credibility not only with republicans but with a great deal of independence and democrats or republicans, depending on who wins. really shar shall public opinion. the president had an opportunity that he squandered very early on. >> with a narrow result, 49.9 to 49.1.

would that be a reason to reach out to the other side? >> i think you have to adjust all of your goal. you have to do whatever you can to reach your goals. we stand on the precipice of extraordinary economic challenges. the public is not paying attention right now. that may change over the course of this campaign. yes, there is going to have to be an ability to really forge both political consensus up on capitol hill as well as public opinion consensus. >> what does a very narrow divide mean? >> let me first give a resetting of kenn's context on partnership -- kevin's context. his vote total was around 53%. the 70% in january was never a concrete approval rating. there was euphoria about the fact that the country had just done something extraordinary. the numbers came down quickly

not because of anything else that happened but because they were going to settle down in some kind of partisan lines. i applaud kenn. he does a -- applaud kevin. he does a great job of this. i think in terms of who worked with whom when the president gave his jobs speech last september after again failing to agree on a balanced approach to deficit reduction when the republicans couldn't get a single vote, for as they put it, $1 in $10 in tax increases. he put ideas that were supported by republicans and democrats in the past and still republicans rejected eight out of 10 components in the jobs bill. i think what is going to happen with the next election, i think both sides know what tom mann and norm were talking about on the broad scale, what the woman over there asked about.

there is frustration, a cynicism about the way things work in this town. both parties in congress are going to have to figure out how to go back no these when they did work together and have to get over things like to filibuster and go back to majorities being able to vote for things and getting some things done. i think the american people, if you get to 2014 and they don't fix that, they are going to punish people again. what? the result is razor thin in november as it looks like it will be. >> i'm quite pessimistic about the ability of a post 2012 election to produce a leadership structure that will make massive change in the country. and if he does -- whoever wins does it by themselves, without the other party, i think that is certainly possible and i would -- something to think about. it is not an exact analogy. but what has happened and is

happening now and will culminate next tuesday in wisconsin might well be a foreshadowing of not necessarily the exact results in terms of what policies but how difficult it will be in this country to have a civil conversation about anything that matters. >> when you closely and deeply divided, that is a pretty volatile combination. you have been a great panel. i will construct the record, when mitch mcconnell made that statement, he was not standing up in front of the country. he was quoting a magazine. join me in thanking this terrific panel. thank you for joining us and we hope to see you again at other national events including our next take on the issue at the convention. victoria? >> thank you, ron and all of our panelists. we have a number of eventses that we will do throughout the year. we welcome you to all of them. we will be continuing these

discussions at the reand democrat conventions. we'll keep you informed. we have a couple of events coming up. one on june 7 where we will be covering the economy. we welcome you to join us there. we have a have a wonderful eveng up on july 18 where we will be taking a look at how women continue to reshape the economy, politics, and issues around the world. we welcome you to join us at that. thank you again for joining us. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> on a personal note, michele and i a grateful to the entire bush family for their guidance and example during our transition. i will always remember the gathering you posted for all of the former president. your kind words of

encouragement. plus, you also left me a really good tv sports package. [laughter] i use it. [laughter] >> last week portraits of george w. bush and laura bush were unveiled at the white house. it was their first visit since leaving office. >> in 1814 delhi medicine famously faced -- saved this portrait of the first and george w. now, michelle. [laughter] if anything happens. [laughter] there is your man. [laughter] >> watched the entire event online. >> bill clinton attended a fund- raiser in new york for president obama.

one of three campaign events. the former president and former president spoke for about that if a minute. -- 35 minutes. [applause] thank you very much. i am the warm-up act for the president, and i will attempt to bring him on while you are still warm. i want to thank eric for his elusive statement on the case of what is at stake in the selection and for his service in the states of new york. good thank you keith wright and stephanie for coasting this dinner, and carol mo'nique, -- maloney, thank you for your friendship and everything you have done.

i believe on his last days in the party, thank you for being one of the best democratic chairmen in the entire nation. i want to thank my longtime friend jon bon jovi for performing and being there for us. [applause] here is what i want to say to you. most of my life has nothing to do with politics. i work in my foundation and around the world. i work with democrats and republicans and independents, and half the time i do not know who i am working with politically, but i do spend hours studying economic trends and what is going on in america, and i care about the long-term debt of the country a lot of your gut i was the only

man to give you -- long-term debt of this country a lot. i hope what i say to you will have some weight, because i want you to say to everyone you see between now and november. i do not think it is important to reelect the president. i think it is essential to reelect the president for the future that our children and grandchildren deserve, and here is why. when i left office, we returned to the trickle-down conference. big tax cuts, mostly for people in my income group. i love saying that. since i never had them before, i did not know what it was like, and we've doubled the debt

of the country again, and after totally anemic growth for seven years and eight months, on the day before the financial collapse, median family income was $2,000 lower than the day i left office while the cost of health care and college had gone up, and then all of a sudden december comes and goes -- september 15 comes and goes. president obama was the only person ever to be elected before the first tuesday after the first monday in november. the bad news is he was elected president on september 15, 2008 company in the teeth of the worst recession since the great depression, a collapse of

enormous proportions. the last 500 years such financial crisis has taken five or ten years to get over, almost always 10 years. he said the vow to try to keep his original dream to return broadbased prosperity and to do it in a way that made a world with more partners than pure adversaries, and he did it under on imaginable circumstances. is my opinion that he has performed extremely well under very difficult circumstances, and i want to tell you why.

he set about to do what was necessary to prevent a financial collapse, to begin to create jobs again, to save 1 million or more state or local jobs for health care and fire departments. he set about to bring american manufacturing back, to make america a leading nation in the korean energy revolution that is sweeping the globe now -- in the green energy revolution that the sweeping the globe, in which only the republican party seems to deny it is necessary, and he set about to reform health care, knowing it was a moral, health, an economic issue because we are 18% of our money on health care. none of our competitors is over 11.8. that is one trillion dollars a year that could be going to

hire new people, and he did it while trying to make college more affordable because we have dropped from first to 15th in the world in the last decade, and the percentage of adults graduating with degrees, and while doing that, he presented a plan to deal with long-term debt of the country, understanding that when you have a total financial collapse, interest rates are zero, no private investment, you cannot have austerity now. you remember those austerity budgets? they came about for three reasons. spending controls, revenues, and economic growth. if you do not have economic growth, no amount of austerity

will balance the budget because you will always have revenues go down more than you can possibly cut spending, so what he did was to say growth today, restraint tomorrow, here is my budget, so build the economy, then take the burden of the debt off our children's future and avoid exploding interest rates and declining living standards it would impose on our children's future, so where are we? he offered politics of cooperation. he said, we will do an individual mandate. all of a sudden, they were not for it. all of the republicans who co- sponsored the bill were forced to vote against statehood --

against it. he said, let's have an infrastructure base so we can have private and public capital like other countries do. it has always been a bipartisan area. once he was for if they were all against it. where are we in spite of that? in the last 47 months, this economy has produced for 23 million private sector jobs -- 4.3 million private sector jobs. that is about what it produced on a monthly basis during my two terms coming back. why do the numbers show 3.7 million?

because congress refused to pass a bill to send money to localities to keep teachers on the job, to keep firefighters and police officers on the job. i was in wisconsin the other day. 73% of districts have laid teachers off. that is the austerity policy. the obama policy is that 4.3 million private sector jobs is 60% more private jobs then came into this economy in the seven years and eight months of the previous administration before the financial meltdown, and you need to tell people that, and what happened with manufacturing, it is growing again for the first time since the 1990's. an article said we are going to have two or 3 million manufacturing jobs in the next three years. jobs flooding back into this country.

what happened to clean energy and? governor romney goes out to a company that had a loan that did not work out and says, this is a bust. we rank first or second in the world in every survey in capacity to generate electricity from the sun and the wind. clean energy fell twice the size of the rest of the economy. this weekend germany became the first country in history to generate 23 gigawatts of electricity from the sun. i will tell you what it means. that is as much as 28 nuclear power clarence -- 20 big nuclear power plants. if we did what they did, that is 1 million jobs alone, and that

is what president obama has done on the job front, and where he could cooperate with people, the auto makers, they restructured the auto industry, and what happened? we have 80,000 more people making cars today than when he took office, and we save 1.5 million jobs that would have gone down the tube. america is back in the car business, and then labor management, the environmental groups, and the government got together and agreed on a schedule to raise car mileage standards, to doubled them, and it will create 150,000 new high-tech jobs. in health care just before you play dead on this issue let me give you two or three facts. for the first time in 50 years health-care inflation has been

at 4%. it has not been that low in 50 years. it has been killing people economically. americans got $1.3 billion in refunds on the insurance policy. 2.6 million ill people 26 years of age or younger are on their parents' health care now because of the bill the president signed. i spent a lot of time with people in the health-care business, with doctors and people who manage medical practices and people who manage insurance plans. i do not know of anyone who wants to repeal obamacare. i do not know anybody who does not believe we should start paying for performance and not a procedure in health care and improve our quality, and that is what people in the health- care business are doing today

because that law passed, and finally, every day -- never a day goes by that i do not see an article about the burden of student loans, but when student loan reform is implemented, the cost of loans will go down and no one will have to drop out of college because of the cost, because everybody will be able to pay their loans back as a small fix% of their income over 20 years. at one bill can take us back to number one in terms of college graduates because no one will ever have to drop out again. and his plan to reduce the debt as extraordinary spending restraint, including in medicare, as modest tax

increases, and is phased in as we grow the economy. his opponent who says he has got a better idea was governor of the states that was 47 and the country in job growth. he promised he would reduce the debt, but when he left office the debt was going up, and his plan is to go back to the bush program, except on steroids. good cut out everything that helps middle class people, cut out everything that helps poor people, and all non-partisan analogies say the plan were they have 1 trillion dollars to what the debt is going to be over the next who years if we do not do anything, and all the plans say if the president's

plan were implemented, it would reduce the debt by several trillion dollars if we do not do anything, but gross now, restraint later. the romney republican plan is austerity and more unemployment now and blow the lid off later at a time we are worried about higher interest rates. what is the difference here? shared prosperity verses continued prosperity and high unemployment. constant conflict and divide and conquer. this is a big clear election. it is important to say he has done an amazing job of making our country more secure, more safe, more peaceful, and building a world with more partners than adversaries, and

that is very important. [applause] he has had to get this done well people as recent as last week were still saying he was not born in america. he has had to get this done with the house of representatives that had one of the tea party members planning members of the communist party, and neither the nominees or the leaders rebuked him for saying that. this is not the 1955 period of lis joe mccarthy could skate on the fact there were at least -- this is not the 1950's. at least mccarthy could not say their work who some communists are round. no one has been a communist in more than a decade.

you have to take the facts out there, take the facts of the economy, health care, education, and the fact is we have gotten economic policy that has a real chance to bring america back. why did you think long-term interest rates -- republicans will say obama is such a big spender and interest rates are going to go of the roof. interest rates were one quarter of 1%. they are giving away the money. you are laughing, but why are they doing that? people believe america has a solid economic strategy for the long run, and you would have thought republicans would increase austerity and jobless policies of what they used to call old europe? i never thought they would say,

let's to the eurozone economic policies. we are laughing. this is serious. too much politics is fat-free. think about the world you want your children -- is fact free. think about the world you want your children and grandchildren to have. you have got to have the right captain of the ship, and i am depending on you to take care of future generations by making sure that capt. is president barack obama. bring it arm. -- bring it on. [applause] ♪

>> hello, new york. thank you. well, thank you, everybody. thank you. thank you. thank you so much. thank you. everybody, have a seat. thank you. i plan on getting four more years, because of the. let me say some thank yous. first of all, you had an outstanding attorney general, please give him a big round of applause. he is doing the right thing on behalf of consumers, working people all across this great state. he is having an influence all

across the country. i want to thank my dear friend, john bon jovi, who has been a great supporter. [applause] i have to say that the only thing worse than following john is following john and bill clinton. i want to acknowledge carolyn maloney. [applause] thank you. thank you for the great work you have done. i want to thank all of you who have helped to make this event possible. most of all, i want to thank the guy behind me here. president clinton and i had a chance to talk of a dinner before we came up. -- over dinner before we came out. we talked about a lot of things.

we talked about basketball. we talked about our daughters. we agreed you cannot be daughters -- beat daughters. [applause] sons out there, we love you too. we both agree we have improved or gene pool because we married outstanding women. [applause] but, whenever the topic, whatever the subject, what i was reminded of when i was talking to president clinton is just how incredibly passionate he is about this country. and the people in it. you do not talk to bill without hearing at least 30 stories

about extraordinary americans who are involved in clean energy or starting a whole new project to teach kids math or figuring out how to build some new energy-efficient building. you name it. it is that passion and connection that he has to the american people that is infectious. it is a curiosity and a love for people that is transforming the world. i could not be prouder to have called and president. i could not be prouder to know him as a friend. i cannot be more grateful for him taking the time to be here. [applause]

i thank him for putting up with a very busy secretary of state. [applause] now, the reason i am here tonight is not just because i need your help. it is because the country needs your help. if you think about why we came together back in 2008, it was not about me. it was not even just about the democratic party. it was about a common set of values that we held dear. a set of beliefs that we had about america. a belief that if you are willing to work hard in this country, you should be able to

make it. you should be able to find a job that pays a living wage. it should be able to own a home, send your kids to college, retire with dignity and respect. that everybody in this country, regardless of what he looked like, where you come from, whether you are black, white, gay, straight, hispanic, disabled, if you are willing to put in the effort, this is a place where you make dreams happen. by you putting in that effort, not only do you do well for yourself, you build the country in the process. we have seen that those studies is -- those values were eroding.

the bedrock contact we make with each other was starting to diminish. we had seen a surplus, a historic surplus, wasted away on tax cuts for folks who did not need them and were not even asking for them. suddenly, it turned to deficit. we had seen two wars fought on a credit card. we had seen the recklessness of a few almost bring the entire system to collapse. there was a sense that, although a few of us were doing a really, really well, you had a growing number of folks who were struggling to get by. what we set out to do in 2008

was reclaim the basic american promise. it was not easy. many of you who supported me, you did not do it because it was easy. when you support a guy named bachus and obama -- barak hussein obama, you know that is not a sure thing. you sensed the country was ready for change. we did not know. we knew there had been a decade of problems. that since this man had left office, we had been going in the wrong direction. we did not realize how this would culminate in the worst financial crisis since the great depression. the month i was sworn in, it hundred thousand jobs were lost. we have lost -- 800,000 jobs were lost. we had lost 1 million before the election place.

we did not give up. we did not quit. all across this country. you had folks who dug in. they focused on what was necessary. i do believe we implemented the right policies. when folks said we should let detroit go bankrupt, we said, no, we are not going to let 1 million jobs go. we are not going to let an iconic industry waste away. we brought workers and management together. gm is back on top. with some more market share than we have seen in a long time. manufacturing is coming back. even though that decision was not popular, we made the right decision. we made the right decision in

starting to free up credit again so that companies could borrow. we made the right decision when it came to insuring that all across this country, states that help to keep teachers and firefighters on the job. we made the right decision in making sure we used this opportunity to rebuild big chunks of america. we made a lot of good policy decisions, but the reason we came back is because of the american people and their resilience and strength. they made it happen. they decided, i will retrain for -- foryou're a good school. of one of the great privileges

of being president is you go to every part of the country, and it makes you optimistic about the american people. it has made me more optimistic and we have all the ingredients for success. we have seen more than 800,000 jobs created this year alone. this is where you come in. all the effort stands to be reversed. determination

politics would trump what was needed to move this country forward. your we have tried to an -- they have tried to take a spike through the exact same policies that have got us into this -- take us back to the exact same policies that got us into this mess in the first place. we are not going back. we are going forward. we have worked too hard and too long to move us in the right direction. good and we are not going

backwards. we are going forward. we need your help. a lot of folks are still working -- looking for work, too many people in those homes are under water. this election is going to be more consequential than 2008. keep in mind, i was running

against a republican who believed in climate change, believe in immigration reform, believe in campaign finance reform, had some history of working across the aisle. we have profound disagreements, but there was an agreement to create jobs and growth. and we do not have that this time during good this time. we did we do not have that this time. mitt romney has a beautiful family, but his vision of how you move this country forward is the same agenda as the previous administration except on steroids, so it is not enough

just to maintain tax cuts for the wealthy. we are going to double tax cuts. we're going to do more of the same. it is not enough to roll back regulations we put in place to make sure the financial system is transparent. we are going to do even more for regulations that keep our airplane reading our air clean air and water clean or 20 or 30 years. when you looked at the budget, they are not just talking about rolling back obamacare. they are talking about rolling back the new deal, and that is

not an exaggeration. there is an enormous amount at stake, and we are going to have to make sure we are describing clearly what is at stake, and we should not be afraid of this debate, because we have the better argument. it is not just the jobs or the young people with health insurance. it is not just the fact that millions of young people are getting grants with the capacity to go to college that i am proud

of, but it is also the fact that when you look at our history, america has not grown with the philosophy that is you are on your own. that is not how we built this country. give the reason we became an economic superpower is because for all our individual initiatives, all our belief in personal responsibility, despite those things, there are certain things we do better together. creating a public school system and works so everyone gets agitated, we understand that.

he understood there are certain things and we'd do better to gather, investments in the national academy of sciences. building the golden gate range, these things we did together. it created a platform for everybody played by the same rules. the reason why wall street is the center of finances because we have rules and plays the maid was the most transparent and we do we have rules and plays the maid is the most transparent --

we had rules that made this transparent. that has been a strength and not a weakness. what was true in the past is true now as well, so that is what is the stake in this election. i am not going to go back to the days when our young people could not go to college here again we are not going to go back to the day were a 30 million people could not get health insurance, where senior suddenly find prescription drugs more expensive again.

we're not going to go back to where we eliminate funding for planned parenthood. i want my daughters to have the same opportunities as our sons. i want our women to have the same ability to control their health care decisions as everybody else. [applause] we are not going back. we are not going to go back to the days when you cannot serve in our military and admit to it is you loved. we are moving forward with an agenda of dignity and respect for everybody. we are not going to go back to the days when people thought there was a conflict between economic growth and looking after our environment. we are not going back to those days. [applause] but, we are going to have to fight for it.

this is not going to be an easy race. because of the citizens united decision, we are spending hundreds of millions of dollars all across this country, and president of numbers -- unprecedented numbers. there has never been this amount of spending before. in newspaper just printed, somebody abided negavtive ads. 7% of our advertisements have been positive. -- 70% of our advertisements have been positive. 70% of theirs have been negative. people are still scared about the future. what the other side is counting on is fear and frustration. that that is going to be good enough.

they are not offering any new ideas. all they are offering are the same old ideas that did not work then, they will not work now. even when it comes to their big issue, the deficit and the debt. as president clinton just mentioned, the truth is the two presidents over the last 30 years, 40 years, who had the lowest increases in government spending, you are looking at them right here. they are on the stage. [applause] they are on this stage. the agenda we put forward which says, let's put people to work right now, rebuilding roads and bridges and the vintages back in the classroom to accelerate growth -- and putting teachers back in the classroom to

accelerate growth. that is a recipe that works. we have seen it work before. we saw it work in the 1990's. that will allow us to make sure we can still invest in our future. as i travel around the world. and the president clinton does as well. you talk to people -- nothing gets me more frustrated than when i hear reports about america's decline. a run on the world, there is nobody who would not trade places with us. we have the best universities, the most productive workers. the best entrepreneurs, scientists, we have all the ingredients we need to make it work.

now we just need the best politics. now we just made the best politics. that is what this election is going to be all about. the bottom line is this, all of you, you are going to have to work, not just as hard as we did in 2008, we are going to need to work harder. one of the things we learned was that for all of the negative ads, for all of the politics, for all of the distortions and nonsense, when folks come together, when citizens come together and insist it is time for a change, guess what, change happens. what was true then it is just as true now. i want you to know that it is true my hair is grayer. i have not caught up to billy

at. -- bill yet. we end up showing a few dings and dents along the way. that is inevitable. i am more determined them up and i was in -- now then i was in 2008. i am more inspired by america now. i have seen more of this country. i have seen its strength and its passion. i have seen what is possible. i have seen the changes we have already brought. it should make as confident

about the changes we can bring about in the future. it means that we are going to be able to do even more to double clean energy. it means we are going to be able to do even more to bring back manufacturing. we are going to do more to put people back to work. we are going to do more to make sure we are in asian of laws and immigrants -- a nation of laws and immigrants. i am only going to get it done because of you. i used to say that i am not a perfect man. michelle will tell you. i will never be a perfect president. no president is.

i promised you i would always tell you what a thought, where i stood. i would wake up every day, just thinking about how i can make the lives of the american people a little bit better. i worked as hard as i knew how to make that happen. i have kept that promise. i have kept that promise because i still believe in you. i hope you still believe in me. [applause] if you are willing to join me this time out, and knocked on doors and make phone calls and talk to your friends, i promise you, we will finish what we started in 2008. we will not go backwards. we will go forward. we will remind the entire world why the united states of america is the greatest nation on earth. [applause] thank you, new york, i love you. god bless you. god bless america. [applause]

♪ [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> scott walker faces a recall election against the milwaukee mayor. we will bring in last week's debate tomorrow at 6:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span. tomorrow night, will have live election coverage of the recall results, including a victory in a concession speeches. that is on c-span 2. >> over the past four years, a pulitzer prize-winning author has been researching and writing his 10th book. the research included traveling remarks from chris matthews on politics and the presidential race

been writing about the president. he also toured the family sites in kansas to find the origin of his mother's family. it comes out in book stories on june 19. we will give you exclusive video as we traveled with the author in january of 2010, join us, and later that same night, your phone calls, e-mails, and tweets. >> gretchen morgenson talks about the financial crisis. she co-authored the book -- the financial crisis. he co-authored the book -- she co-authored the book "reckless endangerment." this is just over an hour.

>> welcome to today's lecture but gretchen morgenson, "absence of accountability for the 2008 financial crisis." a service director of the college. -- i served as the director of the college. this is part of a monthly lecture series. the kirby center marks an extension of the commitment to teach in the constitution. to teach in the enduring and --

the kirby center seeks to inspire citizens to return as portables to the central place in american public life. -- those principles to their central place in american public life. if you are viewing this online, or via c-span, you can submit a question by e-mailing us at kirbylecture@hillsdale.edu. i will now ask bailey jones to introduce our speaker. she is completing an internship here this summer as part of the washington internship program which has sent our

undergraduates students to washington for a study a broad program, as we like to joke. [applause] >> gretchen morgenson is the assistant business and financial editor at the new york times. in 2002, she received a pulitzer prize prior to joining the times, she worked as an assistant managing editor at forbes magazine. she has authored and co-authored several books. she received her b.a. in english. today, she will be speaking on the topic of the absence of accountability for the 2008 financial crisis. please towbin me in welcoming -- joined me in welcoming gretchen morgenson. [applause] >> thank you so much pitted it is a joy for me to be here and

to learn more about the remarkable college. i have a junior in high school who is shopping for colleges. i am going to do a little bit diligent. i appreciate the invitation to come and speak today about the issue of accountability for the financial crisis. we are still trying to dig our way out of it. it is something that few people would have predicted that four to five years after the events of 2007 and 2008, we are still trying to understand what happened, who did it, why, and how. just going back in time a little bit, i was at forbes magazine for many years before i joined the new york times. one of the draw is of my jobs was i could write about companies doing the right thing,

as well as companies doing the wrong thing. since i joined the times, it has felt to me like it has been all scandal. we had the long term capital management hedge fund debacle. we had the internet bubble. we had accounting scandals, enron, world come. booms and busts, bank failures, it has been an amazing 14 years. i have had a ringside seat for all of it. nevertheless, i did feel the material that was thrown at me and other journalists in the years leading up to the crisis made all of the previous crises seem like child's play. now, i feel like i am an archaeologist at a historic site, still digging, uncovering overwhelming evidence of deeply unethical activities that

flourished during the mortgage mania. simply put, the amount of land and cheating that went on during the years leading up to the crisis is almost unimaginable. i am not sure we even know all of it yet. first, we had lenders who made loans to borrowers who cannot repay them. the loans carry the enormous fees and profits. they sold them to wall street. the executives did their part by putting a toxic loans into mortgage securities. those who bought the securities were told that the loans were high-quality. that they met certain standards. this was not true. when the loans failed, the only

request that these investors had was to sue the firms that sold the securities. then there were the ratings agencies who, according to some, knew that the loans were questionable. they assigned high grades to the securities that held them anyway. the money generated was too compelling. borrowers played their part. desperate to get in on the rise in real estate market, there were too happy to fit about their income -- they were too happy to fib above their income. while these activities were going on, financial regulators, the people charged with identifying and eliminating problematic practices, were cheering on the miscreants. even after danger signs had

become obvious, officials at most regulatory agencies seemed bent on protecting the financial innovation that had fueled the crisis. they recoiled at the blocking of complex of mortgage products on the grounds that they could increase the benefits of home ownership. it was claimed to be a win-win for everyone. they rhapsodize about the marvels of derivatives and how they spread risk rather than concentrate it. looking back, that was a whole lot of bad stuff. those were just the practices during the boom years. since then, during the bus, we

have had a raft of bad behavior, dubious practices surrounding the foreclosure practices. representatives of banks forged legal documents, filed phony papers with the court, and flooded hundreds of years of property law. taken together, the boom and the bust, i would argue this is a breathtaking series of ethical breakdowns and compliance the years. it led to one of the most shattering financial crisis in our history. importantly, it has generated deep questions about whether our country and those in its upper echelon of business and government have lost the moral compass. populist capitalism, like our system, is hugely beneficial to the vast majority of people.

an ethical tradition is needed for it to work. when you have senior executives walking away with hundreds of millions of dollars, leaving shareholders and innocent taxpayers holding the bag, it becomes extremely dangerous. as more and more jobs disappear across the country, the outside pay amassed by corporate executives becomes even more polarized in. this is especially so when taxpayers are asked to bail out reckless companies. the question that remains to be in third, it will have to be tackled by people far better than i, is why did greed and unethical behavior goes so viral during his recent period? viral during his recent period? one explanation lies in a