-- and has often been in vote on behalf of cabinet members. the head of the epa during the reagan administration. also during the clinton administration. host: president invoked it. the cabinet secretary themself cannot claim -- guest: cabinet secretary does not limit himself. janet reno went to clinton and said she wants to withhold documents, i should not have to turn them over. clinton said ok, i will give you what you need. host: boston. tony. good morning. we're listening. caller: good morning. why is it republicans seem to have more power than the president? if you are going to be president, you should have more

power. we do not need a president if we are going to have another party. i think there are a lot of things that should be changed in the constitution feared he would make our future in a world a lot better. guest: well, there is a famous saying that the reason for the separation of powers in the constitution is not to make things function efficiently but to control each of the powers. one of the checks or controls on president obama or president bush is that the congress can investigate and use the power of a subpoena. that would be changed to cut that off. host: yesterday, the speaker of the house said in a press briefing that the president is

invoking -- the white house is involved in this decision making. is that necessarily the case or is it possible that there are balances of power issues? is it a tipoff that and in ministration is trying to hide its participation? this time and in past times. >> i saw the comment by speaker boehner because president obama said the white house was involved. that is not what history says. clinton claimed it for janet reno and there was no white house involvement. what happened was when the attorney general is faced with interests of questioning, the attorney general goes to the president and says, will you assign this piece of paper?

then, the fight before and after that is about the justice department. host: next up, wisconsin. independent. caller: the gentleman just answered my major question about where executive privilege is detail. the second question i have is when -- which president did you sit? host: let us put some more meat on the bonds. is it in the constitution? guest: there is no clause in the constitution saying the president can do this. part of the constitution that speaks to his powers is article two. that does not have that much in there. you have to construct some of what he can do from history. when you have something claimed

as far as -- discussed as far as george washington history provides the missing clause in the constitution. host: can you tell us about the historic circumstances in which washington invoked it? guest: i am not a dead certain. i do know it was discussed around the cabinet table which had three or four other people. he said he had a privilege but he did not decide to use it. the two most famous inquiries at the george washington time from work the house looking at his treasury secretary, alexander hamilton. and also the army had botched a site with the indians and it was a great defeat and the congress said, we have to look into this and see just where did

we go so wrong. host: is more detail on that from cbs. 1792, congress was facing disastrous battles that cost hundreds of lives. president george washington decided that the president had the right to refuse to turn over documents if that would harm the public. in the end, washington gave lawmakers what they saw but the idea of executive privilege to crude from that. guest: yes. the first chapter in the book on executive privilege was st. clair's inquiry about the military defeat. a defeat by native americans, is that a big deal? at that time, that was a huge disaster. it wanted to look into something that was not quite the vietnam war but sort of like it. host: carolina.

john, republican. hello, john. caller: good morning. i have a few short questions. is it legal for the next administration to look into the records that eric holder is holding now? is there any certain type of criteria or litmus test they have to meet to invoke executive privilege? kanner eric holder go in front of congress -- can eric holder go in front of congress and make false statements and then take them back? is he immune to making false statements in changing his mind?

host: let us deal with the bursting. can claims of executive privilege extend past your service in office? guest: they certainly can. it is not unusual for a former official to be under subpoena. it happened in the bush white house where one of his top aides was a former official at the time of the investigation. host: are their criteria by which president can invoke executive privilege? guest: they are not fixed in a legal code. the issue here is whether the documents that were generated in the justice department responded to congressional inquiries at --

whether they can be looked at. that is traditionally a deliberative process issue because how can you deal with congressional committees unless you are allowed to discuss how to deal with congressional committees? the delivery of process category is one of its main subcategories. host: on twitter -- guest: sometimes it protect guilty people. often, it does not. the famous example that caused the start with senator mccarthy looking into the eisenhower administration's record trying to hunt down anybody who would have taken the amendment. history has said that eisenhower was not protecting guilty people. he was protecting innocent people.

to this day, we say it is a mccarthy investigation if it goes after people or innocent but whose lives would be destroyed by the inquiry. host: can and attorney general commit perjury by qualifying -- falsifying information before congress? guest: they are subject to perjury charges. indeed, during the nixon administration, the attorney general was prosecuted for the related obstruction of congress in convicted. attorney general stas are undere law. attorney general holder knows real well what would happen if he were lying. host: next up as cleveland. a democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. you answered this question a million times but in terms of

the executive privilege, is it not illegal protection during an ongoing investigation? what is it? it seems to me that executive privilege should be used during this kind of investigation or -- you know, i see the chart you posted. clinton used this many times. bush used it this many times. what is the reason for it being used? thank you. guest: i have not answered that question. i cannot because we do not have a nice neat set of categories. you raised an important point. ongoing justice investigations are protected by executive privilege against being probed by congress. earlier, this committee was demanding wiretaps.

it was part of an ongoing open investigation. they backed off and said, the understand we should not go in there. that is part of what the process -- it does not consist of looking up a cold summer. rather, sterilize the's committee knows what it is asking for and the attorney general widens what he is willing to provide. host: two viewers on twitter -- host: what is your answer? guest: i think if we did not have president's claiming that over the last 200 years but we are starting now, it would not

get terry for. people in the congress and people in the executive branch and justice department to look up those precedents. if you look at the legal documents they are exchanging, they are full of citations. that is what lawyers -- that is how lawyers think. host: the u.s. legal system makes it right. is that correct? guest: yes. another way of looking at it to -- it is a political fight. it is a political struggle over legal issues. host: is that all is the case? even the washington one was a political fight. between the congress and the administration. guest: that is right. if the president, even george washington, the one who said i cannot tell lie, if the president is on weak political ground, he does not dare involved. host: next is louisiana.

alfred as we talk about executive privilege. caller: good morning. i appreciate you all showing the show. what did the professor think about the congress at the time of attorney-general gonzales? also with the investigation with the week. i heard a caller say something about this may have been an issue where the president wants to gain control. the professor unknowingly may have went along with that.

the president did not introduce gun-control policy. somehow, the justice department let them go into mexico -- this is a conspiracy. [unintelligible] you have to be aware of the things coming from different places. that's all i wanted to say. guest: well, let me take those in reverse order. i do not wish to get into the details, but you are able to see by the fact that 20 republicans wanted to contend for holder, it was a highly partisan matter.

there are things related to that on the news. as far as the seven u.s. attorneys issue, this was started late in president bush's term, all around 2006, 2007. as far as when the investigation took place. he kept it up to the end of his administration, but at that time, it lost out. it was a win for congress. host: okay. we have answered a few of these questions. i will read the tweet -- host: what does it permit the president to keep secret? can he declared it over anything?

guest: absolutely not. the congress would be out of business as an investigating body of the president could claim it for anything. what happens is as an investigation goes on, in this case, what attorney-general holder will not turnover -- he has narrowed and narrowed and tell it comes to one court category, which is the deliberation about how to respond to the house republican 's inquiry. you cannot say no to congress. you have to narrow down what you will resist on. host: the front page story in " the washington times." the house committee

investigating fast and furious has received 7600 documents by republican lawmakers say none approved the gunrunning probe of -- host: in your view of this, do you expect it to be solved? is there any historic process? guest: there have often been solutions reached at the 11th- hour, so to speak. i think that if the vote on the

floor of the house was put off, there could be a solution. the attorney general has offered to turn over more documents in a briefing. that could be the basis for a solution. host: that is it for our time. this story will unfold as the house gets close to that intended vote on tjis. thank you for -- on this. thank you for being here. we will take a quick break. our final segment is america by the numbers. we will look at hispanics in the u.s. the news event, both the president and mitt romney spoke to the large gathering of latino elected officials in florida. we will be right back. ♪

>> if all of us decide that we will tighten our belts and spend less, guess what? we all end up poor because all of our spending happens at the same time. this is the stuff we have known since the 1930's. if everybody spends at the same time because there is too much

debt, that is self-defeating. >> who is going to tell them the truth? we have to tell them the truth. if we don't tell them the truth, our country fails. we must succeed in this. we will succeed in this. we will reach them through the media and through politics. and for pop culture. pop culture -- we should not be afraid to get out there in quit preaching to the choir. but get out there in the influence jurors. >> the c-span network covers pipanelists. watch them on line at the c-span video library. "washington journal" continues. host: it is time for our installment of america by the numbers. we will look at the hispanic population of the u.s. in its trends. let me introduce you to roberto

ramierz at the u.s. census bureau. he is the chief of the ethnicity and ancestry statistics branch. mark lopez looks at numbers about the hispanic community in the u.s. -- is the associate director of the hispanic center research. i appreciate you being here to add color to the numbers. we need to start off with understanding what the term hispanic means because we variously here definition such as latino, hispanic your people who are not are confused about when or when to invoke it. in the eyes of gathering data, how do you define it? guest: great question. the way that census bureau defines the hispanic origin or the termers panic is following the guidelines -- term hispanic is following the guidelines set by the law.

there are two categories. one who is a person who is hispanic or latino or someone who is not hispanic or latino. the definition of hispanic or latino according to the guidelines is anybody who can trace their origin through any of the spanish-speaking countries in central and south america, including mexico, a puerto rico, spain. in fact, anybody who self identifies themselves as hispanic could be of any race. host: you do so much work with the community. do you have a different definition when you look at who is hispanic? guest: anybody who tells us they are hispanic, there were hispanic. we do asked -- do you have hispanic origin? we list different countries. however, it is up to anybody to sell identified. if you say you are, we count

u.s. hispanic. there are some interesting things to note about the latino community. it is interesting that even though we have these terms of hispanic or latino, all our opinion shows that when it comes to these terms, half of hispanics do not like either term. they most often prefer their country of origin term or ancestral homeland term. host: we will put the phone numbers on the screen for your involvement in this segment. it is on the hispanic community in the u.s. if you would like to make a comment, you are welcome to. there has been discussion about hispanic political activity and what that means for the 2008 election. going back to definitions, all of you have seen the official government question. they brought them along today.

let me ask you when we look at these numbers, do they include people who are here legally and illegally? guest: the numbers i am going to talk about in the upcoming discussion includes everybody. we have no question on legal status. in the senses, on the screen, this is hispanic origin questions used in the census. these are also used in surveys. host: we often hear that people who are here illegally avoid census takers because they do not want to get caught up in the process. how do you account for them? do you project beyond what you are able to gather to give a truer sense of the size of the population? guest: when we in the murray households, we just go ahead and in numerous everybody there.

we do not ask about legal status. we have a question on the american community survey but it is not on the census itself. you mentioned the term latino. if you look at the hispanic origin question, we actually do ask if you are latino. host: let us jump into the numbers because you spoke about how people self identify with their country of origin. the census bureau has asked country of origin and what we learn from this number here? mexican origin by far outweighs all the others. guest: most people might think the hispanic population -- it is not a monolithic group. mexican origin population comprises the largest group out of the total. 52 million hispanics, they

compose 32 million. about 63%. followed by a border --, cuban, salvadorean, dominican. host: amongst these countries, to politics differ? guest: when you look at public opinion polls and ask people about which party they identify with, across all groups of latinos, you do see very strong identification or leaning towards the democratic party. when you look in the state of florida and go to registrations in miami county, they're heavily weighted towards republicans. there are more hispanics registered as republicans than democrats. miami has half of the nation to get cuban-american population. that gives you a sense of the differences across country of origin groups and political party identification.

the southwest to northeast, you will see more latinos leaning towards democrats. those have large mexican or dominican populations. host: we have our phone lines/time. we welcome people of hispanic origin who would like to be part of our conversation. tell us about your own or family experience in coming to the country and also, for others to changing face of america. these numbers will detail how america is changing. this chart looks at hispanics in this country from the 1970's 3 the present and projects what it will be like to 2050. guest: this graph shows the hispanic population in million starting with 1970. this was the first sentence we had -- census the half. this was estimated at 9.1 million. as we move over time, the actual read bar are the census numbers.

the green border results from the national estimates. now we have estimated 52 million. between 1970 and 2011, this population group -- group i ordered 50%. if you focus on the right hand, those are projections. these are based on future fertility, mortality, immigration rates. by the year 2015, the population will be about 133 million. host: it is important to put that in context of the size of the country. that is the set of -- this set of numbers shows that for us. guest: this shows similar information. the percentage of the population that is hispanic origin. 1970, 4.5% of the total population. now, 16.7%.

if you look into the projected numbers, by the year 2015, one in every three u.s. residents will be hispanic. host: talk about the changing face of this country. african-americans in the u.s. -- about 12%. as of now, hispanics are 3% higher than that. we are not looking at other groups which have grown, such as asian groups. what does that mean for the culture of the u.s.? guest: the u.s. is changing. it is also interesting to ask hispanics and asian-americans if they see themselves as a typical american. in our most recent survey, half of hispanics see themselves as a typical american. what is seen about the hispanic population growth is it has started in this decade -- most of it comes from birth in the

u.s. most of the growth of the hispanic population will be amongst people who are born here in the u.s. that means that the experience will not be a new immigrant experience. host: gentlemen, let us work in our viewers. we begin with steve in illinois. good morning you're welcome. caller: the morning. -- good morning. what impact does the jobless rate have on the latino community? guest: the unemployment rate for hispanics dropped and nearly matched the unemployment rate of non-hispanics in the u.s. by 2006. the recession impact latinos early on. they were the first to be hit

hard by the recession. the unemployment rate is about 11% for hispanics. when we asked them about this, they say they know somebody who has been unemployed. when you ask them about the future, they say their current finances might be difficult but they expect things to improve. even though there is an 11% unemployment rate, they are optimistic about their financial futures. host: our twitter community, we are instituting a hash tag for or america by the number segment because it is friday. it will help your comments stand out for us and to track your interest in statistics. #abtn. add that to your tweets. we will have a better chance of getting through to it this morning. let us hear from brandon.

caller: my question for you this morning is regarding why hispanics are considered a different race. in this country, we generally identify -- i am a cuban- american. i identify as white. i wonder why there is a different categorization for hispanics and latinos. guest: as i mentioned previously, we follow the guidelines set by the u.s. office of management and budget for 11 -- 4 ethnicity. ethnicity and a hispanic origin are two different concepts. there is a separate race question. you ask if they are hispanic and then about the race. host: another view about

population growth, tell us about this -- guest: this pie chart showing the growth of the hispanic population. the total u.s. growth between 2000 and 2011. it has grown by 30 million. 55 put 5% was actually attributed -- 55 the dow 5% was actually treated to the hispanic population. host: the takeaways that the hispanic population is growing faster than all other populations. guest: according to the results from the 2010 census, the asian population is growing as fast. host: okay. our next call. in mexico. -- new mexico. mark. caller: mr. lopez, i live where

a lot of mexicans are. hispanics. i feel that we should be american, not split up. why can we not be all americans? guest: we see this in our own public opinion surveys. we have best latinos about this. among hispanics, a quarter preferred to call themselves american first. or american most often. that is something we have seen over the course of a number of public opinion surveys. when you take a look at the latino community, is a community that has many different opinions, particularly when it comes to identity. some people prefer to call themselves by their country of origin. those who are of third or fourth generation in the u.s. prefer to call themselves americans. i think it depends on who you

talk to and help people choose to see their own identity. host: okay. this question -- guest: that is a great preludin to this chart we are going to show you. each is natural births-debt that steals the growth -- is birth versus death that feels the growth. this is between 2000 and 2010. 64% of the growth is attributed to births. inverses migration. i want to say that migration does explain a bigger portion of the growth. 36 board said -- 36%. it is births now. that is what we project in the upcoming decades. host: i'm going to ask this

question. it is on twitter. a person was asking it is the increased -- the higher level of birth rate due to more hispanics being catholic and african- american. guest: interesting question. i do not think i have any evidence to point to that. it is true that hispanics are more likely than african- americans to have more children in their families. when you look at immigrant hispanics, you will see that they are more likely to be living in households where you have a husband and wife together with children. when we look at the latino community, there are higher birthrates. i do not know if it is linked to catholicism. interesting question. host: i keep getting you in how water. do you drove down and ask people motivations for things like deciding to have children or not? guest: it is harder to craft a question which gets at what you want without it being biased. we try to drill down.

not necessarily on this question. host: just on the hard numbers, do you compare birthrates in households of different ethnicities? guest: we know hispanics tend to have more children. that is true. if you look at the total fertility rate, the average number of children that would be born to a woman over her lifetime, the hispanic fertility rate is 2.7% for a woman versus the total population, 2.0%. yes. host: thank you. here is hispanic origin by a in the year 2011. what can we learn by looking at this? guest: we have known that the hispanic population is a very young population. for example, if you look on the left-hand side of the craft, the blue bar, everyone under the age of 18, hispanics comprise about 24% of the total population.

if you look on the right-hand side of the graph, the population 65 and over, about 7.2%. the hispanic population is young. a median age of 27. compared to about 37 years for that total population. host: what does the relative youth of the population -- what issues does that bring along? guest: education. education is number one or number two up there with jobs and health care. what is interesting about this is to talk about the vote . when you look at those eligible to vote, 18 years of age, about one-third are under the age of 30. 18 to 29. a relative representation of use amongst the latino vote is higher. young people are first-time voters and are figuring out for the first time where to go vote.

this may impact participation rates amongst hispanics in national elections. host: this is carlos watching us in orlando. caller: hello. thank you for c-span. my question has to do with the choice between checking whether you are hispanic or not. i understand -- to me, it cannot a little vague. you are following what the census has set up on the rollul. that is not really answer the true question. they probably make a majority of illegals in this country. is this -- is there a way of

tracking that number? is that the idea behind it? the reason i am asking is because when you think asian, you know, are they from tokyo? china? if you could come outside the guidelines of what the census is saying, personally, why do you feel there is that choice in checking the box? guest: thank you for that excellent question. actually, you saw an image earlier of the origin questions used in the 2010 census. we do not have -- we have a question for race. we do ask whether someone is chinese and vietnamese. we ask about specific detail types amongst the asian

population. on the american community survey, we have an ancestor question. we collect information on the irish population, german, whether you are from europe or africa. from all over the world. we do actually collect information on all ethnicities in the u.s. host: i will ask this question and we will run through these. our time always a separate pretty quickly. these will be on distribution. we will show they surely. for you -- this e-mail -- tweeted guest: interesting. when we look at surveys, we find amongst immigrants, they see the

a place better than their home country. better economic spirit better place to raise children. they do see the u.s. as a place where they want to be. if they could do it again, they would come to the u.s. when we look today compared to early 1900's, we do not have public opinion data to show what has happened in terms of attitude in the early 1900's. we did not have telephones like we do today. it is difficult to make a comparison of today versus then. however, taking a look at today, many immigrants who come to the u.s. are very happy that they made the decision to come to the u.s.. host: this is one of your numbers. if they want to be here, why is it that net migration has fallen? guest: this is an interesting trend. when you look at migration from mexico alone, just amongst

spanics, you'll find immigration stopped. there are a number of reasons. i point to a recent poll and amongst hispanics in mexico, we found that a third of them would choose to migrate if they could. half of those would do those without authorization. those numbers are unchanged from prior to the recession. host: have numbers been able to catch this or have we not had enough time to look at migration? guest: we do select information about place of birth. we have information available on our website. www. census.gov. host: is there a decline in the

mexican origin population? guest: i do not have any numbers. i can talk about what we have now. host: this looks at a map of the u.s. by county. the darker the color, the greater the hispanic population. will you tell us what you are seeing? guest: this is my favorite part. this is a county-based map of the u.s.. those counties in the dark shade had at least 25% more of the county population hispanic. hispanics are largely concentrated in the south part of the u.s. you also see high concentrations in florida, for example. in the northeast. massachusetts. york. all the way to the west coast. oregon, washington. hispanics -- this is as a 2011.

if i could show you maps from 1980 and 1990, the story is the population is growing in the u.s. host: here is a pie chart. guest: this is hispanic populations by state in 2011. out of all of them cut a 14.4 million were in the state of california. about a quarter of them followed by texas at 9.8. 60% of hispanics are in these four states. host: let us take a call. guest: this is a state based map showing the actual population change of the hispanic population by state. those states in a dark shade are

all that experience 1.5 or more increase in hispanic population. these are states with large hispanic populations. host: for the states that are not border states, what has been the driver for increased hispanic population? guest: economic growth. during the last day, look at georgia, there was a lot of growth in the atlanta area. there is demand in agriculture, as well. those sectors helped to double the population of hispanics in the state of georgia. that is one of the stories. you see growth in many other parts of the country. host: what about illinois? guest: it is a large state. a lot of growth. host: next up the sacramento. steve. you were on. caller: ago. my question is for mark.

as the hispanic population grows, historic fleet, they lean towards -- [unintelligible] what do you think republicans have to do to compete for votes? guest: great question. i do not think i am able to answer that entirely. let me mention a couple of things. in 2004, president george bush won 40%, 44%, of the hispanic vote. he has been a governor in texas, a state with a large hispanic population. one of the things of interest to note is when we ask hispanics about which party is more concerned for the community, it is the democrats who are seen as the party was more concerned. that is in the case for the last 10 years. while i cannot offer advice as to what the republican party might be able to do, there have

been moments when republicans have won a large share of the hispanic vote. host: okay. back to numbers. this one is "nativity in 2010." guest: we have been talking about data from the national estimates. now, we will talk about the american community surveys. at the top, that is the u.s. population. that is mostly made . 87.1%. native is anyone who was born in the u.s. or born abroad to an american parent. they comprise about 12%. 12% of the total u.s. population is foreign-born. the foreign-born population is not native. when you look at the hispanic origin population, you 60% or native.

37% are foreign-born. hispanics are more likely to be naturalized citizens feared 11% compared to 6%. they are more likely to be non- citizens. host: one reason to follow us on twitter even if you are not on twitter, haiti is easy to do. sign up for c-span and we will send you in advance of the slides we use on "america by the numbers." you have a chance to look at that and you can be informed. i was addressed to this question -- guest: in total, the hispanic population is 52 million. only 22 million are eligible to vote. ages 18 in the u.s. when we look at some of the

challenges that latinos are facing, particularly voter identification loss, we want to see whether they are aware of the voter identification laws. research suggests that the hispanics have a valid identification card or driver's license. it will be interesting to see how all this plays out. host: the president is gathering elected officials today in florida. mitt romney was there yesterday. both parties are seeking to speak to this population. educational attainment. s across of numbers look se the entire population by years. augusta this. guest: this is the population of 25 years and over from 2010. hispanics with a high-school graduate or more are 62.2%.

with a bachelor's degree, 13%. that is actually up a couple percentage points from 2000. hispanics tend to have less than a high-school diploma, 30% compared to 14% of the total population. host: societal impacts. 20% lower in high school degrees. 37% versus 14% having less than a high-school diploma. what is do these numbers mean? guest: it is how young latinos have aged in the u.s. for many hispanics, many of them want to attend college and get a degree, for example, but are unable to do so. oftentimes come 8 is financial considerations or similar considerations -- oftentimes, it is financial considerations or

family considerations. it remains to be seen. at the moment, the educational attainment is lower and that may impact earnings in the future. host: since both of you look at hispanics and numbers come here is the question i will throw to you from twitter. host: do you think you are helping to divide the country? guest: interesting question. i do not know the answer to that. i would say that for many latinos, they want to know how big their community is and they want to know all the characteristics of their community. i really find it interesting that a lot of folks love to talk about statistics. numbers. characteristics of america. latinos are no different.

they want to talk about their committees and how they theory. that is why we do the work they do to chronicle the lives of latinos in the u.s. host: i will give you some tweet warnings. why do they sub categorized the population? guest: they want to be identified. one of the thing we saw is there or not enough categories. the census bureau is interesting improving the quality of our statistics. we are trying to be sensitive to all populations. if you would like -- host: if you would like to see the start, go to the "washington journal" page on c-span.org. let us look at labor force participation. guest: this shows the total

population and hispanic populations. they have a high participation rate similar to the total population. in particular for hispanic males, 76.3% of latinos are in the labor force compared to about 68.9%. they have a similar participation rate. host: ron on the line from oklahoma. good morning. caller: i work with a lot of hispanics, not . i am concerned that in my feelings towards the because some of them are very great individuals. they are hardworking. trying to be hard to become part of the u.s. on the flip side, individuals come here illegally and have bought their identity from

coyotes. they are using these papers to obtain jobs and they affect the identity of the individual they have stolen. that really bothers me. one other thing which has nothing to do with hispanics, you may want to think about changing the 800 numbers. host: thank you your phone calls are so expensive that does not make a partisan -- per dissipation rate go down. -- participation rate go down. i want to -- to mexicans migrate to different states from different parts of mexico? is there a clustering based on your country of origin and original country? guest: yes.

this map does not tell you which part of mexico -- where they're going. we do know that mexicans comprise the biggest hispanic group. but, you know there is a sizable mexican population in l.a. and new york. i do not have those specific bits of information. we know it is gathered. guest: next in population in new york is -- mexican population in new york is up. they're coming from the central part of mexico, largely. there are places where connections to family and friends -- you should come here. there are opportunities here. i know somebody. that might lead to a clustering. host: there have always been germans going to pennsylvania. swedes going to the midwest.

people go where they know people. a couple minutes left in our discussion. texas. linda is on the line. caller: i forgot my first question. the 2.7 child birth rate for the community versus 2.0 -- do you think that holds true and includes illegals? do the entitlements cause them to produce larger families? guest: good question. it is all hispanics. guest: nothing to read. host: this is to put five

minutes left. this is the lesson of numbers we will look from the american community -- the last set of numbers we will look at. hispanics are in the workforce in greater rates than the population at large. 76% versus 69. equal in females. just a percentage point or few higher. guest: this is looking at the occupation distribution for the u.s. population and hispanic population. hispanics are more likely to work and service type application -- occupations and in natural resources. they are farming, fishing, forestry. construction. host: there must be a linkage with those educational attainment rates? guest: many latinos are working in sectors like manufacturing.

that is where you see a lot of folks who do not go to college. host: maryland. felix. caller: i have a question. what i noticed is they have a significant number in the country but they present themselves as white. when they come to america, you never see a black person on univision. can you explain why you refused to integrate the black population. guest: that is a very important question. we do collect information on afro-latinos. go to our website and we have the actual count of latinos that reported they were black or white or asian or american indian. that is available.

we collected that in the 2010 census. that is on our side. we do have that information. we have collected it. host: we have put the numbers on the c-span website. pew does a lot of surveying. tell the audience about where they can find your collection of data. guest: we provide a lot of information about latino public opinion about immigration, about the united states, about politics. we do a number of fact sheets, looking at many aspects of latinos, from how many are eligible to vote different states. host: thank you for being with

us. we appreciate your numbers. another friday is in the history books. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> congress is not in session today. the house and senate will return next week. the house is back on tuesday and they will take up a spending bill. lawmakers may vote on a contempt of congress vote against eric

holder. lawmakers gavel in at 2:00 p.m. for the senate. both chambers are facing a july 1 deadline to prevent student loan interest rates from doubling. you can see live coverage of the house here on c-span. the senate on c-span2. this week greece held elections. coming up in about an hour, a discussion on developments in greece. that is live at 11:00 a.m. eastern. president obama will be speaking at a conference. live coverage from orlando

starts at 1:40 eastern. mitt romney address the same conference yesterday. he criticized the president's recent decision on deportation. here's a look at what he had to say. >> thank you for that generous introduction. i appreciate the chance to be with you today. i am delighted to be invited to your annual conference. it is an honor to be among so many dedicated, elected officials. i come to you as a candidate for the president of the united states of america, and i will govern from the principle that while this is an extraordinary land of diversity, there is much more that unites us than there is that divides us.

[applause] each of us wants a different path in life, but we are united by one great overwhelming passion. we love the united states of america. we believe in america. we are one nation under god. today we are united not only by our faith in america, we are also united by our concern for america. the country we love is in peril. that is why i am running for president. almost four years ago, the american people did something that was very much the sort of thing americans like to do. we gave someone new a chance to leave, someone who we had not known very long, who did not have much of a record, but promised to lead us to a better place. at the time, we did not know what kind of a president he would be. it was a moment of crisis for our economy, and when barack

obama came into office, america wished him well and hope for the best. three and a half years later, over 23 million americans are out of work, unemployed, underemployed or simply quit looking for a job. at a time when we should be gaining momentum in the economy, we are actually losing it right now. job growth slowed and this week we learned that the number of job openings has slowed again. and as you know, hispanics have been hit disproportionately hard. while the national unemployment is still above 8% and has been for 40 straight months, hispanic unemployment is at 11%. the middle class under president obama has been crushed. more americans are living in poverty today than at any point in american history. over two million more hispanics

are living in poverty today than the day when president obama took office. home values have plunged. our national debt is at record levels and families are buried under higher prices for things like food and gasoline. and yet the president has said the private sector is doing fine. this is more than a policy failure. it is a moral failure. i know the president will say that he inherited the economic crisis, and that is true. but we should not allow the challenges he faced four years ago to divert our attention from another important fact. the president pursued policies that have made this the slowest recovery since the great depression. and he broke promises many people were counting on to build a brighter future. it did not have to be this way. just compare this president's record with the first term of ronald reagan. president reagan also faced an

economic crisis. in fact, in 1982, the unemployment rate peaked nearly 11%. but in the two years that followed, just two years, he delivered a true recovery. economic growth and job creation or three times higher than in the obama economy. -- were three times higher. if president obama had delivered a real recovery, a reagan recovery, we would have 5 million more jobs today. 5 million more. the unemployment rate would be about 6%, and our economy would be at least one trillion dollars larger. not tomorrow, president obama will speak here. -- now tomorrow. of course, that is the first time he has spoken years since his last campaign. he may admit that he has not kept every promise. he may say that even though you are not better off today than you were four years ago, things

could be worse. he will imply that he did not really have an alternative. i believe he is taking your vote for granted. i come here today with a simple message. you do have an alternative. your vote should be -- respected. your voice is more important now than ever before and your vote should be respected. this november, we are going to make a choice. we can continue along the path we're on, or we can choose a better way. instead of continuing with the policies of the last three and a half years, we can revitalize our economy. we can lead the world, as we have, in what we invent and build and create. let me make this clear. this is the only way we can sustain the middle class and -- strengthen the middle class and create sustained prosperity. raising taxes to grow

government does not grow the middle class. today, i'm asking you to join me because while we might not agree on everything, we share the same goal, the same vision, and the same belief in american greatness that draws so many people to our shores. liberty's torch can burn just as brightly for future generations of immigrants as it has burned in the past. we now our businesses cannot succeed, grow, and hire more workers without a competitive tax system. that is why i am going to lower our corporate tax rate and reduce individual tax rates by 20% across the board. we also know that our families and businesses need more reliable energy. expanding our resources will create jobs and generate revenues. it will also bring manufacturing back to our shores. you will see a manufacturing resurgence if we get the policy right.

we now our economy cannot grow of we're mortgaging our future to pay for the big government programs of today. think about that. we cannot keep borrowing massively more than we taken without putting the country in peril. as president, i will rein in spending and i will get the budget balanced. and i will repeal obamacare. we cannot afford another $2 trillion entitlement. [applause] everybody likes free stuff, but there is no free stuff when the government has to pay and tax the american people or borrow from future administrations. -- future generations. in obamacare, -- in one study, 73% of business owners said that obamacare has made it harder for them to hire people. think about that. almost 3/4 of small businesses

saying obamacare is making them less likely to hire people. if jobs are your priority, you have to get rid of obamacare and put in place real reform that works. repealing obamacare will give businesses what they need to expand and to grow. we can also jump-start the economy by expanding trade. as you know, the president has not created a single new trade agreement with a latin american nation. he has also failed to crack down on china. our kids cannot succeed if they are trapped in failing schools. as president, i will give the parents of every low income and special needs students the chance to choose where their child goes to school. [applause] when it comes to education, a choice for every parent means a

chance for every child. an effective immigration system can also strengthen the economy as it has since the nation's founding. unfortunately, despite his promises, president obama has failed to address immigration reform. for two years, this president had huge majorities in the house and senate. he was free to pursue any policy he pleased, but he did nothing to advance a permanent fix for our broken immigration system. nothing. instead he failed to act until facing a tough re-election and trying to secure your vote. last week the president finally issued a temporary measure. he called it a "stop-gap" measure. he seems to think it will be just enough to get him through the election. after 3 and a half years of putting every issue from loan guarantees to his donors, to cash for clunkers, putting all

those things before immigration, he has been seized by an overwhelming need to do what he could have done on day 1, but didn't. i think you deserve better. some people have asked if i will let stand the president's executive order. the answer is, i will put in place my own long-term solution which will replace and supersede the president's temporary measure. as president, i won't settle for stop-gap measures. i'll work with republicans and democrats to build a long-term solution and i'll prioritize measures that strengthen legal immigration and make it more transparent and easier, and i will address the problem of illegal immigration in a civil and resolute manner. we may not always agree, but

when i make a promise to you, i will keep it. let me speak about some of the guidelines i will use in putting together that policy. as you've heard me say many times, it is critical that we redouble our efforts to secure the borders that means preventing illegal border crossings and making it harder to illegally overstay a visa. we should field enough border patrol agents, complete a high- tech fence and implement an improved exit verification system. our immigration system should help promote strong families as well, and not keep them apart. [applause] our nation benefits when moms and dads are kids are all together under the same roof. but today to many families are caught in a broken system, costing time and money and entangles the in excessive red tape. for those seeking to come to america the right way, that kind of bureaucratic nightmare has to end, and we can do this

with just a few common sense reforms. as president, i'd reallocate green cards to those seeking to keep their families under one roof, and will exempt from caps the spouses and minor children of legal permanent residents -- [applause] and will eliminate other forms of bureaucratic red tape that keep families from coming together. immigration reform is not just a moral imperative. it's also an economic necessity. immigrants with advanced degrees start companies, and they drive innovation at a very high rate. immigrants founded or co- founded nearly half of our top 50 venture-backed companies in the u.s. nearly half. they are nearly 30% more likely

to start a business and that kind of risk-taking is something we need more than ever because new business start-ups in america are at a 30-year low. i'll work with states and employers to update our temporary worker program so that it meets economic needs, and if you get an advanced degree here, we want you to stay here so, i'd staple a green card to the diploma of someone who gets an advanced degree in america. [applause] we want the best and brightest to enrich the nation with the jobs and technology they are going to create. now, we also have a strong tradition in this country of honoring immigrants who join our military and put their lives on the line to keep the country safe. since september 11, 2001, the u.s. has naturalized almost 75,000 members of the armed forces. too many of those patriots died on distant battlefields for our freedom before receiving full

citizenship here in the country they called home. as president i will stand for a path to legal status for anyone who is willing to stand up and defend this great nation through military service. [applause] those who have risked their lives in the defense of america have earned their right to make their life in america. but improving access to legal immigration is only one part of the equation. we must also make legal immigration more attractive than illegal immigration so that people are rewarded for waiting patiently in line. that's why my administration will establish a strong, employment verification system so that every business can know with confidence that the people it hires are legally eligible for employment. we can find common ground here, and we have got to. we owe it to ourselves as americans to ensure that our

country remains a land of opportunity, both for those that are born here and for those that share our values, respect our laws, and want to come to our shores. throughout my campaign i have often had the chance to speak about my dad and how proud i am of him. he was born to american parents living in mexico. when he was 5, they left everything behind and started over in the united states. his dad, my grandfather, was a builder and he went bust more than once. my grandfather did not make much money. there were times in my dad's life when he lived in poverty. but my grandfather had big hopes for my dad and tried to help him as best he could. my dad did not finish college, but he believed in the country where the circumstances of one's birth or not a barrier to achievement, and he was not afraid of hard work. he held odd jobs, putting up

plasterboard, selling paint. he was lucky enough to live in america where hard work can turn aspirations into realities. after he became a man of the business world, he got the opportunity to lead a great car company, and ultimately, he became the governor of the great state, the state of michigan. this is my father's story, but it could be the story of any american. most of you here today are leaders in your community. you are here because you have benefited from the land of opportunity and you want to give back to this country, to fight for its people so they have the same chance to succeed. we are truly one america. everyone here as made this exceptional nation what it is today. this is not an election about two people. this is not an election about being a republican nor a democrat or independent. this is an election about the

future of america. i would ask each of you to honestly look at the last three and a half years and ask whether we can do better. is the america of 11% hispanic unemployment the america of our dreams? we can do better. we can prosper again. with the powerful recovery we have all been waiting for, the good jobs that some many people need, and above all, the opportunities we owe to our children and our grandchildren. i will do that. i will make that happen with your help and your support. thank you so much and god bless this great land. thank you. [applause] ♪ >> ♪ i was born free i was borno free

i was born free boron free free ikea rilike a river raging free like the grand canyon wild like an untamed stallion downan knock kmme keepot you can't no chains on me i was born free i was born free freebooas boronn

born free i was born free ♪ ♪ calm facing danger grateful for my time

with no regrets close to my destination tired, frail and aching waiting patiently for the sun to set and when it is done believe that i will yell it from that mountain high i was born free i was born free born free and i will nbow to the shining sea and celebrate god's grace on thee

whoa, whoa, whoa whoa, whoa, whoa whoa, whoa, whoa whoo! ♪ ♪ fast on a rough road riding high through the mountains climbing twisting, turning further from my home young like a new moon rising

fierce to the rain and lightning i do not want no one to cry but tell them if i do not survive i was born free i was born free born free free like a river raging strong as the wind i'm facing chasing dreams and racing father time deep like the grand this canyon wild like an untamed stallion you can knock me down

and watch the bleed but you can keep no chains on me i was born free i was born free born free and i'm not good at long goodbyes look at me into my eyes i was born free ♪

♪ calm facing danger lost like an unknown stranger grateful for my time no regrets close to my destination tired frail and aching waiting patiently for the sun to set and when it's time believe that i will yet it from that mountain high i was born free i was born free born free

and i will bow to the shining sea on celebrate god's grace thee whoa, whoa, whoa whoa, whoa, whoa whoa, whoa, whoa ♪

♪ fast on a rough road riding high through the mountains climbing twisting, turning further from my home young like a new moon rising fierce through the rain and lightning wondering how into this great unknown and i do not want no one to cry but tell them if i do not survive i was born free i was born free born free free like a river raging strong as the wind i'm facing

chasing dreams and racing father time deep like the grand this canyon ♪ >> mitt romney in florida yesterday. president obama will also speak at the conference this afternoon. it's now at the president leaving for orlando, florida.

the president will make remarks at the conference beginning at 1:40 eastern and we'll have live coverage here on c-span. coming up live at the top of the error, the land council is hosting a discussion on developments in greece. this week greece held elections. they have vowed to remain in the eurozone. tonight on c-span, a debate between the republican candidates. ted cruz and david dewhurst. that state holds its elections on july 31. a forum with conservative women leadings looking at how women are perceived in business.

panelists include bay buchanan. live at 2:00 p.m. eastern on c- span2. details of fast and furious. >> the mexican people as well. there are hundreds of innocent mexican citizens who have been murdered as a result of this. the only thing that we knew was that guns from american gun dealers were going into mexico and causing all of these problems with the cartel. the government was sanctioning these sales. >> she is interviewed by major garrett. on c-span2. >> how do you approach book

interviews different than news interviews? >> i think of interviewing on the news side as a gathering information. >> how difficult is it to remain impartial? >> i will try to give people as full an understanding of what is happening in this campaign. it is not that difficult to put your biases to the side. >> how has social media it changed your life? >> twitter is now a primary news source for anybody who covers politics. twitter did not exist four years ago. >> dan balz was interviewed on the newspaper business and the rise of social media.

sunday at 8:00 on c-span. >> we will go live to the atlantic council here in washington for a discussion on developments in greece. elected the future of the u.s. economy and ben bernanke's announcement in extending operation twist. host: senior business editor, marilyn geewax. we've known marilyn for a long time. jim tankersley this morning. in addition to "national journal" the atlantic picks up. before we get to events of the week, you've both written stories. headlines have been less than optimistic.

let me show them to the audience and ask you both for your big picture view of where the economy is and going. here's jim tankersley. "obama and romney offer few economic proposals. this one is three frightening phrases about the economy. what kind of shape is the country in right now? guest: i actually put together a series for npr about looking up. it was about the strength in the economy. so many things were looking up. agriculture was still doing well, energy had perked up a lot. technology, a lot of good stories there, the parts of the strength that were starting to pull it forward. the fed was thinking that growth

this year could be around in the ballpark of 3%. but oil prices went way up, europe has not pulled itself together, china is doing a lot worse, and all of the sudden all of that optimism that we started with -- this is the third time it's happened. that was true in 2011 and 2010, we start the year with high hopes. by the time you get to summer, those hopes are wilting. now it's precarious. there's still the nodes of strength in the u.s. economy. but there's just more and more bad news piling up, especially coming out of europe. this ongoing uncertainty. and, of course, the stalemate in congress. not much gets done. the economy is teetering. host: there are many ways to reach us. you can call us, tweet us, and we'll take all of that as our two guests continue. beyond your headlines, what is your analysis and the resources

tell you about save the country? doom. i'm known as dr. guest: my office is sort of done. this is not going to be the most optimistic. i i'll start on an optimistic note. it might be positive going forward. the second thing is that we probably overestimated the strength of the economy. they probably maxed weak consumer demand. this confidence is doing terribly.

it is a difficult time for investors to move on. a picture of an economy that's growing but not fast enough to put people back to work. host: let's turn to a big event this week. the fed was going to continue operation twist. would you mind defining operation twist? guest: sure. the fed buys treasury bonds. what it's doing here, it's going to take shorter term bonds and sell them and buy instead longer term bonds.

it's a net in terms of own. but the long term interest rates. this is a modest attempt to do that. host: what does it do to the bond market? guest: demand for the longer term bonds. host: let's listen to ben bernanke this week. he is talking about the fed's actions. >> well, we've taken a step today which is a substantive step which will provide additional help for the economy and we have stated we are prepared to take further steps sustainable growth and recovery in the labor market. we are prepared to do what's necessary. we are prepared to provide support for the economy. host: first of all, are youit's

a new concept. guest: it is. there's long been a complaint that the fed is too opaque. ben has tried to be more forthcoming to explain what the fed is doing. they still do the fed speak. there's a lot of jargon. even when they are talking, it's not entirely clear. host: question that relates to this. let me put that on the table. this is from the tweet, the recovery of which you spoke was qe2, which drove up food prices worldwide. guest: i'll go from fed speak to english. he's talking about the qe2, that's quantitative easing, which related to the idea that the fed is going to take a predetermined amount of money and shove it into the economy creating electronically more

money for banks to be able to lend, it makes things easier to lend. they did it once, now twice, that's where the qe3 comes from. supposed to mean. back to the concept of quantitative easing. if you put a lot more money into the system and you don't put a lot more goods and services into the system, then maybe what you are doing is spending. -- setting the stage for inflation. that's what the critics worry about. they are afraid we have too many dollars facing too many goods and services is the idea. at least so far we don't so much inflation. -- we do not see much inflation. i know that people saw some good prices spike, there's been meat prices, but gasoline in march was awful. that was a scary experience. really that has kind of passed. oil prices have been plummeting

since march. down to $78 a barrel. we've seen a big drop in oil prices. that should help with food prices. the argument is maybe we're setting the stage for inflation in the future. right now we don't have inflation, and we have a really lousy economy. we're going to do what we need to do now to get this thing growing again. bernanke insists he'll be able to walk it back, do the whole thing in reverse, soak up the money, and put things back. really it's a big gamble. he's doing what he feels he needs to do. but there are critics. host: jim tankersley, another headline from morning. moody's downgrade hits 15 top banks. a viewer asked moody's just downgraded banks in europe. what impact will it have on another round of stimulus?

>> it's probably unlikely to have a big impact. we were expecting it more or less. a lot of banks were on watch. first off, i don't think anyone expects a round of fiscal stimulus in the united states. at least not until after the presidential election and probably not after. maybe if at the beginning of next year things are still really bad and we have a new president, you can see a push for fiscal stimulus. i just don't see it any time now. frankly, europe is having a hard time also. host: by the way, dr. boom, mr. doom or mr. gloom? glom, is that your view with all things in life? guest: no. i'm a happy person. host: clifford, democrat, you are on. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you doing? host: we're well. what's your question for us?

>> caller: my question is i'm not trying to ask anything but one question, what do -- if either one of you was in the president's position, how would you turn that situation around where economist and everything. what would you do? guest: i think that -- first of all, i'm a journalist. i don't have opinions and i don't give advice. i'm going to have to pass on that. but if we talk about what the president and his point of view, you know, part of what's tricky about this is so much of it does seem to be not just out of his hands, but out of everyone's hands in the united states. we're talking about a hard landing in china. not that much you can do to influence whether or not china goes into a recession. they are just not that many steps that can be taken by the congress, bit -- but the white

house, by anyone to try to get the bubbles under control. a little bit out of our hands. the same thing with europe now. certainly the united states is an important, you know, key player in the world. so we have a little bit of influence, but not really. this eu crisis is something that europeans are going to have to work out on their own. when you look at the big risks in the world right now, and is it slowing down dramatically, and is europe going into a deep recession? those are issues that are very tough for people to deal with. especially in the political cycle where you want to be able to say these are steps that are taken and the reality is two big chunks of things are overseas. >> there's one thing that is a big danger to the global economy right now that we do have control of it. the president and congress and

the impending fiscal cliff. and the debt limit being reached that are all set to happen by the end of the year. the president and congress right now would be to negotiate around the clock to a solution of that and not to wait until the last minute like the dew on everything. to diffuse this time line that could take up to four points of economic growth next year." they could figure out a way to defuse all that now. the threat of the united states defaulting on its debt. if they could do that over the summer, that would not -- guest: that would not solve everything. host: on low inflation, a tweet --

guest: there is two prices that everybody sees. one is groceries and the other is gasoline. gasoline is falling. grocery prices have gone up. there is a lot of factors going into food prices and problem with food prices is may be it is monetary policy but maybe it is other things. this is a global market for commodities. whether for food or for oil. we have to keep that in mind. host: from "usa today," coverage to gas prices. what are the effects of lower gasoline on the overall economy? caller: who doesn't love seeing

gas prices falling at the gas station if you come back, you feel better about that. you have money to spend on whatever. you can see a little more money in your wallet. it is like getting a raise. if gas prices fall and you have the kids in the back seat, it is nice to save a little money. it would be great if those prices were falling for good reasons. but it seems like they are falling for bad reasons. everybody is afraid global demand is receding. the cause of the drop in oil prices may be not what you'd want to see, this feeling that bad times are coming. people might take that vacation. maybe now you can afford to visit with some relatives and

you can pack up the car because it will cost you 25% less. host: mike from norman, oklahoma. good morning, independent. caller: thank you for taking my call. i want to talk about the housing industry. when the housing industry was going, it was causing communities expanded. the debt created a need for shopping strips, restaurants, grocery stores. all that construction, housing, commercial. whenever. all the materials that went into construction. that made the state's flusher. they built schools and so forth. that added jobs.

new shopping facilities, new dentist offices, teachers, doctors. you name it. all that was that was road hard and put up dead. thanks to the loose money conditions. economists say every recovery is led by the housing industry. it is still dead. and, you know, that is a major impetus that takes the country's out of recession and it is not there. host: let me turn to charles tiefer. -- then turned to jim tankersley -- let me turn to jim tankersley. guest: i think it has hit bottom in terms of prices.

we will not see new home building on the scale during the housing bubble. it was not sustainable. we were overbuilding. we're down 2 million construction jobs. we will not see that return anytime soon. it drove economic activity. it is been a huge hindrance to the recovery. people are under water. they cannot borrow to start small businesses. just reversing those things -- this will help the recovery even if they are not building new things again. but he's right. we need to get back to a point where we're building again. host: bob is up next, a republican. caller: gas prices are going down because of the demand. that is common sense.

we hire a leader that leads to congress when we hire a president. i am a republican. i thought truman was a good man. with this president, the buck doesn't even get around. i am ill little disappointed -- i am a little disappointed. you have two left-wing people. before the work opposing views on c-span. two left-wing organizations, "national journal" and npr. i do not know what is coming over c-span anymore. thank you. host: thank you, bob. >> there are other voices in the discussion this morning. do you want to talk about the characterization of your news organization? guest: that is the first time ody called "national journal" a left-wing

organization. guest: i am somewhat bemused by that. host: what is your own approach to covering economics? guest: it is remarkable. i wish our staff meetings could be aired on c-span. it is remarkable how fair and even tempered they are. npr is focused on the facts and telling interesting stories in the fairest way we possibly can. we do not do opinion. we're committed to not being a part of the opinion journalism. we try to tell people what is happening in terms of analysis and facts. but not opinion. host: when you hire a president, what we should be looking for. the headline from their recent piece. few new economic proposals.

let's move to the campaign trial. what are they saying that is concrete about what they would do to turn the economy around? guest: you have two different approaches. mitt romney believes the government should get out of the way. that we need to be taxing businesses and individuals less and that we should be balancing our budget. the president believes we should be targeting investment. these are different roles. a fairly liberal point of view, even though the administration will not call it that. few specifics about how they would get the economy moving right away. governor romney has a plan and

says he will cut taxes and close some loopholes. he will not say what they are. president obama has an american jobs act. it is languishing in the congress. he has not offered any new solutions beyond that. he was talking about the buffett rule, which is a way to raise taxes on the rich. it would do nothing to pump more activity into the economy. we have worked in ohio. ohioans have heard about this. they have heard a lot of promises. they see through it. they want to hear specifics and something other than the same old stuff. host: a different question from a viewer on twitter. this is back to the raising debate on the debt limit.

guest: well, there are some people who would argue the president has the power to ignore congress and to continue to pay our debts because that is part of the job. the debt ceiling debate is agitating theater but is not -- entertaining theater but is not going to affect the treasury. they would not default. that would cause a court battle. it would be an interesting day at the courthouse if they had to debate that. it is likely that all these fiscal issues -- the fed deals with monetary policy. the banking system, money. congress is supposed to deal

with fiscal matters -- budgets and taxes. people keep using the term "fiscal cliff." there are all sorts of issues -- debt ceiling issues, the payroll tax holiday expiring. all these things are coming together at the end of the year. the fiscal matters are up to congress to deal with and the president to work out. with the election, and none of the fiscal issues will be worked out until after the election. guest: you could find out balance the budget. -- you could flat out balance the budget. that is almost impossible right now, just from the state of the economy. but you could do wit. you would have to raise a lot

of taxes or cut a lot of spending. we're talking about social security and medicare and defense spending. it is revealing that neither governor romney or president obama has a plan to balance the budget anytime soon. both of their plans work toward balancing it over time. it would be a dramatic shot to the economy to balance it right now. that would be a way of defaulting on the debt. host: next up is florence from new york. hi, florence. caller: thank you for taking my call. i was calling for the economics of our society. i would hate -- sit down and realized that we need to do something immediately. one of the things -- you talk about the government. big government.

they need to create jobs. things to put roads and bridges in place. i think that would be real. when people have money, they spend money. a large spending group is african-american is. they will spend money if they have it to spend. if you take and tax the rich, they will only go up on prices. prices are going up anyway. they are going up now. anyway the rich want to do it. they cannot take money with them when they go. they will never be able to spend it. a revision in taxes is one thing. they need to start to teach about economics at the early

age, in elementary. it was my last year in high school. we need to have people understand how our economy works. host: thank you so much. guest: that is an initiative that we work very hard on at npr, addressing financial literacy. we had a session talking about how people have to learn more to prepare about retirement. a huge issue is trying to get people to understand the importance of saving money over time when he sees such a rocky economy like we have now, it's harder for people to save, but it's really important. those financial literacy efforts, that's part of it.

guest: what the caller outlined is keynesian stimulus. there have been trying to advocate for that. it's fair to characterize the republicans view as, this has not worked. host: off of twitter -- guest: i don't think so. i think there's a lot more that can be done. we are inevitably headed towards a recession. guest: i would not be at all surprised if one year from now we look back on this and say,

oh, my goodness. we were falling into a deep recession in 2012. it would not surprise me. i would not be surprised if we came out on the other side and there were lots of strikes. ben bernanke was on the hill testifying. a little bit of a pickup in there, but we're fine. literally looking at data showing that things are really good. if you walk over to the window

and asked how things are going, you would find out there realtors' oliver time -- all over town were starting to freak out. we just did not have the data yet. the smartest guy in their room, a really well informed person like ben bernanke was in the middle of a housing meltdown and did not see it. it was not until months later when we realized until late 2008 when we realize just how bad. in any given moment, we are in this fog of war where we are not entirely sure what is happening. right now, we could be in one of those meltdown moments. maybe what we will happen is that those notes of strength, agriculture, energy, they have held up very well and move it forward.

i think it could really go either way right now. host: we get to electronically open the window every day because we hear from some many people. this is a view from the opposite perspective asking, is it better for an economy to grow slow and steady? guest: you would like slow and steady growth of that is much higher than this growth. you would like it to be linked to job growth. the economy can grow, but even what has been historically healthy levels, job growth has not been there. there were the lowest, even before the recession, that we have ever recorded. >> you can see this in its entirety.

more on what the european financial crisis and what it might mean. >> europe has been synonymous with an economic crisis within the euro zone. one country after another seat to go through a banking crisis or sovran debt crisis. -- sovereign debt crisis. niall ferguson and marie already have raised the specter is of a 19 at 30 -- nouriel roubini have raised the sepcter of a 1930's like recession. we hosted josef ackerman who

said eurozone will make it through intact. we hosted christian lagarde, now head of the imf, who was arguing for a much more urgent approach sang time is running out for a much broader crisis. we have new rules on hedge funds and other forms of financial interaction. we have the establishment of european stability and financial mechanisms to provide emergency funding. we have enhanced the banking including a new agency in

london. the fiscal compact, which reinforces this is in the four -- in the process of being ratified and we have two responses currently under discussion with even greater banking supervision for banking unions as the neutralization of debt. despite all of this, the crisis persists. indeed, as one seems to ease, one country moves away from the brink and another one comes to the forefront. if not greece, then it is spain, italy, or perhaps france. the eurozone as a whole has some strong economic fundamentals. the deficit as a percentage of gdp as only 2.8% as opposed to ours in the united states of 8.7%. the debt of percentage of gdp is

not far off. 87% vs. 70% or so. as countless observers have noted, it is still based at the national level. the healthy, overall, figures masked a wide range from estonia with a debt of only 6% and germany with a deficit of in the 2%-3% range. dominating decisions both within and about europe, it has dominated elections and crises in spain, france, portugal, italy, and greece which brings us to today.

even if you have been following this from the beginning, the last six weeks to one month has been a particularly harrowing. we have a new french president and parliament arguing for a different path for europe to take, one that is less austerity and more growth. and yesterday moody's downgraded 15 banks, some of which are large european players. and the greek elections. this one this past week was a narrow victory for those in support of the bailout. they want to negotiate their arrangements with the eu and it has also become clear that they have basically lost two months

in terms of implementing returns they promised earlier. we are now also facing a series of the meetings, finance ministers have heard that they need to do more. today, merkel, moni from italy, hollande of france are meeting. the next european summit is next week to decide where we are. to discuss where we are and what the future might bring, we have an excellent panel and i will introduce them in order. the u.s. a representative to the eu in the last represent -- the last representation and an atlantic board member. dr. ulrike guerot is based in berlin and has worked previously

for other think tanks and is one of the most for elephant on the franco-german relationship. dr. jacob kirkegaard is with the peterson institute for international economics in 2002. he has focused on the crisis in european economic reform. let me start with jacob. where are we now? how close are we to the edge of the cliff? >> let me start by quoting president obama when talking about this and say that the euro area, if you get a diagnosis of the crisis right, it's doing just fine. what i mean by that is that there's no doubt that the euro area is facing a whole host of

crisis. a banking crisis, a competitiveness crisis across the southern periphery, and clearly a fiscal crisis. we're suffering from an institutional crisis, a crisis of the design of the euro area itself. it is a flawed design. it basically does not work when you have a major financial and economic crisis, like we have right now. what that means is that it is fundamentally a political crisis. about how national sovereignty and deep sovereignty, the kind of national sovereignty over banking regulation in fiscal policy that governments are not willing to hand over to european

institutions to the 1990's are now in the process of being transferred to the euro area. we can all agree what is the optimal approach. the basic reality is because we are dealing with the handing over of the commodity that no government even in the euro area will ever part with voluntarily, you basically need the level of acute crisis that we're seeing right now. had design of the euro area o led with sovereignty over banking and fiscal issues which

are the key policy levers in a financial crisis at the financial level. it is fundamentally dictated by one single element, that of political moral hazard. it is moral hazard that dictates that when you are -- when you are doing this like in the united states, the european council is not sovereign. it cannot dictate the policies of recipient governments for such bailouts, which is another way of saying that the bailouts will always be partial, always be conditional. those of you who believe that europe will ever put together a fully credible and big enough firewall are wrong. that will not happen.

because, if it did happen, it would have-adverse effects -- negative adverse effects to pass the kind of reforms that are needed. where we are in the crisis right now is we have already had essentially this moral hazard dictated that basically relies on political gamesmanship which means we take a crisis and we go very close to the edge of having a disaster, in disaster that everyone agrees is a disaster. you cors the other players into giving you concessions, but it is a theoretical exercise come if you like. -- you coerce the other players. the main players are germany,

the ecb, the peripheral players, and occasionally the rest of the world through the imf. we saw this when the ecb squared off against the spanish and italian government. we saw this clearly in december last year. we are in the process of seeing it again right now. it is essentially a game. it is really a game of chicken being played out. the response function is very clear. germany and the ecb will never agree publicly that they stand fully behind europe. if they did, they would be subject to moral hazard. do not make a mistake. there's actually planning to do what is necessary and there is

also plenty of financial firepower with in the ecb. there is a fire wall. it is called the european central bank. what i mean by fire wall is considered that today, the european central bank has fallen only about 3% of all actual assets as a share of euro-area ecb in terms of the cover the bond market programs that they have. what that means is, if the ecb has to buy $1 trillion worth of spanish and italian dead that they would only own about 20% in outright assets. that is less than what the federal reserve already owes and much less than what the bank of england owns as a result of

quantitative easing. you should ask yourself if it is really credible that the ecb would not want to do this and have the euro area collapse. i absolutely believe that is not the case. again, this is a non cooperative game that relies on the game of chicken to coerce governments into handing over national sovereignty, but it is actually a lot more stable than what it is perceived or mis-perceived. >> let me follow up on this. you argue this is a brawling game. one also sees the market constantly raising the stakes in europe. the market seems unconvinced that there will be a resolution in the end. we also hear from economists that, for example, and the spanish bank bailout eventually will add to the spanish sovereign debt and raise this to

a dangerous love all and that the bond purchases now were being done on interest rates that are unsustainable for them. it does seem like there are serious economic positions that are being taken. can the eu constantly ratchet up and meet them bit by bit, or is this where the whole edifice comes down because the economic fundamentals are not there? you mentioned the ecb serving as the fire wall, but there are limits legally on what the ecb can do. this is not only political, but there are limits. it is sometimes said that the europeans have gotten out in front of the markets that this would not have cost as much. it would have been over quickly.

do you agree with that? is there a point at which they cannot recover? >> as i had said earlier, there is no doubt. if you had it done this as a cooperative game and done this by getting ahead of the market, it would have been a much cheaper. it is not cheaper for governments to hand over the type of property that would entail. that is the problem. that is the process we are in. in the case of spain, for think about what is about to happen. this is an illustration of how this game works. for years, they denied they had a problem because it had these sovereign ability to do so. then, finally, as became increasingly clear that they were really in a bind, a couple months ago, they decided to

begin begging the european central bank to buy their bonds the they could finance the debt. the ecb said it now. finally, the spanish government was essentially forced to have the kind of official bank sector bailout including conditionality is, etc. again, it is a bargaining game. what has happened today in is the fact that we are now finally getting to the point where the spanish government, rather than actually accepting to pay the full bank bailout is thinking about imposing losses on bond holders. this is again something that is politically very painful because many of these bondholders are

his political supporters in spain. and the choice between wanting to have more sovereign debt or imposing losses on our allies. this is a game that can go on with respect to real macro- economic costs. i taken the view that it is not yet at the point of no return. basically, i believe in the mainstream forecast that we suggest a mild overall recession this year and a turnaround in the second half of 2012-200013. this is my opinion given the longer-term handover of sovereignty that is collateral damage. i understand and in ministration

that has an election in november may feel very differently about that. >> thank you. let me turn to dr. guerot. we have a new french government. they have had a few meetings between chancellor merkel and president hollande. he came to office with a different approach to the eurozone crisis. the franco-german relationship in the past, although difficult, with nicolas sarkozy was key to what was happening in europe and the decisions of europeans made in this crisis. do you expect hollande and merkel to have the same relationship? what does this mean for the

meetings today? >> i happened to be pretty optimistic because my argument is the franco-german works best for europe if they dispute. we have seen as some super- symbiosis and it was actually bad for europe. they took various wrong decisions which it derailed the crisis. essentially, when you have symbiosis of a franco-german in tandem, the smaller countries need to struggle in the process between these two coming together to find the space and place in the european compromise. it is has been largely overlooked. what you hear from the dutch to

the austrians to whoever, they would just be fed up. the moment you have great symbiosis, it dictates for the others and it's not good. there's a lot of struggle between political unions, france and germany today, but if there is political struggle, i find this very positive and i'm confident there will be compromised. we have these rows the ideas about franco-german in tandem, but if you look closer in the 1990's, you saw what happened in 1992 over one movie the ecb to frankfurt, what to call the euro it was just not fun. if i could give you that title, there was a book written in the 1990 proxy in france -- 1990's

in france called "the war of 7 years." the more they fight, the better the compromises for europe. i'm confident we will see a compromise and we will see a pretty interesting relationship. germany is the political union. france is the banking union. we can do more moves on the banking moving -- banking union. be aware of the fact that the germans requires huge steps it to moving into legal things. it requires a leap in political integration. the french need to get in. i was in his office in 1992- 1994.

the argument about political union is a very old argument. this document has and all. everything that is now out in commissions. it was all set in the 1990's. they will need to accept a little bit of this. >> what does this say, though? to make an argument that there is a path to this relationship, but what does that mean for the future? there have been a lot of predictions that the eu may even fail. if it survives, it will be smaller, more of a core europe. do you believe there is a saying among those of us who watch the eu that out of the crisis comes

more, not less? >> if you see what they came out with last tuesday, a big study group proposal, a document with an interim report because they consulted with 10 like-minded foreign ministers about the future of europe. it shapes in new democratic system at last. it is a different set up for european parliament, a very different type of two chambers. i think this is really important. if we come back to france and germany, when they need to succeed now and be thought of, they need to achieve this for europe. this is what it's about. one component is to fix this on

the european level than the other is to fix the relationship between europe. if france and germany should succeed, because they come from different socio-economic conditions, it would empower the european union to have a pretty good consensus model and i think this is what they both knew. this is pretty disputed, but they're both aware of this. we see little progress. >> forgive me for challenging, but we're in the midst of an economic crisis, a very uncooperative game, i think was the term you used. is this a moment to be thinking about grand political design? one thing i have been hearing is that we will see a permanent division between the north and south. they seem to be somewhere in the

middle there. there will be a very different europe going forward, perhaps even the threat of some domestic extremism given the economic crisis, certainly when i was in europe this week talking to some of my north european colleagues, they did not see much of a future for the south of europe with them, at least in the eurozone. is this a moment to be thinking about this? >> they say we need a new architecture. it reshuffling of the architecture. this is hard to explain. for the germans, this means a fundamental reset of the institutional system including treaty change.

this is a given. the other countries should come along excepting this. perhaps germany goes into the banking union. we may start with the redemption or whatever. i think this is the game. that means the erosion of national -- you need to rethink the democratic system of europe in a different way. that's a game changing moment. you go along with that thinking and you may think about that. this is one thing to understand. i think the other countries are coming there. for europe, i think there is no

-- they have been talking about this union. this is -- this would not fly. it is nonsense. europe is part of germany. france needs to decide whether they will go north or south. that has held true for 50 years. you do not see the big currency union. it is completely absurd. this is why the arm wrestling between france and germany. i feel like the french need to come along. the germans came along first. the french did t give it to

us. a further jump into the union. this is pretty much what is happening. i think the french are getting it. look at the system of the european union. the french work into government. executives discussion, is some verses parliamentarian some -- executive is ism. the need to come along and a different contract and under a political system that holds true for both. we will need to merger. the germans have -- she was nine times into parliament.

nicolas sarkozy -- we need to revamp the component of the european system of the french -- and the french will need to understand this. >> thank you. ambassador gray. a lot of high stakes, high wire act bargaining. is this the eu that you saw? does this sound familiar to you in terms of your experience in brussels? why is is important to us? why are we here in washington talking about this? president obama thinks this is important. what is your argument? >> we have two economies that

are highly integrated. 40% of the world trade, 60% of investment close, but 5% of the world gdp -- 35% of the world gdp. they are hugely integrated. up went to dinner and a walk in and it was some very nice. a belgian came up to me and said, i'm so glad to meet you. "where are you from?" i said i'm from once did, d.c. -- washington, d.c. he said, "nobody is from washington, d.c."

i corrupt and did not know that the belgians own where we bought our food. a lot of us do not know this. thatof the bmw's europeans drive are made in south carolina. there are too many regulatory disconnects. i think it should be one internal market. the european internal market is still not finished. we should not get very uppity about this. we have our problems, too. we should not be throwing rocks at europe's so much because there are things we need to do that they can help us with.

the two economies are intertwined. it is not much that our banks would fail or that exports would drop, which they have. it is the overall picture of investment confidence. the year prince -- this is led by the germans. they want a more focused look on regulatory harmonization or mutual harmonization, cloaking it in the guise of a free trade agreements. this is not progressing very well. even run the administration is saying it is not a good idea in campaigning.

why is it important? because if europe cannot find the key to the kind of dot.com innovation that we're used to -- facebook, google -- then we suffer. , and going to be at 2% nobody will be complaining if we were 3%. europe would not have a problem. you can trace almost the price of bonds in germany and italy depending on the progress of a free-market guy who was a competition in the commission. you can trace the progress in tandem with getting his reform program through the italian

parliament. what is the key of this? sort of a trick question. who was the sick man of europe when i first got there? germany. what did they do? they did the reforms. schroeder never benefited from it. this is not the first time president bush 41 cleaned up the banking system. president clinton had a great run. that is life. part of the reform was not adopted until january of 2005. within 18 months -- what angela

merkel wanted from the rest of europe -- we can do this deregulation. a little welfare reform. relaxing their rooms on hiring and firing. if we can do that, you can do that. the price of the bonds go up. interest goes up when it is up on the notion that he will eliminate the requirements without court approval. this is one of the more liberal judges. he said, you cannot do what in italy? you cannot fire anybody without court approval. "without my approval? that is insane."

it is insane. if you get sick on vacation in europe, you get to take a vacation over again. it used to beat if you get sick before vacation, you could postpone in. you can read it in today's paper. gee-whiz. what a great racket that is. i hope to get sick in august. what we need, i think, is to take a look at these things that made it germany a success. there is an effort afoot to try to do that. then i think europe will be under less pressure if they had more growth. >> thank you very much. someone said we european

politicians know exactly needs to do done. we just do not know how to get reelected after we do that. >> take care lumps. maybe in means you did not get reelected but you're treated well by history. >> we have furred a different view of the eurozone crisis, one that looks at this as a bargaining enterprise. one the requires crisis to work. we have a franco-german relationship that does better when they are having arguments. we have politicians who have commit political suicide in order to get these reforms through. no one in the current crop wants to do that. it is not a very cooperative

environment . it is not an environment where everybody can make a rational decision and move forward. we do have a great impetus of the economy, pushing people fourth, debt levels, deficit levels pushing decisions to be made. we have the meeting next friday which we hope will have some decisions. i will open this to the audience. i think we have some microphones here. so, yes. back -- yes, that's right. please say who you are and your affiliation. >> i'm chris with manufacturer'' alliance for productivity and innovation. >> stand, please. >> i hold them in high

regard. i read their stuff and i value their right twriting. i will be challenging their views today. we have a game of chicken which is trying to subtract sovereignty, which is given to any group of countries. we have a conflicts that is almost needed to advance integration. we have a conflict that is needed in order to deepen integration that is supposed to avoid a conflict. i think the search for first best solutions that we have an inability to concentrate on plan b and have the second-best as an

option is causing this crisis. second-best is not being attempted or spelled out. the in-between area is causing the crisis. why do we have to have a crisis in order to solve the crisis? why don't we except plan b, spell out to the voters, and regain the credibility down the line? i cannot put it any other way. >> is there a plan date that would work -- is there a plan b that would work? europeans are accused of not finding the big solution. rather of muddling through. money into that for you -- let me answer that for you, jacob.

there is a timing issue. what would be better off having less of that time to distance to get to the goal and be able to have something, a win of some kind? there was a speech a month ago where europe was given three months. >> he also said last year about three months. >> two weeks last year. >> there are others as well who have said this. is there a second best? >> this is second-best in many ways. that is not possible because of

the sovereignty issues involved. we are now in a second-best solution here. with respect to the timing issue, the way i view it is perhaps slightly broader. euro area is your trying to get. a new center that has been created. that is harder to do than the white continent are normals it unified which is through a military conquest historically. we have states versus the federal discussions about who does what, who pays for what, these types of issues. it goes on all the time.

the same discussion about -- hear we caught states' rights al it -- here we coll state's right issues. there is not a center that everybody believes will hold. i believe it will and that we have crossed the point of no return. it will be much more expensive for everybody involved to dissolve the european union that goes to this process. will we need to do is to get -- what we need to do is to get to the point where the center will hold. to have these state right debates internally in europe.

when will that happen? that is a very good question. we need a banking union. we clearly also need a partial debt neutralization of sovereign debt. i don't think that can be achieved maybe in a five- to eight-year time frane. that does not mean that in the meantime we cannot have a quieting down of the sovereign debt market, of the sovereign bond market instability. the way it works, the political function of the ecb, it lendds its balance sheet. i would expect that to happen after next week's summit. >> second-best plans?

what does this look like between france and germany? to the other countries not part of the decision making process -- is it second best for them? the incentives for germany to compromise and particularly chancellor merkel. she has eight favorability rating of summer between 55% and 60%. >> i would agree. how long do we go with the half pregnant situation? angela merkel has issued a couple of speeches will take five years to go to the

institutional set up. there is work to do. trees will be conveyed into the treaty work -- treaties will be conveyed into the treaty work. something of a refundable work in the institutional set up. also with respect to how the european parliament functions and whether we can work on more transnational parties. 50 years15 years of -- of franco-german treaties. the symbolics of that. what is it for the smaller countries -- what is in for the smaller countries? i do not want to say they did not have other charges.

the smaller countries of the largest benefits of a strong european group. the benefit from the energy policy and from a strong set of support. the smaller countries, as long as they have ownership in the system, and that will be important. i do not like the discussions about federations' any longer. it is too much in comparing to the united states. we will need to have a moment. plenty of art values -- plenty of our values. there must be like something like creative thinking. there is more for the smaller countries. >> do you want to comment on

that? >> this sounds vaguely familiar. i used to say, taken from us -- take it from us. belgium, germany -- we are the old countries. this is not an unfamiliar think we're going through. many europeans are saying why germany should not pick up the debt. it happened when it was formed. there was a huge debt crisis. the states bet on canals and more overtaken by the railroads. "will you bail us out?"

washington said no. we have seen this movie before. we used to say brussels needs to get stronger before it can be weaker. it needs more of a democratic element. the president has to be publicly elected. there has to be this element of it. the french are going to resist this. i have to be careful how say this. my experience was that the french really knew how to run the european union. i used to say to buy british friends who dominated the staff,

and the brits being so good at this. "you really do dominate, don't shyou?" "no, no, no. it's the french. the french dominate everything." this is the problem. the french do not want their power diluted by eastern europe, let alone the united states, if we were to be more integrated in terms of our relationship. i think the french do have to come along on this. >> very quickly on this issue of the pulling of the sovereignty. it is important to distinguish between the timetable for the

fiscal union and for the banking union. you can pull solvency like the european central bank. you cannot do that with a fiscal policy. the need to create a new political institution, which will take the time frame that we talked about. i don't believe the banking union is that far away. >> next week? >> i think we'll have an announcement next week. the pulling of not debt but contingent liability. >> a question here. can i get a microphone here? >> i'm with the atlantic

council. i want to congratulate the panel. i wanted to enlarge the discussion about a headline i remember reading in london the oggged in, for continent cutoff. what is happening in syria and iran? you can imagine will happen to the stock market when the supreme court rules on the health care bill. i wondered if the panel might address some of those and how they might be dealt with if that all. >> at first i thought you're going to ask ask-- something much broader than that. we've had eight bad with issue

-- we have had a bandwidth issue. it has been phenomenal. why don't you start? >> there is an easy answer. we're trying to shift the system away if and we're doing this for all the reasons that jacob mentioned. if you shift the system without gaining ground, the risk is always there that you can lose it. i am convinced that markets already have the story that will succeed a go forward. your point is a valid point. the unknown risk. we do not know about the unknown

risk. the law of unintended consequences. we have been seeing this in these movements and it led to other consequences which were unintended but progress other difficulties. i think we need to have that in buying. -- i think we need to have that in mind. there is a problem. if all this goes right, we'll be keeping a whole political system under strain for the next five years to come. the strain on political elections and the narrative right and the press but overshooting and whenever, what is poisoning the atmosphere and the poison the electoral things and this is a risk.

i agree. >> i'm not sure if you meant to include this, but as we look from here in washington and the discussion about the pivot to asia in u.s. policy, is the euro zone crisis making europe less of a partner for the u.s. in addressing global issues and in the way that europe is seen in international institutions such as the imf, the world bank, etc.? is this something america has to think about it in terms of european capability to act elsewhere. even in diplomatic standards. >> all this talk about the u.s.

and 20 years i'm listening to this. i never saw the u.s. so actively commentating and looking on in europe like now. i am at a fellowship in new york and it's all about europe and germany, trying to get the political economy of europe. there is realizing we of the utmost partner for the united states on earth. this is one of the best unintended consequences of the euro zone crisis. >> you want to comment? >> i am a broken record on this. joseph had a great piece yesterday on this.

we will get copies. if we don't -- and it starts with economics -- my old man used to say money is not everything, it is just about everything. it starts with the internal markets. internal market has to be a transatlantic. if you don't have the economic growth, you cannot pay for anything else and you cannot do the things that we are talking about. you need economic growth. that is where real liberty comes from and real opportunity. we can do that, but it has to be part of the debate. -- this was from a leading german business and science figure, if europeans don't get their act together with common values, different as

they maybe in some respects, asia will drive through and the whole game will be lost. what happens between us and europe is critical to the future of the world economic order. if we don't get our act together and, we don't hang together, we will hang separately. >> thank you. we would like to bring in another voice. i'm with the transatlantic business dialogue. my name is catherine hauser. i think what americans think of your rope, they think of the u.k. -- think of europe. most of our exports go there and we have a close relationship with them. i'm interested in the panel's

thoughts about the troubled u.k. may cause in all of this. >> jacob, do you want to start on economics? >> yes, i think this is first and foremost a problem for the u.k., quite frankly, because i think that what you will see is increasingly -- i know there is talk of [unintelligible] , but in the long run, because of the benefits for the smaller countries that are part of the european integration, i think in the long run it will end up being 26. i feel very confident about that. if you think about why that is, poland is a member of the group

that she mentioned in the beginning. this is not and eu 15. it is a group with everybody in. who knows what the czech republic will do. then we are into a situation of 26. in the long run, unfortunately, the politics of the u.k. is no more certain to keep it out of these deep sovereignty issues. the role of the city of london in this is a good question. i guess at the end of the day, as came out a couple weeks ago in open europe they had a report on what the u.k. should do in

this and these are people who are skeptics and they said at the end of the day the u.k. has more to gain from being inside and outside. i think they will remain a member of the european union. whether or not it will be a special relationship than a full member, that is up to debate. but they will not be part of the core of it in the long run. >> the camera on government has been quite concerned about their ability to have influence over regulations on financial services. -- the cameron government. it is a single market, the u.k. do you think they will be able to protect their interests in financial regulation? >> if they do, it is for the

narrow party political reasons that david cameron chose to stay outside. i think it was a very stupid thing that he did, because he basically chose to have a couple good headlines in the daily mail and the other tabloids rather than think about the decisions about financial services in the internal market already taken by qualified majority. it means the actual needs allies in the european union already. by staying out of it is not a way to get a lot of friends. so in a huge mistake for short- term gains. will they ultimately succeed? i think they will. i think there will be allies for the traditional open market model that the u.k. is associated with, free trade, etc.

also because the u.k. is not associated with a light touch financial regulation. so i think there's room. >> go ahead. then we will go back to the audience after your comments. >> what is the principal dispute between london and brussels over financial regulation? anybody? >> financial transaction taxes? >> no. >> they don't like that. that's true. i don't think we should like that either. i think i know what it is. we had joseph ackerman to address this. he is the expert. we probably all think the issue

is the british want to have less regulation than brussels. that would be wrong. what they want is high capital standards for british banks, which the europeans do not want. they want those banks to do more lending in europe, which the british taxpayers will pick up the tab if something went wrong. so there's a tug of war. . it is counterintuitive. nobody in america knows this because the press does not report it. england wants tighter regulations. high capital standards mean that you don't have to do any other regulation. like we have over here, the continent does not want to do that. because theto this regulatory details really matter and they are really boring.

>> thank you for that. >> i want to drop a little vinegar into the wind. -- wine. if we need a moment of an institutional game change in which we changed the institutional nature of the system in a way that we probably cannot go with unanimity -- somebody told rhode island did not do that and dropped out. we have learned not to do the institutional game change as we're waiting for a danish yes or no or an irish yes or no. a game change cannot come with british conditions. we gave them a first chance in december when we said we would not always wait for you guys. that's not to say we don't want the uk on board. it's very important country and the city of london. my argument would rather be the

german government should be more decided to go eu 17 at the detriment of 27 with the hopes that others woulcome along. the u.k. can do it if it wants to. >> i saw a question over here. let's get a microphone. >> thank you. scott harris, atlantic council. recently i was running the european office of lockheed martin the last 10 years. we had several interesting adventures together, with ambassador gregg. i want to thank the panel for an interesting discussion. -- ambassador gray. i have a concern. always when we have these institutional discussions about

mutualization and building deeper and treated changes, we assume that the governments of europe can do what they say they will do. i am concerned that especially 3 southern european governments will be forced to and will sign up to things they actually cannot implement. ken the brakes really reform the state sector and collect taxes? can italians reform the labor market and deal with corruption? can the spanish get the regional governments not to run deficits? there are political problems that are very deep and cannot be solved by dictation. do you share that concern? >> i think in many european discussions this has come down to are the germans pushing everyone to become germany? and whether some of the long- term institutional factors in many of these other countries can change.

what do you think? how much room for diversity will there be in this post-physical contact? >> i am with you that the inertia on the ground is enormous. if you look closely at germany, we also are now having people waking up. berlin is as indebted as the greeks. there's a huge inertia at work. the same in spain and italy but. i give you something else, which is my biggest problem, how do we make all this work, and transnational democracy? if you want to take crucial decisions on how do you send your money, it's not so easy.

this is why we are filling up the press instead of who should pay for the crisis. [unintelligible] you see french camp socialists coming together with greek workers -- french socialists. if you look at elections and populism in europe, we have a 77% -- 30-70 divide. you have an average populism, leighton populism of 30% in the netherlands or france like left

and right pulled together. that is most often a regional pressure and goes against the more europe argument in the constraint. for the rest, there's more of an economic argument, which is how much diversity we can allow in the economy. i hope we can have this discussion. if we win this discussion, we have won the future. it's not about whether germany is rich. germany is very poor. 50% unemployed regions. there is a solidarity concept. we don't compared trade to export figures. if we could mentally and intellectually shift to the european system as an aggregate economy and then do fiscal transfer from wealthier regions

to less wealthy regions rather than doing german money to fiscal transfers, then we would have done the intellectual and mental game change. i think we are preparing the ground that much more about wealthy regions to poorer regions. we will need to accept poorer and richer regions in the european union. everybody can be different while we are still denied said. that's the work we will need to achieve and its big work. >> did you want to -- >> yes, my daughter said that if you did not catch a greek

citizen before noon, you could not read to them in the afternoon, the bureaucrats. she never had any trouble reaching anyone in germany. let me read a couple figures from the article. >> germany's unit labor cost taking into it -- not taking into account east germany was 7%. it'll it was 30% and in spanish with 35%. 42% increase, the unit labor cost -- 42% in greece. that is almost with the problem begins and ends. cosumnes diversity can we get under the compact? >> eventually you will get there, but i think there's a very important distinction i would make.

whatever the unions look like will be very different from that of the united states. the euro zone in almost any conceivable shape or form that i will not have a sizeable federal budget like in the united states. the reason is simple. it has to do with people's self identity. because europeans continuously self-identified as french, german, belgian -- or maybe not belgians, actually. [laughter] but the point is you will only accept being taxed at a level in -- you urselfidentifie self identify.

the willingness of americans to pay federal income tax is much higher than the willingness of europeans to pay taxes. the public sectors in europe are larger than in the u.s. the overwhelming amount of public spending will remain at the state level, much more so than in the united states where the predominant taxing power is the federal government and then spending directly in the benefits system or giving in grants to the states. that system in europe will be different. the money will be raised and spent at the member state level. you will have some sort of --

that's why there's a focus on fiscal rules, how you spend the money that you raised at the member state level. there's quite a lot of room for diversity within this system, because it is necessary, because there's no possibility of a large 10% or 20% of gdp federal budget. >> i will ask for a brief questions because we're coming to the end and we have several questions still out there. this gentleman in the front. and the next is in the back. >> . ben from the economic strategy institute. thanks very much for an interesting discussion. i think there's a very compelling description of this being sort of a high-stakes game of chicken over and over again

in the european union. given the stakes of the sovereign issues involved with the banking units and fiscal units, it's not hard to understand. given the time frame people are talking about in terms of setting up a banking union and a fiscal union, how credible is it that the ec began keep the pressure on? ecb.he it's trying not to be the lender of last resort. imagine a scenario where french sovereign bond yields start to rise because some market gets a little worried, it's hard to conceive the french would accept that and they would not say, listen, you've got to do something at the ecb? can the board members maintain the pressure? >> and how much longer can

analysts like ourselves continually wonder if this is the week that the crisis will be? >> i believe the actual firepower of the european central bank is a lot higher than is generally perceived by the market's. with respect to what they would do in the case of a spike in french bond yields, i think it would -- then we would go back to the issue of conditionality. you would have a situation -- recall what happened in august last year when the issue was whether or not john club treats shade and dragi would purchase -- -- whether trichet and dragi would buy italian debt?

the same thing happened in france. they would be met with some degree of implicit conditionality in terms of whether it's labor markets o whatever in terms f -- in return for those purchases. more importantly, and this also goes to the market psychology, what you need to have is the market circumstances in which a convergence trade is once again feasible. what that entails is -- because when you have that, markets all of a sudden will buy because they think they will converge. there's a need to convince the markets that the center will fall. because once that happens the

markets will actually help you in the way that they helped the european integration much too much in the early years of the economic and monetary union where there was excessive convergence, because it basically led to complacency of the policy level. the point is you have to read this sort of threshold and then the divergence will become convergence. ecb is perfectly capable of that. >> let me go to the back of the room and then we will get another question here. the last question. >> i am randy at american university and the peterson institute. i want to thank the four of you for an interesting session this morning. and follow up on ulrike guerot's point about the transformation of european politics as we move

forward from here, which i thought it was intriguing. in particular, i want to ask you a little about transeuropean political movements. these will be an important complement to the kind of institutional transformation that you discussed. i would like to ask you, because i think that you could look more closely at this than most of us have, i would like to ask you about the cooperation between the french socialist party and the german s3d. i had thought the challenge for them has been to come to agreement on what to ask as the quid pro quo for moving forward with the fiscal, and the stability treating? it does not seem to me they have come to much of an agreement on this. i have been disappointed it has

gravitated to the financial transaction tax, which does not help moves fiscal union and banking union's ford. i will ask about the basic -- fundamentals, the corporation between these two parties and some of the negotiation between them over the last week's. >> ok. let me get a microphone over here, quickly. >> peter, u.s. chamber. i want to ask whether the panelists believe the market's should inflict their concern about the distance that these countries can go on with reform. even some of the core countries like germany and austria, the service sector is very sticky. maybe there's a limit. if that's the case and markets are asking themselves the same question, does that not argue for something very big pretty quickly along the lines of our redemption fund, which did work very well to get from the

articles of confederation to the constitution? >> final question in the front. >> the european union delegation to the u.s.. [unintelligible] the main variable is the transfer of sovereignty. i wonder whether this should be a positive sum game. we have also received as a non [unintelligible] more countries benefit is a misperception.

the idea that germany pays and the others don't, germany does pay its fair share, but the others do as well. unit labor costs have been diverging and cannot converge again. the last three years have shown that they have converged again. clearly, the perception is related to the democratic process. would you not agree that leaders realize the nature of the cooperative gain and in the end can find a solution? >> do you want to finish an? >> i would like to share that. i don't think there's any doubt that unit to gain is a plus sum game. when i talk about an

uncooperative game, that is a theoretical idea that you basically have to have a game of chicken for it to unfold. that is more a process element. i certainly agree. i agree with what you said that these diverging labor costs and unit labor costs that wouwe referred to earlier, there are rapidly converging. we should also be careful not to have much of a unit labor cost, because they don't represent actual export performance in many of these countries, so they're not the ". -- not equal. i will stop there. qwikster you want to comment than-european? political

european >> i'm from the area of escal cologne, germany, which has a beautiful cathedral and i think the european union is threatened by it. when it is finished, they will start at another angle to do construction. the crisis is over. it has left us with craters of construction work, political, economic, and there is the question of when it is going to be over. the crisis is over and commitment from the german government is that the german government is committed to do at each step of the crisis whatever is necessary to prevent the euro from collapse. what is necessary -- we will see that in a week's time, we will

see them do it. if it is three weeks later, the redemption fund, it might be that. then you get a little condition. that is how i see it. we are already in the big architecture thing here. to be more precise, there is another misunderstanding here which is that it is much more german than socialist. i wrote a paper which i called -- and i try to match the economic thinking of german parties with respect to mainstream international think he. -- thinking. what you can see is even if you go into deep hearted german social democrats, they would not be on the french growth pacman.

they would still see that you do not do that final growth. [unintelligible] it has increased in recent weeks, because they wanted to show solidarity. it wanted to renegotiate some elements of the compact because was a majority needed in the bundestag. the spd wanted to renegotiate some points, which did not happen. it makes you understand -- and that is what i want to give you. we have elections next year. and we assumenge an there is a majority? not too much. you will not seen game changers

in the german mind set of how this crisis is to be solved, and you will be hearing the same messages of stability, a structural reform, and so forth. here is that thing. the most -- the moment they have been talking closely and discussions started, and they did the work on foreign policy, they have working groups, this is what europe is about tomorrow -- more cooperation. and this is a good side of a very close operation. >> a history example, europe should not invoke the example of the redemption fund, assuming of the debts without understanding that the quid pro quo was the market, and followed by chief justice marshall, who

relentlessly squashed the federal states from interfering in the market. there is a quid pro quo -- there was -- and if you're wants to invoke -- if europe wants to invoke that model, they have to accept the internal market deal. >> i want to thank the panel. this is a political animal and a political disagreement, and the range of topics we have talked about from the future construction of europe to the building of the political building of the united states demonstrates how accurate that was. i hope you all have found that view of this, of the eurozone crisis, as a bargaining enterprise -- if i can put it that way -- to be helpful in understanding what is happening in europe. this evening we will have the ultimate uncooperative game,

which is the germany-greece football match in a couple of hours. we will see how that comes out as a metaphor for the future of the eurozone. thank you very much. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

>> president obama will speak at a conference hosted by the national association of latino elected officials. we will have live press -- coverage at about 1:40 eastern. coming up live tonight, from dallas, a debate between the two republican candidate for u.s. senate in texas. the state holds its election on july 31. it gets underway at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. on c-span2, the clear blue loose policy institute in washington hold a forum for women leaders' =, panelists take part.

that is live at 2:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2. >> if all of us decide that we are on to spend less, what happens is we all end up poor because all of our spending occurs at the same time. [unintelligible] >> who is going to tell them the truth? we have to tell them the truth. if we do not, our country falls. must succeed in this and we will succeed in this. we will reach them through the media and through politics and to pop culture. pop culture -- we should not be

afraid to get out there and be influencing first. >> watch these online at this east and the library. this weekend, the civil war and the movement to end slavery. >> at the fascinating facts of abolitionism is when lincoln gave his inaugural, the abolitionists are still a minority, and what transforms abolitionists into a respected critics of the american scene is for sumpter. -- fort sumpter.

>> "the contenders," a look at a five time candidate for president, eugene debs. this weekend on c-span3. >> aung san suu kyi delivered a speech thursday before a joint session of parliament. she was awarded the peace prize in 1991 while under house of rest. last week she accepted the award in oslo. apart from only woman fo queen elizabeth ii to address parliament.

>> this hall has hosted many events over the past 900 years. in recent times only a few international figures - charles de gaulle, nelson mandela, pope benedict xvi and barack obama - have spoken here. today daw aung san suu kyi will become the first figure other than a head of state, the first woman from abroad and the first citizen of asia to do so. this is not a break from precedent without a purpose. the courage of our guest is legendary. she has withstood the unimaginable suffering of separation from her family and

her people with a dignity, fortitude and resolve which most of us can barely conceive. her connections with the united kingdom, reinforced in oxford yesterday, are intimate. she has been the symbol of resistance to a regime which even in an imperfect world has been exceptional in its barbarity. as the un has documented, and from three trips to burma's borders i can myself attest, this is a cabal guilty of rape as a weapon of war, extra- judicial killings, compulsory relocation, forced labour, deployment of child soldiers, use of human minesweepers, incarceration of opponents in unspeakable conditions, destruction of villages, obstruction of aid and excruciating torture. burma has become a beautiful

but benighted land where fear runs through society like blood flowing through veins. one woman has now defied a dictatorship of such depravity for two decades. that is why daw aung san suu kyi, a leader and a stateswoman, is here with us this afternoon. however, there is room for cautious optimism. the recent election to parliament of our guest, accompanied by 42 of her colleagues, and the release of many political prisoners are welcome signs of reform. we earnestly hope that further, and fundamental, reform will

ultimately lead to the freedom, democracy and rule of law which we have so long enjoyed and the people of burma have too long been denied. there is an asian saying that a journey of a thousand miles must start with a single step. we are proud that one such step will be taken in this parliament today. parliamentary colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, it is my privilege to welcome the conscience of a country and a heroine for humanity, daw aung san suu kyi. [applause]

lord speaker, mr. speaker, mr. prime minister, my lords, and members of the house of commons. thank you for inviting me to speak to you here in this magnificent hall. i am very conscious of the extraordinary nature of this honour. i understand that there was some debate as to whether i would speak here in this splendid setting, or elsewhere within the palace of westminster. i welcome that debate and discussion, it is what parliament is all about. i have just come from downing street. it was my first visit there. and yet, for me, it was a familiar scene, not just from television broadcasts, but from my own family history. as some of you may be aware, the best known photograph of my

father aung san, taken shortly before his assassination in 1947, was of him standing in downing street with clement atlee and others with whom he had been discussing burma's transition to independence. he was pictured wearing a large british military-issue greatcoat. this had been given to him by jawaharlal nehru en route to the uk, to protect against the unaccustomed cold. and i must say, having not left my tropical country for 24 years, there have been the odd moments this week when i have thought of that coat myself. my father was a founding member of the burmese independence

army, in world war two. he took on this responsibility out of a desire to see democracy established in his homeland. was the only political system worthy of an independent nation. it is a view, of course, that i have long shared. general slim, commander of the 14th army, who led the allied burma campaign, wrote about his first encounter with my father in his memoir defeat into victory. the meeting came towards the end of the war, shortly after my father had decided that the burmese independence army should join forces with the allies. general slim said to my father, 'you've only come to us because we are winning'. to which my father replied 'it wouldn't be much good coming to you if you weren't, would it'. slim saw in my father a practical man with whom he could do business.

six decades later, i strive to be as practical as my father was. and so i am here, in part, to ask for practical help, help as a friend and an equal, in support of the reforms which can bring better lives, greater opportunities, to the people of burma who have been for so long deprived of their rights and their place in the world. as i said yesterday in oxford, my country today stands at the start of journey towards, i hope, a better future. so many hills remain to be climbed, chasms to be bridged, obstacles to be breached. our own determination can get us so far, the support of the people of britain, and of peoples around the world, can get us so much further. in a speech about change and reform, it is very appropriate

to be in westminster hall, because at the heart of this process must be the establishment of a strong own country. the british parliament is perhaps the preeminent symbol to oppressed peoples across the world of freedom of speech. i would imagine that some people here, to some extent, take this freedom for granted. for us in burma, what you take for granted, we have had to struggle for, long and hard. burma's ongoing struggle for democracy. and we are only now just beginning to see the fruits of our struggle. westminster has long set a shining example of realising the people's desire to be part of their own legislative process.

in burma, our parliament is in its infancy, having been established only in march 2011. as with any new institution, especially an institution which goes against the cultural grain of forty-nine years of direct military rule, it will take time to find its feet, and time to find its voice. while undoubtedly an improvement on what went before, are not as transparent as they might be. i would like to see us learn from established examples of parliamentary democracies elsewhere, so that we might deepen our own democratic standards over time. perhaps the most critical in establishing the credibility of the parliamentary process happens before parliament even opens, namely,

the people's participation in a free, fair, inclusive electoral process. earlier this year, i myself participated in my first ever election as a candidate. to this day i have not yet had the chance to vote freely in any election. in 1990, i was allowed to cast an advance vote while under house arrest, but i was prevented from contesting as a candidate for my party, the national league for democracy. i was disqualified on the grounds that i had received help from foreign quarters. this amounted to bbc broadcasts that the authorities considered to be biased in my favour. what struck me most ahead of this year's by-elections was how quickly people in the constituencies across burma participating in the political process.

that the right to vote was not something given to all. they understood that they must take advantage when the opportunity arose, because they understood what it meant to have that opportunity taken away from them. during the years that i lived in the uk, i never had the right to vote myself. but i can remember, even during my university days, that i was always trying to encourage my friends to exercise their right to vote. it was never clear to me whether they followed those instructions. but it was clear to me even then that if we do not guard the rights we have, we run the risk of seeing those rights erode away. to those who feel themselves to be somehow above politics, i want to say that politics should be seen neither as something that exists above us, nor as

something that happens beneath us, but as something integral to our everyday existence. after my marriage i constantly preached my gospel of political husband, michael. i can still distinctly recall the occasion when a canvasser knocked on the door of our oxford home, during an election campaign. when he saw the gentleman, poised to deliver his campaigning pitch, he said "it's no use trying to win me over, it's my wife who decides how i should vote. yous out now, why don't come back later?" the canvasser did come back later, mainly i think to see what a wife who decided how her husband should vote looked like. days since i, together with my fellow national league for democracy candidates, was out on

the campaign trail across burma. our by-elections were held on april the first- and i am conscious that there was a certain scepticism that this would be another elaborate april fools joke. in fact it turned out to be an april of new hope. the voting process was largely free and fair, and i would like to pay tribute to president thein sein for this, and for his committment and sincerity in the reform process. as i have long said, it is through dialogue and through cooperation that political differences can best be resolved, and my own committment as ever. elections in burma are very different to those in many more established democracies such as yours. apathy, especially amongst the issue. for me the most encouraging and

rewarding aspect of our own elections was the participation, in such vast numbers and with such enthusiasm, of our young people. often our biggest challenge was restraining the crowds of university students, school children, and flag-waving toddlers, who greeted us on the campaign, blocking the roads through the length of towns. the day before the elections, on my way to my constituency, i passed a hillock which had been "occupied" by a group of children, the oldest about ten or eleven, their leader standing at the summit holding the nld flag. the passion of the electorate was a passion born of hunger for something long denied. independencema's in 1948, our parliamentary system was of course based on that of the uk. the era became known, in

burmese, as the parliamentary era- a name which by the mere necessity of its application speaks of the unfortunate changes which followed. our parliamentary era, which lasted- more or less- until 1962, could not be said to have been perfect. but it was certainly the most progressive and promising period until now in the short history of independent burma. it was at this time that burma was considered the nation most likely to succeed in south east asia. things did not, however, go entirely to plan. they often don't, in burma, and indeed in the rest of the world. now, once again, we have an opportunity to reestablish true democracy in burma. it is an opportunity for which we have waited many decades. if we do not use this opportunity, if we do not get

things right this time round, it may be several decades more before a similar opportunity arises again. and so it is for that reason that i would ask britain, as one of the oldest parliamentary democracies, to consider what it can do to help build the sound institutions needed to support our nascent parliamentary democracy. the reforms taking place, led by president thein sein, are to be welcomed. but this cannot be a personality-based process. without strong institutions this process will not be sustainable. our legislature has much to learn about the democratisation process, and i hope that britain and other democracies can help by sharing your own experiences with us. thus far, i have only spent a

matter of minutes inside the burmese parliament, when i took my oath as a new mp last month. i must say that i found the atmosphere rather formal. men are required to wear formal headgear. there is certainly no heckling. i would wish that over time perhaps we will reflect the liveliness and relative informality of westminster. i am not unaware of the saying that more tears have been shed over wishes granted than over wishes denied. nevertheless, it is when burma has its own satisfactory equivalent of prime minister's questions that we will be able to say that parliamentary democracy has truly come of age. i would also like to emphasise the importance of establishing requisite parliamentary control over the budget.

in all this, what is most important is to empower the people, the essential ingredient of democracy. britain is living proof that a constitution does not need to be written down in order to be effective. it is more important that a constitution should be accepted by the people, that people should feel it belongs to them, that it is not an external document imposed upon them. one of the clearly stated aims of the nld is constitutional reform. burma's original constitution was drawn up following the meeting between my father, aung san, and clement atlee, here in london in 1947. this constitution may not have been perfect, but at its core was a profound understanding of and respect for the aspirations of the people.

the current constitution, drawn up by the military government in 2008, must be amended to incorporate the basic rights and aspirations of burma's ethnic nationalities. in over sixty years of independence, burma has not yet known a time when we could say that there was peace throughout the land. at this very moment, hostilities continue between kachin forces and the state armed forces in the north. in the west, communal strife has led to the loss of innocent lives and the displacements of tens of thousands of hapless citizens. we need to address the problems that lie at the root of conflict.

we need to develop a culture of political settlement through negotiation, and to promote the rule of law, that all who live in burma may enjoy the benefits of both freedom and security. in the immediate term, we also need humanitarian support for the many many people, in the north and in the west, largely women and children, who have been forced to flee their homes. as the long history of the united kingdom shows clearly, people never lose their need to preserve their national or ethnic identity. this is something which goes beyond, which supersedes, economic development. and that is why i hope that in working for burma's national reconciliation, the international community will recognise that it is political dialogue and political

settlement which must be given precedence over short-term economic development. unresolved, if basic aspirations remain unfulfilled, there cannot be an adequate foundation for sustainable development of any kind- economic, social or political. britain has for so long under successive governments, including the present conservative-liberal democrat coalition, and the previous labour government, been a staunch and unshakeable supporter of aid efforts in burma. i hope you can continue to help our country through targeted and coordinated development assistance. britain has been until now the largest bilateral donor to burma. it is in education in particular that i hope the british can play a major role.

we need short-term results so that our people may see that democratisation has a tangible positive impact on their own lives. vocational training and creation of employment opportunities to help address burma's chronic youth unemployment are particularly important. longer-term, burma's education system is desperately weak, reform is needed, not just of schools and curriculum, and the training of teachers, but also of our attitude to education, which at present is too narrow and rigid. businesses can also play a role in supporting the democratic reform process, through what i have termed democracy-friendly investment. by this, i mean investment that

prioritises transparency, accountability, workers' rights, and environmental sustainability. investment, particularly in labour-intensive sectors, when carried out responsibly and with positive intent, can offer real benefits to our people. one test will be whether new players will benefit from the investment coming in. britain has played an important role in facilitating the forthcoming visit, next month, of the extractive industries transparency initiative secretariat. i hope this will be the start of many similar initiatives in the months ahead. it was through learning about two great british leaders, gladstone and disraeli, while at oxford, that i first

developed my understanding of parliamentary democracy. i learnt the basics, that one accepts the decision of the voters, that the governing power is gained and relinquished in accordance with the desires of the electorate, that it is the system which goes on, and that ultimately everyone gets another chance. these are things taken for granted here in britain. but in 1990 in burma, the winner of the elections, the nld, was never allowed even to convene parliament. i hope that we can leave such days behind us, and that as we look forward to the future, it will be the will of the people that is reflected faithfully in burma's changing political landscape. this journey out of burma has not been a sentimental pilgrimage to the past, but an

exploration of the new opportunities at hand for the people of burma. i have been struck, throughout my trip, by how extraordinarily warmhearted and open the world has been to us. to experience this first hand, after so long physically separated from this world, has been very moving. countries that geographically are distant, have shown that they are close to burma in what really matters, they are close to the aspirations of the burmese people. we are brought into proximity through our shared values- and no geographical distance, no human-made barriers, can stand in our way. during the years of my house arrest it was not just the bbc and other broadcasting stations that kept me in touch with the

world outside. it was the music of mozart and ravi shankar, and the biographies of men and women of different races and religions, that convinced me i would never be alone in my struggle. the prizes and honours i received were not so much a personal tribute, as a recognition of the basic humanity that unites one isolated person to the rest of the world. during our dark days in the 1990s, a friend sent me a poem by arthur hugh clough. it begins "say not the struggle nought availeth." i understand that winston churchill, one of the greatest parliamentarians the world has known, used the poem himself as a plea for the usa to step in against nazi germany. today, i want to make a rather different point, that we can work together, combining

political wisdom from east and west, to bring the light of democratic values to all peoples, in burma and beyond. i will just read the final verse, and not by eastern windows only, when daylight comes, comes in the light, in front the sun climbs slow, how slowly, but westward, look, the land is bright. i would like to emphasise in conclusion that this is the most important time for burma, that this is the moment of our greatest need- and so i would ask that our friends, both here in britain and beyond, participate and support burma's efforts towards the establishment of a truly democratic and just society. thank you for giving me this opportunity to address the

members of one of the oldest democratic institutions in the world. thank you for letting me into your midst. my country has not yet entered the ranks of truly democratic societies, but i'm confident we will get there before too long, with your help. [applause]

on behalf of the house of lords, and everyone here today, may i express our collective and heartfelt thanks for your inspiring words. we all espouse freedom and democracy but few of us are called upon to pay for and uphold these principles by spending 15 years in detention. your presence here today is a testament to your courageous approach of steadfast non- violence and reason in the face of an oppressive, powerful and determined regime.

your struggle has reverberated around the world. it has forcibly reminded us that free and fair elections, a free press, an independent judiciary, and the institutions of civil society are the cornerstones of democracy and individual freedom. we take these freedoms for granted at our peril. democracy is never won once and forever it is a process requiring constant vigilance. today you have reminded us of the struggle that must continue in burma and elsewhere. in post-war europe we have seen that it is possible for countries to make the transition from totalitarianism to democracy, and i trust that this will give you hope and encouragement for the journey ahead. your stand against repression has been at the heart of the national league for democracy's struggle.

i am sure that at times during your long campaign you must have felt unbearably lonely, though as you yourself have said, the nobel peace prize allowed you to feel part of the international community. and indeed, through you, your people and your country were always in our minds. now, together, we must use this occasion of your address to fellow parliamentarians to renew our own determination to be part of the struggle for liberty whenever and wherever it arises. thank you. [applause]

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>> in just 20 minutes, we will hear from president obama at the annual conference. he will attend a campaign event in the afternoon. we're looking at pictures of the president arriving a short time ago in orlando. president obama speaks at about 1:40 eastern. we've had it live on c-span. tonight from dallas, a debate between the two republican candidates for u.s. senate in texas. the former solicitor general and senator david dewhurst. the debate is underway at 9:00 eastern. on c-span2, a forum with conservative women leaders looking at how women are betrayed in the media and seen in business. panelists include the political commentator and the author. that will take place at 2:00

eastern on c-span2. >> how the approach book interviews differently from news media interviews? >> i think of interviewing when i am working for the news as gathering contemporary information. >> howled difficult is it to remain impartial in reporting? >> i will try to give people as full an understanding of what is happening in the campaign. it is not that difficult to put your biases to the side. >> how has it changed your line of work in terms of getting your news information? >> twitter is a primary news source for anyone that covers politics or pays attention to politics. it did not exist four years ago for all practical intents and

purposes. >> dan balz on the newspaper business, covering elections, and the rise of social media on sunday night. >> president obama speaks of the conference of national association of latino elected and appointed officials in about 20 minutes. we will have it live on c-span. until then, a discussion on the growth of the hispanic population in america. host: it is time for our installment of america by the numbers. we will look at the hispanic population of the u.s. in its trends. let me introduce you to roberto ramierz at the u.s. census bureau. he is the chief of the ethnicity and ancestry statistics branch. mark lopez looks at numbers about the hispanic community in the u.s. -- is the associate director of the hispanic center research. i appreciate you being here to

add color to the numbers. we need to start off with understanding what the term hispanic means because we variously here definition such as latino, hispanic your people -- i am sure people who are not are confused about when or when to invoke it. in the eyes of gathering data, how do you define it? guest: great question. the way that census bureau defines the hispanic origin or the termers panic is following the guidelines -- term hispanic is following the guidelines set by the law. there are two categories. one who is a person who is hispanic or latino or someone who is not hispanic or latino. the definition of hispanic or latino according to the guidelines is anybody who can trace their origin through any of the spanish-speaking countries in central and south

america, including mexico, a puerto rico, spain. in fact, anybody who self identifies themselves as hispanic could be of any race. host: you do so much work with the community. do you have a different definition when you look at who is hispanic? guest: anybody who tells us they are hispanic, there were hispanic. we do asked -- do you have hispanic origin? we list different countries. however, it is up to anybody to sell identified. if you say you are, we count u.s. hispanic. -- we cout you as hispanic. there are some interesting things to note about the latino community. it is interesting that even though we have these terms of hispanic or latino, all our opinion shows that when it comes to these terms, half of hispanics do not like either

term. they most often prefer their country of origin term or ancestral homeland term. host: we will put the phone numbers on the screen for your involvement in this segment. it is on the hispanic community in the u.s. if you would like to make a comment, you are welcome to. there has been discussion about hispanic political activity and what that means for the 2008 election. going back to definitions, all of you have seen the official government question. they brought them along today. you can see how the government establishes the identity of people answering questions. let me ask you when we look at these numbers, do they include people who are here legally and illegally? guest: the numbers i am going to talk about in the upcoming

discussion includes everybody. we have no question on legal status. in the senses, on the screen, this is hispanic origin questions used in the census. these are also used in surveys. host: we often hear that people who are here illegally avoid census takers because they do not want to get caught up in the process. how do you account for them? do you project beyond what you are able to gather to give a truer sense of the size of the population? guest: when we in the murray -- when we enumerate households, we just go ahead and in numerous everybody there. we do not ask about legal status. we have a question on the american community survey but it is not on the census itself. you mentioned the term latino. if you look at the hispanic origin question, we actually do ask if you are latino.

or hispanic and use it interchangeably. host: let us jump into the numbers because you spoke about how people self identify with their country of origin. the census bureau has asked country of origin and what we learn from this number here? mexican origin by far outweighs all the others. guest: most people might think the hispanic population -- it is not a monolithic group. mexican origin population comprises the largest group out of the total. 52 million hispanics, they compose 32 million. about 63%. followed by a border --, cuban, salvadorean, dominican. these are results from the 2010 census. host: amongst these countries, to politics differ? guest: when you look at public

opinion polls and ask people about which party they identify with, across all groups of latinos, you do see very strong identification or leaning towards the democratic party. cuban-americans are somewhat different. when you look in the state of florida and go to registrations in miami county, they're heavily weighted towards republicans. there are more hispanics registered as republicans than democrats. miami has half of the nation to get cuban-american population. that gives you a sense of the differences across country of origin groups and political party identification. the southwest to northeast, you will see more latinos leaning towards democrats. those have large mexican or dominican populations. host: we have our phone lines/time. we welcome people of hispanic origin who would like to be part of our conversation. tell us about your own or family experience in coming to

the country and also, for others to changing face of america. these numbers will detail how america is changing. this chart looks at hispanics in this country from the 1970's 3 the present and projects what it will be like to 2050. guest: this graph shows the hispanic population in million starting with 1970. this was the first sentence we had -- census the half. -- census we had a spanish origin question. this was estimated at 9.1 million. as we move over time, the actual read bar are the census numbers. the green border results from the national estimates. now we have estimated 52 million. between 1970 and 2011, this population group -- group i -- grew by 150%.

if you focus on the right hand, those are projections. these are based on future fertility, mortality, immigration rates. by the year 2015, the population will be about 133 million. host: it is important to put that in context of the size of the country. that is the set of -- this set of numbers shows that for us. guest: this shows similar information. the percentage of the population that is hispanic origin. 1970, 4.5% of the total population. now, 16.7%. if you look into the projected numbers, by the year 2015, one in every three u.s. residents will be hispanic. host: talk about the changing face of this country. african-americans in the u.s. -- about 12%.

as of now, hispanics are 3% higher than that. we are not looking at other groups which have grown, such as asian groups. what does that mean for the culture of the u.s.? guest: the u.s. is changing. it is also interesting to ask hispanics and asian-americans if they see themselves as a typical american. in our most recent survey, half of hispanics see themselves as a typical american. what is seen about the hispanic population growth is it has started in this decade -- most of it comes from birth in the u.s. most of the growth of the hispanic population will be amongst people who are born here in the u.s. that means that the experience will not be a new immigrant experience. it may be the children of immigrants or the children of people born in the united

states. host: gentlemen, let us work in our viewers. we begin with steve in illinois. good morning you're welcome. caller: the morning. -- good morning. what impact does the jobless rate have on the latino community? guest: the unemployment rate for hispanics dropped and nearly matched the unemployment rate of non-hispanics in the u.s. by 2006. the recession impact latinos early on. they were the first to be hit hard by the recession. the unemployment rate is about 11% for hispanics. when we asked them about this, they say they know somebody who has been unemployed. when you ask them about the future, they say their current finances might be difficult but they expect things to improve. even though there is an 11%

unemployment rate, they are optimistic about their financial futures. host: our twitter community, we are instituting a hash tag for or america by the number segment because it is friday. it will help your comments stand out for us and to track your interest in statistics. #abtn. add that to your tweets. we will have a better chance of getting through to it this morning. let us hear from brandon. caller: my question for you this morning is regarding why hispanics are considered a different race. in this country, we generally identify -- i am a cuban- american. i identify as white.

i wonder why there is a different categorization for hispanics and latinos. guest: as i mentioned previously, we follow the guidelines set by the u.s. office of management and budget for 11 -- 4 ethnicity. ethnicity and a hispanic origin they are treated as separate concepts. there is a separate race question. we ask if they are hispanic or not, and then we ask about their race. host: another view about population growth. tell us what we have here. guest: this chart shows the growth, the total u.s. growth between 2000 and 2011.

the population has grown by 16.7 million. >host: the take away is it is growing at a faster rate than all other populations? guest: the asian population is growing just about as fast. host: our next telephone call. new mexico. this is mark. you are on. caller: mr. lopez, my main question is i live down where there are a lot of mexicans. i still feel vet we should be americans, not split up asian, hispanic, and german whatever. why can we not all be americans?

it is a good question. we see this in our own public opinion surveys and we asked aquinos about the term they used. -- latinos are about the term they use. one-third prefer to be called americans most often. there are different opinions. some immigrants prefer to call themselves by their country of origin term. those that are third or fourth generation prefer american. it depends on who you talk to and how people choose to see their own identity. host: this question --

host: that is what we have next. guest: it is a great pre allude to this chart. it is actually birth that is fueling the growth. this chart shows you the growth of the hispanic population by demographic source between 2000 and 2012. 60% is related to growth. migration does explain a big portion of this growth. ineffectually birth, and that is what we project in the upcoming decade i will ask this question, which might be a hot button. it is on twitter. is the higher level due to more hispanics being catholic than african-americans? guest: that is an interesting

question. i do not evidence to point to that, but it is true that hispanics have more children in their families. immigrant hispanics are more likely to be living in households where you have a husband and wife together with children. when you look at the community, there are higher birth rates. i do not know what it is linked to catholicism. host: do you ever drilled down and ask people motivations for things like deciding to have children? sometimes it is hard to craft a question that gets at what you want without been biased. we try to drill down from time to time. just on the hard numbers -- host: just on the hard numbers, as the senses do a comparison of different ethnicities next --

ethnicities? guest: hispanics do tend to have more children. the hispanic fertility rate is about 2.7 for women, against the total population, which is about to appoint all. here is origin by age in the year 2011. what do we learned. guest: we have learned to the hispanic population is a young population. everyone is under the age of 18. if you look on the right-hand side of the graph, the population that is 65 and older, they only comprise about 72%. there is a median age of about 27 years compared to about 37

years for the total population. what does the relative use effect? guest: education is an important issue. education is often number one or two. what is also interesting is let's talk about the latino vote. when you look at those eligible to vote, that least 18 years of age and a u.s. citizen, about one-third are under the age of 30. the relative representation of use in the latino vote is higher. young people are often first- time voters and they're figuring out where to register. the relative use might have -- you might have an impact on participation rates carlos -- host: carlos is watching us in orlando. hello. -- caller: hello.

i hate to sound like i am beating a dead horse, but my question has to do with the choice between checking whether you are hispanic or not. i understand you answered it. to me, it came out of date. you are following what the census has set up on the rolls, and that is basically the way they had it set up, but it does not answer the true question. no hispanics probably make up the majority of the illegal in this country, and i can only assume this is a way to track the number. if you could break it down into who was born here, who was established and not born here. is that the idea behind it? when you think asian, there is no specificity, are they from

tokyo, china, etc. you could come outside of the guidelines of what the census is saying. personally, why do you feel there is that choice? guest: thank you for that question. we saw an image earlier of the origin question used in the 2010 census. we have a question for race. on that question we ask specifically whether someone is chinese or vietnamese. we do ask about specific types among asian populations. furthermore, we have an answer a straight question that not only asks about your ancestry, but we collect information on the irish population, the german population, whether you are from europe or africa, all over the world.

we collect information on all ethnicities from the united states. host: i will ask this question and we will run through these. our time always a separate pretty quickly. these will be on distribution. we will show they surely. tweeted guest: interesting. when we look at surveys, we find amongst immigrants, they see the u.s. as a place better than their home country. better economic spirit better place to raise children. they do see the u.s. as a place where they want to be. if they could do it again, they would come to the u.s. when we look today compared to

early 1900's, we do not have public opinion data to show what has happened in terms of attitude in the early 1900's. we did not have telephones like we do today. it is difficult to make a comparison of today versus then. however, taking a look at today, many immigrants who come to the u.s. are very happy that they made the decision to come to the u.s.. host: this is one of your numbers. if they want to be here, why is it that net migration has fallen? guest: this is an interesting trend. when you look at migration from mexico alone, just amongst hispanics, you'll find immigration stopped. there are a number of reasons. i point to a recent poll and amongst hispanics in mexico, we found that a third of them would choose to migrate if they could.

half of those would do those without authorization. those numbers are unchanged from prior to the recession. host: have numbers been able to catch this or have we not had enough time to look at migration? guest: we do select information about place of birth. we have information available on our website. www. census.gov. host: is there a decline in the mexican origin population? guest: i do not have any numbers. i can talk about what we have now. host: this looks at a map of the u.s. by county. the darker the color, the greater the hispanic population. will you tell us what you are

seeing? guest: this is my favorite part. this is a county-based map of the u.s.. those counties in the dark shade had at least 25% more of the county population hispanic. hispanics are largely concentrated in the south part of the u.s. you also see high concentrations in florida, for example. in the northeast. massachusetts. york. all the way to the west coast. oregon, washington. hispanics -- this is as a 2011. if i could show you maps from 1980 and 1990, the story is the population is growing in the u.s. host: here is a pie chart. guest: this is hispanic populations by state in 2011.

out of all of them cut a 14.4 million were in the state of california. about a quarter of them followed by texas at 9.8. 60% of hispanics are in these four states. host: let us take a call. guest: this is a state based map showing the actual population change of the hispanic population by state. those states in a dark shade are all that experience 1.5 or more increase in hispanic population. these are states with large hispanic populations. host: for the states that are not border states, what has been the driver for increased hispanic population? guest: economic growth. during the last day, look at

georgia, there was a lot of growth in the atlanta area. >> you can see this program in its entirety on the c-span library. why to orlando with president obama speaking to the national association of latino labor and elected officials. he is introduced by the labor secretary hilda solis. [applause] >> thank you. thank you. good afternoon. [applause] >> thank you so much. thank you. thank you, everybody. please have a seat. it is good to be back at naleo. [speaking spanish] [applause] >> it is wonderful to see good

friends from across the country. it is nice to be at disney world. this is the second time i've come to disney world without my daughters. they are not happy with me. i want to thank secretary hilda solis for the introduction and for her hard work. she is one of the best labor secretaries we have ever had and she is thinking about you each and every day. [applause] >> i want to say thank you to sylvia and arturo. happy early birthday, arturo. i will not sing. do not worry. [laughter] >> welcome to the other side of the hill. it is especially good to have the ambassador here with us. we are very proud of her.

[applause] >> when the senate refused to confirm her hypocenter to house of a door anyway because -- i sent her to el salvador anyway because i knew she would do a great job and she has. the senate confirmed her last week. she is now official. [applause] >> west, but not least, thank all of you. it is nice to get out of washington, get some of florida sunshine, but see folks and devoted themselves to serving their communities, countries, and dedicated themselves to making people's lives a little bit better each and every day, at every level, school board, state legislatures, county boards, and you guys are where the rubber hits the road.

i had a chance to see many of you in your local communities and hear the stories of your efforts, hopes, dreams, and also some of your frustrations and the hardships that are taking place. in all, yesterday, your featured speaker came here and said the election in november is not about to people, or about being a republican, democrat or independent. it is about the future of america. while we have a lot of differences, he and i, on this point i could not agree more. this is about america's future. it is the defining issue of our time -- whether we carry forward the promise fed has drawn generations of immigrants to our shores from every corner of the globe, sometimes at great risk. men and women drawn by the

promise that no matter who you are, what you look like, where you come from, no matter your last name, this is a place where you can make it if you try. it is a place where you can make it if you try. whether our ancestors arrived on the mayflower or were brought here on slave ships. whether they signed in on ellis island or crossed the rio grande, their diversity has not only in with the country, it helped to build the greatest economic engine the world has ever known. hungry people. striding people. dreamers. risk takers. people cannot come here and looking for handouts. we are a nation which a nation of strivers, climbers -- we are

a nation of strivers, climbers, the hardest working people on earth, and nobody personifies these american values, these american traits, more than the latino community. [applause] >> that is the essence of who you are. all we ask for is that hard work pays off. that responsibility is reported -- rewarded. so, if these men and women put in enough effort, they can find a good job. they can own their own home, send their kids to college, let their kids dream bigger, put away a little bit for retirement, not go bankrupt when you get sick. i ran for this office because for more than a decade that

dream had been slipping away from too many americans. before i even took office, the world -- the worst economic crisis of our lifetimes push it further from reach, the ticket early for watching the communities that -- particularly for latino communities that had already face higher unemployment and poverty rates. the question is not whether we need to do better. of course there -- the economy is not where it needs to be. of course, there are too many that struggle. we have so much more work to do. the question is, how do we make the economy grow faster? how do we create more jobs? how do we create more opportunities? the question is what vision are we going to stand up for. are we going to fight for? -- who are we going to fight for? that is what we have to decide right now. that is what this election is

about. who are we fighting for? what division of american do we believe in? -- what vision of america do we believe in? if america is about anything, it is about passing on even greater opportunity to our children. it is about education. that is why i extended pell grants that will give an additional 150,000 students in the latino community a chance to go to college. [applause] >> that is why i have invested in our community colleges, which are a gateway to a good job for so many hispanic-americans, americans of every stripe. that is why in almost every state, some of the calmest -- toughest neighborhoods around,

have met our standard by teaching it to a test, expanding creativity, improving curriculum, focusing more on the kids that are hardest to reach, so we give every child a fighting chance. that is part of the vision of america that we believe in. in this country, we believe that if you want to take a risk and a new idea, you should have the chance to succeed and you should not have to have wealthy parents to be successful. latino-owned businesses have been the fastest-growing small businesses, and we have cut their taxes 18 times. we have expanded new loans and credits so they can grow and they can hire. [applause] >> that is the vision we believe in. in america we believe you should not go broke because you get sick. hard-working people out there, sometimes two jobs, three jobs,

sometimes do not have health insurance. if you did, insurance companies were able to discriminate against certain patients. that was wrong. it was wrong to let insurance companies jack up premiums for no reason and have millions of working americans uninsured with the latino community having the highest rate of uninsured of any community in the country. after a sense the the -- century of trying, we passed reform that will make health care affordable and available for every american. that was the right thing to do. [applause] >> that was the right thing to do. [applause] >> that was the right thing to do. [applause] >> now, we are not done yet. we have more to do.

we need to put more good teachers in our classrooms. [applause] >> we need to get colleges and universities to bring down the cost of tuition, to make it more affordable for young people. [applause] >> we need to invest in new research and innovation, especially new sources of energy and high-tech manufacturing. we need to put people back to work, rebuilding our roads, highways, runways, construction jobs -- they can have a huge ripple effect in communities across the country and nobody knows it better than state and local officials. you know the difference it makes. with the housing bubble, you have tens of thousands of construction workers ready and eager to get to work. we need to give families in the hard-hat housing markets like

florida and nevada chance to refinance and save $3,000 a year on their mortgage. that is good for those families, the housing market, the surrounding communities. there is no reason why congress has not already done it. [applause] >> instead of just talking a big gain of about job creators we should give small business owners a tax break for hiring more workers or pay in higher wages instead of rewarding companies that ship jobs overseas. we should use the money and cover moving expenses for countries -- companies that are bringing jobs back to america. [applause] >> on almost every issue of concern to your community, to every community, what is holding us back is not a lack of big ideas, not a lack of technical solutions.

by now, just about every policy and proposal has been laid out on the table. what is holding us back is a stalemate. a stalemate in washington between two fundamentally different views of which direction we should go. the republicans who run congress, the man at the top of their ticket, they do not agree with any of the proposals i just talked about. they believe the best way to grow the economy is from the top down, so they want to roll back regulations and give an insurance companies, credit card companies, mortgage lenders even more power, extending tax cuts, including a 25% tax cut for every millionaire in the country, and they want to pay for it by raising middle-class taxes and cutting programs like

health care, and medical research. that is it. that is their economic plan. when they tell you they can do better, that is their idea of doing better. when they tell you they know how to fix the economy, that is exactly how they plan to do it, and i think they are wrong. i think they are wrong. [applause] >> you know, in this country, prosperity has never come from the top down. it comes from a strong and growing middle class. and creating ladders of opportunity for those struggling to get into the middle class. it comes from a thriving small businesses that over time grow into medium-sized and large businesses. we need a better plan for education and training, and

energy independence, innovation and infrastructure that could rebuild america. what we need is a tax code encourages companies to create jobs and manufacturing here in the united states, and, yes, ask the wealthiest americans to help pay down the deficit. [applause] >> that is what is needed. what is also needed is immigration reform that finally lives up to our heritage as a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants, and continues the american story of renewal, energy and dynamism that has made us who we are. [applause] >> think about it -- you and i both know one of america's greatest strengths has been our ability to attract talent and hard working people. people who believe in this

country, who want to help make it stronger. that is what keeps us young. that is what keeps us dynamic and energized. that is what makes us who we are. our current immigration system does not reflect those values. it allows the best and the brightest to study here, but then it tells them to leave, start companies somewhere else. it punishes immigrants and businesses that play by the rules and fails to address the fact there are too many that do not. it separates families. it denies innocent young people to earn -- a chance to earn an education or served in a military of the country that they love. now, once again, the problem is not a lack of technical solutions. we know what the solutions are to this challenge. just six years