went on to become 10 times more successful than others in their industries. they were huge banners in on certain and chaotic environment. these entrepreneurs face big forces out of their control, often fast-moving, a significant level of uncertainty and full of unexpected events. that is our world. how did our leaders deal with that kind of world? different from those who did not do well in that kind of world? i want to introduce you to a couple of sites of this equation. there is a duality that goes back to the third questions i asked and how those play together. let's talk about the agenda side.

in 1911, two teams of explores explorerss -- left within days of each other. same environments and same conditions, but had radically different outcomes. almondson and his team got there first. they made it back to base camps safe. scott and every member of his team diet 11 miles from the supply depot. same conditions and radically different outcomes. the difference have to be in the behaviors and decisions and ways they dealt with them. in research, we found that companies and leaders that did

well looked like almonson and not likes i -- like scott. they had a productive paranoia. what i would like to chat about is the discipline side of this. this idea called the 20 mile march. imagine you want to get to the other side of the country. you are walking from san diego to maine. you say, the weather is good and i want to go as far as possible. when the weather is bad, i will sit in my tent and wait for better conditions. or you can say, i have a 20 mile march and it does not matter if it is cold, or hot. we are going to stay on our 20 mile march no matter what utterly relentlessly as we move across. what we call when we looked at

almondson and scott. -- we saw when we looked at almondson and scott, they faced circumstances unpleasantly. almondson said, it has been a bad weather day. but we are closer to our goal. staying on the 20 mile march is already hitting -- always taking your march. it means never going to bang far. there was a point when he was 45 miles from home. he cou have made it in one big push. they did not know where scott was.

he said, we will still do our march today. they did 17 miles. he knew if he overreached and then got hit by an unexpected storm, they could die. the 20 mile march means having the discipline to stay on march like clockwork. when you look at a company, what is the number 1 best performing country from 1972 to 2002? you might think it would be walmart or ge or intel or berkshire hathaway. all of those did exceptionally well. the number 1 best performing company of all publicly traded companies is southwest airlines. 63 times the market. an industry that is characterized by forces and disruptions and changes and yet they march.

they have a march that they will be profitable every year no matter what. no matter how many cities are clamoring for our business, we will only open as many as we can handle. this notion of discipline -- and this is interesting about government environments -- we see tremendous consistency in any truly great enterprise. the signature of the accuracy -- mediocrity is not an unwillingness to change. the signature of mediocrity is chronic inconsistency. in a political world, how do we create consistency? i do not know the answer. i want to briefly comment on the relationship between innovation

and discipline and then go to the unexpected side and then we will have a chance for a conversation. if you look at a company like intel, they did not have the most innovative chip in the industry. yet it beat its industry by 46 times. it was quite the innovator, but it was not the most innovative. john brown in michigan lead in medical devices. their philosophy is, we strive to be one step behind. it is not that they were unno they give. --y landed creativity with- uninnovative. they blended creativity with

discipline. i would argue, based on our research data that perhaps we have misread the american strength. we tend to think the american strength is innovation per se. it is our ability to scale innovation, to take the idea of a microprocessor or a memory chip and build a company -- scale a company around it. to take the idea of medical devices and scale a culture around it. that is our strength. if that is true, i would raise a scary question. what happens when we lose our ability to scale? when you think about job creation, intel added four times more jobs band is -- in its third decade of life than it did

in its first second or third. stryker was creating just as many in a single year. it is not just start-ups. we have to have start-ups and entrepreneurial creation. it is those who have the ability to take a creative idea and to scale it with discipline, that is where tens or hundreds of thousands of jobs will come from, not 10 or 20. an interesting question is, what can you do to help those who are the scalers of our great engines? never forget, most overnight successes are about 20 years in the making. one quick comment on productive paranoia.

it is interesting. the leaders of companies right nightmare memos and predict a 11 of the last recession. they say, we have a full glass on the verge of shattering at any moment. these are paranoid people. what that meant is that these people were financially disciplined. they were financially discipline in good times so that they could weather storms in bad times. as a result, as uncertainty went up, they built buffers. they carried a greater ratio of cash to assets on their balance sheets so they could whether the unexpected storms. that is rational behavior if the environment is extremely uncertain. if we want to see people allocate capital, they will do so to the extent to which uncertainty goes down.

ok. on the last few minutes of presenting -- are you still with me to go to the unexpected piece? we talked about the 20 mile march and discipline and implementing an agenda. there is this other side of the cooling. i come in and i have an agenda. we are 20 miles marching. buyers can happen. an unexpected shake-up could happen. we could have an economic crisis. we could end up with any number of things we could never possibly in addition. it raises a number of questions. when you think about those allocations between 20 mile marching to achieve our plans an agenda, how many points is that in defining a great executive? how many points go to how they deal with the unexpected?

in this last piece of research that my colleague and i did, we puzzled on this question. i would like each governor to think of the following. i would like you to think of an event that hit you and your state that means three criteria. it had a significant consequence. you did not cause it. it was in some way a surprise or have some element of uncertainty in it. you could not know for sure that it would happen or when it would happen. so, you did not cause it, a pacific -- potentially significant consequence, good or bad, and some element of uncertainty. show of hands, how many of you

can think of such an event for your state? here is what is interesting. in this book, we study companies that went on to become the 10 next winners in their field. they were in environments characterized by big events beyond their control, uncertainty. they were 63 times the market and the number 1 best performing stock. and it raises the question of, what in the end is the role of luck? to be a great executive, do you have to be a lucky executive? we decided to actually take this question on. we decided to define and quantifying and studied the relative roles of luck in

finding great executive leadership. the key is to see that lot is any bids. what i gave you is the definition of -- the key is to see that luck is an event. potentially the consequences, good luck. putin to lead bad consequences, bad luck. when you systematically parsed that -- we got hit with bad luck in colorado. when we spread and study across the executive and across the company and you ask a question, which is how the quantify the great executives? the answer turns out to be, they

are not luckier. lots of luck happens, bad luck. we find in the companies -- we do not just study success. we study contrast. we can look at southwest airlines in contrast to pacific southwest airlines. they both have good luck and they both have bad luck. i would imagine the political world is full of luck events. what does it mean? the question is not whether we will get lot. can you calculate a return on investment? and return on equity, a return on assets? what is your return on lock -- luck? the luck events are these

distortion moment. there was a big inflexion that separated them from others. there is an but equal time when a big luck event happened. they grab it, they seized it, they made the most of it. these were defer signing moments. they were pivotal in separating bad luck from the other. it is their performance in those distortion, unexpected lot events that place a huge role in what it -- luck events that played a role in whether they were good executives or bad ones. they have the capacity to leave themselves exposed to and to do badly when bad luck happens and that often kills them.

to put a little close on this and a chance for us to converse, what is fascinating is the degree of duality in the great executive we studied. for example, is it 20 mile marching or defining moment in their capacity to do both? 20 mile marches with discipline and superb performance in a defining luck event moments that are out of their control. why did they do so much better? in the book, we noticed that over time, great executives will recall people had the genius of "and"as opposed to the tyranny of "or." it is humility and will. it is confront the brutal facts

and having faith. it is productive and paranoid. when we stand back and look at a truly great enterprise, we see a huge duality under any great enterprise. that is what we call, preserved because for and stimulate progress - the core and stimulate progress. no great company exists if it does not have a core or stimulates progress. they are willing to change their practices, their strategies, there structures without compromising core values. they understand the difference between their core values and their practices, and understand we will not give up our values, but we must be willing to leave all of our practices. when we put these two together

to preserve the core and stimulate progress, it is much of the american experience. we begin with a set of values, we hold these truths to be self evident. it had this beautiful invention called the amendment mechanism, which allows us to be able to stimulate progress. it is the whole package. you have bestowed quayside working to get it. to stimulate -- you have these two sites working together. we stand a -- we have these two sides working together. we have a long time frame. it could become every kid will read by great three. it could be a computer in

everybody's hands. i leave you with a challenge on this. what will it be like for your state, one that will outlast your presence as governor? can that be done? i will go back to the moon mission. interesting. but a man on the moon by the end of the decade. even if kennedy got a second term, the b-hag would go beyond his tenure. how can we set long enough goals and set them in place that they will be achieved by u.s. successor? that is preserved the court and stimulate progress. thank you. [applause] >> we will make sure we have

time. having the rights leaders in the right seats -- i will give the governor of colorado of the first question. he is engaged in a public- private enterprise with us. >> it is true. i took a bunch of our top business leaders to nebraska this week. we were fielding every good idea we could. there were plenty there. it is worth pointing out that governors have a tendency to brag on occasion. he does live in boulder, colorado. i wanted to make sure we are clear on that. >> it is my home state. >> you were describing each of us challenged to put together our teams and that question of who has the right seat on the bus. i thought i would bring up a book that came out last month.

it is on that issue, how do we get different people in the government who have the kind of traits you are talking about? the trace -- traits that create this sustainable growth in business -- discipline, that ability to be productively paranoid, response of the cautious -- that oftentimes get lost in government. this book is the idea of trying to figure out how to help inspire more people from the private sector to serve in cabins at high levels and in government. the question i wanted to ask, did you try to estimate what was

the order of magnitude of the events? different luck has different numerical consequences. just as a bottom-line measure. >> it is a nice question. if you would like to join our research team, that is a nice entry. my colleague and coauthor was brilliant in coming up with the methodology on this. we said, let's go back to the history of the great winners and we looked at 230 luck ebay this -- luck events. we asked a variety of questions. were there more good luck events or bad luck events?

we would also look at the timing of the luck event. if you get your good luck early, it puts you ahead. they did not have more bad luck or good luck, but they had better timing. we went back and said, could there be a single spite that is so -- spike that is so big that it dwarfs everything else? if you got that right and that the others wrong, it would not matter. if you compare two biotechnology companies, the winner had a couple of huge luck spikes. so did the comparison. were they let there? the answer is no. wendy -- when the luck event

happens, it is the performance in the face of that that became the death for rental the variable. not all time in life -- that became the defer rent shall -- defferential barry about. not all time in life is equal -- differential variable. give me a sense of how much time we have so i can honor your needs. >> six or seven minutes. >> when i was working at the airport in our city and southwest came to our city and we had a breakfast meeting. at the end of the meeting, i said, i will buy stock in that

company. the personality just left off of the breakfast table. -- leapt off of the breakfast table. you said personality and charisma are not that important to success. my impression was it was popular charisma that drove that company. >> you are -- let me respond this way. what is interting is that if you look over the comparison company, they did not have a charismatic leader. southwest has a long history. they started as a copy of pacific southwest airlines. they have had multiple chief

executives. they had an executive who was there in the 1970's during the era of deregulation. he had a different personality than herb kelleher. they are different personalities. he looked at sam walton and david glass. sam walton is a charismatic personality. david glass had a much more dour personality and wal-mart did exceptionally well in the day class era. we focus on being -- in the david glass era. we focus on the charismatic personalities. it is interesting. we cannot write interesting things about people who are good with their accounting statements. there is nothing interesting about it.

interesting does not mean it is statistically differential. what we found was that there are lots of personalities involved in research. whether it is prismatic or not, just like whether you have blond hair or brown here. it is just and attributes, but not the essence of leadership. one last thing on earth kelleher. he is one of the great executives -- herb kelleher. he is one of the drake executives. they say has been held-one of the great executives -- they say he is one of the great executives. >> we operate in an environment where there are legitimate players in that environment who do not want to see us succeed.

forces that do not want to change an educational enterprise. sometimes in a legislative setting, some less evolves people. we are also burdened by not having full operational control. in dealing with those forces in our sector that do not want to see us succeed -- a lot of what you are focusing on is getting a vision and accomplishing that vision. is there any advice you might have in dealing with those who legitimately or illegitimately do not want to see us succeed? >> first, i am not going to try to extend to your world and tell you how to do it as governor. allow me to show you two things. what we did learn from watching our companies -- you learn a lot

about this. you have average companies who were doing ok. there were a lot the forces of resistance within those companies. when you try to go from good to break, the standards go up so much that it is exhausting. there are people who do not want to go down the path of that exhausting the that exhaustion. davies is. how do they overcome that? the first is, they really did begin with asking, what can i change? i their key seats and you can decide who sits in that seat? a lot of the begin with, i need to put the right people in the seats where we can have the great thing. you cannot change every seat, but you start with the question of who and what are the seats i can change?

there is something called fire bullets and fire cannonballs. you can do wholesale change by firing a cannon ball and hoping it hits. the danger with that is bad shooting a cannonball and it misses can damage your credibility. what they do is fire bullets to get calibration to prove something can work. once they have that calibrate it, they will point to that and say, it is working. we have a bullet that is hitting. my argument is, let's make this successful thing bigger rather than trying to convince people to accept an unproven cannonball. for what ever sense of reason we might find in the government, there are a lot of uncovered cannonballs. polled in cannonballs tends to work better.

-- pulled in cannonballs work better. one grocery store owner who was successful was asked, how did you get people to change? he said, we proved we could do it with one store. we let the actual results be the greatest talking point. those who did not want to be helpful would go into smaller seats. >> gover markell. >> which governor? >> right here. >> my family is from oklahoma about 100 miles south of southta and about 3 miles -

of a place called pond creek. there are few people who know where pond creek is. >> i appreciate your comments. two different things that i want to give an analysis of. you are talking about the cannonball approach and the shots versus the scattered approach. >> at least calibration and then go big. >> when i first took over in oklahoma year-and-a-half ago, i thought we had 76 financial accounting systems in state government. when i started doing the budget and looking at our expenses and revenue, it was hard to match apples and apples because we had 76 different types of spreadsheets. we went around talking to people at different agencies trying to convince them to go to one system that would match. of course, that was challenging. everybody wants to hang onto their own program and their own

thing. we convinced the group and these agencies to do this. we could not get higher education to do this because they wanted to have their own institutions and their own kingdom. there are 22 institutions of higher education. we realize we were going to say 22% of our i.t. costs in our state. we are trying to keep college costs down. we told them, if you do this default, you can save some money. we got them to do that. we started out with one thing and we finally convinced them on the big picture and we finally got the state of oklahoma. will save $300 million to five and $2 million. the same thing you talking about, another interesting point that something we did not cause and could be really bad. it reminded me of the oklahoma

city bombing in 1995. i had been in office 100 days. i did not expect somebody to blow up the federal building and kill 100 people in that event. what i thought in the ship is how you react to something that happens that is so unexpected and her in this and your character and leadership can be defined by how you react to that. it can go really bad or it can go good. in our case in oklahoma, it went good because of how the governor at that time and his leadership team handled the terrible crisis that was so unexpected. >> just a quick question for you. do you think the ability to do that and to perform exceptionally well is something you can train before it happens? >> i think your life experiences and your work experiences prepare you for that. we also saw some other states in

which there was a new strategy. -- a huge tragedy like katrina. >> that is interesting. i would imagine in the world of leading within a state, over the course of at least one term, there will be at least one major event and it will be a swinging variable. how can you be prepared for what you cannot possibly be prepared for? >> i took my whole cabinet through homeland security disaster preparedness training to think about all of the things we do not normally do. we do tornadoes and floods and all of that stuff. what do you do if all of the communications systems in the state go down? with the do it all of the financial accounting systems go down. -- if all of your financial accounting systems go down? >> there was one last question.

why business thinking is not the answer. i am past often what i think the difference is between being in business and government. the answer i most typically give is that the biggest difference has to do with the different attitude toward failure. in business, you have to take risks. if you are not coming up with a better product, the opposition will beat you and you will not survive. in the government, so many of the expenses are exactly the opposite. you read about it in the paper and the state auditor will do a report on it and your campaign opponent will use it against you. the most important thing in our job is to help change the culture toward one where people are more willing to take risks and changing the culture and environment where many of the folks who work in all state

agencies will be there for 30 years. the most we can be there is 8. i was wondering if you have any thoughts to do that. >> we could have a long conversation. i would be delighted to accept a phone call to chat about it. i would point to two things. in the end, on the business side, you are exactly right. entrepreneurs are comfortable with the fact that, if you are a failure and you later succeeded, that is a tremendous battle of honor. he took a risk, it did not work, and you figure out how to be successful. we thought a negative correlation from being successful right out of the dates and building great companies. most great company started out with failures. then they worked with those

failures and as a result they said, we are in a situation where we cannot afford to have this silly. they want to make themselves better. this is a big question and this is the place to end. i asked myself, what is one of the great challenges for us as a country? the question is, how do we connect the relationship between decisions and consequence of decision? systematically across everything? when people have a consequence decision, they can to make good decisions. that is one of the interesting questions for us. i would welcome many of you that if he wants to continue a conversation -- no one will ever know my politics. is one of my deliver it strategies in light, to be totally apolitical -- in life is

to be totally apolitical. i work with leaders. i wish you well. it is a great privilege and an honor. i hope you could -- we contributed at least one idea that can help your state better. -- you are state be better. thank you. -- your sstate -- your stae be better. >> thank you. we understand -- we appreciate the discussion. we want to take a few minutes. we want to recognize two outgoing governors and several of our corporate fellows. first of all, we want to recognize the american samoa governor. he is well respected in american

samoa and he has been dedicated to the nga. faced with a grueling 14,000 mile round trip, he as participating in every n ga winter meeting -- nga winter meeting since he became governor. his membership on the economic development committee mirrors his commitment to advancing and protecting the economic well- being of the people of american samoa. he has been a valuable member of nga and we extend to his entire family our appreciation and warmest regards. if you will come forward, we have a presentation we will like to make to you. [applause]

i imagine you have more frequent flyer miles that all of us combined. finally, we want to recognize the washington governor, governor gregoire. she hit the ground running when she joined the nga, bringing her passion an immense talent to raising the association's profile case during her tenure as the chief executive of first state, she has served with distinction on six committees and five task forces. several of her contributions

merit special recognition, including her service as chair of this organization in 2010 and 2011. as consular of governor's co- chair, she has been instrumental in solidifying the authority of the states to responding to national emergencies. it is in large part to her leadership and determination that governors have been successful in securing dual status command and preserving funding for the air national guard to continue their critical mission of protecting americans at home and abroad. we will miss her and the first gentleman, mike. we know that great opportunities lie ahead for this government the and -- governor and the first family of washington. he will come up, we would like to express our appreciation. [applause]

i imagine she will volunteer even when she has left to head up a special task force. we appreciate that, too. we also want to take a moment but to recognize all of our corporate fellows for their collective support and to recognize those companies that have maintained a sustained commitment to governors and the the nga center- for best practices. it promotes information between the private sector and the governor on emerging trends that affect business and state government. the corporate fellows program comprises more than 100 of america's top companies. we appreciate their support for

our effort. where did the under markell go? did he sneaked out on me? chris, we should bring you back up here. we want to recognize a few people. hewlett-packard and i believe larry singer is here to accept this. [applause] we also want to recognize, for 20 years of membership as a " othello, practice -- procter and gamble. -- corporate fellow, proctor and gamble.

finally, we want to recognize walmart for 15 years of leadership in the corporate fellows program. [applause] i want to make one more announcement before we adjourn. following the meeting on sunday, there will be a special screening on the upcoming and formal movie, a film about the teen mothers who work together to transform an inner-city school. i want to thank governor hickenlooper who brought this to our attention. it will be shown on sunday in the rockefeller room at 12:30 p.m. before we adjourn, i would like to make everyone aware that the

education section begins in this room at 3:00 p.m. we need to give staff a little time to reset the room. >> if i could make a plug for that, governor hickenlooper and i will be leading a discussion. we have education secretary arne talking -- arne duncan coming. we will talk about the implementation of no child left behind. they think we should have reauthorization, but they have different views. our boys could make a difference in how it comes out. i urge you all to come at 3:00 p.m. >> governor herbert? have scheduled -- >> we have scheduled a digital learning sections for what is going to be talked about in education and the use of

technology and how we can do more with less in raising the bar in the use of technology. >> thank you. we will reconvene the education committee in 12 or 13 minutes. we are adjourned. thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012]

>> the nation's governors meeting in williamsburg, virginia. the author and management specialists speaking and talking about leadership. we are asking the question on our facebook page of this afternoon. what quality makes a great political leader? maybe when you call in, you can identify somebody you think is a great leader. there are the numbers to use. 202-737-0002 if you are a democrat. for republicans, it is 202-737- 0001. coming up in about 10 minutes, we will hear from education secretary arne duncan and the former education secretary.

we will hear about the reauthorization of no child left behind. it may be a minute or two after that. we will show a bit of what jim collins had to say about the factors involved in leadership. >> we that that it is not personality. we can excuse personality in leadership all the time. some of the greatest leaders we ever studied, at near as we could tell, had no personality. they had a charisma bypass. people like darwin smith who took over kimberly-clark and made it into a great company. he was reserved and shy and almost nerdy. he said at the end of his tenure, i was just trying to become qualified for the job. some leaders are quite prismatic. the woman who say xerox from

oblivion. she was prismatic, but she had a measure you bang of herself. she had -- she had a measured and view -- measured view of herself. she was incapable of capitulation. what does our data show? it is not so stark as leadership or not. we start at the level of hierarchy. he did -- the leadership hierarchy is like laszlo's hierarchy. -- maslow's hierarchy. the leaders who produced the great companies and great results over time went to a different level.

we called this level 5 leadership. the difference between the level 5 and the level for was what we came to see as the true x factor of great leadership. that factor surprised us. the x factor was humility. humility combined with an utterly ferocious will. not humility in a self- deprecating way. >> jim collins speaking to governors in williamsburg talking about leadership. we are asking you qualities that make a great political leader. ruth on our republican line. caller: thank you for taking my call it is a great talk and i enjoy listening to what makes a great political leader. i find that more politicians

now seem to promise more than they can deliver. if they cannot keep their promises, that makes them so on popular. within a few months of them taking office, it is employed in that we are honest with ourselves. what are the priorities i wi deal with? who am i going to choose to be in theses to deal with those priorities when i will be facing them once -- to be in the seats to deal with those priorities when i will be facing them once i am in office. ? that is the greatest thing a political leader can have as an asset. i am going back to i think is a great leader. president reagan was not a good actor. i guess he was not meant for

acting. host: thanks for calling in. julio is on our independent line. the thoughts on what makes a great political leader. caller: what makes a great political leader is someone who is not worried about what lobbyists are telling him to do and isn't worried about what the media has to say. a good political leader is someone who focuses on the constitution. i think back to the speech that kennedy gave before he died. he urged that no political leader should be a part of split -- secret societies. you hear rumors of politicians in these secret societies and you hear about these different think tank rules that set the agenda and laws for this

country. we need someone who, when they take the oath of office to protect and serve the petition, that actually mean it. they do not have their fingers crossed. what you said about who i think might be someone -- ron paul has been nicknamed dr. -- nickname dr. no. he is someone who stood by his principles and his morals. he is standing by the constitution. we need more politicians like that. even the founding fathers, george washington, jefferson, those were the real leaders who exemplify standing up for what is right. host: we have a couple minutes left. we want to get to as many callers as we can. the governors are coming back

at 3:00. in daytona beach, we will go to our democrats line. vincent, are you come -- are you calling from? caller: i am not in daytona beach. yo in the best i am in fort myers. we need to get the cooperation people and their international partners overseas to do more manufacturing and more production because of all of the businesses that have closed down. if one comes down to florida, i counted 15 businesses -- host: 15 businesses with close? caller: yes. we need to set aside all of the politics. the people in the country and our elected officials have these

emergency meetings to create more manufacturing. host: we have to let you go. your phone is breaking up. we have been asking about political leadership. we also put the question online on our facebook page. several comments including one here. amber says a good leader is a person who lets america moves forward instead of making people take what they want. daytona beach, florida and joe is a republican there. caller: the main quality of leadership is that great leaders are always able to go beyond themselves and their own personal agenda. they always have a higher calling and something that is

good for the country. the democrats want to tax people who make too much money. the republicans want to unelect present obama. there is another one that i am blanking on. during the nixon trials, two great senators -- sam ervin. that is a great leader because he went beyond himself and he compromise on a difficult job for america. you look at when the country was happier, that is the kind of leader we need it. host: the president is in virginia today and is speaking at a number of places. he will be in roanoke.

he has built two or three stops in virginia. the next one is coming up at 4:25 p.m. 13 electoral votes in the state of virginia. denise is on our republican line. what makes a great leader? caller: my favorite presidents are washington and lincoln. they made great strides for our country. they did what they believed was right in what they knew was right even if a lot of the country would hate them for it. i really think that a lot of what a president should be is, following the constitution, sticking to it, and doing the right thing even though they may be taken for it. he will be loved later.

that is something the president has always got to keep in mind. he is there for a purpose. it is his civil duty to do the right thing. it is not just about political polls or sticking to the party's line. >> here is lawrence, kansas. >> bank. the most important part of that was the idea of a disciplined, yet dynamic balance of qualities that are necessary in a good leader. two of these was the idea of the combination of a fierce faith with the ability to speak ferocious facts, and the other dynamic that i thought was important is the idea of sticking to 1's core principles or being able to evolves in a

dynamic fashion. i would synthesize a lot of this down to, especially in america, to the idea of we need leaders who have a radical commitments to the honesty, called to the heart of things and speaking to it difficult truths. one of the problems of leaders in america is they have a tendency to get killed, and then people are not willing to speak the truth about the forces that corroborate to kill someone. >> who beat you think that's the definition of the great leader? >> someone like a pairing of martin luther king and malcolm x, although they might not have been leaders for the entire country. they spoke to the heart of some very deep and important american principles. >> this is the conference center

at the williamsburg lodge and virginia, the site of the 2012 conference annual meeting. coming up, we will talk about education. we will hear from secretary arne duncan, former secretary margaret spelling, and they will talk about the free authorization of no child left behind. the cost of medicaid and how it impacts states after the supreme court stdecision on the health care law. all that live coverage this weekend on c-span. evansville, indiana, democrats line. welcome. >> thank you for listening to what i have to say as far as a great political leader. i was a registered republican, and then when president obama began to run, i was really

impressed by all the things he said and his ability to make me feel comfortable that he knew what this country needed. and so i switched and reregistered as a democrat. at this time i am a mormon. i did not follow people blindly just because they belong to my religion. i have seen the difference between what i feel is complete honesty and someone who is a good family man, or they are both good family man, and i think they have integrity and they are good people. the difference is i see president obama elite out there pushing to help the middle class and the poor. that impresses me that he on that. course he gets no help on the other

side. i cannot see that in governor romney, and he cannot connect with me, even though he is of my religion. that is hard for me to understand, because the people in the church that i believed in my religion are wonderful people, and they have big hearts and they help each other, and i am not connecting, and i am sorry to say that come as bad in the political arena and he has to take whatever comes his way. if he cannot connect with the middle-class and poor, that is not a good leader. >> we will see if we can get a couple more calls. we will hear from education secretary arne duncan. next up is spokane, washington, like on the republican . >> hi. how're you doing? two important things -- one is

the leadership like you are talking about, and that sense a certain amount from education. i think a lot of politicians that we are sending, state, city, federal level, they do not have the education to understand the consequences, like the speaker was talking about some of the different actions they take. therefore, they are too much influenced by special interest groups when it comes to stand up and taking a vote and saying this is good or this is bad. they tend to vote with the majority. way they shield themselves from being criticized or whenever they went the way, the trackpad said. they did not stand up for what they thought and what they think is good. the reason for that is because they do not have enough education to understand the issues. >> we will let you go up there.

we understand they are about to get under way. you can post your opinion on line. we have bet post up at facebook pan./cs-a we are live at the national governors association. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

>> thank you very much for being here. i would like to call the education workforce committee hearing to order, and i would like to thank you for joining us. i am the vice chair of the education committee. our chair is unable to join us today, but my friend, governor

hickel looper, is with us. we have been cheering for you and thinking of you to the wild fires. they give for being here. housekeeping before we get started. all these meetings are open to the press, and all that tenders -- attendees, please silence your cell phones. beside me is the staff director for the committee. we have a great opportunity. we will hear from two distinguished speakers, but the truth is they can both get at the heart of the issue before us which is the reauthorization of the nclb. they are both for reauthorization of the sea.

we will look at raising standards in education, trying to recruit more great teachers, and increasing the discussion of accountability. our speakers are at the top of the list in the country. we are thrilled to have them. one of the biggest priorities is education. we disagree about a lot of things as governors, and we are not in 100% agreement, but there is probably more bipartisan agreement on education and what needs to happen for our states to be great on this topic that anything else. it is integrally tied to the development of our work force and bringing jobs to states that we want. all of us have spent a lot of time looking at education reforms. it is appropriate today we will focus on the reauthorization act. it is long past due for

reauthorization. in 2002, the no child left behind act was signed into law. "it shines a bright light on the needs of children." many governors felt all may be s' a party.governor' many of us felt that schools that were making improvements, that was not recognized and out. there is bipartisan agreement there is reform needed, and that is what we want to talk about today. we're making progress.

our value-added scores showed the greatest improvement since we have been tracking those. our state, thanks to my predecessor, was one in the race to the top funds that we put to good use. we're changing the face of education. while and like many of the states here, we have applied for a waiver from no child left behind, but we realize that for some states those waivers do not work and has provided a temporary solution. the question is, what should federal allocation policy look like in the future? we're honored to have both of these folks. i am excited about having been here, so i will skip the introductory remarks. i will make this one note. the national governors' association combined with the state and local governments committee, which is the national conference of state

legislatures, councils of state government, national association of counties, all of whom are in congress to reauthorize e sea. i encourage you to stay engaged with your delegations. there are few of things that all of us are engaged in as education, and the reauthorization is a quick peace to that. i will turn it over to my co- chair, governor hickenlooper. >> thank you, he has five minutes to speak about tennessee. it could be 15 or 20 minutes, as they are a national leader. i think for the comments about the fire.

we had four months without any rate, and my wife was gone to a vacation in ireland and said she was going off and she would pray for rain, and by the time she got there, we had three st raight raindays of rain. she was concerned she had prayed to much. prior to his appointment, arne duncan served seven years at the ceo of the chicago public schools where he was on the vanguard of education reform in this country. before going to chicago, he ran the aerial education initiative, a nonprofit focus on advancing opportunities in economically disadvantaged areas. i make sure to point out from 1987 until 1991 he played professional basketball in australia, and he has not lost

this step. welcome, mr. secretary. margaret spelling's served as the secretary of education. she served as the domestic policy adviser for president bush. she led the implementation of the no child left behind act. margaret is now the president of a company, which is a strategic adviser to the u.s. chamber of commerce and president of the chamber's forum for policy innovation. this reauthorization of esea is of crucial importance and we are going to have a role in this. here we have two leaders of the last decade and education. secretary spelling, who worked for a conservative republican,

secretary dalton, who has worked for a moderate or liberal democrat, but it is fair to say but they have both focused their sights on is dramatically increasing the standards by which we hold the expectations and the standards by which we hold student achievement to and creating a level of accountability. i think the version of the reauthorization of the bill -- there is a house and senate version -- they are not far apart, and if we got our legislators, we can play an active role in making sure that this thing does get done. it already -- they already pass ed a transportation bill. why not passing an education bill? secretary duncan? >> thank you.

i have tremendous respect for more kurt's leadership. but the bus did not care about politics but care about where we need to go educationally. three quick facts. the sense of urgency we all feel. we have a 25% dropout rate in this country, 1 million young people leaving for our streets this year. look at how many ninth-graders you have in your state and how many 12th-graders you have in your state. i'm still looking for that state, but the fact is the streets are taking those young people. that is one challenge. the second one is a generation ago we lead the world in college crasher nation -- graduation. today we are 16th. the only way we can get there

is credit rating from college. finally, and tough economic times with high and plummet rates, i continue to ask, do we have a jobs crisis or skills crisis? i am more convinced we have a skills crisis. i have met with many ceo's who says we're trying to hire right now and we cannot find employees with skills. we have to look at ourselves in the mirror and ask what we are doing about that. it is over 2 million height- wage, high-skilled jobs we cannot fill today. i feel this sense of urgency that we need to challenge the status quo. in terms of reauthorization, you are much more astute politically than i am. congress is pretty dysfunctional today. the law is five years overdue to

be reauthorize. we hoped it would happen. we wanted to be a partner in that. it did not happen. as the governor said, we partnered with you to provide waivers, tried to build upon the strength of the existing law. so far we have partnered with over half of the nation's states. congress has to fix it. the best thing congress could do would be to take the best ideas from the states that have come up with the flexibility process with great local ideas. the more you guys could speak in a united voice -- i look at the 26 applications for flexibility we have approved, nobody could tell you which ones are or democratic. the common ground with the tremendous framework for what reauthorization should look

like. some of the things that have emerged, students need to be college and career ready. they graduate from high school and need remedial classes, all the states have committed to college-ready status. there is a myth that has been perpetuated . recently we approved virginia form but the -- we have approved virginia for governor mcdonnell's waiver. i think it is important to focus on a well-grounded curriculum. reading and math are important, but many applications you're looking at our social studies, science, performance and an international baccalaureate's curriculum. we're looking at growth and gains and progress. if you have a 6% dropout rate,

you're not changing students' lives. going to college about having to take remedial classes -- bizarre outcome measures that are a huge step in the right direction. there has been a lot folks have done to reward high-performing schools, and that focus on its assessed is important. the final piece that folks did not understand is many of you in your applications reduce the end sizes for looking at minority communities. stints with special needs, living below the poverty line. in colorado, and additional 165,000 children with special needs are now part of the accountability 1system.

hundreds and hundreds of additional schools. we think those things that are universal would do a tremendous service to the country when we get to reauthorization. the more you can speak with as close to one voice, the more you can urge congress to get its act together, and if any area that folks can move outside ideology is education. we think the ideas coming from states where to the country a great service. i do not think it is got to happen tomorrow. it will be close to the election, but at some point when that happens, adding you guys drive that change is a poor. we got to think about all this is to what end.

it is to have a lot more people going to some form of higher education. the president has challenged us to lead the world in college graduation rates by 2020. we work first. today we are 16th. we have to change that if we want to have a strong economy, and we need to challenge you to invest at the state level pick it has to focus not on access, but on completion. we have to invest on the federal level. it is about shared responsibility. where we have states were less young people have access to higher education, that is not in every one's best interest street what can you do in early childhood, a higher investment in the baby-to-career continuum.

you guys are not just doing a great job for your state and her children. you're helping to make the country go where we need to go. i think you for your partnership. a part of my job is making everyone of you the best education governors were states havever seen. if we are doing that, then we are doing a good job. please challenge me and my team to do everything we can to help you be as successful as possible. that is what our country needs. >> thank you, cover. we are friends and we have done a number of these things and have worked together for a long time. it is terrific to share this program with you. i am thrilled to be with you. i had the honor to work on behalf of tb of governors and

spent most of my career at the state's double around the state legislature and in two governor's offices. i know what you are up against as you look at balancing budgets. every governor is an education governor because the vast majority of their budgets are spent on k-12 and higher education. before we get into the reauthorization, i want to remind folks what no child left behind was about. i want to echo that. this is a place where we can and do work together. there is more in common at the policy level often than not. i think we can build on that. when president bush first embraced that notion of the bill and worked with senator kennedy, and congressman boehner and others, to pass this law, it was focused on something that is pretty simple.

no child left behind describes the policy that is embodied in the law, saying we won't get nearly every kid on grade level within a 12-year. in two subjects, reading and math. the chop left behind was focused on the areas of federal policy that we have focused on, which is our core, minority, and disadvantaged kids. this biggest investments have been around this populations as you know. when i was in office i asked parents, when it do you want your child on grade level? people would say if my kid is in the third grade, i want him to a third-grade-level work. sadly, we are woefully short of doing that. some, including my friend, secretary duncan, bevel railed against the standards being too low, and even on these state-

established curriculum standards, we are falling short of getting the kids to those minimum standards with the bennett -- basic skills of reading and math. whereabout to read the discussion on higher standards and picking up the pace, but i am a bit skeptical. i am from missouri. we will some how the pact had when our piece to date has been a little slow. like all law, no child left behind was enacted on what we knew at the time. we had single-digit numbers of states that had annual assessments. we could not have done a great model because we did not have underpinnings and place. i give waivers to states to

start to experiment with those things, and those are the things that secretary duncan is now embracing. now that we have the edge researcher we can and should move to that smarter way of doing business. based on what we knew at the time, and the first person to lead the parade that this law can and should be improved and updated. it is ied years -- it is five years past due. i'd want to remind everybody not only what the principles were, but that the law has worked, and you have seen it. if you look at the flat trajectory prior to that 1990's, or during that time, it was discouraging. in every single one of your states, we have begun to focus on the needs of poor and minority students because of this laser focus on this

aggregated data. where are we now? we are in this tension about the congress and the administration and waivers. as encouraged i would be about action, i am discouraged when i see in both parties some of the core principles that are left on the cutting room floor at the moment. most, namely, it is consequential, accountability, meaningful consequences for low performance. if you were a hispan stu in suburbanirginia, that your needs. scol district had to attend to i worry that transparency alone for the majority of our schools is not enough to really get that trajectory going. time will tell.

i understand why secretary duncan has had to use his waiver authority, and i commend him for that. i used it myself. he needs to build a bridge for reauthorization. many have you have taken him up on that all ouffer. i want to point out some concerns that i have about what i am seeing around the states and what i would commend you to challenge your state department on. i know from my earlier days, you set the policy. you are not want to reading the fine print of every one of your wafers. the first thing i would say, and i have three slides, it is extremely complex. no child was a crude instrument and we should improve it. now we have gotten so much complexity.

if i could get that first slide to come up. i will not name any names here. this is a state waiver formula, it essentially, and this is very typical. this states says the airport to capulet a blended composite success rate, and then the gaps in that success rate, and then weight the gaps, create a gap index, rank schools, and then treat a focus group. i would wonder how many parents are teachers even can understand all the number crunching that goes into this formula. this is from another state. this is a z score, a new method for calculating achievement. this is a cheat sheet. there they go, cheating again.

this has a very complicated formula that i would challenge that few of us would understand, let alone a minority parent. i will get to slide tree in a second. i want you to look at the fine will have ase wille crazy quilt of accountability. what i am worried about is it represents a retreat from a true focus around every kid in every school. this is in favor ocus f a fo around the bottom 5% or 15% of schools. there's only so much and with, but there is plenty of poor and minority to its advantage kids in these schools. the troys consequences are largely gone. those options for transferring

to other public schools or getting to drink -- those in most cases are waived away. you have asked the secretary for that authority. i would say the last slide is -- i am not very good on this. i am a local control kind of gal. this is a particular state that -- this is the no child left behind plan. they have now since gotten a race to the top funding as well as a waiver. their plan said they would get 45% -- are now at 45% proficiency. the promise that they would do that in a 2006. i guess i would observe, and this state is not unique, they are behind the curve. this does not even lay on a much

higher standards, much more rigorous work, much more diverse populations all the while, and whether we are going to meet these things. i would ask you to go back and ask a few questions. how are we going to explain these complicated systems to our publics, to teachers and parents? i would start if i were you with understanding them yourselves and being able to explain them yourselves. often that is not terribly easy. what will happen to poor and minority students in the 85% of the schools who will feel less pressure under this waiver scheme? what about those folks, as minority kids or specialized kids in suburban schools? finally, what about choice? what options might parents have without the power of the options

they have in no child left behind? i agree with the secretary and i will close out here, that none of this is for anything if we are not taking this to the next level with respect higher education, and that was an area i've worked a lot on when i was in office as well pericarp i had a commission, including one of treatedernor's, that this test of leadership plan that in addition to from the data, which we all know and the secretary has released more of just yesterday about the gaps in our systems, there is a plan here about accountability and transparency and the kinds of things, technology, that we ought to be doing to move the needle there. just last week the chamber of commerce unveiled a report card on higher education some of his policy ideas in it, and i commend that to you as well.

i will conclude, and thank you for the opportunity. >> they key. you have done a great job. they have left us a lot of time for discussion. we will take advantage of that. i would like to have a great dialogue here. governor herbert, if you would start. >> take it, and we are grateful to have both secretaries here. we admire your service and appreciate what you have done in trying to raise the bar for education and approve transparency. come from a state that is known for spending little money on education. we are 51st in the nation, including, washington, d.c., and people spending. we achieve pretty good results. we are 13th when it comes to achievement scores on act test scores.

margaret would know that the u.s. chamber of commerce says we are the best value of education in america. that being said, i have concerns and we have been critical of no child left behind in our state and have concerns about race to the top and how it is intertwined with common core. for a lot of us, you mentioned we are the education people, and each one of us has to have that as a priority. we recognize the connection between good skilled labor and the ability to grow the economy. what i think we have a hard time with is the one size fits all approach. we get that out of washington on so many different things, and education is not the only thing, but we get it in so many things it gets us frustrated. i believe when we have the common core, which is developed

by the states, and kearney talked about that many times, and this is not a washington program, that when the administration connects it with the race to the top grant and says if you want a waiver, if you want to get some money, the grant, you have to be a part of common core, that is a concern for all of us. every governor here, i would trust every governor here, state, to find what is in the best interests of their population, the unique demographics, the regional differences. i would have them by the best way to educate their students and their people. why not come up with a formula based on their population, yours did population, and block grant

the money to us and find our own way to find success. i would ask bush to be that question. >> to billy clear, which raced to the top we tied that to comon core. virginia received a waiver. the challenge is looking at history and for what you said, the numbers will not be exact, but under no child left behind, 20 state the lead down their standards, including the state i am from, illinois, said they did not act in the best interest of their state or their young people or economy. they acted in their political best interests. in many states we were lying to children, telling them they were ready. that me tell you the the epiphany i had. we were doing work in the chicago schools for students to take these scores, and we had

outside analysis that showed me that students were hitting that numbers. we were patting ourselves on the back. , we hadually found outside consortia looking data, and we found that the students were woefully unprepared for college. the only students were prepared or those at the advanced level. just given history, close to 40% of the country actually produced standards to make politicians look good. there was no other benefit. >> tell me how that works. i do not understand the concept. tell me why any governor when in fact dumbed down their standards when we are asking them to compete globally, and if we did

not have that skilled labor, we will not win in the competition. >> we see the world very much alike there. i'm just giving you the facts. that is what happened. that is a great concern to me. for me the trade-off is whether the high bar where folks are challenging themselves, we provide them with more flexibility, and that is the idea behind the waiver package. those are your best ideas coming forward. we think those partnerships -- there is an important role for us to play. i would also say in the initial rounds, conversations around the waiver package, there were some states that for what ever reason focused ongaret achievement gaps, some states try to walk away from this. where folks stop to take

seriously children with disabilities, homeless students, is separate rule for us to challenge that. we saw we were able to get to a better place. that is the checks and balances that there is an appropriate meeting of the mines there hopefully. >> a great question and a complicated question. we have a system that has 50 speedometers that say we are going to slow. no child left behind, we decided, because you are paying the vast majority of the bill for education, that it was right for you to set the standards. we ought to say are the meeting them? the whole vision around the child left behind, a commitment to poor minority years, 40 years

of the civil-rights era or form, etc., plus taxpayer accountability and responsibility and all those things to all those things add up if we are to send money we should get something for it, but it is right for us to let you figure out what that is. we ought to know how fast are they going and how are they doing with respect to the kids that are in the purview of the law. i will tell you why states are against systems, because they create standards that kids, the population that they have, can start do, can gobble up, can work on. then they raised them over time. this has been our history since the 25-year-old governor's summit and all those efforts. what i worry about is, as enthusiastic as we are for

college-ready standards, that right now we have a few kids getting over a pretty low bar, in exchange for higher standards, we will retreat from the transparency and the power of accountability that said what about the speeding up? how are you doing with hispanic and african-american kids? someone could tell me i could run a marathon, but i am not to run a marathon before i can run 5 miles. we do not have a lot of states who are running 5 miles right now. we're saying let's run a marathon, we bought the to, but what is going to happen as to calibrate and redirect the attention and focus on the consequences for those minority kids? you lead the way on bang for the buck investment, but i want you to go home and look at the achievement other hispanic as special ed kids, growing populations endorsed that it's

-- growing populations in your state. i work and a lone star state with lots of disadvantaged kids. governor. cannot say -- a trade-off here is high standards, less power of accountability. >> every day i am challenging myself, what is the corporate federal role? for us to do that courageous things, and my members will not be exact, but when the governor raised his standards, they went from 91% proficient to 30% proficient. the achievement gap doubled. that is tough stuff.

it is the truth. we have to start telling the truth and have to deal with that reality. part of our role is to give cover to those leaders were willing to do the hard stuff, willing to raise the bar, and if we do not do that the incentives go the other way to start to ver r this dotcom -- co this stuff up. >> had to we explain to parents who cannot get their kids over that lobar? what do we tell them when we tell it is time to run a marathon? >> what we were saying to them before was your kid can run a marathon and they could not run 5 miles. that is why we felt we decided to raise the bar. part of all our job is to find reality, and we do not disagree on that. to me -- when we raised our

standards, we did not raise them to an impossible place. we raised them to where they had to be if we were quite to compete. absolutely, that the strike, the consequences when that does not happen. >> you will hear an agreement from us, those consequences. part is what do those consequences look like us forget what happened today -- what do those consequences look like? >> i apologize, but that is what i think people at the local level understand better. in my state we have a growing minority population, hispanics that are coming into the state, and it is a challenge to raise the bark for them -- the bar for

them. we're trying to change that in many different ways. a high-school education for them is something that never happened in my family before. we're pushing them into college. we want to have 2/3 of our adult population in some post-high school certification or to agree to raise the bar. we have a number of indian reservations and a tradition we have there is has not been one of achievement. we're trying to help that. that is unique to my state. what is happening in kentucky and other state is different. it seems we need to empower, but if i did not do my job somebody will throw me out of my office and put in somebody who will do it. is it better to come from

washington, or is it better to come from the local people, the local districts, and the parents, about what needs to be done as opposed to one size fits all? >> thank you for your leadership on this issue. secretary duncan, i will change gears a little bit, but while we have you both here, have a question that is a little bit of interest to be. we had the opportunity to visit, and this is the same top. when i grew up, my dad got out in a tree, and when my brother went to law school what he was concerned after law school we would know how to do nothing. this brings up the question of career technical education. as we see in wyoming, we get

questions, where are the welders, the plumber's? where are the electrician's? as we look at this, you got to do grad and k-12. i worry about setting the bar to low. we ought to set the bar high. as we look at this, k-12 to go to college. where does the career technical education come in? we cannot forget, i said in my office and a lot of people know how to do a lot of things. there are great careers out there. where does this come into play? what are your thoughts on career technical education and how we integrate this into the discussion? >> i always say four-year university is, some form of

education beyond high school. many programs across the country today are outdated. you had some extraordinary programs that lead to real jobs. you have some programs preparing people for jobs that disappeared 20 years ago. we want to use resources in a smarter way at a high school and middle school level where the training is leading to a real job opportunity. we're asking congress for an additional billion dollars. there are some in the great jobs out there that are not happening. the community college site is of huge importance. my undersecretary is the first person that that job who is a former community college president. partnerships with the department of labor -- hundred million

dollars this year, lester, where real training is leading to shoot real jobs in the private sector. we want to invest in quality and we think that pat is a hugely undervalued one today. raising this ball i -- raising the spotlight on committed to college, which want to do more and we want to be a better partner. >> when we talk about high- school french origin, if everyone in high school thinks their next step has to be a four-year college, that is the cause of some of the high school dropouts. -- if you have a career technical path, that is a lesser path. they're both equally important. that is a contributor to high school dropout rates.

i appreciate your focus on that and your care and the explanation when we talk about post-k-12. >> are so many false debates in education and the waste so much time and energy, and the top of that list is college versus career. we're preparing far too few people for their careers. to me it is about and powering the young people and giving them choices. i want them to be career ready and figure out what their path is. it is both/and and not either/or. >> the only thing -- most of us are old enough to remember where johnnie went to shop and got ignored, that these new types of vocational and technical jobs require high levels of

math and reading, and is not a mutually exclusive deal. i would admonish that we pay as much attention to those kids as we did the rest of them. >> you have to have great skills and math and reading. it is as he said, we want both avenues, but we do not want to put it once did not on one avenue against the other. to be able to repair but it is the way to go. >> we would love your feedback on what makes sense, and this is something we want to strengthen. >> thank you. >> another change of topic, to the secretary spelling and secretary duncan. we're focused on a common core and raising standards and accountability. all of us have terrific college career models working in our

state. from anybody possible experience who has been in the classroom, we understand the problem does not start when the kid is 11 or 12. it begins in prenatal care and that whole stepped into kindergarten, upgrades one through three. i would like your comments on how the country has changed and focus on this early learning. in my state, if i lived in a disadvantaged neighborhood, more than likely i did not have any books or anybody to read books to me. my family does not take a fancy vacations to where most of us go to in the summer, and i come to school in september or late august with a four-month disadvantage. how do we as a country begin to look and face up to those responsibilities? with poor that

teachers, and i am dead in the water. all that is wonderful, and we should do it, but would hope we never lose our focus on where it all begins, and it is there any ade time.thrid >> i do not think headstart can or will ever adequately meet that continuum of meat that you talk about parrot smart states but getting the best results have powered up on full-day kindergarten and teachers that are certified in the early grades and the focus on reading, something in that arena that we do better than in the rest of k-12, and that is starting to use time and people

more effectively so we get out of the cookie cutter model and give kids who need more intensive intervention more intensive schooling during the summer, more days, more time on task, and as you suggest, better people. we do the opposite and education. if you have a ph.d. and loads of expert lehman -- and lots of i thinkce cann-- accountability can help us address the issues. early chocolate and smart and a penchant in the early grades can pay big -- early childhood education in the early grades can pay big dividends. >> i think as a country we are crazy on this one. every study talks about the best long-term investment we can make is in high-quality early

childhood education. we do not need more studies. we know the long term stayed the best we know the long-term studies. getting our studies at rates that are ready to succeed is the best investment we can make. we all point fingers that the way to level the playing the field is to have children enter kindergarten ready to be successful. no of-olds do eyelasho tom -- our department has been part of the problem.

we under invested. the past two years the rest of the top we have put over $600 billion up on states to increase access. my daughter was lucky enough to have decently educated parents. she had other children in her class trip that could better really -- who could barely read. the local and state we have to -- there has not been a big enough focus on quality. you've got to show what you are doing. programs that are not doing a

good job might lose funding or have to compete again. our working hhs can hopefully set an example. a seminaroing tomorrow afternoon on technology, and north carolina has invested a ton of our effort into diagnostics. we are evaluating kids to hold them accountable. at the end of the day we will know when a kid does not get ahead. thank you both of you. >> governor walker. >> thank you. thanks to both our guests. we talked about this in february, but we acknowledge both of your leadership. in february both sides of the aisle talked about this and get credit to the former secretary

and the president for being engaged in this debate and raising the debate of high standards. a lot of us are appreciative, continuing the debate about high standards. this is less of a question and more of a statement. it goes back to something gary said. our had of education is independently elected. -- head of education is independently elected. getting involved before third grade, making sure that kids are reading at grade level. we spent about a year working on

about 40 stakeholders, everything from teachers, school board members, business leaders, trying to put together a comprehensive stakeholders group to create school district accountability measures. besides myself interest, -- my self-interest, my biggest interest is to my employers. more than any measure or standard, even more of late, i have huge gaps, like most of you probably do. i also have huge gaps in advanced manufacturing, all of whom require not just a high- school diploma, but the education after that. they are saying, our schools are not cutting it.

not just in our poor areas. to many of them are producing students who are not cutting it. maybe more addressed at the congress, the more flexibility to states had -- virginia -- we love competing on jobs. education plays a key role in workforce development. we have to have the maximum flexibility possible. if we're going to say what works best in wisconsin it may not be what works best in missouri or utah. my hope is for the folks in washington, the more flexibility, the better. we are the ones who are ultimately accountable.

>> governor, we are in a renewed era of local control, no doubt about it. it is a transparency build. there you have that. you have the ball, absolutely. it is all yours. it is not against a lot to close the achievement gap. it is not against the lot to have annual assessment. if you did, for no child left behind, for the record. local control has often translated into establishment control, a union controlled. a lack of policy makers to understand what is going on. you got it. >> what i fundamentally believe

is that we should be [inaudible] high bar, hold people accountable to results. give them to be creative, innovative, hit the high bar. we're all sayin the same thing. i would like your thoughts on this. there has been a massive disconnect, inefficiency, and nothing we have done to prevent this. somehow, that has not happened. your employers care desperately about the community. your educators care desperately about the community. those two world have not historic plecally met. i would ask all the to think about why 2 million high skilled

jobs are unfilled each day. what can we do to close that gap? this thing is not working in anyone's interest. if we can be more creative together, the best thing to do is to incentivize where those partnerships are actually happeneing. >> both of what you said is very much on target. the one thing i get frustrated in looking at and our state, whether it is saying the federal government dictated this, and i am going to -- people said collective bargaining prohibits me from boarding the great teachers and paying for performance. -- rewarding the great teachers and paying for performance. when i hear from others, too

many excuses. it is too easy to say, it is not my fault. it is not my fault because the federal government dictates what we have to do. in the end, they do not give a you know what. they want to know why there are not enough students to get into the workforce. i am not keeping the burden on either one of you. for a lot of us, we're trying to figure out how can we be accountable. we do not want to blame somebody else. >> we have to stop pointing fingers. desalts debates do not move anything forward. -- these false debates do not move anything for. i met in the state, i will not name it, with a number of superintendents. i asked the employers, how many of the high-school graduates are

ready to come and your place of work? they said, less than 50%. and the room got quiet. they had never -- these were all good hearted people in the same community. they had never talked. somehow, whenever you can do, whenever we can do to facilitate both skidding past educators running business, they do not get it. so much mutual self-interest, but they had never had a conversation. that is what we have to figure out. >> we're in the middle of doing that, region by region. bringing the largest employers with their educators. we are guilty of this as governors, but you talk about having -- we want to be as tight as we can on the standards and how this weekend -- how loose on

how we get there. i know that is no news to anybody. gov. nixon? >> switching gears, i appreciate your help and community colleges. thank you very much. i can tell you that the competitive grants are training people for jobs that exist right now. it would not have happened but for your work and the administration's work. you will be very proud of what we have done with the dollars that you have given us. there are productive people how they're moving their lives for word. thank you for that. we appreciate it.

talk about higher education, public higher education. we spend a tremendous amount of part-time respectfully critiquing k-12. we hammer this, we hammered back. we talk about all sorts of consequences. and then we send our kids to traditional four-year colleges. a graduate with no jobs. -- a graduate, and no jobs. they have debt and are being waiters and waitresses.

you have a tremendous number of folks who have been into that higher education system, when they get out, spent the better part of the next decade than for what they got and not getting the economic return [inaudible] i am talking about real cost. do you think we will begin to have a nationally the beginnings of the discussion about that issue? not to say there are not real issues at preschool and k-12. we take our kids that make it all the way through that process, and they go to southwest eastern something and they get a degree in something and they are dramatically underemployed. they have done all the stuff you are supposed to do. they have worked really hard. they have actually put some scanned in the game themselves

-- skin in the game themselves. what can we do to begin the kind of specific discussion? any time we began those kinds of discussions, we are seen as governors as supporting higher education when we give the money, or not supporting higher education and we did not give the money. it is not that simple. i do not need to over speed, but you see tuition pressure -- i do not need to -- i do not need to over speak, but you see tuition pressure. what kind of -- what advice do you have to us to a format that public discussion? i would argue that you can say we have dropped -- boy, i would not want to back up any. i see a lot of folks that are making a lot of choices.

it is not the right economic choice for them. what discussions are going on? what advice do you have? we had a great control over some of those dollars to began get technology, performance measures and higher education, truth in advertising about what the degrees are worth. without attacking the system. you have shown throughout your career as a great ability to be reformers from the inside. what advice do you have to us to be reformers from the inside? >> these are all great questions without easy answers. go back to where it started around shared responsibility. i would challenge you to continue to invest in higher education. 80% of states cut back last year. that is not a good thing for the

country, but it cannot be a blank check. universities have to keep their costs down. some are doing an amazing job of that. some of them are doing and run this job of that. and they have to deal with cultures around completion. access is important, but access is not the name of the game. one thing we have tried to do, we want to do a race to the top for higher education. incentivizing diversity's to keep their cost down. -- universities to keep their cost down. we have funded everybody the same regardless their ability to control cost, regardless of their ability to have them walk across the stage at the back end. gov. o'malley -- maryland have the right to bargain a few years the university's committed

to systematically reduce their costs substantially. not have the state this invest. i think that is the right trade- off. if we get more folks to move in that direction at the state level, we want to do that. this is an area where we had been part of the problem. we provide all of our resources based upon access. we do not provide resources based upon the university's ability to increase completion rates. we want to start to have more of our resources go to institutions that are graduating folks and doing the right thing economically unless the two other places. when i was in chicago, our students were 90% below the poverty line. identical gpas going to local

universities. staggering the disconnect. we started during our young people toward certain universities and away from others. we have to think about our levers. i think there has been -- >> i am sorry to interrupt you. but i am interrupting you. we have a school choice model in place for higher education. people get to choose where they go. it is so talked about at the k- 12 level less choice been the solution. we already have that. you can go to all kinds of schools. i mention that as a background that is more than just choice. especially in rural areas. i designed a statewide charter

school bill. in the small -- i just signed a state wide charter school bill. that choice model -- the think we can be more impact in the higher education sector? >> i think you can drive more resources towards place is doing a good job. none of us differentiate enough to the good actors are and give them more dollars and the the bad actors are. a challenge -- i think we have the best system of higher education in the world, no question. 75% of people apply to one school. i do not think enough people are exercising choice. there has been a lack of transparency. what is a grant versus a lemon?

a very confusing. -- verus a loan? very confusing. >> that is a responsibility that we have. i would argue that if the child still doubt the form, that should get a -- that the child filled out the form, that should get them a two-year certification for something. [laughter] i know you have worked on the form, that that is governors saying what we say. >> it strikes me that in higher education, we have a lot of consumer choice and very little information. that is often the opposite in k- 12 education. the chamber of commerce has done this report on six indicators. efficiency and cost effectiveness, innovation, how

much transparency and public information can be gained. further, how much linkage do you have in your employment data. what are your post-education employment opportunities? what are your wages likely to be after? bob mcdonnell, i will give you a tip of the hype. virginia is working on this card -- tip of the hat. virginia is working on this hard. we have not at all been very deliberate about our strategy. we applaud the money out and we hope for the best. we have -- we have put the money out and we hope for the past.

we do not have any kind of deliberate strategies. we get what we get it. >> nor have we been critical. anywhere near the same tone. we of the national debate about of bad it of to get rid teachers, but we are silent about that professors. this is not something we will snap our fingers and it will be solved instantaneously. we need to have that discussion. otherwise, we end up with a bunch of folks sitting here 10 years from now saying, we used to be first, and now we are not first in higher education anymore. i do not want that to happen. we're all doing a lot of the things you're talking about, but we have to have the public with us. we need to make sure that

college means something economically for people that invest. we need to have the courage to criticize the system that oftentimes does not deliver. >> i want to thank both of you for being here. i want to thank secretary duncan for the department of education. a fantastic partner, not to take compliance driven organization. your people have been very helpful. now that you were into this for 3.5 years, you are getting to see what kind of progress states are making. what are the biggest -- what makes you most nervous about the progress we have made? or the progress we're not making? given what you have learned, if we ever starting this over

again, what might you do differently? >> great question. you guys in delaware have been at the forefront. i do not know how many hours you have spent on this personally. i am hopeful and i think the progress the states have made a stunning. nobody predicted that. nobody predicted the amount of movement we resting across the country. -- we predicted across the country. the second part, i worry about, this is going to be a hard couple of years. higher standards, at results going down. holding teachers to a higher bar. moving to the next generation of assessments. this is going to be a choppy

couple of years. i hope that we stay the course. i think the other side of this is going to be very positive. the prospects are going to be hard and complicated. there will be a lot of legitimate pressure to go back to the old way. to dummy down standards. whatever we can do to keep marching forward and to learn from each other. folks are starting to figure out that everybody has worked in isolation. you guys are all struggling with the same issues. the more we share best practices, technology did not exist 10 or 15 years ago. we do not need to keep reinventing the wheel i think it is an important role for us to play. to sherry was knocking the ball at of the part in different areas -- to share food is knocking the ball out of the

park in different areas. i continue to struggle with the biggest critique i always get is that we're going to fast. i think we're going far too slow. everyone around this table is going far too slow. i think we are in a unique position to not do this well, but i would like a lot more people banging down my door and saying, you have to get better faster. ultimately, president obama almost -- always talks about when he met with the president of south korea. what is your biggest challenge? the president of south korea said, by biggest challenge is that my parents are too demanding. my poorest parents demand a world-class education. i have to spend billions of dollars each year to bring in thousands of teachers a year to

teach my children english and the first grade. i wish we had a lot more grass- roots pressure. this is not a washington movement or a governor's movement. we have not crossed the rubicon yet. to sustain this for a long haul, i think we need the pressure. our biggest battle is not ideological. our biggest battle is complacency. complacency is the enemy right now. >> amen. >> thank you, bill. thank you for the amazing amount of overlap and agreement. you were tough, candid, and non- partisan approach when it comes to excellence. you deliver some very tough messages to the nea.

i really admire what you have done. let me ask you about teachers. most would agree about the empirical evidence about the results you get from early childhood education, tremendous evidence about what a world class teacher does and means in a classroom. we've tried in virginia on some reforms. to recruittrying teachers at based on the subject matter expertise. we have run into some roadblocks from the educational associations and unions. what is working? how do we best recruit these world-class teachers? how do we elevate the competence and the esteem in which we hold that profession? you made a little bit of money

as a professional basketball player, yet we do not pay teachers at all. what are the things that are working that we can do to get the world class people involved in the profession? >> maine authorizing no child left behind. -- we started this conversation would reauthorize and no child left behind. we have the baby boomer generation retiring. a million teachers, a third of the workforce. it is a once in a generation opportunity. i have spent a huge amount of time to do it. there is a grand bargain to be had, which is tough on everybody. we need to not tolerate a failure. we need to reward excellence.

we need to move out those where it is not working. will this far too many of our good teachers to -- we lose far too many other good teachers to pay. we have not talked about schools of education. this is not just -- people look at tenure at reform as one slice of the puzzle. to me, it is the whole spectrum. the pool of talent is not anything where it should be. the training they receive is woefully inadequate. they do not have career ladders. we have to take on that entire establishment. we have to do it systemically. the grand bargain is a lot more rewards, compensation, making a true profession. there are a lot of trade-offs that have to happen.

singapore, finland, 100% of their teachers come from the top 10% of graduating class is. 100%. 90% of folks to want to teach in those countries cannot. we have demonized the profession. i am spending a lot of time looking at other countries. england is an interesting country. this significantly elevated the status of the profession. if all we do is put a lot more money into it now without changing the conditions, we do not get there. if all we do is tenure reform without greater rewards, we will not get there either. we're competing with all kinds of other fields. what if you could make $100,000

a year as a 30-year-old? people wake up and pay attention. we have to create the climate and conditions. we've launched a respect initiative. we want to help to drive this. this should be led by teachers. we want to get teachers to take ownership. it has to become a profession, we have to treat it as such and respect it as such. right now, that is not what we are -- that is not where we are out. >> we have to be smart about how we allocate talent and resources. we do not do that now. often, our best people are doing the least challenging work. yes, that runs afoul the bargaining agreement, as you know. it is a local and state problem.

you are the wind that is writing the framework for the bargaining agreement. just like any other enterprise, having our best people do the most challenging work. >> that is selling portions. -- that is the all-important. we have the -- when the president went after osama bin laden, he did not send in a bunch of rookies. he sent in the navy seals. what are we doing? we have a million disincentives and very few incentives. not individually, but en masse.

i talked to a principle of their, was asked to go to a low performance goal. it is the most moral and ethical work i have done in my career. i am so thankful i had that big a badge of honor to work in the communities that need the most help. getting the talent where we need it, that is a big piece of it. >> i want everybody to be as concise as possible. >> so you waited for me to say that? [laughter] >> i will try to do that. the discussion has turned to points i wanted to make. we absolutely know what works.

in many cases, we lack of resolve, more often on the local level, to replicate what works. we'll have -- we'll have the examples. every one of my feelings school districts had a great school. they did not go out and repeat that across the board. reality about what we are doing in higher education is that because we caused this divide between a career and education -- we do not teach that in college. we do in some of our community colleges. we do not counsel people to define what actually they will be good at it early enough in life. we have to get back to doing that pretty quickly. one example, i had a program in one of my community colleges

that had a 90% plus the rate for 12 years. -- 98% placement rate for 12 years. september 1, there will be four -- 3 more community colleges doing that. they will replicate that very program. i want to swing back to the point that i became convinced of in my own state from discussions i had with educators at the various state universities and the private universities that produce some number of teachers in our state. most of them have failed to collect data about the jobs their teachers are doing once they leave. in some of those cases, there is a conscious effort not to collect the data. in many cases, they are sending out teachers who are going to fail within the first, second,

or third year their teachers. to correct that data and have to report it would be a very scary proposition. we have to make some very rapid changes in how we educate teachers and how we prepared this teachers. waiting for the 34th year to -- third or fourth year to put someone in a classroom, it is trapping a person in education. if they had that experience as a freshman or sophomore, they could have directed their educational model to a different degree. i would ask the two secretaries, who i want to begin by thanking. where are we? where are we in preparation of teachers? you just made reference to this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to replace the overwhelming number of teachers in public

education in the united states, but the reality is, the preparation has not changed a lot. if you could comment on that. >> i wanted thank you for the huge courage you have shown. i do not know if anyone has taken any more -- taken on any more than you. that would not have happened without you putting your neck way out there. i appreciate that. 64% of young teachers say they're unprepared to do their job. two-thirds of our teachers. if two-thirds of our doctors were unprepared to practice medicine, we would have a revolution in this country. we have some skills and challenges. singapore -- we have some challenges. i think we have not done enough

to challenge the status quo. two big complaints, not enough real education. not -- i talked to all these great teachers who are using all these formative assessments to take their craft to a different level. they are learning that on the job. they say, why did not learn that when i was -- when i was in my school of education? we have not done enough to incentivized those schools better doing the right thing and to move the resources from those who are not. i am happy to talk more about this, i am conscious of the time. we want to do a lot more about shining the spotlight on those who are doing a great job. you guys have a lot more power and authority than you realize in this area. no one ever closes down schools of education.

i urge you to look at that. on data, louisiana tracks tens of thousands of teachers, hundreds of thousands of their teacher-student data track that back to schools of education. they are changing their curriculum in the schools based upon the real data. there a couple of other states moving in that direction. i do not understand by 50 states do not do that. this is nothing unique. it is a lack of courage. louisiana probably does this as well as anyone. >> a couple of quick adds. tfa another alternative certification models allow us to wire around some of this and

create some different approaches. i would commend you all to make this a priority. the dirty little secret is you know better, colleges of education or a cash cow. they are a low-cost operations. everybody wants to cut a ribbon at a health center, but pay attention who is minding the store. the incentive is, let's get more of these people in. this is going to sound odd, this is a place where you can work with your unions. they are as frustrated and ill served by colleges of education as anybody. it is a place where governors of all stripes can find common cause on some of these reforms. >> i yielded my time to gov.

malloy. >> is this an east coast conspiracy? >> i have something i will end with. >> you were talking about what i was going to ask about. we have taken a lot of education reform steps in oklahoma. children have to read by the third grade. we have taken a lot of great steps. we measure our students and how they're performing, the greater our schools, but it goes back to what has been discussed. how do we measure the quality of the teacher in the classroom to make sure our teaching degrees that colleges get from our college of education -- i think

that is where we have to look at some of our reforms as a nation. they mean something, too. a teacher's certificate from a college of education degree mean sothing, too. >> the ability to take -- now that we have all this in the structure and this data comment to look at -- where she prepared? you all have treasure troves of data that can be mined for this sort of finding. you should do it. louisiana is a good example. >> this is a perfect segue into a lot of the challenges with our

budgets. medicaid is going of 20% a year. we have had enormous increases. a lot of us have cut our funding in higher education. 46 states. when the congress reauthorize the higher education act, there was a mandate that possibly could end up penalizing us in terms of college access. there is a waiver process. are we going to be able to work with the department on that?

be able to get back to where we were? >> we are working with many states. i do not know your situation specifically. where states have to make cuts, we totally understand fiscal reality. we're trying to make sure that higher education was not cut disproportionately. we have to take it off line. our goal is not to remove funds from states. our goal is to continue to invest. >> part of the situation, unless you are -- you have to continue your medicaid. when it goes up 20%, the cuts to become disproportionate. that is the real issue. some states, like wyoming, are still sitting on surpluses. how do we resolve this?

most of us are working hard to reduce our incarceration cost. that is not significant in terms of the same scale. >> happy to sit down with the of. -- don need with you. -- down with you. >> we have been discussing eliminating the entire border between colorado and wyoming. >> you have been discussing it more than i, governor. [laughter] >> you all been terrific. you talk about running a marathon. we have been here a while. if anyone has one last point they're dying to make -- you all been terrific today. it would be a consensus of opinion that both of you have been the ideal of how cabinet

secretaries should work with states. we're grateful for that. [applause] with that, there is nothing else to have to do right now. thank you very much for your attendance. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012]

>> the national governors' association meeting in virginia, this is wrapping up day one. they are going to be here through sunday. our on-line coverage begins tomorrow morning at 10:30. tomorrow afternoon, at 2:30, a

roundtable on the veterans welfare. sunday, ways states can support on japan or shut. president obama spending time in virginia as well. the state that he won back in 2008. tonight, president obama at the historic city fire house. he will be joined by virginia senator mark warner. live coverage of the president's remarks. they're expected to start at 7:25 eastern. >> this weekend -- >> the campaign collection is about 100,000 objects. that is imported for us because we're trying to keep this large tradition, reflect the larger story of american democracy. >> a look at the smithsonian's presidential campaign memorabilia collection.

also sunday, more from "the contenders." this week, he would never hold office. he would become an unlikely ally to fdr. 7:30 on c-span3. >> when you realize that these armies were not coming to his aid, they were trying to escape to the west. that is when he collapsed. he realized finally that it had come to an end. >> historian with a new look at the second world war from hitler's rise to power to his dark chaotic final days. >> his main objective was not to be captured alive by the russians.

he was afraid of being paraded through moscow in a cage. he was determined to die. >> sunday at 8:00 on c-span. >> an observer with amnesty international talked about what she has seen in syria, where estimates say 17,000 people have died in the conflict. she spoke about the conflict today, which turned out to be one of the deadliest days in the uprising. she was at the center for strategic and international studies in washington, d.c., and she spoke for just under an hour. >> [inaudible] i recently spent several weeks in syria in the north of the country investigating human rights abuses.

i was in syria without the approval of the syrian government because the syrian authorities have not allowed human rights organization to access syria. i crossed the border, i think the term is, illegally. obviously, inside syria, i worked in 23 different towns and villages in three areas of the country in the north. it is further south. i would like to start by talking a little bit about the biggest city, the economic capital of syria.

the last place in syria where there is no armed confrontation between armed opposition and government forces. it has been very late in joining the protest movement. it did not start as early as the 17 months ago in that part of the country. the way the government forces have dealt with a little bit of protest has been exactly like everywhere else in the country. during the week, i saw a small demonstrations. within 15 minutes, the security forces would intervene. they would intervene and fire live rounds, mostly assault

rifles, and also hunting rifles. in one single day, the 20th of may, 10 people were killed two of them were children. not only did they fire on the crowds of demonstrations, where there is no threat to anybody, quite the contrary. they would go after those who had been injured. anybody who had been injured in the demonstration. this has been throughout the country from the beginning. they cannot go to hospitals because they will be arrested. you have mostly young medical students, doctors, nurses, people with first-aid training,

who performed a very important task, providing life-saving emergency treatment. those people have been targeted by the regime. three weeks ago, three young men, medical students, and one english literature student, they were part of a medical team providing treatment to injured demonstrators on the floor of apartments where they were at risk. the three were arrested, and after weeks, their bodies were found with clear marks of torture. they had been shot in the head and their bodies had been set on fire. to give a very clear message that it is not a good idea to engage in this kind of humanitarian task.

this is one of many examples. elsewhere in the other 22 towns and villages, it was a very different story. by the time -- it was already an open armed conflict with the armed opposition, which is present throughout the country, and government forces fighting it out in rural areas. boren pour in, i went to these specific areas to and -- more importantly, i went to these specific areas to investigate more brutal that had been carried out by syrian forces and militia from late february throo early april. in all of the areas i found similar patterns. i will give you a couple of

examples. security forces in one city into -- went into a house where three brothers were sleeping with their mother and their sister. they took the boys out. there were 822, 24, and 26. they were construction workers -- they were 22, 24, and 26. they were construction workers, simple guys. they had participated in demonstrations. they were not involved with the armed opposition. they did not flee their village because they figured they had not done anything and they were not worried about the army. the army went into town the day before. they knew the army was coming to town. they were asleep when they were dragged off from their beds. there were shot in their heads outside their home and their bodies were set on fire. the mother and sister were not

allowed to collect the bodies until 7:00 p.m. that night. this happened at 7:00 a.m. in the morning. in another place, the army swept in. a young man who was with the opposition ran up the hill to get his little cousins who were aged 8, 11, and 13, to get them back home. the army caught up with them, made the four of them kneel on the ground and shot them dead. the little one was shot in the head and in the palm of the hand. other people were up in the hills looking after the sheep.

other children in the area told me that he was kneeling on the ground with his hands up when he was shot. these are really individual examples of cases that i found by the dozens and for a period of five weeks that i spent in syria. in every single town and village that i visited, big or small, houses had been burned down to the ground. in some villages, half of the houses, hundreds of homes as well as other property, medical facilities, pharmacists, field hospitals and also ordinary clinics were burned down.

it wasn't just a question of some soldiers lighting amuck because the burning was a thorough from wall-to-wall. some it incendiary devices were used which indicates a level of premeditation. does it do not carry hundreds of -- soldiers and do not carry hundreds of incendiary devices with them. that is not what patrols carry. they would have to carry those with a specific intent. we cannot talk about possibly the actions of some rogue elements or acting on personal initiative -- that cannot be the case because the patterns are too similar. i found the same modus upper on day -- operandi. brutal execution, burning down of large numbers of home and property by different units who were operating in different parts of the country at

different times. this is a state policy quite clearly. they also in every village took away mostly young men. those who were killed or mostly -- were mostly young men and also elderly people and children. it was the same for those who were arrested. the ones i could speak to were the lucky few who have been released. they bore horrendous marks of torture and open wounds. those released were people the security forces no longer had any interest in or whose families paid a lot of money to get them out. a small number of cases. there are hundreds that we know about but many more who have disappeared and have been detained, some up to a year ago and they have never come back and the families have had no way of knowing where they are

detained. when they contact the different intelligence agencies that are responsible for the detention, they are told that they are not there. sometimes families manage to get some news because they hear from people who have been released and tell them, "i was detained with your son." in most cases they had no idea that their relatives have disappeared. we have to be mindful of the behavior of the armed opposition.

the armed opposition was formed after several months of peaceful demonstrations being shot at and demonstrators being killed and injured and anybody suspected of being involved with protests or demonstrations being rounded up and tortured and in some cases disappeared and in some cases killed. an armed opposition was formed and it is becoming stronger and more organized. it is engaging in a more efficient way in recent weeks with government forces and gaining more ground in recent weeks. they, too, have begun to commit human-rights abuses. it is for now at the level of

individual cases. we all know that in the situation of armed conflicts things can escalate very quickly. i would like to have a small digression on the issue of the term "civil war," which is being used in the media quite a bit when talking about the issue in syria. i do not think we are in the situation of civil war. as a kind of private initiative. the monopoly of violence has been firmly in the hands of government forces. syria has a certain ethnic composition. sick. issue has not started with the uprising and goes back many decades. there's a danger because some of the development that we have seen since the first large- scale massacre that was reported

on the 25th of may and in which has not completely been clarified until this day right up to the massacre that was reported last night. the reports in these cases which remain to be very -- they are all militias from villages going into sunni alleges with the support of the armed forces that shell the area with artillery and then the militias going in and finishing the jobs, so to speak, killing people. government forces targeting their opponents because they are at their opponents and because they protest. the danger as the conflict continues is that it could

acquire a greater sort of sectarian element, which would be very dangerous. i would like to end with a few words of the role of the international community. everybody i met, if there was one question that everybody was asking was, why is the world doing nothing? why is the world watching? the syrian uprising took place during the arab spring and people in syria saw that in tunisia and egypt. people brought about change

without it becoming armed conflict. in libya, it was a different story. there was intervention by the international community. in syria, the world has watched and has done nothing. the international community is paralyzed in a way that it was not in libya. looking at this from the perspective of a human rights organization whose interest is first and foremost the protection of the civilian population. it is striking first of all if one goes back and looks at the kind of debate that was being had in the spring of 2011 at

the syrian uprising. very quickly, the only option that was being discussed by the international committee. should there be a military intervention or not? but there was no discussion of any other initiative and there could have been a number of initiatives. the situation in libya was referred to the international criminal court within two weeks of the first demonstration taking place. we are 17 months into what has been a brutal assaults on civilians. the leaders of the free world are still discussing whether it would be suitable to refer the case to the international criminal court. we have seen the international community agreed last april to

the setting up of the united nations mission in syria. it was a case of too littlte and -- too little and too late. the un supervision mission in syria was there with the wrong mandate. it went in to observe the cease-fire. there was no cease-fire, not even for a single day. it was clear there was not going to be a cease-fire. things had moved too far for a cease-fire to be a realistic option. two useful things that should have been done that would still be useful now would be for the situation in syria to be referred to the international court and for the mandate of

the u.n. mission to be renewed not in its current form but to be expanded, to be given the authority and the necessary human skills and capacity to carry out investigation into war crimes that continue to be committed. the use of that would be that it would be sending a signal to the perpetrators of these abuses. the time for inpunity is over. it is regrettable that that message was not delivered to the concerned parties right at the beginning. it is not too late to do so now and i'll stop there and be available for questions. >> thank you very much, donatella rovera. thank you for your comments. the challenge in syria from the

operational ground level all the way up to the strategic picture, you have levels of complexity and a kind of challenge that the region has not seen in decades. my comments will focus on taking us from the internal to mention -- dimensions and the obstacles therein. we will map out what will be a pattern of instability for the foreseeable future. the roots of the crisis are tied to social economic disparity. the mismanaged distribution of natural resources. the crisis has evolved at a pace and scale that has metastasized the internal politics of the opposition and the responses of the assad regime. one thing can be said about the

assad response. every authoritarian system about what to do to maintain power does very little to translate into a path forward for a future for syrians and for a way out for the assad regime. it can only prolong the crisis. you have by far more polarized environment, no communication between assad and the opposition. this has now ballooned into a struggle for power in syria. you have on both sides an effort to shape a message in what is happening in syria. you have a battle for what the

course is in terms of the right steps that the assad regime thinks they can take. it doesn't change the fact the both sides have been battling to craft a message. this has been happening in the context where you have an environment that is far more divisive than at any point in the last few decades. syria now sits on a broader regional fault line, not necessarily by design but by

default. the competition and the polarization along the rhetoric of -- the struggle is between the regime and a predominately sunni opposition. this fault line impacts the future. kind of longevity in the access to lebanon and supports the has a lot and try to shape some of the outcomes in syria first is the gulf states that are trying to reshape the balance. you do have a difficulty in reaching any kind of consensus

at the regional level over what to do about syria. everybody wants to negotiate as long as they get exactly what they want which is not exactly the definition for negotiation. beyond all this, the gulf states find themselves at a crucial crossroads in politics. this is the first time that they can shape regional outcomes at a time when the three traditional pillars of the arab state system are either silent or unable to change events and that is shaped the tactical choices, this idea that whatever emerges locally will most likely be predominately sunni to be

supported. all these things complicate the struggle that 16 months ago was essentially a grassroots efforts to shift the debate about what syria's future to look like, what economics should look like. you have a lot of instability at the international level. there is no international community on syria. there is not likely to be one in the near future. you've of actors like the united states that are struggling with the lessons from past experiences in places like lebanon and iraq. these are countries with deep communal divisions that the u.s. could not and cannot fix decisively in and a short-term -- in any short-term effort.

here in the context of a country like syria, there is -- that is close to the epicenter of an arab-israeli politics, it is critical to the stability of neighboring states like jordan, lebanon, iraq, and turkey. it affects the stability of israel as well. the reality of the view from washington is that there must be a strategic outcome in syria, one that maps out some kind of stability at a time when states like egypt remained unstable, jordan has seen a shift in leadership over time, and all of this is critical in light of iraqi concerns about its own internal stability. none of these paid positive scenarios for the syrian future. you have a regime that will continue to repress and will continue to adopt the lessons learned from other cases of authoritarian failure but will not be able to chart a path forward. you have continued support from

external actors which will make the kind of scenarios and on the ground experiences that the syrian people are suffering all the more intractable overtime. this will be a long-term crisis and even have assad were removed or left, it would not change the reality that whoever runs syria will have to face the socio-economic, political and economic ramifications for the next decade if not longer. we can talk about the other points during the question and answer period. >> ladies and gentlemen, let me throw things open for questions but before i do so, let me ask a favor of you. if you look around, you can see how many people are in the audience. a lot of them are going to want to ask questions. i'm going to ask you the favor of actually asking a question, not making a statement or a

speech, having the question of simple enough so the panel has a chance of actually answering it, and before you actually ask that question, could you please indicate to you are and the organization you are a member of if it is an organization you're speaking for. with that, let me ask you as the first question? forgive me if i don't identify those of you i know by name. i will just point but the lady and the front row -- >> barbara slavin from the atlantic council. the question is -- we read that the opposition forces within the country are getting stronger and they have a defect of control --defacto control over

large swaths of the countryside. is that the case and, if so, what are you so pessimistic route -- about their ability to defeat the assad forces? >> in the whole of the north which is where is i was and is no different in other parts of the country, it is kind of a shared management of the land, if you will. the government forces are present. have checkpoints on the main roads and sometimes they put up flying checkpoints at intersections with smaller roads and the smaller roads you can move if you are careful and always check ahead that there is not a sudden flying checkpoint. it's that kind of division of labor -- also on the main roads at night, the government forces tend to kind of lock themselves up in the tanks and not stay

very visible. i would not say there is total control that the opposition has anywhere but they certainly have operational ability to move around. >> thanks for your question. you have to understand a static snapshot of what is happening along the frontier with turkey is something that is not going to capture the scale of what is happening between the regime forces and these units that are operating as part of the opposition. there have been reports, none of them completely accurate, about command and control by opposition forces in places. the mapping we have seen suggests over a significant portion of the promise, they are reporting and i am suspect

about that. there are indicators that there are strong pockets of control along the turkish frontier. there is a reluctance now by the syrian military to send the kind of messages that could aggravate further an already difficult dynamic with turkey. that being said, the assad regime still has enormous repressive capability. they have always expected as far back as the early 1980's that the next battle the security apparatus would have to face is not unlike what they saw in the 1970's and 1980's. you have an ideological military and far too many desertions as opposed to defections and you still have a fair amount of command control but the challenge this patrician battle really poses to the regime is that they are engaged

in a struggle that always shifts, it is like a game of whack-a-mole and does not -- has learned not to stay and fight to the and it will drag things out further. that is partly why i am a pessimist. neither side is able or willing to make the kinds of decisions that slow the pace of violence. i would not be surprised if we're talking about this kind of cycle well into the end of the year if not into next year. >> i'm going to try to spread things around the room. the gentleman next to the gentleman with the microphone. >> thank you. i have been listening for months on this thing and have been waiting for someone to give a percentage of population of syria. >> to ask a question please? >> i would like to find out what is the percentage of opposition as opposed to assad forces.

>> why we take a couple of other questions at the same time? the gentlemen and the second row there. -- in the second row there. >> i appreciate and things are more horrific than they thought. i was surprised that the role of sectarianism is not bigger. could you draw more of the sectarian roles and how they play in this? >> one more question? the gentlemen in the front row. >> thank you. my question is for the entire parent. -- panel. when you look from lebant to the bay of bengal, what does the panel think the chances for

all this violence in syria to spill over to jordan, turkey, and elsewhere and become a catalyst for a larger regional conflict? >> i think we would all love to know the percentage but the situation in syria just does not make it possible to conduct that kind of research. there is either people and journalists in syria with government approval and their movements and their actions are tightly controlled and observe and monitor. then there is others who go in illegally and have other challenges in terms of how much they can move about and what they can do and so on.

it is very difficult to know with any degree of certainty either what is the percentage of support amongst the population for one side or the other on the one hand as well as a exactly -- the numbers in terms of what is in the syrian army, that is reasonably well known. what is less well known is how many people have actually defected. the figure is very -- the figures vary greatly. i have not seen a figure of the exact number of members of the armed forces that have deserted that i consider to be reliable. i think there are various figures. it is still a small percentage. spill over potential -- i would like to rewind back to libya. that was one place where the international community acted or reacted with lightning speed. everybody was united pretty much on what to do.

there was a small group of people who named them sells the national transitional council that essentially represented themselves, not anybody else but they had good contacts mostly in the western capitals in america and europe. all whole world fell in love with them, completely forgot any of the people. i was in ban gauzy and -- benghazi and everybody thought libya was going to be so easy because there are not the sectarian issues you have in syria with different communities. it is very homogeneous. and they forgot about tribal differences. the regime in libya fell and now you have 100 nations in a single -- 100 militias in a

single city and many hundreds more and when there are disagreements, people don't sell that and more by punching it out but they fire rockets at each other from across the street. the situation is very messy, indeed. in terms of when you talk about spill over, the parameters of analysis that have existed for a long time in the middle east have been sort of thrown up in the air in the last year. it is because those who brought about change have not been the traditional oppositions. in any of these countries, they are trying to play a role now to a larger or smaller degree of success but certainly, the opposition played no role from tunisia to syria. it has been young people who have just come out and got us to where we are in the different countries.

i see too many of the parameters of the old analysis that have been used for decades to predict what may or may not happen and i don't see not taking into account analyzing the situation today of a new reality that the actors have changed, at least the change that is deeply chicken the country. -- shaken the country. you still have the older guys trying to find a place in the new egypt or the new tunisia when they were really not very present during the uprising and they did not play a decisive role, if any at all, in bringing about the downfall of the regimes. i think that is something to really bear in mind. the second thing i would say is

that after the french revolutions, they got napoleon. it took many decades before democracy. what has happened in the middle east is the beginning of a process. it does not matter -- in each country there are challenges. in none of the countries, it is going to be great. even in the best case scenario, there will be internal conflict, internal strife at different levels because people who have been denied the possibility to have a free press or free expression or free assembly for decades are going to need to find their own way to

create spaces for debate, for resolving their differences. while applying the old parameters of analysis is worth bearing in mind, there are rather new elements. >> on the question if you can reliable man about the percentage that supports the opposition or supports the regime, it is hard enough to map out the players involved in politics as it stands. you will not get a reliable picture in terms of accurate numbers. what is clear is that you do have a large cross-section of the syrian population that has to deal with the reality, the myth of a unified syria under some language of arab nationalism which has been

pulled out of the equation. you now have communalism. you have communities like christian minorities and some heterodocs. they can be critical of assad but they don't know what the alternative is in terms of social economics and politics and security "is still a sizable popular support and even with the in the sunni community. have a significant portion within the armed forces that are hanging in there because of the real threat that they face should there be some kind of debasqification. you have these kinds of defections are people being sidelined. on the question of sectarianism, the assad regime has widened the communal told -- the communal to mention the of

largely -- largely lost control of that message. it has polarized society and you have the lot of mob politics that impacts this. the communal dimension and the potential divorce between communities could be a source of instability and require true leadership in that somethings increasingly scarce in syria. -- in that is something that is increasingly scarce in syria. in terms of the chances of spillover effects, with libya as a country that imploded and syria will exploit of things continue, we already have instability in the northern provinces. they are launch platts -- bear launch pads for opposition activities and in syria, you have a sunni community in lebanon bettis in the same

politics of the shiites before the and the 1970's. they feel they have no leaders and they have, because with their brethren in syria. lebanon has become increasingly unstable and subject to the effects of a potential tsunami of instability from syria. jordan has already seen a number of prime ministers come and go and it is not a good sign for stability in jordan and there are pressures there in a country that has fewer sources of revenue and is relying on external support for stability. even turkey has to face the reality that it has an 800 + kilometre with syria and its own source of instability and iraq tested deal with its own sunni-shiite problems. in none of the countries where we have seen regime change or changes in the distribution of power do we have any sense of

certainty that the players who are shaping events today will either be relevant or able to shape outcomes in the future. this is not the kind of cycle that one can assess in 2013 or 2012 alone. we will have to assess this overtime and who ultimately in harris the centers of power is deeply uncertain. -- inherits the centers of powers is deeply uncertain. >> i think that both panelists race an issue which needs far more attention. these are changes taking place in the region which, for decades, as seen economic and demographic pressures build on a largely national level. there is varied little regional integration or regional

economics accept for a local security arrangements. the pressures that are outlined will be extraordinarily difficult for any government to solve. that report to the conclusion -- drew the conclusion that many of them could not be adjusted by a company and government on -- in less than a decade simply because of the u.s. pressure, economic pressure, the disparities in income on the problems of governance. there's a warning that i think needs to be drawn particularly by americans, a confusion that there is an easy route to elections and elections produce legitimate governments. historically, elections do not produce legitimate governments. virtually every election held in the post-colonial period did not produce a legitimate government or one that could survive for half a decade. the president historical even in -- precedent histori

cally, even in europe is one that we might bear in mind. i remember a senior arab official making this point -- it was in st. for westerners to -- in st. for westerners to -- insane for westerners to talk about an hour of spring when westerners have their own experience. they had a spring in 1848. last it arguably until 1914 and did not end well. i think this is prospectively what we want to keep in mind over time. the gentlemen in the second row over there and we will take another series of questions. >> good morning. while it is clear to me who is supporting the regime, i would like to know in your opinion if

it's true that in the opposition there are also minoritiesr is it just the sunni uprising? >> the gentle man in the far back over there. >> thank you. i'm a former prisoner from syria. you mentioned the icc. when need a resolution. on not sure if i understood this but you describe the mission of the un observers as useless because there is nothing to see there. what you expected from expanding a useless group? there is lots of weapons and nobody will collect those and how you deal with those steps

anybody picking up arms is in a position. >> thank you. the gentle man in the front row here. please -- >> good morning, i'm from the leadership academy in from the building. what is the position of the international community on syria and today have any plans or actions to take on stabilizing the community and stopping the violence of syria? >> who supports the armed

opposition was the first question. that is a good question and i think it is one where the answer is likely to possibly keep changing as the situation develops further. some of the armed groups that i saw operating in syria had one kalashnikov between four people. they were poorly armed. that has changed a little bit in recent weeks. the last week that i was there at the end of may, i saw some more and they have light weapons and a arms -- in the hands of armed groups. they have been able to capture more weapons from a temporary military camps that they have

been able to overrun. obviously, there are different players outside mostly who seem to be offering help. none of it is done very much in the open. with't like to work speculation but with facts. for now, i think there will not say anymore because i have no certainty and i don't like to speculate but certainly what i think is clear to all is that there are different players as in any other conflict who might have an interest and influence in things and may choose to do so by providing support of different kinds. to the question over there, icc russia - it has not been tried.

we have seen that russia and china agreed to the un mission to the kofi annan plan. it is regrettable that the international community did not think outside the box and did not try to address and look at options which were options outside the military intervention. that is what i think it's regrettable that from the very beginning, the debate that was had was should there be military intervention and not look at other options. there has been no serious attempt. it is quite clear that russia has been playing an obstructive role but it is too easy to just blame russia because even the

government's were talking tough today, only four weeks ago, there was an initiative by the swiss government precisely to rally support for going to the security council and tabling a resolution on referring syria to the icc and countries in the northern hemisphere were still saying that maybe we should give the kofi and non plan a chance. -- kofi annan plan a chance. they have not tried and that is regrettable. with regard to the role and mandate of the u.n. mission, i did not say they were useless i said by the time they got there, the mandate that they were given was inadequate. there were there to observe a ceasefire and that was the mandate and there wasn't a ceasefire to observe and there will not be one to observe any time soon. but what we would like to see is the mandate to be renewed but expanded -- for them to be given a mandate to investigate human rights abuses, crimes against

humanity, war crime and if they're given the mandate, they will also be given the human resources necessary. in terms of the question on the role of the international community, as i said earlier, the international community has very much focused only on looking at the possibility for military information and -- intervention and decided that was not a good route to go down and it has not done very much else until now. >> in terms of the question on minority representation within the opposition, the reality is that by a factor as opposed to -- be defacto rather than by design, it has been to build an opposition that has minorities and meaningful --

in meaningful leadership positions. there has certainly been syrians who belong to minority groups who have distanced themselves from assad but that does not change the fact that the opposition groups remain largely dominated by sunni demographics. you have to be careful about pigeonholing anyone group. many minority groups are cautious. on the question of the u.n. mission, and whether it should be renewed, you have to look at the alternate scenarios. includes a protracted civil war not unlike what you saw in algeria or lebanon which would go on unabated and with metastasize further and no one will have a sense of what the outcome will be. beyond that, you have the prospects of deepening instability and communal division. the annan plan was the right

idea at the wrong time and not supported by a mob of the players that mattered locally to say anything of international. is only now the people are starting to come around to the reality that this will become a very messy and long-term crisis. in any form, there needs to be some prospect of diplomatic effort. a lot of what we are seeing is deeply depressing and-on syria. -- and negative on syria. that does not mean one has to completely close of the diplomatic channels. on the question of whether or not, what is the position of the international community -- again, there is no international community on syria. you have a very divided political sphere. have disunity in the security council. you have russia that is deeply suspicious of any western efforts in syria. it is based on what they view as the erosion of their interests in the region to say nothing of their own internal pressures tied to the expansion

of nato and all of these things make it very difficult to chart and a -- any meaningful course when it comes to syria. it is not very good answer but it is as close to the truth as i can find and it is not clear what any player at the international level can do in the short term to stymie the violence. >> ladies and gentlemen, i've been instructed to end this discussion formally at 11:30. i would like to thank dontatella very much of giving us a human -- for giving us a human rights picture. i would like to thank aram for providing perspective encourage -- prospective. please thank them in the usual manner. >> president obama is spending

time in virginia this weekend. she is on a trip through the states. tonight, we will have president obama live from roanoke at the historic city fire house. we will be joined by virginia senator mark warner. this live coverage, we're expecting him to speak at about 725 eastern p.m. -- 7:25 p.m. eastern. we are wrapping up a day one of the national governors' association annual meeting today. tomorrow, we start at 10:30 a.m. eastern with strategies to lower medicaid costs. the last day of the national governors' association meeting, sunday, ways that states can promote an entrepreneurship. >> this weekend on american history tv -- >> it is about 100,000 objects.

it goes right up to the president. this is important for us. we continue this large tradition, documenting it, reflecting the larger story of american democracy. >> on "american artifacts," the look at the presidential campaign memorabilia collection. also sunday, more from the contenders, our series on key political figures who ran for president and lost, but changed political history. this week, when bill -- wendell wilkie. he would never hold office. he would become an unlikely ally to fdr. american history tv this weekend on c-span3. >> hitler had virtually no plan. the remnants of armies were not coming to his aid. there were trying to escape.

that is when he collapsed, when he realized it had come to an end. there was a question of suicide. >> antony beevor with a new look at the second world war. >> his main objective was not to be captured alive by the russians. he was a parade -- afraid of being paraded through moscow in a cage. he was determined to die. eva brown was determined to die with him. >> more sunday at 8:00 p.m. on "q&a." >> next, a conversation with democratic strategist james carville from "washington journal." >> i want to welcome stan greenberg and james carville. thank you both for being with us. we will talk about the

speculation that began yesterday. the alternative is on our side. probably one of the things associated with the iraq war. it was successful over the iraq war. it was a head fake to deflect

some tensions. guest: if i were him, i think he needs some authenticity. i'd do ryan or christie. i would do some on the core of the party would find motivating. guest: he is a smart guy. he does a good job in the senate. i certainly agree with you on the first two. about the book. you write "it is the middle class, stupid. it confirms what we all expected. government has really screwed things up for the average american. -- you are writing about a three-

decade decline of the middle class. guest: it is at the heart of what enabled us to be what we are. host: james, you point out the bottom 10% has gained about 10% in real wages a last 30 years. the top 1% has gained more than 250%. guest: if you look at the middle 60 or so, -- there are a lot of books about income inequality. this is more about the lack of income growth in that 20, 40, 60 percentile. they lost 40% of their net worth from 2007 until 2009.

in the book, we have some of the most interesting charts. hours worked have gone up exponentially. the number of hours people have worked -- you think about 100 million hamsters churning every way they can to keep the wheel going. that is the portrait of the american middle class. they are not going anywhere. guest: part of what we do is try to listen to people. that drives our analysis. it is an important thing to address, the things affecting long-term social mobility. when you listen to people, what they're focused on -- we hand people the graphs. they go right to the line in the middle, their line. flat for three decades. that is what they're looking at. the middle-class.

looking back to 1980, it grew a lot. we grew together. we're looking at a different country. host: the title of the book came from what you saw in the little rock headquarters. why did you put that sign in that campaign headquarters? what is the genesis of that? guest: we have a lot of smart people working there. people came in with a lot of smart ideas about how to do different things. what i was trying to do was get the campaign more focused, get the people more focused. "it is the economy, stupid." they are all good, were the things, but it is not where we should be focused. the reason we went to the middle class, in 1992, we thought the economy should be the focus. in this essence, we thought it should be the restoration of the

middle-class. host: from an interview conducted yesterday by charlie rose -- here is a portion of what he told cbs news. >> the state of my first couple of years was thinking that this job was just about getting the policy right. and, that is important. but, the nature of this office is also to tell a story to the american people that gives them a sense of unity, and purpose, and optimism, especially during tough times. when i ran, everybody said, you gave a great speech, but can you actually manage the job? in my first two years, the notion was, you know, he has been juggling and managing a lot

of stuff, but where is the story that tells us where he is going? i think that was a legitimate criticism. . .

>> they're not looking to throw goodies at them or being bought off, they want to know where you're going, what the vision is. >> host: james carville, you said you were -- you were worried about the president's message and the middle class. >> i said they're not driving america. we heard the president say right here, i haven't driven america. that was a bad dream to do, to drive america, if i could jump out of my seat for joy when i heard that,ba because if you don't put something in the context of a story to america, then we'll can't understand, they don't know if it's no the -- in the context of a larger plan. in addition to exactly the kinds of things that stan and i have been talking about a long time and we offer the narrative here and the narrative is what's happening to the middle class, how do we deelt with it. i thought that was one of

the most encouraging interviews i've seen the president give in a long time. guest: put in the context of the two # 50,000 threshold for cutting taxes for the middle class that we're having now as a controversy. this president's economic policy, if you look at it, the recovery act was 40 percent tax ruts and -- cuts and each year after that, payroll tax cuts. his main economic philosophy is tax cuts. if you now got to the 250,000, it would be in the context of the person, every year of his presidency, through the crisis has tried to make sure the working class and middle class people have a break and try to keep taxes low. that's the story, the journey. host: in the book james carville you talk about policy items including congressman paul ryan in his budget, quote: >>

>> host: if we have a $16 billion debt, how do you bring it down? guest: not only is it immoral, it's dishonest, snok everybody knows that it's dishonest. it's dishonest that it doesn't even tell us -- it says we're going to cut everything for poor people, we're going to give rich people a tax break but we're not going to tell you how that tax break comes, if that's not immoral, i don't know what it is. and actually according to the cbo, in a time where we have escalating health costs he wants to increase overall health care costs and cut it to the people getting medicare, and save it to give it to -- it is the very essence of morality. plus that, he is a dedicated, dedicated follower of of heinrant who might be one of the most immoral persons of the 20th century. even if you took atheism away, and i talk to

jiewzists -- jesuits and others, they thought the golden rule was immoral, which is the basis of morality. >> bring them down. >> host: how long have you two known each other? guest we met along the way but it was the clinton campaign that we came together on, the beginning of the clinton campaign. host: 20 years ago? guest: more. twenty is good enough. host: the book is titled "it's the middle class, stupid," james car sill, stand greenberg, betty is on the phone from wakeegan, illinois. caller: i have three comments, my first comment is about alan greene spawn -- greenspan. as far as the stimulant i believe he wasn't told the truth about how the economy was and that's why he didn't put enough money into the

stimulus. my second comment is that at least the president, at least he made a mistake. president bush was at the -- was asked the same question, he said he didn't make no mistake. and as far as the book, thank you mr. carville for the book, i know you are a hillary supporter but i think this book puts the icing on the cake for the election and i know that your wife is a republican and you're a democrat. so have a good day and thank you. host: thank you for the call. guest: thank you so much and i hope the rest of your summer is not quite as hot as the rest part. -- as the first part. host: democrats and republicans care for only the 2 percent rich? stan greeneberg. guest: look, i think that he did -- as the previous caller raised important questions about what happened coming in for this president e, he had a mess and people do know that. it's actually pretty amazing how people have --

throughout this whole crisis , they understand they had some of the responsibility, people had some of the responsibility, banks, politicians, ordinary voters, it was a shared responsibility, everybody was on board and they want everybody to play a part in bringing this back. and they do represent the 2 percent, the wall street, the ceos who didn't do their part in this process. heft heft tom, fort lauderdale, good morning, independent line. caller: thank you for taking the line, one is on twakses, and one on clinton. the first one on romney's taxes, where are the taxes? the guy makes $20 million tax uae and he can't employ someone to get his taxes done on time? he's got to get an extension? and he doesn't release tax information? we've had a secretive information in nixon. we don't need another guy like this. let's see what's going on there. the question with clinton is when is your buddy, clinton, going to move the unity

debate to the mainstream media? he knows this debate, he's participating in this debate, they're so afraid of the military they won't move this debate to the main media. tell them to move the debate to the mainstream media immediately. thank you. guest: maybe i can explain. romney is a guy that clearly feels like, look, the rules apply to everybody else, not to me. as far as releasing taxes for 14 years, everybody that's run for president has done that. he says i'm not going to do it. he also says i have an immigration plan but i'm not going to tell you what it is until after the election. romney most people don't realize, as far as bush tax cuts, he wants to go 20 percent more. he was asked how he would pay for it. he said that he's going to pay for them by getting rid of tax breaks. which tax breaks, he says i'm not going to tell you before the election. then he said he was going to cut federal programs, which federal programs, he said i'm not going to tell you

until after the election. the rules are you're supposed to tell everybody before the election what you're going to do. that's the idea upon the basis of which they get to elect or reelect you. none of this makes me surprised. >> and -- guest: and this whole issue about addressing the inequality in the country, his response to that was let's discuss that in quiet, let's not do that as a discussion. he thinks the big issues can be done after the election and quietly. that's not -- >> guest: this is how john horowitz puts it, he refers to the new york campaign and former boss and former friend -- and friend bill clinton, clinton was viewed in '91 and nine -- and '92 as slick, he needed to be someone as mature and substantive, that's why he needed to put out more details as someone who is going to run for president. romney doesn't have that issue. vague is good for mitt. guest: i think he's making an absurd argument.

guest: first thing is, bill clinton -- >> guest: bill clinton has 1000 times more experience in government than romney had in 1992 when he ran and the idea that you say somebody is more mature so they don't have to tell us what they're going to do, get out of here. doesn't make sense at all. i don't agree with him politically, but he's a smart enough guy. it's an idiotic argument. guest: and the books, listening to these people, you look at the debate about the past, did obama get the economy moving, was he successful as president, that's not where the voters are. the voters think he was handed a difficult thing, it was complex, very tough. look at the piece today i think by ron brownstein from national journal on this issue, they want to know what you're going to do. they think we're in trouble. they think the middle class is in trouble, country is in trouble, they want to know what you're going to do, what's in the future. i think romney can't possibly get away with saying let's not talk about

it. >> guest: i hope the romney camp followsgan pau's advice everybody we see, focus polls, everybody es, they want to know what's your idea to get the middle class moving again and by in large this is an election people are concerned about the next four than the last four. host: we talk about the bailouts of automakers the only thing that the president saved was the unions. that's one of the arguments that republicans are cryptical of. guest: i tell you, the public, they look at t.a.r.p., they look at it as a piece. they view that as one thing. that you had this crisis where you had a lot of people in trouble, losing houses, people in trouble, small businesses in trouble, but they, even before the election, mccain and obama, democrats and republicans, rallied to figure out how to save the big banks, right thing to do, i'm sure, they rallied to rescue the auto companies, i'm sure the right thing to do, but they believed that the president, this president, had the same

kind of world view, that we rescue the people irresponsible, we don't rescue the hard working middle class and the president had to overcome that. that's part of the reason why 2010 was disk. guest: there's a lot of people in the auto industry thattor not gm and chrysler. there's a supply chain that goes god knows how deep in that and the auto bailout inherently saved these people, also, and there's a lot of people that saved the supply chain. it's an enormity nous industry with enormous ramifications and not everybody that's in this industry is in a union by far. host: the book is "it's the middle class stupid" and nancy is on the phone, santa marina, california, a republican. good morning. caller: good morning. i'm -- i'd just like to ask mr. james carville, is there really a middle class? it looks like what we have now is we have the rich and then we have the poor. i don't remember the middle class being in existence for some time now. so i'm not really clear.

guest: that's a good question. i'm going to say a few words and turn it over to my colleagues dr. greeneberg who's thought about this idea. we do. it's just not what it used to be. stan, why don't you tell our caller, help explain to our caller what -- how we define middle class and what we say it means. guest: and we go through in this book, defining it, but you're absolutely asking the right question, because in the end we think it's an aspiration, an identity that some people believe about hard work being rewarded. it's exactly what you're saying. hard work is not being rewarded, people are building up college debt. college used to be the way you moved from one generation to the next, get better and better, and if you talk to people now, not just talk to people in our focus groups, in the polls, you know, ten years ago, 75 percent thought that it was a accident chance for you to do well -- a decent chance for you to do well, that's dropped to

50 percent, and a major drop in confidence that hard work is rewarded and people do believe they're on the edge and slipping. when we asked the question are you middle class, they'll say i used to be, or my parents are, but there's a sense of, you know, slipping down, and you're right, it leaves the -- they talk about being just rich and poor, talks about america looking like a third world country, but they also think it's unacceptable. even though they get to that conclusion, they're not willing to stop here. no, no no,. that's why people want to know what you're going to do. host: i want to reach stan greeneberg's in this book but i want to frame this as you look at congressional districts and the lack ofby partisanship on the issues, social social security, taxes, medicare, you say:

>> how can that happen? guest: it's difficult. one of the things that's difficult and i think it's been backed up by political scientists also is the way we draw these congressional districts, in order to save incumbents we've clustered one party all in a district, and i would ask people out there is look at the congressional districts in your state, and if the biggest fear of a congressman is that he he will get beat by somebody in his party, he's supposed to get beat by somebody in another party, you have trouble. because as long as you don't fear losing the general election, you're going to say i'm not going to let somebody get in that's more pious than i am, i'm going to keep my business as close as i can to my base, and i think if you look at it over a period of time, this is not the sole thing, but this is a huge contributor to what we have here in the united states, and i think the word for it is jerry manorring but it's not in the sense of we used to learn about it, to draw the lines to protect people but they do draw weird lines to

having a district 80 percent republican or democratic and there are more districts in my understanding than ever before. >> host: if you look at the big pieces of legislation after the 1960s, president reagan working with congress at democrats on social security, even in the 1990s bill clinton working on welfare reform, why is it different today? guest: i know this is going to look like a part an comment but this is based on data. if you take republicans and say what's your ideology, 80 percent, self-identify with conservative. it's a very homogenous break. if you say democrats, what's your ideology, one third are liberal, two-thirds of democrats are moderates and conservatives. we have a very diverse party. it's hard to be very effective as a governing party because we're so diverse as a governing party, racially and ideologycle, so i think the -- ideologically. we don't have that kind of

diversity across the party. you got to break that. somehow you've got to -- maybe it's -- somehow you've got to have some -- change the dynamic on the republican side. guest: and here's an observation that i think conservatives make -- i always make them, too. but if you're married, there's a better chance you're going to be in the middle class than if you're not. that's just a -- >> actually, i think it's -- if you go to church there's a better chance you're going in the middle class than not. guest: if you have a single parent family. guest: more chance than you won't, that you'll have a difficult time. i don't want to get into this, but if you drove the value of the male worker down, you drove the value of the prospective spouse down with it, but maybe in some of the things i really like, you know, the child care credit, eitc, but that's mostly for single parents, and maybe that's polices that we can do -- i don't

know how you do it, governmentally or president giving values of strong families. i think it figures into the whole -- >> host: let me jump in because rick had this to the larger election, does the president need a big initiative before the election to energize the base and excite the moderates. guest: i think he's -- the big initiative is what he's doing right now. he's saying this election is about the future of the middle class, he is out there identifying with what people are going through in this country, he's expressing an understanding of how much, how pivotal this moment is for people, i think he's moved us. guest: this is something that people are fascinated with. we need a big idea. that's what we really need. you know -- and in recent america, every stupid idea has been a big idea. a big idea was to haul off and invade iraq. that was a big idea all

right. it was pretty dumb. let me give you another big idea, we're going to cut taxes to rich people and that's going to stimulate the economy and the government is going to have more wealth. well, that didn't work out. back to trying something else. another big idea, let's deregulate the banks, they'll get innovative and think of things to juice up the economy. well, they deregulated, got really innovative, then they juiced up the economy and the housing market and it blew nup our face. maybe as opposed to giving you a radical thing and going against conventional wisdom, maybe as opposed to one big dumb idea, we ought to come up with three smart ideas and we might be better off. -- off. every time we get a big idea it seems to blow up in our face. host: if you listen to c-span radio, here in washington, james carville, stand greene bg, their new book, it's the middle class, you write:

host: >> guest: and the point i try to contrast is what i found earlier about the reagan democrats when i had previously written about a frustrated middle class that was focused on race. it was very much when they looked at that middle class squeeze and looked around and said everybody is rigging the game in favor of black people and against, you know, the white man, technically the white male, and it was very much a racial discussion. what we're saying here is people now get that we have -- that our country is losing jobs and income as the way we are organized and the way the economy is organized and we've got to change that. host: deborah is on the phone, cincinnati, democrats' line, good morning. caller: good morning,

gentlemen. i'm just -- i'm a 41-year-old person and i work full-time, all day, every day, every week, and i cannot support myself. simply, i work a 40 hour work week and i cannot support myself. i live with my mother, my daughter is in college, we both have student loans, i've done the retraining, you know, to get a better job, i'm making a whopping 75 cents more than i was when i went back to school but i'm one of the lucky ones, i have a job, with salary and benefits. i'm one of the people you're talking about. >> totally. >> right. >> and it's disheartening, it's demoralizing to go to work every day to get a paycheck and to realize i cannot take care of myself. guest: deborah, what do you do for a living and can i ask you how much you make annually. caller: i work as a production artist, i make about $30,000 a year. i don't ask for much, it's not like i'm trying to -- you know, i would make like

to start a business on my own someday but that's impossible. i'm going to be paying off my daughter student loans and my own until i die. you know, my mother is 62, with m.s., she is a retired school teacher, she's one of the ones that, you know, that they want to cut her pension or cut, you know, what little bit she has coming in after she's contributed so much. she's raised me, you know, she's influenced countless children, she's worked hard for her church. we're just solid, decent american people, and we just -- we're not asking for a whole lot, but sometimes, we need help. host: deb remarks thank you for sharing your story with us. stay on the line if you want. guest: first of all this is not a setup question. deborah just called in. guest: but she is -- guest: that's exactly -- when we hear this, we hear this so many times a year and every time we have a focus group, the on thing that makes deborah here, she

was a little stronger, she didn't break down. usually people tell their story and they break down, and understand, deborah has done what we expected her to do. she got training, she gets up, she goes to work, her daughter has got a student loan, she's training herself, her mother is 62, she's retired. now, the answer that paul ryan has for her mother is we're going to give you a voucher that's cost to -- going to cost deborah and her daughter and her mother another $6200 a year. they don't have $6200 a year. period. end of story. guest and these are not people who -- guest: and these are not people who don't work, who don't train themselves, who are not willing even to work more and i didn't want to say this to deborah on the phone, i know she's tired after 40 but before it's over she's going to have to good what -- do what a lot of people do and go to 50. host: she's still with us, on the line. you with us?

>> caller: i'm here. host: your thoughts from james carville? caller: i don't know how much more i can give, how much i can do. i would never vote for anybody that looked like mitt romney but also i can't say that i fully trust barack obama, either, and i'm speaking as black american. i'm supposed to be his base, the female black voter but i don't see it. i feel like he -- i believe he's helped the economy, but the tradeoff that he's asking for civil liberties i don't think is worth it. i just don't know what to do, i really don't. guest: you know, i wish -- i wish that i could just tell you something over the phone here that would make your life a lot better. guest: but their story is important because one of the things we've been trying to say, even as this financial crisis is awful, it really took a toll, this is -- the story is a multi generational and long term event, that we've got to fix in that way. when you look -- when you think about that, we should move fast on recognizeing

there's a humanitarian crisis out there. we have a piece in the ""wall street journal"" today, james and i, based on the book, we have a humanitarian crisis in this country and we have to deal with the cost of education and college and student debt, we've got to deal with health care costs, we've got to be driving those costs down and using these reforms to do it, and these things can happen now. there are things we can do to move to address these things and i know while you're at the end of your rope, there are things we can do. that's what this book is about. guest: i know it seems like the end of the road but hang in there. i think attention is going to get to this and i know it's difficult but we're pulling for you and you seem like a strong person and i think you're going to make it and improve your life here before it's over. host: our next call ser from tennessee, richard on the phone, kingsport on the line, welcome. caller: thank you c-span and steve, you moderators do a great job. i've admired you for years.

for james carville, here's why i'm not interested in reading any book that when you talk about morality. i think we know everything we need to know about your views about poor people from your statement, drag $100 bill through a trailer park and there's no telling what you'll find. i don't think we'll ever forget that. and if that's your idea of morality, then i really don't think that -- i mean, that's -- i'm a southerner, born and raised and we were not raised that way, mr. carville. i don't know where you got your views of women and in light of events that came about. just wonder what your views are now, and until i hear some sort of retraction, i don't think i'm interested in your book. guest: guess you'll be one of your people not buying my books. good luck to you.

host: let me follow up on the book, you write: >> this goes back to the earlyerly point, republicans and the pledge made to grover norquist, maybe revenue increases but no tax increase. guest: well, i'm just trying to show you what the reality is in the country. there is a consensus in the country and it includes a significant portion of republicans that we have to raise taxes and it has to be on the wealthy, they're the ones who can afford it. you can't listen to the people on the calls and say they've got to begin to sacrifice, too, and also need to have less support and higher taxes. it's the wealthy who can afford it, 75 percent in the polls say we should be raising taxes as part of any deal. host: in today's "wall

street journal," james carville, you and stand greeneberg write: you go on to point out in post world war ii america, we grew the middle class, we grew together, and again going back to your earlier point, that hasn't happened in the last three decades. guest: one of the things we really wanted to address, it was this sense that the financial crisis came and that destroyed america's middle class. america's middle class was losing, was falling behind, a long time before september of 2008. now, september 2008 really, i mean -- again, that was the example, people had pneumonia and a truck had hit you. you'd never want to get hit by a truck. as a result of that, people who were in a very fragile state lost 40 percent of their net worth and it almost went like unnoticed, and my point, i wrote a piece on the cnn website,

they're supposed to talk 1/10 of 1 percent, lose 40 percent of net worth. suspended habeas corpus. the court would have been in session 24/7, and it would be a human tragedy of a proportion we can't imagine as a nation. my god, the job creators, the wealth creators that lost 40 percent of their net worth. what's going to happen at the hamptons? somebody is going to have to drive their own car. the median family in this country lost 40 percent of its entire net worth in a two-year period and nobody yawned. host: rick is on the phone from wesley chapel, florida, good morning. caller: good morning gentlemen. i got a question for you. i would imagine both of you sitting there are very rich men. and not one of you has said anything about what the income for the middle class should be. in florida, my wife and i, we make $70,000 a year and we're middle class. $70,000 a we're in new york city would not make you middle class. host: that's right. guest: we talk about it in

the book. guest: if i live in florida, and my name is 67 years old and i have a condo i own or whatever house and i have 60, $70,000 in retirement income, i'll doing pretty good, but if i'm living in new york city and i have three kids, and i'm making $70,000 a year, i'm like -- i'm like this lady in cincinnati making $30,000. we address that in the book. we do do that, we talk about the middle class. guest: we're very inclusive. if you go income alone, it's $125,000, a family of four, below that is kind of middle class, but income doesn't really work. if you take 60 percent that call themselves middle class, another 25 percent call themselves working class, we take them all. we do anybody who works hard, has these values as middle class. guest: one definition is 75 percent, another definition may have 65.

it's a lot of people. just a lot of people. host: have you ever counted how many campaigns you've been involved with? guest: been in 22 different countries, i know that, and probably domestically, 12. so probably -- i mean -- in a very southern, direct way. host: did you have a favorite campaign? you talk about bill clinton but beyond that campaign in which you played a key role, was there another one -- guest: probably bob casey in pennsylvania in 1986. host: why? >> guest: it was the first one that i won and have so many kind of relationships there, and we weren't supposed to win, he lost three times before, and it was, i don't know -- your first one, you know, you always remember the first one. host: why did he win? he is of course the father of -- guest: i think he probably related to middle class people. i think there was a pretty

good -- both were from scranton. young bill scranton was the son of william scranton who challenged goldwater for the nomination in 1964. casey was a democrat that had lost three times before. he was conservative, he was pro life, but he had -- he was also fairly liberal on economic issues, if you will. but there was a sort of cultural clash in that campaign to some extent. we identified -- what we did is the way we won, we won a little bit -- we had a t, sort of the center part of the state, it branches out, where a democrats needs to not get slaughtered. you never want a democrat to -- when i referred to -- i actually referred to the penn hills, which if you know pennsylvania, it's the suburb of philadelphia, and it's alabama without white people. it's been described as

philadelphia and pittsburgh and alabama in the middle. but we did better in alabama than a democrat normally does and i think that's what got us over the top. hof host stand greenberg, a favorite campaign? guest: nelson mandela. hard to top that. hof host camillio, from columbus, nebraska, good morning. caller: good morning. host: you're on the air, go ahead. caller: all right. the way i see it, the middle class, i don't think, is right, the book, saying stupid, i don't think the middle class is stupid. the problem is the middle class is it can reach the minority in this country. the minority in this country used to be 30 years ago carribean people, african-american, which is now you can see all of the jobs, they disappear, because nobody want to hire, everybody want to run away from process, everybody want

to only hire the illegal immigrants, they turned it back on the african-american, the carribean people, with the spending every penny in the united states, but to me, if you look out, everybody wants to run away from this office, so how -- the middle class is going to reach the minority and it's going to reach the middle class. host: thank you for the call, from nebraska. guest: the gentleman kind of misunderstood. when we're saying it's the middle class, stupid, we're saying it to the elites, not the middle class. host het that's exactly your point, people want to be heard and that's why we say it's the middle class, stupid. host: andrew, pittsburgh, republican line, good morning. caller: good morning. my question is from the time that mr. carville was with the clinton administration to the obama administration, the people that were in the

middle class all got educated, they all had college degrees and now under the obama administration these kids that have got college degrees now have lost their ability to get that college education and that education has now went from the money that was there for -- through federal aid and federal grants, have went from the middle class and have lost that ability to get that money. we are now seeing all that money go to the lower class, and we are losing that ability for that middle class to pull themselves up. host: dan greenberg. guest: look, you're reflecting something that's out there and look, this is a problem across all classes, middle class, working class, the poor. everybody is struggling. and it's being driven by a failure to get college costs under control, reduction of state support for education, you know, a student loans

program that i think was out of control. we talked about that, james and i talked about that, what's going on with for-profit colleges with the student loan programs. there's a massive problem. it's not just a problem that the middle class alone is facing. it's across, in our view -- the broad middle class is in trouble on this issue. give guest one of the things that's happened is that college has gotten very, very expensive and that happened between the time that president clinton, a lot of it -- it happened between the time that president clinton was in and the time president obama took office. i think that the president did a real good thing in 2011. the way the student loans were funded was the banks, the -- the federal government gave the money to the banks, and the government assumed the risk for the loans, the bank lent the money, the student didn't pay it back, the government had to pay off the loan, president obama said no, let's do direct student lending, take the bank out of it. it was a lot of money.

i want to say $60 billion. i could be wrong on that. i think that's what i heard. that helps. does it solve everything? you've got to look at how the cost of education was happening, with the financial crisis, happening in louisiana. at lsu, that's why i don't generally wear a cap on television but to signal my support for higher education around the united states, i write in the book, 40 percent of it is public funding. what it is, as it's become more costly than somebody wanting to -- wants to go there, it's going to cost more because they -- the stay pays the tuition but they drop it on fees and other things and raise out of state tuition but that's happening across the board in higher e.d. everywhere. so you're getting out of school and the job market is not as good and you have more debt, and this sort of challenges our basic assumption that the best way to the middle class is to get a good education. that's getting more tense than it is now and we talk

about it in the book. host: you talk about the midterm election in 2010, you say i think there was a collective amnesia about the state of the country at the end of the bush administration. the electorate got very energized and election rified, they went to the poll the and shook things up. we've seen this in past first terms of previous presidents, democrat and republican. guest: and i also said tea party saw something and they organized. there was something for people to learn that. and the demographics of the people that turned out is a thousand reasons, and they did and you've got to give people cred knit a democracy when they come together and organize. host: -- guest: and you have enthusiasm on both the republican and democrat side. host: "it's the middle class, stupid" is the name of the boong by james carville and stan greenberg.

caller, good morning. caller: mr. carville, i would like to tell you you are my absolute favorite man in politics. guest: are you related to mary? caller: it seems like you can just get an answer out of you, whether i like the answer or not. but the question i've got for you, i'm a connect the dots type of person and i remember back during the iran contra hearings that joel ver north mentioned there were eight or nine people and they actually had meetings, that they would take over the government if something serious was to happen to ours, and i believe one of the questions was asked, and he said it would be a financial crisis would be one of the things. now, what's the chances of some of these billionaires getting together and actually doing this? guest: well, you know, i'm very concerned about money and politics and what the billionaires doing and power

being concentrated in this country but i'm not too concerned about billionaires taking over the levels of government. what you should be worried about is them having so much influence on the levels of government that they actually become that. but this other conspiracy, that someone would take it over is not my on my concern -- high on my concern list. guest: we do write in this book that we've got to let the lobbyists under control. you can't make the government work for the middle class if it is so dominated by lobbyists. guest: and and few and few people with more and more money have more influence. that's not a good thing and you're right to be worried about that. host thoaft this is how you frame this in the "wall street journal": guest: that's what drives this book, that's what motivates us. it's like the calls we're getting here, that's what motivates this book.

they're in trouble and they want politics that responds to it. host: here's a challenge for you james carville, can you offer the president a list of slogans for his campaign? guest: it's the middle class, stupid! why not? host: for the next four years. guest: people are looking for, and stan and i have been talking about this, it's been happening for a long time. they're open to a long range solution and if you talk about these are the types of things we need to do to rebuild the american middle class, i think you'd get a more receptive audience than people think and not a short term quick list. host: jeff is on the phone, good morning. caller: good morning c-span. i've been a long time democrat and i'm so disgusted with the democratic party right now and i'll tell you why. number one, perform carville, you said it was more important to you that the next four years is more important than the last four. well, i don't blame you for

saying that, because our democratic party can't run on the last four years. i never -- you you know, as hard working democrat my whole life, i am so sick of my party being the champion of all these people out there that don't want to work, that want a handout from government, every other day. the democratic party is trying to pass this or that, to pay for this or that. that lady that called in that said that she made $30,000 a year and she didn't know how she was going to make it, i know people that are living on $18,000 a year and getting by and are happy. so i want you to know that. guest: i'm going to take a wild guessi don't think that guy is really a democrat. [laughter] give guest didn't feel like it. guest: i'm skeptical. but anyway -- look, you've got -- $30,000? and given the multiple generational responsibilities this woman had, you've got to

understand what's happening to people, and this is not whining. you think that's whining, these are people that are working hard and really give the edge and i think you've got to recognize these are hard working people. guest: there's a whole body of people that say you shouldn't worry about this, and that's a good thing to do, her daughter has got into school, but she has consumption equality. she has a cell phone. guest: she has an iphone. guest: she's got an iphone. people that 30 years ago didn't have that, the kind of costs -- the kind of car she drives is a lot better than the car somebody would have driven 20, 30 years ago, and so it's like why are you whiebing -- whining out there. well, if the country doesn't say aspirational and if we don't sort of move forward, can you imagine the difference it was if you were like living in a sod house in nebraska the day

before? it was more than the day after you got your iphone, so let's let the land barons and because now you have a radio, life is better, you need don't -- you don't need money any more. the logic, it gets lost on it, but you have a mother, you're taking care of, and child you're trying to educate and you make 30 grand, you're working hard and you're not really getting that much ahead, contrary to what my friend that just called in thinks. host: so this is how the book came about. you both worked with hillary clinton and i'm not going to ask you whether she's going to run in 2016 but i am going to ask you this: does she have the fire in the billiony if she were to run, would she still be interested in being president? guest: i think if she ran, and i do not know if she's going to run, but i will say this, hillary clinton don't do nothing that she don't have a fire in her belly for. if she is going to do it, she has a fire in the belly.

she fought hard -- thought hard on whether or not to be secretary of state and i think the question she had to ask herself was do i really want to do it at the level it takes for four years and she did and she did have fire in the belly. guest: we have no inside information. i think she'll take serious time off, and i think she'll give us earshot. host: george on the phone, republican. caller: i have one quick comment. it seems to me that the media has been used to set up a divide and conquer agenda. i'll just wondering how much of your book is focused on restoring the fairness doctrine. because it seems also that the middle class has been squeezed ever since ronald reagan killed it. and to me, that would have been right up there with health care and the stimulus package as far as obama's agenda is concerned.

guest: i don't -- the doctrine is something i've thought about but don't know much about it. one of the things we talk about is on any issue, there's what i call the fog machine and it's going to come out no, it's not really global warming, it's just a bunch of scientists that are conspiring to take over your life, the fog machine says oh no, the banks didn't cause the financial crisis, actually it was an act in 1977 under jimmy carter that caused the financial crisis, and just talking about, when we talk about the middle class wages being stagnant, oh no, they got better cars, cell phones, voice mail, who wouldn't want that, and it sorts of crowds things up and they know if you crowd it up a little bit people get confused and say what the heck. you know, as a result of all of this, look at the gallup poll recently, at least on the television news, it's taken a hit in terms of

credibility. i think institutions across -- well, the middle class t. sounds like a stretch but people look at this thing at penn state and this report that came out and that's just example of power not helping ordinary people. that you had a lot of powerful people that knew that a lot of bad things were happening to lot of ordinary people, and in the interest of protecting power, didn't do anything about it. most people that understand this, and i am not one of them -- i wouldn't put -- i would put myself in the category of trying to understand it -- think this interest rate scandal that you see coming over here has the potential to be an enormous scandal which is going to be nothing else but powerful people doing something in their interest that a lot of other people are the victim for, and that thing playing over and over causes a huge -- lock at what happened to my own roman catholic church. over a period of time, the deterioration and institutional trust that we have is really wreaking

havoc on the country. hoft host mark in cleveland, ohio, good morning. caller: good morning, james, ragin cajun! my favorite dude during the clinton era. i just wanted to know because i believe you're a person that i can ask a question to that won't try to hide anything. i feel you're fairly honest. what about the blitz mr. biden was talking about that's coming? those powerful people you were just talking about? and how they're dealing with us? guest: what did he say to -- blitz? host: talking about yesterday at the naacp? caller: no. i'm talking about the blitz that's coming, the computer ship in ouro chip in our hands, right out -- the computer chip in our hands, right out of the bible. guest: i'll give you an honest answer. i'm crazy about the vice president but i don't know about your topic to give you an answer. i apologize. but i'm sure look it up and find out what it is.

host: let me go back before i let you go, the closing line in the wall street journal, stan greenberg, you say: >> is there a political environment for that to happen? guest: sure it is. politics is what changes. when we did "it's the economy stupid" we had an election that was about the economy because bill clinton pressed that issue and when the election was over, when he went to do the state of the union he said to people, let's clear the decks, we're going to focus only on the economy. if we have an election, it's only about the future of the middle class and there will be pressure when this is over to figure out how to address that problem. host: the president did address the nape nature. -- the naacp. the reference to the '92 campaign, the soldier moment and melissa saying this is a similar moment for mitt romney before the gathering as he got booed, something that the romney campaign clearly expected.

guest: i don't think she understands that -- the situation is you go to people that are likely to vote for you and you tell them something they don't want to hear. if you go to people that are not going to vote for you anyway and tell them what they don't want to hear, that's not the -- it doesn't match up like that. this is is great reporter but i don't think she understands. guest: very important. because people are looking at romney right now just like they were looking at bill clinton at the beginning, before the convention, and he went to the unions and said i'm protrade, he went before jesse jackson and said these rappers are bad for the country, he spoke to his own supporters and said i'm independent, you know, you can trust me. romney has not done that. he's not had one sister soldier moment. it's the opposite. he's sending them signals that i'm the base. guest: right. he's conveying back to his own base. if he wants to have a sister soldier, go to the nra and

say i will -- we got to be careful, there are some things about gun control we need. that's a sister soldier moment, melinda. host: here's president bidin in -- here's the president in houston, texas. >> when you have the right to vote, you have the right to change things. and we, the president and i and eric and all of us, we see a future where those rights are expanded. not diminished. we're racial profiling -- where racial profiling is a thing of the past. we're access to the ballot is expanded and unin bum cer dollars. -- unin calm bed, where there are no distinctions made on the basis of race or gender in access to housing and lending. so much more. >> host: james carville.

guest: you got the feeling that the vice president said i want to go down and give that speech! he was having a heck of a time. you know, it was great,sy a good speaker when he gets fired up. he's pretty passionate. hov host one thing that you've learned in putting the book together, you've talked about them so far but what did you take away from your research and reading? guest: probably the most important thing is listening to people, because you can never lose track of this, that you have to listen to ordinary folks, a clear misconception, whatever you think about the crisis, because we kept trying to look at the financial crisis, this is long term. okay, and i trust voters to get it right. host: has your wife mary matlin read the book? guest: she hasn't yet. i think there are some things in here she'd agree with but i don't know if she'll read to them. maybe i'll read to her while she's sleeping and penetrate -- >> host: the book is "it's

the middle class stupid", james carville, stan greenberg, thank you for being with us. >> president obama is spending time in virginia this weekend, a two-day trip through the state that he won in 2008. tonight, eeg be live from roanoke at the historic city tire house joined by virginia senator mark warner and he'll have live coverage of his remarks at 7:25 eastern. now a conversation about the state of america's children from today's washington journal.

>> there is a new report out looking at the well being of children. this is what it looks like, america's children in brief, key national indicators for 2012, and joining us to look at the numbers, edward sonduck of the national center for health statistics and kristen moore of child trends. thank you both for being with us. as you put together the numbers what did you learn? >> the numbers are put together by 22 different federal agency that is deal with statistics in some way and it's a consortium that's aimed at giving a comprehensive picture of the well being of kids. what we learned this year is we look at the trends, many of the trends are really very positive. in the birth area, pre-term births are down, infant mortality is down, low birth weight is down, education, there are a couple of education measures which are up, on the slide it shows that math scores have improved, as well as a number of others, kids

taking science courses. particularly -- i was particularly impressed with some of the figures on violence, both perpetrated by kids and against kids. both of those are down really dramatically from the high points in the mid '90s, but -- >> hov host first of all you point out that preterm births down for four years in a row, illicit drug use has risen since the 1990s, fewer victims of violent crime but this, more children living in poverty. kristen moore, why? >> certainly the recession has changed things for children, and we have experienced an increase in poverty over this time, including depoverty, as well as poverty and that matters for kids, the stress and turbulence that their parents and families feel is affecting the lives of kids as well so we want to keep monitoring this over time to

see what happens in the next few years and how that plays out. hov host what about single parent families and the issue of poverty? guest: that's one of the most startling figures here. if you look at single female households, 47 percent of those households are in poverty. those children live in poverty. it's a very, very dramatic figure. about a quarter, a little less than a quarter, of children live in single female households, and nearly half of those are in poverty. host: this is what the chart looks like and you can see primarily female household families, far fewer single male head of household, in the single parent. guest: right. the figures don't show up there. hov host teen birth rates, this is one of the trends you indicated if you compare from the 1980s, clearly it's gone down over the last 10-15 years. what do you attribute that

to? guest: kristen is probably in a better place to talk about the causality, but this is something where we feel you look to the change in the economic situation, but you look, i think, to the campaign that's against teen birth, that i would say shows real suck sus here. this is an all-time low figure for the united states. and the implications of this actually go further than just that. for example, low birth weight is tied to teen birth and the fact that that's down probably has something to do with that. the same thing with infant mortality as well. very important. >> guest: one of the key things to notice, it's in every group, it's older teens, younger teens, it's whites, plaques, and it's -- blacks, and it's happening in every single state so it is a major positive change because it affects not only the well being of the adolescents but of the children she might have, and since the peek in 199 --

since the peak in 1991, the recent peak, 3.4 million births that might have been born to teens have not occurred and that has major implications for the well being of the current generation and the next generation. host: as always we want to hear from you, we are dividing our phone lines for those of you who live in the eastern or central time zones, and you can send us an e-mail: join the crchtion on our twitter page, twitter.com/c-span and while the birth rate has come down the level of obesity among children has gone up significantly. i'm not sure which one of you wants to address this, but look at the early to mid 1970s to where we are today and you can see a significant increase, now up to 20 percent of those under the age of 17. guest: and that's really not the full story because it's 20 percent if we look at it overall, but in fact, if we look at the figure for black girls, for example, it's 27 percent, if we look at the figure for a mexican, we don't have all hispanics

from the survey that does this, but if we look at the figure for mexican boys, the figure is at 28 percent. so the disparity here is quite significant. there is one could argue here some good news in this, in that the curve is slope ing to a -- i was going to say sloping off, so to speak. it's either going down a bit or it's level. and if we look at the rate of change as to what it was, then we're doing much better than we were. but i wouldn't look at the last couple of points, which show the figure -- which show the figure going down at this point, the percentage of kids with obesity, and say that we're winning the race here against this. and i must say, even though i'm from a statisticical agency, i applaud the very widespread effort that's

underway to address this. it's something that it just can't be handled alone by the health sector, which is one of the points of this report. we have many domains in the report. housing, criminal justice. and you need to look -- agriculture. you need to look across all those domains when you see an issue and understand how do we address it and that's one of our purposes is to put these facts in front of the decision makers and in front of the researchers. >> kristen, as you look at this from the 1970s to 20 percent today, across all sectors of race and ethnic groups among children, the question is why. is it because of diet? is it because of lack of exercise? is it because of society and technology, a combination combination of that, are there other factors. >> it's both of those things, diet and exercise. we certainly find that american kids aren't eating the best diet they could, more fruits and vegetables would be a very good thing.

it's also exercise. kids are driven places and they may not get enough physical education, so there are programs that work. it's difficult to sustain the effects, though, because there are a lot of influences in society that encourage eating and overeating. but it is changing both how kids eat and how they exercise.

caller: i am calling because i want to talk about my experience with children in poverty. yesterday i was in housing court in springfield, mass. i am a volunteer working with tenants to keep them in their apartments. yesterday, we could not help several families with children because they lost their jobs and could not pay their rent. congress has made it a point to cut all the services for children. that is not in your report. also, these people, if they are lucky, the springfield housing authority has no money. they are putting these children in hotels. think of a family with three children in a one-room hotel. that is doing good. they are lucky. when i walk down the street in springfield, i see children from the time i go to the court until the time i leave in the afternoon. they are still out there. they have no place to go. host: edward sondik? guest: i started off by saying there are a lot of positive trends, but underlying those trends, one of the key disparities is poverty. income. another is education.

there is no question this is something, a key factor when we look at the well-being of kids. we cannot just look at the overall trends. we have to break it down in this way. clearly policies, local, national, economic policies, education policies, a variety issues play into this. host: our phone lines for the eastern and central time zones, for the mountain and pacific time zones. we focus on "america by the numbers," children in america. this one looks at the percentage of children growing up in the home where someone smokes regularly, also looking

at the poverty status as a comparison. what does this tell you? guest: it tells us we have a lot of progress. the percentage of kids has declined tremendously. on the other hand, when we look at this by poverty status, for people under the poverty level, the figure is much higher. this competes with what we know about smoking. people with lower incomes tend to smoke more. we can see it here. this is very important, second- hand smoke. it affects the kids when they are children. it can also have affects later on. there is a chart we do not show. data for it are on the website. it shows not only exposures in the home but exposures outside the home in the environment.

there is a chemical test that can be done on the blood that looks for a product of cigarette smoking and nicotine. it is a very sensitive test as to whether or not people are exposed to smoking or smoke. that shows over the last 15 years, the percentage of kids exposed to second-hand smoke in and out of the home has gone from 88% to about half of that. as i recall, is 42%. there has been progress overall. the figures we have on reported smoking in the home are less than when we do this careful test. it gives us another picture of exposure. it is still an issue. host: this is what the hard cover looks like. you can also check it out on line at the cdc website, centers for disease control.

one of our viewers is saying in florida, you have to be 25% below the poverty level before you are considered for any assistance. that gives you a sense of the benchmark people are facing and how low you have to be before you get help. guest: i think the numbers reflect something we need to think about with children. we think about the economy, we don't just track the stock market but the employment rate and the economy. we want to look at kids health, education, behavior, mental health and emotional well-being. it is reflected in some of these questions. the things that affect kids' health and well-being more broadly are both private and public. whether someone smokes in a home is something a family can do. we see enormous progress. families are also being buffeted by large social forces where there are reductions in services.

that is illustrated by the housing concern. that is a source of great stress. what happens of parents and families makes a difference for kids. host: another chart, children born with low birth weight. you can see the numbers relatively stable the last 20 years. guest: they are higher than they are in other countries and the united states. so, we have some work to do. we have a very high rate of unintended pregnancies. parents are becoming parents when they have not planned on it and they get prenatal care late and they may not be as invested in the pregnancy. it is a concern because children born at low birth weight are less likely to be as healthy. host: karen from milton, georgia. good morning. caller: good morning. i have a question. i work with kids who have to go to a school buses independent of the public school because they were not able to make it in the public school.

in that school, they are considered -- in order to be in the program they have to be considered homeless, which means not living with a parent but living on a friend's snowfall or an uncle. my question for you, there are so many policies out there, has there been any research done on which policies that we have had over all of these years that have actually worked and which ones have not and get rid of those policies? because it is very difficult to work with these children within a framework you are given because you have to follow the guidelines. you can't get out of the box of the system. host: kristin moore. go ahead, caller. caller: it would be helpful. guest: there is a movement in that direction. is not as true as a researcher i would have liked to have been

but the public health field has had made dramatic improvements in health -- obesity being the exception -- over the past decade because they monitored progress and it is evidence- based. it is happening more and more in the field of education and social intervention. the idea that programs have been shown to work or the evidence-based or in form. it is increasingly happening for policies as well as programs and i think it is a very important positive trend for kids. host: phone lines added for those in the eastern half of the country-western have -- another chart i want to share with the audience. race, origen -- hispanic origin, what does it show you? guest: where we are today and it projects out to 2050.

a significant change. the percentage of all kids who are white has been going down. percentage of children who are hispanic are going up and in 2015 the percentage of children who are hispanic will be one. high -- one point higher than those who are white. it shows a significant change and that has implications and terms of culture, perhaps language, and all of this needs to be looked at in the context of policies. i was struck by the last caller's question about policy and our people going research or should they do research. one of the research -- reasons the consortium puts out the report is to provide things to stimulate research. in a sense, all of the measures are the outcomes. we don't talk about specific

policies here. but something that undergirds all of these is policy, culture, a variety of different changes. and the sorting that out is a really -- it is a research issue and a policy issue. and we hope that these figures guide that. host: mike miller has this point -- and kristin moore, if you could address it. guest: day care is another one of the two-generational issues. helps parents become self- sufficient and high quality health care helps children as well. we do know that quality is important. weather and not out there is helpful for kids -- good, quality child care could help them get ready for school. i think that is a decision policymakers will have to address at the national level and the state level and the community level. the extent they are able and

willing to support quality. host: larry is on the phone from illinois. caller: good morning. my question is -- the chart that was referenced a few moments ago on the reduction in teen birth. i did not hear what possibly contributing factor the abortion provision was of that and to the extent it was factored in or percentage contributed to that, do you see that as a plu so rnot -- + or not and was a contributor -- did it contribute to the effect of mortality rates in infants? guest: what is going down as the pregnancy rate -- sober, abortion, pregnancy all going down. there seemed to be some decline in sexual activity among adolescents and increases in contraceptive use so there seemed to be changes going on on all of those levels.

host: this may surprise some people, but it's plain from the bureau of labor statistics, children living with one parent employed full time year round and above that, two married parents, the trend from 1980 through 2010. guest: bureau of labor statistics tells us here, overall, second line from the top, right hand side, 70% live with at least one parent employed full time. 30% don't. their parents are not employed full-time. we go further down and say the figure for single parents families -- see the figure for single-parent families is about 40%. this relates to poverty. we could parse this out and look at it as a function of poverty. each one of these lines in a sense, that is a specter, a percentage of two working parents but even though they are working they are at the poverty

level or bring your body. we already talked about the figure for the bottom line, 47% of single mother households -- single-family households led by a female, 47% of those families are in private. host: another note on day care from kathleen, who points out -- guest: you then do the math on that and it is a tough situation. host: paul is on the phone -- paula is on the phone. stamford, connecticut. caller: this is my first time. i am very excited. i have been a social worker for the school system for 17 years. my main concern and does point, because it has become a huge all over the country, is bridging the achievement gap between minority students and majority students and at least

hitting the proficient line. i think it is very unfair to expect teachers to do it singlehandedly, and yet that is exactly what our governor once. no one is addressing the fact that a lot of these minority children don't go to preschool or if they do go to preschool, a lot of them go to a head start program where it is staffed by mostly spanish speaking staff and so the children continue to speak spanish and come to kindergarten knowing very little english, let alone their numbers, letters, shapes, colors.

as i said, a lot of the parents cannot speak english so the parents cannot help their children with homework and study for tests. i understand, i get it, they are working two and three jobs. i work with children whose -- where both parents are incarcerated and they are living with elderly relatives like grandparents and aunts and uncles. i guess my question is, what can we expect from parents to help us help them and to help us the u.k. their children? guest: you are certainly right in the achievement gap does start before children enter school and it starts in infancy. again, when we are talking about the whole child it reflects the kids nutrition and how much television they are exposed to, and the quality of the john

kerry your comment reflects -- quality of the child-care. your comment -- it really matters the rest of their life. they get into school if they start out behind it is hard for them to catch up and the research is very clear. but they can catch up with high quality schools and high quality after-school programs. again, quality is a valid keyword. one of the things i take away from this report is about prevention. it is easier to help kids acquire the skills and knowledge that they need at a time that it is to pick of the piece of later on. guest: one of the purposes of this report, it cannot be comprehensive but it does provide a relatively easy way to go to more information and more statistics. for example, we have some statistics on education that shows some trends.

is a said earlier, math and science and how kids are doing in the fourth grade and eighth grade. but there is a link bus takes you to the national center of education statistics and there you can find much more information that expanse of of these lines is so they can be looked at by race, poverty status, a variety of other -- by region. a variety of other ways that can help, again, fuel the research and the development of policies and the evaluation of policies. host: edward sondik are adopted from stanford university and director of the national center of health statistics and kristin moore, a graduate of university of michigan and senior scholar at child trend. you get the intimation that came out that cdc.gov.nchs.

duncan from ohio. welcome to the program. >> i never liked the phrase "it takes a village" because i do not believe it takes a village to raise a child, i believe it only takes parents. i think the phrase "it takes a village" is a lie. do you agree? guest:-- i would certainly agree as a researcher that the role of parents is extremely important -- guest: i would certainly agree as a research that the role of parents is extremely poor and, and extended family, it is clear. there are also community institutions and neighborhood characteristics like crime and economic opportunities that the research is very clear also matter for kids. guest: the village certainly has an influence. i am not in a position to say whether the caller is right or wrong on that, but the report i think emphasize is just what

kristen says and there are multiple domains in you need to look at all of the means, like criminal-justice, health, and housing. host: this is from the u.s. census bureau, health insurance for those newborn through a to 17. public health insurance, private health insurance or any type. from 1987 until 2010. what do these numbers tell you? guest: the percentage of children who are in short with any health insurance, the top line, 90%, has been pretty much of their for the entire period of the chart. it means that 10% of children were not insured and any point during the year. there is another factor here that the report mentions. has to do with the usual source of care. insured children have a much higher percentage of them have a usual source of care. i think a figure is on the order of 7% don't.

the figure for uninsured children, those who do not have a usual source of care, is almost 30%. that is crucial because there is no usual place to go for prevention, no usual place to go for what -- for what you have on the screen in terms of immunizations -- i guess it is not on the screen yet. but for immunizations. it is really quite important and it is a difference you don't see in those curves. another thing you don't see in the curves is the care of kids with pre-existing conditions, which, of course, relates to the health reform and the fact that it is covered. host: kristin moore, you look at these numbers. respond to this one comment --

the number one cause of poverty for women, childbirth. if you are a single woman, what are the chances you live in poverty versus raising a child with two parents? guest: it may change her woman's income if she cut her out was at work, but what it really does is it increases expenses. that is where it is very important for child support to be paid and certainly to have two incomes -- better than having just one income economically. host: some good news and these statistics. young people as victims of serious violent crimes have been down pretty steadily over the last 20-30 years. guest: very much so. this is very impressive. and there is no single factor. i checked with my colleague at the bureau of justice statistics on this, and there is no single factor that actually explains what appears to be a rise and then this decline. a number of different things coming on that range from the first part of it, a change, believe it or not, in the age distribution.

interesting it would have an effect on the statistics, but it does. there was a change in the age distribution where as we move to the 90's, distribution with what -- was more on the side of the younger teens then the older teens, and there is a correlation with that and serious violent crimes. less for the younger and more for the older. so, we see it is kind of level. then it starts to pique because of drug issues. then it starts to fall also because of drug issues. and the fact that according to my colleagues, the use of guns and the organization in the drug trade, there was more

organization in it that led to less violence. then it reaches the point where it is starting to trail off and it is still not clear what that is exactly due to. the bottom line is, in terms of the impact on children, this trend has really been very positive. again, we need to look at research and we need to look at the data we have and others in this system, the federal statistical system and researchers have that can help explain it. host: on friday as we look at america by the numbers, a new report out today looking at children in america. mary as on the phone. louisville, ky. caller: good morning. i very interesting discussion. i think there is something very basic being lost and all the numbers, which is some of the negative consequences -- lost in all of the numbers, which is some of the negative

consequences of government intervention. we have had forced busing in our community for over 30 years. we were the subject of a supreme court ruling over the past 10 years saying that we had to adjust our rules for forced busing. but the bigger issue is here -- some of our children are bussed 45 minutes away from their home in order to diversify. the impact has been not only had school stores not improved -- scores not improve, but declined. the children are far from home and the parents have difficulty participating in their school life, the social life, attending parent-teacher conferences. this intervention has alienated people from their and student's school life. they are further away from the schools. there could be much better improvement if we had nabal

preschools and families would feel more a part of the school -- if we had neighborhood schools and families would feel more a part of it. guest: there have been policies and programs implemented based on hunches, their own best guess of what would be good and then they are not really study. i think that is why it is really important to the value with the implications of what is happening on the ground. sometimes programs have unintended or unexpected positive consequences and sometimes they have unintended or unexpected negative consequences. we need to develop better evidence than-based policies. guest: this provides some of the evidence to drive the research. and that want to drive the to the web site, cdc.gov.nchs. but a quick snapshot, estimated 74 million young people in america between infant and age 17 accounting for about one- quarter of the u.s. pasta -- quarter of the population. i am from illinois -- diane from illinois.

caller: i want to know in this discussion where personal responsibility comes into play to only have as many children you cannot afford to support, rather than to blame society as a whole? when i was growing up, i came from a family that was not well to do. we had six children. i mean, when we went to take our lunch to school it was peanut butter and jelly and stuff, but it was my parents' responsibility to feed the children that they created to gather. -- together. now when someone has a child, to be the taxpayers that are

supposed to pay for their preschool, their breakfast in school, their lunch in school, lunch for the summers. how can this country survive when there are no guidelines that people give free things for behavior when i was growing up in the 1950's and 1960's -- they were frowned upon and not celebrated with vince. host: thank you for the call. guest: our job is to provide the fact -- facts and the caller is raising some very important issues in terms of policies and politics and in terms of culture. we could use these figures to give us an idea of where we are, but clearly the issues raised need a public discussion and an understanding of where we go in the future.

this is why some of the projections we have -- you showed one before -- children, as a function of race into the future, why it is important. host: these are children between the ages 4-17 from 2001 to 2010, dealing with serious emotional and behavioral difficulties. i am assuming we have been able to keep better track of this in more recent years. guest: i think dave emotional and mental well-being has become more what people are willing to talk about, something recognize. it is an issue for children, sometimes very young people -- children. addressing it and intervening early, and best and in children as opposed to solving problems. guest: one of the purposes of the forum is to identify areas of deficit where we need more data. one of the areas the form

identified in the 10-plus years of existence is mental health of children. the system has moved to try to fill that. between different agencies -- might agency and the health resources and services administration and others have sponsored surveys that hone in on the mental health side. that information is couple on the slide on the screen on the national health survey to give a more complete issue of -- a picture of the issues and the trend. host: our next caller is from peoria, illinois. caller: i am glad you should the graph on emotional distress and children. during the 1980's i was doing transfers to prisons -- if

somebody wants to know what's hell is like, spent some time and there. what people do not want to see, until their own children are affected -- affected, they do not have much of a cure. not religious morality but human decency -- something starts to happen, especially with young people, anybody -- when you see 10 or 11-year-old kids looking right through you, they don't care. but when they go to the big house, you are not going to scare these folks. i say be where -- where, connecticut, the family home invasion. those things can happen if you do not get a grip on this. guest: it is how to present data that is very dry anyway you understands what it is saying.

you just give us figures of 74 million children in this category. we can translate this figure into numbers. so it probably represents, i would say, back of the envelope estimate of around 13 million children. it may be 5% or 6% but it translates into millions, the number of children with the problem. host: has anything been done comparing those children raised in a fatherless home compared to two-parent home regarding violence? guest: there has been many children -- studies. on average they find children raised in single-parent homes have about twice as many problems on average.

however, the majority do not have problems. the majority develop just fine. host: i will pick up in 1990. from 1990 through 2011, an uptick, it went down and now back on its way up. children in eighth grade, -- some even younger than that, using drugs and middle schools. we had an uptick in the teen birthrate in 2005 and in 2006. it is not something where you can just feel good and relax. they go up again. host: let's go to missouri. good morning. caller: i worked my way through college selling books door-to- door. i was 40 years old before i ever had a job with a regular

salary. i am starting three small businesses. >> this is roanoke, virginia. >> remember in 2008 it did not think we could do it. they did nothing virginium would get behind president obama. we showed that they were wrong and we were right. we will show them again this year, will we not? it is great to be back and roanoke. my wife is a roanoke rick perry it -- -- roanoker. it is a specially nice to be in the star city. i know the president is looking forward to being out here and a

few minutes. i have been out on the battlefield myself for the last 15 months. everywhere i go people in virginia talking about what they are wanting to see improved in washington. tragedians. a president and leader who will create jobs and rebuild our economy and president obama is that leader. when he took office we were losing 750,000 jobs every month. since he took office our businesses have brought back 4.4 million americans. our gdp was shrinking and now it was growing. the stock market is back up in the 1200's and we are making investments in infrastructure and education.

we have a long way to go. that is where the choice is so important. we are focused on ford building strategies to compete with the rest of the world. -- for word building strategies to compete with the rest of the world. there are some that want to take this back to the old policies. it helps trade and economic miss and has made as weaker, not stronger. we tried tax breaks for other industries that did not need them and put tax breaks for the wealthiest a head of the middle class and it made us weaker, not stronger. we tried racking up millions of dollars in debt from two unfunded wars from tax cuts not paid for and other programs that made us weaker and not stronger. we cannot go back to the ideas that put us here. we need president obama to continue to make us stronger. [applause] what virginians say is the one

leaders that will help us tackle our challenges the right way and not the wrong way. that is why we need to re-elect president obama. the president has offered a balanced approach, one that protects the fragile economic recovery while restoring fiscal responsibility. let's talk about the other side. the last time they had the reins they took us from record surplus to massive deficits and rack up trillions in debts. now they are proposing deeper cuts to energy, education, defense. those cuts would make as weaker and not stronger. there are advocating protecting special interests while shifting costs onto the backs omiddle- class families, seniors. they are promising to gut medicare funding. they want to explore dramatic

changes and even privatization of social security, breaking promises to seniors. that would make us a weaker. as governor i had to make a lot of tough cuts. we can do it without shredding the safety net are compromising on the promises we made. finally, and maybe most important. what virginians tell me as i travel a run the state is that -- talk about a novel idea, we need people that know how to work together. is that so hard? people who do not come and pledging to be an obstructionist with the president but actually putting the needs of our citizens and our economy first? let's elect some people that know how to work together. [applause] the president has been doing that since the day he entered public life long before he was

an elected official when he was working in communities and bringing people together. that is part of who he is and what he does every day. this president has always reaching out a hand for anybody to work together. we have seen a different philosophy and enter washington. just a couple of weeks ago, probably 10 days ago, there was a hurricane relief and a flood insurance bill up again for the senate. it needed to happen quickly because of hurricane and flooding in the gulf. a senator decided, you know, i will block it. he put an amendment on it to make a person of legislation at the federal level which would outlaw abortion and much of fda contraception. this is a hurricane relief bill. they come up with these woods issues. we know what wedge issues are. they are designed to pull us

apart. we do not need more of wedge issues in this country. we need glue issues that pull us together. that is the kind of president obama is. we were supposed to be focusing on jobs and the economy. the legislature did things like passing ultrasound legislation degrading to women and making it harder for people to vote. there are two kinds of leadership. we can either have people who want to work together like president obama or we can pay the kind of leadership that is divisive. that makes us weaker and not stronger. that is why we need barack obama reelected because he will continue to pull this thing together. [applause] some of you might have seen -- there are a lot of tv ads about politics. i might be an 1 or two of them.

there are ads that suggest it is anti virginian to support the president of the united states. i will say that again. there are ads that suggest it is anti-virginium to support this president of the united states. i feel the same way. i believe all virginians should one our presidents to succeed. when he succeeds, our nation succeeds. [applause] i had a blast working with president obama in my last year of governor. we try to help the nation and a virginia get through a tough time. three years before that i was governor when president bush was president. i did not define myself as his obstructionist. i define myself as we wanted a partner in everything we can for

the good of the country and commonwealth. we need elected officials to understand that. we were the state -- we are a state that was the birthplace of an awful lot of united states presidents. is it anti virginian to support the president of the united states? >>no. >> we are a state where probably one in four or one in five of us are active duty guard and reserve, of veterans, military, this huge community that has pledged support for the president. is it anti virginian to support the commander in chief of this nation? of course it is not. we know that we work together. we support each other. we support this president. that is the right thing to do for the commonwealth and for

this country. i want to conclude and say this. i am optimistic about this country's future. we have lived through tough times. we have lived through the toughest times since the 1930's. we have been through tough times before. we are tough people. tough times do not last. tough people last. one of the reasons we last is we are not just tough, we are optimistic. you watch the doom and gloom the other side it cranked out nonstop, they want to talk the president down. the one to talk anything down they can. i saw an interview recently with donald runs fell. he was asked, will you admit the president did a good job in taking out of some of the layton? he would not -- and osama bin laden? he would not even complement the

president on that. the other guys will crank up the demand bloom nonstop. it is up to us to be the voice is a practical, can do american optimism. that has always brought us up, ahead and move us forward. let me just say this and conclude and there will be two more wonderful speakers. senator warner and the president of the united states. before 2008 in the presidential year, let's be honest with ourselves, we were virginia voters and we cared about the presidential election but we would have to turn on tv and wait until central time to see how ohio did or mountain time to see how other states did because we really did not have much hope we might be able to put electoral votes behind our candid it. we did not have much hope that we would be pivotal to the

election of a president. within two minutes they called the united states for the president after virginia because virginia was pivotal. i guess what i want to say is, we did it in 2008. we do not have to be taught how to do it. we know how to do it. who is ready to do it? all right. we will win this election with your help and with you behind us. thank you so much. i look forward to being back. have a great night.

[cheers and applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, to introduce the president of the united states, please welcome mark warner. [cheers and applause] >> hello roanoke. you look marvelous.

i have to tell you, it has been 35 years since a sitting president of the united states visited this roanoke valley. are you not proud it is barack obama? [cheers and applause] we have an amazing evening. we had an amazing day. it has been said, we are all here tonight because we know the elections have consequences. i have to tell you. and washington, i know that every day i go to work. we have a crown particularly in the house that only one to say no. they do not want to bring the president up on anything. one thing i ask of you before we get to the main event, you just

heard before i came out somebody who has been my friend for 30 years. somebody who served as a great member of the city council and mayor of richmond. before he was governor i had the opportunity to work with them as my lieutenant governor. in addition to the president being on the ballot, will you send tim kaine as the next senator from the commonwealth of virginia? [cheers and applause] once again we are involved in a mighty electoral struggle. we have to make sure that we do not elect the other side -- led the other side get away with their snappy sound bites. remember that when you are talking to voters over the rest of the summer and for the fall. remember that as we get flooded

with hundreds of millions of dollars in tv ads from who knows to because they do not know who is paying for them, we cannot allow the other guys to rewrite history. do you remember -- i remember where they lead our country. we all remember back in 2008. we remember that this economy under the previous crowd of lost 8 million jobs. i am proud under president obama's leadership we have returned 4.4 million private- sector jobs to this economy [cheers and applause] this president recognizes this moment in time. is really not about red versus blue or left versus right. it is about the future versus the past. this president understands where the future of this commonwealth

and this country needs to head. is a question of whether we will continue to invest in the infrastructure, and research at virginia tech. do we have any hokies in the crowd tonight? this president who believes america is stronger what we have a strong manufacturing base and demonstrated that by making sure our auto industry is the strongest the center of the world. it is great that we make things again in america. we can do more. he knows that as we sort through this globally competitive world you should not have to leave your home town to find a world- class job. the the kids in southwest virginia ought to have the same opportunities as the kids in northern virginia or anywhere else in the world. we have many young people here tonight? [cheers and applause]

because he turned out in record numbers and enter 2008, va. surprise the world because of your support for this president and he has not forgotten that. he has not forgotten that by making sure we have more investment and pell grants and making more investment and community colleges. making sure student loans do not have a doubling of their interest rates. [cheers and applause] when we were on our earlier tonight, tim said we are blessed to have a rich military heritage of any state in our nation. i am proud of our commander in chief and what he has done to take out the leadership of al qaeda. i am proud that this president said he will not only remember veterans, but he has put resources behind honoring that

commitment and pledge. [cheers and applause] here we are again, virginia. the eyes of the nation will be on us again. are you prepared to do your part? [cheers and applause] in 2008, we changed the guard. in 2012, we will guard the change. [cheers and applause] say it with me. in 2008 we changed the guard. in 2012, we are the change. ladies and gentlemen, please welcome me in welcoming the president of the united states, our president barack obama. [cheers and applause]

>> hello ron of. [cheers and applause] -- roanoke. it is good to be back in virginia. there are a couple of people i want to acknowledge. first of all, you have one of the finest senators and public servants in the country in mark warner. given up for mark warner. [cheers and applause] mark was a great governor for the commonwealth of virginia.

now he is a great senator. i just want to point out we have another great governor of the commonwealth of virginia. he is going to be a great centesenator. we are thrilled to have them both with us today. i want to thank mayor buyers who is here. .he fire chief, david ho b [cheers and applause] all of you are here. [cheers and applause] i could not ask for a nicer setting. it is beautiful flying into roanoke. let me just say, unless you have

managed to break your television sets, you are probably aware that it is campaign season. i know it is not always pretty to watch. we are saying more money flooding into the system than ever before. more negative ads, more cynicism. a lot of reporting is about who is up or who is down at the polls since of talking about things that matter and enter your day to day life. i know all this makes it tempting to turn off the tv set, turn away from politics. there are some people betting the you lose interest. the fact that you are here tells me you are still ready to work to make this a better country. [cheers and applause] you are still betting on hope and you are betting on change and i am still betting on you.

[cheers and applause] i love you back. [cheers and applause] let me just say this. if i win virginia, i am going to get four more years. [cheers and applause] that i can say with some confidence. the reason you are here tonight is because no matter how petty and small politics seems sometimes, you recognize that the stakes could not be bigger. in some ways the stakes are even bigger than 2008. what is not at stake is just two

people or two political parties. what is at stake is a decision between two fundamentally different views about where we take the cntry right now. the choice is up to you. now, this is my last political campaign. it is true. there is a term-limit thing to the presidency. you get two. this will be my last campaign. it makes too nostalgic sometimes. i started thinking about my first campaigns when i was traveling across illinois. illinois is a big state and it has cities like chicago and small towns and rural areas and suburban areas. and you meet people from every walk of life -- black, white, native american.

you stop at diners and go to churches and go to synagogues. wherever you go, you are going to have a chance to meet people from different walks of life. when i think about the first campaign. what strikes me is that no matter where i went and no matter who i was talking to, i could see my own life in the life of people whose vote i was asking for. i have met an elderly vet and i think about my grandfather who fought in world war ii. my grandmother worked on the? assembly line. i think about how would my grandfather came back come, because of this country he was able to get an education on the gi bill. they were able to buy their first home using an fha loan.

i would mean a single mom somewhere and i would think about my mother. i never knew my dad. he laughed when i was barely a baby. -- he left when i was barely a baby. my mother was struggling and she had to go back to school and raise a kid. later raising my sister. she had to work while she was in school. despite all of that, because she was in america, she was able to get grants and scholarships and her kids are able to get grants and scholarships. they could go as far as their dreams could take them. you know, i have talked to some working people. i think about michelle's family. her dad who was a blue-collar

worker and work that day water filtration plant in chicago. her mom was a secretary. despite never having a lot, there was so much love and so much passion. her dad had ms so he had to wake up an hour earlier to get to work. he never missed a day of work. he took pride in the idea that, you know, i will earn my way and look after my family. i see that same pride in the people i was talking to. what this reminded me of at the heart of this country, its central idea is the idea that in this country if you are willing to wor