i look forward to assisting mr. barnett with his approaches and i believe that together, we can help to make a path for a stronger america, for ourselves and our posterity. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> the soviet bear may be gone but there are still will send the bill would. the mideast might have become a nuclear powder keg. our energy supplies held hostage. so we did what was right and what was necessary, we destroyed a threat, freed a people and locked a tyrant in the prison of his own country. >> tonight, 10 million of our fellow americans are out of work.

tens of millions more work harder for lower pay. the incoming president says unemployment always goes up a little before a recovery begins. but unemployment only has to go up by one more person before a real recovery can begin. >> c-span has aired every minute of every major party conventions since 1984 and this year, lost the republican and democratic national conventions live on c- span starting monday, august 27. >> now, americans for tax reform president grover norquist on taxes foreign-policy and presidential politics. the centers for the national interest posted this 90 minute of that. -- minuete event.

>> ok. folks, ladies and gentlemen, i think we are ready to begin. i am the editor of the national interest magazine. i am delighted to have all of you here. welcome. i am particularly delighted to have grover norquist here. grover is one of those people about whom is often said in these kinds of settings, he needs no introduction, but i am going to give him one anyway, because he is too interesting not to. he is a massachusetts native, harvard b.a. and mba. he quickly gravitated to the district of columbia, where he has significant position to the u.s. taxpayers association. he is the author of a recent book, "debacle." in 1985, he founded americans for tax reform, whose aim was to reduce government receipts as a percentage of gdp.

he believes in a smaller government. he believes in getting a handle on the debt overhang, which i believe is the most serious problem facing the country today. his most famous for the famous pledge, getting members of congress and other politicians to promise not to vote for any increase in marginal tax rates for either individuals or businesses and not to vote for any net reductions in credits unless there is a commensurate reduction in rates. as of late last year, 238, i am told on google, of 242 house republicans had signed this pledge and 47 senate republicans. this drives democrats and liberals crazy. he has been lauded and attacked for it.

john stossel lauds him -- "no one in modern times has fought harder to shrink the state than the founder of the group americans for tax reform." arianna huffington has a bit of a different view. she calls him "the dark wizard of the right's anti-tax cult." p.j. said, "grover norquist is tom paine crossed with lee atwater, plus a soupcon of madame defarge." i pondered that. since in our species you can really only be the cross of a male and female, i found myself reminded of what mark shields once said about his good friend bob novak, the late columnist, when he said "bob novak is proof positive that calvin coolidge and -- were more than just friends."

grover takes a rapier to his opponents. he takes no prisoners. at the same time, he is always very pleasant. he never raises his voice. it is always in mellifluous tones and has a lilt to it. it occurred to me that maybe richard nixon hooked up with doris day. >> thank you for the unique introduction. and, i think, generous. i have been asked to talk about economic and foreign-policy, domestic policy, and how they

interact. are two ways in which they interact. there is the reality of economic policy and whether it works or not. and since we are talking about politics, you can win or lose an election on one set of issues, even though you think you're focusing on another set of issues. foreign policy and economic policy play out in a campaign, but they also play out in government. obviously, economics matter. the united states is the preeminent world power and has been for some time because of its economic policies. it has a more free and more open society than other countries and it creates more wealth and allows more people to accomplish great things. more so than other countries do, less than we should, less than we will in the future.

but we're competing with the alternatives, not with utopia. we were a world power back before we even had much of a military to play with because of our economic growth. you go back to before the american revolution. we were taxed between 1% and 2% of gdp in the colonies. people in britain were paying 20% of their income to fund the british empire. empires are expensive. people do not appreciate having to pay for that. they wanted us to help pay for the british empire. we said, thank you, we will pass.

rather than run an empire, we ran our rather large commercial republic, which became very powerful. when you have all that lovely money, you can buy things that go boom at great distances on your own. it matters that we have a large economy. it makes it possible for us to have a national defense spending 3% or 4% of gdp that dominates the globe. we spend more than the next 13 countries added together, he says, understating his case as always. we do so with a much smaller fraction of the wealth and income of the american people. foreign policy also affects domestic policy. you go back and look at the last two administrations. bush, who got elected on his domestic platform, decided after 9/11 to focus on foreign policy. as a result, there were opportunity costs. the opportunity costs on your foreign policy is that you take a dollar that you're going to spend on welfare and spend it instead buying a gun.

the more important opportunity cost -- that is not unimportant when you're dealing with hundreds of billions of dollars. the more important opportunity cost as the band width of the presidency, a congress, a white house, and bush decided to be the mayor of baghdad rather than the president of the united states. he decided to occupy iraq and afghanistan, rather than reform fannie mae and freddie mac. that had tremendous consequences. time, the president's bully pulpit, the president's attention. the president could go and demand certain things from congress. if you have made all your asks about occupying iraq and afghanistan for a decade, rather than reforming fannie and freddie -- they will tell you they sent several letters to capitol hill and ask them to fix the problem. that is not the same thing. it does not fit the magnitude of the threat and the problem that was seeable and knowable for the eight years of the presidency.

a focus on foreign-policy as a consequence for domestic policy. we did kabul. we lost the opportunity to either expand free-trade during those eight years. that was in terms of our requests -- we could have had all the europeans gang up on france and beat them senseless and get a free trade agreement that made the french farmers not get the subsidies they have been used to. instead, we have all of europe beating up on us because of our foreign policy. we could have focused on immigration reform. very important in the united states economy and to us -- us being us. instead, time and effort was put into iraq and afghanistan. when you talk about how foreign policy affects domestic policy, in theory, you could run foreign-policy -- aggressive foreign policy and an aggressive domestic policy.

but try and get the president, a white house to be able to have that kind of bandwidth when they deal with congress and when they speak to the american people about what they are trying to accomplish. looking for -- go back to reagan. reagan was able to manage the collapse of the soviet union while -- and i would argue this is not a paradox -- because he focused on getting the american economy turned around, taking double-digit inflation down to almost zero, 20% interest rates. if we had reagan's growth rate during this recovery -- there are lots of handouts i want to share. it is important to have lots of handouts. ever since trees ran into sonny bono. you can see the past several years of recovery have been very

weak. we have been in recovery technically since july of 2009. if we had reagan's rate of economic growth, reagan's rate of job creation, it would have many millions more americans working today. gdp would be about 10% higher than it is. this is a disaster. it limits american leadership in the world. one of the reasons other countries look up to us is our strong economy. and when it appears to be lagging -- we are looking ok. how is your wife compared to what? how is the american economy compared to europe? we are not so bad. compared to the trend line of where we were and where we could be, where a normal recovery would have taken us today, we are in very bad shape, much weaker than we could be.

reagan focused on getting economic growth and job creation, and that sense that he was always focused -- he had one hand out here, holding the soviet union at bay, whacking at grenada, but he was always focused on us and domestic policies, explaining to the american people he was focused on their concerns about keeping the bear at the door. the alternative is to walk outside and spend all your time arguing with the bear and convince people you are focused on what is important to them. since we have elections every two years, there is a cost to that. republicans lost in 2006 not because the economy was a problem. the independents were unhappy with the occupation of iraq and afghanistan.

not necessarily knocking off saddam hussein. but staying for 10 years afterwards. the voting switched from 60%/40% to democrats. on foreign-policy issues, the economy doing well going into that election -- moving forward, where do we go from here? i would argue that our tax policy -- we're going to have a big election. we will get into this more with questions and answers. paul ryan's choice as vice president clarifies that the directions. it is written down in the ryan budget, in the ryan road map, as endorsed by the modern republican party.

tax policy -- i would argue this affects both our hard power and our soft power. on the soft power, we have 3 million americans, 4 million americans living overseas. every one of them, as they tell you when you travel to some european country or around the world -- you are an ambassador for the united states. do not annoy people. people meet you. they get a sense of what the united states is like. this is particularly true outside a paris or london. countries and cities that do not see a lot of americans. there could be a lot more americans overseas representing the united states on a one-on- one basis, a sort of ugly american novel of being a good representative of the united states, except our tax policy makes this difficult to impossible.

we have, in the united states, not a territorial tax policy, which the rest of the world does. we have a worldwide tax policy. france -- if you live in france and you are french, you earn money, the government steals some of it. here, the united states government steals some of it. when you go back to france, they do not take any more of it. the bite at the american government took out of your income is all that is taken out. in the united states, if you are an american and you go work in another country, that country will tax you because you earned the money there. but you come back to the united states and the united states will top off whatever the other country failed to take from you to where it is at 35% or, under obama, 43%-plus of your income. americans living overseas are taxed more heavily than other countries' citizens when they were overseas.

that is particularly problematic when you're working in countries that have little or no income tax. hiring a german to work in saudi arabia is less expensive than hiring an american. reagan lowered marginal tax rates from a top rate of 70% to a rate of 28%. the economy boomed. the rest of the world looked at that and said, we want to do that. you saw the european countries come in with flat income-tax rates. not only does it think it difficult to hire an american, it is less expensive to hire

somebody from another country to work in saudi arabia or brazil or around the globe, but american companies are at a disadvantage. i bring this up because the paul ryan plan is not only entitlement reform, welfare reform, plus tax reform. the outline that he has generated, the top rate of 25% corporate and individual, and territorial tax system -- within that, revenue neutral. the territorial tax is very important to america's foreign policy, not just domestic and economic policy. an american company overseas earns $1. the local government taxes some or not. when you bring the $1 back, the federal government takes 35% of it.

if you do not bring it back, you want to leave it in china or brazil or germany, you can -- there is no additional tax to leave it there. we have more than $1 trillion overseas. when you talk to the corporate guys who have been trying to get obama for the last 3 1/2 years to go to territoriality or allow repatriation of that money without a big tax hit, some say it is between $500 billion and $800 billion that would come back in the same year. it does not cost anybody anything. we just have to get rid of our worldwide tax system. the reason anheuser-busch was bought by a european company, it is more valuable if it is owned by a european company than an american company because of the way we tax earnings and other countries do not.

if we did not fix this, other companies will start being bought more and more by foreign companies. the economics just makes sense. we can fix that by taking our rates down 25%. and by going to a territorial tax system. i think these are extremely important. another challenge that europe has is the defined-benefit government pensions, the social- welfare pensions, the unionized pensions for the private sector, and there defined benefits. it means you constantly -- defined benefit requires a whole bunch of new people coming in and paying pensions to support the old guys.

there are more united mine workers retire than working. it is an extremely heavy load for the industry. the coal industry, the automobile industry, all of these industries are badly damaged. people have gotten most out of wack in the public sector unions. we have begun to reform this in the united states. one of the reasons i am optimistic is not just because i believe that romney and ryan are going to win the next election and have a republican senate and house -- one of the reasons i am optimistic about the united states is not just because i believe that romney and ryan are going to win the next election and have a republican senate in the house. i think that will happen. i think that is very important. the good news is also when you look at the 50 laboratories of democracy, there are 24 states that have republican governors, republican legislatures. there are 11 states that have 11 democratic governors and legislators. we have a real opportunity to see what works.

california, illinois, maryland, and new york are busy working on becoming -- and the red states are trying to reform reduced taxes. we had overwhelming elections in kansas where the winners were committed to the governor's vision to abolish the state income tax. north carolina is about to elect a governor committed to abolishing the state income tax. oklahoma has made the same commitment with their government and other states are moving in that direction. in utah, the government there a year ago -- all new hires -- state, local, county, teachers, they will have a defined contribution pension. which means here is your pay, here is 10% of their pay and a 401k. 12% if you are a fireman or policemen.

that is the model that louisiana has begun to move to, kansas will be moving to. other states -- north dakota will do it shortly as well as wyoming. moving state-by-state to reform the pension system allows us to also look at how we can do this at the national level. private sector has been doing this for 20 years now. shifting from a defined benefit plans to contribution plans. i think we miss the challenge your past. not only because our demographics are better -- we are having more kids, more open to immigration as opposed to the europeans. and we can -- this buys us the time to reform our pension system so we do not bankrupt ourselves with the entitlements. the big reform that ryan has put forward the us three things -- tax reform brings the rates down, makes us more competitive on the corporate and individual level.

territoriality which stops disadvantaging american corporations around the globe. american companies are ambassadors for america. it is much better to do the one on one conversations. so those reforms are key in part of ryan and will happen with the republican house senate and presidency. it will not happen if obama is reelected or the democrats have the senate. they did not do any of those things. they moved in the opposite direction on all of them, including territoriality which is why some of high-tech corporate world is so irritated at obama with a had a lot of hopes for. the other two pieces are beginning to reform entitlements. the model we have is working at the state level.

people are doing this and winning elections. not losing elections. which is always the key thing that politicians want to know. is this safe? can i do this and get reelected? and is it good for the economy and everything else? it always has to assure politicians that this is safe to walk out on the ice with. then the other one is the block ranting of all the welfare programs. clinton reform welfare, the bill in 1996 but block granted aid to families of dependent children. here is your money, a fixed amount, but you have a lot less strings. each state could decide how to get people out of welfare dependency and focus on people with real needs so that people with real need for taking care of and other people were not locked into welfare.

there is somewhere between 77 and more than 100 means tested programs at the federal level. the big ones -- medicaid, housing programs, job training programs, and food stamps but then there are a bunch of others as well. lyon and that approach looks to block grant. when you hear critics of ryan say you're cutting aid to the poor, they're plagiarizing the criticism of clinton's welfare reform. everything the left said about clinton's welfare reform turned out not to be true and everything they are saying about ryan is not true for the same reasons. it is doing for other welfare programs what clinton did. they signed the welfare reform bill and it worked. they did everything its critics said it would not. i think these reforms here will help strengthen the american

economy and we can afford to have an adequate national defense which keeps us free and safe and would make anyone afraid to throw a punch at best. as long as we do not make some of the decisions that previous administrations have which is to overextend ourself overseas and to run the government -- we are not very good at making americans organize their lives in the way somebody in washington thinks they should. why did the same people think they can do this in baghdad with success? it has not worked well there. let me take some questions here. the two feet off each other. -- feed off each other. a strong and healthy american economy with reasonable laws that we do not allow the billionaire trial lawyers -- where we do not have overregulation, we will have tax is damaging this domestically.

but also internationally. it makes it difficult for american companies to work overseas, for americans to be hired by companies overseas. and when you lose that, you lose some of the best ambassadors for who and what america is. strong economic growth allows national defense to be a smaller percentage of a larger economy and we can dwarf any with the enemy of the united states by having a stronger economy more quickly that we can by raising taxes here. if you grow the economy 1% faster than expected for a decade, the federal government and of the $2.80 trillion in higher tax revenue. what more revenue, you want to

fund that national defense and the state department, reduce marginal tax rates. deregulate, take that trial lawyers and took them down the pacific. -- and float them down the potomac. do all the things that the great the american economy and move us forward. revenues flow in from strong growth better than if you try and take people down and pick their pockets. thoughts, questions, arguments? >> wonderful. thank you very much. i am struck as i look at the history of the cold war and since that america's most powerful time were those times when we were most help the economically and vice versa. in the early cold war in the truman and eisenhower administrations, we held the soviets in check.

we were also in the 1980's and 90's during and after the reagan performance, we were able to bring about the end of the cold war. we were least powerful during that entire history when we had economic difficulties of the late 1970's. with soviet adventurism on the rise of the places like afghanistan and central america and africa. this is related in little bit too grover norquist's point about domestic politics and reagan. i wrote down a few things. in 1984, reagan's reelection year, the economy grew by 6.2%. that is the current percentage our current president could use. in the second term, the average

growth rate was 3.4% and as soon as he managed to get the country through that recession which was an induced recession to squeeze inflation out of the economy, the growth rate per year on average was 3.89%. reagan takes a big key on the deficits which is what it -- take a big hit on the deficits which is a legitimate hit. in 1987, he had a 5.8% gdp. by 1987, it was 3.61%. in his last budget, it was 2.8%. that is a manageable level. then under george w. bush, it went back up to 5.8% in 1992.

growth has a big impact on the deficit an economy. you talked about ryan's plan but a lot of critics of that plan suggest that those numbers do not add up. that the tax cuts are going to be devastating to the deficit and that the cuts in the entitlements and other places will be devastating for the economy. what is your answer to that? >> the key number to look at in terms of the cost of government is total government spending plus the regulatory burden. set the regulatory burden aside because that is largely driven by the executive branch implementing but at the spending level, the cost of

government -- the government spends $100 and it takes $90 in taxes and borrow $10. what problem have you solved by taking the other $10? in the other case, all $100 is taken. it is gone from the private sector. the cost to government in that case is $100. some was borrowed, some was taken or always taken. this is one of the challenges we get into when people focus on the deficit rather than total government spending. that is where reagan was trying to focus on reducing the total sites of government. one of the ways you can reduce that is -- as percentage of the economy.

our government would be bigger. but as a percentage of the economy, you want your government to be a smaller percentage of gdp. the thing to focus on, this is what ryan focuses on, not only does the cost curve on spending start to fall as a percentage of gdp because the economy is growing and we're spending less through washington. but eventually it ends up paying off the national debt because the reforms are so key. you can reform entitlements to save a lot of money. and you save a lot more than my cutting a particular program. we reform welfare by putting it out to the states and allow the state to handle it. the state -- the federal government's a great deal of money. it did not keep increasing the welfare payments and get the state's office state money because they were spending less

than they used to have to and spending it smarter. those people who say the ryan plan cut aid to the poor in 1996 need to say why they will be right this time. the ryan plan brings down spending and brings down the deficit. the obama plan -- if ryan has plans written down, you have simpson bowles, an essay in haiku. the want to take taxes from 18.5% gdp to 21%. they are very clear about that. everything else is on the fuzzy side.

simpson bowles is over the next decade -- we expect $2 trillion in gdp. so they will increase the tax burden on the american people from what it would be, never mind obama's $5 trillion in increases but an additional $5 trillion under simpson bowles. the spending restraint discussed at this point -- simpson bowles is not real. the democrats in the senate have not voted for any of this stuff. they have not put it in their budgets. obama does not put any of simpson bowles spending cuts in his budget. so there is no interest in the spending cut part. they like the $5 trillion in a tax increase. i would argue that ryan has already had his moment. reagan was -- his meeting with gorbachev.

his empire was imploding and he wanted us to make these concessions and reagan walked away from what the entire washington establishment said was a great deal. they love the idea of the deal. reagan walked out and took all the criticisms for having walked away. ryan blew up the simpson bowles phony deal. a massive tax increase little or no spending cuts. that is before it gets to the democrats in the senate. ryan is old enough to have lived through the 1982 budget deal where reagan was promised $3 of spending cuts for every dollar of tax increase. the tax increases were real, permanent. we are still paying them. spending went up after the

reagan budget deal. then you had the 1990 deal with george bush who was in the bush reagan administration and watched reagan get taken on the 3 to 1 deal walked into the room and said we have a deal for you. we will give you $2 of imaginary spending cuts for every dollar of tax increases. i think that is a bit insulting to the democrats. as long as you are lying to the guy, offered 10 to 1. and of course you did not get 2 to 1. simpson bowles is the third iteration of 1982 and 1990. discussions about the possibility of someday cutting spending. it would have ended the same way. ryan would have been a hero for the washington post and time magazine.

he would sign a deal and find the republicans up for that disaster. thinks this is a good deal. ryan has been in washington, not of it. you are going to fight against the other team, you have to live and in washington from time to time but you do not have to become of it and you do not have to be scared of the washington establishment. he walked away from a very bad deal. because a much better deal with no tax increase as a result. his leadership encouraged on that fight. >> if you want to ask grover a question, kept my eye. -- catch my eye. >> i was listening to c-span on my drive this morning and the caller said paul ryan was a puppet of grover norquist. [laughter]

i was a little surprised by this. he referred to an adequate defense budget. it seems that -- if paul ryan was a puppet or even a strong accolade of grover norquist, he would be serious about cutting military spending as well as other spending and he is not. how would you respond to that? >> i would argue that he did not ask everybody to do everything. ryan has designed a budget approach with three things that 66 of the clinton plan and moves it forward on others. you now have the division in the democratic party between the old clinton people and the traditional liberals and a hard left. obama's guys want to smash reform. they do not want it expanded to other government programs. he has that, he has tax reform, he is looking at in tandem

reform. bipartisan entitlement reform. other people need to lead the argument on how can conservatives lead a fight to have a serious national defense that defends the united states from any potential aggressor without wasting money. i work with a group called right on crime. domestically. it is conservative folks who are focused on -- they say we are incarcerating too many people for too long. it does not make sense. we are not stopping crime in with all this additional spending. we are hiring more democratic union members and is that a wise way to spend taxpayer dollars? but only a conservative can come to the table and talk about

how long should bad guys be in prison for? the good news is that the first reforms were done in texas. at the same reforms were done by liberal and in vermont, they could not travel. nobody would go. they did this in vermont. but when you have prosecutors and police and people who are serious about personal responsibility and keeping bad guys in prison and stopping crime and punishing crime -- say are responding too much too little? you have a similar discussion that needs to take place on national defense. how do we spend money wisely? you had dick army who did this with his base closing legislation. it helped our national defense but it was difficult to do because bases were put in different congressional

districts just as some of the contracts for weapons systems are also allocated by congressional district rather than by talent and confidence. that is an entirely long -- a huge, important project. we should be very careful. the government should do this things mentioned in the constitution. with the possible exception of the post office. and probably not things that are mentioned in the constitution. if you take government seriously, we want the bits that should be there then confidently. that includes the defense budget. i would not ask ryan to be the reformer of the defense establishment on top of that. >> please identify yourself before asking your question. >> thank you for coming. i have a question to purpose into three observations. i'm a radical eccentric. as it on the board of a number

of financial companies. and regulatory reform is overdue. you mentioned mitt romney three times. my question is this. obviously we need entitlement and regulatory reform. you are not going to get 60 seats in the senate. how you do it? >> my own view -- paul ryan loses the election to mitt romney. obama and wins by eight points. set the because i am not an obama fan. >> let me cheer you up. i grew up in massachusetts. the left post a reaction to ryan is very interesting. they are basically tired.

there plagiarizing everything the democrats said about reagan when he won the nomination in 1980. are we glad to run against the guy who wants to cut spending and cut taxes and confront the soviet union? their understanding of where the country was is not with the country is. looking at it -- if you live and in chicago, you do not have an understanding of what the united states is thinking about in a given time. i would argue he is more ideologically rigid and learns less. his economic policies -- equally challenging. the second part is the argument that the republicans have written down the rhine plan. now we can attack. the democrats always attack the republicans ever since the

1940's with wanting to undo social security and later medicare. they always say that when bush ran in 2000 and 2004 with a plan to privatize social security for people under 55 -- if you are under 55, will give you the option of a 401k. the democrats said this would have us win the election. that was one of the few elections where social security was a winner for republicans. we did not let the democrats care the old people when they yelled social security. they made it clear they were not changing it to 55 and over. every time, the castoff 20, 30, 40, 50 year olds who understand they will never get what was promised. when you rate something down, you make it more difficult for the other team to lie about

your position. the democrats will attack his reforms on medicare. the only thing obama has done to medicare is promise to take $700 billion away from it to pay for obamacare. and he has had no reforms that will help. he added an entitlement that does not pay for itself and costs twice what they said it was going to cost. by writing down the ryan plan which is reasonable bipartisan reforms on medicare and bill clinton pulls of reform to the poor, let the democrats attack bill clinton 's successful legacy. and make that case if they want. that is the civil war in the democratic party that we should encourage to continue. i am very optimistic that by writing down the ryan plan, the other team seems to have a

better target. >> let's say that mitt romney wins. have you get tax reform? >> you can repeal obamacare with 50 votes. it does not require 60 votes. you might have an argument on a couple of the policy things but with the right parliamentarian, those are completely solvable as well. most of ryan's tax cuts can be done with 51 votes. you can do them inside of it in your window. these are the guys who redistricted the country. in california and illinois, they redistricted. others have redistricted to

elect more traditional. these state legislative lines, the red states redistricted to stay red. but the rest of it stays pretty much the same for the next decade. on the back of that is the chart. 23 democrats in the senate, 10 republicans. half the deeds are doable. you are about to the republicans in maine and massachusetts. scott is running an extremely hard left against him. elizabeth warren, who has a lot of problems. that is a tough sell there.

we will have the senate next year. the senate election cycles are so advantageous for the republicans because these are the people who are elected in 2006 and 2008. only the republicans who were really tough one and a lot of democrats got swept into vote against bush. some of us and did not understand what bush and karl rove were doing but now we can cleverly see, they were sneaking up behind the democrats to take them all back. we will get the senate this time around. we will get close to 60 in 2014. in the presidential election,

our president is not going anywhere near 50%. he will not get -- the guys who are undecided will not be voting for him garrett -- for him. >> i would like to debate what you said of my question is, let's assume we do dumb things and go to a dull more like a record something. should we ask the american people to pay more taxes so they will feel part of it and maybe ask for questions? >> i think to avoid stupid things. >> i know, but bush did not. that is my point. >> there are two things -- one, there are ways to reduce those cuts now moving forward. and if you have a a government program of any kind that is not working or that is counterproductive or is lot --

is worth less than the money you are extracting by force for the american people to pay for, you should stop doing that. since we have been doing all of these somethings, it is like a ship that collects barnacles. you get rid of the barnacles over time. you go back and say what works, what does not? let's reform these issues. i am in favor of reforming government to cost less, not cutting it. some stuff government does it is useful. tough to find in between all the stuff that is that useful but there are important things and you want those fully funded and then confidently and transparently to rebut that you also want to stop doingi am notg taxes to pay for mistakes of any kind. >> center for immigration.

you were talking about efficiently running for policy and avoiding waste. that is not really the issue. the issue is what are the objectives that we want in foreign policy? we smashed the nazis and the japanese with massive inefficiency. what is the goal, what are the foreign policy goals? i think you are capering over a difference among nservatives. i agree with what i think you're for policy is which is frankly, let's not invade whatever the country du jour we are supposed the takeover. >> if the president cannot pronounce it, you cannot blow it up. >> mali is easy to pronounce. my point is that my sense of what you're saying is that even

if we undertake the tax in the reforms that i agree with you are essential, we are going to be under fiscal constraint for a long time into the future. what i want you to actually say is that those constraints are going to force us to not do what mitt romney and paul ryan have said they wanted to do with our policy. the way they have articulated their foreign policy goals is very expensive. not really in any sense like what bush campaigned on. a more limited, modest foreign policy. my senses we are going to be stuck with that no matter what it because of our economic constraints and is that a positive outcome from your perspective of all the problems we have been dealing with?

>> whenever you meet any foe, the first thing you need to do is cut the capital gains tax. [laughter] from there, there are different approaches. i would argue -- you need to decide what your real defense needs are. that does that mean chairman of certain committees get to build bases in their states. that is not a defense needs. that is a political desire but we need to figure out what do we need to do to protect the united states. how do we keep the canadian on their side of the border guard to mark an otherwise make sure the united states is secure? what is that? what does it cost? there are questions about how to less expensively by things if you are the pentagon? have you make that economically

efficient? it is not like going to walmart. so there are a lot of challenges government have is a meeting has been a buy stock. because there is not a market for it in other places. i with a start with what we do come to a decision on that. your question on foreign policy -- presidents have a lot of leeway on foreign-policy compared to other issues. there is no nra on general form policy. there is no americans for tax reform which has asked politely and consistently and repeatedly for people to make a written commitment to voters. the reason why the pledge has been useful and important is that i ask all candidates for the federal office and state

office tuesday -- sign a pledge to their voters. harry reid seems to get this wrong. they make that commitment as a way to let voters know where they stand. they do not oppose taxes because they signed the pledge. a sign the pledge because they oppose tax increases. those are -- both republicans who do not support and tax increases, do not sign the pledge. sandoval said repeatedly he would not raise taxes. when asked that it would put that in writing, they would say i am offended you would question my character. then they got in, the bulls past -- they both passed massive tax increases. they lied their way into office present a loss of one not raise

your taxes but i will not put it in writing. the first time he had a pickup, he raised taxes. the pledge is there for those who know the want to raise taxes. the politicians who signed the pledge do so because they want to leave the door open. that is okay. they have to run being honest about that. >> you still danced around the issue. buying b52s cheaply is not the point. how you define the objective? what does security mean? much of our foreign policy elite, security means we need to have democracy in burkina faso before any american is safe. that is baloney. my sense is your try to be too

polite and a team player to point out that in mitt romney and everybody else other than paul -- have the same take on ruling the world. you will not get what you want until that is addressed frankly and directly by people on the right like you. >> i think you do need to have that kind of conversation. i engaged in that earlier when i said we do need to have a conversation about what our goals in afghanistan are and what is winning. what are we trying to do? how long are we staying? the answer to those questions are ridiculous? we need to have these conversations with in the modern conservative movement because the guys on the left have forfeited their capacity to argue that they have something to say here.

so it has to be a conversation. chris is going to be managing this and you can be his co- chairman of the committee. >> [inaudible] the point about the one contingency everyone is talking about -- the war with iran -- does it seem looking at the statement that mitt romney is even more willing to go to war with iran than obama? if there is a war with iran, no one knows how much it will cost but it will be a lot more than a few million dollars. at what point under those

circumstances are you prepared to admit something will have to be done to either stop the war or pay for it with taxes? >> the argument that had been put forward -- the former head of the cia explaining that even a piece that there and shelled them for a month, we would convince them the actual -- they absolutely had to have a nuclear weapon. i am not a defense expert. this would not get what you want it to do. they are shelling them and they will sit there going for a month if we had some nuclear weapons, they would not do it. but when we get tired of that, they get back up. it the government comes in and

decide to focus on a particular war or occupation down the road, you lose the bandwidth to do other things. that is what happened to the bush and administration. it focused on iraq and afghanistan and not fannie and freddie. that was expensive for the american economy, and expensive for the world, and expensive for our world leadership. i am not sure it made us stronger in a hard power military sense as chart -- and not strong as a soft power military sense. >> can i ask a follow-up? i think the question and answer sort of fit but he was saying if we got into our war with iran, what would we have to do in terms of economic policy?

your answer was we should i get into war with iran because it does not make any sense. i happen to agree with both of those things but -- there are no numbers on the curve. because of laughter and all those people from the supply side were saying that in different times, the optimal tax rate is at different levels depending on what the needs are. they all said that in times of war, the country is more prepared to pay more taxes because of that response ability and therefore you cannot reach that point of diminishing returns. could you respond to that? >> i read the curve differently. there are two ways to get the same amount of money. want to decide how much she wanted to stock by force, there are two ways to do it.

you can tax it at 90% and take a lot of the small economy or text the 10% and it allowed the money with a small tax burden for much larger economy. at any given point when you decide how much money the government decides it is going to take, there are two ways to get there -- with a high tax burden, and no tax burden. what changes is the denominator. i'm not kidding when i say if you have it war with iraq, cut the capital gains tax. something to grow the american economy. drop the other costs of government. right now the government is eating up 24% of gdp. it used to be more like 20%. it is jumped up dramatically under the stimulus package and the general motors bailout and the various other ways we have wasted money in the last two and a half years. we need to drop the percentage of the economy of sorts by

government. federal and state. the states are doing a good job and the reforming government. we have gridlock in washington at the state's instead of having a box, you have one party controlling the legislature and governor in 24 red states, republican state, and 11 democrats states. the parties together, they can take a stake in one direction or the other three are getting serious reforms. real savings. real improvements. school choice for the lowest income kids, half the kids in louisiana and indiana. massive reforms. and the quality government and also less expensive government. i would argue that what we need to do -- we are spending 4% of gdp on national defense. you can reduce, if you really felt you had to send more money, you could spend more money out of the national budget to an ex canada and reform of the parts of government to cost

less. you could double national defense to 8% of gdp and drop the rest of the government down to 15%. why is the position of ted kennedy's government -- we will keep the same amount forever and this is mine. this is my money. that is why obama talks about giving people stuff. the money the government takes from you as his -- he used the money the government takes from you as his. that is not the way most americans view the proper role of government. we can afford to invade, occupy and reduce spending elsewhere.

benjamin got us into the korean war by telling the chinese we would not mind, -- when truman got us into the korean war by telling the chinese we did not mind -- he kept the war going for some time. >> i wanted to press you on that last point he made. into the ryan plan, put the act -- total discretionary spending goes up to 3 but 5% of gdp. the trade-off -- if the whole discretionary budget is a but 5% of gdp, how do you maintain? >> you are talking about projections of 2040, the government will spend less. and the larger economy.

3%, 5%, 10% of an economy twice our size is a much bigger number. i would much rather fund a serious national defense and those things that the government needs to do that are mentioned at least once in the constitution even in passing. of a much larger economy. if we have been growing significantly over the last 20 years -- >> it would make sense to [inaudible] >> no. nixon said america's national defense needs are set in moscow. the guys who followed did not notice the soviet union disappeared. >> my big question is do you think it matters that this is the ticket with the least of

foreign-policy experience and credibility in modern history? reagan had a cia director perry bush headed defense secretary. -- director. bush had a defense secretary perry does that make an impact? >> i am a big advocate of common sense. ryan's serious about looking at foreign-policy issues. we survived obama and the problems have come not from his farm policy but domestic policy. >> do they have any foreign- policy experience you can point to? if i was advising the president on foreign policy issues, some

of the people he has listened to are very serious people. >> [inaudible] corporations did not take as much. >> why am i advocating? at present, the federal government takes 35% from companies. 35% marginal tax rate. >> [unintelligible]

>> top marginal tax rate for corporations is 35%. for individual right now is 35%. most businesses pay at the individual level. they are passed through s corps. under obama's world, that goes up to 39 by% in january%3.8% for taxes on successful small businesses that are not incorporated. 35% on general motors. it is a massive tax increase on small companies and less taxes on major corporations. which are more likely to be donors. i want to take that rate, both rates, to 25% as step one in tax reform. please do not misunderstand me and think that 20% is a floor.

it is a ceiling. be taken down to 25%. this is not an endorsement. -- we take it down to 25%. this is not an endorsement. i and in favor of americans being treated less poly then -- less poorly than cerfs were. on the way to americans -- cerrf for a couple years and then down lower as you have the economy grow. i am a fabian limited government person. we take this is that at a time. i do not have some magic bottom number. >> the only real conservative was eisenhower.

he balanced the budget three times and reduce government spending as a percentage of gdp. that percentage went up under nixon, reagan, both the bushes. i know people do not like eisenhower much because he is a moderate but is there anything to be learned from his success? >> fiscal conservatism is not about balancing the government's budget. that is what cromwell and henry viii up the whole point was, to balance their budget. as much as they spent, they took from other people. that is not a conservative position. the modern reagan republican position -- is different than a lincoln republican party. the lincoln republican party was against slavery and for the union. we have a war. and over 100 years, it became a

largely consensus issues in most counties in america, even among democrats. no slavery, one union. once everybody was in on that product, we say now what does the republican party stand for? that is the problem you have. kansas just finished a conversation with the remaining lincoln republican. that was a really good reason more than 100 years ago. there are little old ladies in mississippi who agree with ronald reagan on everything and they voted for george mcgovern because sherman had been very mean to atlanta recently. [laughter] we're beyond that except for parts of this room. the new movement, this is what i think the obama versus mitt

romney and mitt -- an paul ryan thing are so clear obama can i get away with hope and change anymore. he has to talk about yes we did. versus the republican approach which is written down. the modern republican party, the reagan republican party, is interested in maximizing the rate and that the people run their own lives. -- maximizing liberty and letting people run their own mindlives. the analysis, if you want to know who was in the modern republican party, or on the table. everybody is there because on the issue that moves their boat, they wish to be left alone. taxpayers leave my money alone. businessmen and women, leave my career alone. home schoolers, let me educate my own kids. 20 years ago, that would be illegal. they are very serious about being left alone. the second amendment community -- i serve on the board of the

national association spirit -- association. it devotes to be left alone. -- voters want to be left alone. they do not lock on your door on saturday -- they vote to be left alone. they do not knock on your door every saturday. just leave me alone. they simply wish to be left alone to practice their faith as they see fit. so the other guy who understands scripture -- if i am going to have religious freedom, so the fact that. -- so does that guy. that is what the senate wright works well together even though they are a bunch of people who do not have lunch together because the guy who wants to go to church all the looks across the table at the guy who wants to make money all day and says that is not how i spend my time. not necessary that people agree what to do but they agree that

we should be free. in this coalition are people in the military and police to protect your right to be left alone. so around this center-right coalition, there are legitimate functions of government. those guys are part of anti- government -- anti use of government. i always get a kick out the liberals who say conservatives are anti-government. can fight back -- cancer doctors are not anti-cells. they are against cells that are problematic. we are against government that becomes against human liberty. balancing the budget that -- balancing the budget is what the left has been telling conservatives for a long time. we are going to spend a bunch of money and we will be back

then you can go raise taxes on the american people to pay for our big government and they will hate you. some people want to fall for that trick. tom coburn. but the other 99% of republicans go -- i have seen lucy and the football thing and i'm not doing that again. your analysis of balancing the budget at the highest goal of conservatives -- maybe in 1953. >> just a clarification. [inaudible] >> you want to limit the size of government. but clinton held the house and senate, we then had 6 years of republican governance by not increasing spending as his budget projected but by spending less than that. you ended up with a surplus.

spending did not increase. a lot less than clinton was planning on spending. that was very important and it did turn the economy around. limit the size of government, the economy will " -- grow so rapidly and to end up with surpluses. >> i want to salute grover norquist. it is great to see him begin to embrace the clinton legacy which is the sign of progress even if he has to distort the whole welfare story in the process. >> he did sign the bill. >> every other part of the story is wrong. i want to inject a note of bipartisanship. listening to you carefully here and on other occasions, i have

the impression that your attitude towards american intervention abroad as much closer to barack obama than to mitt romney. and number two, the one issue where you really think the republicans could blow the election is on form policy. is that right or wrong? >> obama tripled the number troops in afghanistan when he came into office. i would not allow myself with his views on occupy other countries. what was the second part of that? >> their approach to future intervention, it sounds to me -- it is clear that you are an anti-interventionist and that the republican party is far more

sympathetic to intervention and the obama administration. but this is a very interesting question. i wondered about it during the bush years. in the united states, there is a great lack of interest in the rest of the world. and people know that it is over there and every once in awhile the europeans kill each other and we have to pay for it. there is not a lot of focus. we cannot remember who our enemies were 40 years ago. unlike the guys in yugoslavia who can remember every slight back 1000 years, i was sitting in a room like this where all of the captive nations war and some

i was talking and going on and on about the 700's in kosovo. i am waving anti-i -- at the guy. could we speed this up, this is taking too long. [laughter] the mc and simeon out and he says, "jumping ahead to the 1400's." [laughter] in the united states, there is no national rifle association for national the fans. you have veterans groups that are interested in va hospitals, not tammany -- how many drones we have. we have a greek community that focuses on beating up on turkey.

we have people who are supportive of israel. you have four places you are not allowed to do something mean because of a domestic lobby. the president can decide to do anything else except the four that i mentioned and people would say they probably deserved it. depending on which government did it. when clinton was in the austral-hunter in empire, republicans say that was outrageous. when bush got in, having campaigned against that kind of wack job nation-building, we proceeded to knock out the taliban and stay and knock out saddam hussein and state. republicans, who voted for the guys that were kind where,

gentler -- humbler. the republican base said, ok. what is fascinating is the code. people -- code pink people. what has he done to keep that coalition together? it did not slow anything down. there is a list of things -- >> he withdrew from iraq and romney said he withdrew to quickly. >> i believe he which drew on bush's timetable. bush' timetable. this is all skins vs insurance. when you guys blow up something, the democrats said good.

the republican said, that is crazy. the other half and the teams reversed. which is not taking it seriously. it is not a of vote-mission -- moving issue until you stay for 10 years. you saw independents and republicans not enthusiastic about iraq and afghanistan. my point is, presidents have tremendous leeway. you want to stay in granada, less interest. it is not like other issues. it is very different. you would think we would treat it more seriously than we do but our politics does not drive us to a seriousness about the subject that it does in other areas, which is interesting because it is not unimportant.

it is important. they can be for or against the worst depending on who started them that everybody gets tired when they last too long and you are not sure what the point is. it is not been articulated. >> that last question came from the brookings institute and the washington post. >> could you identify yourself? >> i am from the cato institute. you mentioned there is no nra for restraint in a foreign- policy. this goes back to larry's question, imposing costs on peoples of the care? you are right that they are in different. the rest of the world is a blabbering mass of people we have to bomb every so often. if you put some cost on that, people belong to the nra because they have skin in the game.

if what you sell people this you will have to read one fewer story got a kid getting his legs blown off, people can deal with that. it gives back to how you get people to care and house costs imposed on them. when i ask you more of back taxes and u.s. foreign policy, i remember when the coburn frock this was going on -- fraucus was going on and they were bringing things against him and his many offenses. i mean it in the most narrow sense of the word. they cut to the core. there is a similar situation going on with people like lindsay gramm who are saying

revenues, let's raise taxes. let's do everything. but if we spend less and $700 billion in defense, we might be killed. is that something that you started to delve into? >> i have chatted with all of the guys you mentioned. here is the good news. there is a small number of them. when you're asking skin in the game, who has skin in this game? the head of the ways and means committee. dave camp an dhatch. -- and hatch. tax reform to named after them. if they can manage it. they are doing all of the work on it. you have all of these other guys wanting to still their deductions and give it to the

appropriators so there will be no tax reform. the advocates of, you cannot reduce spending, we must raise taxes, my job is to make that taxpayer tougher to beat up another spending interests. if a politician comes and says all of these interests are powerful, let's go get the money from the taxpayer. if we make that difficult, he wanted to raise taxes and he is not coming back. he was told we are not doing that. they are either at the end of their term, not coming back, or they do not know that they are not coming back. [laughter] but this is a small group. the idea you will raise taxes on the american people to not think through defense priorities, let

me leave the name that because i do not promised if i said -- there is a big r in that category. i said i would like how can i help you provide for a serious defense and defend the united states and not raise taxes an cut other spending. or do you have other forms that we could help high light that aren't moving from gridlock in d.c., perhaps bipartisan commitment to overspending. the answer i got, we, what you could realy to is explain to people that we can't cut the defense budget. at which point i thought to myself this is not a person who's trying. he said this and this -- i tried all these four things and it hasn't worked if you could push maybe we could get these across the finish line.

could you help? he had nothing on his list to save money, nothing. and when i would suggest to him, well, that doesn't solve all his problems. several billions of dollars, it's several tens of billions of dollars. no, it doesn't solve next week's problem. so there hasn't yet -- i believe you'll get sires conversation from some of the advocates of national defense spending when they understand here's the dollar amount. now make decisions. they feel if they -- if they could solve the problem that they wouldn't be able to increase the budge -- if they solve half the problem, they thowled it would undermine the case -- well, it's at half, do the rest. which is a mistake. if you don't look like you're trying, people don't want to help you.

i'm not going to tell people there isn't a penny to be saved. you've got be serious. the lack of seriousness -- if the guys trying to reform the pentagon were trying everything they could saying guys we're just here but they're saying there's nothing to be done on spending, give me more money. they're not making a sale. and they're now competing when they say well, we're not going raise rates. the guys that want to raise taxes go, we're not going raise rates, we're only go raise credits. like if somehow people don't think the alternative minimum tax is a tax. you can raise taxes trillions of dollars going out in the future that way but they have convinced themselves this is not a tax increase. it is, it is, it is. they want to take that and spend it oner defense. the tax reformers, one of them

just been made vice presidential nominee want to use those for tax. >> you have two minutes. you have a quick question and a quick answer. >> i would like to take it up a level. and i hate to disagree with you and agree with larry. pat sullivan from boeing. fundamentally, i mean, we have some people in this room that understands what tax does an what tax doesn't do. russia, the tax is used against corporations. to fukiama's argument that the tax is required for good governance, no tax, no governance. look at nigeria. across the world, you can couple the ability to honestly tax the people with the

people's voice. they're not taxed, they have no voice in how their roads -- how many potholes are on the road. if we're going to go to war, if you raise taxes to go to war it engages the populace, the politic more closely. and they watch a little bit more closely when they're being told to go. just away from the details of marginal tax rate but to the fundamental reason behind taxation. >> really quick. >> ok. you have one half taxes to pay for the legitimate constitutional parts of government, ok? things are actually written down. general welfare is an aspirational thing. it could mean anything, just means nothing. >> just leave that there. >> these are guys that never

get as far as the second amendment. that's everything we want. first amendment, no, stay with that general welfare. >> no potholes in the general welfare. >> that's state and local government. an interesting different question where at least you have federalism competing. i think what you do to get good government is to have the best competition you can. i mean, again, people are moving to red states and leaving blue states. ok. that's competition. they're sending their money to red states an they're leaving their blue states. 10 years from now -- remember we were talking about a north/south split, that's not the split. it's going to be policy. those states like wisconsin which is fixed, their public sector unionism problem and their pension problems and utah which fixed its pension problem to get rid of defined benefit tensions 10 years from now and

michigan which ended their pensions six years ago which fixed that piece of the problem, they're now working on other stuff, but you're going to have the country move twog radically different ways. you're going to have two big government france, greece things and some singapores. and the problem is the taxpayers are going to leif the states that want to abuse them and move to states that don't abuse them. there's going to be this incredible shift. and we're going to get all the french guys that don't want to get tax rates and fail to bathe. but they'll be good because they'll be good for economy. taxation is for the limited goal of the government to set up the rules for a free society like protecting your property, ok? not deciding whether you get to keep it.

and so i want to limit it to that. and then you want taxes to be as limited as possible. i'm not sure that the government would be less likely to go to war. the more taxs the biger government, the less freedom that people have. people have less voice when you have larger government because the government has a bigger voice. and the nice people in russia the government tends to run the media and other projects. i just think it squeezes out the freedom there. and that also sounds to me like a backwards argument for the draft. which i think is very problematic and is a serious tax on people. getting rid of the draft is one of nixon's great successes in making people freer and improving the quality and competency of the military. >> and with that we -- >> depreciate extensively. >> and with that we adjourn and we thank you, grover for --

[applause] >> on washington journal, michael mcdonald from george mason university will discuss early voting in this year's election. he'll take your questions about his plan to privatize the postal service. and we'll be joined by a member on the council of foreign

relations with a look at the so-called so-called -- administration. >> several live events to tell you about tomorrow morning. the news of the nuclear regulatory commission alelyson mack far land speaks at an event at c pan 2. also on c-span 3, the heritage foundation discusses the role of the heritage foundation in a domestic disaster. vice president biden will be speaking in danville, virginia. you can see that live at 10:15 eastern. >> now on the upcoming election and mitt romney's choice of representative paul ryan of a

running mate. from washington journal this is an hour. >> i think what we've seen is a great deal of energy, similar to 2008. but you're beginning to see the reaction of the republican base and you can see it from the crowd that they're attracting to the ticket. i think this election itself was a surprise in many ways but it had a lot of enthusiasm. >> your recent piece in politico, how ryan the

politician polls. you're not so much talking here about the budget plan itself, the man paul ryan. what have you learn sod far? >> the first information we got about paul ryan is in many ways related to the budget plan, the controversial reforms in that plan. we had an election that the senate level will be litigated the detail thoofs plan and the reforms on medicare. we saw lots of numbers. it's not a surprise. it doesn't poll that well. what was out there was a national polling about paul ryan. who he is, people like him. but there is some polling out there that's been going on in the months -- in the month to this, public polling and it shows you that country doesn't know him. especially independents. if you see people who pay close attention, they know who he is. >> the president is trying to define him right away. but what does paul ryan and mitt romney do to get what they

want into the debate? and obviously it's the substance, right? >> certainly we're going have sa different kind of a debate. there's no way around the ryan budget. if you take a look at the response of every candidate across the country, you'll see that they refer to paul ryan as the running mate of their local republican candidate or challenger. that's going to be the framework for this discussion and i think we're going to have a serious discussion about the merits of that plan. >> our guest will be with us for 45 minutes. he is charles matesian. we'll continue to take your tweets. here's a piece on politico this morning written by jennifer epstein.

why iowa, and why now? >> iowa is a swing state. it's very much up for grabs. this year it looks a little different and there are a bunch of different reasons for that. ryan has a great deal of appeal in iowa. the district's not far away. we had some familiarity with the landscape with the terrain. i also think that one of the things i heard from talking to republicans around the country was that there was a lot of excitement, not only about ryan but also about the idea of having a catholic on the ticket because he might appeal to other catholics. now, in iow the catholic vote is roughly a quarter of the vote there. went very heavily for barack obama in 2008. i think the view is that it's much more up for grabs this year. paul ryan is going to appeal to that vote. the obama campaign obviously understands mistakes in iowa. it's a key state, it's a swing

state where he's got a lot of connections an he's done well. obviously they want to compete in the same way that he does. >> mitt romney in florida called the juice palace. what's his message to floridians? >> the first message is about to ticket and about who paul ryan is because when you take a look at the map of paul ryan, he's clearly going to add -- he's going to be an asset to the midwest. there are graphics where paul ryan will be strong and a great added development. but places that pay close attention to the entitlelement debate naturally there is going to be some concern and there is going to be a real effort among democrats to define the budget, the ryan budget plan in a very negative way. that started this weekend. one of the things we are going

to see is an attempt to explain who paul ryan is, to explain what the ticket stands for. >> live event throughout the day. we'll have president obama live. we'll have paul ryan at 2:30 eastern time and mitt romney in miami at 5:15 eastern time. our first call for our guest is from greensboro, north carolina. good morning, anne. caller: first thing, i think it's very important to know that the ron budget cut medicare and please don't cut me off. it cuts medicare it cuts medicaid and pell grants. those are three cuts that they do. i just heard your guest speaking about catholics. it's my understanding that a group of catholic nuns are on the bus tour now already is talking about how immoral that

the ron budget is and this was before he was selected as the vice presidential candidate. so and i think -- and all of this the republicans are doing in order to avoid increasing the taxes on the more wealthy people. they're willing to cut all of these programs. there will be so much more income in the budget if there would be a tax increase. but they all have signed this grover norquist no tax increase form. so it is really sad that they would hurt so many people and destroy so many lies just based on that. and for people that don't understand one thing with the medicaid, i hear a lot of people. probably a lot of people not going to be able to go to nursing homes that really need that. >> well, again, she makes a

very salient point there about the catholic vote. it's too diverse to vote as a single lock step lock. and already you're beginning to hear voices in the catholic community that are in opposition to paul ryan over the budget plan and this was snag's been ongoing for months there. there was the bus tour that anne mentioned on the call. i think you're seeing an interesting debate within the catholic community between the sort of social justice oriented wing about the ryan budget and i think that's going to play out in a place like iowa and particularly in the most parts like iowa in places like debuick -- debuke. >> my question is -- mitt romney made a statement a while back saying that we can't take four more years of on the job training but besides theodore roosevelt what president has

ever had experience being president? host: thanks for calling. anything new you want to respond to? guest: the qualifications not of mitt romney but of paul ryan in an election where mitt romney isn't necessarily as wildly you may think to the american people. he hasn't been on the national political scene for that long. people are getting much more accustomed to. but especially paul ryan. he's a fairly youthful candidate and it's very unusual for us. host: "the washington post" head line, democrats pounce, painting ryan as out of step. a shot of president obama at a chicago fundraiser yesterday. he said i know him. i welcome him into the race. he's a decent man. but he offers a plan i fundamentally disagree with. >> this kind of top-down economics is central to

governor romney and it is central to his running mate. just yesterday morning my opponent chose his running mate, the ideological leader the republicans in congress mr. paul ryan. and i want to congratulation -- audience: boo! >> no, no, no. i want to congratulate congressman ryan. i know him. i welcome him to the race. i congressman ryan is a decent man. he is a family man. he is an articulate spokesman for governor romney's vision. but it's a vision that i fundamentally disagree with. that word ideolog is out there this weeb. it has to be equal for democrats because right now there's a word being waged defining paul ryan. i it's critical for the democrats to define him in a

way that works to their advantage. there's an attempt to paint him as somebody from the mainstream. and you heard that paul ryan was an extremist and an ideolog. and that's snag democrats will color him in. >> here's paul ryan from yesterday. >> a country with four years of trillion dollar deficits. audience: boo! >> a country in economic stagnation. the worst economic recovery in years. the largest deficit since world war ii. we have the highest rate in this generation in poverty. we're not going to take that. we're going to turn this thing around.

the good news is this. we can do this. we can turn this around. we can get this economy turned around. we can get people back to work. >> some people say that crowd was up to 10,000 people last night. you expect those kind of crowds moving forward? >> certainly there is great deal of curiosity about paul ryan. we'll see if that's sustainable. i think it's also important to note that the biggest crowd was in waukesha, wisconsin. it's not paul ryan's district but it is his backyard and it shows through the strength and the popularity of the candidate like paul ryan in the midwest but particularly his whole state of wisconsin where if you saw him it was the emotional appearance because of the sice -- size. he made a reference to the wisconsin culture and his connection whether he was talking to beer or cheese or bratwurst. one writer suggested this may

be the last time you may see them together campaigning. they're going to go their separate ways. what might their messages be separately around the country? >> the two were joking about that that's sort of the nature of campaigning in a modern year, they both have to be in different plateses. -- places, the vice presidential candidate goes the smaller markets. you'll probably see that now. that's why you see them in different states sort of covers much grown as possible. the message at least in the short-term has to be defining paul ryan in a way that works for republicans and that fights back against the imagine of him as somebody who's sort of a cold hearted ideolog. >> he's national politic editor charles matese. he spent nine years for governing magazine.

herald, good morning. >> good morning and the good news is that we live in the united states of america and we have a marvelous constitution and wonderful people with generous hearts. we need from our leaders inspiration and certainly president obama has the ability to do that. he gave a terrific, inspiring speech at missouri southern state university on may the 21st to the joplin high school that coolle that had been destroyed and came back. our president said correctly to the graduates there, we need god. god bless you. may god bless the class of 2012 may god bless the united states of america. god has answered that prayer. and god has said, mr. president, i will bless the united states of america and everything if you keep my commandments. now the problem is we have not

been keeping the commandments particularly the commandment that you shall not give false testimony and all this kind of stuff. what we need obviously to do -- in this great country deserves better than evil. we don't need to demonize people. what we should have is unconditional love, the love that for people -- for pets. what we really, really need is to shine the light of devotion to the commandments and to all of the marvelous things that when this country started -- host: let's hear from our guest. guest: one of the things that the caller was talking about was the money which is the degraded nature of our political debate. there are no signs that it's

going get better. you've seen television ads demonizing the opposition. there's no reason to believe that that's going to change on both sides. host: we have bobby from albertville, alabama. good morning, bobby. >> good morning. i would like to disagree with your guest. talking about people need to get ryan. he may be a good family man. that, i have no idea. he has a record in congress of what he's for and what he's against. i mean, that's very plain. you can look the record up. and one more thing, i would like to start off the subject here, but you know, they make a big deal about social security. there's a very simple security for that, take the cap off. your people that make $75,000 pay $100 on social security. the cap should be taken off.

everything does, you know, pays on what they make. and on the trade deficit, this comes from one of the republicans donald trump. he says, put a tax on china imports for the same that they have on stuff that goes over there. they charge 30%, stuff going into china from the united states which is 20%. he said do that, in a couple of years, you won't have to worry about the deficit. i thank you. i'll take your comment off the air. host: thank you. guest: i don't necessarily disagree with the caller. i think he does have a record in congress, paul ryan. it's something that's going to be litigated over the next 100 days or so. and each party will be naturally framing that record in a way that best suits them and helps their nominee. i think republicans have the larger task of explaining who paul ryan is only because

people are familiar with the obama administration's details. that's something that we've seen in the polls. we know there' lots about the plan that's unpopular. we know from the polling that people don't understand what it is. and that's what makes the framing of this debate and the definition of paul ryan so essential for the american party. >> he's going to make a stop at the place called juice palace. there's this twitter about florida. jody asked, isn't florida a must-have to win the presidential. jody thinks ryan will be unpopular with senior americans. >> take a look at the more popular states in the country,

none of those were in play. none of those are very competitive in the 2012 election. florida is extremely competitive. and it's such a diverse state. right now it seems so close but with its huge treasure-trove of electoral votes it's a state that neither side could ignore. but if the obama takes you to the romney ryan ticket -- >> we'll want to let you know that we'll have the miami event live. that will be at around 5:00. florida is expected to join him as well. this comes after our events with paul ryan and president obama early in the day. >> now, it's bonnie, independent. hi, bonnie? . >> hi, there. >> am i on? >> you are. >> i would like to say that

those people what is the government going to do for me? well, i'll tell them. romney -- ryan will give them a job. and then they can send their money to -- right now, the government gives them money and they have to spend it for what does he want it for. but i think that all of these people that are sitting on their desk want their government hanging down, free education, free head start, free everything. and somebody helped us pay for it. thank you. let's hear from our guest. >> i think the caller hit on anish hue that's going to be very important in the home stretch which is the role of gral government. obviously, it's tral to the republican cases in the obama administration. you'll hear the romney-ryan

folks talk about it a lot that the idea there's been a lot of expenses. the other part of the argument is about the need for the federal government to play a role in a lives of many americans. made it a personal chemistry between the two men, mitt romney and paul ryan over the-week. it's not essential but i mean through history you've seen lots of example thals of the candidates not liking each other. it takes a while for politicians who, you know, they operate in their own spheres.

>> why am i advocating? at present, the federal government takes 35% from companies. 35% marginal tax rate. >> [unintelligible] >> top marginal tax rate for corporations is 35%. for individual right now is 35%. most businesses pay at the individual level. they are passed through s corps. under obama's world, that goes up to 39 by% in january%3.8% for taxes on successful small businesses that are not incorporated. 35% on general motors.

it is a massive tax increase on small companies and less taxes on major corporations. which are more likely to be donors. i want to take that rate, both rates, to 25% as step one in tax reform. please do not misunderstand me and think that 20% is a floor. it is a ceiling. be taken down to 25%. this is not an endorsement. -- we take it down to 25%. this is not an endorsement. i and in favor of americans being treated less poly then -- less poorly than cerfs were. on the way to americans -- cerf for a couple years and then down lower as you have the economy grow.

i am a fabian limited government person. we take this is that at a time. -- a step at a time. i do not have some magic bottom number. >> the only real conservative was eisenhower. he balanced the budget three times and reduce government spending as a percentage of gdp. that percentage went up under nixon, reagan, both the bushes. i know people do not like eisenhower much because he is a moderate but is there anything to be learned from his success? >> fiscal conservatism is not about balancing the government's budget. that is what cromwell and henry

viii up the whole point was, to balance their budget. as much as they spent, they took from other people. that is not a conservative position. the modern reagan republican position -- is different than a lincoln republican party. the lincoln republican party was against slavery and for the union. we have a war. and over 100 years, it became a largely consensus issues in most counties in america, even among democrats. no slavery, one union. once everybody was in on that product, we say now what does the republican party stand for? that is the problem you have. kansas just finished a conversation with the remaining lincoln republican. that was a really good reason more than 100 years ago.

there are little old ladies in mississippi who agree with ronald reagan on everything and they voted for george mcgovern because sherman had been very mean to atlanta recently. [laughter] we're beyond that except for parts of this room. the new movement, this is what i think the obama versus mitt romney and mitt -- an paul ryan thing are so clear obama can i get away with hope and change anymore. he has to talk about yes we did. versus the republican approach which is written down. the modern republican party, the reagan republican party, is interested in maximizing the rate and that the people run their own lives. the analysis, if you want to know who was in the modern republican party, or on the table.

everybody is there because on the issue that moves their boat, -- their vote, they they wish to be left alone. taxpayers leave my money alone. businessmen and women, leave my career alone. home schoolers, let me educate my own kids. 20 years ago, that would be illegal. they are very serious about being left alone. the second amendment community -- i serve on the board of the national association spirit -- association. it devotes to be left alone. they do not lock on your door on saturday -- they vote to be left alone. they do not knock on your door every saturday. just leave me alone. they simply wish to be left alone to practice their faith as they see fit. so the other guy who understands scripture -- if i am going to have religious freedom, so the fact that.

-- so does that guy. that is what the senate wright works well together even though they are a bunch of people who do not have lunch together because the guy who wants to go to church all the looks across the table at the guy who wants to make money all day and says that is not how i spend my time. not necessary that people agree what to do but they agree that we should be free. in this coalition are people in the military and police to protect your right to be left alone. so around this center-right coalition, there are legitimate functions of government. those guys are part of anti- government -- anti use of government. i always get a kick out the liberals who say conservatives are anti-government.

can fight back -- cancer doctors are not anti-cells. they are against cells that are problematic. we are against government that becomes against human liberty. balancing the budget that -- balancing the budget is what the left has been telling conservatives for a long time. we are going to spend a bunch of money and we will be back then you can go raise taxes on the american people to pay for our big government and they will hate you. some people want to fall for that trick. tom coburn. but the other 99% of republicans go -- i have seen lucy and the football thing and i'm not doing that again. your analysis of balancing the budget at the highest goal of conservatives -- maybe in 1953.

>> just a clarification. [inaudible] >> you want to limit the size of government. but clinton held the house and senate, we then had 6 years of republican governance by not increasing spending as his budget projected but by spending less than that. you ended up with a surplus. spending did not increase. a lot less than clinton was planning on spending. that was very important and it did turn the economy around. limit the size of government, the economy will " -- grow so rapidly and to end up with surpluses. >> i want to salute grover norquist.

it is great to see him begin to embrace the clinton legacy which is the sign of progress even if he has to distort the whole welfare story in the process. >> he did sign the bill. >> every other part of the story is wrong. i want to inject a note of bipartisanship. listening to you carefully here and on other occasions, i have the impression that your attitude towards american intervention abroad as much closer to barack obama than to mitt romney. and number two, the one issue where you really think the republicans could blow the election is on form policy. is that right or wrong? >> obama tripled the number troops in afghanistan when he came into office.

i would not allow myself with his views on occupy other countries. what was the second part of that? >> their approach to future intervention, it sounds to me -- it is clear that you are an anti-interventionist and that the republican party is far more sympathetic to intervention and the obama administration. but this is a very interesting question. i wondered about it during the bush years. in the united states, there is a great lack of interest in the rest of the world. the republican party is far more sympathetic to intervention then the obama administration

is. >> it is a question i wondered about during the bush years. there is an amazingly interesting lack of interest in the rest of the world. and people vaguely know that it is over there and every once in awhile, europeans start killing each other and we have to go pay for ridder something. some of us want to go avenge ourselves on the ongoing british that the stealing our money and making us drink their tea. unlike the guys in yugoslavia and the western hungarian empire that can remember every slight back 1000 years, i was sitting in a room like this where the captive nations guys, somebody was talking in going on and on about the 700 some xhosa vote. i am waiting at the guy who was running it and i said, can we speed this up? this is taking too long. a hand him a note. ok, jumping ahead to the 1400's. we don't do that. presidents have an incredible latitude on foreign policy that

they don't have on other issues. in the united states, i mentioned in passing earlier that there is no national rifle association for national defense. veteran groups are only interested in va hospitals, not how many drones we have. we haven't armenian american community that focuses on giving up on turkey. we have people that are supportive of israel had we have others. for places you're not allowed to shell or does something need to because of the domestic lobby that says, what are you doing? the president can decide anything he wants about any other country beside the four that i mentioned and people assume that they probably deserve it. depending on which the government did, when clinton was blowing stuff out, republicans said, it is outrageous.

that when bush got in, having campaigned against that kind of crazed whack job nation- building, we proceeded to knock out the taliban instead and saddam hussein instead. the republicans that voted for a kinder and gentler nation, the republican base said, ok. just as the democratic base had said ok. the people part of obama's base, what has he done to keep that peace of the coalition together? it didn't sell anything down. this or that, there was a list of things there -- >> he withdrew from iraq and governor romney said that he withdrew to quickly.

>> i believe he withdrew on bush's stated time table. he did not withdraw faster than bush was planning to do. >> that gets to, at some point, this is all skins vs insurance. when you're guys blowing up something, the democrats said that is good. and the republicans said, that is crazy. and then the other half of iraq and afghanistan, it reversed. this is not a moving if you enjoy this day for 10 years. then it becomes a vote moving issue. who sought independents and republicans not enthusiastic about staying in iraq and afghanistan for three periods of time. if you want to talk about grenada and the economy is growing, ok. if you want to stay in grenada for a long time, less interest.

it is not like other issues. it is very different and you would think that we treat it more seriously than we do, but the politics doesn't drive us to serious about the subjects that a dozen other areas. which is interesting because it is not unimportant. everybody gets tired when they are not quite sure what the point is. >> the last question came from the washington post at the brookings institution. just then. >> thank you for your talk. you mentioned a couple of times. there is no nra or no group before realism and restraint in foreign policy.

in a way, it goes back to the clary's question. i think you're right when you say people aren't different and the rest of the world is this glauber in mass of people we have to bomb every so often. if you put costs on that, the people that belong to the nra has given the game. they care about their guns. if you sell people who, you will have the read one of your heart rending story about a kid getting his legs blown off, people say, i can turn the page. it gets back to how you get people to care and have costs imposed on them from having wild and crazy foreign-policy is. i want to ask you more about taxes. i remember when the coburn fracas was going on between atr and coburn and normal that we have at the wednesday meeting were bringing back in different

colored tops against the many offenses -- i meant it in the most favorable sense of the word. >> that is what he gets most upset about, i am going to raise your taxes. >> as a similar situation going on with people that are staying in the context of the sequester, let's raise taxes, let's do anything. if we have less than $700 billion a year in defense, we might all be killed. i am not seeing reams of "

saying that we are going to raise taxes in order to pay for the empire. is that something big you started to delve deeply into? >> i have chatted with all the guys you have mentioned, and here is the good news. there is a very small number of them, and when you ask about skin in the game, at the head of the ways and means committee at the head of the finance committee. they view deductions and credits as things you could get spread out and reduce marginal tax rates in tax reform. right? that they can manage. they are doing all the work on its. other guys go, can we come and steal your deductions and credits and give it to the appropriators? so when we get to tax reform, there will be no tax reform. the advocates of, we can produce other spending, we must raise taxes, my job is to make the taxpayer tougher to beat up the other spending interests. if a politician says that all these spending interests are powerful, let's go mud the taxpayer and get the money. if we make that difficult and delicate the guys, he wanted to raise taxes and he is not coming back.

he was told, we are not doing that. the handful that talked about tax increases are either in the end of their term, not coming back, or they don't know yet that they are not coming back. but this is a small group, and the idea that you're going to raise taxes on the american people have not think through the defense priorities, when we leave the name out, i don't remember if i promised not to tell anybody what he said. i said, i would like a serious national defense and i would like to not raise taxes. how can i help you provide a serious adequate national defense of the united states and not raise taxes. do you have reforms you're doing that we can high lake? becauseey aren't moving

of gridlock? perhaps the bipartisan commitment to various overspending. the answer i got was, you can explain to people that we can't cut the defense budget. at which point i thought, this is not a person who is trying. he said i tried these four things and they haven't worked. if you helped us push, maybe we would get them across the finish line. nothing on his list to save money, reform, nothing. well that the solve all the problems. several billions of dollars, tens of billions of dollars. it doesn't solve next week's problem. that hasn't yet, here is the dollar amount. now when you have, to the rest.

if you are trying, and nobody wants to help you. the lack of seriousness, if the guys trying to reform the pentagon were just doing everything they could. you might listen to them and they are not -- they are now competing. they convince themselves that this is somehow not a tax increase, but it is.

that they wanted take that and spend it on defense, the tax reformers, one of them has just been made of the vice- presidential nominee. he wants to use those reductions and credits for tax reform which is key to our strength as a nation. >> we have two minutes. a quick question and a quick answer. >> i want to take it up a level. i would hate to disagree with you and agree with larry. it is probably the first time. fundamentally, we have people in this room the understand what tax does and what tax doesn't do.

russia, a tax is used against corporations. the argument that the taxes are required for the government. the tax, no governance. across the world, you can couple the ability to honestly tax the people with the people's voice. they have no voice in how their hovels are in our road. if you go to war and raise taxes to go to war, it engages the populace and the politics more closely. and they watch a little bit more closely. just away from the details of the marginal tax rate, the fundamental reason behind taxation.

>> 1 has taxes to pay for legitimate constitutional prices of government. things that are written down. generational warfare could mean anything, therefore it means nothing. >> i had to sneak back then. -- sneak that in. these guys never get as far as the second amendment. general welfare is everything we want. >> those pot holes were great for general welfare. >> that this state and local government and an interesting different question. i think what you do to give good government, the best competition you can. people are moving to read states at leaving clues states. that is competition.

and you're going to see how 10 years from now, a split in this country with coastal verses the split. those states like this country -- like wisconsin that have fixed their pension problems and utah which affect their pension problems could get a defined benefit pension. 10 years from now, michigan ended for state employees 13 years ago. we just fixed that piece of a problem. you could have the country moving in to radically different ways. you have been governments like france, greece, singapore. and the problem is, the taxpayers are going to leave the states that want to abuse them and move to states that don't abuse them.

there will be this incredible shift and we get the french guys to come over here and failed to dave and stuff like that. it will be good because it will be helpful to the economy. taxation is necessary to provide for the limited role that the government has to set the rules for a free society, like protecting your property. not deciding whether you get to keep it. i will limit it to that end we want taxes to be as limited as possible. i'm not sure about this idea that if you have higher taxes, the government would be less likely to go to war. people have less voice when you have larger government because the government has a bigger voice.

and the government tends to run the media and russia. i think it squeezes out of the freedom there. that also sounds to me like the backwoods argument for the draft. which i think is very problematic, and is a serious tax on people. getting rid of the draft was one of nixon's great successes in making people freer and improving the quality. >> with that, we are adjourned and we thank you for a most fascinating discussion. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> mitt romney campaigns in

miami with marco rubio. then president obama campaigns in iowa. and gop vice presidential candidate rep ryan also campaigned in iowa. his event at the state fair is after the president. >> of washington journalists morning, michael mcdonald from george mason university will discuss early voting in this year's election. a visiting scholar will take your questions about his plan to privatize the postal service. and we will be joined by a member of the council on formulations with a look at the so-called obama doctrine. the administration's position on multilateral institutions such as the united nations. boston journal as live every day at 7:00 a.m. eastern. -- washington journal is live every day at 7:00 a.m. eastern. several live events to tell you about this morning. the new head of the nuclear

regulatory commission speaks at an event hosted by energy daley. that is on c-span2 at 10:00 eastern. also at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c- span3, the heritage foundation hosted a discussion on the role of the defense department in a domestic disaster. here on c-span, vice president biden will be speaking at a campaign event in virginia. you can do that live at 10:15 eastern. >> the soviet bear may be gone but there still will in the woods. we saw that when saddam hussein invaded kuwait. the mideast might have become a nuclear powder keg, our energy supplies held hostage. so we did look was right and what was necessary. we destroyed a threat, freed a people and locked in a tyrant in the presence of his own country. >> tonight, 10 million of our

fellow americans are out of work. tens of millions more work harder for lower pay. the incoming president says unemployment always goes up a little before a recovery begins. but unemployment only has to go up by one more person before a real recovery can begin. >> c-span has aired every minute of every major party conventions since 1984. this year, west the republican and democratic national conventions live on c-span starting monday, august 27. >> republican presidential candidate mitt romney campaign in miami, by marco rubio. this is 25 minutes.

[applause] >> look at this. yeah, you bet. good to see you. >> buenos tardes. good afternoon, miami. it is our honor to be here with you today and with your indulgence i would like to say a few words in spanish. [speaking spanish]

[applause] [booing] [speaking spanish]

[chanting u.s.a.] >> i described to them how i saved a bunch of money on my car insurance. [laughter] i am honored and privileged to be here with you today. i am proud to be from this community. i lived a few blocks away.

i went to middle school down the street and joining me here today is the next president of the united states. [applause] at such a critical moment in our nation's history, for 200 some odd years, this country has been different than the rest of the world. never in the history of mankind has there been a society like this. almost everybody in the world lived in poverty. wealth and power belonged to a handful will people at the top and everyone else was trapped by the circumstances of their birth. that is all you are allowed to do. you were only allowed to go as far as your parents. but 200 some odd years ago that changed. on this continent, extraordinary men began a nation on the principle that every person born was born with certain rights given to them by god that no government and their leader could deny them. [applause]

from those principles sprung free enterprise and free enterprise created prosperity in this nation, unlike anything man has ever known. no community understands that better than this one. hundreds of thousands of men and women who lost their youth and their country to tyranny are grateful to god that this nation was here to provide for their families and leave their children better off than themselves. this extraordinary country is what makes us different. it has never been automatic. it has always required to do what it takes to keep it that way. now is our chance to do that, too.

for four long years, we have had a president that does not understand about our country. he does not believe in free enterprise. he thinks people have to pull people behind to get ahead. and he divides us against each other. he divides us in an attempt to win this election. but it will not work because that is never who we have been in that is not to we are now. what we have a chance to do is collect some one that believes in free enterprise, the greatness of america, and will instill the policies necessary to insure our children inherit what they deserve, the greatest nation in all of human history. [applause] that is why it is my privilege and my honor to welcome to my community, to my neighborhood, the next president of the united states of america -- mitt romney. [applause]

>> thank you. thank you. this is the team. this team, this family are going to help me win the white house this november. [applause] better days are ahead but we will have to have a better leader in the white house. i will be that person. i know there are some people that are critical of america and think our best days are past but i know something about the heart of the american people. do not forget who won the most medals at the olympics -- we did.

do not forget who sent a vehicle all the way to mars. who put us there? we did. i know the chinese are working hard in getting a rocket to the moon. sure.ill get there, i'm and when they do, they will find an american flag there that has been there for 43 years. [applause] the people of america are going to have a choice about which course to go down. i have someone here i want to have you understand a little bit about me. this happened to be my son, my youngest boy. my baby, if you will. i am going to let him say a couple of words. and in spanish. craig. [applause] >> [speaking spanish]

[applause] crowd chants: romney! [applause] >> thank you so much. i said we have a dramatic twist to make about what kind of america we want.

we will go down the path the president led which makes us more like europe or we will make america more and more like america. this president ran for office and when he ran for office, he said he was going to do a bunch of things. he was going to get us more jobs. he has not done that. 23 million americans out of work or stopped looking for work or are underemployed. i will get the jobs americans need. i know how to do it. he said he would help people hang on to their homes but we have seen a record number of home foreclosures. i will get this economy going so people will see home values going up again. [applause] the president said that under his progress we would see more people start businesses and began to enterprises. he has been crushing small enterprise. we are at a 30 year low in new business start-ups. and i am president, i will help small businesses get going and

add jobs. the president said he would cut the deficit in half. i think it is immoral for us to keep spending our kids' future. by president, i will cut spending and get america on track for a balanced budget. [applause] if you think jobs are plentiful, if you think home values are good, if you think your health care needs to be taken over by the government, you know the person to vote for and that is barack obama. but if you want someone who will get good jobs and rising wages again and rising home values and finally get america on track to having fiscal sanity, i am the person that should be the next president of the united states. the other day the president said something which i did not believe he said it. i could not believe it. he said if you have a business, you did not build it, someone else did that for you.

i thought that cannot possibly be what he meant. he said look at the context. so i looked at the context of what he said. the context was worse than the quote because he said if you are successful, you may think it is because you are smart but a lot of people are smart. and you might think it is because you work hard but a lot of people work hard. i cannot figure out where he was going with that. in my view, this has been a nation which has always celebrated people who have been successful and begun businesses and chief things in their lives. we are a nation of individuals with dreams to come here and build enterprises and better lives for themselves and their children. that is the nature of america. [applause]

you know, when a person goes to work every day and says i think i am going to go to community college and see if i can get more skills and get a promotion at work, when they get the promotion, we congratulate them. the same way to go. -- we say way to go. you made that happen. when a kid goes to school and the size to work her heart out to get the honor roll, i know they took the bus to get to school but if they get the honor roll, i give the credit not to the bus driver but to the kid. [applause] so if you begin a business like this one to bring people from all over south florida, i will tell you what, i give the credit to the people who work here. not to the government to open the street for us. senator rubio was absolutely right. from the very beginning of this country, the idea was that the rights that we have as citizens here are not given to us by our government but instead are given to us by our creator.

it is thought to give us our -- it is god who gave us our rights and among those rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. we are free in this nation to pursue happiness. and this circumstance of birth does not limit our potential. look at marco rubio. what an extraordinary leader and example of that kind of promise of america. that is the american dream. we want to restore the american dream. i heard speak at another audience somewhere. he said some the hubble not forget. when he came here and lived modestly in a community, he saw a big fan of the homes and said he never heard his parents say i wonder why those people might give us what some of the have -- some of what they have. the parents said aren't we lucky to live in a land where if we work hard and take risks, we might be able to achieve that for ourselves. [applause]

that is the nature of america. that is what makes america the way we are. people have come here for hundreds of years seeking opportunity, freedom to be able to pursue their dreams and when they are successful, when they achieve their dreams, they do not make us poorer, they make us better off. i will not apologize for success at home and i will never apologize for america overseas. [applause] if i become the next president and paul ryan becomes the next vice president, we will the everything in our power to make america strong with strong homes and strong values. we will cling to the principles of the constitution and the declaration of independence. we will go to work to improve our economy. i have five things i would do. i think i will do to get our economy growing and thriving again.

we will take advantage of our energy resources here. our coal, gas, oil, nuclear, renewable. we will make sure every person has the skills they need to succeed. that means our school and no longer be in the bottom. they must be the best. we have to put the kids first in our education. [applause] #3, i want more trade. it is good for us to be able to trade with other nations. that creates more jobs. there is a huge market right next door where we can do trade, latin america. i will increase our trade to not -- to latin america and crackdown on nations like china when they cheat. no. 4, will get america to shrink the size of federal spending and balance the budget. and number five, i want to have been small businesses.

we will help small businesses grow and hire more people. [applause] so that is what we are going to do. we will make sure this nation stays strong. not by virtue of a government that tries to tell us how to live our lives because i believed in the american people. i believe in you. i believe in your capacity to build a better life for yourself and your family, for the coming generations. i do not believe government can do what you can do. you can achieve your dreams and as you do so, you will make america stronger. i will fight to keep america strong and our homes, values, economy, and military -- it will be second to none in the world. [applause] i love this country. i love america. we are going to keep america strong and the hope of the earth. thank you so very much. [applause] ♪ [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012]

♪ driving down the street today, i saw a sign for lemonade. they were the key is kids i had -- they were the cutest kids i had ever seen in this front yard. as they handed me my glass, smiling thinking to myself. what a picture perfect postcard this would make of america. it is a high school prom, a springsteen's song, a ride in a chevrolet. a man on the moon, a kid stand with lemonade.

it is open arms. one nation under god. it is america. ♪ later on when i got home, i slipped the tv on. saw a little town that some big twister tore apart. people came from miles around just to help the neighbors out. i was thinking to myself i am so glad that i live in america. ♪ it's america. ♪ we do not always get it all

right. there is no place else i would rather build my life. it is a rock-and-roll band, a farm cutting hay. it's a high school prom, it is a springsteen song, it is a welcome home. it is a man on the moon, a kid stand with lemonade. open arms, one nation under god. it's america.

♪ it's america. girl i have been thinking about us and you know i'm not good at this stuff. these feelings are piling up will not get the rest. this might come out a little crazy.

a little sideways, maybe. i do not know how long it will take me but i will do my best. you be my soft and sweet. i will be a strong and steady you be my glass of wine. you will be my sunny day. i will be a shade tree. you be my honeysuckle. i will be your honeybee. ♪ ♪

♪

♪

>> president obama is on a seven day campaign bus tour in iowa. he criticized represents the paul ryan and other members of congress for not passing the farm bill. this is a little more than a half hour. ♪ ♪ the more you see, the less you know you find out as you go you knew much more than i do now ♪

[applause] >> hello, iowa. [applause] it's good to be back. [applause] well, it is good to be back in iowa. i missed you guys. crowd: obama, obama. >> thank you. can everyone please give patricia a round of applause for that great introduction? [applause] a couple of other people i want to the knowledge, your outstanding former governor and the best secretary of agriculture we have ever had. [applause] tom vilsack.

congressman leonard boswell and your mayor. [applause] did you see the sun is coming out? [applause] i love being back in iowa. we're starting here in council bluffs, but we will be heading east and i think i will and at the state fair. michelle has told me i cannot have a fried twinkie, but i will be checking out the butter cow and chocolate moose. i will have to take a look at that, if i can. the last time i went to the state fair, secret service let me do the bumper cars. i was not president yet, so i

could do that. not this time. now, before i get started, i just want to say a few words about the drought because it has such an impact on this state and all across the country. right now, people in iowa and across the heartland are suffering from one of the worst droughts in 50 years. farmers, ranchers depend on a good crop season to pay the bills and keep a roof over their heads. i know things are tough right now. the best way to help these states is for the folks in congress to pass a farm bill that not only helps farmers and ranchers respond to natural disasters but also makes the necessary reforms to give farmers and ranchers some long- term certainty. unfortunately, right now to many members of congress are blocking the farm bill from becoming law.

i am told that governor romney's new running mate may be in iowa and he is one of the leaders in congress standing in the way. if you happen to see congressman ryan, tell him how important the farm bill is. we need to put politics aside when it comes to during the right thing for iowa and rural america. [applause] it is always a problem waiting for congress. in the meantime, i have made sure my administration is doing everything we can to provide relief for those in need. last week, we announced $30 million to help ranchers and farmers to get more water for livestock and rehabilitate land. today, we're announcing the