the obama administration's second term in the direction it could take in the final three and a half years. plus your e-mails, phone calls and tweets. washington journal is live 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> president obama is fundraising in chicago this evening but there are news reports tonight that the president is set to announce and nominate james komi, former deputy attorney general to be the next director of the fbi. robert mueller is stepping down am not position. a number of reports this evening. the new york times, and writing about his time with the george bush administration, writes the deputy attorney general was a critical player in 2004 in the dramatic hospital room episode in which the white house counsel and the chief of staff try to persuade john ashcroft, who was ill and disoriented, to be often wise -- to reauthorize the program.

to becomey that's announced at the next character of the fbi. we will keep you posted as more news becomes available. here's what's ahead on c-span. next, new york city lease commissioner raymond kelly who talks about defending u.s. cities against terrorism. in a debate on how changes in the nation's immigration laws will affect the economy and the federal budget. later, a look at public opinion on legalizing marijuana. the house and senate are out this week with a couple of political stories in washington and elsewhere today looking ahead to 2014. michele bachmann, representative of the sixth district in minnesota, announced she will not seek reelection in 2014. there is word that the current governor of rhode island, and independent, will announce tomorrow he is switching to the democratic party. reports say he has told the national democratic leaders in the president of his intention to become a democrat. he is up for reelection in 2014

as well. lincoln chafee served as a senator along with then senator obama prior to 2008. active michele bachmann in just a bit -- back to michele bachmann in just a bit, we will show you her comments on twitter. all of that ahead here on c- span. ray kelly, the new york city police commissioner, talking about defending his city against the threats of terrorism since 2001. he is interviewed by campbell brown. this is part of the atlantic magazine ideas festival held earlier this month in new york city. >> good morning, everybody. [applause] commissioner kelly, welcome. it's wonderful to have you here. we are going to get right into it. i think we should start with austin. -- with boston. it was a wake-up call for a lot of us. a lot of us who maybe have

taken for granted changes that you made here in new york post- 9/11. tell us what your take away from boston is. >> first of all, we were not surprised something like this happens. frankly, we thought it would happen sooner. people talk about the new normal. actually, the new normal is our old normal. after 9/11 when mayor bloomberg came in, we knew we had to do more to protect this city than just rely on the federal government. so we have invested heavily in personnel, money and we have been able to receive federal money that has helped us put in defensive systems that i believe is more than any city. we have 1000 police officers every day that work on our counterterrorism efforts. that's a major commitment for us because we are down 6000 police officers from where we were 11 years ago.

but we have been -- >> just due to budget cuts? >> yes, budget cuts. we have been the big them of two successful terrorist attacks. we had 16 plots against the city since that time. they have been torted as a result of your luck, good work on the part of the ei and nypd -- the fbi and nypd. no other city had that target on its back like we have. so we have made that investment and we are going to continue to do it. about mostou worry being under threat in this city was to, landmarks? what keeps you up at night? >> i don't think we can single it out. this is a target rich environment. we have a lot of iconic and events where large numbers of

people come together. we are concerned about certainly the event in austin. we have had these types of radicalized young man trying to attack us in the city. most recently, two individuals for arrested in miami scouting out targets in new york city. it received very little press but it happened. they were arrested us year. an arrest for attempting to blow up the federal reserve bank. he thought he was detonated 1000 pounds of [indiscernible] when it was an fbi sting. , a constant stream of individuals trying to come here and kill us. when you say what do we worry about, we worry about the whole spectrum.

we have to think the unthinkable. we have to worry about a nuclear event happening in new york or do we have worked with the federal government. we have a program called securing the cities. we have 150 other jurisdictions in the area that we signed on with provide a radiological detection ring around new york city. so we are not able to say we are worried about that thing only. it is a whole array of threats that are out there. we don't see any diminishment of threats. bc it as being relatively beingnt -- we see it as relatively constant. >> can you be specific about what you are doing, what measures you are taking in this city that other cities could implement? that boston could be doing? what measures do you think have been the most effective?

>> we are not in a position to advise anybody. they have to make their own decisions. depend on -- it dedpends on the level of the perceived threat, the culture, a lot of things. but we have done more here than any other city because we felt we had to. we have a security initiative, 1.7 square miles south of canal street. ,e have thousands of cameras like the great readers, radiation detectors. camera,ve thousands of radiation detectors. we monitor with public and private sector people, stakeholders. we have taken that concept and migrated up to midtown manhattan. street.60th we are increasing the numbers of cameras we have in place. now tying in cameras in other parts of the city.

we do have our own investigations. we have the most diverse police department probably anywhere now. in our last seven police academy classes, of 1000 or more recruits, each one of those classes have recruits born in 50 or more countries. for that diversity gives us a lot of flexibility and helps us interact with the many communities of this city but also enable us to do investigations. so we have personnel and we have the technology committed to the issue. you will see uniformed response, critical vehicles. you will see them deploy at iconic locations and other sensitive locations. we do that on a daily basis. .ostly in manhattan u come up lame close,

technology. plain clothes, technology. we had 17 investigators working with the joint terrorism task force. now we have over 120. we have our own personnel stationed abroad in 11 cities. for act as listening posts us. abu dhabi, gordon, tel aviv, paris, london, madrid. >> is that repetitive with what the cia is doing? do you feel like you need to do it yourself because maybe the federal government is not providing information given what you are trying to do? >> we need the federal government to continue to do what they are doing but we see ourselves at a higher risk than other cities. these officers are funded by the police foundation. these are not taxpayer fuds --

funds. our offices are embedded in these police department. they are not in the u.s. embassies. it is a unique experience for our offices and very much welcome on the part of the host countries. they send their officers here. we do training with them. and a lot of interaction takes place. >> you mentioned radiation detectors, a dirty bomb being a potential threat, something you are obviously thinking about. port security has always been an issue. i know that's something you spend a lot of time working on. do you think there has been progress on that? is it silly huge concern? >> there has been progress. the u.s. customs commissioner were concerned about it then. this was pre-9/11.

some progress have been made that the vast majority of goods that come into our country simply are not searched. it would be impossible to. inthere is a risk analysis place. , the shipping containers are being checked in other cities. before goods come to united states. has there been progress in that area? yes. still a lot more needs to be done. in hong kong, for instance, an x-ray of all goods going in and out of the port. that is a major undertaking. it would be very expensive for us to do that. but it's something that should be examined. >> i was talking to the guys backstage about crowd sourcing

and the impact that had particularly in boston and the investigation in those 48 hours] the bombings happen. talk a little bit about how you are using technology on that front to -- when you know there is a threat, a plot, to address it. >> you mean in the aftermath of the boston bombings, looking at films, that sort of thing? ofor the engagement community through the social place.ing that ootook there are pros and cons to that, obviously. >> obviously social networking is a major factor these days. it is something investigators look at all the time. i know it was examined right away after the boston bombings. the camera work of course was very important. our cameras, many i mentioned,

are smart cameras. you can do video analytics. thatn put in a formula will set off an alarm if a package is put down for a certain amount of time. let's say three minutes, it packages unattended, and alarm will go off. not all of our cameras do that with an increasing number of cameras can do that. or you can look at see somebody three weeks ago the path in front of a particular camera wearing a white shirt at 2:00 in the afternoon. we can do that very quickly. that is where technology is moving. it's getting smarter and smarter. and more and more private sector companies have cameras. more public cameras are out there as well. but we have done is tied them together. technology has been a major factor in allowing us to .perate client continues to go down here. art of it is a result of

technology. result of it is a technology. >> the city is also facing an enormous budget crisis and the stuff is not cheap. >> thankfully that federal government has helped with lower manhattan security initiatives. the federal government is facing its own problems with sequester. i believe other cities, i know they are coming here now to take a closer look at what we're doing. but but it's not cheap. it's an expensive undertaking. more and more cities will look at aspects of what we do. >> putting costs aside for a second, let's talk about what you are up against. everyday you are under fire from members of the government, city council, civil rights organizations, almost every candidate running for mayor a.b. with the exception of joe load up. mayor, maybe with the

exception of joe loda. for about targeting mosques intelligence gathering, go through those. what do you say to your critics? thatt me give you a number i think is important. of mayor years bloomberg's administration, there were 7346 fewer murders than there were in the previous 11 years. those lives saved are largely people of color, young people of color. saving lives.e we know we are saving lives. --p and frisk is something that practice has been embedded in law enforcement throughout the world.

not just throughout the country. supremealidated by court decision terry versus ohio in 1968. legislation or laws exist in all 50 states in the country. it's a practice not invented here. one of the things that has happened is we have started to report it more accurately. as a result, there is the possession -- a perception that the numbers have gone up dramatically. it really hasn't. .e have done a lot of training we are not unaware of the controversy it causes. it's an ongoing training program for a police officer but it is a tool. only a tool in the toolbox. it is not the be-all and end- all. we are doing a lot more to adjust the problems.

last year, was the lowest year and theers in the city lowest year for shootings in 20 years. this year, we are running 30% below that number. so something right is going on here. it translates into saved lives. we understand people running for -- there is a perception that a narrow number of people will vote in the primary and their views are very much against this type of activity that's how you get the nomination. but we are going to continue to do what we think is the right thing pursuant to the law. as far as the allegations of spying on muslims, we adhere

very closely to the law. we have a cadre of first-rate attorneys that monitor everything that we do. there are a series of articles about by the associated press complaining in essence about what we do. riders missede the authorization to do what we do, under the modification of an agreement from 1985. in 2002, we petitioned the federal court to change the from 1984. they did change it. -- newws near police york police to go any place where there is a public meeting, any website available to the public and to do studies and reports to help us to protect the city. this is the most litigious

environment in the world. i could see literally every day. [laughter] it's the fact that we are being .ued -- it is nothing new we believe we are doing our work to -- according to the law and we will continue to do it. >> that they aren't getting an inspector general -- they are creating an inspector general for nypd did you think is a terrible idea. why? parks -- we have more oversight than any police department in this country as far as i am aware. we have five district attorneys in the city, unlike most cities that have one. we have two u.s. attorneys. we have a civilian complaint review board that exists totally to oversee some functions of the nypd. we have to commission to combat police corruption, headed by a commission general counsel,

michael armstrong. they look at every case of corruption allegation that comes in. we have an awful light of ofrsight -- awful lot oversight. another layer is not needed. i think it causes the asian. -- it causes confusion. >> if we believe the polls right now, there's a good chance in november we will have a mayor they are saying now wants to undo a lot of what you have done. how worried are you? >> i am doing my job. the citizens are the ones that are going to have to take all this into account and vote accordingly. >> it's not too late to run. [laughter] to run for mayor yourself. [applause]

i'm focused on my job right now. >> classic politician non- answer. i think a lot of people may be glad to hear it. boston has say -- made a lot of us think about this. so much time passed and nothing happened post-9/11 than boston came along. how do you stay vigilant? how do you keep the nypd vigilant, your officers, when we go through these times of kong - times oc alf calm. our memories are very short. >> we have had to confront against the city. >> to us, it is felt like calm. you stop them -- you stopped them >> is prevented, it is a one-day cu it is a prevented,

one-day story. the right away, looking at the law enforcement saying you should have done x, y, and z. we are vigilant, we have to be partly because of the number of cases that we have seen. inhave had is ozzie -- azazi 2009. and he tried to dump the formula down because he was afraid of being seen and recognized before the event took place. -- had jose,lose a here and3 bombs righrt het was arrested by our intelligence division.

these do not get much press. therefore the public thinks things are looking pretty good. then when boston happened, it is a huge shock to the public psyche. not to us. thingssee where these could easily happen. we did -- two of our intelligence analysts, did an outstanding study in 2007 on the radicalization process rate -- process. itlse tse two young men firt to . -- put together a somatic they put together a schematic of the process. a pre-radicalization preieriod thanself identification

they indoctrinate themselves. that's when they often times sanction or. in the boston case, the sanction or is believed to be and more unlucky -- to be anwar waki. then they decide to act. we have been looking at this issue for a long time. we are alert. i hope we continue to be alert. new york is the number one target in this country. why? it is the communications capital. the financial capital. if you accept the proposition terrorism is theater, this is the world's biggest phase. if they cannot do it here, they may do it someplace else.

that is our job, to prevent them from doing it here. so far, so good but there are no guarantees. vigilantreciate your in your time this morning. thank you. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] ] >> the house and senate are out for the memorial day recess. michele bachmann announced she would not run in 2014 for reelection, announcing she is resigning her seat after the current term. she is a four term from minnesota. she detailed some reasons why she made her decision not to run. , my decision was

not in any way influenced by any concerns about my being reelected to congress. i've always in the past defeated candidates capable, qualified, and well-funded. i have every confidence that if iran, i would again defeated the individual who i defeated last year who recently announced he is once again running. rest assured, this decision was not impacted in any way by the recent inquiries into the activities of my former evidential campaigns -- former presidential campaign. andliance with all rules regulation was a necessity for my campaign. i have no reason to believe that was not the case. michele bachmann not running for reelection in 2014. we caught up with a washington political reporter for some background on that decision. john sullivan writes for the fake blogs at the washington

sullivan writes for xed blog for the washington post. x the reality is she was going whoun against a democrat came very close to beating her in 2012, and of course there , theultiple investigations office of congressional ethics [inaudible] looking into allegations of impropriety in her presidential campaign in 2012. looking at the large picture, there are a few possible reasons. it would have been tough politically for her to win another term if she were to go

ahead and run in 2014. >> back on capitol hill, she was the chairman of the tea party caucus. hurdle to overturn the healthcare just passed -- her bill to overturn the healthcare just passed. where does she stand with gop in her colleague? >> she was never very close to bigger banner and his inner circle -- to eager john boehner and his inner circle. boefhner and john his inner circle. when you look at michele bachmann, you look at someone whose larger impact is outside the halls of congress, outside of washington. she ran for president, she raised a lot of money from conservatives around the country who rallied behind her candidacy. the reality is as a member of congress, she does not -- she did not accomplish a lot. she was not responsible for shepherding a lot of legislation

that ultaty ed. she did .ot work her way up the ranks her legacy is her conservative politics and her ability to raise a lot of money but not necessarily what she accomplished. >> you wrote in your article today that she is among the most prolific fundraisers and congress. won't that be missed? >> i think it will be but i think if you look at it from the perspective of house republicans of the national republican congressional committee, on the one hand i'm a yes, michele bachmann could raise millions of dollars but she barely survived last year in a very republican district. ofm the perspective

national republicans, they look at this and they look at her district in minnesota. whoever they get, i will not be somebody who can raise the money she can but it will also not be somebody who has the political baggage she brings and that she will have to defend if she were to run. >> you wrote that 2014 could end up being a referendum on her record. is that something that is likely to be on the minds of many members, and particular some of the more conservative members, as congress goes along and not much gets past in the house and senate? >> absolutely. when you look at 2014. we don't have a presidential race at the top of the ballot. are going to go into these races were republican incumbents are running. not donehat they had anything, they have the responsible for [inaudible] the have gone nowhere. republicans will say the same thing as the democrats.

[inaudible] >> john sullivan, i think we are about to lose your connection. we want to thank you for joining us talking about michele bachmann resigning her seat or chooses not to run in 2014. you can follow sean sullivan on about thed read resignation of her decision. thanks for the update. again, minnesota commerce stolen michele bachmann decided not to run a 2014. on a 14 very much on the mind of president obama this evening. he's in chicago fundraising the democratic congressional campaign meeting -- campaign committee. says thedent democrats taking back the house is a way to get around the obstruction of house republicans. more at twitter.com/c-span. when the house and senate

return next week, down the road for the senate is taking up that bipartisan immigration legislation, passed by the judiciary committee before the .enate went on break earlier, the bipartisan policy center hosted a discussion on immigration and its cost, featuring former congressional budget office director douglas holtz backus --douglas holtz- eakin. this is about an hour. >> i'm going to introduce the panel. i will start with dr. lynch. professor of economics at washington college. he is taught in 1998. he is also a senior research fellow at the center for american progress dedicated to progressive ideas. in a research associate with the economic policy institute. a nonpartisan think tank. recent report

concluded that legalizing undocumented immigrants could one point four dollars -- up to $1.4 trillion. creating new jobs. he graduated with a ba degree from georgetown university. artie masters in economics from the state university of new york at on a book. brook.stony do they left, the president of the american action form. .nd on policy institute he is a former director of the congressional budget office and was recently a commissioner on the congressional charted financial crisis commission. he served as chief economist of the president council of economic advisers under former president george w. bush. he was director of the vatican economic policy for the john

mccain presidential campaign. he has held positions at several washington-based think tanks researching economic policy and entrepreneurship. he is the author of the ibo 2013 paper immigration reform, economic growth, and the fiscal challenge. he argues immigration reform would raise gdp per capita by more than $1500 and reduced the key militant federal deficit by more than $2.5 trillion. stevenleft, dr. camarota. an institute that examines the of immigration of united states. he has written and testified testified before congress and pensively -- extensively. he has a masters degree in political science from the university of pennsylvania and

a doctorate from the university of virginia and public policy analysis. the heritage, foundation. a conservative research think tank tasting washington, d.c.. he has three decades of experience. he was heavily involved in crafting the 1996 welfare reform bill and continued to examine .he mounting cost of welfare these focus on fixing the broken immigration system. of the at the long term fiscal cost to taxpayers of legalizing 11 million immigrants living unlawfully in the united states. concludes thatrs the lifetime deficit created by such a program would be explained $3 trillion. he held a bachelor from the college of william and mary in a

masters in political science from johns hopkins. now i would like to turn it over to our palace for brief opening statement. then we will have a discussion about where they agree and disagree on the question of the economic cost and benefits of a immigration reform. >> the basis of my analysis starts from an understanding of the redistributive nature of government -- the type of analysis that i do does not apply only to immigration, but to government in general. i look at the total taxes paid in unary category of taxation and all of the the benefits received by individuals excluding interest and national defense and i measure, essentially, how much income is redistributed from the upper class to the bottom half of the population and my calculations, which i have done for over half of a decade, show that there is roughly $1 trillion transferred from the top to the bottom, not

particularly controversial. the second thing that i showed that is not controversial, that kind of startling is that government is larger than people imagine. the average household in the united states receives over $31,000 a year in government benefits, implying they would have to pay $31,000 a year in taxes in order to break even. not many tax hold -- households pay $31,000 a year in taxes. when you look at the least advantaged households, those with the lowest level of education, where the head of the household does not have a high school degree, they receive over $48,000 a year in government benefits and only pay around $12,000 a year in taxes. there is a net deficit their of around $30,000 there -- a year. if you look at the other end,

households headed by someone with a college degree, they are the opposite. they pay $30,000 a year more in taxes than they take out in benefits. overall we have a massive system of redistribution in which we provide lots of benefits to the least advantaged americans and do not request much of them in taxes. they pay taxes, and i calculate how much lottery tax and tobacco excise tax -- we have over seven different categories of spending and over 30 individual categories of taxation. it comes up to equal total government spending. the same thing for taxes. it is a holistic analysis. the question vis-a-vis amnesty is you are looking at 11 million

people that haven't average education level of 10th grade. once you get behind the deceptive ten-year budget window, all of the amnesty recipients will be eligible for over 80 different means tested welfare programs, eligible for obamacare, and also for social security and medicare when they retire, recognizing these individuals have an -- a 10th grade education, giving them access to those benefits is expensive and will not be financed by those individuals themselves. they are in deficit at each stage along their lifecycle. they will also receive more in benefits than they pay in taxes. that is not a bad thing, but when you understand the fiscal consequences, you have to understand the current nature of redistribution. i then look and say what happens

if you granted these 10 million to 11 million people access to the benefits, and i use a simple methodology. i look at the current unlawful immigrants, and i assume once they have access they will pay taxes and receive benefits in the same way and a current legal immigrant he sees them, who has the same -- receive them, who has the same education level. i look at any legal immigrant who does not have a high school degree, and half of them do not, and is maybe 35 years old, and then i look at a legal immigrant who is exactly like that, and i measure what the fiscal deficit is, and the reality is, then, that these individuals -- each household, once they gain access to all of these programs, which they do under this program, each household will run a deficit of around $23,000 a year benefits minus taxes and once they hit

retirement, the deficit will be around $22,000 per person. once you legalize, the illegal will receive benefits the same way a current legal immigrant does care that is a lot of benefit, a lot of transfer. the bottom line is simple. conservatives say we do not want to have a cradle-to-grave welfare state. we have had a cradle-to-grave welfare state for 50 years. we have had the largest and most expensive government retirement system for social security and medicare in the globe, or at least the top five. we also have the most expensive public education system, which is largely free or nearly free to low income households.

they get the service, but we do not get very much in taxes. now we take a population of roughly 10 million people with an average education level of 10th grade and plugging them into all of those benefits. they are already partially plugged in, but we fully love them in, the -- plug them in, and i am asking what it costs. the average immigrant is 35 years old, and on average they will live an additional 50 years, so that is the timeframe in which these costs will be imposed on the taxpayer. once you look at that analysis and you assume that the unlawful immigrants, once legalized, have the same deficit status as this current legal immigrant with the

same education level, these costs unfold year after year, and over the course of 50 years and will receive about $9 trillion in government benefits, pay about $3 trillion in taxes for a net deficit of about $6 trillion that somebody else has to pay or needs to be funded by increasing the deficit. it does not mean that these people are bad or evil or that they are lazy. one of the myths behind this is a lot of people think if somebody comes here and works they inevitably would be not taxpayers. -- not tax -- net taxpayers. that has not been true since the 1920's. the largest tax credit is the earned income tax credit and it is only available for people that work. i think it is unfortunate, but given the fiscal status of our country we cannot afford to throw away $6 trillion on individuals whose claim to those resources is simply that they came here and violated our rules.

we cannot afford to do that as a nation. it is an unnecessary burden on u.s. taxpayers we should not create. >> thank you for inviting me here. let me start by saying that when you think about the issue of immigration, there are three basic issues that often get confused, but they are not really the same thing. let me run through them briefly. there is the impact of immigration on the aggregate -- the overall size of the u.s. economy, and there simply is no question immigration makes the economy bigger, by well over one

dollar trillion a year. -- $1 trillion. if anyone says it does not make the gdp larger, that is false or at gdp is larger by over $1 trillion, however an overall larger gdp is not necessarily a a benefit to the nativeborn population. pakistan has a larger gdp that island, and nobody says pakistan is a richer country. what matters is per capita gdp and per capita income. there is a way to estimate immigration process impact on the per capita income of the nativeborn. there is the immigrant surplus that shows about 98% of that extra gdp, that extra added to the economy from immigration goes to the immigrants themselves in the forms of wages and benefits.

there is a tiny benefit to the nativeborn, equal to about 2/10 of one percent of gdp. it is caused -- called the immigrant surplus. you could argue it does create a benefit to the nativeborn, but it is very small. so, that is the second issue. now, if you accept the idea that there is an immigrant surplus, you have to accept the redistribution of income that immigration creates. this has to do with future flows or allowing illegal immigrants to stay. the best preachers -- research shows it is redistributing about $4 billion in the u.s. economy and mainly from the less educated to more educated workers and owners of capital.

immigrants are not evenly distributed throughout the economy. about 6% of lawyers in the united states are foreign-born. about 49% of the hotel maids in the united states are foreign- born. so, for that 800 or 850,000 us- born hotel maids, immigration creates a lot of job competition, as it does for the millions of meat and poultry processors that are u.s. born because about 60% are us-born, but 40% are immigrants. for immigrants, it is another low immigrant occupation. for english language journalists, it is even lower, so they do not face a lot of job competition, but for nannies, maids, bus drivers, it is very large. they are the losers, and the winners are the more skilled and

the owners of capital. the fact of the business community fights so hard to keep immigration hard and you have a regular -- relatively lacks an unenforced immigration law suggests that a large portion of that redistribution goes to them. they pay lower rages and retained in the -- wages and retain it in the form of higher profits. there is the impact on the overall size of the economy, which is almost irrelevant as to whether it benefits natives. there is the immigrant surplus, which should be positive, but it must come with the redistribution and you have to decide how you feel about taking money away from the less educated and the poor. that is an open question. one of the groups that will benefit is the immigrants themselves. and there is the 30 issue of the fiscal impact.

there are three things matter -- the education level of the immigrants, the education level of the immigrants and the education level of the immigrants. the fiscal implications depend very heavily on the education of the immigrant. immigrants who come to the united states with very little education tend to be a large fiscal drain.- this is what robert found in his research but it confirmed something the national academy of science found in its research. they estimated that an immigrant without a high school education is a net fiscal drain of $150,000. those numbers would be larger if you adjusted for inflation. you see 59% of households headed by immigrants use one of the major welfare programs. by the way, i have not included the earned income tax credit and the additional tax credits. we also see that households

headed by immigrants have very little tax liabilities. about 70% have zero federal income tax liability. it is not a fully developed model, what it tells you is that when thinking about immigration it is the education level that matters and through all my research and others, it indicates that illegal immigrants are overwhelmingly unskilled. around 75% of the illegal immigrants are thought to have no education behind high school beyond high school. about 50% have less than a high school education. all of the research shows that people with bad skill level cannot come close to paying enough in taxes to cover the consumption of services. it is important to note that the fiscal deficit is not the result of the immigrant unwillingness

to work, or because they came to get welfare. rather in the modern american economy people with little education do not make very much. education has become increasingly important. it turns out your mother was right when she told you to stay in school because what you make in life is very much determined by education of what you pay in taxes reflects your income. your eligibility for you and your children also reflects your income. anyone who argues that less educated immigrants or natives can pay enough in taxes to cover the consumption of public services survey does not show what the data shows where they are being disingenuous. one final statistic to highlight that this is not being caused by a lack of work -- if you look at immigrant households receiving one or more welfare programs, 86% of those households had at least one worker during the year. this is not being caused by that. what it will suggest is if we have a large welfare state, you have to have an immigration system that reflects the reality and select skilled immigrants

that will not create the distal -- the fiscal cosrts. immigration reform bill, briefly, increases skilled immigration in the future because it will double legal immigration. instead of one million green cards, under this bill it goes to about 2 million. about half of the increase is unskilled. we accelerate family integration and create new avenues for unskilled immigration. in the past, it looks like half of all legal immigrants have only had a high school education. in the future, and thinking about this, we have to have a policy that reflect these realities.

remember, in 1910, federal state federal, state and local expenditures were something like five percent of gdp. today, the size and scope of government is fundamentally different and we need an immigration policy that reflect that. with regards to illegals, that means however many we let state, if we decide to do that, each incremental increase increases the cost. if we let half of them stay, it is more costly than letting one quarter stay. if we let three-quarter stake, it is much more costly than letting have stay.-- letting half stay. those are the things we have to think about. in conclusion, it is important not to think of the fiscal costs as some kind of moral defect or deficit on the part of the immigrants. rather it reflects the reality of the u.s. economy, the educational attainment of illegal immigrants, were mostly all adults, and the existence of a well-developed welfare state. thank you. >> i want to say thank you to the bipartisan policy center for having this event, inviting me to participate.

i have worked with the bpce in the past and it is a place that fosters this kind of dialogue and makes sure that all points of view get represented. that should be applauded, especially in this town. this is a difficult set of issues, and you can look at it from a couple of different dimensions. i will not bore you to tears as a former academic, but once have nsions one set of the dime is the -- my favorite senator. for me? thank you. [laughter] one set of dimensions goes across the policy. that is enter and exit visas. a second set of issues has to do with the legality of actions -- can we keep employers on the

right side of the law? a. said -- another site has to do with economics, dollars and cents. it is important in the theme of the event, when you talk about cost and benefits, to recognize this raises difficult issues in valuation. what is border security worth? this is a fundamental question we face. what is the value we place on having a secure nation question mark the same will be true when these issues in the evaluation of legal issues, internal security, the management -- the name -- the diminishment of illegal activity. they are tough issues. we do not want to hijack the debate over thinks we can measure when there are things that are difficult to measure that might be comparable or more important in the end.

we can measure something about budget and economics, and to me, the most central feature of the debate we are having today is for the first time we are recognizing the importance of immigration as an economic policy. it is a demographic fact that the nativeborn ovulation is -- population is having so few children that we will shrink as the population and economy, so by our choices we are choosing the future of the american population, the labor force and how fast we will go -- grow. that is not the tradition of u.s. immigration law. that is not how we have thought about it. we have also based the laws on tables of family reunification, political asylum and refugee status and we are now out of step with the rest of the world as a result. we have less than 10% of these is granted for economic reasons.

-- of our visas granted for eco nomic reasons. competitors recognize immigration is a powerful tool in economic policy. we see a shift in the court visa-granting priorities away from exclusive reliance on principles to include economic wensiderations and i agree. need to grow more rapidly asd a a nation. we know that compared to the nativeborn population immigrants work more. they work longer. they have more small businesses. they demonstrate the traits of entrepreneurial zeal and upward mobility that we always valued as a nation. we can put numbers on that. i have done back of the envelope calculations and others have as well. that is a key part of this debate -- have that opportunity. it brings with it other parts of the fiscal calculation and we

have heard some of that already. i want to emphasize that to me all we have seen in the discussion so far and in the debate is we have proven that an unsustainable american social safety net will be more unsustainable if we put more bodies in it. social security is broken. the current plan is to cut benefits 25% across the board in 2033. a pretty disgraceful plan. it is a system that needs to be fixed. right now the gap between medicare payroll taxes and premiums paid in, 10,000 new beneficiaries of a, fostering bad medicine in the process. medicaid, bad for the beneficiaries that go to er for

normal care at three times the rate of the uninsured. four normal care at three times the rate of the uninsured. it has nothing to do with immigration or decisions we make about immigration. if we had a baby boom and put more americans in, it would fall apart the same way. it is something that should be recognized, needs to be fixed. we are behind the curve in getting it solves, but it is not an immigration problem. we need to go back to asking questions we want to about immigration -- what can we accomplish on security, on economic growth, and what would we want the future of the american economy to look like? those are the central questions that need to be addressed in evaluating the quality of bills that come through congress. >> dr. lynch? >> thank you.

i am delighted to be here. my work has focused on what are the economic impacts of providing legal status and a pathway to citizenship for the roughly 11 million undocumented or illegal immigrants that are here in the united states. i want to talk about what we know about this. what is indisputable is that undocumented immigrants right now are earning far less, pay much less in taxes and contributing much less to the u.s. economy than they potentially could. what we know is if we granted them legal status and a pathway to citizenship we would see a tremendous increase in gdp, productivity, earnings and taxes paid. it is important to note that the earnings of both nativeborn americans and the undocumented increase, while it is primarily the taxes of the undocumented that would go up dramatically. why does this happen? there are three questions we should be asking. first of all, how do we know

positive economic effects would happen to legalization and citizenship. we know this because there has been a lot of research that has followed millions of undocumented immigrants from before they were illegal to after they were illegal. the best study -- all of these these have shown significant improvements in productivity. the best study is the department of labor study that analyzed will what happened -- what happened to the immigrant granted legal status under president reagan and the department of labor found within five years, after they had gotten legal status but before any of them acquired citizenship, their productivity and wages increased by 15%. numerous other studies have found similar or even larger result in other studies have looked at -- results. other studies have looked at what happens when you go from legal status to citizenship, there is another 12% increase.

another question we should be asking is why does that happen? why does changing the legal status boost productivity? there are many different reasons. i will quickly mention three of them. one is that we see that when formally illegal immigrants acquire legal status we see dramatic changes in their behavior, and primarily one of the things we see is a significant increase in their investment in education and training and improving their english language ability, which dramatically increases productivity. number two, we know that before someone is legal they are at risk of apprehension and deportation, therefore regardless of their skill level, whether they are narrow cultural worker or have a college degree, a 10 to pursue professions -- they tend to pursue professions that are low-profile where they are less likely to be

discovered. they go into agriculture, cleaning services and childcare services and we know exactly what happens once they require legal status. many of them move into jobs that are motor closely matched -- more closely matched to their skill set. you might have the nurse from bolivia who was working as a nanny, and once she acquires legal status she applies for a job at a hospital and she is earning three or four times more and producing three or four times more. legalization makes the labor market more efficient and productive. thirdly, as dr. douglas holtz- eakin mentioned, one of the things that happens when you acquire legal status, you also get access to things that are

key to creating jobs and starting business. you get access to permits, licenses, insurance and credit that you cannot get when you are illegal. we know from numerous studies that newly legalized immigrants are much more entrepreneurial than the nativeborn. a cream or businesses and hire more workers -- they create more businesses and hire more workers. any reform that unleashes this potential will boost the u.s. economy, productivity and create your job -- create more jobs. thirdly, what is the economic impact? in my research, and for the importance of this discussion today what are the budget implications? in my own research, i was looking at the economic impact of simply one aspect of comprehensive immigration reform

what happens when you legalize the 11 million undocumented and provide them a path to citizenship. i found that as a bottom line, their productivity would increase by at least 25%. i am at the very bottom. other studies have shown it larger than that. what implications would it have for the government budget? my study, we actually did not calculate the budgetary impact, but for the sake of today's discussions i went back and did some calculations and came up with numbers that could be compared to the number robert rector mentioned. if we provide legal status and citizenship, what will provide what will happen to earnings, taxes that they pay, what legal americans pay, and services. when you look at the whole impact, and minimum it will have a positive affect of about $200 billion in the first 10 years. you should compare that number to the astonishing $6.3 trillion

that mr. robert rector just mentioned. let me say one final point had mr. robert rector's study is riddled with methodological errors. when you correct them, you reverse his results. one error that i will be happy to discuss with him reverses his results and what his study proves is that immigration reform would be a huge in -- financial boom. exactly the opposite of what he proposes. >> thank you. taylor for allowing me to moderate. i want to open it up for questions and answers. i want to start with a step back. this debate is very much in the

here and now. there is a bill that came out of the senate judiciary committee. it is going to the senate floor next month. i would like for all of you to step back and talk about who has done this well in the past -- whether here or around the world in terms of minimizing economic costs and maximizing economic benefits, and is there anything to be learned by policymakers who are engaged in this debate from that experience that we can look at and apply? >> i would say when you look around the globe that policymakers are increasingly understanding that each modern economy is highly redistributive and that in those economies essentially the government is going to redistribute from the better educated to the less educated. there is no moral fault to the recipients, that is really what government has done to the 20th century and is doing it

increasingly. then, when they recognize that, most of these governments are saying we have to taylor our immigration system to reflect the redistribution. we do not want to bring in people it will be a net fiscal cross and it is not rocket science to understand a college educated person pays about $30,000 a year more in taxes than they receive in benefits. someone who does not have a high school degree does pretty much the opposite. if you bring in lots of people who do not have a high school degree, someone will have to pay. if i were to ask do you believe someone who does not have a high school degree is more in taxes than they receive in benefits, everyone says absolutely not because we have a system where we support the least advantaged american workers by giving them a lot of government benefits and services and not asking them a to pay a lot in taxes. the public generally accept that. the problem is when you apply the same system to a population that is overwhelmingly poorly

educated -- i would make the comment that we would have the same cost if this is a baby boom growth. we would not, because only 10% of the people that would grow up would not have a high school degree. with the legal immigrants, it is with the eu legal it is over 50%. -- illegal immigrants, it is over 50%. our system has allowed in a disproportionate number of people who have lower levels of education, and thereby imposed costs on the u.s. taxpayer that are largely unnecessary. we should stop doing that. >> anything else on lessons from the past or other basis? >> we know the industry worst actress, which is japan -- do not immigrate and -- practice, which is japan, do not immigrate and shrink. put that aside, we look at countries that have looked at

reform, but the reality will be that every country faces its own politics. we face our own politics. one of the things that is important to recognize in this debate is we do not have a debate about a skill-based immigration reform. we do not have a debate about a temporary worker program. we do not have a debate about legalization. it is the character of u.s. politics that we do bipartisan reform, especially when they are big, and they will as a result much all of those issues. the question we have to answer is not what we think about each of those pieces, but what is the impact of the legislation and how does it change the lay of the land? that has been true in other countries, and certainly of us as well. marks let me follow-up -- >> let

me follow-up. if you look at the current bill, and as well as the legalization peace there are programs for high skilled and low skilled agricultural workers. how well do you feel that those programs, as written in the bills, which have strict limits on visa numbers, floors on wages and the like, respond to the economic needs the united states is facing right now? >> i would argue in a nutshell that the bill is out of touch with the reality american workers are experiencing. we have a bout a 10 million jobs benefit. in the next 10 years, natural

population growth without immigration growth would add another 7 million. this building alliances about 8 million illegal workers -- and this bill legalizes 8 million illegal workers. so about 14 million individuals will be looking for jobs along with 17 million existing. in addition it creates huge new guest worker programs. in a nutshell, if this coming decade is not the greatest jobs bonanza in american history, we will see what we have seen for the last decade -- an increase in nonwork, persistently high unemployment. some say the immigrants will not come if there are no jobs, but between 2007 and 2012, there was a net loss of about 4 million jobs and we still gave out about 5 million green cards. between 2000 and 2013, new census data shows at least 16

million new immigrants came in and we had a net gain of about 4 million jobs. what that tells us is you can stimulate immigration because life is better here, but it does not assess early result in job growth. it has not in the short term and it is not in the next -- last 13 years. perhaps in the future it might, but we know it does not have to. we have seen low wages in the united states, relatively little or no wage growth for most american workers and a dramatic increase in nonwork. the increases in legal immigration are likely to exacerbate that problem even more. >> there were some problems with the numbers he was throwing around. it is not clear there will be a genetic increasing immigration under the bill proposed. using the numbers about how many jobs we created, talking about starting from 2000, the job loss starting in 2007. green cards -- people applied to

green cards five, 15, 20 years ago. when they happen to get them is irrelevant to the economic situation of the time. those numbers are not reflective of what is really going on in the economy. >> i think it is important to take the long view in this. there has been a lot of criticism of mr. rector's work, but looking over a long time is exactly the right thing to do. we do not do immigration reform every year. we do it once every 30 years, if things break the right way. so, to evaluate the economics of reform legislation on the basis of current labor market conditions is fundamentally a mistake. it is the case of the american

economy is a remarkable thing. it has on average fully employed its people over hundreds of years even though we get bigger and bigger through immigration and childbirth. that is the nature of a successful economy -- it grows and employs people. i have little doubt about the capacity of the u.s. economy to absorb and employ people from both fronts in the future. so, i think that is important. second, let's get the metrics right. if we take your numbers, 2 million immigrants a year, 20 million immigrants legally, over a decade, that important number swamps the 10 million or 11 million that are here illegally. let's evaluate the legislation on the basis of what it will do over the long haul, and the core there is what happens to high- tech visas, temporary worker programs, and, most important, to our core visa granting system.

>> that is an important point. the bill is complicated, and i will say right now what i will say is my initial assessment of the bill, but when i look at the high skilled visas in the bill, and the low skilled categories, and it is extremely complicated, what i basically see is roughly two low skill workers coming in for every high skilled worker added on in the bill. to characterize the bill as a high skill bill is not true. i think not only would amnesty cost money, but also, potentially, all of the low skilled, legal immigration would also cost money. we have these guestworker programs. all of those guestworkers have access to green cards, can become citizens in the long-term and they get to bring their dependents in with them. they would impose fiscal costs very similar to the current

illegal population. you would have to pay the kids education and so forth. all of those things have to be factored in. a simple rule of understanding is we expect better educated people to pay much more in taxes than they receive in benefits and we transfer that surplus to others. therefore, a college-educated immigrant coming in also creates this fiscal surplus of around $30,000 a year. most of the other immigrants, particularly those that have a high school degree or less, are exactly the opposite. a are not tax consumers -- they are not tax consumers -- net tax consumers. the literature is clear -- the high scale of immigration we have had has driven down the

wages of the least skilled, least advantaged american workers, i believe, by around $2600 a year. this is also supported by the work of the immigration economist at harvard, who i think is the best expert on this in the country, and as someone who works with the poor and welfare costs and those issues. the last thing in the world we should do as a nation is having immigration policy that drives down the wages of the least advantaged, most vulnerable american workers. we owe them something as american citizens, and we should not be using an immigration policy that makes it more difficult for them to participate in the american dream. >> these are all tough issues when you think about this. on substance, it is important to recognize that markets value skills. we are not very good at that. high school, college, all the categories that analysts like to

use, do not uniformly turned into market valuations. we have found in recent years the u.s. needs a lot of welders. we do not write that down as a high skill. they make lots of money. the second thing i would say is that from an economics point of view, the current bill, i am not fond of committees in congress writing caps and dictating the supply curve. that brings up the third reality, which is none of us will like everything about the bill. i view major legislation as the inglorious art of getting together a coalition of the disgruntled to vote yes, and that is what this is. it will not be perfect in every dimension for everybody, and this bill is on track to disgruntled money.

>> usually when we do that, it cost the taxpayer of fortune. it works on this issue of the low-wage folks -- this is completely misplaced. the reality is low-wage americans are competing with low-wage people across the board global, and it does not matter whether they are across the street or across the ocean, come petition is there. them moving is not change the nature of the wage they are going to receive. it is a complete non sequitur. >> two points on that issue -- he cited the leading economist in this area, which was true about 20 years ago. it has been surpassed since then by better methodologies and data sets, and many other researchers that have done work that far exceeds the work done 20 years ago. if you look at the latest research from the minute economist started -- starting in the mid-1990's, they analyzed is it true when immigrants come in

they pushed on the wages of low skilled workers, and the answer is no. in fact, if anything, they found an increase in the wages of low skilled american workers. that study sites work that is more than 20 years out of date. more recent data shows either no effect or a positive affect. >> i disagree strongly. he is to consider the top guy, andperry's has been shredded. there is explanation of why his methodology is wrong. correct it is not just them, it is dozens of scholars. >> there is a paper from

christopher smith look at the jobs distillation effect of immigration on workers. there is a lot of stuff out there. we may disagree on what the literature shows, and that partly reflects how contentious this is. i think most economist find it does adversely affect the employment opportunities and the wages of the less educated, what you would think with common sense, but there is a debate that is not entirely settled. >> with all respect, there is a disagreement here, but we need to understand where people are coming from. david card, it distinguished economist, but his chief claim to fame is research that allegedly shows that raising the minimum wage has no effect on jobs for low skilled workers. most people on the conservative side of the spectrum would find that not very good research.

it is essentially the same issue here. >> i want to move onto one issue issue before we open it up to questions from the audience. i am going to raise health care, and then if you would like to respond about who benefits, you can do that. as douglas is well aware, cdo scores things over 10 years, and dr. rector has learned -- looked over a much larger time horizon, clearly one of the hugely substantial costs beyond the 10 year window will be healthcare. i wonder if you can all talk about how you expect those cost to look and how much comes from the affordable care act and how big of a factor that will be in getting this bill through congress. we know the house bill that has been working on this has been hamstrung over this issue. they have been looking at what

to do in the absence of giving the affordable care act benefits to the undocumented immigrants when they are in original status. if you could talk about -- provisional status. if you could talk about the cost and also the cost of the alternative. what would happen in the absence of that in terms of emergency medical care or whatever the alternative might be? >> i think people need to understand the cbo budget game. every one these bills as a principal that is designed to deceive legislators. >> i reserve time. >> ok. the name of the game is that 10 year cbo budget window and attempts to focus the debate there. in each you find that individuals are granted legal status but not given access to

benefit -- government benefits for 10 or 12 years so they move beyond the budget window therefore the budget window looks bright. we predicted the deficits of illegal immigrants would go down. they will pay more in taxes, we agree with that. for the first 10 years, there is not a lot of cost, but around year 12 or so they become eligible for all of these things, including obamacare, and we predict obama care costs will be $20 billion a year. they will also receive a substantial amount of medicaid as some of them become disabled, and when they retire they will get around $11,000 a year in medicare benefits and those are in constant $2010. the actual costs will be higher because medical costs go in -- go up higher than general inflation. it is in part because the legislators cannot face the real costs, which everyone acknowledges occurs when you give people access to these programs.

we have over 80 different programs to assist poor people. the adult illegal immigrants do not get those programs -- they do not get obamacare, social security, medicare. they're very expensive programs. when you put on the -- put them into that, there expensive costs. >> the cbo does not take the budget window. it is dictated by the choices of the congress and the office of management and budget. cbo follows their wishes. the 10-year budget window has nothing to do with what cbo wants to do, and then congress rights laws that in some cases take advantage. the leading practitioner with the affordable care act itself,

which was riddled with gimmicks. this is not a cbo problem. this is your congress at work. it is not cbo disguising it. secondly, they do lots of forecast for 100 years, long- term budget outlook's -- in every case, it is important to give perspective to those numbers. i dollar 50 -- one dollar in 50 years and one dollar now are very different. you can show it, or making relative to the size of the economy. if you look at the kind of spending we're worried about in the heritage study, 2% over that horizon. get some perspective and stay with something people understand.

when you think of the affordable care act itself, you know, i just want to say, i have a pretty reasonable track record of thinking this was not the best thing ever made. it is an inhospitable way to greet people to these shores, but that is not the case. we have a law that is unsustainable which will have to be changed. as with medicare, as with social security, and as with medicaid. that is not an immigration debate. that is about the fact that we have overcommitted in these programs. the way it shows up in the immigration debate is because the past 10 years and you do the calculation over a 50-year horizon, you have to then make some tough calls. are you going to recognize that social security is going to be cut in half?

i do not think you do, so you are assuming some sort of social security fix. are you going to somehow keep medicare from going bankrupt. if you're recognizing those cuts, you are assuming some sort of form. analysts imagine how it will get fixed, and that tells you that we really do not know what these things are going to look like. >> that we do know it creates a bigger fiscal problem. >> you do not know the numbers, and the point is it relies on a future reform you cannot specify. >> i cannot assume no policy changes. >> i project that the illegals will get something similar to the social security benefit. the basic medicare benefit for the poorest americans, i predict that those fangs will not be cut. ok, i think we can assume that.

therefore, as we alter social security and medicare in the future, i think that this population, with an average 10th grade education, were largely be imposing greater costs that other people have to bear more sacrifices in order for those costs to be borne. it is a simple assumption. we do not know exactly what will happen, but we do know amnesty will make choices in the future be more difficult. >> to do proper fiscal analysis, what you have to do is compare what would happen to the budget in the future if we do know immigration reform to what would happen in the budget if we do immigration reform. if by doing nothing, we are going to run a $7.3 trillion deficit in the future, but by doing immigration reform, we will only have a $6.3 trillion deficit.

then you have to conclude that the immigration reform will have a a huge positive impact on the u.s. budget. he does not do it that way. he estimates what it will cost to cover the illegal immigrants without talking about what it would cost if we do know immigration reform. it is on page 29 of the report when he tells the for the first time and his $6.3 trillion number does not represent that cost parity explains on page 30 that in order to do it properly, you have to subtract the cost of the unlawful immigrants under no reform. then he said but that is not a serious oversight on my part because the cost of doing nothing is not very significant, only about $1 trillion.

you have to ask yourself a question right away, how is it possible that if we do know immigration reform, illegal immigrants cost us $1 trillion. but with immigration reform, it costs us $6.3 trillion? stunning difference when he makes an assumption on page 30. he is sent under no immigration reform something astonishing, he assumed that at age 55, all illegal immigrants in america return to the country of origin. they self deport. so there is zero cost. the very he acknowledges that will never happen. he acknowledges it will never happen. why? it acknowledges something anyone can tell you. they have us-born children who

are u.s. citizens and who at age 21 can ask for legal residency for their unlawful parent. in fact, the legal residency is almost automatically granted. he acknowledges that they will not self deport. so the real cost will be many trillions, but he never calculates what those many trillions will be. he tells you 6.3 trillion dollars. then he tells you only $1 trillion if we do nothing. he later admits it is many trillion, but he does not calculate what those many trillions are. well, i did. i used its methodology, which i do not endorse. it is riddled with errors. what i calculated what it would cost if we do nothing. we do nothing and compare it to what it does if we do immigration reform, his $6.3 trillion. the net effect was a savings of over $1 trillion. his own study done properly, done properly, shows a huge financial boon to the united states with immigration reform.

>> my report makes very clear that the net cost of illegals after amnesty or the total cost is $6.3 trillion. it also clearly spells out that i think the baseline cost under current law is about $1 trillion. so the net loss is about $5.3 trillion. >> because you assume at age 55 they all self deport. >> no, because i assume they will not get social security and medicare. >> you say it. >> it does not really matter, because if they stay here and do not get those two benefits and the costs are pretty minimum. >> i assume that under the baseline, they do not get social security, they do not give medicare, they do not get medicaid, things like that. if you do that, then the cost at the age of are not that large. as i acknowledge in the report you know this because very few

people in congress know this particular point which is there is a loophole in the law which allows an illegal immigrant, when their kids hit age 21, to basically get a parent visa and parent green card which eventually gives them access to all of those things. what i say is depending on how many people access that loophole, the baseline cost could be very -- and is it the baseline cost is actually the hardest thing to calculate, ok, but the bottom line is i'm a they are very expensive. they may be expensive under current law. we do not really know. half of the illegals currently have us-born children. we do not have a lot of that access in terms of the loophole now. we may have a huge amount in terms of the future.

bottom line, they made the more costly even under current law than most people understand. i cannot see how you can get -- if half of them get access to social security and medicare through the parent visa, i do not see how you reverse that. it would mean the net cost of amnesty might be a couple trillion. the bottom line, what i recommend in the report is if you are interested in saving the u.s. taxpayer trillions of dollars, do not allow people to say because i came here, i had a child born in the united states, i didn't have access to become a u.s. citizen is i came here -- i then have access to become a u.s. citizen because i came here had a child and have a huge cash benefit through these parental visas. i can guarantee you that i have yet to meet a single member of the senate or congress who understands that that loophole was there. and if we are interested in protecting the u.s. taxpayers, we should not grant amnesty and we should also close that loophole. >> let's open it up to questions

from the audience. right here in the front. >> hello, i am with cns news. you are talking about redistribution. i think that it is true that the countries that have the greatest amount of redistribution have some of the strictest immigration laws. take denmark, for example. in denmark, they have really tough immigration, legal immigration laws, not even talking about if you are in the country illegally, but if you want to -- that is because in denmark, once you are a legal resident, you have access to their very generous in a fit of free college, subsidize housing, daycare paid for, and those kinds of things. we are talking about legal immigration. in this country, back in the days of ellis island, one of the considerations was if you're going to be an economic burden

on the country, you are not allowed to come in. you had to be up to prove that you would be contributing to the economy. i wanted to see your reactions about that. but what is interesting is that all these sessions are usually about legal immigration around the world. it is a whole different topic when you are talking about people that are here, interesting that they wrote the law and we are trying to figure out how they can help the country. i think it is interesting. >> i think is an important point, this old law that you cannot, to the country if you are going to be a public charge. no one is a public charge today. some people in congress think this is still a reality. in fact, you can come into the country, your kids can get 80 different means tests and welfare programs, you can access different welfare programs and so forth. if you are legal, you can also get welfare as an adult. no one is dismissed as a public charge. the difference is at the time of ellis island, we do not have a $2 trillion redistributed state. it is true that denmark has a

more redistributed state than we do. but we spent close to $1 trillion a year aiding poor people, poor programs. who are the beneficiaries? it is the less educated people. not there any moral defect, not because they are bad people, not because they do not work, ok, but because we support vulnerable individuals through massive redistribution. we can barely afford to do that for us-born citizens and for legal immigrants. but to try to apply this massive system of redistribution to peoples whose only claim to u.s. taxpayer resources is that they came here and broke the law, i think that is a travesty and i think it is an assault on the u.s. taxpayer that is un- american. >> i mean, look, the redistribution issue is obviously very important.

but the key is that our system is broken period. it was broken before immigration reform. it will be broken after we finished talking about immigration reform. we're going to have to fix that. it will be way easier to fix that problem which is going to bedevil this demography for a decade, at least, it will be way easier to do that anymore rapidly growing, more vibrant economy. we should remember in evaluating the costs and benefits that it is the crucial element that we need to aim for. >> this whole discussion of redistribution, i think, it is not being framed properly or correctly. if you look at his numbers, you'll see that his numbers suggest that roughly 70% of the american population are not paying their way, all those who have less than a college degree are takers, not makers. i actually calculated using his

methodology of looking at the 50-year fiscal impact of 200- something million americans, and it came out to negative $66 trillion because the way he assumes redistribution occurs. i was having a discussion recently with a senior executive of a high-tech company talked about the fact that he would rather pay $40,000 a year to indian computer scientists than $80,000 to american computer scientists. he told me that those indian computer scientists are just about as productive as the american ones. i would much rather pay than the $40,000 in the $80,000 to the american ones. i said, that is right, you can pocket the difference.

he says, that is right, $40 million in my pocket. i said, what just happened to your productivity if you do that? well, nothing. you earned 40 million more and you put that income away from the american workers. they do not become less productive. no change in the productivity. it is just who got that income. he assumes that when, for example, wall street bankers tanked the u.s. economy five years ago, six years ago, when they pay themselves $20 million to create an $8 trillion hole in the u.s. economy, that reflects accurately their productivity. it does not. we are a nation, a very public's organism with hundreds of millions of people -- a very complex organism with hundreds of millions of people doing cleaning services, childcare services, accountants, all of us working together and producing an output. how we distribute that does not always reflect the productivity of the workers. >> we have one in the front here the gentleman all the way back.

>> hello, i am the u.s. correspondent from an austrian newspaper. ironic that there is a canvassing for labor and organizational rights, but that is different. you have a population in this country about the size of the republic of portugal, a huge number of people here and not all of them will self deport or will be forcefully deported. i would like to get one answer from each of you for what should be done to improve the economic and personal prospects of these people here now, not in 20 years or 30 years but now.

what can be done so they can stop -- pay taxes, get the educational system -- i'm not interested in quarreling about whose study is more correct or more precise. please give us each one thing that can be done to improve things right now. for these people and also for the overall american economy and society. >> we will start with dr. rector. >> i am interested in protecting the u.s. taxpayer. first, do not give people access to social security, medicare, obamacare, and 80 different welfare programs because they came here and broke our laws and got into our country illegally. that is a very, very bad way to use the taxpayer fund. the second thing i think we need to do is to keep the promise that we made the last time we did amnesty. in 1986 we gave amnesty and promised it would be a one-time

amnesty, we would never, ever do it again. they are not even promising that this time. we are on serial amnesty here, ok. we promised we would do a one- time amnesty, and in exchange we promised the u.s. electorate that we would make it illegal to higher illegal immigrants. it was not illegal before that most people do not know that. and that we would enforce that rule. that rule has not been enforced for a single day since 1986, not one day, not one hour, by either republicans or democratic administrations. this bill makes a genetic reversal. it makes the current employment verification system called e- verify which works very well, and it prohibits states from using it -- put it on the shelf and promises that they will propose a completely new system

that will be developed in the future. if you followed this from 1986, that is exactly what they say and every time. always we will do employment verification next year. we will do it at some point in the future. please trust us. that is what they said in 1986. amnesty now, please trust us, we will do employment verification sometime in the future. now, 25 years later, they have never done it. they are offering exactly the same deal to the american electorate again. i say fool me once, shame on me. fool me twice -- fool me once, shame on you. fool me twice, shame on me. it is exactly the same charade am at the same bogus deal was offered in 1986. >> basically, it is a replay of 1986. we promised absolutely from now on we enforce the law. and we did not. now we end up with 11 million or 12 million. i think the obama administration really enforce the law.

but the truth is what they have done is have high deportation numbers coming out mainly of what is called the secure amenities program. we are identifying people in jail. not going out looking for people, not going after employers. then they did some very significant shenanigans. they reclassify people, captured at the border, and moved into the interior. the obama administration has not deported more people than anyone else. even though that has produced a significant number of deportations, it is everything else that has been allowed to language. for example, you can still work in the united states with a false social security number very easily. we still do not have an entry/exit system to keep track of people who come in on temporary visas. this deal does not obligate a fully functional system. there are the land borders. we try to track people at airports. at the land borders most of the visa overseeing goes on, it is entirely exempted from that.

we will get rid of that and create something new and not for five years. still, it never applied to existing workers. this still is not even a really serious promise to enforce the law in the future. all the legal immigrants that got amnesty -- work authorization, social security numbers, travel documents, drivers licenses, and everything wants the bill passes. it is true, we are going to make them way to go from this green card light they get initially to the full green card in about 10 years. about 3 million looks like they can get in 10 years. ag workers and dream act recipients. the bottom line is the same, amnesty first with a promise of enforcement and the future. that promise is not good. it is set up for another replay because the special interests will slow the enforcement. the business community and ethnic groups say, look, you cannot enforce it on this group, you cannot do it now. it will be put back and put back. so we're set up for another

replay. anybody that thinks the law will actually be enforced after this bill passes, i have a bridge in brooklyn. that will not happen. enforce the law first. do it for several years. deport illegal immigrants from within united states. monitor the employers, actually control the border. create an entry/exit system. then tell the american people, ok, we had done this and other some fraction of the legal immigrants that we should give some legal status to. i can support that, but not this. this is 1986 all over again. >> the question was first from the perspective of those here illegally, what is the best thing for them? take away an ever present criminal element to make their lives better, and labor force protections that every american worker would have, allow them to compete on an even playing field.

those are benefits realized for those individuals, no question. allow them to take advantage for the right job opportunity for themselves. pursue jobs, pursue upward mobility. for the nation, we would benefit from more effectively utilizing that labor rather than having it locked away. you have heard the skepticism. past a law that could be enforced and thereby make good on the promise that we are not going to be a nation that advocates for implicitly illegal immigration. that is the great challenge of this debate, no question about it. some say it will never get done and can never get done. a dark cloud will hang over the united states. but i think this is a nation that has proven to be quite practical and its ability to right the challenges.

once in the growth in magnitude like this has, we will come to grips with it. we will put on the books a lot i can be enforced and does the things that everyone has talked about. i think that is the chance we have this time around. >> i would like to echo some of his comments and add to them. for the illegal immigrants themselves, by providing legal status, legal protections, the ability to change jobs, a long- term commitment for them to know they can stay in the country and get education and training so that these people who have less than a 10th grade education, a lot of them can get high school degrees. on top of that, i'm sure everybody knows a large number of illegal immigrants came here as children and were brought here by their parents when they were one old, three years old, five years old. they were raised here, gone to school here, america is their home, their country, what we call the dreamers.

they are as american as you or i am. we should allow them to stay. we should recognize that it is hardly about benefits for the illegal immigrants. this is about benefits for the whole nation. remember, we have something like 60 million baby boomers in the process of retiring now. we only have about 53 million children and grandchildren of those baby boomers coming into the workforce. the legal immigrants who are here are on average 34 years old. they are going to be paying into the social security system, medicare, medicaid, taxes for the u.s. system when the bulk of the baby boomers are retiring. they will be supporting all of us in our retirement age. they will allow us to do exactly what we have done in the past. elderly americans most need those 11 million immigrants.

we see the explosion in productivity and it will be good for the economy. native born as well as the undocumented. >> we have time for one more question. all the way in the back. >> yes, i am with the american counsel for immigration reform. i learned when i was a freshman in college, economics 101, that if you increase the supply of any of the factors of production without increasing demand, wages or the cost of that production has to go down. i find myself in never never land here, talking about huge unemployment already and you want to add millions of more workers at the same time as we are having a hell of a time competing with countries moving up the ladder, and we have a crisis.

how can you conclude that by bringing in more immigrants, especially low-income, low skilled immigrants, it will make things better? it just makes no sense. >> reaction -- first, thank you for taking economics 101. second, as i said before, i do not think you should evaluate an immigration system that you expect to be durable enough to last for decades by 2013's unemployment problem. if we get to 2018 and unemployment is 7.5% some of we will not be talking about the immigration problem. >> [inaudible] >> we're talking about employment. you said people were unemployed. now we get to the wages, the third thing i want to say -- you said it yourself, we are competing with developing countries. the competition is already there.

if you change the location and put a different label on its head and say u.s. resident versus norwegian, brazilian, or indonesian, moving that supply and the physical location does not matter in this economy. the supply is there. the competition is there, and wages are there. that is a serious problem for low skilled workers in the global economy. that is a fact. it means we need to better -- to do better on education and skills and the united states. again, changing the location adjustment immigration reform is about is not that issue. >> my point is that for a large part of the immigration reform, does not even change the location. it just changes their legal status. remember, the 11 million undocumented are already here, already part of the u.s. labor supply.

8 million are working right now. by you changing your status, you do zero, nothing to the supply of labor. but you do increase the productivity of that workforce. you do have a supply shock in the sense that we increase dramatically the production of goods and services in this country, which benefits all of us. >> look, we do not have a shortage of labor. real wages have been done for 30 years. as immigration has increased, the less educated in this country have made less. i would argue that immigration has played a role but is not the only factor. i also disagree that it does not matter where the immigrants are. construction is a job done by people here. restaurant workers is a job done by people here. hotel rooms in the job done by people here. any factory is an area where you face the most -- only about 9% of employment. if you allow the immigrants in, it makes an enormous difference for the people who clean hotel rooms or do construction work.

construction workers in the united states generally do not compete with construction workers from china and less the construction worker is allowed here. this idea that immigration will lead to an aid in the aging population is categorically false. we can look at fertility, how many children a woman has in her lifetime. with or without immigrants, the survey lets us do this. look at the fertility in 2011, all told in the u.s. the average woman had 1.98 children. take out the immigrants, it is 1.88. immigration increased average fertility in the united states by about 5%. twice the level of immigration that the census bureau projects now, they just release estimate showing is that immigration can change the ratio of workers to people who are too old and too young to work by maybe one percentage point. no one will argue that immigration rejuvenates an aging population because they age just like everyone else.

the average age for nativeborn person, 36 years. immigrants age like everyone else. the families are not big enough to change the age of structure and united states. immigration is a highly inefficient means for changing the ratio of workers to the ratio of everybody else, according to the census. it will not do it. we have to think about how to deal with an aging society. immigration is a trivial part of it. as you point out, we have a surplus of labor right now. we have lots of people not working, record rates of non- work and unemployment and declining wages. >> [inaudible] fiscal cost of low skilled immigrants. he said correctly that we have a problem with our entitlement system. but immigrants make this issue worse. why? well, because if you look at the us-born population, only about

10% of the people do not have a high school degree. when you look at illegal immigrants, it is 50%. legal immigrants, about 20%. because they have a lower skill ratio, they make all the problems of the welfare state, particularly when the illegals make it dramatically worse because they tend to be -- [indiscernible] in my analysis, i assume that legalization causes a productivity boost. a boost of maybe 10% of wages going up. but let's say it's 25%. let's say there is a boost of 25%. as a resident, the total goes up 25% including sales and all those things. when you look at this, once they gain access to all these different programs, the amnesty recipients are going to be getting about four dollars of government benefits for every one dollar of taxes is paid.

if you boost the taxes by 25%, the ratio is still four dollars. instead of 4-1, it's 4-1.25. i agree that their taxes will go up. a substantial increase in tax payments during the first 10 years as the unlawful immigrants, half of them work off the books, begin to work on the books. they will pay income tax. they may pay fica taxpayers $14 billion a year in tax increases just there alone from working on the books. however, we also granted them we also grant them access to the child tax credit. what is the cost of that, about $12 billion per year. they will work more and pay more in taxes but the increase in the benefits they get access to our going to overwhelm that

particularly when you get beyond the 10 year window where all the cars fall due on u.s. s fall due oncost u.s. taxpayers. >> that was quite the feisty discussion i think we had today. i would like to thank my panel -- our panelists for joining us here today. thank you for attending and thanks to those who are watching on our webcast and on c-span. if you would like to can -- continue the conversation, phi feel free to jump on twitter. you can also leave comments on the website. to walmart for participating. thank you. [applause] >> the house and senate out this week for the morrill dave recess. when they come back next week the senate is likely to finish up work on the farm bill. harry

reid has said he would like to send -- the senate to take up the immigration bill, the bipartisan bill passed a couple weeks ago. the week of june 10. people reacting to that upcoming debate and the discussion we just showed you, the bipartisan policy center using the #immigration. this one from jeremy. and -- says --h there is more at twitter.com/cspan. the house judiciary committee is looking into attorney general eric holder. an article here from the helm talks about what the committee

chair is looking into. the house judiciary committee is passing -- launching a probe into whether holder lied area that is the headline in the hill. they have initiated investigation into whether attorney general eric holder lied under oath on the surveillance of reporters. therman goodlatte and chairman of the subcommittee on investigations sent a letter to holder detailing aspects of his testimony that conflict with media reports about his involvement in the surveillance of james rosen, a reporter for fox news. the panel is looking at a statement that the attorney general made during an exchange with hank johnson of georgia about whether doj could prosecute reporters under the espionage act of 1970. here is that exchange. >

>> in this congress we have had famousf bills, the most of which in my mind was the helium legislation and we wanted to ensure that we had to keep everything moving forward here in america. we certainly need to protect the privacy of individuals and we need to protect the ability of the first of the press to engage in its first amendment responsibilities. to be free and to give us information about our government so as to keep the people informed. think it is a shame that we get caught up and so-called scandals and oversight of unimportant matters when we should be here addressing these real problems that things like the ap scandal illustrate for us.

i will yield the balance of my time to you. >> i would say this. with regard to the potential prosecution of the press or the disclosure of material, that is not something that i have ever been involved in or heard of or with think would be a wise policy. my view is quite the opposite. what i proposed ring my confirmation, what the obama administration supported during 2009 and i understand senator schumer is introducing a bill that we are going to support as well. that the press should have the shield law with regard to the press possibility to gather information and disseminate it. the focus should be on those people who break their oath and put the american people at risk. not reporters who gather this information. that should not be the focus of these investigations. attorney general eric holder

testifying two weeks ago. you can see all that in our audio library. again the chairman of the judiciary committee and the investigations subcommittee chairman sending a letter to doj inquiring as to whether the attorney general may have lied under oath in that testimony. a follow-up article from the hill with the headline justice department, defends eric holder testimony. they say we have received the chairman's letter and we look forward to describing the policies and establishing the attorney general's testimony about the potential prosecution of the press was consistent with the underlying facts with respect to the investigation and the ultimate prosecution. part of the statement from the justice department letter earlier today. here is what is coming up tonight here on c-span. a moment from earlier today, a discussion on marijuana legalization. after that a look at the

presidential transition process following elections. -- ray kellycity on security in the nation's cities, a conversation with campbell brown. tomorrow, we will be looking at news.hoo and your e-mails and phone calls and tweets live tomorrow and every morning at 7 a.m. eastern here on c-span. colorado and washington became the first states to legalize 2012 elections. a discussion from the brookings institution on a new queue research report on legalizing the impact of -- the leak --

impact of legalizing where one across the country. >> good afternoon, everyone. room know in this that last november, the states of colorado and washington legalize marijuana in the teeth of u.s. federal prohibition. something that no jurisdiction in the modern world has done. out right equalization of not only consumption but distribution and sales and so on. those two states are not likely to be the last. there are bills in the legislatures to legalize legalize in rhode island, massachusetts, maryland, or mod,

and organ. ballot initiatives are possible two thousand2014, 16 and states that may include california, oregon, maine, alaska. we are seeing the beginning of something but what? states began legalizing -- began to criminalizing and allowing the use of medical marijuana in the 1970s. there is nothing new about that. something very different seems to have happened lately. this iceberg suddenly surfaced above the water with legalization and a new kind of momentum. what is going on? how herbal will it prove to be question mark what are the implications not just for drug policy but for american politics more generally in this very nude territory we are entering. i would like to welcome you all here to discuss that and thank you for this event. this is part of the series at

brookings and our partner organization, the washington office on latin america are conducting. we thank peter lewis among our supporters were helping to make this possible today. and we thank lola for for working with us closely. s is -- i think our panelist -- thank our panelists who have done a pretty remarkable job. most of you have picked up a copy of their paper. on the new politics of marijuana equalization. it is a gold mine of information. very experienced, very distinguished scholars of public opinion and it helps that they have access, it is safe to say more data in one place than anyone has had on this issue before. including some data that is not publicly available.

they crossed tabs in ways that no one has ever even conceived of. you will get the fruits of their research in just a moment. a word about each of them -- you can read bios on your own, so i will keep the short. phil is a senior fellow here at brookings, the holder of the chair in brookings governance studies programs. he is a participant in six presidential campaigns. i'm trying to work out how you get to six. i was going to say, was it smith or was it rosenfeld? [laughter] he is the author of eight books. e.j. dionne, to his left, also well known to you as the syndicated columnist for the "washington post," well known to us at brookings as a senior fellow here and a professor in the foundations of democracy and culture at georgetown university a great title, by the way.

i would like to have that on my business card. they will each talk for about 10 minutes each on different aspects of their findings. our two, enters just really could not be better. -- our two commenters. anna greenberg has 15 years' experience in polling and public research and the methodology thereof. she has worked with many elected officials, many advocacy groups. directly on point for us, she has done extensive polling and research for advocates in drug policy reform including, among many other things, she led the research supporting washington's successful initiative 502, which is the initiative that passed in november. she has also been active on the issue in other states. she has a work in california, oregon, alaska, south dakota, arizona -- the list goes on.

she has expertise in women in politics, lgbt writes, religion and politics. she is a great person to talk to about social issues. i also want to make sure to thank her publicly for access to a gold mine of data, which she and her colleagues have developed in the course of their research over the last two years. i think our panelists will agree that they have benefited greatly from access to that work. last but hardly least is my favorite rising star in the world of political commentary, a man to watch if there ever was one. a reformed lawyer -- no one is perfect. he is a senior elections analyst for real clear politics. he is someone i have always watched for -- because he does his own thinking, his own research, and looks at the statistics every morning to see what is really going on. he is the author of the 2012 book "a loss majority: why the future of government is up for grabs and who will take it," and

he is the co-author of the 2014 almanac of american politics. for those of you who are online and following on twitter or who want to tweak a question, we are taking questions by twitter today -- or who want to tweet a question. our hash ted is -- hashtag is #mjlegalization. >> it is a pleasure to be part of this panel, i must say. each of us have 10 minutes, and i have seven points to make in my opening remarks, so i will be brisk. if i had in academics 50 minutes for a lecture, i would share with you my analysis of how the change in sentiment about the legalization of marijuana tracks

with cultural history over the past few decades. you have, i think, a rise in the early 1960's through much of the 1970's. a decline in support -- a dramatic decline in support starting in the late 1970's and running through much of the reagan years. stabilization. a gradual rise during the clinton years. stabilization during much of george w. bush's term, and then a take off like a rocket in roughly the past eight years or so. pro-legalization sentiment is up 20 points in just over a decade, driven in part by rising social liberalism among adults. according to research, you have a narrow pro-legalization majority for the first time in

history, and that broadly tracks with other surveys are saying. so that is my first point. dramatic upsurge in support for legalization. point two, this upsurge is broadly based. in recent years, support for legalization has risen in every sub-group we examined. men and women, blacks, whites, hispanics, republicans, independents, democrats, conservatives, moderates, liberals, and among every level of education. 3, this shift is not driven by moral conviction, unlike many other social issues. yet, the share of americans who view marijuana use as immoral has fallen from 50% to 32% in just seven years. on the other hand, the share who view it as moral has barely budged and now stands at only 12%.

so what is this missing half of the population? they do not see it as a moral issue at all, and that seems to me as close to the heart of the matter of the shift. if they do not see it as a moral issue at all, what do they see when they look at it as a practical issue? well, that brings me to my fourth point -- public perception of basic facts have changed in ways that compare to ground for a shift toward pro- legalization sentiment. first of all, marijuana is no longer considered worse than alcohol along the dimensions that most americans bring to that judgment. second, and perhaps even more important, there has been a sharp decline in the percentage

of americans who see marijuana as a gateway drug to things that are harder and even more dangerous. that percentage now stands at only 38% compared to 58% who do not see marijuana as a gateway drug. here is the other aspect of the shift towards the practical option -- as far as we can see, a main poll in the tent of the pro-legalization shift -- a main pole in the tent of the pro- legalization shift is the difficulty and consequences of enforcement. it is much like the shifting sentiments during the 1920's and early 1930's about prohibition. how am i doing? great? 72% of americans now believe that government efforts to enforce marijuana laws cost more than they are worth.

this consensus includes a majority of every population subgroup we examined. here was a striking finding -- even when respondents are told that marijuana use is still prohibited under federal law, 60% of respondents say that the federal government should not enforce its own law in states that have legalized the use of marijuana. again, this anti-enforcement sentiment is extremely broad- based. among the subgroups we examined, there is no group a majority of which supports federal enforcement against the states. 0.6 -- point six, in our analysis, this issue is not fully analogous to other social

issues which tend to try to compare it to. unlike abortion, there has been a strong shift towards one side of the debate that is unlikely to be reversed anytime soon. the new entrants into the pool of adults in the american population for purposes of survey research, anyway, it is on balance about twice as likely to be in favor of legalization as are those who are exiting the pool of adults through death. but unlike same-sex marriage, many of those who favor legalization are none the less uneasy about their position. there is a fair amount of ambivalence. there's not a lot of enthusiasm. i suppose on some college campuses, you could find a lot of enthusiasm, but in the population on a whole -- in the population as a whole, there is a kind of ambivalence and

resignation to the fact that the effort to enforce marijuana laws has been so costly, so it is not worth it anymore. seventh and finally, there is a theme unknown, the extent of which is hard to assess. it is possible -- i _ the word possible -- that asthma when deals -- i underscore the word possible -- as millennials age, their views will shift toward the conservative, as their boomer parents did, paving the way for a conservative tide. >> thank you.

i want to begin very quickly by taking jonathan, and there is no one whom you will find who enjoys working more with him then jonathan. if there's anything wrong in the papers, it is not their fault. lastly, mike and anna, who gave us one of her specialty briefings -- i told her it was so much fun, i want to work for congress just to get regular phone briefings. mike was extraordinarily helpful. the fact that this room looks a lot younger than most brookings rooms suggests one of two things

either lots of insurance have started arriving in washington, or our analysis in the paper is correct, and maybe both are true. when you look at this trend toward legalization, there are two important facts -- one, you can see if you have the paper on the chart on page two, where the movement even in the last few years since 2010 in favor of legalization crosses all groups and is marked among older respondents, it is important among middle age respondents, and there is even an increase among those over 65. but the other aspect to this, which makes it so interesting to speculate about what the future on this issue is is an interesting clumping by age.

it has some things in common with the movement towards support for gay marriage, but also, there is a difference. on the one hand, what it has in common is there is a large gap between those under 30 and those over 65. if you look at the first chart on page 12, you will see that the numbers are almost exactly reversed. by 33 to 64, people over 65 oppose legalization. that would suggest what underscores how bill ended, which is that we are unlikely to return to a time when there is strong opposition to the legalization of marijuana just by virtue of generational change, but the clump in the middle is -- opinion is much more closely divided. among 30 to 64-year-olds, there

has been a shift in the group towards support of legalization, but that makes it somewhat different from gay marriage, and i will come back to that where i will just say that where opinion is an almost rate line by age, support just regularly rises -- were opinion is almost a straight line by age. it must be fun to poll on this issue because it is not like all other issues we are dealing with. one of the things that struck bill and me when we were going through the data is that this is not -- does not have quite the partisan or ideological flavoring that so many other issues have. there is partisanship and ideology here, not surprisingly democrats and liberals are more

likely to favor legalization and republicans or conservatives, and if you put them together in a smaller group, liberal democrats are very strongly pro- legalization. conservative republicans are strongly against. but what is striking is that there are very large minorities in each of these groups -- liberal and conservative, republican, democrat -- who descend on the dominant view. up to 37% of both conservatives and republicans favor legalization. 39% of democrats and 25% of liberals oppose it. the relatively small partisan gap in comparison with other issues can partly be explained by the fact that republicans are not nearly as likely as democrats to say they have used marijuana. 43% of republicans reported past use, as did 47% of democrats. perhaps this gives us some idea of how we can reach a budget

deal on capitol hill. reported use among whites and blacks is identical, but much lower among hispanics. there is agreement across partisan lines, and this goes to one of the central points that bill highlighted, that government efforts to enforce marijuana laws cost more than they are worth. you will see this on one of the charts. this view is held by 72% of all americans, 70% of democrats, 71% i'm sorry, 70% of -- 78% of independents, 71% of democrats. 67% of republicans. it is also striking that even among opponents of legalization, there is great skepticism about the value of enforcing laws against marijuana and significant support for giving states that legitimize it leeway to carry out their experiment.

it turns out that there are a lot of conservatives who not them slogans but believe about states' rights. their skepticism about government efficacy begins their support for strong enforcement. on the direct question if the federal government should or should not enforce federal marijuana laws in states that have decided to allow its use, 57% of republicans and 52% of conservatives said that the federal government should not enforce its own prohibition. bear in mind, these are groups that are opposed to the legalization of marijuana. the gap among republicans between the proportion supporting legalization in the proportion who nonetheless want the federal government to stand down in the face of

legalization's efforts is 20 points. for conservatives, that gap is 15 points. it is also in a way nice to know that democrats and liberals are somewhat consistent on this as well -- there's no states' rights gap for democrats and liberals. the proportion of democrats who oppose legalization is 39%. and those who favor federal anti-marijuana -- enforcement of marijuana laws in the state -- in the face of state action is 35%.

this could have some very important consequences in the debate over what the federal government should do. democrats and liberals will not want the federal government to enforce these laws because they are sympathetic to legalization, but a lot of republicans and conservatives will not want the federal government to enforce these laws because they are sympathetic to states' rights. there is a way in which the issue is a classic social issue. among religious groups, only two show clear opposition to the legalization of marijuana -- evangelical protestants, 59% opposed and hispanic catholics, 55% oppose. there were not enough evangelical hispanics in the group. if there were, one assumes they, too, would be opposed. the other groups would be flipped. religiously unaffiliated were overwhelmingly in favor of legalization by a margin of 76%. a similar and stronger pattern emerges based on attendance. those who attend once a week or

more, 53% oppose legalization. again, this is a classic social issue in certain ways. white evangelicals in particular, it is a moral issue. 32% overall say smoking marijuana is immoral, but 55% of white evangelicals believe this. there is interesting evidence would -- in the discussion on the parental gap. it appears from the data, there is no gap between parents and non-parents, but there is a difference between married parents and unmarried parents. i think anna might elaborate on that for us a little bit. just so we can move on to the

discussion, i want to close this way -- the trend i think in favor of legalization is unlikely to be reversed radically, but there is a lot to play for on this issue. a great deal depends because of ambivalence on this about how these marijuana legalization experiments work. i think what we could see is for a proponent to legalization, their fear should be prohibition in reverse. prohibition lost public support because of the unintended consequences. what people who support legalization will have to do is make sure that there are not on toward -- unintended consequences. a lot of times in this

referendum, people have supported legalization for reasons somewhat ancillary to legalization. they feel that it is a waste of public resources or that it is spotty and unfair or that it could be taxed and provide a use of public revenue. whether these trends continue will depend a lot on the kinds of regulations that are imposed and if they are successful. and very much on how the federal government decides to deal with these states on this question. on all this hangs whether strong support for marijuana legalization among young americans indoors -- endures, and i have the capacity of many of you in this room to create a new majority on behalf of a cause that was once supported by only a few -- if they have the capacity of many of you in this room to created a majority on behalf of a cause that was once supported by only if you. >> i urge you all to read the

paper. it tells of the summary, there was a richness and surprises all through it. with gay marriage, if in a gay people especially gay couples, you probably support it. with marijuana, it is not who you know. it is what you do. if you smoke or use marijuana, you probably favor legalizing, but knowing people who smoke or use marijuana does not have an impact on it. all kinds of interesting things like that. here's a question about the future -- you obviously do not know the answer, but to get your sense of it, if i'm reading this paper right, you are saying the consensus has already shifted far enough so there is no going back to a sustainable, top-down, one-size-fits-all policy of prohibition. is that a correct reading? >> i thought you were asking them. >> i will ask these two and bring the two of you in. is the consensus shattered to a point where we can no longer

have a national policy of prohibition of marijuana? or does that depend on these outcomes? >> i would respond this way -- i think it is much more likely, at least for the next decade or so, that we are going to proceed on a state-by-state basis and that the congress of the united states would be loath to touch the legal status quo with any link the poll -- length of pole you care to designate. i think it will be some states where the majority is close to permanent. there are others where that is not true, and we may very well be a patchwork nation on this issue for the next generation. to conclude, the idea of a dramatic change in the legal status of marijuana at the

national level, i think, is no a conclusion that flows from this data. >> i do not think we are quite at a tipping point in the way i do think we are at a tipping point on gay marriage that what you see in national surveys are very close splits nationwide. i think there will be a lot of interest on the part of a lot of members of congress to try to avoid this issue for a while, while it works its way through. >> wonderful. your experience with this issue is so granular. how does it sound to you? >> i had to go paperless, and i did not charge my ipad, so if it dies, i will just have to wing

it. thank you for having me on the panel. but he is really fun to be part of the discussion after doing so much work on it over the past few years -- it is really fun to be part of the discussion. i want to basically expand upon a few of the things that you talked about. in the context of trying to understand why attitude toward legalization may be different toward -- an attitude toward gay marriage or abortion. the first is personal experience. in a very transactional way, it is true that if you do a regression model on support for legalization, if whether or not you have used marijuana is a predictor of whether or not you support legalization. it really is that granular in terms of personal experience. what is interesting about why it

matters for attitudinal change is that personal experience is hard to change. you cannot change some of his personal experience. so those people are not particularly personable if they have a personal experience. we have seen changes in -- we call it general replacement -- generational replacement. if you have a cousin who smokes pot all day and never got off the couch and never got a job and then started doing other sorts of drugs, you will never convince the person that it is not addictive, even if it is not physically addictive, and you will not convince them that it is not a gateway drug, even though there is not a ton of evidence that it is a gateway drug. even though the landscape has shifted, it is hard to convince anybody who's had that kind of personal experience. on the other hand, if somebody

themselves smoked pot in college, is a productive member of society, and knows somebody who goes home after work and smokes it and goes to work fine the next day, they do not have a personal experience that suggests it has all these negative consequences. in many ways, that issue shapes whether or not you think it is moral. you can understand the lack of a parental gap in the same way. in the research we have done, we have not seen much of a gap in parental attitudes about this. for people who have kids under the age of 18. when you talk to kids, it is because they are realistic about their kids' access to alcohol, and alcohol is illegal for kids under the age of 21. if kids want it, they have almost unlimited access to alcohol, and they currently have unlimited access to marijuana. many parents do not think legalization will change that. many think it might make things better. trying to have a regulatory system in place that potentially puts some drug dealers out of business potentially makes it

less available or more expensive to people under the age of 21. sums -- some parents say they would rather be higher than drive drunk. or if their kids do something, they would rather do that than alcohol because it is more dangerous than truck driving. at any rate, the personal experience from a consultant to try to run campaigns, it is hard to think about influencing people's views on that issue. on the other hand, what we did find in our work and was part of our strategy in washington was that there are some people who are movable on the issue. that is what makes it different than abortion -- well, certainly abortion. it is very hard to convince someone who thinks that a fetus is a life or a living baby, whatever the language is -- you cannot say that it is not. that is just in the core values

and beliefs that someone has. similarly, for someone who believes a woman has the right to choose what they do with their own body, it is hard to say that they do not. we spent all kinds of time trying to change people's views in the context of surveys and the campaigns that were being run and had not been able to do it. what is happening is general -- generational replacement and more and more people coming out the change personal experience. this is where marijuana is a little different. it is to issues you both raise about the kind of arguments used for legalization, which is that the system is broken, it is not a good use for law enforcement resources, and it could be a source for potential revenue. i think that because there is the model of medical marijuana in some states, that is actually and you can see that states that have medical marijuana, these attitudes on legalization are a little bit different. people are more likely to support legalization.

i would want to know that while it is true, knowing somebody who smokes does not predict support, knowing someone who uses medical marijuana does. you can see somebody actually get the benefits and it does not destroy their life, and civilization does not collapse. but it is a personal experience with someone using medical marijuana. those kinds of arguments tend to be female, blue-collar, lower and come individuals. we tried to see who was moving in response to ads, and we tracked over the course of campaign what was happening, and the movement is substantial. 5, 10, 15 points. it is really hard to move people on anything. this country is so polarized ideologically and politically. my view is that part of why we moved people was a lot of common sense. people actually do not think prohibition is working. people are still smoking as much

as they want to and when ever they want to and wherever they want to for the most part, and they generally think it is true that probably law-enforcement resources could be used for violent crime or for taking down gangs that are selling as opposed to dealing with individual or personal use or personal possession. but the other piece of it, which i think is fascinating, is that there are socially conservative arguments. i would urge you to look at the advertising in washington state. the first ad is a woman pouring coffee in a coffee shop saying that it is not that she likes it, acknowledging the moral ambiguity or that people do not think it is inherently a good thing the way marriage equality is or a woman's right to choose, and she is a middle-aged woman, and she says that it is not that she likes it, but the system is not working and goes on to talk about law enforcement and revenue. in the case of washington, we

also have law enforcement as our spokespeople. we had several prosecutors and state's attorneys, those sorts of alligators who also talked about how it is not a good use of law enforcement resources -- those sorts of validators. if you watch that, you might think we were trying to crack down on marijuana instead of legalizing it. 63% of people over 65 oppose legalization in your statistics. 44% supported it in washington. it is a lower number in colorado. over 65. in essence, it is inherently a conservative argument that we can control this and regulate this and stop crime and save money and make it harder for kids to get it. it is essentially a conservative argument around legalization that is that powerful and persuasive to people. again, some people have had it have seen it happen in real

life, and that is where the medical marijuana argument is so helpful. there was a woman who was a middle-aged suburban housewife who said that the light got turned back on in the park and they are taking the garbage out of parts because of the revenue from medical marijuana. there's all kinds of questions about revenue, but how much you can realistically raised and how you tax it, but regardless, that argument was powerful because she had personal experience with the medical marijuana revenue. where we go from here -- i agree that the national conversation matters a law -- lot. while it is true that people often disregard federal interference, it is the case that if there were federal efforts -- you could easily see this going the wrong way at the federal government depending on how heavy-handed or how it is handled, but it could have a

chilling effect, but on the other hand, if the federal government sort of basically just ignores it, which seems to be what is happening right now, then potentially the systems get put in place. does not make much difference. the sky is not all, some revenue, -- the sky does not fall, some revenue, and we see the kinds of things you were talking about. i also think how these things are implemented makes a big difference. how the ballot language is written and the statute language matters a lot about cultivation and how you actually collect revenue. all of that is an unknown. there are some models from the medical marijuana dispenser is and some important lessons learned from that, and a lot of that has been incorporated, but

we still do not know. i will tell you when we did the research in california that when we did focus groups and surveys in and around l.a. county where you have a lot of the medical marijuana dispensaries, a lot of stories about that going awry, you have very little impact on public opinion about legalization. two other things -- this is just in terms of public opinion, you could go -- there are lots of people who support regulation who do not want a tightly--- who support legalization who do not want a tightly regulated system. you have to be careful in a political sense from the left, and the other piece is we do not know what will happen on the right. one of the things that is interesting and makes the issue different from there to quality and abortion is that there really is not opposition -- directly funded opposition. there is no mormon church

funding terrible ballot initiatives, and there was very little spending. there was some spending in colorado and there was no spending in washington against it. it is hard to see where that money comes from, honestly, unless there is someone who has a personal interest in it, but there is a lot of organized opposition to it, but that could change. that could evolve. i think that the future is very uncertain. while i agree that i do not see public opinion reversing itself in part because of personal experience and the experiences of the state and what that ends up doing to the electorate. i certainly think that the voters in washington and colorado saw the benefits of a regulated system, but that said, there's all these issues so we do not really know what the impact will be.

>> fantastic. here is your unfair question. for the next five, 10 years, are we talking about a series of hard-fought battles or a shift in opinion which basically just leads to a wave of adoption of legalization almost regardless of what legal reasons -- legalization supporters do? >> i think it depends on how it is pursued. if it is pursued legislatively, it is a hard-fought battle. if they pursue it through ballot measures, we think the washington and colorado electorates' or model like the 2014 electorate, and both passed. you do not have a lot of pain opposition. i'm not suggesting by any stretch that passing these initiatives is easy. it takes a lot of money and professional campaign and research done right. that being said -- >> you have been researching

this. >> lots of research. without paid opposition, it is the legislative fight where you have legislators worry about getting reelected. >> do you want to take a guess on the next couple of legalization states? >> no, i would not. >> nice try, though. i was especially eager to have you here because you are new to the drug policy and marijuana debate. what is happening is not just about marijuana, right? it is part of a cultural story about politics. talk about that, if you would. >> i want to start out thinking brookings for having me. it is probably a bush league move for me to admit that i'm a little bit in awe, but i'm a little bit in awe. this kind of talks -- ties in to what a lot of people have talked about today. the pro-legalization forces have framed the debate in terms of essentially conservative arguments in some respects. the question is -- we hear about the age cohort data, with regard to marijuana legalization and with marriage equality, and the question is -- is this some sort

of shift? our younger voters more liberal? in a sense, you have more liberal positions being embraced, and you say yes, but i think that is a little bit too simple. there are other issues kind of associated with social liberalism or libertarianism -- attitudes on pornography, prostitution, abortion, and a few other issues that really have not moved that much of the past few years. i think what we really see has to do with what i think is one of the most important factors of american politics that people do

not like to talk about, and it is class. it is one of my meta theories about america, and someday i will write a book about it unless someone already has, that we define vice as something that lower class people do, and to change that, the pro- legalization people have framed these debates in terms of middle american values. in other words, gay marriage is as american as apple pie today. younger voters who are exposed to the arguments with in this frame are accepting it because it is within the american tradition. whereas things like pornography, prostitution, and abortion have not been framed as well in that particular way.

this is longstanding. you can go back to arguments over prohibition. alcohol would keep those immigrants in line. people like my great great grandfather somehow -- who managed to drink himself to death at the age of 40. i'm not sure how he did that. premarital sex had a very strong class aspect. so you go back and you ask why was marijuana, which seems to many of us to be such a harmless drug, essentially compared to alcohol, why was it illegal in the first place? the answer is it was brought to america by mexican-american farmworkers largely. it was perceived as being used by african americans, and it got treated as a street drug. you can look at letters -- there is a wonderful and horrific letter from law enforcement officer in louisiana to herbert hoover in the 1920's, saying that this stuff is more dangerous than cocaine and opium from his first hand experience.

these were the reports that were coming back. this was the way that it was framed to the silent generation and the greatest generation. there were a whole slew of similar -- marijuana -- "marijuana: we'd with roots from hal" was an actual movie -- "marijuana: weed with roots from hell." when you got down to the baby boomers, a to was a much closer split. the reason is what we have been talking about. baby boomers and pounded it in college. some of them continue to use it in their later life. if you have been around people who are high on drugs, it becomes immediately apparent that the last thing they are going to do is go out and beat someone up. i would rather be with someone who is high on drugs than drunk >> marijuana. >> what did i say? marijuana. it looked at the data, -- if you look at the data, there are some wonderful charts in this

pamphlet. you will see that the class angle is inverted. it is people with low incomes that are more likely to think it is a gateway drug, that are more likely to think it should not be legalized. it is even more striking when you consider that people in the very lowest brackets, probably including a lot of college students, are partly skewing that of ford -- upward. the same thing with homosexuality. to someone born in the 1920's or 1930's, it was unthinkable. literally did not even know what homosexuality meant, talking to my grandparents. what is going on during that time? the face of the gay rights movement is throwing down union

laborers and churches, it is gay pride parades, and you see this pick up start in 1996, and i do not think that it is accidental that that is when ellen degenerate's comes out of the closet -- when ellen degeneres comes out of the closet. that paved the way for "will and grace." it puts it strongly in the american tradition of families. we start seeing -- a part of what happens, if you look before "ellen" people in media depicting homosexuality as an almost dirty, sexual event. things like "deliverance," "pulp fiction."

when you start talking about "ellen" and "modern family" it is about as normal as you could imagine. compare this with some other issues. adultery and polygamy are still in single digits in most polls. adultery is bad because it is bad. polygamy is not something you think of your next-door neighbor doing. it is people in cults and weird places in utah. it is the face of the polygamy movement. i have always thought that if three or four hollywood couples came out as pro-polygamy, you would probably see that number jumped up to 30% pretty quickly because the face of it changes. the way we think of it changes. if the argument became about family and so forth, the thinking of it changes. pornography -- this is a shock,

but attitudes toward pornography have not changed over the past 12 years. 40% thought it was moral in 2001. -- 30% thought it was moral in 2001. 31% thought it was immoral in 2013. still not something that is rarely discussed in polite conversation. i think we get up to an age where people are married, the adultery factor plays into it, but it is not mainstream yet. prostitution is still something that you go to the bad part of town to engage in. and abortion is something that just -- it happens. it is not something you see a

lot of celebrities admitting to. it is not something that is celebrated. most americans see it as something that is a necessary evil. it asked about the morality of abortion, those numbers are flipped. to me, it is not about a liberal or libertarian cultural shift. it is the way of the cultural shift. it is a weed, all about the plucky -- today, it is "weeds," all about the plucky housewives in the suburban jungle. the real lesson is that it has to be framed in terms of law enforcement and family and money. things that appeal to the great american middle class. >> that is a brilliant observation. e.j. dionne has a habit of framing it unfair headlines out of panel discussions, and i think yours would be "panelists as pot smoking is a bourgeois

family value." [laughter] once an issue crosses over to the right side of the tracks, does that mean it is all over for prohibiting that thing? >> i think it is mostly all over. unless something comes up to push it back. even on alcohol -- i will just be real for you -- we are still a patchwork nation. there are a lot of dry counties in the south. oklahoma did not legalize liquor by the drink until 1996. you actually had to bring your bottle of booze to the bar and wrote your name on it, and a two is one up on the shelf. >> first, he showed he has no need to feel awe. that was a great discussion. and then researchers will suddenly be -- will wonder why people suddenly switched from c- span to watch "weeds: roots from hell."

a long time ago, marijuana use was associated with latinos and african-americans and therefore distained by large parts of white middle-class america, which right now, it has crossed over, and they do not think the data shows that marijuana legalization is quite as much of a class issue now as i would suggest. in our own numbers, there is not a lot of difference between income and education. there's a bit of a gap, but not as the enormous class cap, so that i think the interesting -- but not as large as the class gap. so that i think the interesting question is -- there are two

things in our paper, which is people want to legalize marijuana probably under the tutelage of very smart political consultants. we are very smart to begin with efforts to legalize medical marijuana because there is an enormous difference in attitudes toward medical marijuana versus marijuana for recreational use. one way to put it is medical marijuana referenda are gateways to legalization referendum, and that does appears to be the case, but that goes back to -- do these experiments work? there was a referendum in l.a. last week in connection with the mayoral election, which, as i

understand it, was to put limits on medical marijuana dispensaries. again, how the experiments work i think is going to make an enormous difference. >> i actually think you were making a different point, which is not that there are class differences right now, but that there was an issue on the mainstream middle-class. >> i agree, and i think that is right. in terms of the numbers now, i do not see a great class split on this issue. >> it is not that it has turned upside down and the split has gone away. >> i actually have many more questions than answers in this field. i have actually a question for anna about data and a question about data with sean. both of which i think will be in your wheel houses. i would first note that when you go back to prohibition, there was a medical exception written in. that was a very important safety valve. and a religious exemption.

>> a lot of the illegal sale of sacramental wine. [laughter] >> on many social issues, women are more tolerant or liberal. i would be interested in your interpretation on that. sean, carlin bowman of aei just e-mail me this morning the ucla matriculating freshman data. going all the way back to the late 19 assists -- late 1960's. >> the question here is should marijuana be legalized. >> should marijuana be legalized. 26% of matriculating freshman

said yes in 1968. 51% said yes in 1977. one decade after that it was down to 17%. >> the '80s? >> 89. 89 was the the year. i am sure it is significantly higher now. given your broad cultural views, how is one to interpret these dramatic swings among people of similar ages and backgrounds. these are matriculating college freshmen. what is going on in your hunch? >> no problem. i do not know that i have a gender explanation for this, but men no more likely to smoke marijuana than women.

once a control for the gender differences, it disappears. >> does that not just push it back a step? >> i do not have any hypotheses as to why men are more likely to do drugs, alcohol, everything than women. be alcoholics. i am sure that somebody from the psychology department or biology department could come in why, but just in terms of the political consequence of it, it is also the case that i andy's initiative fights that women tend to be lower information voters and tend to gather information late. the most vulnerable voters are low information voters. when you talk to women about revenue and the system being broken, tagging it to health care, use tend to see more movement among women and they start to look more like men. information has an impact.

>> just to underscore the point from the survey, they cited a 54% of men but only 42% of women said they had ever tried marijuana. a big deal difference in the numbers. >> what do you think accounts for this yo-yo among the numbers? >> 1986, relatively cold in texas where we were at the time, i was sitting in a football stadium with all of the middle school students from the northeast school district. nancy reagan is on a football field at the football field and we are all shouting at the top of our longest -- just say no, just a note. it was effective. and it was a part of a general argument that was meant to counter the counter cultural depiction of marijuana. we were taught all of the same things. that this is a gateway drug. that this is a drug that is addictive.

i think that that made an impact on high-school students going to college. they are using the drug now. the people today are supportive of marijuana. again, that kind of goes to the experience. you get to college and see the friends smoking up, glaze over. maybe that fiction was not entirely fair. if anything there is a class argument that is inverted today. there is a slightly distinct shift. if anything has gone to the point where upper class people are more supportive than lower class. not a huge distinction, but it is striking how much i expect that has changed. if you had done this with income cohorts in the 1950's it would have been down at the bottom. >> you could argue that the last time you had a swing back in opinion among college freshmen toward prohibition it was because the wrong kind of people were doing it and we were worried about it, but now you have people thinking the right

kind of people are smoking marijuana. >> i think that that was true in the '80s, though. i think that those numbers were great and interesting questions. i am assured had to do with the point and not sure that it explains those numbers. >> can i make one more point about class? you have to be careful when it comes to race. african-americans have a very different experience in the sense that you have the impact of the way it is in force and racial injustice around sentencing and enforcement. average americans tend to be against legalization because of the crime in their communities and what happens to the young men. you can see that want to talk about how you have a set of drug policies that are enforced differently with different consequences, you have a very vocal grassroots set of african- american activists on this issue, but i think that there is

a wrinkle on it that is different as it impacts the class argument. >> you could see more of this, a very smart opponent of legalization is making the argument that it is easy for wealthy white people in the upper class to talk about legalizing marijuana because they can handle it, but they will not be responsible for the places in society that cannot handle it. we have got a lot of amazing people in the audience. i will be asking for two or three at a time and we will try to get to as many as possible. starting in the far back corner, a gentleman in the red tie and dark suit. please, by the way, everyone keep your questions short. we have got a lot of folks here. >> thank you. i am john with the national council of a alcohol and drug dependence. i'm curious, as we look at this as a political issue we have to deal with the facts of the issue

as well. the fact of that is that the number two in treatment centers across america, alcohol is the number one drug being treated and no. 2 is marijuana. i am curious why that continues to be bantered about as that marijuana is not addictive. because it is. it appears. >> thank you. let's take another one from the back. same row, white shirt. >> in the u.s. correspondent from the austrian press. small question, are really talking about marijuana, or did you also test opinions on hemp and cannabis? are these the same sort of people that have the same sort of attitude towards these two? sort of same the different drugs. second question, if you think

the u.s. will continue with this state-by-state piecemeal organization, what do you make of the experience in the netherlands, one of the european countries where it is legal under certain conditions, who have actually introduced a more severe regulations because they have seen a huge influx of people who only come to the netherlands simply to get high and behave in not particularly pleasant ways. >> one more from the back. how about the gentleman in a blue shirt here? >> i would like to ask and in particular -- anna in particular how it is possible to frame persuasion for parents, similar to the other question about actual addiction.

i was a parent of young children in the 1980's and it was clear that a lot of parents my age and younger were willing to support the just say no campaign because they were afraid that something really bad would happen to their kids. how you frame an argument, how do proponents frame that argument to persuade parents? >> ghraib set of questions. on the first one we do not have addiction experts here. it is not that kind of panel. it is an interesting question as to why it is perceived as fairly benign. does that -- is that what the polling shows? >> the main way that we tested it was relative to alcohol and there is this perception that it is safer than alcohol, both in being less addictive and that you are not impaired in the same way when you are high from marijuana as you are when you are impaired by alcohol.

people say that no one dies from being too high but you can certainly die from being too drunk. there is that, relative to alcohol. i am not a scientist and have not done the research on the addiction. my understanding is that no one is suggesting that you cannot abuse marijuana. they are suggesting that it is not the same as nicotine and narcotics. maybe someone in the audience can be more clear about it. no one is suggesting that you cannot abuse it, i think, including legal substances. >> a point that you make it is very important, the big take away of the paper, very few people are viewing marijuana as a positive, good, or benign good thing. they see prohibition as a lesser of evils. >> greater of evils. >> right, legalization as the lesser of evils.

>> first of all, just to be clear, at least in my own remarks i was careful to report on public sentiment. i do not recall import -- reporting my own on the other question. the question that i was reporting on was not the addiction question, it was marijuana as gateway to harder drugs. there the sentiments are pretty clear. but we make no representations about the relationship between public opinion on this question and underlying medical data. that would be well beyond my competence. >> this is why results will matter. >> but that was only a piece of the question. >> go ahead. >> i cannot remember the other. >> we have a lot on the table. >> i do not think that we in this fable -- in this paper can make claims as to addiction or whatever. the paper does not take stand on the issue whatsoever.

we are trying to look at why the debate seems to have gone the way it has gone. we do not have any data on the gentleman's question about the fine distinctions between hemp, canada's, and the like. i am not sure that the public makes the distinction. anna would know better than i. >> not talking from actual data, but in focus groups about whether it is addictive or if people think it is, it is that comparison to other kinds of drugs that people react to. i think that is what drives the comparison to other things in public opinion. can i talk about kids? >> please. >> this is an important question, one of the bigger vulnerabilities around legalization, the impact on kids.

there is an actual impact itself, though parents tend to be realistic, and do nothing that legalization will change access, in fact it might make it harder for kids to get access. the other piece that is harder to answer is that for parents, for people who think it is a gateway drug, they think it is a signal you're sending to kids that it is ok to do drugs. drugs that people perceive as much more harmful than marijuana. it is important for us to answer that question. the heavy emphasis on the kinds of penalties associated with selling to kids under the age of 21 or 18. just like alcohol. the kinds of regulations in place around the background checks, try to create a system that is reassuring around what it can do to prevent younger people from smoking, because obviously the current system does not prevent younger people

from smoking. obviously it is about putting pieces in place with reassurance about it not being a sort of -- not a free-for-all to just do drugs but rather a way to regulate access. >> what i will volunteer as an answer to the question from the austrian gentleman about what you do about what if washington and colorado become the suppliers for the country because you cannot control the flow outside of their borders? that is the number one thing i think the federal government will be looking at in evaluating the medical marijuana legalization in those states, number two will be accessed by children. it will be a disaster for proponents of legalization if they cannot control that. that is why i and many cases it is legalization proponents advocating reforms like medical marijuana in california.

they want to see a magic -- a regulatory system in place so that they do not throw the baby out with the bath water. another round of questions, we have plenty more. let's start with the front this time. there is a microphone coming. >> rick blake, strategic health resources, representing pharmaceutical firms interested in using cannabis for therapeutic uses. first of all, there are over 900 strains of cannabis. what are we talking about when we talk about medical marijuana? we actually do not know because of the d a regulations in terms of these clinical trials. we actually do not know we are doing. >> reassuring. >> [laughter] >> no, but this is in terms of medical uses. there is a lot of anecdotal evidence for the application of

it in hiv patients. i am just saying that given that this is a public policy forum, do you see the shift in the landscape of political opinion in terms of changing some of the impacts on how we conduct our clinical trials and the growth that we could use in terms of clinical trials in this nation because we are missing the boat, or at least we think so, in terms of the therapeutic uses of cannabis? >> thank you. the lady behind you have a question. >> alicia, associated press. can you address the california models, the first to address medical marijuana, some describe it as more dispensaries and starbucks, which is astounding for most of us, and now we are stepping back to limit it to 135 dispensaries in los angeles.

the supreme court ruled last month but that states or cities can limit or zoned out dispensaries. they voted down proposition 19 and seemed to be taking that step back as washington and colorado took steps forward. >> thank you, let's get one from this gentleman in the front with the yellow and brown tie. >> my name is angela stevenson. with the consortium of science associations. you mentioned nancy reagan. do you think that in society we have reached a point where it is too late for another nancy reagan? can there be another moral movement? >> great question. impact on clinical trials, has anyone tested opinion on a research for medical marijuana? >> the vast majority in this country seem to support people having access to it. it would not surprise me that we would question whether or not

you would be doing research. i would assume that the majority support that as well. the obama administration said basically at the beginning that they would not go after medical marijuana. i am not suggesting the obama administration was going to let nih do clinical trials, but certainly they were taking a step back relative to previous administrations. from the public opinion perspective i have to believe they would support during that research. >> i was going to say the same. the difference returned views on legalization for recreational purposes is so large that i expect there would be support. on the -- could there be a step back. you know, alcohol is the subject on which opinion in america has really gone up and down and up and down over a long time and it

would not surprise me if we had that pattern to some degree on marijuana, which is to say that the movement for prohibition sort of went way back in our history, at times as suggested to a movement against immigrants because the irish were said to drink a lot, german immigrants were said to drink a lot. it actually divided the upper class in interesting way. ridgway's. we passed it, it failed, so it was repealed, but we have had a return to semi-prohibition when we raised the drinking age all over the country. you know, there is now a movement among some folks in college town is to try to push it back on the grounds that 18- 21 year olds are drinking anyway and you are turning them into

criminals. it would not shock me if there was some evidence on this. even though we say in our paper that we do not think it will add as much as it has in a recent class -- ebb as much as it has in the recent past. >> i think that that analysis helps to frame the history of the california model. because -- recall will be found, number one, continuing ambivalence about marijuana. very few people think that it is a positive good. people can see pluses and minuses. but second, this is driven by very practical considerations about enforcement, the cost of enforcement, and the unintended consequences of enforcement regimes.

it does not surprise me at all to learn that there can also be unforeseen consequences of palmeiro legalization that for the same set of practical reasons might incline people live drawback without doubling all the way back. >> i would guess that what you will see in california is continued public movement toward favoring a general regime of legalization coupled with a regulatory movement to further restrict that. both of those things can happen at once and i suspect it will. >> i think you should be careful, if you promise to indicate an attitudinal -- attitudinal shift. hoax on the left and right, people involved in the current production do not like the line will greet have we saw this reform before the the for

legalization, and was not very well hundred ha. as you know it is incredibly expensive to run initiative campaigns in california and running a funded campaign is basically a pre combat -- a precondition for running these campaigns. third, 2010 could not have been a worse year for democrats. i want to be sure that we do not look at that reaction as a move away from legalization reaction. >> looking at the chance to go backwards, the nancy reagan example, the one example i can think of is tobacco. i actually think of that is tied up for class. you watch "madmen." a course that would want to make them legal, everyone is smoking. in my generation very few of our friends grew up smoking because we had public health campaigns that seemed validated by life

experiences, grandparents dying of emphysema. you have to go practically stand in the street to smoke a cigarette. that is tied up for class. if there were to be a major surge against marijuana, it would probably have to be that we legalize and we find out it causes a lot of cancer. we find out that it is addictive. i used the words not addictive. i think it is have it forming, which is an important distinction. and you know, something along those lines. we have seen a huge surge of people driving stoned. these externalities', you might see a push back on legalization. >> let's see if we can get in three or four more questions. a gentleman with a yellow tie who has been patient, a

gentleman under the television who has been patient. >> thank you for your comment. i was just going to talk about tobacco and relating to the discussion to the public health issue. the question is with your research are any of you familiar with asking the public -- is legalization of marijuana and public health concern? i am curious if you have brought that up in -- brought that up in any of your research. >> i am curious to rescue. [laughter] >> -- ask you. [laughter] >> i cannot speak on that right now. >> what if we ask super nice? [laughter] >> if you more? gentleman in the back, i will get to you whether you want it or not. >> i am from the crow justice policy foundation. is there any data, is this strictly limited to marijuana or do americans view prohibition in general -- are there americans

that think we should move more to the european model, like portugal in 2001? >> great question. gentleman back there, i am coming to you because i always sit in the low visibility seats and hate never getting called. i am looking at a gentleman. raise your hand again? there you are. thank you. necktie, blue shirt. >> i am from the council on atmospheric affairs. you talk a bit, briefly, about support amongst hispanic respondents in this new poll. what possible explanation would you have for that? >> excellent question. has anyone told marijuana as a public health problem perce? one friend that way, what do you get? >> i do not think so. at least, i have not. but when we asked people in an open-ended context about the significant concerns, i do not hear the public health concern.

i hear the safety concern. people operating heavy equipment, performing operations or flying airplanes while they are high. kids getting the wrong message. those of the kinds of things people mentioned. i am going to speculate thatthe. thatgoing to speculate anyone who wants to smoke is smoking, they do not see the legalization of it as something that is creating a new health concern. if there is one, it is there any way. >> that might be an issue that surfaces quickly. what about drugs generally? they move in a different path or a similar path to marijuana? >> i am really mad that i did not look that up. i would guess that it is different. there was a big cocaine seen at my law school. most of us do not have a lot of

contact with cocaine going through college. or heroin. those are considered street drugs. if you do have experience with people on them, they do live up to their reputation. they are bad news. >> i did this for brookings a few months ago. people are carving out a marijuana exception. not much change on heavy, hard drugs. it is the perceived different ness of other things. it is moving into the alcohol or even tobacco category. hispanics? am very glad you asked that question. it was something that jumped out at me as an excellent question. datald not find in the that we had a good answer to

that question. >> i guess i would query that just a little bit. if you asked the question just flatly, do you think the use of marijuana should be made legal 52-ot, non-hispanic whites, 45. .ispanics, 51-47 no significant difference. african americans are a little bit more prone legalization than whites or hispanics. there is not a hissed at -- hispanic exception. if you ask a factual question,

let's look at chart number two on page 13. does marijuana lead to the use of hard drugs? here again, you have 38% of whites and 39% of hispanics saying yes. and 59% ofes hispanics saying no. no difference whatsoever. once are a african-americans little bit different. not starkly. probably still inside the margin of error. >> in fairness to the gentleman that was responding to something i said, among be religious groups, hispanic catholics were one of two groups to show a majority. perhaps the difference is not as big. it just happened to be a majority. it jumped out compared to the other religious groups.

perhaps the fact that it is a majority is not that important because the other numbers are not that different. they did seem to stand out from the other groups. that is why i want to turn to anna. >> i have not done specific research on hispanics. what we know on lots of social issues is that generation plays a huge role around issues whether it is gay marriage or a orson. i would not be surprised if generational issues exist among hispanics. personal experience that somebody has if they were not born here is the country that they grew up in. i do not know enough about mexico and el salvador and all of the countries of origin for it hispanic immigrants. whatever that experience was, probably influences their view about this. for hispanics born here,

especially if they speak english, they look like everybody else on all of these issues. the numbers on hispanic catholics may deal with whether somebody is first-generation. >> one of my big takeaways from this paper is that the filters were up. issue polarities or partisanship ideology and ethnicity, those turn out to be significantly less important on this issue which cuts across personal experience and pragmatism. it is a different kind of issue. i urge you all to read the paper. it is a marvelous piece of work. i thank my partner for helping fund this. especially our panelists. sean came all the way down from columbus, ohio to be with us today. not peter singer, peter lewis. thank you all very much.

[captioning performed bynational captioning institute] [captions copyright nationalcable satellite corp. 2013] brown kelly talks to about cities. tomorrow morning from book expo america, a panel of authors will discuss their upcoming books. we will hear from ishmael, and chelsea handler. live coverage starts at 8:00 a.m. eastern on c-span two. >> when the attorney general arraigned me and california after the extradition, he indicated that he wanted the death penalty on each of the read -- three charges. he wanted the death penalty three times.

made me realize that it was not about me. i could not be killed three times. it was about the construction of this imaginary enemy. i was the embodiment of that enemy. >> she wasn't that interested in talking about what happened. crime, the, the implications of being taped by the fbi. she is also one of these people that you do not necessarily know to directly. i was trying to get to her directly. i figured out that there were very important people in her life. i chipped away at the people that she knew and trusted. i was able to get onto with the right letters. able to get them involved. slowly, she came around. shola lynch >> filmmakershola lynch -- filmmaker shola lynch

on the life of a 60s radical. discussion on the presidential transition process from the person who headed mitt romney's team. we will also talk to somebody from the 2008 barack obama campaign. >> it is a pleasure to be here. i am the president of the partnership for public service. we are a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization trying to make our government that are. there is no more important topic than the one we have to discuss this morning, residential transition.

i am deeply honored to have the opportunity to host the book release, the retrospective and lessons learned from the romney readiness project, which was a truly amazing project. we are going to be hearing a lot more about it very soon. the topic is of critical importance. we live in the most powerful, important country in the world. the government of our country is the most complicated in the world. one of the things that distinguishes us as a country is that democratic people transition power. you have 4000 new political leaders that every four years have to come in and be prepared. they are running a very large and complicated organization. the historic record has not been good about the preparation for that.

it is always from the election day to the and not duration. that sets the stage for everything that comes later. enough to is not hand over that complicated organization. we are going to learn more about what all of you have participated in putting together. it is fundamental to our ability as a country to meet the new challenges that we have faced to have a new government that is ready to go on day one. a world in which we have more and more complicated, faster paced things occurring. a government that is ready and is able to deal with a lot of unexpected things immediately. we know from history the transition is the maximum point of vulnerability. there are individual groups that try to take advantage of that very getting this right is absolutely essential. the romney readiness project was a remarkable effort.

it is remarkable in two ways. with the effort that went into being prepared. equally important with the effort that was made to actually document the work that was done. we live in an environment with transitions that by and large have been one of oral history without any real systematized effort to capture how to do this right. importantreally contribution for the future. something that i hope we can talk a little bit more about. it is an exceptional audience that we have here. i want to a knowledge a few the folks that we have here beginning with governor leavitt and chris o'dowd. we also have clark campbell and daniel cruz, who are not only engaged in the readiness project, what were instrumental in putting together the book that hopefully all of you have a copy of. conan, who knowledge

is a master of leadership among other things. is not here, he will be here shortly. another board member that is one of my public service heroes. from government we have the officer from the office of government ethics. we will hear from chris, who is over here. cabinet affairs for the obama administration. he was the executive director of the obama 2008 organization. he is working closely with us on partnership efforts on new political appointees. we also have josh bolten sitting here, who ran the very best ever transition out for and in ministration amongst many other remarkable achievements. terrific to have him here. the johnson not only ran bush transition coming in, but

is a true expert in the history of transitions. that is a good adjective. he is someone that we got to work with closely in the bush administration and was one of the true stars among the management in the bush administration. he ran thes department of security first transition ever. scholar onis a the issue of transitions and on the subject of the white house generally. nationalhe head of the academy of public administration. this is a fantastic organization and a great ally. the work is done by boston consulting group. peter is here. here.are folks from bcg

they have helped us in a number of ways that i will yet back to shortly. tom is a legend and a constant voice of reason and all things related to presidential work. it is great to have you here. i also want to recognize christine simmons emma who is my partner at the partnership for public service. i get to say these words. she does all of the work. not a very fair balance. all of the work we have done has been driven by her. amongst friends here. she has done a good job. before we get to the main attraction we will hear from governor leavitt and have a conversation with governor leavitt, chris, and bring in other voices that are

knowledgeable on this issue. i want to give you some context on the partnership's work itself. we started in 2007 focusing on presidential transitions. at that point, the democratic primary had not been resolved. the clinton and obama campaign had represented. this was an off the record small for him to talk about how prepare well for transitions. at that stage in the game, the expectation from the public was that you do not do this. it was a very interesting conversation that was had. of folks really understood how the process was done well. they shared information and have done both. we shared a set of recommendations that became the basis for legislation. probably the most important element of that legislation was moving at the time period from

election day to the culmination of the conventions, at which point the government would provide official transition support for the party nominee. part of the purpose was we believed it was important to flip the switch. this is something you did in the debt of the night to something that you did publicly because it was part of your responsibility. , theomney campaign transition project, was the first to operate under that new legislative environment. we had the great pleasure of meeting governor leavitt and a few other folks from the romney campaign and to try to help them connect to people who understood how to run transitions and help them in any way that we could. full disclosure, we have already signed them up for may, 2016. we believe that the work we have done is foundational. it will provide an opportunity for all future campaigns to do

this better. it will be the foundation for our country so we have governments that can govern when ready. we are also trying to come up with a set of ideas that we want to discuss a little bit about additional legislative recommendations. we are putting together a transition guide that would build off of the work that is done here and hopefully lay this out in a more complete way what we are thinking about to be prepared. that is as fast as i can speak. it is really important to get to the main attraction. i am really looking forward to this conversation. governor leavitt, all euros. fox thank you very much. next to the center and your colleagues for organizing this. there is a bit of a reunion atmosphere are those of us who have not seen each other for some time. his was a very positive interpersonal experience for us.

i would like to reemphasize a couple of things that max made reference to. i would like to begin with an acknowledgment of the obvious. we did not transition. this was a plan to transition. the true test of any plan is actual execution. we ought to acknowledge the fact that many of the challenge we faced in this administration, this does not recount. this does recount some extraordinarily good preparation. it doesn't knowledge the fact that this is the first time that the 2010 presidential transition act had been there. we thought it was important that we document to the degree possible, our experience. i would like to dollars that this is not about what might have been. it is about what we learned.

our conversation ought to be focused on that. when we determined to put together this book or report, charge was toed make it practical. this is not a historic home. our own practical experiences in order to be useful to others. twore three years away from transitions being formed when our government will begin to transition to a new administration. just acknowledged with that in mind that we chose the name the romney readiness project. we would have changed to the romney transition had the result in different. from the beginning, we ate knowledged that we were in the process of a planning effort. review like to just

briefly the major contents of the report. comments on my own personal reflections. the first month, which would have been may, it was a group us who took out an office on new jersey avenue. we were operating under the presidential transition act of 2010. the work had been legitimized by law. there was a concern that we not be seen as a distraction to the campaign. there was a real worry, and there would be with any for the curiosity that is naturally there could again to surface as a distraction. we begin very quietly. that was an extraordinarily important period. would as any transition

do in the past, we began reviewing all of the literature we could find about this. the previous records had been boxes passed from one person's basement to another person's desk. there have been a number of extraordinarily good pieces of literature written. he mentioned kumar. she gave me a shelf of about 20 books. everyone of them were read. we review them. some consistent themes. a very good foundation. most of what is written hence not to focus on the structure, but the color that surrounds them. have focused more on the structure and less on the color. some important decisions that were made are covered in

chapter two of the book. we laid out a series of basic deliverables. to first was a deliverable develop a 200-day plan. is traditionally spoken of is just too short. 200 days tends to coincide with the august recess of congress. administrations really have this between an odd duration day and the august recess to create the big push to get their initiatives on the ground. isluded in our 200-they plan the framework of a budget, which is the means by which most administrations are able to get their initiatives through. the second big deliverable was putting a team on the ground.

this represents a cabinet, white house staff, national security team, national economic team. most important senate confirmed positions or key places. i would like to at several points to a knowledge clay johnson. early on, he pointed at this as a very important priority. i came to believe that he is absolutely right. it is a deficiency in the way the government response to transitions. it is so hard to get a team on the ground. we knew we had to put a substantial amount of emphasis there. the third will be congressional relationships. putting a president into a new administration and have an agenda. .ongress has to be prepared the third was preparing our relationships with congress. the third was the office of the

president-elect. those are the four basic buckets to be organized. in chapter three, you will see that we created a master planning schedule. we put our efforts into essentially four phases. the first was the planning phase. -- we refer to it as the readiness phase. the presidential transition act of 2010 essentially engages the federal government in a formal way three days after the nominating convention of the party. while we are not able to take government space until that point in time, we were actively engaged in the early phase with and other planning so that when the three dates following the convention arrived, we would be ready. the

third was the transition phase. that would be the election day until the inauguration. those are different time divisions that framed our world. alsoapter three, you will begin to see some basic decisions that were reflected in all of our work. i would like to talk about some key principles that we followed that will be reflected as you review the book. the first and distinguishing part of our effort was the principal of going narrow and deep as opposed to expansive and shallow. let me describe what i mean by that area and there is a tendency when you have an opportunity to plan a new administration to allow it to become a tournament of priorities. would who is involved have the ability to define what they thought ought to be done to make the world a better place. we began to focus exclusively on the commitments that mitt

romney was making in the campaign. we actually formed a document that you will see reflected in the book that we referred to as the general instructions. our effort was focused and disciplined on delivering those items. we will focus on a series of interlocking charters that were drafted following the general instructions. this is what we have to come push in a deep way. for laid out a work plan

each of the departments of government. we aspire to create a federal government in miniature. the treasury department etc.. each of those areas, we populated them with highly experienced policy people that have actually served in those departments. as you look at the general , the keystone pipeline was a commitment that governor romney had made, that it would happen on the first day. it is one thing to say we're going to do it. it is the other to be ready. that is the energy department, the commerce department, the

eta, and other agencies of the federal government. it would require words being drafted. fought require that we through a whole series of contingencies. we created the federal government in miniature. we gave them each a charter that tied back to the general instructions and then organized a process of inter-agency organizations. we brought them all together under a task force to resolve the issue so that on day one we had it deliverable so that it could be executed during -- executed. another component was the discipline around the one-page project manager which was a system that was brought to us. clark campbell was the originator of it. it was something that i use hhs to get everything down

on one page. on page 25 and 26 you will see the federal government in its entirety on one page. i am happy to knowledge that on that day, which was election day, you will see that all of the boxes were green. , it was allday green. a blow that one page that you can see the federal government on. that was an important discipline. a decision to do that and to maintain a systematic approach. that will prove to be an invaluable lesson. another principle was that policy was made in boston. watch and 10 and our readiness project was about execution.

it was clear that our general instructions was our charge. it was not our decision as to whether or not a commitment should be made or what should be made a priority. those were the citizen -- decisions of the candidate, who would make commitments to the american people. result of that, we had a very close working relationship with the policy shop in boston. who ran the shop was a close ally and consulted every step of the way. when it came to making a decision about whether the keystone pipeline on the first .ay, that was a discussion we have the decision to influence the process, but the reality was we were focused on the policy to be done in boston. the next principle was a unify

voice in congress. in theas an instinct part of congress. that was understandable. we had a principle when we dealt , onemembers of congress voice between the campaign and the transition, it was a discipline we work hard to maintain. ourly, i will just say preparation was no secret. confidentiality was a key principle. our phrase was, the readiness project has no voice. speak for governor romney. it was not our role to talk about policy. our job was to prepare to execute the commitments he had made. moving on into chapter five, you will see, as we move into the

planning stage, a lot happened. we took over 129,000 square feet. anould like to acknowledge excellent job was done in preparing for us. on the third day after, we moved into its business-ready environment. the organization began to scale quite dramatically. i will ecology at that point, we began to stand up the agency review process. according to our general instructions, a great job was done with that, we began to develop names and we developed what we referred to later as the betting bunker. it was a highly confidential place. no information left. you had to be cleared into it. we wanted to protect the privacy of those being considered. we were not able by making contact and interviews.

we did as much as we could to be prepared. i will mention in a moment the level of our preparation. we began to develop white house, various white house structures. we talked about organized landing teams and began to readinesssidential for the office of the president- elect. i will pause there and make this comment, i think we completely underestimated the size of the job. , steveto just mention prescott. in thend i were friends bush-led cabinet. it was a great stroke of luck sale andad a business had some time. he did a great job to do that.

we began to develop a presidential schedule. we had 10 days framed in and a process. you will get a chance to see it. 150 pages, we will not catch all the color of this. we hope we have created a basic structure. one, there is a series on one page, a series of major lessons learned. i will call your attention to those. let me conclude by making a couple of observations of my own. the study that we did in depth during the first 30 to 45 days of our work, revealed to me historice had opportunities. those that do it poorly often never recover. thisis a very important up when. i would like to emphasize what was suggested earlier.

the ferry -- the failure to prepare a proper transition of power truly puts the nation at risk. it is not possible in 77 days to prepare a nation for a transition of that magnitude. starting early is important. the presidential transition act of 2010 made a meaningful contribution to this effort. i am sure there are continued refinements. we must not step back from that. it needs to become more disciplined. the conference leadership, i want to note, he was very useful it not just what he did, but in his insights. i also want to mention the center for best practices and the franchise they developed informally looking after the process. also, the institute, i've mentioned clay johnson and his work as a zealot. the world needs that.

josh has been acknowledged as well and many others, we were able to interview, who shared their wisdom freely. knowledge the a obama administration was responsive and very useful. they were good to work with. been proud ofave the sense of bipartisanship that existed in these interactions. creditbelieve abundant is due to george w. bush for ,etting a very high standard repeatedly. officials of the obama administration a knowledge the tone set in the 2008 transition. to holde committed themselves to the same standard in dealing with has. , ourusly, our product preparation was never tested. [laughter]

it is clear to me everyone was intending to make this a professional and statesmanlike proposition. wouldt, i am confident it have been. i have acknowledged the gsa and their good work. to make this a professional effort. finally, i want to recognize the book mentions the names of everyone who was involved. it is impossible, really, to about ory talk acknowledge the extraordinary group of people that were involved. i do want to acknowledge at the very beginning, a couple of people who were there at the foundation of this work, crystal adult, jim, do, and jamie. there were others. , when you accept

a responsibility like this, the first thing you want to do is to find the person who has a better rolodex in washington and government and anyone else. i am convinced that was jamie. we worked together and she had been in a number of different roles. most of the team you can see in the book reflects directly or indirectly people's willingness to respond to her. on manycknowledged occasions, the times you have a chance to surround yourself with people like the former cfo of microsoft and general motors and the armor worldwide chairman like jim and chris, doug, steve, and drew, brian hook. i want to mention with special appreciation, clark campbell and daniel cruise. not just for the work in putting the report together, which i

think you will agree is exceptional. but also, the key role they played in the one-page management process. daniel and many others, who he symbolizes, daniel would be my nominee for the unknown soldier award. [laughter] he and many of his colleagues were there. day and night, through thick and thin, good weather and bad. there was bad weather. important.t is finally, important to acknowledge, mitt romney, who deployed all of us in the nation's service. i have come to appreciate the fact, as a person who has done public service myself and run for office a few times myself, i have come to appreciate the fact that those who run for office and those who work with them, when they do not win, they have done some of the hardest public service there is.

but it is in fact public service. would say, we build a great ship. sale. did not others are going to benefit from our design. we are grateful to have done it. >> thank you, very much. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> there are 1000 questions i have. , two.l hear from chris -- too. you have had a remarkable career as a governor. you saw transitions. again, it starts with a leader. what are the qualities you believe are important for future transition chairman or chair people? >> that is an important question. that is dealt

with here. while i am thinking about it, we lookarranged that this and report could be available on amazon.com and through the center for those who want to find, to be able to use it. i talked a bit about it in a forward i won't -- i wrote about what i thought were important characteristics of the relationship between the candidates and the person they call on and what those might be. the first one, i think tom is a relationship, it has been preestablished. having a relationship with a candidate, where you can speak --didate lee -- candidly but candidly with them. the skill being worked out. it is important. i have that kind of relationship with mitt romney.

it is obvious to me that would be important. a trusted relationship with a campaign organization can not and should not be underestimated. there is a tension always between the campaign and the transition. the campaign is worried about what the people are doing. there is not a lot being said. they are worried they might get in the way of the campaign or do something that could distract from a message. toward the end, they are worried dividing uphey things they might want to have a hand in? are there doing things not easy to undo? having a relationship with the senior members of the campaign was a very important part of that process. , basically, shares the ideology and understands the policy instincts of the candidate, was important.

i think having an extensive personal knowledge of washington is really important. had the benefit of working here as part of a cabinet, being governor, i just think that does not mean everyone needs to, but in some way, they need to have, have had some washington experience. network ofxtensive people, or having access to one, i mentioned jamie, who had worked in that area in previous administrations and had relationships valuable, having some executive leadership responsibilities in the past, and being able to devote full time. this is a very amending role. i became convinced it needed to happen in washington. that is where the government will ultimately stand up and

that is where the resources of the gsa will be under the presidential transition act. i recognize those who view it as being important or otherwise, and lastly, not a job seeker. that person also be able to come at this and walk away from it and leave the administration, turn over the keys, on inauguration day. >> perfect ear to your point, chris, you have, the governor said, a stellar record in the private sector. i am interested in learning what you think about the federal government. what do you think about the transition? [laughter] >> can i just say there is no one person who deserves more knowledge meant in the way this unfolded band chris? chris was, as i mentioned, the cfo of microsoft and general motors. this is a highly sophisticated businessperson. wherelationship was one

i was able to focus on many of the things i alluded to. chris made it work. i just want to acknowledge there were many people who played roles that were important. it is important that we ate knowledge publicly is very important function as the executive director of the transition. you are free to ask you -- you are free to speak. [applause] as a citizen of principles, implying you need large, complicated project, in the private or public sector, and really, we apply those principles to this project. that is why it is so successful. startnto simple terms, with a clear objective of what you are trying to achieve. have a vision of a clear one you can communicate to everyone about what you are trying to achieve. secondly, break that down into

very manageable and discrete and parallel and sequential tasks. thatrdinated set of tasks added up to the thing you are trying to achieve. third, some great people. all that sounds simple. it actually is. if you apply the principles, it is amazing how much you can achieve and how well you can organize things. the parallel i would say is the previous role i had was very similar to the role i had here. the previous role as cfo and vice chairman of general motors. i came to help the company get back on its feet again. wasrole i principally had to organizes the resources associated with the company's ipo. rogeras about a 69-month , in a very defined target this case, taking the company

public. we raised $23 million. paid back some of the money it had invested. soon, principles, a time frame, the same number of people. same set ofas the principles we had. a clear objective. take the company public. , andis case, mitt romney everyone associated with him, transition to the federal government. we then broke it down into a series of tasks. had five clear deliverables, against which we were planning and then we break those five into a cleardown series of steps and responsibilities through the work clark did. there were great people. jamie and the team she built, we started with three people and ended up with close to 500. ihave to say, anecdotally,

was incredibly impressed by the quality of people we were able to attract. a surprise coming from the private to public sector? a pleasant surprised -- surprise was how good people were. the quality of people who came in, and the dedication. 85% of the people who came in were volunteers. people were not coming in to make a lot of money out of this. to get first-class who are passionate about it and coming in because they believed what they were trying to do. it was just outstanding. the general principles of the private sector were applied here. in the public sector, to me, the only thing you have to toggle around is the balance between how much you make, definitive, and how much is literally set out, and how much is flexible for individual initiative along

the way. we did course corrective. we set out with a clear objective. inevitably, things came up. as the campaign change. since came along. that is really the only difference in any individual project. stick with a certain set of product -- principles and you are rigorous about them. -- anymit them to any large objective can be reached. >> any things you had wished you had known you learned through hard labor? >> i wish i had this book at the start. [laughter] it would have been a lot easier the second time round. we were learning on the fly. we have the governor's leadership and knowledge base. you alluded to the conference we

had. that was useful. we had people looking into resources, people like josh, which was fantastic. this was one of the key learnings. you should not have to relearn. you should not have to grab a bit of information here and there and there. oft is just not a good way approaching this. one of the key objectives the governor alluded to for us doing this and documenting it is, people will not do exact the same way we did. hopefully, they can pick up on the knowledge and not have to drag pieces. you think about how important the u.s. government is and how important the transition is, it is something that should be as well researched and systematic as it possibly can. >> one other way you deserve cordis -- kudos is that you did the work, collecting the information now instead of

waiting 3.5 years when the boxes are strewn and you do not know what they mean. that a great contribution you did this while you were doing everything else. that is amazing and commendable. a in all fairness, we had couple of months we did not expect. [laughter] -- sake,arity's stake you started this project in september, collecting the information. you knew you wanted to document the work you were doing. i think that is a great contribution. would have documented whether it was successful or not. >> can we take one minute to focus on the legislative? we talked a little bit about the 2010 transition act and the opportunities it provided you. are there things beyond the direct support at the point of the convention, beyond that, that you found useful?

to add onto that, are there things things you think going forward when we talk about moving it forward and not rolling it back, are there additional tweaks that can be made you think would benefit future transition efforts? >> there are areas where time will refine processes. there was, for example, written to -- written into the law, a requirement that we negotiate understanding. thespect it took longer first time than in subsequent years to do that. of of the big contributions the presidential transition act of 2010 was providing access to federal agencies to do security clearances, at a certain level, early. there is a need from the election forward to have people who are cleared, and rather than clearances required, to receive

sensitive and classified information. ability to do that weeks in advance, in certain situations, was a critical and important response. again, i would technology the justice department and others who were involved in the process, did their job in a professional way. we can streamline the process still. it is important. when you are dealing with the days ticking away, and election is like a fuse burning. it will happen. if a day that is lost is a day that is wasted, in terms of readiness. being in a position to improve the processes, not that they were done poorly, but they had not been done before, and now they have, some discussion in advance would continue. there may be legislative tweaks. -- there are

things i am not prepared to speak about at this point, but we have to refine it, go back to congress, and say here's what we have learned. you may have some? >> we do need to formalize some things that are in formal. it worked very well. we have great corporation in the white house. this is, like the governor mentioned, the transition. there were things we learned that could become more formalized and documented so future transitions do not have to start from scratch. we do not need the department of transitions. [laughter] so i would not be adding a lot of people or creating new positions or adding a layer of bureaucracy to the process. having said that, in particular, when you know there will be a transition, there are certain

things that happen on an informal, ad hoc basis, that are more systematic, and would allow either party to transition. >> one thing i have thought ,bout hypothetically, in 2016 two of these were going on at the same time. toope the gsa is planning have them in separate locations. there is a lot of sensitivity about that. for understandable reasons. that represents more cost. this is a very small amount of money by comparison. premium onance continuity of government and the stability of the united states. i do not think that is overstated in any way. move into the time between now and 2016, farnese to be given to the unique situation, where you will have

two streams -- teams transitioning simultaneously and making preparations for that. >> it is a perfect wine. darren, from gsa, who ran the effort tom is not here today. he did an exceptional job. i would put in my own commercial plug-in here. it seems to me we need to have more effort to highlight the good things some of the agencies are doing. that was a vital effort and received very little attention. when something goes wrong, there is a huge amount of attention. we need both. what is wrong and what is right. in prior presidential years, there have been allegations of candidates measuring the drapes, celebrating early, but why did the not happen in 2012? collects the presidential transition act of 2010 provided the necessary authorization for us to be doing this in a

forward-thinking and proper way. that is part of the contribution of the act, simply the legitimizing of the process. that is an important contribution. it is also a challenge for any transition to maintain the degree, the proper profile. it was not a surprise, but it is noticeable how willing people are to be involved in the process. it is a function of how important it is. people like to talk about it. there were a handful of situations where our discipline --ke down, in not a way i created problems. it is a combination of the 2010

at, then i think we work hard maintaining the proper profile. that is something future transitions can learn about and not allow it to become a matter of conversation. there will be a certain amount of lyrical banter that goes on around it. it will become one of the traditional things that happened in every campaign. people will still talk about it and i will try to make -- and will try to make a political issue out of it. the combination of the act and the prof will -- proper profile. >> you set the right precedent. that will hopefully move forward and be on. i will ask one more western and ask chris to move up. as you alluded to earlier, much of the challenge of setting up a how did youration, prioritize the positions? 4000 political appointees, you cannot do them all. what kinds of wallabies were you looking for? >> we started by assuming we

had to stand up the white house staff as our first priority. we had to have a national security and economic team. ways, driven by our general instruction. what did we have to have in place in order to deliver and execute on the things mitt romney had committed to do as a candidate? we were prepared, on the thursday following the election, to begin the process of choosing a cabinet and white house staff. we had chosen, as i indicated, 528 -- 528 of those eight.five to

we were prepared to start the day after the election. we prioritized according to our general instructions. and our issues we needed to deliver during the first two wednesdays. >> at the worst for you, maybe we can invite to come up and join the conversation here. you alluded earlier to the cooperation you felt around the issue. again, from a nonprofit, nonpartisan perspective, it is one of the things i most admire that you have a set of dedicated people committed to making the government work right, and leave aside the political differences, and recognizing we all want our countries to succeed. this is an area with remarkable cooperation. it is really a great leisure to have the three of you appear. this must be an interesting experience for you, having the same as 2012. you have many -- any in -- initial opera -- observations.

>> thank you for having me. andnt to acknowledge josh the president bush's administration. president obama has been appreciative about the important cooperation and the extraordinary effort the bush administration provided. it was because of the cooperation of health and planning the bush administration had done. thented to complement governor and chris for putting the document together. as one of the people who inherited boxes of documents. i went to meet with jim johnson, who plan to john kerry's administration. he goes into the closet and pulls out boxes of documents, which included documents, as well, and handed them off to me. i was sifting through them. one of the things he told me his after he lost, he kept it off a

week afterwards and catalogs them. after our transition, i tried to up it it for the 21st-century. i put it on flash drives. i do not think we ever would have, but i will say i would highly recommend this to a future transition. this is really a remarkable thing you have done. from my perspective, having read the work you have all done, three things for us work. .ur operation was smaller by election day, we probably only had around 15 people on payroll. when you include the unpaid 75.nteers, we were maybe in part, that was the confidentiality research -- concerns. ,f any of you are at heritage we had the office above the subway on massachusetts avenue.

i do not know what your offices were, but these were not great offices to have. you could smell the subway all day long. it was not a place you wanted to hang out. we had a smaller operation and had to operate in secret in a way the romney folks did not. the third big difference we had was we were operating and putting together a transition at a time over mark will change in the world. if you remember the economic conditions in the fall of 2008. the policy plans we put together in the summer of 2008 quickly became an operative by the fall of 2008. you are trying to plan a transition of the world was changing around you. it is the privilege of being here and to be here with you on this project. really, truly,e the state of the art represented, are there, in addition to what you described

so far, any other key lessons thinking forward to 2016? what would be the short form key points you would make to folks thinking about what they would need to do? >> we have a number of people who led key parts of sitting on the front row. i think we have got a microphone. hold theike to question open to them in their individual situations. i mentioned earlier i completely underestimated the rigor that had to go into actually planning the office of the president-elect, the scheduling process, sufficient that the president-elect could in fact serve well, transportation, housing, the media, when there is no white house, but you have got all the duties that are coming. that is a big deal. if there is one money i will

pass along, it is, start earning -- start early on that. i mentioned steve in his good efforts in providing that. be interested to hear your response and the things you would see as lessons in what you learned? handle all the domestic policy, managed the domestic policy teams. >> i found it to be a remarkably well-organized effort. the pre-white house, you came up with a number, the number of hours you would have available to brief the presidential -- the president-elect. a really small number. the idea was you had to use every one of the hours carefully and wisely. otherwise, they run out quickly. there was one thing i always found odd about the transition. what you said on the stage

contradicts a little bit of what was said in the book, which is, how to handle the press. i thought the effort would have benefited from having one single press spokesman. at the very end, we started talking about having someone do that. was a lot of confusion about who should handle it. the campaign said we do not want to do with it because they were trying to handle elections. you said, just do not talk about it. mark recommended the future, using, what is your best wisdom on this? a single to have person after the election took place. felt strongly then and still today the transitions should not have a voice. as campaign needs to remain the principal voice of the candidate, the face of the effort, that on the day the

election occurs, and there is a transition, then you do move out of campaign mode into the mode of the transition. it was at that point that i continue to feel there were times when there would be a leak, about somebody who was going to be a secretary. and so and so is vying to become this in the white house. to have theest least amount said about it. and to reference it in the campaign. we have sent disciplined messages about when that occurred. to my knowledge, the only conversation that was ever held about who would do what in the administration between the candidate and another person, was when paul ryan was appointed the nominee as vice president. we want to minimize speculation

and be in a position to say none of the decisions have been made and would not be made. inevitable speculation. we treated it as such. we kept the spokesperson role and i think that was the right decision. >> one of the important principles is this was the transition project. we had no role, no voice, no substance. when you take the general view that we not -- we are not in charge of policy or announcing any positions because no positions were decided on, it takes a lot of heat out of the equation. to the stage, something like this is presumed to be done from both parties, now that we have had three, 4, 5 elections where people have done something similar, slightly different approaches, but essentially the same, people go,

i guess it is natural they have a is natural they will start organizing for something that happens the day after you- e day after the election. there is nothing they are doing that is relevant to the campaign itself. if you take those principles and take away a lot of the heat associated with the leaks and who is doing what, we were quite clear we were making no decisions relevant to either the campaign or the running of the .overnment that makes the media approach a lot easier. of course it is happening. of course there are a lot of people doing that here it there are people organizing themselves looking at issues associating with familiar policy. , thee specific question thing i would add, over and above what we talked about, the selection of the initial people on the project is absolutely fundamental. gates all theer other decisions. also talk about the role of the governor and the chairman,

executive director, and the senior team and how they are selected is absolutely critical. six months before the election, most people are not worrying about that. campaigns need to invest time. if i get the right people involved at the senior level, i can pretty much forget -- forget about it for six months and worry about it when it is relevant. governor talked about the qualities important for someone leading the effort. you have expanded the circle, talking about a large group of people. thetalk about jamie and connections and relationships she had. what other skills or qualities do you think are essential to the core grouping? i do not know if you have a view on that. >> i think it has got to be a mixture. the best team and we have that quality on our team, a mixture

of political knowledge, knowledge of washington. you have got to have that. you have got to have people with project management-type skills. you have got to have a mixture of knowledgeable about the campaign and the candidate. it is unusual you would ever get all of those three things and one person. your seniort -- team collectively has to have those things. that is nirvana, getting all those three things together in a team. that is the best balance overall. >> i will echo the comments here. we were blessed with a remarkable transition chairman. you could not have asked for somebody who better understood how the government works and has one of the keenest minds for policy in washington. in addition, we had a group of senior folks working on the

transition, some folks from the private sector, some folks who have worked in government before. we benefited from people who served in the clinton administration. the administrator would help us with policy on this transition. carol recounted her experiences getting binders full of materials as the incoming cabinet nominee and saying, i do not need all this stuff. that helped us refine what we were asking the review team to go out and find and report back. we learned from that. that was an improvement. we have resolved to do the same thing, to keep ourselves narrow. notionollow-up on your on, if there are other folks here who have something to comment on, we have a couple of microphones. start, tom? >> thank you.

first, i tell you a story. [laughter] during president reagan's treasurer shannon, you talk about clearances and stuff. -- transition, you talk about clearances and stuff. his landing on the moon. 10 days after the election, down came senator smith. president said, how did defense gets though far behind offense? and missiles and spears and what have you. smith interrupted and said, let me tell you what is going on down here. are you cleared? [laughter] the governor turned to me and said, i think they cleared you last tuesday. [laughter] i apologize for that. my question is, you had all been talking about washington experience, senior people who

know the system and know what is going on. when we were running around the congressional affairs, the first rule was, no lobbyists. who the devil knows congress and how to run the system in congressional affairs than a bunch of lobbyists yet the how did that decision come down? consequently, we did not have the best and the brightest. in that operation. how did that decision come down and why? >> every campaign in the last few years wrestles with this problem. that becomes a hot topic. we would establish our policy after the election. we had not done so. i'm not suggesting it would have been markedly different. that is a problem i wish we could solve. some of them more capable people in washington, the people with rate experience, need to be there. we did not actually have to deal with it. maybe chris, i will talk -- toss

it to you. [laughter] the >> the dump -- >> the governor is to play for that. during the campaign back in 2007, when senator obama was running, about lobbyists serving, by definition, you had to follow that one. i think you raised a legitimate point. some of the people, the best to understand policy, lobbyists. >> martha can go. wait one second. we will have a microphone. i thank you. i wondered what role governor romney had in the transition planning echo what information did you bring to him? what directions did he give you? >> the most important directive we received from governor romney, i alluded to earlier. we referred to as general

instructions. it is in the book, laying out the priorities he wanted to be doing, the first two in the base. meet with governor romney, essentially once a week. toould typically fly out the campaign, spend an hour or two with him, generally on the plane or his hotel room. i would keep them up to date. we used a one-page project minister -- manager as the basis of the report. we would look for anything yellow or red. he would want to know about that. , everything we did was driven by the general instructions. then, there were a couple of occasions where we had to begin to get down to some specific groups of people to consider. so, we had input from him on that. there would be times i would ask his opinion about a particular

policy matter that could be reflected in our deliberation. we kept policymaking in boston, but we had execution. execution often, how that is done, makes policy. there would be times i would interact with him basically once a week. >> one of the puzzles we had, we had to be tightly connected to the campaign. we could not the a tax on the campaign. we cannot take a lot of the time for things to get the general principle, to ensure we had someone running the transition that governor romney was very confident in an new. it was incredibly important. he was spending more than an hour or so a week thinking about what was happening on the transition is too much. not that it was not critically important. he was setting the framework for what was happening in november in his primary and single- minded focus had to be on

winning the election, not worrying about what he had to do when he woke up in the morning. >> a couple of things we have not mentioned that we should tear it i alluded to the inter- agency processes we organize. you would have changed from different agencies working to solve a similar problem. totally different perspectives. that is why you have interagency processes. inwould be my role to sit in the place of what would be governor romney if you were there. there were times i would say, we are working on this issue. this is my instinct. does it match yours yet so we would talk about that so i was in a position to then weigh in on his behalf. tim adams ran that process. tim had wide experience with the treasury and the white house and a number of other places in the federal government. he did an exceptional job in managing the process.

another would have been personnel. , al, who is from tennessee great job in being able to organize the systematic process. there would be times when we would say, these are the characteristics we are looking for in this position. to the point of saying, this is the kind of person we are looking at. he was very useful in being able to say, this is what i want in that role, as opposed to, this person is what i want in the role. >> good morning. let me ask the question. the question is, we never got a shot in the confirmation process. we never transition to a transition team. the confirmation process is the greatest hindrance to staffing of government. going forward after election day, obviously, the inaugural.

in this process, of confirmation, i remember sitting project,e readiness wondering whether or not we should go on landing teams. the rumor was if you go on a landing team, people would say you were thinking i will be confirmed for this position. do not go on the landing team of a position you have been qualified for asked to consider or may want to pursue. the question then, back to the question, is, what lessons can we take from the obama campaign or from our effort on the readiness project for moving beyond simply coming up with names, and working with desk united states senate to get , senate-aff appointees confirmed appointees, in place shortly after the inaugural? >> let me acknowledge one of the ness and of the zealots

others. it essentially created a streamlined process for committee vetting. process, putting together, those of us who have and through confirmation can in ayou if you are position where multiple committees have a level of jurisdiction, they all have their own financial disclosures. they all have their own questionnaires. hoursend hours and bedding. so, to his credit, the by 160 orn reduces so positions that require senate confirmation. then they will ultimately streamline the process. thectually started

development of, because the process was not in place, we were not able to complete. this is a project for someone to do. forhought there was a need a means by which a person who was interested in clots -- and qualified in doing public service would get themselves for nomination in a preclearance way. i will fill out all the papers, the financial disclosure, the 84, all of those things free done. and i will go through a little process where they will tell me the realities of what this will are going to tell people in more detail what they can express in terms of intrusion into their personal life and what life as a public servant is about early, as opposed to finding that out later and withdrawing. have thehave to

following problems to overcome. it would be a good thing if you could say to a candidate, when you go through ethics clearance, they will make you sell that. that would be a great thing. it would speed the process up. i think between now and the next three years, if there is an area where additional focus could be made, it is in streamlining the process of getting good people who are place-- eligible into a of preclearance, so that you do not have to use the 77 days to go through that and end up with 100 people running the entire federal government who have been cleared as late as may or june of the following year. >> i would add, and it will not surprise anyone, the confirmation process is broken right now. it is broken in a lot of different ways that people have been trying to fix. it is not only the lack of resources and how long it takes

to vet people. it is the number of forms that get filled out. the quirks of getting anyone to the u.s. than it. we struggled with this in the beginning of 2009. when you are dealing with an economic crisis, as we were, you had, in those agencies, a secretary, maybe a chief of staff, and people minding the shop. -- recovery act had been they were trying to get out the door. that would be a huge problem. the question you are getting to is how one gets a broader diversity of people to serve in government. that is something we struggle with. transitions are using people who have served the government, and even when we expand our circles, you are still getting the same group of people. one of the things we try to look the privateple in sector, people who had experience in state and local government, people around the country. it is an evolving process. .

, that wouldquestion be great. >> speaking about the organization and clearly established a strong culture, post election, you have merged a campaign organization in with its own strong culture of people who work hard. what were your plans for doing that merger and keeping all of the things you have built up to that point going echo >> steve, do you want to talk about that? >> this is a very important focus for all of us. one of the very important things we did, prior to the election, is make sure people on the campaign focused on the campaign and people on the transition focus on a transition. there was a clear rule in place. do not ask about your job. we all have a job to do right now. if you win the election, that will change. in preparation, what we did was

we look to the number of paid -- places. we look very clearly at all of the different positions in the campaign already. all the different positions in the transition already. well.some other areas, as it may have been in peripheral roles. then we took a look at what we would need in the white house and what we would need in the transition. we actually had a line by line extremely detailed listing of what we would need and, potentially, where the people would come from. we knew, for example, that we , fairlyly significant well-established legal functions to both places. we had a good understanding of how the two organizations come together. we knew there were a lot of junior level people on the campaign that may be able to come in and help with certain aspects of the transition. that would tailor to their skill sets. we had detailed processes in place.

the plan was, the day after you -- the day after the election, to pull our heads together and start working very specifically on who would work each roles. , we knew agree generally where the people would come from. i say probably within a week or so, we would have had most of those very specifically populated area we also had a process where we were going to give people -- all that stuff fell through pretty well. the last thing i would say, broadly, in all of this, is it is real important when you are looking specifically at the 75 days, to know there is a lot of very detailed things that have to happen. one of the things i think is important to do is to really

think forward and say, ok, what will it take to vet all these people, what will it take to find time on the president- elect's calendar to look through policy matters? what will it take to make sure he has time for congress and for media? and really sort of, like you would in any business, almost do . contingency planning and lay out the details. just like everything else, the plans may change, but we are going through in detail of how it is likely to go. it is a whole lot easier to adjust. you have all the pieces of the puzzle on the table. it is a matter of moving them around. >> do you want to,? >> there could have been a , if we had been successful, in bringing the campaign people in. as we have talked about, there

was a clear division between the campaign, focusing on their job, and us focusing on hours. while there was a meeting and conversation, weekly, with the campaign policy shop, as far as the lot of roles steve was talking about, scheduling, anything to do with communications, those functions, the people who were playing those roles in the campaign, we really could not distract from their job. to beld have been helpful able to have conversations, maybe three weeks out, so we could have prepared, so it could not have been probably that week before we could have gotten him on board. that was something i was concerned about. we alluded to this with the confirmation process. gettinge focus is on

them through senate confirmation. one of the things i had dealt with was with people. they have concerns as well. as the governor said, if you can have some soft conversations about what this is going to be toe, to come to washington, take on the role of government -- if we hadink been successful. some people some people will remove themselves. if they found out what a government service would be perhaps haveht counted on it. >> there are two fundamental principles. people tried to gain these principles. there was plenty of activity around it. anyone on the was campaign must --