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tv   Washington This Week  CSPAN  January 12, 2014 12:19pm-1:26pm EST

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i wish he would see me. i am certainly not going to barge into his office. if he doesn't want to see me, i will go someplace else in fort lee and talk to people. i wish the mayor would reconsider.
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i have come to genuinely apologize to him. if he doesn't want a meeting, i don't know what he means -- what were the words? premature and disruptive, i don't know how the meeting between two elected officials and the premature and disruptive. that is his choice. i will meet with other people in fort lee. >> [inaudible] >> i have no knowledge of that. we would consider that in the normal course of business. certainly not something that i am prepared to talk about now. >> can you explain why -- [inaudible] >> i think there was an earlier story. i don't remember exactly. something about traffic. >> why didn't you respond then? >> we did. we were told it was a traffic study. >> but the mayor is saying -- >> we were told they did a traffic study. that is what we were told. we did respond.
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that is how we responded. again, i am not somebody who is going to be getting into the details of a traffic study. i can tell you that at that first comment, that is when i became aware that there was some issue. i didn't delve into it. it was not something that i was personally delving into. >> [inaudible] mayor sokolich saying he thinks it might be premature -- [inaudible] >> listen, my intention was when i got out of here, to call the mayor. i will call the mayor and we
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will see. in any event, i am going to go to fort lee today. it is important for me to do that. if the mayor doesn't want me to meet with him, that is his choice. i am sure -- listen, i don't know him. i can't be offended. i am not offended. if he wants to meet with me today, i am happy to meet with them. if he doesn't want to meet with me, i am still going to fort lee today. i think it is important for me to be on the ground there today and apologize to folks. i am going to do that. if he wants to be part of that, he is more than welcome. if he doesn't, that is his choice too. he has independent will. that is his call. thank you all for coming today. and for your questions. i will see all of you if not before, on tuesday. thank you very much. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by
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national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] he says if it turns out that knew aboutristine his stock shutting down the bridge after denying any involvement and self, that could be grounds for impeachment. chair of the transportation committee. he is leading an investigation into the traffic jam and said subpoenas could be sent out as beginning as tomorrow as tuesday to former and current members of the christie administration. cbs.oke this morning on here's some of what he had to say. do not think it is credible for a governor to have his chief of staff, communication director
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deputy chief of staff all on the day this took place. for the governor to have absolutely no communication. this is in the midst of his reelection campaign. in the governor running for reelection will want to know about problems that come up if for no other reason to know how to respond when asked the question. mail fromple got an e- the executive director director of the port authority saying that laws were broken. it strains credibility that they look at the documents and say we ought to let him know about it.
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has a crying been committed here? >> whether he knew was not the issue. when use the george washington bridge for what the e-mails show to be a political payback, that hamas using public property for a political purpose. whether or not he was knowledgeable about it, whether he authorized it, whether he was ,nvolved in trying to spin it documents that directly go to him. >> he had to hear from the mayor of fort lee were the traffic jam occurred. here is the mayor. governorerstood the
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ran a very tight ship in the sense that he was in control of a lot of things and he would review everything. it is a difficult pill to swallow. i do not want to be the brunt of a joke. i'm taking him at his word. i am. insists that there are 20 democratic mayors in new jersey. he is not a bully. >> i would take issue with that. certainly is hard and strict.
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he is tough and outspoken. a lot of this he brought upon himself. i am not sure much of the issue would be the case if he had not conducted himself the way that his office has been conducting itself. >> a couple of clips from the sunday morning talk shows. you can listen to a rebroadcast under way in just a few minutes and later tonight after midnight. the deadline opens to middle and high school students. what is the most important issue congress should address this year? include c-span programming. there are $100,000 in prizes. this is due by january 20. get more info at studentcam.org
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>> next we will hear from tom daschle on challenges facing congress when it comes to bipartisan effort. he spoke to sinton -- students for academic seminars. this is about one hour. >> thank you very much for that kind introduction, and thank you for your warm reception. i have been looking forward to the opportunity to be with you this morning and would love to get into a dialogue in a few minutes. let me share some initial thoughts with you. in politics you get introduced in a lot of interesting ways. i think my fondest introduction came a few years ago when i was introduced as a model politician and a model united states senator and model leader and a
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model american. my wife showed me the word "model" as it is defined, and it is defined as "a small replica of the real thing." [laughter] i think you have had a model week from everything i hear. am thrilled the bipartisan center has had the opportunity to work with the wilson center. i hope it could be the first of a series of projects like this, and i would love to have more of your input as to whether anything could be done to improve the experiences that you have had this week. you have talked about some of the key issues -- political reform, energy, immigration, the federal budget.
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i have got to believe it has been a very rewarding experience for most of you. i love the story of harry truman in 1948, who invited the first president of israel to come to talk about a similar agenda in the oval office. as they were talking, president truman leaned over to the president and said, with all these complicated issues, how would you like to be president of 189 million people? the present replied, how would you like to be president of 2 million presidents? i think that is the essence of that story is that in the state of israel, and i would argue in the united states today, there are many people who would like to be president who have opinions at least as prominent and as strongly held as the president of the united states. that is increasingly creating a challenge of governance that i am sure you have confronted throughout your discussions today. the national environment today
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is arguably the most polarized it has been in over 75 years. as a result of this polarization, we have had great difficulty in reaching consensus on the very issues that you have spent a whole week talking about, and you have a better understanding of why it has been difficult to reach consensus as result of the conversations and discussions that you have had. but our national environment is polarized in many different connotations, and i think most prominent of all the connotations is the division, the polarization that exists between those who believe our country was built on rugged individualism and that we ought to do everything we can to protect that rugged individualism and those who believe that all we have achieved in this country was done in large measure because of collective action. rugged individualism versus collective action. i do not think that those two positions are irreconcilable. but history has shown over time that reaching some
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reconciliation between those two philosophical points of view is oftentimes an extraordinary challenge, because what happens as a result of this debate is that in large measure it becomes a debate about what is the proper role of government in society today. that is at its essence one of the most important central questions and factors that play themselves out in a myriad of different ways as these debates about issues take place. what is the role of government? and yet no one that i know of would argue that we should have no government. the question is along the spectrum of complete government involvement, responsibility, to minimal responsibility, and
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where in that spectrum should it lie? it varies from one particular public policy question to the next. i call this debate the noise of democracy, the noise of democracy. it is not a very concordant sound. it is not very stereophonic. it beats the alternatives, as you consider egypt, syria, iraq, afghanistan, countries in africa. the noise of violence is even worse. i would argue that the sound of silence for people -- where people disappear because of what they believe -- is at least equal if not worse than that. so this noise of democracy is part of what happens in a democratic republic. this noise has been magnified in recent years, especially by the tea party, a tea party that has very strong views about the questions about the role of government.
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their view is that in most areas of public policy, the government should not have any role at all. i have got a note to turn off my phone, but i have already done that.
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so government -- they argue that if government can do things right, so you should really not do much of anything at all. and because this group engenders in enormous amount of political clout, right now especially, they have almost gotten their wish. this is by far the least productive congress has been in 100 years. as a result of the realization, that lack of productivity is part of the agenda of the tea party and do something in and of itself that is debated. should we be celebrating or should we be lamenting the fact that we have not seen a very productive congress today? as bad as things have been these last couple of years, one still has to keep it in historical perspective. things were a lot worse in the mid-19th century. i should say in the 1840's, a resolution was passed that all fisticuffs had to occur off the floor of the house of representatives. of course, the very famous incident where preston brooks, a congressman, came over with his cane and beat charles sumner within an inch of his life. we have not had any fisticuffs to my knowledge on the senate or house floors for several generations.
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maybe we are making a little bit of progress. yet this cacophony of voices and this noise of democracy is certainly one that i think we need to be very concerned about. this vocal minority believes in large measure not only in a very limited role of government, but they have a tactical approach that has had a lot to do with our productivity in congress. that tactical approach is that it is imperative that members of congress stand their ground rather than find common ground, that finding common ground is tantamount to capitulation and
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that members of congress sent to washington to represent their constituencies should never capitulate. but obviously in a democracy, in a democratic republic, it is literally impossible to govern without finding common ground. governance cannot work in a democracy without some compromise and some appreciation of the importance of reconciling the differences of opinion that exist among our 320 million people. those of the challenges, in light of the fact that you have a very strongly held what have you represented by a very vocal minority in congress who believe that there are very limited roles for government, at the same time they believe there should not be a compromise. that leads oftentimes then to the circumstances we are facing today and the challenges that we face with regard to productivity in congress itself.
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i used to keep a photo of president johnson before he was president. he was majority leader for six years. there is this iconic picture of lbj towering over senator theodore green, a senator from rhode island, demanding a vote on something. the reason i kept that picture in my office was because i aspired to have that capacity, but obviously i could not do that if i wanted to. towering over anybody is not my strong suit. [laughter] but i kept it as a reminder, really -- of really lyndon johnson's extraordinary capacity to serve as a leader and use whatever tactics were required at the time to get the job done, and there are so many people
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that conversely over the years have expressed a yearning for that day when you could back a senator into a corner and twist his arm and get his vote. but the fact is that when lyndon johnson was majority leader, from 1954 until 1960, if i were to take a poll and ask how many filibusters, cloture votes do you think he had to deal with? you might be surprised that he only had one, and that was the 1957 vote on the civil rights act of 1957. harry reid, in the last six years as majority leader, has had 322 cloture votes. so one in the 1950's, 322 in the first decade of the 21st century. we have had more filibusters on nominations in the last five
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years than we have had in all of history. and so the number of filibusters and the extraordinary change in the environment that it had a lot to do with how problematic it is to govern today on the critical issues. as a result, take the four issues you have spent a lot of time talking about this week -- immigration, energy, political reform, and the federal budget i would have to acknowledge this morning as we began the second session of this congress that the prospects for getting any of those four done are substantially below 50-50. i would say of the four, immigration may have the best chance. so what do we do? what is it that we ought to
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consider as we look at the state of governance in our collective capacity here in washington in the year 2014? i would argue there are a number of things we could and probably should do, and i would argue that they are defined in large measure by how difficult they are, to find as i can to say in civil terms that there are big things and little things that could be done to advance the cause of bipartisanship, if we really wanted to achieve it. some do not, but the vast majority of people in this country what to see congress act more productively, want to see more comity, want to see more inspiration and aspirational approaches to our national policy agenda. so let me talk briefly about the big things and the little things, and then i would love to get into a conversation with
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you. on the big side of things, the things that they can rethink, number one is how we select our candidates. increasingly in this country today, our elected officials choose their voters here and the voters do not choose our elected officials. and they do that of course through gerrymandering in particular, moving districts around to make sure you got a very defined group of people that are in your congressional district. that is happening more and more, and i think as a result democracy has suffered. we also have primaries today that are skewed and in many
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cases dominated by a very small fraction. the tea party has had enormous success in the parties because they are so well organized, recognizing that voter turnout in primaries is quite low. number two, i think that one of the biggest challenges we have, believe it or not, is the airplane, and i should explain. the airplane has made it very easy for people to leave washington because it is so easy to leave washington, they leave on thursdays, they come back on tuesdays, and they try to govern on wednesdays. one cannot run a country as sophisticated as this one day a week. we have got to recognize that we have got to spend more time in washington dealing with the nation's business than we do today, and i will come back to that in a minute. but the airplane and all of its ramifications has had a profound effect on how congress works with each other, the fact that they do not socialize as they
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used to, the fact that no one moves their families to washington anymore -- all of that has contributed to this lack of time spent in this city doing what they were elected to do. the media has changed. when i first started in politics, we had three networks. walter cronkite was the referee. now the media is more the participant than the referee. whether it is rachel maddow or rush limbaugh, there is a significant amount of philosophical and political inclination as these media celebrities are able to influence the perception of and ultimately the actions of many of the members of congress.
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and finally i would say the last big, big issue is money. in the last cycle, there were two races where the amount of money spent in the race exceeded $80 million. a typical congressman or senator has to raise -- i should say senator -- has to raise about $10,000 every single day he or she is in office to be able to accommodate the average cost of a senate campaign today. money is driving a big part of the agenda, and it is something that we have got to be concerned about. let me turn to the smaller things. i mentioned already that we do not spend enough time in washington. in 2014, we're going to spend about nine days every month in session. nine days. we are scheduled to spend 113 days totally out of 365 in session.
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one cannot do the nation's work nine days a month. secondly, there is a real case to be made in my opinion for earmarks. i know you all know the term "earmarks," but it gives the member the opportunity to direct funding for his constituencies. we have eliminated earmarks. and i think that was an overreaction. there was abuse of the earmarks system, but because members of congress no longer participate as directly in legislation, it is much harder to pass it as before. third, transparency. too much sunshine actually burns. and i think in some cases we have got to be concerned about how much transparency there is because it has had a very stilted effect, a very -- it caused a constraining environment with regard to the members' abilities to express themselves in a candid way as discussions are held about legislation, and somehow we have got to work on that.
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the so-called hastert rule is really not in keeping with the founding fathers' notion about what it democracy should be. having more caucuses where members would sit in a room and meet with one another is also something that would have enormous impact over time if it were done more frequent. finally, there is not enough socializing, like i wish there were, like there used to be among members of congress, and because there is not enough socializing, there's is not enough relationship, and because there is not enough relationship, there's not enough trust, and if there's not enough trust, there's not enough opportunity to come to some terms and agreements. so each of these fixes i think
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require attention and ultimately could make a major difference in how washington functions. as i said, at its very heart, coming to some ultimate evolution about the role of government in society is going to be absolutely essential. i might add one last thing. that is the importance of leadership. we need leadership. we have been very fortunate to have at critical times in our history, the washingtons, the lincolns, the roosevelts. we need leadership as it relates to finding ways to ensure that we can put responsible and representative democracy at work again. i think the consequences of dysfunction could become increasingly problematic, affecting our quality of life, affecting our security nationally, affecting even our stature around the world.
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so these are not small matters. these are ones we all need to be very concerned about. it is something i hope you have given it thought to over the course of the week. before i take your questions, let me just end with a story that i have always thought was pretty special. it is the story of benjamin franklin who, as you know, was one of the key members of the initial group of men who came together to write the constitution and to write most of the initial foundational premises upon which our democratic republic was built. as he was leading one night in the deliberations about our constitution, and woman in the crowd yelled, "mr. franklin, have you decided what will it be a monarchy, or will we have a republic?" he thought a minute, and he
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yelled back to the woman in the crowd, "ma'am, we will have a republic if we can keep it." that has been our charge for 200 years, to keep this republic. there are only two ways to do it.
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one is to fight for it when you have to, and over a million americans have fought for it over these 220 years, and the other is to work at it every day. it is the responsibility of the members of congress of course to work at it, and as hard as it is to work at it these days, especially in times of polarization and reaching consensus, that challenge has hit new heights. it is the responsibility for us all. each of us in this room has responsibility. you know that, or you would not be here. i am glad you are. i hope you have had a good week, and i look forward to taking your questions. thank you all very much. [applause] >> thank you so much for being here. my name is michael arthur. my question relates to gerrymandering. what reforms have been proposed, and what do you think would be an effective solution? >> a great question, and i would say that as you know it is largely a state responsibility. some states have taken it very seriously, iowa in particular. iowa has made this as nonpolitical an effort over the years as they possibly can, requiring that all the counties within a congressional district the contiguous and that they be roughly equal and that the balance exists in large measure as a result of boundaries that already are in existence rather than carving up and deciding new boundaries as one goes.
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they have had enormous success. they have an equal balance between republicans and democrats today in large measure because they have felt so strongly about this. another thing that has been done in recent years was done in california, which now requires the top two vote getters in the primary run against each other. it is probably too early to tell whether that has worked as well as people have hoped. the early indications are that it is working reasonably well so far.
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those are the kinds of things that have to be done if we are going to get this thing addressed. i also think we have got to be concerned about how primaries function today in dealing with low voter turnout, and the influence that certain groups can have as a result of that low voter turnout is something that has to be addressed, and that is partly a function of how much we spend in campaigns, which is also a big factor. thank you. >> thank you. >> my name is mike. you touched on the filibuster already, but as a former senate majority leader, how do you feel about harry reid's decision to take the filibuster out? >> i support it. i think senator reid had little choice. i think it is unacceptable for a nominee who has been vetted and nominated by the president of the united states, any president, to be required to put
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his life on hold, his or her life on hold, for a couple of years without knowing what the circumstances are going to be. you cannot do that. and so, number one, i think that that factor is one of the most important. i also believe even the fact that as i said in my comments we have had more filibusters on nominations in the last five years than in all of history put together. the trends are not good. senator reid limited this nuclear option, so-called, eliminating the filibuster only on nominations. my concern is that this could slip into other areas of legislating as well, and i would be concerned about that. the two things that i think
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would cure the problem, but they are hard to do, is, one, require members of congress to hold the floor if you're going to be filibustering, and, two, not move on to another piece of legislation. we call it dual tracking. stay on a particular issue until the issue is resolved. those two things are one of the reasons why we have had so few filibusters in the past. >> thank you. thank you. >> hi. i was wondering if you could share some ideas you might have about decreasing the debt. >> decreasing the debt. i think as you know we have got a chasm between what we spend and what we raise today. we are at about -- it is getting better. the economy is getting stronger, and as a result, and i will come back to that in a minute -- as a result, the spread between what we raise and what we spend is different.
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in recessions we spend more because there is a lot of the safety nets that are used more frequently. in essence, what i think we have to do is to bring our revenue to the historic levels we have had in the past, around 20% of gdp, and bring our spending -- and it is currently right now between 16% and 17% -- so we have to raise revenue and bring down spending, not only on the discretionary side, on the amount appropriated, but on the entitlement side, from 22.5% down to 20%. that would bring us roughly in balance.
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it is not necessary we be exactly in balance, but that would be my choice. how do we raise revenue? there are three things that have to be considered. first is the most important -- to keep growing the economy. the more the economy grows, more revenue will be raised. secondly, i think we have got an imbalance. you do not have the purpose of the we have had with regard to our tax code like we had before, and i think we have got to continue to build to make it more progressive. third, i think we have to eliminate a lot of these crazy loopholes. we have amended the tax code. we have passed tax simplification in 1986, probably before most of you were born, and we have had over 8000 amendments to the tax code since 1986. most of them have had to do with creating more loopholes. it has got to do with the loophole challenge. on the spending side, we can do a lot with the entitlement
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programs. the legislators really have two choices. they can cut and shift the programs, and that is what we have done in the past, cut them back and shift the cost of something else, or we can improve their efficiency. health care is the best example. we spend about $800 billion unnecessarily. there is a lot we can do on the entitlement signed by redesigning and improving. that is what i would do. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> senator daschle, earlier you spoke about silence and how people should not be locked in this silence in our country. my question, we've been talking about immigration a lot this week, what do you propose we do to ensure the millions of undocumented immigrants fighting for citizenship are not lost in the silence? >> that is such an important question now.
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i think it is tragic we have the circumstances we do today with regard to undocumented people in this country. they are denied health care. they are denied insurance. they are denied insurance. it is illegal for them to be denied health care per se, but oftentimes it is tantamount to denying them health care, because they do not -- they are not likely to be received well if they do not come in with insurance or documentation, even in an emergency room. about 25,000 people a year die simply because they do not have insurance in this country. it starts with basic life-and- death issues like that. it is important that immigration has historically been one of our greatest strengths. i look around this room and i see an impressive diversity.
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i think more women than men, which is a good thing, and i think diversity in this country is something we have almost taken for granted. that diversity can be because we have migrated from different parts of the world. i think that has always been one of our greatest strengths. but yet there is a lot of resistance to that belief today. so i think there are three things to ensure that we really number one, there has to be more congressional focus on the perils of living in this country as an undocumented person today. and i don't think the congress is focused adequately on just that very question. so what happens? how do they live and what are those circumstances?
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two, advocacy groups really need to step up to the plate and be more visible. groupseful that these can organize and sells more effectively than they have in the past. direct clinical influence, at least in in in different, by increasing the understanding and the empathy of the challenges that they have by this dilemma. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> hello. you mentioned earlier that the debate is really over the role of government in this country. but what is your opinion on the role of this country in the world?
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in your opinion, will the next generation or even the current legislatures and executives in office, will they continue military action or will we see more negotiation about diplomacy, and sort of a bipartisanship worldwide? >> we are seeing a dramatic change in the world landscape over the last 30 years. it used to be a very bipolar coexistence in the cold war between communist countries and non-communists countries, and that bipolar simplicity was both good and bad. there were great dangers like the cuban missile crisis and the possibility of a nuclear exchange, but that simplicity i think lulled us into a complacency about how we look at the world. today there are four levels, not just one. we have the military level, which will continue to be dominant for a long time to come. there is an economic competition.
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china has become very powerful as a nation, not because of military strength, but on the basis of their economic strength. i think that is different than it has ever been before. i think that change has really made a difference. i think that is a realization that we have not fully absorbed yet. i'm thinking with regard to our own strategy. at the third level, there is a new nationalism that is taking place all over the world with smaller countries that are trying to exert themselves a lot more effectively. i would list countries like israel, taiwan, singapore, and a lot of other countries -- brazil, clearly -- that have had sort of a newfound prominence in the world as a result of their success. and in the fourth level is the one that is the most troubling and intriguing, and that is what
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i would call the transnational level. transnational level is dominated by people who have no national identity -- hackers, whether it is al qaeda or someone hacking into systems that may exist somewhere in the world and does enormous damage. we have to be concerned especially with that fourth tier. our security will be more affected by that fourth tier than the first. the question is, what do we do about it? to any extent that we can do it in a sick way it requires four d's. first is defense. there is a need for military strategy and infrastructure. second is diplomacy. we need to put more emphasis on nation-to-nation relationships.
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third d is development, recognizing how important it is to allow the tide to rise on votes anywhere in the world, especially in the developing world, putting greater emphasis on development is critical. the fourth is democracy. that fourth d is critical. we have minimized that. we put more resources today in the first d than the others put together. that is a long answer to your question. >> thank you. >> hi. in the past two years you have been a voice in the role of health care has taken in our country and how we can look to cover everyone in the country. a news reporter praised chris christie for firing people after
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they lied to him. there was a lot of criticism about obama's responsibility for assigning responsibility in the slow rollout of the health care. i would wonder about that and how obama did not criticize his administration for the health- care rollout. >> that is a valid question. i think what the president would probably say, and i have not talked him personally about it, but have had many conversations with people around him, and i think what they would argue is that, number one, there was not any one person who was responsible who could take all the responsibility to the extent that he or she should be fired as a result.
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it was a team effort. the team failed, and as a result the team all is being held accountable. what the president would emphasize is it is almost like a sporting event. the first month was the first inning. the second month was the second inning. we are now in about the fifth inning. the game is not over. the question is how it looks by the time we reach the ninth inning or the end of the game, to use a baseball analogy. i think today circumstances are dramatically different than they were on the 1st of october. about 2.5 million people now are and rolled in the exchanges. about 4.4 million people as a result of their eligibility for medicaid are now enrolled in medicaid for the first time, since october 1.
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about 3 million young adults have signed up on their family plans. you have almost 10 million people since the first of october who have insurance, if not for the first time, who have insurance in a permanent way and far better insurance than they probably ever had before. so i think to take any rash action with regard to disciplining somebody before the game was over would have been premature, and i'm very hopeful and somewhat optimistic that circumstances are going to get that are as these months unfold. >> thank you. >> hello. campaign finances. mr. glickman made a comment how he dislikes having big contributions. mr. bennett was in support of large contributions. what problems have you faced and what would you try to do to fix this problem?
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>> first of all, i think we have compounded the problem dramatically by allowing large contributions. it has not done anything but accelerate the arms race with regard to money in politics, and that is unfortunate. a typical member of the senate today has to spend 2/3 of his final two years in the senate raising money if it is a competitive race. you should not have to do that. i personally would favor a constitutional amendment that would allow us to put severe limits on the amount of money that is raised and spent. i would not allow any fundraising while congress is in session. i would put individual limits much more constrained than they are today in an effort to bring down the cost of campaigns.
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>> thank you. >> thank you. >> cody cooper. you are talking about the media having more of a participatory stance rather than a referee approach. i was wondering how you would influence the media to adopt the referee approach since they have a profit motive? >> that is one of the big issues that really defies any simple solutions. it is really a paradigm. when i talk about leadership, it is imperative that it is not just government leadership that we need. it is private leadership. we need to ensure that the networks and that others in the media take the responsibility and show the leadership to ensure that there is good balance. i remember the day we lost the fairness doctrine which required balance.
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while we had that requirement, there was a lot more of a level playing field with regard to political rhetoric and all that came from it. that will probably never happen again. it is imperative that we try to incent, but that we encourage leaders to step up and be responsible more than they are today. >> i come from the nation of nepal, and after 15 years of uprising, the country has seen a path to democracy. what is the one major piece of advice that you could give to a new democracy? >> i am inspired and excited about what i see. it has been a rough and uncertain road. you have made real progress.
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i think there are four pillars that countries interested in building a democracy have to be cognizant of in order for democracy to succeed. the first pillar is in many respects probably the most important, and that is tolerance a willingness to accept the fact that somebody disagrees with you, that you do not agree with them, and next that while the fact that you may agree is great, a tolerance of other people's views and beliefs is fundamental to success. that is number one -- tolerance. the second is respect for the rule of law, because you make a
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mockery of democracy if you pass laws and do not abide by them. respect for the rule of law is the second pillar. the third pillar is participation. the quality of our democracy suffers in primaries with very low participation. so it is true in developed democracies like ours and in developing democracies like yours, having high levels are participation is really critical. and the fourth is what i just said about leadership. you need leadership in the public and the private sector. that is an important pillar. without leadership you have anarchy. you need leadership to give that participation direction. those are the four pillars. we all strive. i do not think the united states is as tolerant a society as it should be. i do not think we respect the rule of law as we should. we lack participation sometimes in our elections, and there are times when i think we can do better with regard to leadership.
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>> thank you. >> thank you. >> hi, senator. i want to say i'm not usually nervous to ask questions, but i grew up watching your government and i appreciate your contribution to our country. i am impressed with the knowledge that you have about our government and how it was formed and the history of it, and you have used several examples that created an image of how that applied and what that did. it really hit me how important it is we know where we come from and how we got there and what worked and what did not work. but my question is more in line with next week, which we are doing media, but in my lifetime, social media changed with the election of presidents kennedy and nixon and how people can use media to get their point across.
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i remember -- and i cannot remember the issue and i cannot remember the resolution, but i remember one time that you had a public meeting in the mall, i think it was either with a group or an individual, and you tried to get people watching to understand the point of what you was you were talking about. it might have been response to the president's address to the congress. so it hit me and i have noticed that you use symbolism to explain things. you create a picture in our minds of we understand what you are talking about. from an educational point of view, you want your citizens to be informed and understand the decisions you're working on and making. and appreciate that, and i was wondering if you always had that or if that is something that you learned as you governed, that you wanted your constituency to understand, and what kind of benefits have you seen because of that ability to govern?
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>> thank you for your kind comments. partly it is acquired. you see many different approaches to communication in politics today. some fit the individual better than others. it is important to the extent you use the description paint the picture. it is important to paint pictures. that is an acquired ability that i'm still trying to learn. i think it is important to speak in ways that people understand, that allow sort of a picture to be painted. and i think the more one can do that, the more effective one can be as a communicator. i am flattered that you would call attention to that. as i say, i still have a lot to work to do, but that is one thing i have attempted to do -- claude pepper was one of my
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mentors. he was a congressman from florida. he loved metaphors and pictures. he was such an eloquent speaker. mo udall also had that capacity. it is a tool that you want to be able to acquire is a public speaker and a public servant in particular. >> i appreciate you telling people in my generation to take part in what is going on. >> hi. we were talking about education and especially the voucher system. i was wondering what your opinion of school choice and the voucher system was. >> i generally think that having school choice is a good thing. i think sometimes it is overrated.
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i think vouchers can be a good thing, but i also think they are overrated. i do not think -- i think if everybody got to go to a charter school or a private school things would be resolved is too simplistic. we need to look at all the tools we have available to us. i know extraordinary public schools that have served their communities extremely well, but i also know there are charter schools and private schools that have served their communities well. i do not think there is any solution. i think we need to find the test in all of these models and apply them where they work test within a community. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> i'm a graduate student at the university of san diego. i appreciate your comments.
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i have been at a lot of political events, and frequently when you ask a representative questions, you seem to get the rhetoric of the canned answer. i really appreciate the fact that we can ask questions and they are contemplated. why does congress have different types of health care packages that when in the constitution we are not allowed to have any favoritism within the congress that the people do not have? that would be the first question. and why there is not a momentum, if there is such a low rating for congress right now, why would the congress not band together to show good stead to the people that they would make that change that they are equal to the populace they represent. the second question i would have is it seems was so much conversation about cutting back expenditures or increasing
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taxation and those two bipolar conversations, why there is not more emphasis on the contributions that the wealthier are getting as corporate fare, or wealthy fare, that there is such a move to cut welfare, when on a budget sheet, when you continue to give tax incentives to only one edge of the population, that is the same effectively as giving benefit packages to the wealthy. it does not seem to come out in the media. i am a republican and a conservative republican, but as i have studied this, i recognize that is pretty absent from the argument. it is just to not tax. but on the balance sheets, you either -- if you get an incentive or a benefit, it is coming from the revenue streams that come into the country.
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>> that is such a good point. i will take the second part of your question first. we have spent over $1 trillion on tax loopholes. it is become far more expensive in recent years. the proliferation of loopholes has been phenomenal in the past 20 years. it is not only complicating the tax code, but it has created a lot of the inequities that you so eloquently addressed. that is why we need meaningful tax reform, but we do not score those tax loopholes the same way we do as direct spending. it does not get the same attention. i think that is where it starts. valuelative budgetary that a tax loophole has is almost exactly the same as a , but they areture
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not looked upon budgetary lee in that same way. . at is the first thing let's create parity in all things. loopholes are called tax expenditures, but they are not scored as an expenditure oftentimes in the budgeting process the way it should be. it really should start with that because it would put this in proper perspective, just as you suggested think of knowing -- suggested. does dos congress things that they do not get credit for. you may or may not know that everybody in congress is now required to participate in the health exchange. they are no longer eligible for the old health fehb system as it was originally designed. it has to be through an district through the
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of columbia exchange or you could sign up in your own state as well. so i think they are trying to attempt a greater effort at doing what you suggest, to finding ways to ensure that they are not treating -- they are not treated differently. approvaley have a 9% rating right now i think that approval rating, import, is reflected in the extraordinary polarization and what appears to be somewhat of a pg&e -- a attitude on finding ways to argue rather than to have a rational debate on issues of real magnitude the people care deeply about, whether it is energy or immigration are the economy. think that is problem -- i think that is part of the problem as well.
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they are not accomplishing everything that needs to be accomplish in this great country today. but your point is well taken . how can we make sure that they relate more directly to the people of this country and we that. big job on all of >> thank you. x i have enjoyed your questions a lot. >> iq so much for being with us today. -- thank you so much for being with us today. we have a gift of our appreciation info -- we have a gift of our appreciation. whoas senator daschle introduced us to the folks at the bipartisan center when we had the idea for this academic seminar and they have been such a wonderful partner and thank you for your leadership there and thank you for your friendship to the washington center. [applause] >> and a look now at an article
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from the christian science monitor from israel showing hundreds lining up outside of israel's parliament to pay their last respects to former israeli prime minister ariel sharon who died yesterday at the age of 85. his buddies lying in state. -- his body is lying in state. the funeral is planned for tomorrow and some of those who are expected to be in attendance include vice president biden and former british prime mr. tony blair. mr. sharon's body will be buried at his ranch in southern israel. here in washington, d.c., tomorrow, from the brookings institution, a conversation with kiersten jell-o brand about social mobility, the ability of people to move from lower class status to upper class. that will be at 9:00 a.m. eastern time. tomorrow

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