>> the wireless infrastructure, monday on "the communicators" on c-span 2. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> this week on q&a, cass sunstein discusses his latest book. it is entitled "why nudge? the politics of libertarian paternalism." >> tell us when you decided what to do in your life and when. >> it was after i clerked for the supreme court.

i thought i would become a lawyer or work for the government. i was really attracted to the idea of being a professor. at the university of chicago, there's a lot of energy and intellectual excitement. people are engaged in the world, and seeing their liveliness and ambition got to me. >> when did you meet president obama? >> in the early 1990's. he was a harvard graduate and interested in joining the faculty in some capacity. he was a very impressive young lawyer. >> how close did you get to know him? >> we were friends and colleagues. we had a cordial and friendly relationship. i certainly felt that i knew him to be a strong supporter. >> was there a time that you thought he could become president? >> very early.

he was in his 30's and he was standing outside of 58th street, a bookstore in chicago. i said to him, you know, i think you should be president. i meant it. even though it was a little absurd to think that someone you knew would become president. he did not take it seriously. he thought i was being a little excessive on friday morning. he did remember it and he mentioned it to me not that long ago in the oval office. >> why did you say that? >> he has a kind of ability to connect with people of all different kinds. and, of course, the challenges of the presidency that he is facing, as all presidents do. you could see that he had an ability to connect with everyone and be wise. he could assimilate a lot of

information and come up with a sensible path forward. a lot of professors have a great deal of creativity and their own ideas. they may not be people that you want to see in the oval office. he, because of his ability to solve problems in such a clear and conspicuous way, even in his 30's, made me think that someone i knew could and should be president. >> where did you go to work in the white house and what job did you have? >> i did it to serve the american people. that is the honor of a lifetime. if the president thinks you would be ok in that job, you say "yes." while the idea of regulation

does not normally make people's eyes light up, it does give you a chance to help people. it makes the air cleaner and makes it so that you take away regulations that are hurting small businesses and compromising economic growth. the chance to do good in that office is phenomenal. >> you left and went to harvard. >> i went back to harvard in 2012. >> how long were you at the university of chicago? >> i was there for a short time before i went to the government.

my formative time was at the university of chicago. >> where did you grow up and what did your parents do? are they still with us? >> sad to say, no. they are still in my heart. in that sense, they are still with me. i grew up in a small suburb of boston. some people think that my town doesn't exist. my dad was a businessman and had a construction company. he built houses all over massachusetts in acton and concord. my mother was an intelligent woman. >> you have how many books? >> too many. >> how many on the market? >> fewer than barry bonds had home runs. more than some hitters.

probably around 30. >> the ones that are on the market are "why nudge" and what else? >> that is a book about economics and helping people. it is a book called "conspiracy theories." there is a book called "the nsa report" based on our work with the review group. i think our title is "liberty and security in a changing world." that draws on my washington experience. >> your vote, when you took that

job, was close. >> 57-41. the president asked it to the oval office after the vote. he was watching on television. rahm emanuel was there and he said, in his inimitable way, that is a landslide. >> why the difficulty? you alluded to the things that you have written about, why have they gotten you in controversy? >> i have worked on how falsehoods spread. some things that i have floated as food for thought and ideas

caught a bad wave and made people think that i was in favor of censorship or in favor of animals over human beings. some thought that i was going to regulate farmers out of existence. completely crazy ideas. i do not blame the people who thought these ideas. the conspiracy theories paper created a stir. it is about how people believe things that are not true. some believe that the united states was responsible for 9/11 or all sorts of evil.

it is about how rational people can believe irrational things. the paper explored, very briefly, how the u.s. government might counteract false rumors when they threaten to create violence against americans. i was on the post-9/11 situation. we talked about how you could combat some falsehoods by presenting truth. americans can do that on the ground and working in those nations to present the truth and give a fair perspective. that way people do not get stirred up to kill us. maybe the paper was written with enough care. i was not talking about suppressing dissent in the united states or counteracting, in a manipulative way. it was an article about why false conspiracy theories are often so attractive. >> what is your philosophy about the first amendment and

censorship? i know you have written a lot about the internet. >> the first amendment and the free speech clause, if you have to single out the most precious part of the constitution, that is a good candidate. the idea that political expression is immune from regulation is bedrock, it's foundational. if people are at a gate where they are charging the gates and are going to destroy property and people, we need an imminence requirement and big harm.

false commercial advertising is subject to commercial regulation. the qualifications are much less important than the foundational principles. >> on the rumours book, i want to run a clip of glenn beck and kyle smith. i do not know if you have seen it or not. i want you to respond to it. >> the idea that they can shut your speech down on the internet without seizing control, they are taking it six different ways. this imposes fines on people who post anything. >> it is for people who operate blogs and news organizations that operate blogs. he says the commenters should be responsible for what they post. you are responsible.

what sunstein wants to do is broaden the libel law. to him, there is too much free speech in america. he rejects the marketplace of ideas. he says the chilling effect is a good thing. the chilling effect is something that we want to guard against. >> what would you have said? >> it sounds like i am a scary guy. one idea is that a chilling effect has a good part to it. that is true. before people spread false it's about their fellow citizens -- falsehoods about their fellow citizens, they should think about that. a chilling effect on spreading intentional lies about people is desirable. you can destroy reputations or

ruin them. in a free society, there is a degree of civility. that is mostly through social norms. i'm a big fan of a free internet and that is what we need in the 21st century. the book refers to an idea, it does not endorse it, it says that it is worth considering. if there is libelous statement on a website and the person knows it's and is informed of it, they have an obligation to take it down. that is an idea. i'm not sure it is a good one. there are complications and that is why there is not a full throated defense of that. there are some things that i think website should take down.

something that is libelous. that is part of treating citizens with respect. >> how do you police that? >> there would be a small fine for somebody who did not take down something. under some other circumstances where it is libelous and made up and you know that and keep it up, you would be subject to civil fines. if it is a public figure, a different level of protection and that is right. you would be subject to fines. the idea would be, if you have a website, there should be consideration of a fine if you

do not take it down with notice. to take out a libelous or false statement is easy. this is not the most burdensome regulatory statement. >> how would you take it out? >> you would just delete it from the website. when people click on the link, it is not there anymore. >> is that done by somebody outside of the situation? >> this would be done by the person. >> what i'm thinking is that the people who run websites, we know who they are and they have freedom. here is an example. if they put up a commercial advertisement that is a lie.

it says that a product would cure baldness. it is false and it is defrauding people. the person who does this is subject to restrictions. there's not a whole lot of stretching to say that you take out the ad like the libel or pornography, if it violates obscenity laws. or, the threat. if there's something on a website that is a threat under existing law and you did not know that it was there, taking it out is easy, technologically. >> do you see the government passing judgment on what is on the internet and assigning a fine from a governmental office like they used to with the

fairness doctrine in radio? >> i am against the fairness doctrine. having diversity through specialization is a good thing. it is -- the idea that the government would regulate this is a bad idea. >> i have a clip from 1989. i smile when you say hair. i want to show a different cass sunstein. >> the famous basketball coach of the celtics said that it is not what you say. it is what they hear. when i think about what people get for my classes, the first thing i want them to get is to be able to analyze problems in a lawyerly way with an ability to

articulate both sides of the case, passion and ability, and courage of convictions. >> that is good university of chicago stuff. i wonder if that guy had a toupee on? i think it was real. >> you real that -- read that professors at university of chicago are more conservative. is that true? >> the university of chicago has more prominent conservatives. >> how would you define your politics? >> i am eclectic. i'm a supporter of president obama. a strong supporter.

i tend to agree more with the views of democrats. but there are plenty of issues where i agree with republicans. >> a quote from glenn greenwald, who is one of those who was responsible for edward snowden surfacing, he writes for "the guardian" and other things. this is a quote from 2010. >> i assume that you have seen that. >> i have not. that is pretty strong language and i would not characterize my views like that. >> that has to do with fisa and your position on military

commissions, i am not an international law specialist. i did not write much on war on terror issues. i said that the military commissions, which president bush created, were supported by precedent. the conventional view was that they were strongly supported by precedent. the supreme court with the other way on that. it was a decision that some people thought was surprising. the military commission idea, certainly that did not come out of the blue. it is not something that lacked judicial support. >> why are you so strongly opposed to the impeachment of bill clinton and the potential suggested impeachment of george bush? >> it is a remedy of last resort.

the idea of impeaching bill clinton was not consistent with our constitutional requirements for impeachment. it did not meet the standard, and that was unconstitutional by the house of representatives. this is not to say that we should approve of what bill clinton did. there are impeachable offenses and other offenses. for george bush, there was no impeachable offense. people had disagreements with his policy. that is part of democracy. he was elected twice. the idea of impeaching people as you disagree with them destabilizes our system in a way that aggravates some of the forms of political polarization that we are now observing and

makes governance more difficult. it has an expressive quality. it is like having a tantrum. and does not focus on what we should be focusing on. what are the right policies and how do we get them fixed? >> which person had the most impact on you, besides your mother and father? >> that is a great question. there is a philosopher named john rawls. he had a huge impact on many people, whether positive or negative to his arguments. he is a candidate. there are many things that he said that i do not agree with. >> is he alive? >> no. he died a number of years ago. he was a gentle and humble person and that had an impact on me. a youngster said to him, after some conference, that he was wrong on points. i'm sure that i was so naïve and that the objection i had have been raised to him 700 times.

he countered it, and had a devastatingly convincing response. he then said, "i take your point." he said it without any condescension. he treated me as an equal. that had an impact. >> what did he write or say it had an impact on you? >> when this big ideas is, in thinking about what is fair, we should go back to "the original position."

we do not know what place we would have rich or poor, male or female, we don't know what our religion is, what will we do from that standpoint of neutrality? that is a powerful idea. whether our parents were wealthy or not or send us to schools or not is serendipitous. the idea of thinking of fair and right should technology that our current position has a lot to do with good fortune. it is a powerful idea and he puts it with good clarity. >> when did you clerk for thurgood marshall? >> 1980-1981. the first thing i recall when i think about justice marshall is him sitting in a big chair with

his law clerks, half the year we got to be located very close to him. he would talk to us about classes, life, and law -- cases, life and law. his energy and lack of bitterness. he was almost hung once. he told us about his experiences and how he thought about law. it was focus on human consequences. in death penalty cases, he had an acute lawyer sense of what happened in the trial, which law students and supreme court justices often lack because they have not seen trials close up, and he thought about the human consequences in every moment. >> when was he almost hanged? >> he was relatively young. it was in oklahoma.

he was taken down to a river. there were a bunch of african-american ex-military who were following him and tried to protect him. they knew he was at risk. they stopped it. >> if a young person came to you, as you are a law professor at harvard right now, and said they wanted to be a clerk and they got it, what would you tell them? >> i would tell them that there are two things to focus on. you have a boss was confirmed by the united states senate. you are working for that person. most clerks know that. this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to give everything that you have to make the law better, by whatever criterion

you think is important. clerks are typically in their 20's. this is a chance to get sentences in supreme court opinions, subject to your own justice and other justices, that can enter and have a lasting impact. keep that in mind and pressure at. -- treasure it. use it every day. >> did you keep a track of what got in? >> i do not think you are allowed to. i did not feel like taking anything out. i have seen recollections -- keen recollections of the year. >> i want to show video of you and your wife at a dinner for

the french leader, mr. hollande. you are coming into the dinner. i have the transcript. you cannot hear very well. >> ambassador. >> let's check the label. >> john paulson. mr. cass sunstein. >> german in high school. >> thank you. >> first of all, who was invited? >> it was she, because of her formal role. who knows? >> i want to tell you that there

was a tweet from samantha powers. she wrote, on my way to the white house and accompanied by an interesting guest. thank you for marrying me. >> i had no idea. i did retweet. >> for those who do not hear it, the reporter asked who made her dress. she said, cass, check the label. you were announced. she said the name of the dress. the reporter said, do you speak any french? she said, it is german in high school. >> i am pleased to say that our

u.n. ambassador speaks cooperation and had a beautiful dress. she did not know the designer. that is not the sort of thing that she focuses on. she had a pretty busy day doing international things and people do not believe that we did not know the designer. i had to check. >> you tweet and she tweets. her tweets? >> i think she was saying that the focus on justin bieber was excessive in view of the other things that the world and united states are facing. that is what she was doing. in the government, in my prior role as head of the office of information and regulatory affairs, there wasn't a lot of tweeting. it was a very internal job. for people who were diplomats, including former ambassador

rice, current secretary of state kerry, twitter is actually a useful way of making statements, and in the way, drawing attention to certain issues and concerns. i use twitter for something a lot more trivial, that is, academic matters of interest to this particular tweeter. >> what do you think of the idea of twitter and facebook in all that communication available to us? >> at least three things -- the ability to disseminate information immediately is an extraordinary benefit to the human rights, including to the cause of civil liberties and civil rights. that is great. a second thing is that there is a risk that people will get in echo chambers as result. we actually have some data suggesting that false views and

polarization can be increased as a result of social media. the third thing, which is the good side of the second, if you want a ton of information about something that particularly interests you, you can get it basically on your phone with a touch. that is extremely good for people who are specializing or just curious. >> what do you think the impact is on the government? >> to be honest, on our government, modest. around the world, probably larger, in the sense that societies who suppress dissent are having a more difficult time. information can get out.

social media in nations that are run by tyrants, social media can be helpful and effective in getting their attention. >> what do you think of all this information being held by the library of congress? >> i don't have a problem with that. if the library of congress has not only books of the old musty sort but also electronic books of a new sort, and if they have twitter feeds and facebook, i think that is all the public domain and fine. a little bit of a warning to teenagers or teenagers of all ages, which is that twitter and facebook, if you don't want the world to be staring at this 10-30 years from now, maybe don't put it up. >> back when you are head of oira, was it in the white house? >> it's across the little street that separates the old executive office building, now the

eisenhower building, from the white house. >> how many people worked in that office? >> my office had about 50 people total. >> you made a speech on september 21, 2010 on the regulatory flexibility act, 30 years old. what is the regulatory flexibility act? >> i'm wondering whether the fact that is my birthday, september 21, that i wanted to celebrate it with the regulatory flexibility act -- it is a law that was designed to give small businesses a little extra room in dealing with regulatory requirements. the notion is, if a little company in ohio or new york or california or nevada is faced with some rule from the environment protection agency, the department of transportation, the department

of education, it should be able to have more flexible requirements than big companies, unless there is reason not to. at least, the government should be thinking about that. it requires listening. there is a process requirement. it also requires consideration of extended compliance dates or exemptions, partial or total, and it grows out of a recognition that economic growth in our country is often fueled by small companies. >> you said this in a speech -- my central claim in these remarks is that there is a close connection, even an inextricable relationship, between analytic government and open government. what does that mean? >> the idea is that you want two things in a democracy committed to economic growth. one, you want to be open so what you are doing is clear.

frequently, in advance so people can comment on it. you wanted to be evidence-based and based on careful consideration of what is going to happen. sometimes, the analytic idea seems technocratic and closed, people with big glasses staring at numbers, and the open government idea seems kind of populist and not really evidence-based but more who is doing and who is chairing -- booing and who is chairing. -- cheering. you can't get the analysis and consequences right unless you are open. if you are doing something that affects small business or people who want the air to be cleaner or people who want highways to be safer, talk to them. tell them what you are thinking and why. that is openness. that is going to improve the analysis. they will tell you things that you wouldn't know in advance. this was inspiring. i found this and government time and again. we would say something as a proposal for highway safety or

for homeland security, and we would work so hard to get it right. if we were open about everything we were thinking, we would find, sad to say, but anyway triumphant to say, that we made some mistakes, and the mistakes could be corrected before the rule actually went into effect because we were open about it. >> this is the president talking about openness and transparency. quick clips. >> i will make our government open and transparent. anyone can ensure our business is the people's business. justice louis brandeis once said, sunlight is the greatest disinfectant. as president, i'm going to make it impossible for congressmen or lobbyists to slip porkbarrel projects or corporate welfare into law when no one is looking, because when i am president,

meetings where laws are written will be more open to the public. no more secrecy. that is a commitment i make you as president. >> a recent independent watchdog group took a look and said, this has been the most transparent government, the most transparent administration that we have seen in a very long time, perhaps in the modern era. >> actually, on a whole bunch of fronts, we have kept that promise. this is the most transparent administration in history. i can document how that is the case. everything from every visitor that comes into the white house is now part of the public record -- that is something we changed. just about every law we pass, every rule we implement we put online for everybody to see. >> you can imagine there are people watching this right now

screaming at the television set. people who don't agree with that at all. i want to ask you about that. i know you have said a lot about open government. we are now living in the era of this health bill that we knew almost nothing about. he promised openness negotiations when he ran, and he didn't give it to us. all the things you write about, the image is that this is not an open place, >> i agree with what the president said. recognizing your points, let me say a little bit about what i think you had in mind. the area i worked in included regulations, including health care regulations.

there is a website called regulations.gov, which we really upgraded. it has on it not just all the rules and proposed rules, but it also has all the comments. there are comments on comments. you can go on regulations.gov -- it is not a laugh a minute -- if you are interested in this stuff, there is unbelievable transparency. one thing that is beautiful about that, going back to our previous exchange, is that government can go and does go and sees what people are saying and often acts differently accordingly. i spend a lot of my time -- spent a lot of my time on regulations.gov asking, what are people saying about our proposed rules and final rules, and how can we respond to comments that are legitimate? that is one area where there has been a tremendous increase in transparency. a second area is data. the government has a ton of data about infant child seats, about air quality, crime, water quality, about everything that affects people, product recalls.

data.gov puts online hundreds of thousands of data sets that the government had formerly kept secret. that stuff is now online and in people's smartphones often. they have apps that bill directly to that material. gps is kind of the most famous example, i think, of release of government data. president clinton did that. what president obama has done -- i think this shouldn't be partisan, because there are a lot of republicans, including congressman issa, who has been very emphatic on the importance of data.gov and a real protector of the enterprise -- the congressman and president obama don't always march hand-in-hand together. on this one, they do. he rightly said, this is a way of making people's lives better. they get material.

the open government initiative has produced tremendous developments, and people are going to be reaping the rewards of that for generations to come. >> let me go back to the point of the health bill. it was misses pelosi who said on the floor of the house, we are going to have to pass this bill to find out what is in it. it comes to this huge issue of health care. we didn't know hardly anything when that thing past. neither did members of congress. in an era of transparency, what happened? >> it is a very interesting example. i remember the day after the law got past, -- passed, i was not involved much in the legislation. i was involved in a lot of the

of the implementation. the day after it got passed, i said, let's printed out. there are a lot of pages. if they came into my office, and i read them the next two days. the law as passed was in secret before it passed. it was completely accessible online. you could see various versions. it is true it is not short. i believe it is 900-plus pages. to absorb 900 pages, especially when you are busy, is burdensome. this was not a secret bill. there may have been provisions in it that were not -- that some members didn't understand well or didn't know were there, but there was nothing secret about

it. in fact, i was on the premises at the time, so i observed some of it -- maybe not the most famous parts, like a calorie labeling for chain restaurants, these were much debated by people who were exploring what the ingredients of the bill should be. something else about people who have pre-existing conditions, a very important provision, can't be denied health insurance -- that was much discussed and debated. whatever you say about the affordable care act, and certainly there are reasonable people who have a lot of different views, i think secrecy was not the problem. >> what about the president promised that the negotiations would be televised -- the president's promise the negotiations would be televised? what is your reaction as a college professor, law professor? >> the idea of televising negotiations, that shouldn't be the universal practice. this is a very important thing that i learned, really.

in a negotiation setting or a deliberative setting, it is good for people to have some space to talk among themselves. in fact james madison, the father of our constitution, had a very nice exchange with thomas jefferson who called the closing of the constitutional convention an abominable precedent. madison said, you've got it completely wrong. you need a yielding an accommodative spirit. the minds of the members were changing. it was very important it be secret. i wouldn't say that about all negotiations, but if you have a family or business deciding what to do, the idea that that is going to be televised, i don't think that is right. a deliberative process deserves an area of privacy. >> why do you think the president said that through the campaign? >> i haven't seen the clip.

i'm alert the fact that sometimes public figures are said to have said things they didn't quite say. the president has, i think, a really good track record of thinking things through and figuring them out before he says them. legislation the openness of the negotiation process, i don't have an absolute view on it. the idea that we want to have all negotiations open, i think that would be a very hard position to defend. >> the freedom of information act, why does that not apply to the white house? for instance, you go through that story about, the president said, i'm going to publish every law, every person that comes in and out of the white house, and we found that we didn't get everything. then the white house, one was saying that the secret service keeps that list -- they have the law apply to them, but not the

white house. should the white house have to do with the freedom of information act? >> there are some reasons why a lot of people think not, and the reasons involve our constitutional background, which involves executive privilege. if the president is engaged in deliberations with his advisers, the supreme court said, republican and -- as well as democratic appointees, there is a scope for privacy of communication. i do think that is quite important. the president needs unvarnished -- which is to say, no self-censorship on the part of advisers -- if that is subject to foia laws, there is a risk. the white house isn't just communications with the president. among the problems facing

america, i wouldn't put toward the top of the list the fact that communications that involve internal discussions at the white house are not in the public domain. >> in talking about your book, the nsa report, what you do with other authors, there is this quote. "americans must never make the mistake of wholly trusting our public officials." after you have now been in the white house, the justice department earlier, what do you think that statement? >> i completely agree with that statement. i stand by that. one of the glories of our system is that we don't fully trust our officials, even if we served on the same faculty with them. i am a big fan of president obama. i do trust him. let's put that to one side.

our tradition is one of, really, is that true? that has helped keep us to -- us free. >> i have a copy of one of your books, "why knowledge -- nudge?" "why nudge? the politics of libertarian paternalism" what is paternalism? >> paternalism is someone can be a friend -- someone influencing your choice to make your life go better. what makes that paternalistic is it is influencing your choice in ways that depart from what you might have done without the influence. where i would go with paternalism is to recognize that sometimes people don't think things through fully. they can use a little help in the form of information, say, about what happens if they don't

pay off their credit card bill. they can use help in the form of some default rule, as it is called, that establishes what happens if you do nothing. it might mean that you are automatically enrolled in a retirement plan, as many companies are doing. warnings can be very valuable. these forms of paternalism that i would endorse all preserve freedom of choice. they do not eliminate freedom of choice. they are soft or weak forms of paternalism. they don't mandate or coerce or imprison or fine. what i think is extremely promising, actually exciting, and we are seeing it all over the world, is the recognition

that there are tools we have that fully preserve and respect liberty but that also can help people do better, including live longer, by their own lives. the forms of paternalism i would endorse do not say that the government gets to substitute people's own values. it has to respect them. >> i'm going to read a paragraph in your book. i'm doing it on purpose because when i read it, i said, thinking this i can talk to the author. "there is a serious risk that autonomy-based objections are rooted in a heuristic for what really matters, which is welfare. when people invoke autonomy and insist that people have a right to make their own mistakes, they might really be thinking that epistemic argument is correct and people know better than outsiders do, especially outsiders who work for the government." what does all that mean? >> much of the book is more reader-friendly. here is the idea.

[laughter] suppose the government is saying, you know, that we are going to do something to regulate cigarettes, whether it is a cigarette tax or a no-smoking in public buildings. you might think that that is bad because it interferes with people's autonomy, their freedom. these are widely accepted, but you might think that. what that paragraph is saying is, we ought to be focusing a lot, at least, on people's welfare, meaning what makes their lives good. by their lives, not about what the government thinks. the suggestion is, when we say, freedom of choice, let people go their own way, what i think we often mean is, they know best. the government doesn't know best.

the notion of autonomy, a pretty elaborate word, is basically a way -- a one-word way of saying that people know better than outsiders do about what will make their lives go well. this sounds kind of academic and abstract, but i think mistakes are real and concrete. the question when we think about our policies, at least a lot of the question, is, are people going to be sick? are they going to be miserable? are they going to be dead? if we have some policy, whether it involves savings for retirement or if it involves privacy on the internet or if it involves air quality. if we can think of some way that makes them less likely to be sick or miserable or dead, while also letting them ultimately go their own way if that is what they want, that is probably a good bargain. words like "autonomy" and

"freedom" shouldn't be used as kind of nuclear bombs to prevent things like, you are automatically enrolled in a retirement plan, or, you can smoke, sure, but you are going to see a warning, or, the default setting on your printer is good to be double-sided instead of single-sided, but if you want single-sided, go for it. >> you have the same background as barack obama. if you were elected president some day and you found yourself in the oval office, based on everything you have written over the years, what are the one or two things that you would want to get done as the president of the united states? what are the first couple of things you would want to do? >> if i were elected, the first thing i might do is resign and hope i had a really good vice president.

[laughter] if that option weren't available, just because of my own background, i would focus on domestic matters and economic growth, number one. as part of that plan, i would think, what can we do on both the fiscal and regulatory side both to get people back to work and to get gdp increasing at a healthy rate? >> what will you personally do -- president obama has said, if congress won't move, i will. if you are in a position, what would you move on that is most important to you? >> one thing that is an extremely successful policy is the earned income tax credit. i know people disagree on the minimum wage. the earned income tax credit, they ought not to disagree. that has been a very successful policy. what that means is that working people end up getting a little

boost so they are not struggling quite so much. i would do everything i could both to make sure the earned income tax credit is really working, that people are getting it, and i would do everything i could to see how that model, which is one where people have good incentives to work, where you are not creating a policy that has an undefended bad consequence -- an unintended a bad consequence, is built on. on the executive power side, i would focus very much on people who are either in the middle class or struggling to get into the middle class, what can help them in the short-term and long-term. long-term, one thing we can really do is increasing educational opportunity. there are things that can be done at the executive level to help. there is financial aid, a program the government has, that a lot of people don't take advantage of because the form is to comforted. it is very hard to navigate. the obama administration has done a great deal to simplify the form. we know that form signification for that program -- we are

talking about education, which is very good at the individual level and social level -- i would rather simplify the form then increase the taxpayer burden. while the obama administration has taken significant steps, i would do much more. also, we can do a great deal to signify government. >> we have a couple minutes remaining. what has been the impact on your life of one, being in the government for four years, and two, being married to the u.n. ambassador? how long have you been married to cement the power? >> we have been -- samantha power? >> we have been married about five years. >> two children. >> two children. i would say, and counting, but two. one is one and a half. one is a four and three quarters. >> what is the impact on your

life? >> the impact of the government is that i am focused much more in my daily work on what concretely can be achieved given the multiple constraints that government faces. to work in government, you think less abstractly. what a friend of mine in the government used to say in meetings that went on too long, we have admired the problem -- now what are we going to do? what i learned in government really is that admiring the problem is a first step, but you should get over it probably pretty quickly. >> what about the second part of that, being married to the ambassador of the u.n.? where did you meet her? >> we met on the campaign in iowa. we kind of fell in love. she says i was so joyful when he won the primary, and that kind of launched him. she might have fallen in love with anyone standing next to her. i kind of got lucky there.

it was a campaign romance. it might have been the first campaign marriage, the first one i know about in american history. the u.n. ambassador job a is extremely demanding . we live in new york. the pace is heavy for her. it is more public, much more public. the impact really in some ways is less than you might imagine because she is a very dedicated mother. our kids are there. we are able, even with the travel i have going between boston and new york and the job she has, to have a not that unusual family life. >> thank you, cass sunstein, professor of law at harvard university and author of many books that people can find in a number of places. we have the one in our hands

that came out this month, "why nudge? the politics of libertarian paternalism." thank you very much. >> thank you. i enjoyed it. to give your comments, visit us. the programs are also a global as c-span podcast. >> next, nick clegg taking questions. president obama and irish prime minister talked about irish-american relations. then a discussion about the democratic party campaign against the koch brothers.