30's, that made me think that someone i knew could and should be president. >> why 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 think she would thinks you would be ok and that job, you say yes -- if the -- president thinks you would be ok in that job, you say yes. while the idea of regulation does not normally make people 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 regulation that are hurting small businesses and compromising economic growth. the chance to do could in that office is phenomenal.

-- the chance to do good in that office -- i had known about it for many years -- is just phenomenal. >> you left and went to harvard. >> i went back to harvard in 2012. >> when did you leave the university of chicago, and how long were you there? >> i was there for a short time before i went to the government. my formative period really 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, they are not still with us. 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 -- acton and concord. my mother was an intelligent woman. >> you have written a lot. 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? ?" we have now "why nudge

which 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." actually, i have a reissue of a book that is much revised called "on rumors." that draws on my washington experience. >> your vote, when you took that job, was close. 57-40, something like that. >> yes, 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,

57-41 -- that is a landslide. >> why the difficulty? you alluded to the things that you have written about, why have they gotten you in controversy? >> what i think happened, it was a little ironic given some of the things i worked on, which is how falsehoods spread. bee ideas i have had could misinterpreted or that i had floated as food for thought and than let's have the u.s. government do it. some of those ideas caught a bad wave and made people think that i was in favor of censorship or in favor of animals over human beings. was going to regulate farmers out of existence or something. completely crazy ideas. i blame the people who thought

-- i really 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. like that the united states was responsible for 9/11 or all sorts of evil in the world. it is just not true. how rational people believe all sorts of 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. my co-author and me. 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.

so people do not get stirred up and want to kill us. not writtenper was with enough qualifications or care. i certainly did not think it was meant to talk about suppressing dissent in the united states or counter acting in a minute putative way -- in a manipulative way what americans are suggesting. 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 foundational. if people are at a gate where they are charging the gates and are about to start destroying property and people, there has to be a kind of imminence requirement and big harm. apart from that situation, free speech is the watchword. there are some categories to like false libel, commercial advertising that is subject to commercial regulation. the qualifications are much less important than the foundational principles. >> 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, right? >> it is for people who operate blogs and news organizations that operate walks. -- blogs. he says the commenters should be responsible for what they post. that is like you hosting a living room and someone in coming into your living room and starts talking. 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 pretty scary guy. -- one ideak floats is that a chilling effect has a good part to it. i think that is just true. before people spread false it's -- falsehoods about their fellow citizens, they should think about that. we have a libel law. 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. but our libel law also recognizes that. 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 libel 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. but i think someone who runs a should take down something that is libelous. that is part of treating citizens with respect. >> how do you police that? >> that is a good question. there would be a small fine for somebody who did not take down something. under circumstances where it is libelous and made up and you

know that and keep it up, you would be subject to civil fines under current libel law if you said that. 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. with modern technology, to take out a libelous or false statement is extremely easy. this is not the most burdensome regulatory statement. >> how would you take it out? blog oru can do with a anything, 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 someone outside -- the person. >> what i'm thinking is that the people who run websites, we know who they are and they have freedom. they are entitled to the safeguards of the first amendment. here is an example. if they put up a commercial advertisement that is a lie -- a product that says it will cure baldness that is completely false and he is just a fraud on 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 and radio -- in radio? >> i am against the fairness doctrine. having diversity through specialization is a good thing. it is -- the idea that they regulation -- the government would regulate this is a bad idea. >> we have a video clip of you

from 1989. i smile when you say hair. i want to show a different cass sunstein. a will run that and get statement about what you say about teaching. >> read our back, the famous coach of the boston 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 and clarity,sion but at the same time with courage of convictions. >> that is good university of chicago stuff. i wonder if that guy had a toupee on? i think it was real.

>> often you read that professors at university of chicago are more conservative. is that true? >> yes, compared to the normal elite universities in america, the university of chicago has more prominent conservatives. it is part of the greatness of the place. >> how would you define your politics? >> i am eclectic. i'm a supporter of president obama. a strong supporter of his. i tend to agree more with the views of democrats. 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

-- ended up going 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 suggests 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 standards 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. 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. "impeach him." it is like having a tantrum. and does not focus on what we should be focusing on. which is 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. i remember saying to him, as a youngster with the full head of hair, 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 had a devastatingly convincing response. he then said, i take your point. he said it without any condescension.

with the kind of recognition , and heas trying treated me as an equal. that had an impact. >> what did he write or say it that 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 in society, whether we would be rich or poor, male or female, what will we do from that standpoint of neutrality? that is a powerful idea. a lot of our characteristics, whether our parents were wealthy or not or sent us to good schools or not is serendipitous. the idea of thinking of fair and right should technology that our -- should acknowledge 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 you think back on your time as a clerk for thurgood marshall, what years did you do that? >> 1980-1981. i recall when i think about justice marshall is him sitting in a big chair with his law clerks. just talking to us about cases .nd life, and law his tremendous energy and lack in spite of his experience. he was almost hanged once. he told us that story. 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. that is what i remember most about him. >> when was he almost hanged? >> he was relatively young. it was in oklahoma. he was taken down to a river. there are 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 me about being a clerk that i don't know from others, when it comes to the nitty-gritty of being in that job? >> 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. the other thing to think is 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. you are young. clerks are typically in their 20's. this is a chance to get sentences in supreme court opinions that can enter and have -- that can endure and can have a lasting impact.

and treasuremind 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 takingd not feel right anything out. but i have 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. just roll this and we will try to listen to what is going on here. >> ambassador. >> let's check the label.

>> john paulson. mr. cass sunstein. >> german in high school. >> thank you. >> first of all, who was invited? you or her? >> it was she, because of her formal role. who knows? maybe i could have gotten invited on my own. >> i want to tell you that there was a tweet from samantha powers. she wrote, on my way to the white house state dinner for france tonight, accompanied by one of the most interesting guests. thank you for marrying me. >> nice of her. >> did you have any idea that he

was writing that? >> 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. you said it is cooperation she also speaks. no, i said croatian. 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.

>> what about the use of the tweet. you tweet? she 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 a 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. >> on the world. >> on 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 maybe pushing them in better directions. 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 to wo 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. and you want it 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

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. i found in government -- this was inspiring. i found this 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 -- but in a way 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.

>> i want to show you some video. this is the president talking about openness and transparency. three different occasions, 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 passed, 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 he 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 increasing our capacity for self government and also just making people's lives better. they get material. the open government initiative has produced tremendous develop ments, 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. 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. -- when that thing passed. 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 passed, i was not involved much in the legislation. i was involved in a lot of the limitation. -- of the implementation. passed ifter it got , said, let's printed out. -- let's print it 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. members of congress have a lot of things to focus on. his 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 's promise that the negotiations would be televised -- the president's promise the negotiations would be televised? >> i was not a part of that -- >> i know, but 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 negotiated 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 -- which we did --

jefferson said it was 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 am alert to 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 every name. 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. you, again, from your position -- 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 a constitutional background, which involves executive privilege. if the president is engaged in deliberations with his advisers, the supreme court said,

republican 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? -- what do you think of 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 free. >> i have a copy of one of your nudge?""why no edg

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.

it recognizes that as a form of paternalism, 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 goodness i can

talk to this honor because he can explain all this to me. what does all that mean? >> much of the book is more reader-friendly. here is the idea. 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 -- i think that the stakes 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 going 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 someday 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? >> but what would you do personally -- 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. -- the form is too complicated. 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 simplify 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 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. a little boy and a little girl. >> 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 rice a is -- the u.n. ambassador job is extremely demanding. we live in new york. the pace is heavy for her.

i don't think it was heavier as it was for me, but 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. >> time is up, and 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 ?" y nudge the politics of libertarian

paternalism." thank you very much. >> thank you. i enjoyed it. ♪ comments on "washington journal here cap than a forum on data collection and privacy concerns. for st. patrick's day, we turn to the video library at c-span.org to see how u.s. presidents marked the holiday. despite all this, tip wanted me here. he said since it was march 17 it was only fitting that someone dropped by who actually had known saint patrick. [laughter] and that is true.

i did no saint patrick. changed to theh political party at the same time. once you have had a glass of guinness with a man in ireland, as i have, you are friends. plays]sic >> and today more than 35 million americans claim as their ancestry in ireland. murphy, -- i should have

said mccain. [laughter] well, i just did. well, happy st. patrick's day to everybody. tens of millions of americans trace their roots back to the emerald isles. claim to on st. patrick's day. [laughter] >> this morning on "washington journal, coke michael allen, author of "blinking red." he discusses allegations that the cia spied on senate staffers. then political health-care reporter kyle cheney looks at the obama administration's efforts to young adults, african americans, and hispanics to sign up for health care insurance. phillips weibel talks

about the five-year anniversary about the home modification program. calls, will look to your comments and twitter. "washington journal closed quote is next. -- washington journal is next. federalst of the government has been told to stay home due to the weather today. we are here with you for a full three hour washington journal to discuss the looming enrollment deadline for the affordable care act. allegations of cia searches of congressional -- congressional computers. first we will discuss yesterday possible in crimea to secede from ukraine and join russia.