system is affordable and where we can compare our legal aid systems with similar countries we spend more than countries like australia, new zealand and others. >> would the prime minster takew a few minutes to read at least the -- [inaudible] >> my honorable friend and i agree on many things. i'm afraid this is one of them.

i will be happy to look at them potential piece of holiday reading. >> you've been watching prime minster's questions from the british house of common. over the next two weeks the british parliament will be in recess over the easter break. you can watch any time at c-span.org. where you can find videos past prime minster question and other british public affairs programs. next vermont senator bernie sanders at a townhall meeting in

new hampshire. next "q&a" with oklahoma senator tom coburn. bernie sanders held a townhall meeting saturday at st. anselm college. new hampshire. he talked about issues ranging from civil liberty, campaign finance and retirement security. he took questions from the audience. senator sanders is an independent. he said he's considering a presidential run in 2016. new hampshire traditionally holds the first presidential primary. this is part of c-span's road to the white house coverage.

>> thank you very much for the kind introduction. let me thank the new hampshire institute of politics for inviting me to be with you this morning. as vermont's senator in my political career, i have done hundreds of town meetings throughout the state of vermont. it is great to do a town meeting here in new hampshire. the reason that i do town meetings, i think the reason why st. anselm holds meetings like this is i think there is an understanding that the way we do politics in this country very often is basically not the right

way. the smartest guy in the world cannot talk about the major problems facing this country in a five second sound bite. the media does a disservice to us and to our nation when they look at politics as an "american idol" show. who's going to win and who's down tomorrow. the problems are serious and we take our responsibility seriously as american citizens, we need to talk about the real issues. respect each other's different point of view and learn from each other. let me begin by telling you a little bit about myself and about my political history, which is very different i think than most folks in the united states senate. i started off my life living in

brooklyn, new york. my dad was a paint salesman. he came to america from poland at the age of 17 without a nickel in his pocket. he worked very hard. never made a whole lot of money. but turned on out, he ended up, he loved this country because it gave him the freedom to raise two kids. he never went to -- didn't graduate high school, but his kids graduated college. that was a pretty big deal in our family. he had financial security in the sense that he always had a job.

that meant something to somebody. i went to the state of vermont just about 50 years ago, which is the best decision i ever made in my life. in 19 -- in the early 1970's, eran for statewide office. there was a special election. i ran really hard all over the state. on election day i ended up with two percent of the vote. i was a persistent guy and i wasn't gone to give up. we had the regular election in 1972 and i ran on a third party and got one percent of the vote. still not knowing when to quit,

came back and ran for senate again, i got four percent and ran for governor of vermont and got six percent of the vote. then i got a glue. all running on a third party without any money. but then back in 1981 a friend of mine came up to me. he said, that's a race for mayor in burlington where i live. burlington is the largest city in the state of vermont. looking over the election results, he said while you only got six percent of the vote, you got 12% in burlington. maybe you should run for mayor. we got some people together and we thought about it.

i decided to do it. running as an independent. i was taking on at that point an incumbent marry who served five years. nobody thought, this democratic mayor, that one could beat him. the point that i want to make is not only that i won the election by all of ten votes, that was after the recount. how we won that election became a political lesson that has stayed with me for my whole life. nobody thought that we had a chance. what we did is we put together a coalition. you all know what coalition politics is about? it's kind of an old phrase. what we did is we said to the low income people in the city

who did not think they were getting a fair shake in city services. i did press conferences. we talked to the union workers who worked for the city. said you're working hard and you deserve a fair shake in terms of contract negotiations. we talked to women who never had an opportunity to get into city hall at that time. saying we will open the door to everybody. working people, low income and women. we talked to the environmentallest in the community who were concerned about a number of projects that were anti-environmental. we put together this strange coalition, it was so strange, i worry about what would happen if we got them all in the same room at the same time. they're very different people. they had the belief that we should open the door of government that should allow

everybody in that government should not just work for the downtown and the big money interest. but it should work for all people. we won that election. we won that election by ten votes. eam very proud what -- i am very proud. of all of my accomplishments as mayor and of all the many accomplishments i'm proud of that i did when i was in house and the senate, probably at the very top of that list is one that most people would think is irrelevant. here's what that accomplishment was. we doubled voter turn out from 1981 to 1983. how did we do that? what is that lesson for today?

what exist all over america today is that millions and millions and millions of people working people, low income people, young people, they look at the political process and they say, not for me. i don't know what these guys are doing but it sure is not relevant to my life. no, i am not going to vote. we have millions of people who don't vote. we do have other people who come into the polling vote and they vote what they perceive the lesser of two evil. we have other people who will vote for this or that issue. what we did in burlington and it's the lessons i never forgotten, if you listen to what people have to say and what they need and you do your best. it's hard and it's not perfect and you make mistakes.

if people know you are listening to their needs and you fight for them, you know that, they participate in the political process. they come out to vote. we ended up winning in burlington. we took on democrats and republicans, we ended up winning two to one. that lesson has always stayed with me. how in fact do you make government relevant to all of the people in a democratic society? how do you involve people in the process. how do you stand up and fight for ordinary americans. my view is, what i'm going to be talking to you about today, is that our great country. we all love our country, we worry about our country, our great country today probably has

more serious problems than at any time since the great depression of the 1930's. if you throw in what the scientific community tell us that climate change is real, it's already causing devastating problems and it is likely to get worse unless we reverse and cut back on greenhouse gas emissions. throw that in, we may have more serious problems today than any time in the modern history of this country. at the center of what those problems are, where people perceive, what every poll at -- tell us. the great middle class of this country, which is one of the envy of the entire world, that middle class is disappearing. millions of people are now falling into poverty.

we have more people living in poverty today that at any time in the history of united states of america. people understand that real unemployment, if you include those people who have given up looking for work and people who are working part time when they want to work full time, they understand the real unemployment is not 6.5%, but it is close to 12%. youth unemployment is near 20%, african-american youth unemployment almost double that. people understand because they are living the reality that millions of americans today despite a huge increase in productivity, despite all the robotics and all the space age technology and all of the increase and productivity so the average worker is producing

more. people understand. it is their life they are working hours for lower wages. many people in my state and in your state , they're not working one job, they're working two jobs and three jobs trying to cobble together some income and maybe some health insurance. people understand when we talk about healthcare, that there is something profoundly wrong. but in this great nation, we are the only major country on earth that does not guarantee healthcare to all people as a right. there are a lot of angry people out there. they're angry at vermont, they're angry in new hampshire, mississippi, california, all over this country.

what they are angry about, i'm going to bore you with some statistics. it's important that you hear it. they are angry that since 1999, the typical middle class family has seen its income go down by more than $5000 after adjusting for inflation. got that? people are working hard. why is their incomes going down? they are angry because that same typical middle class family, that family right in the middle, earn less income last year than it earned 25 years ago. maybe that's an issue we might want to be chatting about a little. they are angry because the typical male worker made $283

last year than he did 44 years ago. you see these kind and they're angry and they are furious. they don't know where the anger should go but they are angry. typical female workers earn $1700 less last year than they did in 2007. despite all the increases in productivity. people are angry and they are frightened and very nervous about the fact that half of all americans have less than $10,000 in their savingsaccount. that means you're one automobile accident away from disaster. one illness away from disaster. when people are 50 and 55 and 60 and they're think being

retirement and they are $10,000 in the bank, they are pretty nervous about the future of their lives. today in america, over 5.5 million young people have either dropped out of high school or graduated high school and they have no jobs. they are hanging out on street corners in vermont and new hampshire and california and states all over this country. a lot of these kids with no job, with no future are congress destructive or self-destructive activities. edon't have it talk to you about heroin or opium addiction. there's something fundamentally wrong in our country. we have more people in jail in china that we have --

>> they get angry because they go shopping and they try to buy a product. maybe a holiday gift. he look at the label and they say where does the product comes from. it comes china, vietnam and japan. they know factories that used to pay workers a living wage have long been gone. corporations taking advantage of our disastrous trade policies, shut down in america, even they were profitable. they go to china or other countries where they can pay people low wages. not so many years ago, general motors was the largest private employer in the united states of america.

they paid their workers, unionized good wages and good benefits. of today the largest private sector employer is wal-mart. vehemently anti-union. who pay their workers low wages. if you want to look the transformation of american economy, you can look at a general motors economy to a wal-mart economy at the union low wages minimal bents. in terms of education. we all understand that the nation does not go forward.!j= we do not compete effectively in the global economy. we don't do the important things unless we're well educated nation.

it used to be not so many years ago that the united states ranked first in the world in terms of the percentage of our people who graduated college. hundreds and thousands of bright young people have given up on the dream of going to college because they simply can't afford it. obviously they don't want to leave school 30 or 40 or $50,000 in debt. perhaps most sadly and most fundamentally, is that people, middle age people working families, they shake their heads not only in terms of the stress what is happening to their own lives. even more segly, they worry about their kids and their

grandchildren. they ask themselves, is it going to happen for the first time in the modern history of america, that our kids are going to have a lower standard of living than our generation. all our kids are going to be able go out in the world and get a job with a living wage. all our kids are going to be able to go out and apply for any job at palm do you -- all. that kid's entire life. that's what parents are worrying about. i think maybe, the most important point that i want to make this morning is not just to tack about what's happening to the working people of our country and to our middle class.

but the point out to you as strongly as i possibly can that this economic collapse is not happening to all sectors of our society. yes, unemployment is high for working people. yes, the middle class is shrinking. yes over 40 million americans today despite the modest successes of the affordable care act continue to have no health insurance. but there is another economic reality out there that everybody in this room and everybody in this country should also understand. that is that today, the wealthiest people in this country are doing phenomenally well and corporate america is enjoying record breaking profits. in fact, we are becoming a

nation in which some people on the top have more money than they could ever dream of. while at the same exact moment, will have working people in new hampshire, people with jobs flocking to emergency food shelters taking to get food it take them over the week. today the united states has by far, not even close, the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major country on earth. that gap between the very, very rich and everybody else is growing wider and wider. today, the top one percent owns over 38% of the financial wealth of america. top one percent owns over 38% of

the financial wealth this country. who knows, before you answer these question, who here knows roughly the bottom 60% of the american people own. what's the guess. >> 11. >> what do i hear, five percent. seven percent. the answer is 2.3%. let me repeat it. now wealthy what we accumulate our entire lives. if you took the wealth of america and you converted it into a large pizza, it's a hundred pieces. what you got is one guy getting 38 slices of pizza and the bottom 60% sharing in 2.3 pieces of pizza. that gap in wealth is worse than

any time since before the great depression. today, one family, the family of wal-mart, is worth about $148 billion. that one family owns more wealth than the bottom 40% of the american people. over the past decade, the net worth of the top 400 billionaires in this country has doubled. we're seeing more and more millionaires and more and more billionaires. their wealth and income is exploding. charles and david koch. the koch brothers. they will hear you on the other side of town. they're entertaining some of their friends over at the other

town. i wanted to mention this. it gives you an idea. the koch brothers, they're struggling. they want to be the wealthiest family in america but they haven't made it yet. but they are doing okay. under that terrible obama administration, which is destroying all initiative and all wealth and which they hate with a passion. their wealth went up last year from 68 to $80 billion. $12billion increase in wealth in one year. our other good friend, sheldon adelson who owns the largest casino in the world. he is the eighth wealthiest person in the world. he is a poor cousin to the other giz. he's only worth $38 billion. the point is his wealth just

last year, went up $11.5 billion. what about income? income is what you made last year. the last information we have covers the years 2009 and 2012. ...