i'll be happy to repeat myself. i'm part of the 99% that aspires to be the 1% some day. i work 70, 90 hours a week to make sure that some day, hopefully, i'll become the 1%. do you think this could be potentially an image problem for the 1%? there are billionaires out there who we love, like steve jobs, musk, bill gates. do you think that instead of calling this "the war on the 1%," if we could actually address it as the race to the 1%, things would be a lot better for everybody? >> i think that's a brilliant re-branding. i totally subscribe to it, but my message is the demonization of the 1%. i think that's true, and it's new. it's, frankly, new with the obama administration. we never used to have a demonization of the 1%. we wanted to be in the 1%. we admired them.

i can remember when i was a little kid, john d. rockefeller would go around and give dimes to the little children. i thought, "how wonderful. i'd like to be john d. rockefeller and give dimes." this whole tone has changed in the last very recent years under this administration, i think. >> do you think it's because of obama or is it because of the 1% not being philanthropic enough? >> not being philanthropic enough, is that what you're asking? >> right. >> i've discussed the taxes. the 1% is carrying the government. at least the top 10% is carrying the government. we've talked about that. it's not bad to be in the 1%, obviously. i think people, like yourself, still aspire to it and should. hard work and so on can get you

there, plus the right venture capitalist. >> over here, please? >> the president has proposed a lot of commonsense ideas around immigration reform, around infrastructure spending, but at every turn, he's been road blocked by the republicans in congress failing to want to agree with him on moving a policy agenda forward. what are your thoughts on simply the politics of no, as opposed to proposing an alternative agenda? >> i'm neither a republican, nor a democrat. i've gone both ways. i voted for jerry brown, which then he raised my taxes 30%. [laughter] >> president obama made an immense political mistake. he's not a politician. he's a brilliant leader in a certain direction. the mistake was to push through obamacare without a single republican vote.

no other president would have done that, because it just wiped out any hope of cooperation with the other party. in spite of all his talk about reaching across the aisle and so forth, nothing has happened. you can blame it on the republicans, but i blame it on a huge strategic political mistake. >> it's the president's obstinacy in wanting his agenda passed that is to blame for the other party's intransigence? >> i think it's what you get when you elect an amateur president. >> tom, is that really fair? [applause] he's a politician who was elected by the people of the united states, not once, but twice, so why the name-calling? >> i've looked at his resume. [laughter] >> you've never met an entrepreneur who had never been an entrepreneur before, or a venture capitalist who had never made an investment before? >> i wouldn't make him president of the united states.

>> over here, please? >> hi. you just said that it's not bad being in the 1%, but you're also talking about the demonization of the 1%. we do know exactly what happened to the jews in europe, so i'm actually curious what the fear is. it can't possibly be ghetto-ization, or deportation or extermination. >> i get your question, but we're almost out -- >> i do want to understand what the actual fear is? >> the fear is wealth tax, higher taxes, higher death taxes, just more taxes, until there is no more 1%. then that will creep down to the 5% and then the 10%. the money is in the middle. that's where the money in america is. to pay for this government, it's going to have to come from the 99%, not the 1%, in the form of taxes, value-added taxes.

i promise you, higher taxes, everybody. >> to be fair, i'm sorry to tell you that this is tom's penultimate word and he will get the last word. your point is, to her question, that your concern is a decrease in the overall quality of life in the united states, including for rich people, but not only for rich people. >> no, that's right. >> as opposed to ghetto-ization, extermination, and other horrible things. >> i'm talking about economic extinction, not physical extinction. before coming here, i was told that every speaker gets a question on how to save the world. >> the precise question is, and this is the way that inforum ends all of its events, "what is your 60-second idea to change the world?" >> i've been thinking about this as i was listening to you ramble on. [laughter]

>> i've got it. it's going to make you more angry than my letter to "the wall street journal" did. >> i highly doubt it, but let's hear it. >> you're not ready. thomas jefferson, at the beginning of this country, thought that to vote you had to be a landowner. now, that didn't last very long, and the vote was given to everyone, but the basic idea was you had to be a taxpayer or a person of property to vote. that went by the boards. margaret thatcher tried to change that in england, in what became called as the poll tax. the idea was that every single citizen of the uk had to pay something in taxes, even if they got it back in subsidies elsewhere. if you didn't pay something in taxes, you couldn't vote. she was thrown under the bus by her own party for trying to push that through.

the tom perkins system is, you don't get to vote unless you pay a dollar of taxes, but what i really think is, it should be like a corporation. if you pay a million dollars in taxes, you could get a million votes. how is that? [laughter] [applause] >> you're right that i don't agree with you. you're wrong that i'm angry. i would point out to you the flaw in your argument. since everybody pays sales tax, and anyone who drives a car pays taxes for that, then we're right back where we started, in the wonderful place where we've evolved since thomas jefferson, with everybody having the vote. >> that's not income tax. >> not income tax or property tax. i, for one, have enjoyed this conversation, immensely, despite my rambling. tom, thank you. please, everyone in the room, join me in giving a big round of applause to tom perkins. [applause]

and now this meeting of inforum and the commonwealth club is adjourned. [gavel banging] >> you did great a great job. you did great a great job. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> coming up, a look at how health care companies are responding to the health care law. later, i look at how technological advances are affecting middle-class jobs. tuesday, new jersey governor chris christie is the keynote

speaker at the new jersey chamber of commerce congressional dinner. coverage starts at 7:15 p.m. eastern here on c-span. >> during this month, c-span is pleased to present our winning entries in this year's student cam video documentary. student cam is c-span's annual competition that encourages middle and high school students to face -- to think critically. the question we asked students was what is the most important issue the u.s. congress should consider in 2014? will is a junior from oklahoma. he believes the farm bill is the most important issue. >> hi, welcome to the farm.

farmers, we are a large part of making america what it is today. without us, there will be no food geek and no close to where -- clothes to wear. farming has always been a job with lots of risk. every season, we gamble with crops and we gamble with equipment and we gamble with mother nature. now, we have another force to contend with. recent farm bill legislation and holdups in congress have many farmers worried about the future of farming. we will take a look at these concerns and how to remedy them. >> the farm bill would have an impact on everybody. the reason that congress should be concerned is that not only does it play a significant role in terms of budget issues that people are facing, but it also foodpiece of our

production system that needs our attention. one specific example of how the farm bill is helping folks goes back to its origination. roosevelt proposed this as part of the new deal during the great -- great depression, we were experiencing some oversupply of commodities. this was implemented as a way to manage that supply in our food system while also keeping those people in production and agriculture employed. if we look at how farmers benefit from the farm bill, the picture would be drastically different than what we would have without the farm bill. an example would be if they were to experience some significant weather volatility. not only are they going to provide risk management options for those in production and harder culture -- agriculture,

there are a lot of conservation efforts. they're looking at funding research and helping with financial assistance. with all those things together, they really tied together to help make it more efficient. the farm bill does not just affect farmers like me and my family. the farm bill also contains the snap for graham -- program. food stamps cost the american taxpayers over $74 billion a year and it helps provide food for over 46 million people providing for their families. you would think the farm bill only deals with food. in fact, it also deals with the fuel industry.

the farm bill regulates ethanol subsidies given to ethanol producers to buy corn and to produce ethanol. billiont the u.s. $45 and nobody understands the effects of these subsidies better than my dad, and american farmer. if, for example, the farm bill subsidizes a certain crop over another crop, it incentivizes the farmer to plan a backdrop. in the end, you may end up with more supply of that grain or product than what the market really needs. you see that over and over where we subsidize -- the government will subsidize a certain aspect of production and guess what? we will produce that and end up with warehouses full of product that goes underutilized. then you will see the government has to step in and bail out somebody who actually went

bankrupt because the price wouldn't support that much product. >> a modern farm bill should not create marketing or international trade distortions. let me be clear -- target prices should be -- and the government should not set prices of a level that practically guarantees profit instead of acting as a risk management tool. >> minimize government programs on farmers decisions on what they grow and how much they grow. that should be their decision based on the productivity of the land and what it is suitable for and now with the government proposes. >> our country needs agricultural policy that makes sense. we need equity that allows the same opportunity and protections for all kinds of commodities, not just those in certain areas.

we need an epa that helps farmers with the necessary regulations, not aggressive achilles like agencies bent on punishing those that are trying to yield crops. >> to the farmers and ranchers of georgia, as well as the farmers across the nation, that we uphold the strength of the safety net that american agriculture depends on in this farm bill. >> as we at scene, farmers are the backbones of america. with what -- without us, life as we know it would not be possible. the volatility of the economy and congress pause inability to creating a bill is lot of uncertainty for the future of the agricultural industry. that is why congress needs to sit down today to plan out of their -- a better farm bill double benefit the future of america. winningtch all of the

videos and to learn more about our competition, go to c-span.org and click on student cam. tell us what you think about the issue this student wants congress to consider. #studentcam.g to thank our distinguished ranking member of the committee for all the work he has done. a lot of us have lost a lot of sleep and look at the situation. when secretary paulson came to us, he gave us a three page bill that said, give me a blank checkbook and put $700 billion in it. i was offended. what happened since then? we added 107 pages of taxpayer protection to that bill. we understand the gravity of this situation and we worked with our colleagues on the other side to make this bill ledbetter bill. we made sure there is upside for the taxpayers to when this happens, when profits come to

these companies, we get their stock warrants to the first person in line is the american taxpayers to they get their money back. we made sure there is an insurance program that make sure wall street shares in the cost of this recovery plan. we also made sure that the executives of these companies that made these bad debts do not -- that bets do not profit. we cut the initial cost in half of this bill and congress will have to approve the second half of this next year. why did we do all of this? because this wall street crisis is quickly becoming a mainstream crisis. it is quickly becoming a banking crisis. what does that mean? why does that matter to us? why does that matter to wisconsin? if it goes the way it could go, that means credit shuts down. businesses cannot get money to

pay their payroll, to pay their employees. students cannot get student loans for next semester. people cannot get car loans. seniors may not have access to their savings. are we standing at the edge of this abyss? nobody knows. maybe. it is very probable. madam speaker, this bill offends my principles. i am going to vote for this bill in order to preserve my principles, in order to preserve this free enterprise system. this is a herbert hoover moment. he made some big mistakes after the great depression and we lived those consequences for decades. let us not make that mistake. there is a lot of fear and panic out there. a lot of what this is about is getting that fear and panic out of the market. i think the white house fumbled

this thing. they have brought this issue up soa crescendo, to a crisis that all eyes of the world markets are here on congress. it is a heavy load to bury -- heavy load to bear. we have to deal with this panic. we have to deal with this fear. colleagues, we are in the moment. this bill doesn't have everything i want in it. it has a lot of good things in it, but we are here, we are in this moment. if we fail to do the right thing, heaven help us. fear fail to pass this, i the worst is yet to come. the problem we have here is we are one month away from an election. we are all worried about losing our jobs. all of us, most of us say this things needs the past but i want you to vote for not me.

unfortunately, a majority of us are going to have to vote for this. we are going to have to do that because we have a chance of arresting that crash. just maybe this will work. for me and for my own conscience, so i can look at myself in the mirror tonight, so i can go to sleep with a clear conscience, i want to know i idn't -- i did everything could to stop it from getting worse, to stop this wall street problem from infecting main street. i want to see my three kids and my wife that i haven't seen in a week and look them in the eye and no i did what i thought was right for them and their future. aselieve with all my heart bad as this is, it could get a whole lot worse and that is why i think we have to pass this bill. i yield. >> find more highlights on our facebook page. by america'sed

cable companies 35 years ago and brought you today as a public service by your local cable or satellite provider. a discussion about how the health-insurance industry is responding to the affordable care act. from washington journal, this is 40 minutes. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] this segment will discuss how the health insurance industry is responding to the affordable care act. thank you for being with us. about how insurance companies are responding to the latest news. guest: they have got all these new customers. it is a lot more than a lot of people expected at this time. open woman for the affordable care act for these folks buying

individual covers directly from the insurance companies," he urged. on march 31. they're trying to find out who they are, how thick they are, and that will affect the rates is coming up in terms of filings they have to make. they know the affordable care act prohibited insurance companies from discriminating with pre-existing conditions. that effectively prevented them from finding out whether or not people had pre-existing conditions when they were applying for insurance and when insurance companies were accepting that. not have a really good idea what sort of conditions these folks have, and they're going to cost, how that is going to affect rates for next year. they are all china figure that out, seeing who they signed up, trying to figure it out from early claims coming in.

they really have to quickly beure out what rates will for 2015 because the filings are starting to be due in the next couple of weeks. class a number of insurers are expanding offerings. i am typically interested in the largest insurers in the country and what they're doing. class the largest is united. toy decided for this year goingt really easy on into these exchanges. a lot of insurers were quite in there willncerned would be a lot of disruption in the market this year, that you'd get a sicker pool of people than they had planned on, a lot of insurers had concerns about whether software is going to work, which turned out to be very well-founded. united stood back. some of the other big ones, at no was very cautious is here.

also very cautious. the one large for-profit insurance company that did go in in a big way was wellpoint. californian, basin in many markets there, better known by their and some, blue cross. they have a lot of blue cross lands. blue cross was the one umbrella organization that went into a big lake.ges in blue cross was already in the individual health insurance market and they had to protect that market. they were sort of the league players in just about every state to do that. in 2015, now that the industry has seen this pretty big turnout in the first year, 8 million people signed up as the president announced last year, they are now figuring out what

they will do for 2015 it looks like customers signed up. it was reconsidering it and looking at expanding its presence in -- next year. one of the few plans, blue cross plans to sit out, 2014 was the plan in north dakota. they said they would be in those states. it looks like we will see more .fferings than we had this year some states will offer significantly more selection if into an even increase. some states had only one or two insurance countries -- companies . we might see that get better. class when you're talking about the strategies for different some are holding back

and waiting to see what happens. >> depends on whether they are in that business to begin with. we are talking about individual insurance, which you buy through the exchange. of the a direct customer insurance company, rather than the health insurance we all know, which we get through our risk --s or employer employer-sponsored. if you're in that business, you want to protect that and not just sit aside and comments like that business away. companies in that business tended to want to stay in it, be in the exchanges, have offerings when you went on healthcare.gov they wanted to be there on the menu so you could pick from them and hopefully, from their point of view, at a competitive price that was financially responsible.

there were new entrants this year. health-care co-ops which were not profit, private plans that .ot subsidized in half the states, you have a co-op. these, by definition, wanted to be in the market this year. some did very well. some did not so well. they priced too high, which was the case in connecticut, or in were very dead computer problems, worse than those on healthcare.gov. for example, maryland health connection did not work well and never got fixed the way it should have been. the co-op in that state had some problems getting members.

it had trouble getting the word out because people had trouble getting on the exchange. these larger insurance companies , individual insurance is a business asf their a proportion of total business. we are talking about united. multibillion-dollar companies. united as an entire provision about health care services and not insurance. individual insurance is a small piece of their pie. they could afford to sit back and see what 2014 would look like. seen all the have new entrants, they are starting to look at that again and say, maybe this could be an area of growth for us. and maybe we ought to be there in a bigger way into thousand 15. seniorguest is the

correspondent for kaiser health news. if you would like to join the -- ersation, i want to ask you real quickly, if i am a consumer and am looking for health insurance under the affordable care act, what does this mean for me? guest: let's say you are a consumer who is still uninsured. you do not have insurance now and you did not sign up for health insurance. depending on your circumstances, you might have to wait until late this year to sign up. time endedrollment march 31. there was wiggle room for people who had trouble signing up, if you are on one of the dysfunctional computer system,

they gave you extra days. there was a big rush at the end, as a lot of people expected. big crowds on the systems. unless you have a special circumstance, you have to wait until the november enrollment time, or january 2015 covers. a lot of exceptions. if you are in a special situation, if you have coverage now but you lose it between now and the end of the year, if, for example, you are with an employer-sponsored plan, you lose your job and you lose the can go to these exchanges. the open enrollment has an exception and you can go on the exchange and get coverage. if you get married, other exceptions let you get on and get in outside the open window that most of the people have to adhere to. there are also exceptions.

it is not widely known but the administration has allowed exceptions to the individual signte, a requirement to up and get health insurance, or pay a penalty. there are some openings there. for example, there are specific religious exemptions that will allow you -- you do not have to do it. had --re, if you remember the president said, if you like your plan, you can keep it. a lot of plans were canceled. rule that said, if you lost your plan in that circumstance and you find the replacement plan is unaffordable, they will again give you a waiver on the penalty. consumers,dividual the sign-up has passed. not nearly everybody signed up. the next opportunity to do so will come late this year.

>> the first color for this segment is in new york. hello. guest: i was in glen falls last month reporting on health care. i hope the weather has warmed up since i was there. >> it has finally. we can play little baseball. i just wanted to say, i am an independent. i pick up my own insurance. this is helped me a great deal here monthly, from around 1100 to 800. i have a friend who is a farmer. i -- i have a friend who is an independent trucker and it helped him significantly. premium prices were rising, long before the aca, every year, continually, the co-pay went up and up. to say for us, in

states where they are trying to make it work, it is working. >> you saw your premium go down. what kind of plan did you get, if i can ask echo class a silver plan. the middle of the road. i am not really super well off, for sure. quest that is very typical. the sober plan was expected to be one of the most popular. for listeners who do not know, there are metal grades of plans. the bronze plan was the lowest cost plan. then there was silver, gold, and platinum. the silver plans turned out to be among the most popular. -- itemiums came in varies widely by state, but you can get subsidies. kyle sounds like he has a family plan.

i would mention to the caller, he said health-care prices have been going up and up. there is no guarantee it will not continue to happen. a lot of people sought relief under the aca. the caller sound like he was one of them. it sounds like you got some subsidies. there are tax credits applied instantly when you buy the coverage. one of the concerns now, and we may talk about it later, is, what are premiums going to look like for 2015, will the co-pays and premiums keep going up, that is one of the big questions of the affordable care act. now, the question is unanswered. we will have to wait and see. host: an article recently reports statisticians working for next year's insurance premium rates, expect to see an

average increase of seven percent, well below the feared double-digit increases making headlines. >> that article was based on an interview with one guy. he was basically making an educated guess. a very smart guy, but nobody really knows at this point what 2015 will look like. we are getting all these mixed is sort ofich, complicating the problem. we have insurers, actuaries like the one quoted in the article, saying, it will be mid to upper single digits, which sounds like a lot, heck of a lot more than the overall inflation rate is right now, but, in the history of health care premium increases, is pretty tame and everybody would be pretty happy with that. on the other hand, we have

wellpoint. toldlue cross plans, who insurance analysts on a conference call a couple of weeks ago that it is expecting inble-digit less increases its health insurance exchange premiums for 2015. this could just be a game of expectations. insurance companies typically ask for a higher rate than the state insurance commissioners and other regulators ultimately give them. this could be wellpoint -- they could be planning a negotiating flag here. nevertheless, people still do not understand, insurance companies are still figuring out what their costs will be this year. there have been early reads on what has been going on. the first table the common when you are an insurance company, drug claims. hospitals take weeks and months

to get reimbursed by the insurance company. drugs tourists put their claims in electronically. they are starting to see these claims come in for patients who enrolled and got drugs prescribed in january and february, and, some of the information coming in indicates some fairly ill, fairly high-cost patients who signed up for the plans. insurers can figure this out based on what kinds of drugs are being prescribed. if you see drugs related to diabetes and aids and hepatitis, you know these are folks with who typicallys cost more than your average insurance and rowley. insurance --, insurers are saying, maybe we will have significant costs, maybe louisville have to raise premiums by double digits next year.

on the other hand, folks are saying, look at the rhythm of enrollment here in the insurance plans. the people, there was a six-month enrollment time, and it stands to reason people who have chronic illness who need insurance coverage and want to go to the doctor to have insurance, you pay for that, would be the first to sign up. perhaps the early claims coming in are disproportionately from folks who have higher illness. the thinking is a lot of these folks who rush at the end of up would ben younger and healthier and would counterbalance out some of the early claims coming in that suggest high-cost. in fact, we are also hearing anecdotal reports that that is that young folks waited as long as they possibly

could to sign up. they are younger and healthier and that may fulfill the hope come a lot of people were wondering, the people would sign up to bounce out the risk pool. some folks are suggesting that may happen. insurance companies are just really coming to grips with this right now. to say what we know premiums will do for 2015, it is really just a guess at this point. >> president barack obama toss about the newest enrollment numbers at a nuke -- news conference last week. let's listen to what he have to say. >> i do not think we should apologize or be defensive about it. there is a strong story to tell. with the other side is doing and what the other side is offering would strip away protections from those families and from hundreds of millions of people who already had health insurance , but never knew if the

insurance company could drop them when actually needed it, or women who were getting charged more just because they are a woman. puzzled why the sole agenda item when it comes to republicans -- it is curious. what i intend to talk about is what the american people are interested in hearing. plans for putting people back to work. plans for making sure our economy continues to innovate. , training people for the jobs out there right now and making better use of our community colleges and linking them up with businesses, and how we will continue to bring manufacturing back, the way we have over the past several years. and how we will put more money in the pockets of ordinary people. if republicans want to spend all of their time talking about

repealing a law that is working, that is their business. what democrats should do is not be defensive, but we need to move on and focus on things very important to the american people right now. take? guest: a lot of people describe what he was doing there as a victory lap , because they had already declared victory a couple of weeks before when they passed the white house's target, the congressional budget offices original perjurer -- projections, 7 million. inn they hit 7 million mid-march or so, they proclaimed victory. the last-minute rush we talked over 8ctually put them million. that gave the administration and the president leading it occasioned to really take credit

for something that a lot of people, democrats and republican alike, but was not going to happen. never in october and november how completely dysfunctional healthcare.gov was. it really was a mess. people were revising expectations downward. the fact they got as many people signing up is surely trumpeted , as we justrats heard, as a signed this is working in the law is here to stay. have not seen is how these people will like having it. the plans are very comp gated. it is not clear people really know what they have signed up for until they start using it. a lot of these plans come with high deductibles.

are prettyone substantial. a lot of people get subsidies to pay for them. what they have not seen yet is what happens when they try to use it. the congressional budget office reported recently premiums are lower than expected. subsidies will be lower than expected. revised downward their estimate of what obama care will cost. one reason the premiums are lower than expected is the provider networks are narrower than expected. when people use their plans, they may not see the doctor they like in it, they may not even hospital they want to go to in it. they also see very high , typical deductibles for a silver plan for a single person coverage is $3000.

who do not follow health insurance, the deductibles what you have to pay out of your pocket before the insurance plan kicks in. $3000 deductible for bronze plans that we mentioned, the cheapest plan you can get, the deductibles $5,000 for an individual. if you have a family plan, it is $10,000. those used to be called catastrophic insurance where you are basically paying out-of-pocket the day today cost of going to the doctor, getting tests, and so forth. unless you get very sick, the insurance does not kick in. it is not clear. it is interesting to see how people will react. thosea lot of people sign up fod and platinum plans with lower deductibles. a lot of people like our caller

from upstate new york are very happy with their plans. but i think we still need to see startople react once they using the plans. as a nation, in terms of the nation, my colleague at the kaiser family foundation, take a poll regularly on how people are thinking about the affordable care act. it is still pretty unpopular politically. when you use that term. now we are here, we are in it, people have signed up, we have got customers, now they will road test it and we will see how it goes. host: calls coming in, rachel in texas. she has health insurance through her employer. caller: yes. for the first time, my sister has insurance at a cost her $36 a month. is on medicare. she is 80 years old.

she is in chronic pain. she gets phone calls from groups telling her she will lose her medicare. it has got her scared to death. they just want donations but her phone rings all the time from these people. thed you tell me what part prescription drug programs will cost us? guest: i cannot quote you figures but it's fair to say passeddicare part d under the second president bush was one of two extremely expensive, significant benefit

laden social welfare programs passed by congress in social health welfare programs. it was passed by congress in recent decades. they both added hundreds of billions of dollars to the federal budget. you mentioned the talk about medicare because of the affordable care act. thats a big talking point republicans have been trying to take advantage of. ande are some reductions what providers get, what hospitals get, and insurance companies get from the federal government under the affordable care act. there is no reduction in benefits. in particular, the affordable paymentsrequired that

under the medicare advantage program which are private medicare plans run by insurance companies -- insurance companies have been collecting a premium on those programs. the happen costing taxpayers as for privatemore medicare advantage plan than regular medicare that most people get. every year the department of health and human services is having to ratchet that down and having to figure out how they are doing it. this year, the insurance companies went on a huge publicity and lobbying campaign to minimize that reduction. part of that was reaching out to that medicareying is being eroded because of the affordable care act. medicare advantage was already getting a premium of what other medicare debts. have not beenits

changed by the affordable care act. in florida, anthony is on the line. morning, my question to you is what is going to be done about those folks who are trying to get onto the plan in order to get the subsidies to get the plan? we talked about everyone posturing in regard to which direction should we go regarding health care and how it is administered. one of the things i find concerning working and purchasing in my career for over 20 years is that when i received my bills working in a surgical center, i am surprised by the cases beingere are

billed to me at $1500 and if i did not look and ask for the billing, if you multiply that times all the patients out there who don't do that, who is checking that and taking care of that due diligence to reduce actual costs? guest: thanks for the call. you are talking about how people will get care in the states that have not -- that have blocked the subsidies. i assume you're talking about medicaid. obamacare, the affordable care act, had several measures to expand coverage but the two main ones were expanding medicaid which is the program for low income folks where it's like medicare for seniors only you in insured by the government a state and federal program.

medicaid had a pretty restricted eligibility criteria in most states. the affordable care act expanded that to include almost all adults under a certain percentage of the federal poverty limit. andsupreme court considering the affordable care act struck down the part of the aca that made medicaid expansion mandatory and it gave the option to the states. right now, we are at about 26 okayed medicaid expansion and the other ones have said no or are considering it. some are on the fence like pennsylvania and virginia. what happens to those folks who are stuck? offersordable care act

subsidies to go buy your own health insurance on these computerized exchanges if you are over a certain income limit. it is 12 or $14,000 if you are a single person. if you are above that threshold and you get the subsidies, you lthcare.govy on hea or if you are under that, you qualify for medicaid in every state unless you're in one of the states op that did not to expand medicaidt in that case, you are in a coverage gap and ins one of the larger gaps the way the affordable care act has been implemented. there is still health care available to folks in this category. there are community health clinics that see folks who are uninsured. hospitals are required by

federal law to take anybody in the emergency room and stabilize them whether they have insurance or not. have is anon't insurance plan where they can go to the doctor and be assured that they have full coverage. your other question was about prices which we could talk all day about. it is a great point. one problem of the health-care system is when somebody else pays the bills, the actual customers, the patience, you and me, really don't have an incentive to look at the charges and see if they are the right charges and shop around for the best deal. many people want to change that. there is a lot going on in health care now to increase the transparency of these prices. hospitals are starting to pledge to let people see what the cost of their coverage might we when they go to the hospital. a normal concept and any other retail business but for

hospitals it's pretty radical. a couple of weeks ago, the federal government started publishing what private doctors are charging and making for health care. employers now are making prices available to their employees in their health plans for certain procedures, typically radiology. they will give you a particular price and say we will pay $500 for an mri and here are the places to go. here is what they costing you can shop around but we will only give you $500 so you make a decision. that is changing slowly. it is a problem and one of the marks of success in five years or so will be to what degree we have a much better sense of what's in our health care bills and what exactly we are paying for and how does that compare with other people who are offering the same kind of product. georgiac,laudette gets

her insurance from somewhere other than her employer. are you with us? on and gog to move instead to lisa in shreveport, louisiana. caller: how are you? i am from shreveport, louisiana. i have a problem. i am single and 55 years old. my health care will cost me $400 per month. i lost my job. i cannot get medicaid and i have no idea what to do. i am just sick. guest: you say your health care is $400 per month? caller: that's what they said it would cost me is $400 per month. guest: so you went on health care.gov and try to sign up? caller: yes, sir. guest: it sounds like you did not end up getting that

insurance. caller: no, sir, i cannot afford it. bobby jindal is my governor and he did not expand medicaid. i could not qualify for it so i have no idea what i will do. guest: do you have an income now? caller: i have no income whatsoever. they said i did not qualify for medicaid so i don't understand. you are in the category of people we just talked about. caller: yes, sir. i heard you were talking about that. i don't know what to do. i am really scared. it's tough if you lose your job and you are in a position like that -- recently lost your employment -- there is always an option called cobra coverage after you leave your

job in which case you can pay the premiums and keep the coverage that you just had. and your case, it does not, that's an option even if you were still in the cobra coverage window. you've got to sign up within a certain period of time after you leave your job. $400 per month on the exchanges too much than the cobra premium is likely also too much. you are one of the folks unfortunately who is in this coverage gap we talked about. louisiana did not expand medicaid. if the caller had an income even relatively low like if she made $50,000 per year or so, she could go on the exchanging get the subsidies. -- $18,000 per year or so -- she would qualify for medicaid and the in's -- in an expansion state. it's an unfortunate situation

and it's got a be worrisome. as i mentioned, there are community health clinics. i'm sure there's one in shreveport. that sees folks who are uninsured if they have an issue. sometimes there is a waiting list to get him. that is one option. unfortunately, many people are still using hospital emergency room's as their caregiver of forst resort -- of first resort because hospitals are required to see people and it's expensive and inefficient way to deliver health care. willf the marks of success be of the system is fixing itself to reduce those but right now in some states like louisiana, that is the first choice for many people. host: last call from this segment comes from cincinnati, ohio. hello, i'm talking about

reducing health care costs. it's called tort reform and malpractice. my suggestion is they should get rid up unitive damages -- get rid of punitive damages and pain-and-suffering and to compensional damages and go after these trial lawyers and pay back the excess amount of money they have been rewarded for three years. pay that money back into the health-care system. right, i think both conservatives and liberals would agree that the american tort does add to health care

costs in this country. doctors tend to order more tests and be more careful because they're concerned about eating suit. sued. while they find that malpractice costs do add to the expansiveness of the american health care system, it is not the main thing wrong with the system. we are talking about a few percentage points in any given year. if you did wholesale tort reform the way some on the right would like to do it, i forget the exact number but is somewhere in the single digits like five or in healthent gain care costs for one year. and thatone-time gain is basically what health-care inflation has been at the bottom

and for year after year. a lot of folks agree that we do need to do tort reform. as a one bullet fix for health care costs. i think most disinterested experts would tell you that that would not solve the whole problem. host: that's all the time we got for this segment and jay on march 6, i ordered all materials i had previously furnished to the special prosecutor turned over. these included tape recordings of 19 presidential conversations

and more than 700 documents. 11, the judiciary committee issued 42 additional tapes of conversations which it contended were necessary for its investigation. i agreed to respond to that subpoena by tomorrow. >> 40 years ago on april 29, president nixon reacted to a subpoena or for additional watergate tapes. his response plus reflection from carl bernstein part of american tv. was president obama is in washington to meet with the victim's femmes and responds one month after the mudslides that killed 39 people. we will bring the president's remarks on c-span 2.

was after president obama's visit washed instead, he heads to asia for an eight day trip -- >> after president obama's visit to washington, he heads to asia after an eight-day trip. >> i want to thank our distinguished ranking members from the work he has done. a lot of us have lost a lot of the situation.at when secretary paulson came to us, he gave us a three page bill that said give me a blank checkbook and put 700 billion dollars into it. i was offended at the time. what happened since then? we added 107 pages of taxpayer

protection to the bill. we understand the gravity of this situation. worked with our colleagues on the other side to make this bill a better bill. we made sure there are upsize for taxpayers so when this come to when profits the companies, with editor stocks so the first person in line to get the profits are the taxpayers. we make sure there is an insurance program that makes sure while make -- wall street shares in it. and make sure that executives for the companies that may be the bad bats do not profit from the recovery plan. and have ahe initial congress will have to approve next year. why did we do all of this? because of this wall street crisis is quickly becoming a main street crisis. it is quickly becoming a banking crisis.

what does that mean? why does it matter to us? why does it matter to wisconsin? if it goes the way it could go, that means credit shuts down. businesses cannot get money to pay their payroll, pay their employees. students cannot do student loans for next semester. you cannot get car loans. seniors may not have access to their savings. are we stayed at the edge of this of this? nobody knows. maybe. it is very probable. madam speaker, this bill offense my principles. this bill to vote for in order to preserve my principles in order to preserve this free enterprise system. this is a herbert hoover moment. he made some big mistakes after the great depression. add to lives of those

consequences for decades. that and we lived those consequences for decades. let us not make that mistake. there's a lot of fear and pain. it's about getting that out of the market. i think the white house bumbled this thing. they have brought this issue up to a crescendo, to a crisis. so that all eyes all the world markets are here on congress. a heavy load to bury, a heavy load to bear. with this panic. we have to deal with this fear. colleagues, we are in the moment. this bill does not have anything i want in it. things inot of good it. we are here. we are in the moment. if we fail to do the right thing, heaven help us. if we fail to pass this, i fear that the worst is yet to come.

the problem we have here is we are one month away from an election. we're all worried about losing our jobs. and i'll bust, most of us say it it needs to pass but i want you to vote for not to me. unfortunately, a majority of us will have to vote for it. as we are going to have to do that because we have a chance of arresting that crash. just maybe this will work. and so for me and to my own conscience, so i can look myself in the mirror tonight and go to sleep with a clear conscience, i want to know i did every day i could to stop it from getting , to stop this wall street problems from infecting main street. i want to get to my airplane and go home and see my three kids and wife i have not seen in a week and look them in the eye and know that idea what i thought was right for them and their future. i believe with all of my heart, as bad as this is, he can get a

whole lot worse. that is why we have to pass of this. i yield. of our more highlights facebook page. c-span, created by the cable companies 35 years ago and brought to you today as a public service. >> first amendment authors debate free speech in america. this event was hosted by the national constitution center. it is over one hour. >> ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the national constitution center. i am jeffrey rosen, the

president of this wonderful institution. the national constitution center is the only institution in torica chartered by congress disseminate information about the u.s. constitution on a nonpartisan basis. we take our role very seriously and we are grateful for it. and the program tonight is part of our role as america's town hall. this is the one place in the country where citizens of diverse constitutional perspectives can hear the best arguments on the constitutional questions that transfixed news, fusee in the our history, and help you make up your own mind. we are talking about free speech in america. just this morning, the supreme court heard arguments on a case that will decide whether corporations have the same religious liberties under the first amendment as natural persons. we will discuss that and many other questions. want toou to ask -- i

ask you to look at our website for upcoming programs. on thursday, calendars with will discuss his life in the law. dershwitz will discuss his life in the law. especially delighted that tonight we are sharing this partnership with the foundation for educational rights in education, or fire. fire's mission is to sustain and defend individual rights, including free speech, due process, or the just liberty, and the sanctity of conscience at america's colleges and universities. it was during the first week of my job that greg from fire came to me and said we should present a panel on free speech. and we really have assembled the dream team of free speech, commentators and freethinkers alike. it is a panel with a lot of

diversity. i think you may find that some of our panelists are more ardent in their positions defending free speech than others. i will not tell you which ones. maybe we will change our minds after listening to each other. let me briefly introduce them to you and then we will get right to it. dr. stanley fish is a florsheim or distinguished visiting professor at cardoza law school. he is well known to all of us as a contributor to the opinion editor of the "new york times." greg is a member of the bar of the u.s. supreme court and :uthor of "unlearning liberty campus censorship and the end of ," which has debate recently come out in paperback. it is great.

these, get it at the end of the show. universitynguished of law solo at the academy of arts and sciences, and a prolific commentator on constitutional law and comparisons about american attitudes toward free speech. and finally, my old friend. it is such a joy to local mu, jonathan, to the national constitution center. we go way back in washington, d.c. he is the most prominent defender of gay marriage in this country, as well as one of the most persuasive and eloquent defenders of free speech and his asoned andcalm -- re calm voice is recently expressed in paperback as well as many articles you have greatly enriched public debate. i will begin with you, jonathan. yesterday, the supreme court delayed a decision about whether

to hear a very important case that raises the question of whether a photographer can refuse to photograph gay weddings because of her religious objections and claims that religiously motivated individuals can refuse to serve arepeople as gay marriages popping up with greater frequency. your work has been that the first amendment is good for gay people, but a regime that allows hate speech is good for minorities in general. do these recent cases cause you to re-examine that thesis? >> no, they don't. i'm not the best person to comment on the legalities of these cases. i don't know the case law. but let me give you a personal perspective on how i think about these cases. there are a bunch of these cases. they all involve in one way or another the class of religious

conscience with antidiscrimination law, which often means homosexuality, gay marriage, in the case of the obamacare law, it means contraception. and there are a lot of these. there was a case in colorado that is not a legal case because the suit has not been filed, but a christian dog walking company fired a customer because they agreed with legalized marijuana. they said, get your docs and get them out of here. we are not going to walk them anymore. i regret this. this is not the kind of society that i want to live in, where people are taking the side. i urge the gay community publicly and privately that the right answer is sensible accommodation worked out legally through the process. i worry that first amendment jurisprudence, which locks in one answer for ever. we lose the flexibility to negotiate. there is no reason we need to have one national rule. different cities and states are striking different valances.

and gay people, r example, or abortion rights activists, for example, and people of religious faith should be forced to sit down at the table and negotiate over statutes and strike a balance. >> wonderful. greg, you have spent the last 13 years defending free speech on campus. how do the battles today look different than they did when you started? and what are the most important battles today? you recently noted that you have a growing list of 120 speaker controversies in recent years to my including high-profile dissident cetaceans -- deuce invitations.-- dis what is the state of free-speech battles on campuses today? schoolthe one weird law student that went to law school to do first amendment law. my passion was free-speech.

i don't know why i came to that, but that is why i went to law school. i specialized in it. i took every class at stanford offered on free speech. i even did six extra credits on free speech during the tudor dynasty because i loved it so much. and even with all that preparation, when i showed up and became the first legal director of fire in 2001, i was stunned by the kinds of things that can get you in trouble on a college campus. and 13 years later, i'm still stunned on a daily basis. that is the only reason i wrote the book, because i got tired of people saying, ok, that is one example. . talk about dozens of examples there are a lot of trends, but trends isof a lot of that it felt like when i first heard in 2002, diversity students would at least make some kind of bow to some kind of higher purpose to what they were

doing, even if it was entirely disingenuous. they would say, and don't make fun of tuition prices or don't make fun of the dean in the name of tolerance and diversity. they would invoke these sometimes sincerely, sometimes for the greater good, but sometimes only half sincerely. in the past two years, i have seen more cases where they are not even bothering with that. it seems there have been a lot of these very old-fashioned examples of, just don't criticize the university. i don't have to justify it. just do as i say. which i think is the result of a lot of bureaucratization and just giving power for a long time. every time around this time of year, a lot of speakers get or theyed from campus, are forced to withdraw their names. invitation season happens every year. that is not so much a first

amendment problem as it is a cultural problem. we are teaching students to think if you don't like the opinion of someone speaking there, you don't challenge them, you chase them off and get them disinvited. i think that is the wrong way to think about this. >> great. not long ago, the president of the united states and the president of egypt disagreed about how to treat a free-speech issue. this was the video of the muslims that was to have led to the benghazi attacks. under pressure, the president said it needs to be removed because it shows a group of leaders in an entire religion, which is illegal in egypt. and the president of the united states was defending google and youtube's right to post the --eo, but caused momentarily but caused momentarily on that because it incited violence.

but google and youtube refused because they said it is not criticizing a religion, but a religious leader. our non-american free-speech traditions, they are obviously very different. america is more protective of free-speech. is that the right thing? and did google do the right thing? >> it is a bad thing. andach international law one thing i instruct about again and again is between american norms and norms in other countries. put under themes rubric of american exceptionalism. one way that the united states is quite different from other countries is in its commitment to free speech. you can make three distinctions. there are countries like egypt -- and you know, authoritarian countries obviously do not like free-speech and there is no reason to want to be like them. but european countries have a different attitude toward free-speech from that of the

united states. europeans tend not to be as absolutist. they take seriously the fact that people can be offended by speech, that it can cause turmoil, as illustrated by this video. and what is striking is that these human rights treaties, which have provisions about freedom of expression, but the provisions are much narrower than what you find in the united states. the provisions will say free-speech is a right, subject to various constraints, such as public morality and public order. i think president obama did a reasonable thing. this video is causing foreign-policy problems for the united states. the united states is trying to improve relations with muslim countries and he wanted to at least show people in these countries who don't share our views about freedom of speech that we respect their views. orderldn't, obviously,

google to take on the video. if he had that power, it would have been an interesting question whether he should use that. tohink people are wrong criticize president obama in this case on the grounds that, basically the rest of the world doesn't share our views and they just have to get with the program. they've got to be like what? like us? us,if they are not like then new cares about them. that is not a practical way to run foreign-policy. and we love our first amendment so much and we think very proudly of american traditions about freedom of speech, which actually only go back a few decades, not to the beginning. but this is such a part of the american self-identity that it very hard to make compromises even when they are warranted, and that is a problem. >> great. professor fish, you have written a book on free-speech called "there is no such thing as free

speech, and it's a good thing, too" in case that tells you where he falls on this spectrum that i suggested. and now you have written about academic freedom. what is your view of the relationship between these two concepts? x before i answer -- >> before i answer, i want to say how much i agree with what eric just said. if you recall salman rushdie and the fact that there was an order issued against him for the writing of the satanic verses. i was at a conference, a humanistic conference -- don't go to human is to conferences. [laughter] but i was at one, nevertheless. i used to be in that game and this topic came up and someone stood up in the audience -- and they meant it, this was not a joke -- and they said, what is the matter with those iranians? haven't they ever heard of the first amendment? [laughter]

the relationship between academia and the first amendment can be simply described. free-speech as established by the first amendment is an inclusive, democratic idea. notionc freedom is a that only lives coherently within an academic structure, which is determinedly exclusive. -- our trades do is to make judgments on each other. fostert we do is not speech or to ensure that it will flourish, but rather it is the case that we devise mechanisms by which we give ourselves the right, at least those of us that have tenured positions, to say who can and who cannot speak freely. another way of looking at the

difference between academic freedom and free speech is to think of the topic of holocaust denial, which has been with us for quite a while and will be with us, i predict, for a very long time. denial in our society under the strong absolutist first amendment abuse that eric referenced is something that cannot be stigmatized or oppressed. holocaust denial can be promoted on websites, radio programs, videos, and so forth. but in the academy, holocaust -- i'll is intricate holocaust denial is intraday did -- interdicted. it is not that it never rises, but when it does arise, it never arrives as an option. it is not regarded as an alternative vision that one might sincerely have.

rather holocaust denial is regarded as one might view "elvis is dead" denial. -- so it is therefore the property of kooks and crazies. you can get promoted in a history department for writing about it, but if you advocate it, you will neither get hired or promoted. -- neither get hired, nor promoted. there is the structure of inclusion and a structure of exclusion. but this goes again to eric's point. the first amendment that we now have, which i would call not in a friendly tone a libertarian first amendment. the first amendment we now have is a recent development. and i would say it only emerged

fully in 1964 with the famous case "new york times" versus sullivan, which is a case that is dear to the heart of all free-speech ideologue. "new york times" versus sullivan, it was possible, and in fact it was done by the withdrawourt to protection of the constitution from speech either because of what it did, the effects it had, or because of what it said. test and a content then the effects test. called ats test was bad tendency test. at the beginning of the 20th century, the idea that some forms of free-speech have a bad effect and do not deserve protection. clearas followed by the

and present danger test that said, well, yes, the effects may be bad, but we should wait to see how bad they may be, to see when the danger is imminent and then stepped in. but it is still an effects test. the content test was a said that's -- it was a test that said, look, there are some forms of speech that are worse and they do not deserve constitutional protection. i have one of my favorite notes from a 1942 case. value andid social any benefit derived by them is outweighed by the social interest in order and morality. all that changed in 1964 when the "new york times" versus sullivan court said that all speech must be protected independently of either its content or its effects. and independently of whether he was defamatory or it causes stress of a variety of kind,

because the important thing in the case was to keep the conversation going in a wide open, robust, and uninhibited way. >> [indiscernible] right, which i sometimes call the john wayne theory of the constitution. and that was the beginning of the end of everything. [laughter] world that part of the ended in 1964. >> actually, it was the beginning of the beginning of everything. let me remind you what the world was actually like in 1954 when the magazine you've never heard of -- because i hadn't until "one"yesterday -- called publishing l.a. -- >> oh, yeah. >> good for you. >> it was the first openly gay

intellectual magazine. sex ads orpublishing anything like that. it had articles and short stories and it was openly gay, and the united states post office shut it down because the content was unacceptable to society. they took it off the stand and said you cannot mail it, and just for good measure, the specific issue that they had as a cover story "you can't say " about the censorship policies of the government. that is what they were doing. there was no reasoning at all and the supreme court struck down with the postmaster general had done, creating a wide-open field for debate of gay rights in this country, a position considered obscene and dangerous to children in my lifetime, and allowing the field open for people like me to make our arguments and eventually to windows arguments. >> i think you can win the arguments by gaining control of

the political process, with since that is the way the arguments are always one anyway. won the arguments. we had no political power. >> you did not win anything. >> i'm delighted that this first panel does not, first of all, need a moderator. >> go away. [laughter] >> and that the debate has been joined so fiercely and that, in fact, we had fighting words. now we know where everyone stands. moderating panels are so much easier to preside over. we have on my left the two first amendment libertarians, as professor fish put it, who defend the american free-speech tradition, which holds generally that speech can only be bad if it threatens and is likely to cause imminent harmful action. and on the right, and we actually did not plan this, i will call them the first amendment dignitary in. you can correct me.

who are defending speech that blasphemes groups or defends their dignity may be banned. and i want to ask greg as a libertarian to respond to the dignitary and argument that the responses from the muslim video should have come down. the google people were not convinced there was evidence of imminent threat. in retrospect, it turned out they were right. the video did not cause action. 22-year-olds in full clubs were basically making a decision in the mill of the night. -- in flip-flops were basically making a decision in the middle of the night. did they make a better decision than the president? >> almost as soon as the videos went up -- i mean, people who are contrarians on free-speech on campus are actually am i in my experience, in the mainstream. 59% are those that would be

laughable if challenged in a court of law. they have been defeated every time. the extent to which free-speech has been appreciated on campus has taken a long decline in my own career. advantage to the tutor censorship. one of them is the idea of where we came from, and the idea of the spectacle of academics arguing essentially for blasphemy laws, saying we should be banning speech because it offends someone religious faith -- and i remember someone challenged me on this. and i said, you are not actually free unless you can question ideas. else's and that was so established that by the time you get to the establishment of the first amendment, it is relatively taken for granted. now, to the argument of whether or not we recently -- only recently started taking free-speech seriously, i also

dismissed that argument. milton was writing about free-speech in 1644. i would like to point out that almost as soon as the map has had the power to communicate ideas, a were arguing for free speech. even long before milton. free-speech was a powerful weapon and a powerful goal throughout intellectual history, starting as soon as people were allowed to speak it out loud. what stanley is conflating is that the first amendment is not found to apply to the mistakes until 1925, and that is because of something called the slaughterhouse decision. they could not have actually applied it before. the 14 commitment came out during the civil war, and unfortunately there was a stupid decision by the supreme court that prevented that from having full force until 1925 when it started to be incorporated through the duke -- due process clause of the united states

constitution. but there were better and better protections of free speech, with a little bit during the red scare of the 1950's. but of course, i see 1964, new york times versus sullivan as a wonderful time. a rand paul or sarah palin being able to sue a journalist because they said something that might be vaguely critical of them? that is what they are arguing for. they are arguing for the right of politicians to scare journalists for the rights of -- through the rights of defamation. do we want our politicians to be able to sue us for saying mean things about them? >> it's the same thing as lying about them. >> you have to make reference to the very opinion you are

decrying. because that is for the actual malice came from. but there is this flourishing political culture in europe where they had strong defamation flaws -- loss and it is way -- strong defamation laws, and it is way less democratic than it is in the united states. people can go into politics with this system that we have and not have to worry about inge feigned or humiliated -- being defamed or humiliated. dad grew up in yugoslavia. my mother is british. i spent a lot of time over there. and it's funny how much it mystifies brits and my friend ,bout how much you will hear wow, europe has such great laws with regard to speech. we would never tolerate their national security laws. these are laws that are in canada, australia, britain, and the recent --

state.e are not police canada is not a police state. what is the harm that is taking , the concrete harm that is taking place -- there's a whole lot of chilling going on over there. it is getting hard, people say, to criticize the united muslim states to my by the way. there is a lot of chilling effect going on. i happen to have some in my pocket. [laughter] law justas passed a the other day against advocating sexism. act, theses of this concepts of sexism will be understood to mean any gesture or act that is evidently intended to express contempt for a person because of his gender

or regards him as inferior, or reduces him to his sexual dimension, which has the effect of violating someone's dignity to my either in public meetings or in the presence of several people, or in documents made public. >> was the law passed? >> yes. >> i take your point that these are not police states and europe is a wonderful place. there is a lot you can do before you run into serious trouble. but as a member of a national minority group, i would rather be here right to not have to worry about some prosecutor coming after me because he doesn't like what i said. >> let me take up something greg said about milton. his 1644ferring to track, where there were extraordinarily powerful celebrations of free-speech full stop in fact, some of them are chiseled on the wall of the new york library. through heof the way

said, of course, i didn't mean catholic. then, we burned. --them, we burned. [laughter] i want to say that everybody has a kicker of his sleeve. if it's not catholics, it's something. talk for aree-speech long time until the disciples affair condo went to -- of f were walking around saying things and they said, we can have that. structurally that and philosophically, it is, in fact, the decision that everyone has, even if they are denying it. -- we're going to take a vote on this at the end -- [laughter] and you will have to decide whether you are libertarians or dignitary and, so listen closely. and the audience can ask questions.

debate between libertarians and unitarians and whose law is going to prevail being made obsolete by technology echo we are not the president of egypt and we are not president obama stop we are these 20 -- made obsolete by technology? we are not the president of egypt and we are not president obama. we are these 22-year-olds in flip-flops. buyfor those who do not facebook, then the decision will not be made in the courts, but by young lawyers with internet service providers. >> for me, what is most interesting about that -- and i'm starting to see a lot of these hackneyed arguments for or against rim of speech. -- freedom of speech. the one thing that this twitter and facebook people get probably better than anyone is that the value of speech is not because

discussion will actually let us understand what the form of truth is. it is the fact that i now know .hat you are angry at me i now know what the price of rice is over there. all of these little truths that can be revealed. haveu look at twitter, you an unparalleled chance to see something as close as we are ever going to get to the collective unconsciousness of the species. >> it is very discouraging. [laughter] come up but is important to know what we are like, for good or for bad. forke fun of my own people having the british side, for having what i call, oh, we are taking the dinnertime response to unpleasant talk. we are just not going to talk about it. meanwhile knowing that people have bad opinions, and how people respond to them, or that they have strange ideas is incredibly valuable. the ostrich approach does not work and it cannot work. >> i don't know that technology

will change anything because you made the case that government can bring lawsuits against internet service providers. it can bring lawsuits against google and require google to take things down. stuffis a huge amount of that is said on the internet by anonymous people that nobody pays any attention to, so there is no need to sue them. nobody cares what they say. if it is somebody like a personian or a prominent , than ever but he knows who he is and where you can soon. -- sue. back in the early stages of the internet, the trend was actually the opposite. there was a famous case involving yahoo! and friends. yahoo! had memorabilia on their website and the french government sued them. that if thisas website appears everywhere, then

french defamation law would apply in the united states. that turned out not to be the case, because these companies can control what appears on their websites in different countries. i think it is a bit of a red herring. gete google guys, they can sued just like anybody else. they can get fired just like anybody else. i don't think it will change much. we have seen turkey shut down twitter. that thele forget is internet actually operates because the government allows it to operate. it owns a lot of the infrastructure. the nsa can tap into it and figure out what people are thinking and saying. we are not going to live in a libertarian society. downic said turkey shut footer. what happened then is that great -- greek football fans had a habit of saying that ataturk, the founder of turkey was gay. true, but itt was

was illegal to say that in turkey. google was asked to take it down. they initially refused. the turkish prosecutor said, take it down all over the world. instead, google just blocked access to turkish users using their internet protocol. and as a result come at google was turkey -- as a result, google was banned from turkey for a couple of years. and she had to decide whether this video is blasphemous, in which case she will take it down. and then it is free-speech. and by the way, she doesn't understand turkish. these lawyers are making these decisions. are you confident that they will make the right one tackle >> i -- the right ones? >> no, i'm not confident that they will make the right ones anymore then the laws like jonathan rehearsed will no

longer be passed. what i am confident in, however is that the strong free-speech doctrine has no reality in fact. i would go back to a formula that the great judge learned and i'm sure everybody will know. a cost analysis. he said, you have to calculate the harm that will be produced i allowing the free-speech to flourish, and then balance that against the harm that will be produced by trying to regulate it. and that suggests it is a case-by-case analysis and that you have to take account of the harms without completely surrendering to them, but not ignore them and therefore surrender to some extraction -- abstraction. and there is a book that made many inar better than

many years. and aa professor at nyu native new zealander. there are some international flavor to the defense of his work. realistic, in terms of taking into account who is making the decisions? waldron is forcing european regulators into their roles in court and so forth, but really, it is the terms of the service providers that are deciding things. is it the ability of european regulators to enforce their will, overtaken by this new technological world, even if you're persuaded by a? -- persuaded by it? i'm saying, are the libertarians just missing the point? >> i agree with eric on this. i think that although there are a lot more tools for freedom of expression popping up, as no one in this room needs to be

reminded, there are also a lot more tools for monitoring expression popping up. one reason you always want to be on a panel with stanley fish, if you can, is that within five minutes he will go to the fundamental issues, and the technology does not begin to address the fundamental issues and that is still very relevant. what kind of society do we want to have? and what will the race it -- the basic ground rules be? >> you talked about twitter. what was the collective voice? candle --a twitter's scandal recently, one every week. was firedpr executive from a company and she tweeted " i'm going to africa, i hope i don't get aids. just kidding, i'm white."

and she was called a racist. and one mother was calling for her to be fired. would you defend her right to say that? and how could you defend it? >> is a crazy unsympathetic case. if you are a pr person and you make a statement that stupid, you will get fired for it. what was amazing to me was the extent to which it turned into an out for blood cause for the people. she was on a flight and by the time she got off the flight, she was an international villain. i said this in a lot of the way we debate with each other. social media has sped up the way we argue, but has also sped up polarization and this sense of tribalism. i think the ability to argue this quickly -- i am optimistic on this. some lessons about what it means to live in a

tolerant society, but i think right now we are going through some ridiculous growing pains. ryan holiday wrote a good article about this recently porn" about how we are addicted to outrage. it really gets our juices going. and in the anti-bullying movement, i sometimes you see people harnessing aggressive action to target what they are wanting to go after. it is great conversation that we are having that is teaching us a lot about our nature. and i would not want to stop it necessarily, for the idea that maybe we can make ourselves different, but take a long, hard look at who we are. definition of the study is that it has to appeal to the senses, but also turn you on an

gross you out at the same time. >> i agree. [laughter] >> we all of us would want to distinguish between the pressures that can be brought against free-speech for my which can be the social and cultural and illegal pressures, which can be even criminalization. thatess said recently nothing would be lost to the world if the entire national basketball association would be shut down. the only result would be an increase in street crime. when that congressman said that, within 20 minutes he had to -- this is my new favorite phrase in society -- walked it back. i hope nothing -- none of your having to walk anything back. but he is paying a price. it is not a price exacted by any legal regime, but a price

exacted by the cultural nuances. >> i think we all agree on that. where you and i probably disagree is that i think those cultural means are by far the best mechanism to discipline hateful speech. whenct, in official means, you get authorities criticizing, that is counterproductive. >> and i would say in response to that brand eyes like a brandeis -- justice like statement. that that speech is only more speech. and he also said that sunshine is the best disinfectant. and my only response to that is that it is the only counter argument in all of recorded history. something it like that into the general atmosphere -- if you allow something i call it costs denial into the general atmosphere, then you will have a growing and growing. >> my father studied 12 century

russian history very seriously. is such anry argument for freedom of speech. when you start looking at the blossoming of -- there is a great book about it that talks about liberal science and the rise of an intellectual system in which there is questioning. >> we are going to have a book signing after the show. >> it gets into the idea that if you disagree with someone about fundamental issues, you better chase them off, behead them, set them on fire, ostracize them, get rid of them. next that is good. -- >> sounds good. >> wow. that is human nature. the idea of hearing out people that you disagree with is innovation. the theory is going much more in the direction of sophisticated believe in free

speech. or when you let pilots talk back to their copilots or you have an astitution that you have healthy conversation, the evidence is getting better and better for free speech. but we are losing faith in it. >> [indiscernible] i'm sure if they did, they would be fired. feedback they would get -- >> not all information. that is the difference between us and you. time and again, there is an in." question of whether -- there is and in." impirical question of whether you want speech. --re is another example rwanda is another example where

freedom of expression led to a holocaust. like the other places, united states now, where free speech is not as harmful, and protections are necessary -- are less necessary as in these other places. but it always requires a pragmatic judgment. you takental approach based on some reading of history is not appropriate under any circumstance. >> i would argue that, in practice, the balancing test that we do so from the very quickly ends with shutting down governments and people using their political power against those without political power. but can you have these very fine tune attests that you talk about? i would argue him. clean that history is absolutely on my side -- i would argue absolutely that history is on my side. i would argue that hate speech

has been a resource for gay people in this country. a man died the other day named fred cell. a crazy person. what he did was illegal in any country in europe. he picketed with signs that said gs." hates fa and that is pushing it even for me. but the thing is, he did so much to expose the hate on the other side that it helps us. when they are out there front and center, we have 20 years of an extraordinarily successful minority rights movement in this country to prove it. >> it can work that way sometimes, as in the example you've just given. but it can work at other ways at what aires, which is just said. i think in this context of anti-semitism. there is a general feeling in this country that anti-semitism, at least in the united states, is a phenomenon of the past.

or at least the kind that was very active in the 1930's and 1940's in this country. and i happen to believe that that kind of violence -- a virulent anti-semitism could happen tomorrow. this may simply be a feature of an unfortunate fact of that i'm older than you are. >> i have to ask both the dignitary and and libertarians thet this morning's news, most important free-speech case of the year, the hobby lobby case involving the question of whether a religious motivated refuse to cover contraception under the formal care act as a visit religious motivations. -- under the affordable care act because of his religious motivations.

and the question comes to whether corporations have the same rights as individuals. you are skeptical of libertarianism in our earlier discussion. did i the court go too far in citizens united and should it not have gone this far with hobby lobby apoplexy i think -- with hobby lobby? >> i think it did. the united states doesn't always protect unpopular people or weak groups. once it is in play, it can be used by anyone am including our full corporations and powerful groups. from the 1970's to the 1980's, first amendment absolutism went from a liberal position to a conservative decision and it is now applied to property rights and the rights of corporations. really, instead of

a religious freedom case, it is in the same ballpark. my view is to let the political process work out these compromises. and another thing from what jonathan said earlier, which i think is intentional first amendment absolutism. if you think people can look at these things as religious conscience or rights of women or other beliefs and concerns, then you don't want the supreme court and the other courts applying this doctrine in order to defeat these compromises. >> i want a libertarian response to this. shouldn'tnk it enforce the first women to struggling in this context? there are so many liberals that defended citizens united. are you barking up the wrong tree in embracing the first amendment, which has been used

to strike down many laws of the regular tri-state? >> -- the regulatory state? >> i would not say that it wasn't until the 1970's and 1980's that free-speech became less of a liberal issue. campuses, i end up writing a lot of people that come from the left side -- the left side of the spectrum, who think that free-speech should be limited for any number of reasons, sometimes noble and sometimes not so much. but i think the tactic, i actually agree with the supreme court for the most part on freedom of speech issues. now liberals, oh, don't believe in free speech because conservatives can use it? that is a startling argument to me. it is a negative -- is it a negative thing that it is available to everybody? >> do you think hobby lobby should be protected?

>> i don't know enough about hobby lobby. i do think citizens united was correct. >> jonathan? >> hobby lobby is not freedom of speech. think that corporations are not people and the first amendment should not be applied to them as they are people -- as if they are people. but it is not an area in which i specialize. indicate myn, i agreement with eric. as far as citizens united goes, the topic that was discussed in stevens 90 page dissent and dismissed in the majority opinion was the topic of corruption. that is, is it a matter of irical coal fact -- imp spent in great sen amounts is the corrupter of the political system or is the system corrupt?

one of the reasons why i make the point that we are not -- that it is not complete free-speech absolutism is that even the base end of the law that i find academics being so dismissive of when it comes to freedom of speech, there is something called strict scrutiny. in constitutional classes you always come up with a scenario , and that ist case how you end up with the and those doctrine cases that we agree upon. but when it is this highly subjective standard that gives also flawed people the power to decide what they like and amazing howt is quickly administrators and students learn the code words. >> you cannot ignore subjective

standards in the law. they are all over the place. , whichre restrictions gives the government the authority to say proto--- protesters can be over here, but not over there. or you need a white flag before you can march. those race, getting questions and the judges have to decide somehow, using very subjective standards. the issue is not whether the standards are subjective or not. the issue is how much the democratic process will determine the extent to which people are permitted or not permitted to say whatever they feel. >> but an essential part of the analysis in time, place, and manner law is the viewpoint of neutrality. the closer you get to the expression of pure opinion, that is when you are on the clearest ground with the law. that is a pragmatic standard. it works very well impirically and it makes the point that my

opinion is something that i should be entitled to and can be very well-maintained, while at the same time trying to limit the influence of bias of power. even in defamation lies is still possible to defame someone to my specially a private person rather than a public person. if you defame someone, you are simply expressing your opinion. that means a court or judge will have to decide whether your opinion has enough evidence. but that is not entirely right, though. law,it comes to defamation one of the central questions is whether or not this is a false assertion of fact. and that also makes perfect common sense. am i saying i hate this person? that is not defamation. if i'm saying i know for a fact this person is a pedophile, that could be defamation, particularly if you knew it was lying. a lot of these situations are less of a problem that i think you are making them out to be. what we've had with

defamation law is the rise of public insistence. it is not that they cannot be defame, but the standard is much higher to defame them. who have dealings with public officials are now grouped with those public officials. and the effect was to weaken the possibility of destination -- of defamation. month, theier this new york times celebrated its 150th anniversary. happy birthday. have a series of audience questions. i will jump right in. what assurance do we have that gay rights advocates will not trample on the first amendment rights of those of us who have the nerve to disagree? jonathan. >> there are a lot more of you than there are of us. and that is the assurance you have. it still has to be worked out in the political process. and there are tons of cushions out there and they will stand up

for the rights and they will be heard -- of christians out there and they will stand up for their rights and they will be heard. i'm confident that we can and will get to a point where in 10 years we will have a pretty good, well agreed upon set of rules that we will have worked out for where these boundaries will be. to hateere a limit speech? echo >>hat where is he i don't believe in a limit to hate speech. -- where is it? >> i don't believe in a limit to hate speech. we have very well outlined what harassment looks like. law, it sounds like what it is in the english language. if it is severe, targeted, harassing someone. that is a good guideline for what you are not allowed to do. merely having an extremely noxious opinion, i think that should be protected. and i would go farther to say that it is one of the aspects that truly reflects the realism. it is good to understand people

from different classes, age groups, backgrounds. they may have an opinion that you right now consider obnoxious. there is a great example of bertrand russell being kicked out of cooney when he had a job there in the 1940's before academic became straw -- strong in the law. he was kicked out because he thought that masturbation was ok and he was tolerant of homosexuality. he was kicked out because these ideas were considered moral -- immoral. ideas that we now take for granted have been affected in the fairly recent past. that is crucial to remember. >> i think that is wrong. that is, i think it was wrong for the city to kick out bertrand russell. but what makes it wrong is the ity, and the court allowed -- how should i put this?

what was happening was that hounded outbeing because of his political views, not because of any expertise that he might have had in philosophy or mathematics. can that general principle, which was introduced in 1915 by the association of university professors in his general statement on academic freedom u.s.enure far predates the -- the new york times versus -- versus sullivan, which i strongly support. but when academic becomes political action, professors should neither perform political action the classrooms, nor whatd they be shut out for

they do outside the classroom. but new york times versus sullivan has given us holocaust denial. >> do we all agree that holocaust denial is a terrible thing and should never be allowed? recs i think that is a different question. >> i think that banning holocaust denial is like global warning -- is like fixing global warming by breaking your thumb on her. [laughter] >> we have a society that is generally tolerant and people are making all kinds of arguments about all kinds of things and these are -- this is one of the crazy arguments people are making. it is probably not a good deal -- big deal. but if you have a country with a small number of jews and people don't like them and this idea is beginning to develop and has not quite yet amended the society, i think you could make a pretty good argument for a law against holocaust denial. germany has and

kind of penance for what happened in that country. they have laws against holocaust denial and laws against espousing not see is a problem with that view is that in situations that are actually like the ones you describe where there is a small amount of nine -- of minorities, you're not going to pass laws that are going to protect the small minority. you are going to have the majority of passing laws to oppress the homosexuals and using speech laws to oppress the homosexuals. >> speech laws were used in order to allow the ragtag nazi band headed by someone called illinois.arch in

it never occurred for other reasons but if it had occurred, it would've occurred because of a strong first amendment opinion written by a judge who practiced what i call the rhetoric of regret. he kept saying, i hate it. it is going to do a lot of harm. i regret the fact that we have to allow these horrible things that happen but that is a first amendment. >> i would get this when i speak at universities and i agree with stanley when it comes to someone cola cost is -- holocaust views. that it's one of the reasons why a lot of the times when you pass laws that ban it, you are going to encourage it. if someone has to say, i believe the holocaust did not happen. prove it. defend that position. i can't.

here are the 10,000 pictures. >> have you ever gone on the website? they defend it. i have read it. fanaticu are a paranoid and you're all idea is to say the holocaust never happened but i am not allowed to say because there was a conspiracy. that is a formula for the society. i would say the holocaust denial is more successful in countries that have these kinds of speech laws. >> it is interesting to remember the public had robust laws and tried to shut down the not sees. -- nazis. hitler use those laws to make himself a national symbol of resistance. you don't want to give these haters the platform.

>> i love when people bring up nazism as an argument for speech hate laws. the nazis did not have concern for individual rights. [laughter] >> this self moderating panel -- [laughter] >> are you still here? we haven't heard from you in a while. >> i didn't realize a topic like the first amendment which everyone in the country agree s on could have such a provocative disagreement. we are going to reduce this debate to yes or no. >> can we have predictions from the panel? >> are you going to win? >> no, not on the vote. >> i don't want to influence the vote. >> john are you going to win? >> i'm going to say yes. by professorsuaded

fish that the european dignitary in position on free speech is significant? by the american libertarian position is more persuasive? >> i have a question. wait. raise your hands if you changed your mind. >> thank you. >> which way did you switch? [laughter] >> [indiscernible] >> what beautiful summary of the spectacular panel. klees join me in thanking them -- please join me in thanking them. [applause] great job. wonderful. please come and join us downstairs.

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> venture capitalist tom perkins talks about income inequality and the wealthy. later, look at health care companies are to the health care law. >> for more than a year, there have been allegations and in situations that i knew about the planning of the watergate break-in and that i was involved in an extensive plot to cover it i an extensive plot -- ordered all materials turned over to the committee.

these included tape recordings of 19 presidential conversations and more than 700 documents from private white house files. judiciary1, the committee issued 42 additional tapes of conversations which contended were necessary for its investigation. i agreed to respond to that subpoena by tomorrow. ago, president nixon responded to way house judiciary committee subpoena for additional watergate tapes. his response plus reflections from carl bernstein on sunday night at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span3. >> president obama is in washington tuesday -- washington -- to be withith the family and first responders

involved in the mudslides. tuesday, new jersey governor chris christie is the keynote speaker at the new jersey chain -- chamber of commerce congressional dinner. live coverage starts at 7:15 p.m. eastern here on c-span. now,at we're seeing right while we are embedding capabilities into our lives environment. some technologies disagree but i personally consider the smartphones that we can -- that we carry around to be a trademark example of the internet of things. we are becoming human senses because we are carrying around an extremely powerful computer in our pocket. it also takes the form of different sensors of the physical world around us. identification leaders that we pass underneath when we access easy pass on the new jersey

turnpike. it takes the form of weather sensors that are around us. cameras thatand selected data and send that somewhere else. this is part of the internet of things. the embedding of computers into our real world. >> the deputy editor of the futurist magazine on a world that into pace that anticipates -- that anticipates your every move. read the book and join in the discussion at the tv.org guest, formerext gang member turned poet, his work includes the award-winning book on gang life. his 2011 release as well. book tv, every weekend on c-span 2. >> next, a discussion about middle-class jobs and the

digital revolution. this event was hosted by the group forward u.s. and hosted by founder van jones. from aol headquarters in new york city, this is an hour and 20 minutes. and 20 minutes. is van jones, the president of rebuild the dream which is a platform for innovations to help fix the u.s. economy. he the cohost of crossfire on cnn with his old friend newt gingrich. he was formally the green jobs adviser in the obama white house and he is waiting -- he has written two new york times bestsellers. next is -- next is andrew mcafee. eric are co-authors of a new book called "the second machine age."

get a book ando he is happy to sign them for you. it is really an interesting book. scott murphy, the former u.s. representative for new york's 20th congressional district and a venture capitalist. is the president of the board of the directors of the upstate ventures association. finally in the empty chair who is on his way from the airport, there was some wind apparently. i lost my one and only scarf. is the chairman of the new york mia. he will be rushing in soon. so, now on to the panel. you were really talking about this question of what is the future of the middle class and the american dream? we have to look a little bit and see where we got to where we

are. i will start with andy. give us some data on what is actually happening and then moved to other panelists. if you look at the last 50 years, rising inequality and lowering ability, there are three main factors you can talk about -- globalization, the technological progress, and then there is public policy. the different opinions and the relative way of things. >> thank you for coming out tonight. what? i think i am on? am i on? i have a little red light on my microphone. mic.e going to pass the thank you for having us tonight. there is always a lot of things to do in new york city. on any given evening. want to kick off by sharing a

bunch of data about the u.s. economy and the workforce over the past chunk of time. the reason to do this is not because i think all of us are dated geeks as i am, but because there is a huge amount of rhetoric owing on. -- going on. way too much of it and not enough evidence and facts. i want to ground our discussion into some of the recent evidence and the story i want to try to tell is of charles dickens moment in our economic history where it is simultaneously the best of times and the worst of times in some ways. that may make that case with data. click. all right. that big slow-moving line in the middle is u.s. gdp and the reason it doesn't move around a lot because it is a big number. it takes those shallow divots and you can see the most recent divot with the great recession. it was still pretty darn bad.

bothee it really tanked the green and the blue lines. both the green and the blue lines rebounded very quickly in a very healthy way. the blue lines are u.s. corporate profits which we will see again in a minute. they are at an all-time high. whether the meds them -- whether you measure them an absolute or the percentage of gdp. the green line is u.s. investment in equipment and software. and rebounded very quickly in a very healthy way. foru.s. corporate appetite the stuff that the industry represented by forward.us made for tech is bottomless and it keeps on growing. we like investment as well. click. what we don't like is the redline which is the employment to population ratio. the percentage of working age americans who have worked.

during theratered great recession and it had flatlined ever since. there was no rebound visible at all. the bureau ofen labor statistics put out the numbers, this is the one i look at and it is like the ekg of a dead person. is not going anywhere. is at a level lower than it has been for 30 years before women entered the u.s. workforce. that is the bad news. i cannot tell a happy story about that red line. i promised you a good news, bad news about the economy. click. i cannot tell a good story. this is job growth in the country decade by decade for the entire post-world war ii history. you noticed that one of these lines is not like the other. the one at the bottom is the decade we have just lived through, the 2000s. -- even before

their great recession, job growth was pretty anemic compared to other decades. there were fewer americans working at the end of the decade than the beginning of the decade. yuck. i cannot tell a happy story about that. i need to make one thing really clear to everybody -- i am a capitalist. i like our system of private enterprise and entrepreneurship. is reason i need to say that because i am out to put up a slide of capital versus labor and when i do that, everybody expects me to wear a t-shirt even though i am not. click. maybe i can borrow one of joe's t-shirts. the blue line is corporate profits expressed as a percent of gdp. higher than it's ever been on a really healthy all portrait x-ray. you noticed that that david is

very short. look up quickly the profits came back. is theline there total amount of gdp they get paid out in wages to all americans every year. you notice of those blue and red lines are doing a dance just back and forth for most of the postwar history. since the turn-of-the-century, that red line has been cratering, heading south. what is amazing to me is that red line includes the wages paid to some categories of superstars like ceos and other top managers and professional athletes. if you took their wages out of that red line, it would be heading south even more quickly. a very clear, good news, bad news picture of the economy. click. this is a story of what has been happening throughout different levels of education over the past several decades.

if you have a college education or above, your real wages have been on an upward trajectory and classically, the more education, the more training, the better your wage trajectory is. the bottom three lines represent all workers with less than a college degree. those real wages are lower than they were more than 30 years ago. that is not good. the bigger problem is those bottom lines represent 60% or more of the american workforce. fewer than 40% of american workers have a college degree. majority -- you see them slowly losing ground here. click. this is what the superstar economies yielding us. the onenot the graft of percent, this is one percent of the one percent. this is the top .