it just says anybody who accesses this power, we are not really going to talk about what it is, it's bad influence. or is that to influence it in a wrong way. that is another concern. sometimes it's a good thing to use this power and sometimes it's a bad thing but we don't think about what is the essence of this and what is actually going on in these circumstances? now it's beyond the scope of my talk to go into a full-blown now it's beyond the scope of my talk to go into a full-blown analysis or discussion of the nature improper purchase of -- purpose of government but i want to make two related points that are really important to think about when we think about government and unpacking the issue of influence over government or a special interest warfare or cronyism.

the first is this. government is not a value neutral enterprise that should be open for everybody to use depending on whether they get voted into office or whetherthey control the government. it's not value neutral. there is a right sort of government, a good sort of government, beneficial sort of government and there's an evil sort of government, a wrong sort of government in a destructive government and that really matters. as i said i think the distinction is ignored in the context of cronyism. what is being ignored ultimately is government's proper purpose. the idea is this. he idea is government is just,

it's a value neutral enterprise and whoever wins the lottery called elections get to use it for their purposes. what is the essential point behind back? it's this. it's might makes right. if i hold the reins of power is pretty much get to use power however i want and the government power which is the power of force. what we need to do to have a proper government is to subordinate the right. we have to understand that government has a limited proper role. that brings me to the second which is the essential principle of individual rights. again i don't want to go into a great amount of detail on this but the essential point is this, government is only acting properly if it's protecting rights rather than destroying rice or destroying individuals ability to be free. what rights get us the freedom to thrive, to pursue our lives, to produce, to pursue happiness and to live. o the purpose of government is

to prevent our rights from being violated in the way the government does that is by using force only against those who would violate our rights those who would initiate force. if government goes beyond this in any way and tries to get people not just the pursuit of happiness and the freedom to pursue happiness but actual actual happiness the only thing it can do is in effect plunder other people. that is the essential point and the essential thing we need to understand about cronyism. i referred to it earlier as a formof legalized plunder and i think that's a really apt term. the real evil here has to be and we have to focus on those who would use government the way a mobster does or the way somebody who pays the mobster to achieve our goal. that's a real essential my point -- the broader question and it is a broader question here in a free society is there

any such thing as corrupting the government or what is the role of bribery laws and had we think about those issues he or? i'm going to set those aside and if people want to ask me about my thoughts about that there's a lot to talk about it would be happy to address it. my fundamental point is that this is an issue and what we have to do is criticize the improper use of government power not simply the effort to influence government at all. think about it like this. when we think about where we talk about the issue of cronyism or what the real evil here is hat something like businessmen are trying to get favors. weignore the fact that sometimes those favors are favors end quote are a guy trying to prevent himself from being destroyed by the very government that is supposed to protect him. ometimes those favors, and

or aors" in quotes are a guy group of individuals trying to use the government to destroy somebody else. there's a really important distinction between the two and it's entirely up scared in this issue of cronyism. we ignored entirely. what happens? i mentioned the idea earlier of blaming the victim. so let me talk about that just a little bit. if you think about it when we talk about government corruption and croneyism. who is tipcally --who has the finger pointed at them? i have quoted a number of people earlier across the political spectrum and it seems pretty clear to me that the great villain all the time his business and especially big business. the idea is biggest bad and businesses are always out to use government power for their own advantage and at the disadvantage of others.

but there is never a proper understanding of the fact that some businesses or private individuals or private interest so to speak, they have no other choice. we can't ignore that. we have to pay attention to the act that the real evil here is sing government in effect to plunder, to steal. welllet's put some more flesh on those bones to redistribute income from one person to another, to put up barriers to business's ability to compete, to regulate and restrict businesses and prevent them from engaging in business in any kind of an economical way. let me just give you one quick example. let's go back to drug companies. people complain that drug companies in the medical profession in general, the medical device business captured the fda and is using it to their own benefit against others. here is how i think about that. if i were a drug company and i had to spend billions and

billions of dollars trying to get drugs approved, beneficial drugs that people want to buy, and run through the fda's gauntlet i would try to capture it too. i don't blame businesses for trying to do this. now you can say this whole process is unseemly. i wish it didn't exist. i certainly wish it didn't exist. i wish that businesses didn't have to spend -- and all sortsof private interest, to want to seem like the only ones affected our business but business is a culprit and held out as the evil bad guy so it's worth focusing on. i don't want to suggest that the process is a good thing or or the phenomenon is a good thing. but i really can't blame businesses for doing it. it's difficult evento blame businesses like tesla who are in a sense looking for

the best deal from some government because not only does everybody do it but they are operating in a context in which there are so many regulations in such a web of laws that they have to deal with that oftentimes it's impossible to figure out how it started, who is the good guy and he's the bad guy and what what is that this is supposed to do? that is what they face. inability to do business without dealing with government. you can blame them for doing it. now you can blame people and you ought to blame people whose goal here is to use government to achieve unearned benefits or to destroy their competitors. butdecision. evil,

now if we don't make that distinction but think about what the consequences of this are. this is one quick consequence i want to go into that is not otherwise obvious and then i will finish by talking a bit about our conception of government and what leads to or allows for the prevalence of this issue of cronyism and what i would call pressure group. consider for a moment if you consider this issue a matter of bad people rather than a flawed system and that ideas that lead to it what's the logical result of? let me read another quote and i sense of it and i'll talk about it. this is the new republic reacting to many on the right criticizing cronyism. here is what they say. they say quote if conservatives want to improve transparency or curb lobbying so the corporations find it harder to manipulate the political system there is a vast network of progressive leaning good government organizations working on that cause already. ow, i suckle a little bit.

progressive meaning good government organization. i litigated campaign-finance laws for longtime championing free speech and that this guy is talking about her all the organizations who want to clamp down on political speech these days. my broader point is that is what he is saying. he is saying what we need to do if conservatives are against this let's join hands and pass more restrictions on people's ability to influence politics which a couple of examples of this in citizens united case which you may have heard about at issue was a film that criticized hillary clinton. that is what they're talking about when they talk about political speech or influencing campaigns. it's people criticizing government. and to the extent that and i can talk more about this in a question period but very recently congress -- and this

will continue -- congress constitutional amendment that would change the first amendment to allow congress to impose reasonable regulations on political speech. hat is what this is all about. this is -- if you dig down a bit deeper this is the logic of this new republic author statement. as i said before i think this is entirely logical. it's indefensible, from a constitutional and i would saymoral standpoint. we have to check your premises here and say wait a minute we are talking about restricting free speech in our ability to restrict government. if you accept the idea that the problem is that people influencing a good system but it's an entirely logical result. what are you doing bad people are corrupting something? to pass laws to prevent them from corrupting. so the logical quens if wedon't

challenge the root of thinking about cronyism is greater restrictions on our free speech or at least the pressure to restrict their free speech and ultimately to restrict our ability to influence the government which is a foundation principle of a free country. so with that let me move on and i hope i have motivated you to think more about this issue if you care about it than to think he right way about it. i want to talk about one final thing. why do we get into this way of thinking about government? one reason at the micro level is that people don't understand the nature of government power and they don't understand that government should be based on what the declaration of independence says switches governments are instituted protect life liberty and property. that's one component that there's another component at issue here. let me characterize it as follows. you have heard the term power

corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. i put a spin on that and say democracy corrupts absolutely. the point being if we really think of our government is a democracy and i will explain why this is, this interest group warfare is absolutely unavoidable. to do that let me ask you to think of again a common they are looking for something in return. they want to give financial support and are looking for return benefit in the form of egislation that is valuable to those businesses and then he asks isn't this obviously a form of corruption and? i think a lot of people would look at it like that. they would say that thing is corrupt. here is what i want to ask. why do we think that that's corruption? why do we think that that's corrupt? witticisms why? what does corruption main? it means the basement, defilement and destruction of something. how do you have a view of corruption if you don't first

have a few of propriety or if you think about it in terms of the deceased body corrupted by disease of germs, you wouldn't know when something is corrupt. you can't think i don't have any idea what the good looks like but what the corrupt version of that looks like. let me ask you. how can we give the government that we actually have today as corrupt just because individuals individuals, sorry. how can we view the process of a businessman or corporation for private interests trying to access government officials to campaign donations or lobbying as corrupt? the reason i asked it that way is i want you to think about not the government as it is conceived of in the constitution declaration of independence but the government would actually have. think about it like this. so every election seas do we not hear some variant of the following? vote for me and i will tax the middle class to pay for benefits for the elderly or vote for me and i will tax the elderly and the middle class to pay for benefits for students let's say, student loan forgiveness. vote for me and i will favor labor over business and i will pass laws that restrict the ability to freely associate with people because that's good for labor unions or vote for me and i will favor of business over labor. vote for me and i will favor american companies over foreign companies. vote for me and i will favor the farmers over i don't know wall street by -- and what you ultimately get to is this idea that the purpose of government is to hand out favors or to hand out essential to bilk some people with taxes or regulation and redistribute benefits to other people. so i ask you how can you consider any one instance of this to be corrupt without thinking that the entire system

s corrupt? how can we view the process of a businessman or corporation for private interests trying to access government officials to campaign donations or lobbying access government officials through campaign donations or through lobbying as corrupt.

and i will tax the middle class to pay for benefits for the elderly or vote for me and i'll tax the elderly and the middle class to pay for benefits for students, let's say. student loan fehr giveness. vote for me and i will favor labor over businesses, right, and i'll pass laws that restrict the ability to freely associate with people because that's good for labor.

what you ultimately get to is this idea that the purpose of government is to hand out favors or to hand out essentially billing some people with taxes or regulation and redistribute benefits. how can we consider any one instance of this to be corrupt without thinking that the entire system is corrupt. what is the idea at the root of this view of government? every election season for politicians to appeal to people but it or me so i can

is this idea that the purpose of government is to do what ? solve the will of the -- serve the will of the people, right? every election system we vote on who droles reins or power and then they go out and they -- you know, they supposedly serve all the various interests in society. in practice, what does this ultimately mean? to cut to the chase, if you're a businessman, let's say, or a union or any of the other interests i talk about, what is your natural approach to this

going to be? are you going to sit still and say, ok, i'll be destroyed by the government and if the election goes the wrong way, hat's the way that went. of ier i said that our form government makes cronyism and

this kind of what i would call legal plunder and pressure group warfare inevitable. under a system in which we really believe that the purpose of the government is to serve the will of the majority or there are other terms for this, the public interest, i referred to this before, the public interest which suggests that we're just one gigantic mass and the government is going to serve all our interests regardless of what they may be. the results of that is a kind of mad dash like a -- you know, one hour sale where prices are -- it's a tax or be taxed, kill or be killed mentality. everybody suddenly becomes a

threat to my ability to live, thrive, produce, and be happy. what's the natural result? of course, peel are going to encombage many this process. how can we say, number one, one instance of this is corrupt but not all instances of this are corrupt. in short, my point is, democracy is the system of corruption. when we conceptualize government, we think about it as its purpose is to serve the will of the majority or some nebulous view of public interest we bake right into our view of government the kind of bruppings corruption and -- corruption and cronyism that everybody is complaining afternoon the ream injustice is that almost always, it's precisely the people who were complaining loudest about that sort of "corruption" that are promoting this view of government. they're the ones that support the idea that this is a democracy not a limited

constitutional republic. under a limited government, government is limited to one essential thing, which is protecting your right to live, thrive, and be happy by preventing anybody from acting like the mobster that i talked about before, by abolishing the use of force in human affairs . cept to protect people the role of the government is not to engage in legalized plunder. when it does, we can't be surprised that people view that as the purpose of government, that they start to see government as very much like the mobster in my example. except, you know, nothing personal, it's just business, right? eats just business, it's ok. that leads inexorableably to the type of cronyism and pressure group warfare that people are

complained about. if we want to solve the problem, we have to number one think about differently about 2k3w069 and number two, limit government. if i have to boil my talk into two points, if you take away nothing else, at least take away these two points. number one, the idea of cronyism mixes together good and bad. it is tantamount to blaming victims and ignoring criminals or people who want to use government power to destroy. and that is a massive injustice and it perpetuates the problem. the mobster gets to travel under the idea that the real problem here isn't him being a mobster. it's you trying to influence me, right so you get the blame for that. that's the first issue to take away. second issue is baked right into

our concept of government. so long as we view government's role as essentially dividing us, which is the practical effect, dividing us would warring factions or warring interest groups, corruption will be the rule, or the use of force against one person, one person against another, and warring interest groups, legal plunder, the only option. perhaps a better word for the term that people refer to, or the term they use," cronyism," i would say instead of croney capitalism, which is a horrible term. the better term would be croney statism, statism being the system in which the individual is subordinated to the group or the state, but actually, that's redundant, in my view, because the real essential evil here is that form of government. you really want to pinpoint what the problem is, when people talk

about cron anyism, it is the view that the state is supreme and individuals are subordinate. if we want to fix this problem, the only solution ultimately is, i would sum it up as, leave us the hell alone, ok. let us pursue our lives, let us produce, let us trade, ultimately let us be free. thanks. [applause] all right. questions. and i think we want to wait for the -- there we go. so over here? why don't we start over here and we'll move sort of across the room. that will make it a lot easier for the -- >> ok. so i've been thinking as you were talking about this line

between what's self-defense versus companies going on the offense, and i was trying to think where can i identify, what's the moral difference. i think where companies tend to cross line, an individual, too and i'm interested in your views on this, when they start saying we're just trying to threlve playing field, we're just trying to make things equal for others. this is something i've just seen recently in the campaign finance laws. so the right in colorado has been subject to campaign finance laws and the west -- the rest is using it as a weapon as groups on the right. somebody on the right has now decided, even though he's been the victim, he's going to go on the offensive, he's going to show the west what it's really like. i think this is crossing a moral line. this is where you are no longer my ally. you're something that i don't like. you're violating rights now and

i don't want to be a part of this. is there a free way to immorality. >> that's a great way of putting it, a freeway to morality? the phenomenon is this. it's kind of -- ok, so you pull a knife, he pulls a gun and it's that constant escalation. so if you're going to do this, then i'm going to do it either the same way or even worse. and it's erasing the fundamental evil here, but it's a phenomenon that i think -- so this is not defending. i think you're absolutely right. it is -- i would say -- although two points. one, as a general matter -- i hate it when economists say this, bates number other things being equal, when a person does that i think it's inappropriate and immoral. it is to say, you know, think about it from the standpoint of

asking for a subsidy so my competitor got a subsidy, why shouldn't i also get one? that's wrong. it gives hail competitive advantage. sometimes i have to go to the government and -- >> that's like parties three to 212 were also not getting subsidies. >> that's right. >> it gets really bad. competitor a has it. i'm going to do what i have to do to control him. it's also going to harm my other competitors and i'm just going to ignore that. >> it's war of all against all. it's like those chain reaction videos from way back when i was a kid where you have mouse traps and you have ping-pong balls and it blows up. it's just -- it goes from single

examples of it, say, in the 19th century. it would be with the railroads primarily and today everybody does it. the view is, look, everybody does it. so one of two things. either i have to do it. i have no choice. it's self defense. it's broadly speaking self defense. i have to play this game to get by. or it's everybody does this, it must be morally neutral. so it's a level playing field. we're going to go down to the least common deno, ma'amor. you have to abolish the system. there's an incremental approach to that. i would say definitely jungle -- you have to be sensitive to the context. that's what i would say. next question here >> did you ever or did you use these arguments that you've made

tonight in your speech adds a litigator? >> did i use the arguments i've used in my speech as a litigator? not really. i was a cam painl -- i argued constantly. these are the arguments i would make in court. this is an example of freedom of speech. we have a right to influence the government. the view of corruption in the legal sense, it's not corrupt unless you literally give a campaign contribution and you actually get a quid pro quo.

our argument was always there is no evidence support for the yielding as favorable return. youncrete example would be give the senator a contribution, and you pay me back i voting on a given law. that would be seen as corrupt. -- you pay me back by voting on a given law. legal terms.nse on it's correct. i would have to draw a legal andn between morally corrupt. people looked at me and say, corrupt.ot if you expect me to vote on the

?ill, how is that not corrupt of course it is corrupt. this is not how politics is supposed to work. the starting point is there is no way the logical result of this kind of thinking is it leads directly to restricting our free speech and restricting our ability to influence government. it just makes sense. if you look at it the way people do and you miss the big picture, its people trying to influence government officials. you shouldn't try to pay off the cop to let you off a traffic ticket. therefore, you should be able to finance the campaign of the candidates. that argument there is a certain common sense to it. i think the

only way you can oppose it is by taking the big picture approach. this is an issue of government power. it is monstrous and insane to restrict people's ability to influence this government. choose the direction accept bigg and to government. going to have a government that influences and controls everything we do, we have to be able to influence that. the way i look at it is it is insane to get rid of free speech and the freedom to influence government, not to mention a fundamental attack on free society. as a practical matter, it is

also crazy. if government is going to have this much power, we have to be able to influence it. i could not use these arguments in court because they are not strict the relevant, but they to insisting we need to maintain freedom. opinion on the auto company bailout? was it 2009? if you think that's corrupt, how does that fit in? >> it's corrupt from the big picture standpoint. in other words, this is not what government should do. it's probably like an example of the influence of car companies over government. i'm not positive of that, but that kind of thing

often happens. i didn't get into this. what we need to think about is if we're going to talk about government corruption, we have to have a view of what government should do for we have a view of what government shouldn't do -- before we have a view of what government shouldn't do. if the proper view of government is it exists to protect our , an auto bailout is not protecting our rights. the government stepping in and saying, we favor you as a business, so we are going to take money from taxpayers and give it to you. that is horribly corrupt. it is corrupt on the model i discussed earlier. it is basically government acting like a mobster. where does government get off telling you the taxpayer or anyone else you have to support chrysler, not by buying their products, but you are going to

be forced to support this business through your tax dollars. that's corrupt. that's a corrupt view of government. that turns government from a projector into a destroyer. it makes government a mobster rather than a protector. that's an example of what i would call legal plunder. to talk about it, if the question is is this an influenced by the car companies on government policy, .hat i would say is probably not having looked at it, it's one of those things you assume that's going on, because that's the way things work these days. andcially if you look at gm how it is operating, it is cozying up to the government constantly. not to think of it

like that. i couldn't say i'm absolutely sure. i'm 75% sure. you can probably figure this out just by reading. there are stories you can figure because theyily report on this stuff. you read between the lines. it's not that hard to figure out. they often talk about the cozy relationships, the meetings at the white house. business executives are called because stuff in their business does not go the politicians wanted to. what's that all about? i have shareholders to worry about. why are they going to washington? because they have to. because regulators have so much power over them, but they have

to be in bed with these guys. there are loads of examples. let me cut it there and move onto the next one. i have it right here. point do you keep blaming the victims? at what point does the reaction no ability at all to petition the government and therefore a dictatorship? is that not the natural ultimate result? ultimate result. in this sense we get closer. the supreme court has done a the rightf protecting to influence politics. it is free speech, but there are components.

the right to petition government is another part of it. i am talking to government, but i want to put my concerns before the government so they take it seriously. roughly speaking about the right to influence. a right to to have influence the government. there are many ways to do that. speaking out and trying to convince government there are ways you can do things. lobbying is an example of the way to petition government. there is definitely a way in which lobbying is bad. notwithstanding the fact the supreme court has done a great job of protecting these rights -- citizens united is a great example. handful of cases and lower court cases, one at least i am happy to say i was involved in, the courts are doing some good work in this area. a couple of ominous things.

number one, today's young people do not understand or respect free speech. how free speech is viewed on america's campuses today. it's not very good. they are the next generation. if we want free speech to be observed, we have got to teach kids what free speech is all about. it is wrapped up in the idea that any idea i don't like and i me.gree with, harm that's an attitude. colleges have a right to do that, but this is an attitude no interesti have in listening, but your ideas are an affront to me and i want to block you out. that translates to the political realm. is theond development

really negative reaction to the citizens united case. that's like the last time you saw a reaction like that was roe and that has led to a firestorm of opposition and controversy. citizens united is held out as the devil. right after that case came down, people were offering to it as the 21st century of the dred scott case. to over simplify, it upheld slavery. mainstream commentators talk about it. it was unhinged from reality, but that shows this deep hatred of the idea we should be entitled to influence what the government does, how deeply rooted that is.

there was a serious effort in to amend the first amendment so congress could pass reasonable restrictions on campaign financing, which means reasonable restrictions on the amount you spend on free speech, which means how much you get to talk and whether you get to talk. thiss defeated handily issue has come up many times in .t least the last two decades every time it gives a little more momentum.

the upcoming generation doesn't get it and opposes it. that is the scary phenomenon. if i were to amend it, i would be concerned. then it's a matter of time. it's like you pushed over the first domino, and they are going to follow a track, and then it's very bad. others? sure. happen to ad business executives that told them to go to hell if they requested to come? >> that's a great question. what would happen? i will give one example. it's kind of peripherally related. actually two examples.

i don't know if you heard about this. jpmorgan was fined billions of dollars for taking over countrywide bank and not telling the government, countrywide bank is in financial difficulty. it was an insane circumstance. takeovernment asked, during the financial debacle, and they took it over, and the government turned around and said, you didn't tell us the problems with countrywide, which makes no sense when you think about it. the government wanted jpmorgan to take it over because they had problems, and they said, you didn't disclose things to us. speculationot of that was a direct shot at jamie, who was the ceo -- at jamie dimon, who was the ceo.

they make a good case this was for him not playing ball with the current administration. there are examples of all kinds of administrations. the lawsuit against standard & poor's to downgrade the government's credit -- that is a baseless law. we did what we are supposed to do, and you are suing us? where does that come from? readinal example is if you --n allison's book thomas look, he talks about he opposed tarp funds. opposed tarp, and he lobbied congress. here is the story. one day he basically said, that's a great bank.

i would hate to see us change the capital requirements, which would render you insolvent, so you might want to rethink your opposition. he had to accept tarp. those are three things that happen when you talk back against the government. that's a real phenomenon. there are so many ways the government can destroy your that it's understandable politicians don't do more of this. -- the business leaders don't do more of this. all of that said, i think it would be really interesting, and i would love to see more businesses stand up and speak out. whether they can get away with it going into congress and essentially saying "to hell with a different question, but i would like to see them do more with it, but they are making life difficult for themselves if they do that. others? over here.

>> this made me think of the question of government, the sec, and the redskins. comments?our it looks like the fcc is going to use their powers to force them to change their name. what do you think of that? >> i think it is wrong of them to do that. the fcc should have no power over broadcasters in my view at all. i would have to think more of that. of governmentmple using its improper authority to essentially censor speech it doesn't like, or is that an attack on a particular person? constitutionally, from a good sense standpoint, i am not sure that distinction -- morley,

constitutionally, from the goodson standpoint, i am not sure that distinction matters. of whatre a distinction the media and intellectuals think of the term redskins and the fact the redskins have toed the lefty line on that issue. certainly an example of that, of public pressure coming to bear on a regulatory agency to regulate someone because people don't like the message or don't like what something stands for. whether it is an example of cronyism and an attack on an individual, i don't know. in all effects, it is bad. government should not have this power. regardless of what you think of the redskins as a mascot and a trademark, the broadcasters should not -- there should not

be an fcc. whose poweran fcc is to grant the right to enter into a multimillion dollar business, and i talked about public interest hearing a standard or the way people view the government. the act, it says the federal government shall have the authority to grant licenses if it serves the public interest. it is a mascot or a trade name in theompany that is public interest? it is arbitrary. they are going to end up

exercising it in an arbitrary manner. non-arbitrary way to do it. fansshould be settled by or anyone else continuing to pay for what the redskins have to offer or not, but that is a private matter. it's inevitable. once you have regulatory agencies, especially when you make their power hinging on public interest. how about in back? your explanation is very enlightening. i appreciate that. in discussing the topic, you have opened up pandora's box concerning equal opportunity of

influence. you characterized earlier, one guy comes up with a knife. the next guy comes up with a gun. it seems like there is almost an arms race of influence. outlookave a positive on there being an agreement, or do you think we will just achieve a mutual destruction? outlook?ave a positive my answer is so long as we view , wernment the way we do don't live -- our government is a constitutional republic. that's what the law says that the constitution says. a democracy.are the factor, this is a country ruled by majoritarianism. -- de facto, this is a country majoritarianism.

remember when obamacare was being debated? the american people want this law. therefore, it is automatically legitimate. that is all. debate over. -- as that ist reviewed, i don't see how this possibly changes. there are so many way that various pressure groups, and you can call them interests -- i don't know if it is right to call them legitimate interests, because so many are out to plunder others. there are so many ways these groups have become entrenched in thatawmaking process unwinding that has become a normatively difficult. will say this. there are definitely positive signs.

uber, lyft,ies -- tesla -- not in its dealings with the nevada government, but in its efforts to sell cars locally and to get around state franchise laws that protect dealers because tesla does not want to sell to dealers. they want to sell directly to the consumer. t are both tech apps. they have run into all sorts of local transportation and taxi regulations, but notice this seems to be a kind of backlash against that. i don't credit bad as people are starting to understand the proper purpose of government and as -- i don't credit that people are starting to understand the proper purpose of government. people are saying, if this is what regulation means, something bad is

happening. let's pay more attention. hope. a glimmer of that's a slight light on the horizon. it's a good development. the first step is people understanding, why should we care? it affects you and your life. the second step is to start thinking, why do we have these regulations? what good are they? we will have to see what the future holds on this. hand people seem to be opposed to this regulation. on the other hand, the tech industry, they just don't get it. most of these guys are even younger than me. they were weaned on a regulatory big government model. their view was this was all

about public spirited regulations and regulators trying to protect people, and it's all good. we will get together with them and negotiate. it's like a business transaction. there is nothing fundamentally wrong with it. i think we are about to find out what the regulatory process is all about. it's hard to say. it's a promising development. it people pushing back against the regulatory state, and any pushing back is good news when rarely we get any kind of opposition at all. i wish i could give you better news than that. the fact people are talking about cronyism as an issue is also positive. as you have gathered, i have a problem with the way people are talking about it, but the fact they are even talking about it as an issue is a positive development.

we need to think about it the right way, but i think this issue of cronyism has put the the primary opponents of big government have put the left on their heels. it is hard for us to defend this. whether it goes in the right direction or not is hard to say. >> i like the contradiction of them trying to back up the times while at the same trying to shut down a sherry and economy market that would lower emissions. economy market that would lower emissions. >> the irony is thick. that the results of any national elections in the forzon might be positive what you are talking about here?

optimisticd to be when we are talking about the results. it's kind of like the previous answer.-- you have to think about what is positive -- what is possible to get in today's world and what is a positive development and not really compared to the absolute idea if only history had turned out better. what i will say is this. i have been critical of senator mike lee before. this issue is pretty good. i would encourage you to read what he said about cronyism. he gets a lot of it. he really seems to understand in a real way this is a problem of government power. a lot of what he says is good. that is a promising development. there are other politicians -- ted cruz is an example, rand

paul -- they are pushing back against this model that government knows all and should be able to control our entire life. how positive a development is that? they are pointing to a lot of problems that need pointing to. i think that's the best i can say. it's hard to judge. it's hard to read political tea leaves and to see what impact politics will have on culture if any, but i will say this. ideas andabout the changing the dominant ideas among the public intellectuals and ultimately politicians, but you really can't start with politics and hope to fix what is wrong in this country from a political down standpoint. can we have this one first, and we will come over here?

>> with a renewed interest in of them, are you aware resurgence of public choice theory? i am not sure how much that influences your own theory. >> there is quite a lot. there is an economist, and he has written about this a lot. i just read an article by him. he is quite good, although i think there are issues from economists. from an economic standpoint, he and others have done a lot of ood work. specifically, he read an article recently. his point was academics have been talking about this phenomenon for a long time. you can see that in the ideas i referred to. let me clarify. people think about these ideas in the wrong way, but they are real phenomenon people focus on.

about have been talking this type of phenomenon for a long time. there is a lot in this area that is really quite good. intellectuals the -- there are two problems. people don't care about it the way they need to. the reason is in my view we haven't explained why free-market economics is actually in everybody's legitimate self-interest. issue, but the economics is still out there. i have beenthing reading about since i was in my 20's. there is a lot of good economics on the subject.

it is the moral underpinning in my view. right here. >> it does not seem the lobbying incentives.y offer there is an incentive for congressmen to get reelected. he has an incentive to capture more money, to run his campaign, and where is he going to get it? from constituents. you look at agencies of government. their purpose is to grow. their purpose is not to solve problems. their purpose is to grow so they get a bigger budget and they have more control over more things. certainly ranch talked about it in atlas talked about it in "atlas shrugged." have you looked into that? >> there is a reverse incentive

structure. think about it is if you have good principles to begin with you end up with good incentives that reinforce those structures. if you have bad principles, the opposite happened. this is gresham's law. you inflate the currency, and everyone stows the valuable money in their mattress and only sode the inflated currency bad money drives out the good. part of the reason is this incentive structure. it becomes necessary to do this and therefore becomes morally appropriate. there are deeper philosophical reasons for it in my view, but process inart this motion, it is a vicious cycle and continues to build on itself.

that's a troubling phenomenon. of a war of all against all. as soon as one person gets away with rioting, everybody else starts to. you get people thinking they are defending their interests, and you get mayhem. that is what happens in politics as well. ultimately, the solution has to be to return to first principles, so to speak. i understand the question is what should government do as a path to avoid and what it should not do. i will close with that. thanks. [applause] >> c-span is interviewing retiring members of congress about their time in washington. tonight it is michigan democratic senator carl levin, who is chairman of the armed services committee.

texas congressman ralph hall, who is the oldest member of congress. he was defeated in a primary earlier this year. >> there is no economic purpose served when microsoft or apple are able to shift their revenues to ireland or puerto rico or someplace to avoid paying taxes. there is no economic purpose served when one of these new intellectual property giants that produce good stuff -- i am not quarreling with apple. they produce wonderful product. is the way they avoid paying taxes and shifting profits and intellectual property to themselves, to their own corporations and tax havens to avoid paying taxes.

those are the loopholes we need to close, and we need the in order to that. avoid another round of which is ann, absolutely mindless way to budget, where everything gets .ut we are in the middle of an ebola problem. research has been cut because of this sequestration method of budgeting, which has a cookie-cutter approach. we have got to end it. most of us really want to and sequestration. end sequestration. >> i have been a member of congress for 34 years. if i was a manager of a baseball --foot all team, and i had

football team, and i had 34 and one, i would be in the hall of fame. it doesn't bother me. who werecochairmen chairman in my district that were supporting me and wanted me to run. you that youl tell vote 9.9% of the time. there is a difference for 90 year old people. >> all 90-year-old are not built the same. i bet people are wondering how you do it. heifers has aour double cap, go ahead and lift

him over the fence. -- one of your calf, goas a bull ahead and lift them over the when you cannot lift him you know it is time to run for congress. >> you can see the entire interview this evening just after our interview with carl levin. >> c-span is featuring interviews with members of congress. at 8:00 eastern. >> i don't want to look back so much as to look forward. there are a couple things i would like to do.

.his is a major effort investigations. >> i have been a member for years. if i was a manager of a baseball or a football team and i had 33 and one, i would be in the football hall of fame. it doesn't bother me. i wasn't just set on going. and 188 cochairmen counties in my district who were supporting me and wanted me to run, and i did. an americanill take history tour of various native american tribes. that is at 10 a.m. eastern. then at 1:30, attend the

groundbreaking ceremony with former secretaries of state. 8:30 p.m. eastern. that is thanksgiving week. for our complete schedule, go to c-span.org. next week, the university of virginia president teresa sullivan on how uva is changing its policy on assault. wrote about an alleged gang rape. at 1 p.m.span eastern. president obama announced an executive action to shield undocumented immigrants from deportation. now a conference about the

president's authority to issue the policy. >> thank you all for being here. know,ight as you gave permission forive work permits immigrants. is this the right way to do it, or does it set a dangerous precedent? what is congress's he hasibility now that done it? building on the comments and to continue the conversation, we guests toed three view this in more detail. we will have time for q&a afterwards. tingll hear from professor . he teaches tax law. he was assistant commissioner of the naturalization service at

the department of justice in the 1990's. he is a graduate of overland college and harvard law school. next will be john malcolm. he is director of the legal center here at the heritage foundation, and he is the senior legal fellow. mr. malcolm was a prosecutor at the criminal division and is a former assistant u.s. attorney as well. is the senior editor. he is a graduate of princeton university. please welcome me -- join me in welcoming our panelists. ptineople who are supposed to first we will hear from professor ting. >> am i on? i heard the president. i thought it was a pretty good speech except for the facts.

i thought it was fundamentally wrong starting with his statement that everybody agrees our immigration system is broken. i know that's not true, because i don't agree our immigration system is broken. they be there are others here who agree with me. it's broken. what is broken is the willingness of some americans to make the hard decision about whether, given our admiration and respect for immigrants, given the fact we are a nation of immigrants, should we admit every single person who wants to come here in search of a better life, or should we enforce some sort of numerical limitation on how many immigrants we are going to take each year? no limits or to enforce a limit. that is a hard choice, because if you are going to enforce a limit, you are going to say no to people who just want their shot at the american dream. we have to say no to them not

because they are bad people because we have a numerical system in place and letting them -- lettingiolate them in would violate the law. .o limits or enforce limits a lot of politicians would say, we cannot take that choice. no one is going to get reelected who said no limits. they have to turn to a third choice, and president obama gave us the manifestation of the third choice, and that is, let's pretend. have anetend we immigration system. let's keep the laws on the books that say we have a numerical limit on immigration but don't enforce them. don't enforce them. a formula for

permanent dysfunction. onlynent dysfunction not in our immigration system but in all other areas of immigration law. you can have laws on the books, but you are not going to enforce them. then all kinds of problems become manifest. you can always tell when a politician is dodging the question on immigration when they start talking about borderng criminals and security. who is opposed to deporting criminals? who is opposed to that? who is opposed to border security? it's like motherhood and apple pie. if all you can talk about is motherhood and apple pie, you are not serious about immigration. we only have a few minutes. i want to talk about why i think this executive order in particular is illegal and unconstitutional.

sessions suggests, it violates our concept of the constitution, that we govern ourselves through a deliberate process of checks and balances. that's the basic constitutional idea. we don't govern ourselves through the unilateral announcements of a great leader, like they do in north korea. it's unconstitutional. the argument is boiling down to, other presidents have used deferred action in the past. what's the difference? devil is in the details. if we look at all the presidents precedents, i-- think they are distinguishable. the idea of deferred action is set on a case-by-case basis, given the fact -- is that on a

case-by-case basis, given the fact everyone is different, there are going to be situations where you are going to let people stay based on their circumstances, but 5 million people. there are people on the other side of the argument to say numbers don't matter. the principle is what is at stake. if we have seen other presidents do it, why can't this president do it for 5 million people. i think that defies common sense. numbers do matter. sometimes they will say, but some of these actions did involve large numbers of people, inusands of people particular cases. not millions, but thousands of people. yes, that's true, but a lot of those involve the exercise of the president's foreign-policy authority. that's an area in which the president does exercise foreign-policy authority. if the president says, i am going to do for removal of people for foreign-policy reasons, we are going to let him

do that. that's not involved in this executive order. this is not being done for foreign-policy reasons. people are pointing in particular to president george h.w. bush's voluntary departure action in 1990 four the spouses theminor children -- for spouses and minor children of the 1996 amnesty, and first president bush authorized voluntary departure, which meant they got work authorization in , so people arees saying, that was potentially a lot of people. it didn't involve foreign-policy concerns. what about that one? i feel strongly about this because i worked in that administration. i wasn't directly involved on this issue, but i know president bush in 1990 was in a hot and heavy negotiation with congress to how to implement this.

he was trying to implement a statute enacted by congress. congressgotiating with and saying, do you agree we have to do something about these spouses and minor children? as evidence congress agreed, within three months of the president's executive order, congress ratified the executive order by providing the statute minoras for these children of amnesty recipients in the 1990 immigration act. i think that one is distinguishable, too. i just want to emphasize what i think are a few questions we all need to be asking. if there are any journalists here, i hope you will ask them ,t every opportunity

particularly of people on other sides of the argument. what is the impact of this millions order on the and millions of unemployed americans in the united states? the latest jobs report says there are at least 9 million unemployed, at least 7 million involuntary part-time workers stuck working part-time because they cannot find full-time work, and there are millions of other people who have given up looking because they are convinced there are no jobs available for them in the united states. every month the administration celebrates. we create a small number of jobs in the country. they're overwhelmingly part-time jobs. we now have 2.9 million long-term unemployed in the united states. the administration is celebrating. we got the official unemployment rate down to 5.8%. yes, but if you look in the african-american

community, the unemployment is 10.9%. if you look at american teenagers looking for work, 18 point 6% of them cannot even find a part-time job. -- 18.6% of them cannot even find a part-time job. what our answer for them? what are we doing for them when we add 5 million additional workers to the labor pool and allow them to compete openly with americans for jobs? what are we doing for their jobs prospects? the unemployment rate among black teenagers, according to the latest jobs report, who cannot even find a part-time job is 32 .6%. they are out there looking and cannot even find part-time work. what is our answer to them? you know we are living in a part-time economy. you know wages are stagnant. a world of jobn insecurity now. the president says he is concerned about inequality,

rising inequality, because the stock market is hitting record highs every week. your fortune is invested in the stock market, you are doing really well, but wages are stagnant. do you think there is a connection between stagnant wages and high profits? there just might be. there might be some connection. it's not surprising big business rod in thelet's labor pool so we don't have to give raises to american workers. , just came from philadelphia where the baggage handlers are on strike against their employers, saying, we need higher wages. their employers are waking up this morning and reading, the president is going to add 5 million people to the labor pool in the united states. do we have to give into these workers? i don't think so.

let's wait for the 5 million to come on board. that's the reality. we need to ask the hard question about what is the impact of this executive order on american workers and legal immigrants who are already here and given permission to come. what is the impact of this executive order on people outside the united states debating whether to come to the united states illegally or not? what is the impact when they read about this in their newspapers? a former colleague who said, the poor people of the world may be poor, but they are not stupid. they are as effective as anyone at figuring out their best interest, and they do it everyday. if we want to limit the decision of people to come to the united states illegally, we need to raise the costs and lower the benefits. if we want this a legal

immigration crisis to continue indefinitely, we need to lower the costs and raise the benefits. that is what president obama has done. this is the beginning of the story of permanent dysfunction that is coming. we need to ask, what is the impact of this executive order on qualified legal immigration to the united states? we have already the most immigrational center in the world, bar none. we even more legal immigrants -- -- allow more than otherigrants countries combined. that is the system we have if we don't get any immigration reform. all we have to do is enforce it. we have to enforce it and tinker with it. there is a lot of room for improvements, but we can work with that system.

what is the impact on qualified immigrants waiting in line for their chance to come to the , to whom we said, don't come illegally. wait your chance. some of them have been waiting as long as 20 men -- 20 years for their chance to come to the united states. for them to say, the people who jump the queue are getting work authorization, and we are line because they have a numerically limited immigration system, so we are waiting for our chance to immigrate legally. who is the fool? what is the message to those folks? will askurnalists questions of all the people putting themselves forth as presidential candidates as to what your position is on this order and what are you going to do if elected resident, and i a good are going to get

contrast among presidential candidates. if we do we are going to get a rare chance for the american people to vote directly on the merits of this executive order. while most people agree our immigration system is broken, there is substantial disagreement among reasonable people about the best way to address this problem. it's no secret president obama is a supporter of the dream act. the dream act has been brought up and debated in various forms for several years by both houses of congress, and it has been rejected every time. instead of doing the tough work of building trust and engaging in intense negotiations and searching for a bipartisan solution, the president has decided to go it alone by implementing broad swaths of the dream act. the substance of

the policies, this is wrong, and it sets a dangerous precedent. while the president has broad authority when acting as commander-in-chief, he has far more limited authority when it comes to domestic affairs, particularly when congress has spoken about a particular issue. prior to implementing this plan, the president appeared to acknowledge the lack of authority to engage in executive action. in 2011 president obama said, the idea of doing things on my own is very tempting, not just on immigration reform, but that's not how our democracy functions. in march of that year he was asked whether he would grant temporary protected status to undocumented students, and he responded the president doesn't have the authority to ignore congress and say, we are not going to enforce the laws you

pass. and february of last year theident obama said, problem is i am the president of the united states. i am not the emperor of the united states. my job is to execute the laws that have passed. we have certain obligations to enforce the laws that are in place, even if we think in many cases the results may be tragic. what is president obama saying now? he is saying, if you don't want me to take executive action, just send me a bill i like. congress has the right to say, no, we won't. too bad. if the president let it be known he thought federal judges were inng too harsh or lenient their sentencing and if they refuse to hand down sentences the president liked better,

would the president have the right to start issuing sentences to criminal defendants? of course not. the president has been vested with executive authority. he doesn't get to exercise judicial authority, and he doesn't get to exercise legislative authority either. in this case the supreme court said in no uncertain terms the president's power to see that the laws are faithfully executed refutes the idea he is to be a lawmaker. the constitution is neither silent nor equivocal about who shall make laws which the president is to execute. that is separation of powers. the congressional may not like congressional transients, as he views it, but that does not give him the authority to act unilaterally. the president's decision was acisive issue litigated in

1975 case. president nixon tried to enforce his will over congress by ignoring certain laws congress passed. nixon, desiring to cut the , decided to impound funds that were dedicated to these programs. theress reacted by enacting act of 1970 four, ordering the president to spend the appropriate funds, and this was challenged in court. a unanimous supreme court held the president cannot prostrate the will of congress by killing a program, that the president has to. all the objectives and the full scope of programs for which budget authority has been given to congress.

of our one section eight constitution gives congress the exclusive authority to establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and the supreme thet clearly stated formation of immigration policy is entrusted exclusively to is nots aliens open to question. this was reiterated a couple of years ago in arizona when the court said congress could trump state laws to its preemption doctrine, but the executive branch could not. the president upon duty to enforce the laws derives from article two, section three which states the president shall take care the laws be faithfully executed. this is imperative language. the president shall take care, not take care if he feels like it. laws,ty is to execute the

not some of the laws. not the ones he likes. and he is supposed to faithfully execute those laws. the president has said the actions he took last night are grounded in the inherent authority to exercise prosecutorial discretion. with respect to an executive duties are based on considerations in individual cases or in a small class of cases. the authority is provided from exceptions, providing for asylum, temporary protected status, for those who will be project -- subjected to hardship or persecution because of their leaves. these are all exceptions congress created based on

special considerations that can be taken into account and which fulfill the objectives of our nation's immigration laws. what the president is doing has nothing to do with a natural disaster, strife, or persecution. he is implementing by executive fiat a policy based on his preferences that exempt a huge class of people from the laws against the will of congress. kings, and dictators give themselves the authority to grant dispensations and determine, based on a whim, certain laws will not apply to certain favored individuals. presidents do not have that authority. prosecutorial discretion is designed to achieve statutory objectives including promoting the integrity of our system and

deterring violations of our laws. objectives orte to effectuate policy changes. as doris meisner once stated, prosecutorial discretion should not become an invitation to violate or ignore the law. but that is exactly what this will do. actions are in invitation to ignore the law. the president has announced over half the illegal immigrants in this country, those covered by different action, clear law breakers, have nothing to worry about. they should come out of the shadows and that the immigration laws will not apply to them. we are going to give them work permits. the faithful execution of our immigration

laws and it is not a proper exercise of prosecutorial discretion. what he is doing, the president is establishing a dangerous precedent that violates principles of separation of powers to protect our liberties and establish a government of laws and not of men. thank you. there was a moment early in the president's remarks last night where he explained that we are not prisoners of our past and we have the capacity to remake ourselves and i guess that is his answer about those comments he made in 2011 about not having the constitutional authority to do what he is doing. if you remember in the context of the remarks he made in 2011 he was denying he had the constitutional authority to do considerably less than he was doing last night. unfortunately not content with just remaking himself, the

president seems to be remaking our constitutional order at the same time. while lecturing us in a particularly nice touch about what democracy means. quite as alarming as what the president has done on its own is the kind of argument he's making for it. but i guess you have to step back because there are two clashing arguments he's making. first prosecutorial discretion arguments. nothing to see here, right? regular, routine prosecutorial discretion. if you believe the opinion, this is the authority presidents had going back to eisenhower. i guess nobody noticed it. he had the sentence we're going to ton prioritize the removal of criminals. just keep doing what you're doing.

it is something he has to do because congress hasn't, the way he put it, stepped up to the plate. it's intended to pry congress to do the allegedly right thing. when he makes that kind of argument he is essentially conceding this is a legislative act. that the argument just doesn't make any sense if all he's doing is exercising prosecutorial discretion. and it is a kind of legislative act the constitution clearly does not have any room for. it's not the case our formal government consists of a president threatening to make law by himself if congress does not make the kinds of laws he wants. people have described that as

blackmail, but that's actually not true. blackmail typically involves a threat to do things outside the context of blackmail would be entirely legal. you can tell people somebody is having an affair, for example. this is more like extortion, because what he's been threatening to do is something that is not a legitimate exercise of his powers. the word from a lot of republicans in the run-up to this announcement was, let's not overreact. let's not go crazy. i'm not for going crazy. i do think there's such a thing as under reacting as well as overreacting. i think we are at more risk of under reacting than overreacting right now. the line that we are hearing is while the president wants republicans to go too far, i suspect that's right, there is an element of intentional provocation in the way the president has conducted himself.

but i'm sure the president will be just fine if republicans don't do anything. and i don't think that either one of these things should be done. of course, you know, i should also say he's talking about republicans. there are democrats who at least have voiced disagreement with the way of president is conducting himself and they ought to be invited to make good on their own rhetoric. it's not quite true as we heard earlier the president has not created a bipartisan coalition. yes, he deliberately smashed a bipartisan coalition for some of the same immigration proposals that he wants. but he does seem to have created a little bit of bipartisan opposition to what he's doing. it seems to me in thinking through what the response by the legislators should be should be, first there has to be one.

i think that's true for political reasons in terms of the conservative base and party rightly will not stand for there not being a response. secondly, you have to register some kind of support for the constitution when the constitution order is being threatened. the whole system of government does, in fact, depend on -- what's the phrase about the interest of the place and the person being united? it seems to me there ought to be three goals in any kind of legislative response. they would be thwarting the president's policy objective as undoing what he's trying to do. secondly, registering opposition to what he's doing and looking at it from the other side, avoiding complicity in what he's doing. third, raising the political costs of what he's doing.

that i think falls under the heading of trying to reassert the political and constitutional norms that the president is undermining. the problem with those goals is i am not sure they are all achievable. i am not at all sure there's anything congress can do that will actually stop the president's policy from going forward. i suggested earlier in this week and other people also talked about it, a two-part budget strategy where you fund all portions of the federal government with the exception of the immigration service and then you pass a bill presently that funds the immigration service but with a cutoff of funding. no funds whether appropriated here or raised from any other source can be used to carry out the president's plan. there's been some push-back from the appropriations committee to the effect that you can't tie

the executive's hands in that way, which is just not true. i mean of course you can. but the problem is you can't force the president to sign that bill and you can't force senate democrats to go along with that bill. they don't need the bill to pass in order to have nearly full funding for the agency and, therefore, to be able to go ahead. now, if the congressional leadership is interested in this sort of strategy it seems to me it shouldn't be beyond the wit of man to find other parts of the federal government that we can sweep in to this strategy. maybe parts of the justice department you can put in there if there's a standoff terribly inconveniencing the vast majority of americans and frustrating at the same time the president's ambitions. but it's not clear to me yet anyway that the will exist even look for those sorts of avenues on the part of the congressional

leadership. but even if there is no better is that the strategy than the one i outlined and that terminates in the president signature of the overall bill and filibuster veto of the overall immigration bill, it's still worth doing because the alternative is for the entire congress to be complicit and to legitimate kind of action. i just don't think that republicans should go on record supporting funding for carrying out this lawless kind of order, extra constitutional order, and at the end of the day i find it hard to believe that they're going to. i think conservatives will be too outraged to allow that to happen. right now the balking of some republicans is just kind of

wasting time because they eventually have to end up being where i'm suggesting that they should be. i guess one last point on these sort of strategic questions, it does seem to me if you have a president who is willing to go rogue, so to speak, you can't have a year-long budget. you've got to have -- it's not the ideal circumstance in a lot of ways but you've got to have short-term funding mechanisms because who knows what he will do in february in support of some other activist groups' goals. you have to maintain the ability to put restrictions up, even if they're not ultimately successful, you have to at least slow them down. you've got to have a fight. and on this question whether the congressional office has the will to explore these avenues, i guess one point i make to them and other republicans who might

be feeling that way, is if you are going to wait around until you find a strategy that is guaranteed to succeed in all three of those objectives, you should just say so. we can't have -- sort of absurd for these folks to look into the cameras and say we're going to legislatively respond when the legislative response is something that is purely symbolic. i will close with just three comments more about the shape and form of a reaction, a response to what the president is doing. first, i will give the folks who worry about overreaction something. i do think it's important when we talk about these issues not to communicate personal animosity towards large groups of people. even people who have done something wrong like breaking

the law. i think i wish they had not done it. i think our policies should have been very different towards them over the years. but i think it is in many cases very understandable thing that they did. second, we should put what the president's doing in the context of a pattern of lawless behavior. you know, the fact is this president has repeatedly stretched the laws in ways that have drawn unanimous rebukes from the supreme court, which is to say rebukes from all of the democratic appointees, rebukes from the appointees that he himself put on the supreme court. so i don't know why we should be cowed by the l.o.c. saying this is all perfectly legal. the l.o.c. said the recess appointments were legal too and it got slapped down 9-0 by the supreme court. third, this is just repeating something, maybe expanding a little bit, we should make the point about legal immigrants

being disadvantaged by this order. and not just in terms of -- sort of form of line jumping illegal immigrants are already here but also there's a serious question about the bureaucratic capacity of the immigration services to actually carry out this plan. i mean, do all of these background checks and jump through other various hoops that the president for now is insisting on? and that is going to mean that legal immigrants are going to get underserved. and that's something that conservatives ought to make an issue out of. but again, all of that presumes that there is the will to have a fight on this issue and that we are not just doomed to under reacting to it. >> thank you very much. please join me in thanking our panelists for their remarks. [applause]

we do have time. about ten minutes. if you have a question, wait for the microphone and ask your question. and we have one right up here. >> can i have two questions? no. ok, one question. the bill that was pass -- what's wrong with the senate bill for reform? >> how much time do we have? i think there were a couple significant problems with that bill. i think that the doubling of legal immigration levels over the next decade, much of it low skilled, is not a solution to any pressing problem that the united states currently faces. it's not as though we have had extremely tight labor markets in recent years. it's not as though there's a public clamor in this kind of

increase in illegal immigration, which usually polls in the low 30's in terms of public support. i think providing legal status for millions of illegal immigrants before you're sure that enforcement is going to actually be implemented and going to be effective and has survived the court challenges that supporters of this law would doubtless have brought against it is reckless because it creates the potential that you have the magnetic effect of an amnesty that is people just assume there's -- the country doesn't take the law seriously and there will be a further round of amnesties in the future. so those would be i think the two major problems. i guess i would add a third one, i think guest worker programs are wrong in principle. i don't think that the country should have a large group of people that we have laboring but we deliberately don't want to

participate in our civic, our social and our political life, essentially a hee-lot class, to do menial work. if we're talking as the president did last night about what the country is about, don't think it ought to be about that. >> anybody else want to add anything? >> can i just add, i mean, all of the problems we described of the executive amnesty would be worse under the gang of eight bill. the only saving grace would be well, i guess if it were passed, at least would you have congress on board respecting the constitutional order. but as ramesh said, it would aggravate all of the problems. instead of adding 5 million additional workers to the american labor pool, we would be adding 10 million or 11 million workers to the labor pool. we already have a generous legal immigration system. doubling it going forward would aggravate all of the problems we talked about involving stagnant wages and underemployment and

people struggling in part-time jobs. >> we have one on the far right over here. >> this was a difficult election where republicans had to make a choice, you know, and many times to whether or not to vote for a candidate that they may not have agreed with, but everybody got together. there were a lot of people getting those people around the idea of a republican majority. this is the fist big test. what happens if republicans fail on this test to rein in this obama? i certainly have my views but i want to hear yours. >> ramesh, you want to take that one? >> i think it's a huge problem. i think it's intensely demoralizing and would be divisive among republicans.

look, there are times when you have to disappoint some of your supporters, many of your supporters when some of your supporters have outside expectations of what you can achieve. but people do expect you to try. people do expect you, if you have a press release saying that the president is acting as emperor and tyrant, that has to be met with something i think a little bit more robust than a recisions package. >> i would add that, you know, 2014 election cycle is over. we're already in the 2016 election cycle. it's a completely different issue. trying to elect a president is different than fighting these legislative battles all across the country. i think the only way the republican party can get that critical majority that it needs

is appealing to the american working class. and making it clear it's the republican party that represents the best interests of the american working class. that it's the republican party that's concerned about the stagnant wages and high rates of unemployment and underemployment. it's the republican party that's concerned about the lack of benefits and part-time work and the only way we're going to improve that is by tightening up the labor pool. why is bill clinton so popular, right? why is this nostalgia for bill clinton? because bill clinton's administration coincided with a period of relatively high employment in the united states and low unemployment. so if you're in the group of people that's traditionally last hired and first fired, you have fond memories of that period. there was a tight labor market. president clinton signed what was thought to be a tough immigration law that sent the message out to the world that oh, these americans are really cracking down on immigration

now. they're going to tighten up the labor market. so i think it's nothing about the man personally. i think that people have a nostalgia feeling about the clinton era, that it was a tomb -- time of high employment, rising wages and that's what the american people want. >> question over here. >> thank you. my question is about where the united states' constitution is going and, of course, this executive action takes place in the context of what you would describe as pattern of lawlessness, confrontation on war powers, recess appointments, the lawsuit that i believe was just filed today against obamacare. but it seems like there is legal justification on the president's part to take these actions in a

sort of -- in these gray zones. so if this kind of thing continues and there isn't a response, where do you see the constitution, u.s. constitution going? >> john, can you take that? >> it's a very, very broad question. i would say i'm an eternal optimist when it comes to the constitution but i would say that the trend line at the moment is not good. i would disagree with one thing that you said, which i don't think with respect to the immigration laws there's a gray zone here. in fact when the president made his remarks last night, he said let's be clear, all of these people are lawbreakers. he's hanging his hat is again on prosecutorial discretion. well, prosecutorial discretion normally operates this way, which is the law applies to everybody. but if you have an individual law breaker based on very compelling equitable circumstances where you show some -- take some other action short of prosecution, that's

what prosecutors do day in and day out. what the president has done here has sort of flipped that. he's said the law is not going to apply to this huge number of people but if there's an individual case among that group that are particularly bad, maybe that person gets removed. that's not prosecutorial discretion in any kind of a traditional or in my belief reasonable sense. >> we have time for one more question. up front. >> i wonder what the panel thinks about prospect for a successful legal challenge and in particular overcoming potential problems of standing. >> john, want to lead off? >> standing is going to be a difficult -- is going to be a difficult challenge. let's see who the potential

people are out there. one, house already filed the lawsuit today on the basis of obamacare. i suppose they can introduce another resolution to expand the scope of that lawsuit to cover this if they wanted to. all of the issues of standing that applies to the obamacare case would apply there. and they would have to establish a unique institutional injury to establish standard things. injury, fact causation, redress ability by a court. there are at least two now state's attorneys general. i saw attorney general greg abbott in texas and scott pruitt in oklahoma have said they're going to file a lawsuit. i would i guess, although i don't know, that that lawsuit will be based on sort of anti-commandeering concept of the refusal to force immigration laws has now imposed a huge additional cost on the states. standing will be difficult there as well. there's of course, the lawsuit senator sessions referred to by

the i.c.e. agent filed by secretary of kansas. although the district judge said he believed the president had acted unlawfully, that case was dismissed on standing ground but this had argument before the circuit court of appeals. i heard some talk union workers or other workers saying we can't find jobs precisely because these work permits are given out to illegal immigrants. i don't want to prejudge merit but standing is going to be a tough issue with respect to any of those. when you add in traditional argument about really this is just an exercise of prosecutorial discretion, that will make it a little tougher. >> can i just concur in that. i'm not overly optimistic about the prospects of the judicial remedy. i think the courts have historically been reluctant to

take up what they consider to be political questions. and although i will mention the youngstown sheet and tube case, which i meant to mention, which i think everyone who's a lawyer studied at some point in their lives on the limits of presidential power and justice jackson said in that 1952 case involving seizure of steel mills by president truman, the president's power is at its peak when he acts with the concurrence of congress. and lowest ebb when he acts in defiance of congress. and i think even though there's no question of standing in that case. that's an important concept here that the president's power is really at its ebb and that was the basis for justice jackson's vote on why the presidential power had to be limited in that particular case. >> would it fit in the underwhelming category if all congress did was rely on this lawsuit that could take years and very dubious chances of success? >> absolutely.

i think whether or not a lawsuit should proceed, it can't be the chief way that the legislature tries to defend its rights. that's not the constitutional setup. if we're trying to vindicate the constitutional order, which is a bigger problem i think than just the policy dispute that we're having, then the legislature has to, you know, do something other than sort of run to the courts for help. >> all right. we completed our time. please join me in thanking our panel again and thank you for coming. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

>> tonight on c-span, congressional retirement interviews with senator carl levin and congressman ralph hall. then the national transportation safety board looks at the dangers of drowsy driving. president obama pardons to turkeys at the white house. >> michigan senator carl levin is retiring after serving six terms. we recently spoke with him about his political career and the current state of washington politics.