carver they were all progenitors of teaching. they involve their students fear this is always been a place here at tuskegee. obviously in the 21st century, this is hindered by legal capacity. our students are paying for the education now. many of those services, they already performed. it is really nice to harken back to that model. there are elements that we are using and trying to and there are elements that we are using and trying to implement, as we point out daily. all the same we still must move steadfastly, persistently into the 21st century by ensuring that the institution provide these services for our students, and where appropriate to embark them to extend learning beyond the classroom into meaningful experiences that will help the university, the community, as well as the students. host: thompson, tallahassee

florida. straight to your comments. caller: good morning, and thank you to c-span. my question is concerning the integration of mission academics versus athletics and funding in the context that that the funding now, it seems has been diminished. primarily, those featured with c-span are actually private institutions, as opposed to public. first, your funding has not been from the state, but from tuition, which then means you must continue to get enrollment because it generates funding. host: thank you caller. guest: we are state-related, but you are right -- we are primarily a private institution. net tuition revenue, coupled

with fundraising advancement of development, your general fund, your scholarship -- restricted giving there, and the research dollars that are wonderful factory has produced -- faculty has produced. these are primarily the three streams of funding with enrollment the number one. we have to find multiple ways to increase in moment. you do not increase -- enrollment. you do not increase enrollment by bringing more on-ground students. you have to diversify into online students, and keep them, retaining them beyond the first year, secondary, and also all the way through to graduation can so come in that regard, it is a really important area to understand how to do enrollment management, how to manage discount rates, how to get our students to be involved in the kinds of activities that are the

on the classroom, internships, research experience, study abroad, so that they are retained and they still continue to give their money to pay, and best of themselves, for an education that will serve them well, such as the one they will receive at tuskegee university. host: brian johnson is the president of tuskegee university, and joining us as part of c-span's talking with historically black colleges across the united states. president johnson, t work for your time. guest: thank you kindly to c-span. for more information about tuskegee university, please go to www. tuskegee.edu. host: with a new secretary of defense, a conversation taking place at the center for american progress.

a conversation with former u.s. secretary of defense william: is a topic of an event that should be started momentarily. we take you to that event. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> good morning, and welcome to the center of american progress for our program, a look at the future of defense, a conversation with former secretary of defense william cohen. last year with a turbulent one

for national security --russia's aggression in ukraine extremists, boko haram, the collapse of libya, and yemen and then ebola in the pandemic crisis. domestically, the fractious political order make tough choices on defense difficult raising the risk of the ongoing sequester and misalignment of u.s. strategy with resources and investment. yesterday, a new secretary of defense, ashton carter, took the oath of office, and inherent in office filled with the most couple can challenges, and not much of a honeymoon facing him. so, as this debate on all of issues have keyed up, we are glad to welcome the former secretary of defense, william

cohen for a wide discussion on the future of american defense from how we manage difficult politics at home, to global areas of crisis, to juggling long-term, strategic priorities, and making smart investments. the conversation will offer insights into the way forward for america's national security during these turbulent days. now, a couple of things -- and then a little bit longer introduction on secretary cohen. first, cheering, catherine blakey, our defense policy analyst at the center. she is working on her phd at the university of california. she is author, along with dr. lawrence court on a recent paper, "defense budget deja vu,"

published last week and available here on the website. i also know that in a former life kate was the senior budget analyst for defense at the library of congress, but the pesky sequester has impacted some of the most capable and rising stars on the federal side, and here we are lucky to have kate as our defense budget expert. let me more formally introduced william cohen, currently the chairman and chief executive officer of the cowen group in washington dc, but with an inbox that extends to almost every capital of the globe. we know he serves on the judiciary committee in 1974 during the nixon impeachment hearings is a very young man but interestingly, as a house member, in 1974, he traveled to

thailand to reestablish an ally following withdrawal from me in from the and him. it turns out the policy for exiting the policy for exiting worst is every bit as complicated as getting involved so dealing with an ally in the war zone is trickier than it seems. in 1978, he was sent to the senate served on the armed services committee, and also chaired the government affairs committee on oversight where computers were one of their early issues of inquiry. today, we live in the world of cyber, where the financial interest, the news media, sony pictures, all deal with the security of their networks.

the act first dealt with trying to move us into the 21st century. also served on the select committee for intelligence as vice-chairman, and then, in the late 1980's, as the council on foreign dinner it -- relations he chaired -- council on foreign relations, chaired the middle east study group, a critical task and as he was looking forward to the university of maine and other pursuits, president clinton, in january, 1997 asked william cohen to serve as secretary of defense. in a gesture of bipartisanship, reminiscent of arthur vandenberg crossing the aisle to work with harry truman on securing the passage of the marshall plan in the late 1940's, bill cohen stepped into the pentagon during a very challenging period for the united states.

his three goals for his tenure were succeeding in the modernization of the military, and maintaining its readiness to fight. his successors at the pentagon inherited a military that was ready to go, dealing straightforward with recruiting and retention problems, making sure we were bringing in the most capable people, taking care of their quality of life, and making sure that they had a first-class housing to live in, and then strengthening security relationships with countries around the world. i was honored to be part of their leadership team, both as undersecretary for personnel and readiness, and later deputy secretary of defense, but it was clear that secretary bill cohen was engaged, made some of the most important missions to the middle east, the most senior official to meet with young assa

d as he took over syria, in a straightforward dialogue that reminds us of the challenges facing serious then and now. now, he is also in his spare time, the author of 13 works of nonfiction, fiction, and poetry. his next book, "collision," will come out on june 30 and deal with asteroid mining. given his preceding work on computers a decade ago, we will be interested to know where the asterisk issues take us -- as trade is -- asteroid issues take us now that we are capable of landing on asteroids. he is also a member of the new england all-star hall of fame for basketball players, the great sport of his career, and had he not been a public servant, may have been a professional basketball player. so, after 31 years of service secretary william cohen has left

a record of unparalleled incompetent, integrity, and respect, and he brings to this program, and this discussion and unrivaled knowledge and reputation relationships across america and around the globe turn we are very happy to have him today for this program on national security. so, kate, and secretary william cohen, thank you very much. [applause] katherine: well, secretary coh en, thank you for joining us today. we are looking forward to a broad ranging conversation on the challenges we face. secretary cohen: i would like to say word of thanks to rudy. there was a book written called "the quiet american," a novel. rudy is a quiet american.

he is probably the most quiet, influential voice in washington, and has he mentioned, he and i have known each other a long time. when he was the staff director for the house armed services committee, and then serving over the pentagon -- people still come to him for insight and advice, and most recently, he managed the transition for ashton carter during his transformation process. thank you for arranging for me to be here, and john podesta, of course, i worked with him for four years at a pleasure to be with all of you. katherine: wonderful. the way i would like to structure the conversation is starting with more domestic concerns and then brought into the international arena. there is no shortage of hotspots and trouble issues around the world, but let's start with my daily with, the defense budget. it is coming in that -- at about $35 billion over the pentagon's cap, so there is a dilemma

unless congress amends the cap or makes tough choices on what to appropriate to under the cap the pentagon will face another sequester, like in 2013. you have been a long advocate of sensible defense reform, military compensation reform, reducing the amount of the back-office personnel, and greater efficiencies in the pentagon operations. the budget makes a lot of these recommendations, but it is not the first time we have seen nearly all of these recommendations. like in past submissions, many seem dead on arrival. the prospect of a bipartisan deal for sequester relief are also looking slim. what is your assessment of how the republican congress will handle this storm? secretary cohen: first, let me say, with respect to sequester, i think that has been an exercise in political malfeasance. the notion that you would endorse across-the-board cuts

without regard to requirements irrespective of strategy, to me is a forfeiture of public trust and i think anyone who subscribes to that should be removed from office. i would hope that the first thing secretary carter would do would be to push for an elimination of the sequester process, and go back to appropriating, as we once did. so, and i encouraged that they will do that? the answer is no. i think there is such division amongst republicans at this point, even though in charge of both houses, that there is a debate that will take place between those that are committed to reducing the federal debt and annual deficits, and those that are committed to an internationalist approach to the united states. frankly, i think we have yet to decide who we are, and what america's role is -- really used the word "turbulence."

what is america's role in a world of constant turbulence? we have not seen a more difficult situation in which the instability is coming at us with a velocity not seen before. so, what is our role, and frankly, i do not know what our role is going to be, what the congress is going to decide, or what the president is going to decide. in my judgment, the president has been pursuing, until recently, a policy of this engagement. we were out of iraq until recently. we were getting, pretty much out of afghanistan. we were not getting involved in syria. we were not getting involved in ukraine. we were shifting focus over to the asia-pacific region, and assuming that europe could handle itself, and that there was no russian threat at that

time, so our policy has been one of striking back -- almost nation-building at home, and that was coming from republicans on the right, on the libertarian side, and democrats on the left. so, we have to decide, looking at the landscape today, and what is likely to take place in the future, what should be the role of the united states? is it disengagement or engagement? is it leading from behind, or is it as the germans -- by the way i was in munich a week or so ago, and the germans defense secretary said germany's role was to lead from the center. i do not know what that means. i do not know what that means. so, we have to decide what will the united states will play. we do know this, when we disengage, when we pull back bad things happen. so, we have to decide our role in the world. we have to decide whether we are willing to appropriate the kind

of dollars necessary to facilitate that role, or are we going to sit back and see events take place in which we have very little influence. katherine: thank you. on this term of disengagement let's talk a little bit about nato. you came back from munich. nato would be facing a difficult year with a drawback from afghanistan in a reassessment of what the nato alliance means. in some ways, the ongoing aggression from russia has put the role of the nato mission in really spirit what do you see forward as the path for nato given the current challenges for security in europe which i do not think many people saw coming last year at all? william cohen i think --secretary cohen: i think nato continues to be the most important military/political organization in history. it has been more political recently, but it is a hybrid

institution. once again, i am not particularly encouraged by what i have seen to date. ruby and i have talked about burden-sharing. this is a constant theme. there is an inadequate level of sharing by our european friends. the budgets of the europeans continue to go down. there has been a pledge, most recently to 2% of gdp over the next 10 years. i think that is going to be difficult, if not impossible, for a number of members to achieve that. i'm not sure there is the political will to achieve that, so the united states, initially, with nato, we picked up 50% of the burden with nato. the other members of the alliance picked up the other 50%. now it is 75/25. soon it will be 80/20. that is not sustainable. we will have to try to persuade

the europeans they have to do more, but they have to see it in their self-interest, and what russia is doing might help to concentrate the mind wonderfully that there is still a threat to them. that, coupled with what is taking place with the euro, greece, and other nations, is really going to focus their attention on what they need to do to have a whole free, and secure europe. that has been the goal. there seems to be some erosion at the edges on that. katherine: katherine: -- katherine: the 2% standard has long been a goal, and more of a theory then practice. one of the issues the u.s. has faced in europe, and also around the world, has been keeping engagement with our allies and partners strong, and particularly in the situation with the ukraine and russia now in eastern europe, there is a lot of talk about how strong the

sanctions against russia will be, how long we can keep the financial sanctions impact, and whether russia is trying to peel off some of the less-committed european allies. what are your impressions, having just come back from munich, on the political as well as the military engagement on the european side? secretary cohen: chancellor merkel gave a speech a week or two ago, and said negotiations with russia are the only solutions. providing arms to the ukrainian government would not be productive. that did not sit well with the american delegation, and it was the largest american delegation in the years that i have been going to the munich security conference, which has been some 35 years now. most of the american delegation reacted to that saying when you do not send arms, putin's forces

continue to attack, so if people are willing to fight and die shouldn't they be given some weaponry defensive in nature to fight and die with? that does not seem to be the german position, nor that of the europeans, so i do not see the europeans contributing that much other than continuing to support sanctions, possibly -- i say possibly -- intensifying them but i do not see that momentum. katherine: given the recent setbacks for ukrainian forces in the east, would you support arming the ukrainians? secretary cohen: i want. right now they are fighting tanks with rifles, not a fair opportunity to defend their interests. president putin, notwithstanding, he will continue to destabilize certainly the eastern part of the ukraine, and make it virtually impossible for the ukrainians to be able to function effectively as a government, and serve as a center for any -- disincentive for any consideration to the

ukraine joining the eu. this is something lindsey graham made clear during the conference. he said the europeans have an obligation here. they were the ones that were encouraging the ukraine to come and join the eu. when the ukrainian picked that up and started moving toward the eu, that is when the russians started to help destabilize the country. so, the europeans, at this point, have, at least, a moral obligation to have -- help those they encouraged to move toward them help defend themselves. katherine: it seems a lot of foreign policy right now is trying to manage or prevent bad situations from getting worse. there is not a terribly clear path forward in the ukraine and whether russia will continue to escalate and up the ante, but a lot of regions around the world in northwest africa with boko haram, and in the broader middle east, particularly with the cancer of isis, is a very tough

situation for the u.s.. we have tried to harm the moderate rebels. it has been difficult to get anything up and on the ground. the cia has had a program. the pentagon is just setting there's up now. we are in an awkward situation where there not a lot we can do ourselves and we are also trying to manage a somewhat fragile coalition. you have also had a lot of experience in the 1990's -- in kosovo, not only in making the call to intervene, and how, when, and where to do so, but also in managing partners that. what lessons do you see from your kosovo experience now in the middle east? secretary cohen: well, i probably should invoke "one should be prudent, and not hesitant to i think with -- hesitant." i think we have been to hesitant in terms of how we react in certain scenarios.

you mention syria -- did we try to help the rebels? i do not think so. that was a key point. if you go back to when there was resistance to assad, there were two redlines, or i should say at least one pink line and one red line, and the pink line was a sod has to go. he had lost credibility as leader of the syrian people and must go. then we sat back and did what? we did nothing. we did not help those that were desperate to have him go, and then it continued to unravel. we talked about having safe havens. there were no safe havens. we talked about having no-fly zones. there were no no-fly zones. then came the bright red line about the usage of chemical weapons, and we dithered on that. at first, we said we were going to fire a shot across the bow of

the syrians, and the military came back and said wait, we do not do that. we do not fire shots across the bow. are you talking about a military mission? tell us what the mission is, what the follow along is, and that we can talk about the use of military force. we did not do that. instead we rally the american people to say we're going to use force against assad for the use of chemical weapons, and then senator mccain, lindsey graham, and others came down on the white house because the white house said it would be a light shot, not a heavy one, and the president assured them it is going to be serious. they came out in front of the white house with the cameras and said we are with the president. 24 hours of -- after that, they changed their policy -- we are not going to use force. then it got to a debate with the president said maybe i will ask congress for authority. the president did not have to do that. he had the authority to take

limited military action, but he will throw the ball to congress, and congress acted predictably as one would assume and said no thanks, and then the president said even if the congress does not give us authority the president will take action anyway. what kind of a signal are we sending to people under these circumstances? so, we look uncertain -- and uncertain trumpet that we are blowing, and as a result, president putin comes in on his white horse, no shirt on, we will bail you out from the weapons, and they did that at no cost. we lost credibility with those in the region. we lost credibility with uae, with the saudi's, with the israelis -- we sent a signal to other adversaries, the russians, that we are not serious when we draw a redline.

so, we are paying a penalty for that, so we have emboldened people to say we are not really going to contest you in a military or physical way. we are going to verbally challenge you. we will go for sanctions, but you do not have to worry about us, and i think that is part of the problem we have today in dealing with these particular issues. when you are looking at isis, iso, or whatever we are going to call them now -- we are in information war. we are talking about a propaganda war. they, now, are putting out messages to young people who see this as pretty exciting. they are all in black. they are wearing hoods. they are cutting heads off with their knives. this is video games for a lot of younger people. now they can join a movement. they do not know what will follow the movement, or what the institutions will be, or what their lives will be like, but it is exciting. the people that are putting out

an appealing message to these young people coup --, -- young people who, number one might not have a job, might not be highly educated, but do not see a future where they could have a stake in something is very attractive to them. we have two of our game in terms of putting on information and contesting that, as well as contending the spread -- containing the spread of the violence. it will be an information war and a propaganda war if you want to call it more directly what it is, that we are losing in that regard. katherine: you are not the only person to say we should have been more decisive about isis. there is a lot of could have should have, what have -- what would be the right moment, but then if you look at the nato bombing campaign in libya, libya certainly is no picnic, and had recent strikes with egypt just days ago. it seems the use of air power is not so simple after all.

secretary cohen: the lesson is and bob gates forewarned us this was not a country to get involved with as far as military action. that was overruled because of the british and the french insistence that we needed to help them because they were involved. the role is you have to have a clearly defined mission, and really can tell you -- you know this -- rudy can tell you -- and you know this as well as i -- a clearly defined mission that is achievable at a certain cause in blood and treasure, and has an exit. that has to be done before you ever use military force. the notion that you go in, bomb, and take out gaddafi, what is step two? what will replace gaddafi? unless you have thought it through, you should not take action and this is where i would fault the u.s.. we have not had a thought out

plan of what comes after the bombs. bullets and bombs -- that takes how people, but that does not solve a social problem, a political problem. that needs to be done through institution-building, and if you are not prepared to stay long enough to build an institution that provides for a war of law a law of will, he will fail. libya is a failed state. syria is a failed state at this particular point. others are on the verge of it. when you get involved in the military it always must be at the very last resort and number two, you have to have a clearly defined mission with a follow along strategy. katherine: we have a failed state in libya following international action. we have a failed state in syria following international in action, and we have a campaign going on in iraq and syria related to isis, as well as continued, real deja vu reference to strengthen the iraqi government, how to be a

more inclusive government, how to have less sectarian tensions there, but you still have this confluence with karen and other -- to run and other areas. secretary cohen: number one, we cannot do it on our own. we still come at this point in time, are the only "superpower," in terms of military capability. there is no peer competitor at this point, but we have learned the limitations of absolute power as such. we have to have a coalition have to have other countries see it is in their interest to help contain the spread of violence in the region and we have to work on a coalition basis. we, i think, made a mistake. number one, i have my own judgment about going into iraq. katherine: which time? secretary cohen: pardon?

katherine: which time? secretary cohen: the second time. the first time we took action the we did not go in. nonetheless, pulling everyone out left a vacuum, and then we had a prime minister who simply wanted to engage in cleaning out the sunnis -- out of the government, out of the military. so, they have a second chance now, a limited opportunity for a second chance to say if you want a country, and you want this to succeed, then you must be inclusive. you must allow the sunnis to play a role in your governance, and your military. absent that, your country cannot survive. so, that is the lesson of iraq. whether you will have this with bodi, whether he will be true to his word and try to be more inclusive leader remains to be seen.

i think at this point all we can do is try to hold back the fire that continues to burn. katherine: it seems that one of the lessons is the limitation of america's ability to do everything on their own, and then iraq we have not had the best partner, the most credible partner. it has gone in peaks and valleys. in the region we have not had the best partner. the relationship with saudi arabia, the relationship with iran is very poor, and the relationship with turkey is more unstable than we would have expected a while ago. how do we engage, not just in a military sense, but in a more broad-spectrum way bearing in mind the limitations we have just been speaking about about purely military actions question mark -- actions? secretary cohen: when i say engaging, i mean trying to give

the rule of our chance to flourish. it does not come at the end of a bullet or a bomb. it comes with real investment in a country's future. you are not always granted the partners that you like. we have had some that have not been particularly beneficial in terms of their relationship with us, but we have to keep trying. the question is, we can try and say -- look, the middle east, that is your problem. we are coming back home. we are going to come back home and nation-build here at home. we have seen a consequence of that. the notion that you could, sort of retreat to a continental cocoon, and watch the world on phone on msnbc cnn, al jazeera all of the networks -- fox -- it cannot happen. anything that happens it will have an impact. if there continues to be a spread of this instability in the middle east, and that affect the flow of oil coming out of

the persian gulf, the arabian gulf -- the answer is yes. does that have an impact on us since we are developing our own resources? well, not directly, but guess what, if the flow of oil is impacted for any length of time, the world economy is impacted, and when the world economy is impacted our ability to sell goods and services to other countries -- our economy goes down. everything is connected. everything is related. that means we have to have a global vision. that does not mean we have to be putting our military all over the world, and that is the only solution. that means we have to have active diplomacy, active economic investment, and a very strong capable military to back that up. unfortunately, we will face a world that will continue to be turbulent. it is going to be unsteady. it will be new institutions that have to be built, new relationships that have to be formed, new institutions in the gulf, for example -- gcc does

not have an institution like nato. they never will as an institution like nato, but there has to be more of a common defense capability developed in the gulf area. we are building relationships -- we talk about the pivot to asia, and i think most people would agree that use of pivot was ill-informed, i think, because it suggested we are shifting our focus to asia, where we had been since world war ii. what we are doing is building relationships, strengthening them with australia, a democracy -- with singapore, with the philippines, with japan, with south korea, with india -- so we are building these relationships to say that we want to promote the rule of law so we are investing economically politically

militarily. we will have to see how that works in relationship to our relations with china. china sees that effort as trying to contain them, and the truth of the matter is we cannot contain china. it is too big, too strong. it is not our goal to try and contain china, but rather to send a signal that we want china's growing military power -- they are an economic parlor already -- but they're growing military power to be used for peaceful purposes, integrated into the international rule of law, not for aggressive purposes. can we make that work? we hope so, and that requires strong diplomacy. it means we have to continue to talk to the chinese. we have to work with them on multiple levels. so i cannot tell you where the next challenge is going to be tomorrow, or 10 years from now but i do know this -- that we have to make sure that we have a

strong and ready military that can respond to the full spectrum of threats, and we have to be willing to pay for it. if we are not, we are going to be relegated to a less influential role in the world, and that could have consequences for our future, and that of our kids and grandkids. so, we have choices to make. katherine: i'd like to pick up on a couple of things you talked about that. first, internationally, and then on the domestic front. i certainly would agree with you that i do not think anyone would dispute we are living in the most global, interconnected, the digital world we have ever had and you mentioned earlier the success of isis'propaganda campaign in pulling teenagers from the u.s., libya england encouraging people to travel to syria. we have interconnected economic and mimetic relationships. at the same time, when the international order continues to

be growing more fragile -- the norm of not integrating other states is a little more delicate than it used to be, and we are seemingly running out of ideas on how to tell russia that this violation was actually unacceptable, they are just going to pay the prices we will impose on them, and there is talk given to china in terms of a new model power relations -- that is a phrase that has been used -- but how can we really incentivized china to play by the international norms when they see they have the might to perhaps ignore it? they have the example of russia where they are willing to pay the prices, and on the domestic front, we are not able to open international institutions like the international monetary fund to make them a little less u.s.-centric. how do we have this space for china and other rising powers like india to play a constructive role in the world

order when international norms and organizations seem to be increasingly brittle? secretary cohen: i think the first order of business is to get our house in order. one other countries look at us -- i travel the world and to this day i am on the road or in the air almost all of the time. it is becoming more difficult for me to go to another country and say we want you to be like mike. we wanted to be like us. we want you to have a democracy. we want you to believe in the rule of law. we want you to have a commercial code. we wanted to have a parliament elected by your people. they say really, you want us to be like you? you cannot make a decision. you are engaging a dysfunctional system filled with sporadic embolism's. what is going on in your united states where your congress cannot even arrive at a budget, and have to face a sequester

which is an arbitrary across-the-board cut -- you are using a butcher knife when you need scaffolds, and you want us to be like you? it is harder. if we intend to be able model for the rest of the world, we have to get our own house in order, and that means going back to the business of trying to arrive at consensus with the american people, and we do not have that. people on the right. we have people on the left. we do not have many leftover people in the center, and that is where most people in this country live. i like to say it is between the 40 yard lines. you do not play politics in the end zone. you can in the primaries, but not when you're trying to govern the country. we are either a country that is slightly right of center or slightly left of center at any given time in our history, so we have to come back to the center and we are not there. it is going to be hard for us to persuade other countries to take

us seriously because they are looking at our budget. the old axiom that amateurs study policy, and professionals study budgets -- other countries are professionals looking our budgets in terms of how we allocate resources, and really your military needs me to be modernized. do we see that taking place? no. do you mean to say you will continue to have 20% extra infrastructure you are carrying -- you are 20% overweight, but you will not reduce? you have a system where pay scales are higher now than ever before, and your health care costs have gone from when you mr. secretary cohen, was at 19 building -- billion dollars. how do you sustain that? we have to show this is a vibrant democracy, and we can make decisions, and then we can create a credible basis for

going to the chinese to say we are still a strong military power. you do not want to challenges. or, to india, and say let us work with you. you are a major player and will be a major player on the international scene. they want to know what are we credible? the way things are going right now, we have a credibility gap. that is why i say it is political malfeasance -- what has been taking place. people are so locked into their ideological spectrum, that they plan the flag in the summit of the right or the cement of the left, and they see that as a badge of honor, and they degrade the notion that copper mines has become synonymous with abject surrender. when that takes place then will we is this the generality. we have sclerosis. so, i hope, in the next two years, we will see some change in that. frankly, i am skeptical.

we are already now lining up saying? what will 2016 bring us? who will win the republican nomination? is hillary the best candidate? we are talking about between now and then. i happening in the world, none of it very good for us -- a lot is happening in the world another very good for us. i hope we see some real effort eight. i talked to my friend john mccain, senator graham, and a few others, along the last of the internationalists saying it is important we had transpacific partnership's, transatlantic investment partnerships, but i do not see that taking place right now on the hill. i do not see the conversation taking place in the american people. i think what has to happen, as we debate whether we are going

to actually appropriate down to the levels below what would trigger the sequester, i think what the uniformed -- i think the uniformed military and civilians have to come forward and speak to the american people about what is taking place because most of the american people do not see what has happened to "readiness." readiness is key. we have had wings of aircraft sitting idle with pilot not flying because of the sequester. what does that mean? it means those pilots call to action insider -- syria, libya and every -- they are not ready to report for duty. we cannot report for duty, because we are not ready. that has been taking place, and if that continues you will see an erosion of our capability and credibility. we have to make the decisions and say here are the choices -- if you want to play a leading role, and we, for the most part,

right now, are the only ones i can play this role. if you want to play a leading role in trying to shape events rather than becoming hostage to them then this is what we must do. if we are unwilling to invest in the future, unwilling to make sacrifices now in order to achieve that, then you are consigning our kids to a future which is going to be much more turbulent, and a world in which we will have much less influence. that message has to go out, and it has to go out constantly, because the american people do not see that, and we have actually masked that. we have the overseas contingency account. we are going to class that up -- plus that up by about $50 billion. i would venture we will plus it up by even more. it is a supplemental. we will increase the supplemental because they are not under the cap.

they are outside of the cap. it is the wrong way to do it. increasing the supplemental. someone discuss that as gas money. that is gas money to keep everything running but it does not invest in the future for research, technology innovation, education -- where not procuring and investing for the future. we are just paying for running everything as it is. it is the wrong thing to do, but i suspect we will see an increase in the supplemental, or what they call the oco account. we have to get back to fundamentals. that is what it comes down to. are we prepared to do what made us strong in the first place? what made us strong? we have rights duties, obligations we have to sacrifice in order to continue to be strong. unless we continue to do that, we will play a secondary role. katherine: let's pick up on the theme of bipartisanship. you are right on what will happen with theoco -- with the

oco funds, the easiest get out of jail free card. the republicans are split, democrats do not see benefit to cover my thing with republicans and obama has got a lot of flack during his first six years of his presidency for waiting for their evidence to become uncompromised, and sending him that no one has really met him halfway, and when they had tried to meet him halfway, the more fringe parts of the party have cratered that approach. you are seeing it now in the defense budget with a debate about whether or not they will have any sequester relief. you also see that in a nondefense budget, where there is a real lack of investment in our infrastructure, investment in our education, investment in our diplomatic missions abroad and you are using ebola as a

scare tactic to try to fund nih, where we have been -- should have been funding it earlier. calling for bipartisanship is easy. how do we get to bipartisanship? before you were in the pentagon you had a long industry wished career on the house and senate side. is there a path forward for bipartisanship for the sequester and for the country world will we be locked into this "2016 -- let's put everything on hold while we fight political battles?" how do we get from a to b? secretary cohen: i have mixed emotions. american people like to celebrate the fact that we like divided government. we have a divided structure. the house is supposed to check the senate. the senate checks the house. the white house checks the congress. the supreme court checks everybody. what i like to say is everyone is in check, but nobody is in charge. nobody is in charge.

so, i have come to the conclusion, and it is not an easy one -- i would rather have one party run everything for four years, even though that is not always an appetizing thought to me, but for -- for a variety of reasons but say ok, you have four years. republicans, you are in charge. you have the white house, the congress -- do what you will do for the next four years and see where that takes us, or democrats, you be in charge, but i do not see us getting to the bipartisan policies we had in the past when i first went to the senate, where you can be a statesman for four years, run for office the next two years. you are running for office every day, and the senate is no different than the house anymore he because you are out there requesting money, and money is the most corrupting thing, i think, in terms of time -- people spending time raising money for the next campaign. it never stops. so, i do not see -- i see a

number of people that i could point to on both the democratic side and the republican side and cities are reasonable minded men and women that could come together. you have to watch the word. you cannot call it compromise. compromise has been poll tested. it is weak. it is unprincipled. it is moshe. -- mushy. we want people that are strong and planted to the cement. so, we say how about searching for common ground? that is ok. finding people willing to search for common ground -- i do not see much of an effort underway as a body on the house and the senate and i think each house is going to go -- i think each party will go to its base. for the next year and a half we will see more of the same. i would like to say it is not going to be the case. i hope it won't be, but i do not see any evidence that it is going to change. my hope for 2016 is that i would

like to see someone in charge. i would like to have a policy that we could all get behind, or at least a majority could get behind -- to have a consensus on what our role is going to be in the world, what we have to appropriate in terms of achieving that. if it is going to be a smaller military, it has to be more capable military. if it is going to be a more capable military, we will have to be able to do less because you cannot stretch a smaller number of people to more and more regions, more and more operations. so, we have to have a strategy backed up by a capability, and right now i am not sure what the strategy is, and i know the capability is eroding. i would like to see someone in charge. my presence would be -- preference would be to have the scoop jackson's of the world, the howard aker's -- howard baker's of the world, others that have been involved -- i would like to see the return of

that kind of statesmanship coming to the middle saying this is the kind of policy that we need for our country to be successful when helping to make the world more stable, and if we are not the ones doing it, who will be? who do we hand it off to? are we handing it off to china? are they ready for the global responsibility? do we want russia to set the agenda? with the europeans? i do not think so. india, at some point? not now. who is going to do it if not us? that is the mission we have to convey. i would like to see it bipartisan. i am skeptical. if not, let one party rain for four years. katherine: to offset reform, or time travel --

secretary cohen: i have always said if democrats have a good idea, let's all of that, if republicans have a good idea let's support that, but let's stop seeing each other as the enemy. it must be squashed. what is in our core interest? what is the interest of the united states as a leading force for stability throughout the world? if we are unwilling to adopt that leadership role, we say over to you, over to who? i do not think anyone wants to point to anyone else. we have seen what russia has done controlling gas lines into the ukraine and the year -- and into europe. how would you like to have them controlling the gas lines in the persian gulf? what would that mean for world stability? i have used this phrase before -- we cannot be the world's policeman, but we cannot be the prisoner of world events. somewhere between john kennedy's

durational message that inspired me to get into politics -- let the world know that we will pay any price, enduring hardship, oppose any foe, befriend any friend, in order to ensure the success and survival of liberty. ok. that is a time that inspired me and others to carry the american flag. we have got -- gone from their two let's not do stupid stuff. somewhere between let's not do stupid stuff and kennedy's inspirational message, we have to have a policy that reflects a core interest, and if we are not able to come to a consensus on that, that we will see the continued spread of instability with an inability of the part of anyone to manage it in a way that promotes the rule of law. right now, there is a great debate taking place. is it going to be -- in terms of governance, in terms of, not corporate governance -- that, too, in terms of global

governance -- are we going to look to the chinese model? in terms of that is how you govern a country in terms of decision-making? are we going to look to the russian, autocratic, cooktop or see -- klepto cooktop crissy? other countries are flirting with this. the united states does not make decisions. there is a real issue as to whether democracies can govern today. given the role of social media the fracturing of interest groups into multiple pieces, can any country, in a democracy make decisions for the good of the whole? that is a real challenge as we look forward to the 21st century. what is going to be the role model that other countries want to aspire to? i would like to have us once again set the standard.

we cannot set the standard as long as we are divided at home and divided along party lines partisan lines, with no willingness to "find common ground," and, to me, that has to be the message. we have to find a way to build this united states of america into what has been in the past, to what we wanted to be in the future. katherine: we have talked a lot about the more turbulent and challenging areas in the world. certainly, the domestic american political picture is not rosy. i do not really see a lot of comedy coming back anytime soon. we have trouble spots in europe, the ebola crisis in africa, bill carron is increasing their scope and their range, but there are still some bright -- boca herat is increasing their scope and their range, but there are still some bright spots where it has been deep engagement with partners. we have had the negotiations

about the transpacific ttp. we have had deepening relationships, not just on the defense side, but deepening economic and dramatic relationships, principally in asia. we have had a revitalization of the nato alliance. where are the moments of hope in terms of american engagement internationally? secretary cohen: let me give you an example. afghanistan. you say well, have we invested a lot in afghanistan. have we made a difference? i was in copenhagen 10 days ago, talking to the university there and praising the danes for their commitment to security and their commitment to operations in afghanistan. have we made a difference? think about it. the life expectancy in just the past 15 years has gone from 42 to 62. there were 900,000 students back in 2002 -- 900,000 students, almost all male.

today, there are 10 million, 40% of whom are women. teachers have gone from 29,000 to 170,000. again, many of them women. women have started 3000 businesses. there are some -- i think three members in the cabinet are women. out of 268 members of parliament, there are some 60-odd women. so, we have made a difference in the lives of people in terms of our commitment to lifting them into the 21st century. it takes a lot of money. it takes a lot of persistence and this is the message that we have to remember. if you are going to get involved in a country, do not think you can just go in and you can remove dictators, but you must have a plan to replace them.

that is the international community's obligation. we can show there are successes that can be achieved. india is breaking through from what i would call a malaise, a word used during the carter administration. there has been a malaise in india over the last 5, 6 years. it is different today. the prime minister has made a difference, at least for the moment, because he said we are open for business. we want to revolutionize the way we do business. we are open for business. we want a better relationship with the united states and china and others. there are some real positive spots you can look to. i want to make sure the united states continues to be the beacon, continues to have a leadership role, so we can say look at us, we think having a

democratic form of government, a capitalist form of government -- economy will produce a most prosperity for the most of your people. that is the way forward of the future for your brave and brave new world. we can do that if we get our own house in order. >> on that rallying call, let's open it up to audience questions. we have 10 minutes left. >> one question and a long answer. >> state your name and affiliation. >> i'm andre. i'm the partner and director for vietnam southeast asia washington dc for the [indiscernible] company in detroit. what a wonderful presentation. so many questions. i get one, right?

given the role that you envisioned for the military to support the kind of engagement that i think all of us in this room want in you want, do you think we need to bring back conscription? nixon took away the draft, take the steam out of the antiwar movement in vietnam, and now we have fewer than 1% of our population exposed to the horrors of armed combat. with all that entails, do you think we need conscription? >> we need a program of universal service. that is something that [indiscernible] and i've proposed an office. -- in office. most of the military leaders would tell you that the draft is not desirable, that you have people coming in for two years

who don't want to be there. it would not be that productive grade i think what is missing from our lives today is that we don't have a sense of commitment to public service. it could be working in a nursing home, doing anything that has a productive social use. we should stand up, we should promote it, and we should encourage our young people to take two years of their lives and do something for the country. >> paul, nsi. mr. secretary, you said russia is not going to stop.

anton called yesterday between removal -- for removal of the border. within the next week, the agreement will be signed, incorporating south this india with russia -- incorporating [indiscernible] with russia. if russia did go further into georgia -- right now it is 35 kilometers between there -- what do you see as their next move? there possibly transistor in moldova -- how do you see it playing out given there is a lack of leadership? >> moldova is a real issue right now in terms of their future. the answer as far as non-nato members, i think we have to reinforce and send the signal to reinforce the commitment to the existing nato members, but

mainly those in the baltic, and not only make a statement, but make it very clear that if russia moves against any member of nato, there will be a response to the united states. the european red assurance initiative -- we have appropriated something close to $1.7 billion in the last couple of years to increase our training and preparation for the nato members. if russia continues to move aggressively i think the sanctions have to be much harder. i would certainly look at their banking system as one. the message has to go to the russians that if you continue to behave in this fashion, you will pay a penalty. in the short term, you may think of that as bolstering your reputation with your people, but you are riding high unpopularity. as oil continues to be at low

levels, and the fact we have sanctions against you, at some point in time the people are going to turn against the leader. what does russia offer its people for the future? they build guns and missiles and sell vodka. but what is made in russia that is stamped made in russia that goes around the world? basically weaponry and oil. to the extent that oil is no longer the dominant source of revenue for russia, they will have a real problem. rather than taking the brilliance of the russian people and saying, let's work in the fields of science and technology and math, and let's build something we can be proud of they are not doing it. i think putin's popularity will wane over time.

will he be sufficiently constrained by a europe that is willing to sacrifice some of its own economic prosperity by insisting on deeper and deeper sanctions as we build more military capability, also sending the signals to the russians, don't think about crossing the red lines which are serious, don't touch any of the nato countries. >> questions. >> thank you very much for an interesting talk. i'm with the danish embassy. i would like to return to the issue of arming ukrainian forces. how do we prevent that from happening, and what is your view on that? >> could we armed the ukrainians

so they can defeat the russian military? no. could we give them sufficient defensive equipment, antitank weapons, share more intelligence maybe even use some uav's, which the russians are using in ukraine to help make it more costly for the russians? would that tempt them to roll over ukraine? it might. right now they are rolling over them and the ukrainians are fighting with sticks and stones against a heavily armored russian military. i think you could make it more costly for them and say that more russians are going to be placed at risk, understanding that ukraine, we could never train them fast enough or arm their massive fish only to defeat the russians there.

we have to find a way out of this. we don't want to turn this into another cold war. president putin is angry what has happened to the soviet empire. he made that clear at a security conference in munich in 2007, i believe. i was there at the time, and there was a room full of people who had open arms for president putin, the first time in the history of the munich security conference that the russian president had been invited or excepted. the europeans were ready to embrace him. he came in and gave what i would call a siberian cold message. it blew everyone in the auditorium away. wow, we thought he was coming to

say let's work together and he says no, the worst thing that has happened is the collapse of the soviet empire. he made it clear he felt he had been mistreated or ignored, sort of the rodney dangerfield of europe at that point. he could not get any respect and he wanted respect. russia is entitled to respect. this is a big country with a rich history, with great intellectual capital, the russian people. the question is, how does he pull back from what he's doing without looking like he's caving into the west? how does the obama administration make some kind of arrangement with putin that does not look like we are caving in to him? it will require diplomacy. chancellor merkel is correct that we need to engage the russians in a much more aggressive way, but we also have to couple it with the notion that you can't just run over people. you can't change geographic lines militarily and upset the

world order that has existed for the past 60 years or so. >> i think we need to wrap it up there. thanks for a much, secretary. thanks everybody for coming. we appreciate your thoughts on some challenging moments in our history right now. thank you. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015]

>> you can see all of the conversation with kerry: on our website at -- terry ocohen on our website at www.c-span.org. "the hill" writing that jeb bush is his own man on foreign policy. quote, i have been lucky to have a father and brother who have both shaped america's foreign policy from the oval office.

quote, i am male and then, and my views are shaped by my own thinking and my own experiences -- my own man, and my views are shaped by my own thinking and my own experiences. his speech is coming up at 12:30 eastern. we will have coverage of the potential 2016 presidential candidates. also live today 2:40 five eastern, the white house summit on countering violent extremism. president obama is set to speak to the group at 4:15. the three day event which began yesterday looks at radicalism recruiting, and federal and state coordination. harvard law professor lawrence lessig formed a super pac last year with candidates who want to change the current financial

system. a problem the describes in his book, "how money corrupts congress and a plan to stop it took a -- stop it." he talked about it at the jewish community center in san francisco. >> welcome to the jcc. i'm stephanie singer the manager of arts and ideas lectures. i'm delighted to host all of you for a terrific evening with lawrence lessig. [applause] a special thanks to tonight's partners, uc hastings college of law, usf school of law, mac light creative commons and counter pac. [applause] our guest this evening is harvard law professor, lawrence lessig. he is known as the elvis of cyber law. one of the country's most influential theorist on the

intersection of law, culture and the internet, he's shifted focus to the corrosive power of money on politics. he walked 200 miles for the new hampshire rebellion to encourage citizens to end the system of corruption in our nations capital. the next walk starts this sunday and it's not too late to book a plane ticket and join him. we have flyers in the lobby. they look like this. they can tell you how to participate. lawrence lessig is here tonight to talk about made aipac, the crowd funded super pac to end all super pac's and what is in store for 2015. ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming him to the jccsf. [applause]

>> so my computer shut down and now i have to try to make small talk. what shall we talk about as it comes back to life? the weather. it's going to be incredibly cold in new hampshire. the high rate is six degrees in the place we are starting our walk. i apologize. it's wonderful to be here, back in san francisco. talking about something i began here in san francisco because i was forced to begin talking and thinking about this.

by dear friends from san francisco, aaron swartz who, the second anniversary of his death is this sunday. and whose memory is vibrant in this community and around the world. but what he was focused on, he often described to me as simple justice. as he talked to people about the simple injustice of the world we find ourselves in, there was a growing frustration. one way to understand this frustration is to recognize the way in which we refuse to

acknowledge the real nature of the problem we are talking about. america has been focused for the last year on a range of problems related to race in america -- michael brown, eric gardner, the injustice of the systems that we feel as a system of inequality that gets described as a system of racism, and there is evidence to support the racism. this recent study of the racial distribution of death of 218 deaths involving police tries to map the predicted incidents according to race and you see the predicted incidents for whites are fewer than the actual incidence.

you take this and brought this out to what the actual differences are and as the statistician summarizes, the answer to the question what is the probability we would see a distribution at or more extreme than this one, assuming race plays no factor in police deaths is on order of 10 to the -82. if you are not a mathematician you might wonder what that is like. you can compare it to this number -- 10 to the -79, which is the probability of being hit by lightning, 13 times in one year. [laughter] which means the probability of 10 to the -82 is a really, really, really small probability, which is to suggest

there is a high confidence in the judgment that the race of the victim is related to the violence. there are lots of quibbles one could have with this study, that what comes through in our culture is the view that this manifests a certain kind of racism. that gets framed as if it is the racism of bull connor or the racism of the 1960's. and the 50's, and the 40's and all the way back. there is no doubt in my mind there are jim close -- there are jim crow racists out there but there is no doubt a pattern like this is not produced by that sort of racism. it is a different racism, maybe a more fundamental racism, a more fundamental inequality.

if we were to talk about how to solve that, we would look beyond the simple image of a hateful person we would look for structure of poverty or the stupid war on drugs. structural problems that require we think of a more difficult task, a task that solving this inequality without focused picking out the evil of individuals, picking out the evil or outrage, but we don't do that. we can't do that. not because it's hard for people to understand these issues as contributing to these kinds of racism, but the focus on simple injustice, the focus on the

outrage, the focus on the difference between the good and the evil in this story pays structures of media that talk to us about this. it pays the activists organizations that want to rally us about this. keeping it simple keeps the fury going. so while we get nothing done, we remain angry and focused on the simple injustice we see. here's another example tied directly to what i want to talk about today. the simple injustice around the institution that is congress will stop -- that is congress. we all know the perception of their confidence in this institution has collapsed. 7% have confidence in the

institution of congress. the crown jewel of our democracy according to our framers article one, congress, 7% of us trust. more than 50% call the institution corrupt. when we talk about it being corrupt, we focus on people like jack abram off -- jack a runoff or william jefferson, people we think of as criminals. there is a quote corruption inside this is the tuition, no doubt. but there is also no doubt that the failure of this institution is not produced by that form of corruption. it is a different kind of corruption, a more fundamental kind of corruption. it is not bad souls engaging in criminal acts, it is good souls engaged in a system that drives to this corruption. if we wanted to solve that

corruption, we would have to look elsewhere. look elsewhere from beyond the risen walls, but we don't do that. we can't do that, not because it's hard. our focus is on the simple injustice, the outrage of thinking of this institution in these good versus evil terms because it makes it easier to organize. it makes it easier to vilify the results you don't like, using it simple keeps the fury going while we get nothing done in fixing the problem it represents. the simple injustice. -- the simple injustice hides the real injustice. the real work it's going to take to fix it. if we wanted to think beyond the simple, to understand something beyond the simple injustice, what would it be at least as it relates to the institution i

know something about, congress? what are the real problems here? at the end of august, hong kong discovered something which triggered an incredible revolution in the streets, first by young people and then joined by people from across the city. what they discovered was the method hong kong would be forced to adopt for electing the governor. china had promised in 2007 that the chief executive by 2017 would be popularly elected, but the china's people congress laid out the procedure and as the procedure described, the ultimate aim is the selection of the chief executive by universal suffrage upon nomination by a broadly represented nominating committee in accordance with democratic procedures.

a nominating committee. a committee composed of 1200 citizens, which means about .0 24% of hong kong. what the chinese were describing was this two-stage process -- there is an election where all the citizens and on -- in hong kong would have the right to vote, but there's a nomination process where the select 1200 would have to vote. and you have to do well in the nomination process to be able to run in the election. a two-stage process with a filter in the middle between the two stages and that is what triggered the strike in hong kong because the view was the filter was biased. as protesters describe the 1200 being dominated by pro-beijing business and political elite. as the chairman of the hong kong credit party put it, we want genuine universal suffrage in hong kong, not democracy with

chinese characteristics. but is this particular feature chinese? the answer is it's not unless boss tweed was an ancient chinese profit. [laughter] because as tweed put it, i don't care who does the electing, as long as i get to do the nominating. we should describe the system tweed was constructing. let's call it tweedism. it has this form -- there's two steps, the nominating process with the tweed's vote and the citizens vote, and a filter in between. that is what boss tweed wanted. in the history of democracy in america, there is a long history of tweedism, most dramatically

in the old south stop it's embarrassing to recognize 1870 america passed an amendment to the constitution that guaranteed to african-american males the right to vote. the perception at the time that was passed was this would be the future of democracy in america and in fact the future looks more like this. for 100 years -- that's exaggerating a bit. for 95 years, it was the concerted effort to exclude african-americans on the ability to vote to stop no place more ambitiously than the state of texas, which enacted by law and all white primer. there's a general election where all americans got to vote. african-americans, if they got to register. there's a white primary and you had to do well in the primary to

run in the general direction -- in the general election. a two-stage process that excluded in the critical first step african-americans from the system, but the consequence that they had a democracy that was responsive to whites only. that is a profound and indira singh stage of tweedism in america. -- embarrassing stage of tweedism in america. but let's think about tweedism in the new america. we take it for granted campaigns will be privately funded. funding of campaigns is a -- is an essential step to getting elected to any major office. we have a two-stage nominating process. to get the funders vote, he has to campaign for a, which means you have to raise money for it. candidates spend for congress, anywhere between 30% and 70% of

their time raising money to run the campaigns to get them elected. they do it in things like this where they have parties, where they say for $500, you can come to a reception and 420 $400, a photo up, meet and greet and reception. this is a game that gets played, but they spend an extraordinarily -- an extraordinary time dialing for dollars -- between two and four hours of a calling people they never met, developing a sensitivity and awareness about how what they do will affect their ability to raise money. bh skinner gave us the image of the skinner box were any stupid animal could learn what buttons it needed to push to get the sustenance it needed. this is a picture of the modern american congressperson.

[laughter] as the modern american congress for some learns which buttons need to get pushed to get to the the votes they need. we develop a sixth sense. what is needed to satisfy the obligation? they become shape shifters as they constantly adjust their views in light of what they do what they need to raise money. one person describes always lead to the green. he was not an environmentalist. this is a two-stage process with a filter in the middle, begging the question is the filter biased? that depends. that depends on who the funders are. we -- here is what we know about who the funders are. in 2014, about 5.4 million people contributed at least one dollar to any congressional

campaign, which means about 1.75% of america contributed to campaigns. but if you take that 1.75 of america, the top 100 gave as much as the bottom 4.75 million contributors. the top 100 gives as much as the bottom 4.75, but it's only less than 2% of america we are talking about. if you look at people who gave $2600 at least, that is about point -- that is about .044 percent, a little less than the amount of people named lester in the united states. that's why i called america lester land. you look at $10,000 or more,

that is .008 percent of america. if you think about the effect of the supreme court decision for the decision that created the super pac. in 2012, 132 americans gave 60% of the super pac money spent in that election cycle. whether it is lester land or sheldon city, the point is we have a system where the tiniest, tiniest fraction of the 1% dominates this first stage in our election process, a two-stage election, a general election where we are all invited to participate and something if you have an id, and not a white primary, but a green primary in america and it you must do well in the green primary to run in the general election.

there are people like jerry brown, but you believe and your campaign manager believes you must do well in the green primary and so you live your life as if you live the priority. the vast majority of americans are excluded from this article -- critical first step with the consequence that we are a democracy responsive to the funders and maybe only -- it's a little controversial -- i'm not allowed to show the princeton study. this incredible study was published last year trying to measure the effect of the economic elite on political decisions. they gathered the largest empirical study of actual policy decisions in the history of

political science and tried to relate the actual decisions of our government to the views of the economic elites and organized interest and then the average voter. they found a graph that is intuitive if you think about what this says -- those favoring a policy change those from zero to 100, the probability goes up. that's the way you would expect it to be -- the more it is supported, the more likely it is to be adopted. something similar with interest groups. the more who supported, the higher the probability it goes up. this is a responsive system for economic elites or organized interest groups. here is the graph for the average citizen will stop -- the average citizen. that is a flat line. regardless of the percentage of average citizens who support something, it has no effect on its probability of being adopted. as i described in england -- when the preferences of the economic elite and the stands of

organized groups are controlled for, the preferences of the average american appear to have only a miniscule, and near zero, statistically nonexistent impact on public policy. this is a democracy where the average voters views don't matter to the probability of a policy being adopted. here is one context in which that consequences quite dramatic. this graph was put together to describe the change in the distribution of average income growth over different periods across our history coming out of recessions. here's the first one we are talking about. the bluegrass represents the percentage going to the bottom 90% and the red are is showing the percentage going to the top 10%. this is showing the top 10% getting 20% in the bottom 90% of

getting 80%. you might have trouble with that or not, but the autumn 90% is getting a's -- bottom 90% is getting significantly more than the top 10. here is how that carries out across the next period. the 12 -- the 2009 -- 2010 recovery, the bottom 90% actually lose income relative to the top 10% who gain more. this change, according to hacker and pierson, is tied directly to changes in government policy and changes in government policy are tied directly to the influence of the tweeds in our democracy. this is tweedism. it's not dominated by a beijing political elite, the green primary dominated by a business and economic elite.

it is just as extreme as the story in hong kong. remember, i told you .024 percent is the percentage of hong kong that is to be in the nominating committee. if you ask what percentage of voters maxed out to just one candidate, they gave $5,200, that number and percentage of voters is .024 percent. many would say $5,200 doesn't achieve real influence, so it's worse than .024 percent of the average of percentage of voters, but it is as tiny, it is as distorting, and it is just as wrong. what does it do? what is its effect?

a recent book describes america not as a democracy, not as an aristocracy, plutocracy or cliptocracy, america has become a vetocracy. that means it's a system where it is easy now for economically powerful groups to block a change. it is tied in his view to our systems of checks and balances and our polarized political culture, but in addition to those, it's tied to the number of funders who fund campaigns. in a system with a tiny, tiny number, that means a tiny, tiny

fraction has the power to block reform because their disagreement with reform is enough to stop the policymakers from adopting it. this is not just reform on the left, this is any change if it is against organized money whether from the left or the right fails. everyone coming into a room like this has an issue you care about and it could be climate change, health care, tax policy, i don't care what the issue is. at the federal level, you all have an issue you think is important. you spend your free time, if there is such a thing a thing anymore, supporting causes that would be about this issue. even if your issue is the most

important issue, change on that issue won't happen until we change this corruption first. this corrupting influence is the first issue because it locks the ability of our democracy to control, to steer the direction of our democracy and it stops us from having that control. we are like the bus driver who discover his steering wheel is no longer connected to the axle. so what is the solution here?

the truth is, the the solution is not hard to describe. if this is the picture and the problem is the bias filter at this center, the solution is to find a way to either eliminate the filter or to eliminate the bias. the number of republicans in the spirit of teddy roosevelt has become to push -- has come to push ideas like vouchers as a way to fund this problem. every voter gets a voucher think of it like a starbucks card -- a store value card that allows them to allocate a certain amount of money to candidates running for office and candidates can take those vouchers if they agree to limit the contributions they take to vouchers -- let's say contributions are $100. $50 a voter would be about $7 billion. the total amount spent by candidates was $1.5 billion, which means this is real money but the point is the voucher

system would mean money coming from many, many people, not just the .04 percent or the .024 percent. it's not everybody is going to participate but it's not biased in the way the current system is biased by allocating the funding our to the tiny fraction of the 1%. democrats have been pushing this idea of matching funds -- john sarbanes's -- the government by the people act take small contributions and multiplies them to make them much more valuable. $100 becomes $1000 because of a 9 2 1 match, encouraging candidates to get lots of small contributions, not contributions coming from the .04%. still a filter, but not biased in the way the current system is biased. the thing that matters more than the current system is, god forbid, votes.

voters, that is what is mattering to the democracy. equal votes from equal citizens. to describe the solution to this problem is not hard. why don't we have the solution? why do we have political movements to push for this solution? political experts tell us is most people don't care about it. most people look at the corruption and they are ok with it or they are ok with it relative to other issues they want to fight about. i don't think that's actually true and evidence comes from a series of studies. the most recently did was in december of 2013. we asked the public how important is it to you we reduce the influence of money in politics. the answer was 96% of americans said it's important. the very next question we asked was how likely do you think it is we will reduce the out of

money and politics. 91% said it's not likely. just like most of us wish we could fly like superman, but because 91% of us are convinced we can't, we don't throw ourselves off of tall buildings regularly. we are resigned to our human mortal status and live life the way one would assuming you can't fly from the ground or tall buildings. we don't organize to do anything about it because we don't believe anything can be done. we've added to ben franklin's slogan that if there is nothing sure but death and taxes by adding federal government. -- a corrupt government. that means the question here is how do we resist this resignation? what is the strategy for fighting resignation?

the problem is convincing people there is a solution that could actually be adopted. what is it we could do for that? as many of you know because i'm sure many of you were supporters, the beginning of the year in march announced we were going to watch something called the mayday project -- mayday as in these -- as in the distress signal, saying it's a mayday for this democracy. the objective is to be a super pac to end all super pac's. what would it take to run a series of campaigns that would win a congress committed to campaign reform and we would fund that by kickstarting it -- you can't kickstart a political campaign but to fund this amount to run this experiment.

a certain amount from the bottom up and get as much of it matched the top down as we could. committed to fundamental reform -- the plan we laid out is to run a pilot in 2014 and then based on the fact, when in 2016 and push legislation in 2017 and in 2019, prepared to protect it by passing whatever constitutional reforms would be needed to defend against the supreme court will stop in the first stage, we were able to raise $11 billion from more than 57,000 contributors around the country. [applause] with the objective to elect a candidate committed to this fundamental reform. the truth is with that as the objective, the project was a bust.

because out of the eight candidates we supported, only one of those races was really competitive. people look at this and say this demonstrates the public doesn't care. it's not as bad as that looks. if you look at the report of the data we were able to pull from surveys before and after, it shows a significant number of voters are deeply committed and care about this issue, just in the synonymy of the election in 2014, that was enough to -- the tsunami of the election in 2014 was enough to overcome. -- wasn't enough to overcome. we lost the bet because we did not prove to the skeptics a system that could scale, so there were no clear path to 2016, which was our objective.

to get us to a place were we could elect a congress emitted to fundamental reform. when we lost in this dramatic way, one part of me was relieved at the defeat because the truth about politics as its run today is that it's deeply dissatisfying and disgusting and most of how it works. the constraints of politics today is almost impossible to imagine using it to educate people in a constructive way about this issue. i've likened it to trying to teach and algebra course by screaming out the various lessons and students are walking through because most people don't want to hear the message while they are trying to watch a patriots game. most people want to ignore it. the method for communicating to them must communicate in a way that is almost impossible to move people. but the other part that echoes a

kind of guilt in how it felt an authentic to the ultimate -- inauthentic to the ultimate objective of this movement because it game was an insider's game. you are electing regular candidates to fix the problem with other insiders will stop the problem with that is that we don't believe insiders when they tell us they are going to fix the problem. 80% of americans believe the reforms that have been passed have been designed to help current members of congress to get reelected than to improve the system. we are cynical about the reformers as much as we are cynical about everything else. we have to find a way to stand outside the system that the challenge here is to be

authentically outsider in the effort to force change on the inside. that sounds like a harder problem and in some ways, it is. there was something so appealing about the idea of demonstrating that throwing up a message demonstrating congress should be enough to rally voters and raising hundreds of millions of dollars to win a congress, there was something simple about it even if there was something somewhat corrupt about it. so this forces us to think what's the way to go forward that could force a change on the outside, from the outside, a choice of change. i'm going to describe three elements of that strategy. one element is to make the change plausible. one element is to make congress panic.

one element is to make the is it -- make the issue presidential. first is the plausible. mayday had the idea of electing a congress. the bet was we could demonstrate the power of the message to elect candidates. this was a bad year to make that bet, so now we have two pivot to figure out what the work is that can contribute to the project. what are we doing now? the objective is to figure out a way to turn the army around and to focus it on a much more manageable project of recruiting the incumbents to admit to reform. if there's a majority in congress and those committed to reform, the project is to shrink gap to make it seem plausible

that we could actually get fundamental reform. not necessarily a majority committed to the vouchers but committed to some reform. how will we deploy this? a top secret project that gets announced at sxsw, there's a strategy for a platform to enable the tools of this infrastructure we call the internet, and incredibly powerful ability to recruit targeted actions in districts that convince voters in districts to get their members to commit to reform and we believe it is feasible to get within striking distance by the end of 2015. in march, this structure is announced and we launch a project to bring about a commitment.

republicans and democrats both to this system of fundamental reform to make it seem plausible , but that's not going to be enough. much more interesting is creating panic. these guys -- this guy, george mason, one of the framers of the constitution, two days before the constitution was published in philadelphia, he noticed a problem. the only way to amend the constitution at that time was a provision that gave congress the power to propose amendments. george mason stood up and said on the floor of the constitutional convention, what if congress is the problem, a system where only congress can amend is not much of a system of congress is the problem.

it's the first known instance of "the simpsons" duh. they created a second way to amend the constitution. article five gives the states the power to demand congress call a convention, not a constitutional convention, but a convention for a very limited purpose to oppose amendments. what is clear is the idea of a convention terrifies washington. it terrifies the seed to imagine this entity that can propose amendments, even though it requires 38 states to have a power called into being by this process terrifies them. the closer we get to the magic number the constitution specifies, 34 states calling for a convention, the more the panic grows. what is not recognizes that right now, there are between 24

and 28 dates who have passed resolutions calling on congress to call an article five convention. vermont, california and illinois have, last year, past proposals to call for a specifically related to the corrupting influence of money in politics. -- a convention specifically related to the corrupting influence of money in politics. as more of these organizations push for more states to join, we will in the next two years get incredibly close to the magic number. i think we will probably get over the magic. as that happens, congress will respond because historically it has always responded to cut off the convention movement and by giving people who are pushing for a convention that they want. we may, through this process get what we want from them even before there is a convention. best example is the amendment

gave us an elected senate. originally there was a senate picked by state legislatures. people didn't like that. they got the senate would be filled with rich people who were corruptly elected. [laughter] they said we should change that to have a directly elected senate. the senate is not going to have anything to do that. there is a process for calling for an article five convention and when they got within one state of enough states to call for an article five convention congress sent out the 17 the -- 17th amendment that created the elected senate. so, that panic produced reform and that reform was central to bringing about what was perceived to be a solution to the problem and that's the same dynamic we should expect here. the closer we get to forcing a constitutional movement, the closer we get to achieving something of what congress might do.

maybe most important immediately is presidential. in the modern american political system, reform only happens if it comes with the president pushing it, not just the president pushing it, some people might remember, there's this guy barack obama who talked about this problem precisely and once he walked into 1500 pennsylvania avenue and looked around, he realized there was no chance congress would ever address this problem, so he dropped the issue completely. we need to get a congress close to being able to pass it and a president who wants to pick it up and make it presidential. it is not their natural wish to talk about this issue. if you look at the polls related to corruption in government, and -- in 2000, it was not even an issue on the top 10 list. 2004, not an issue.

in 2008, it was number four on issues americans thought the president should address. in 2012, it was number two second only to jobs. corruption in the way our and while everyone was thinking about rob lowboy of a check that time -- rob glaser, and while everyone is singing at the coke brothers -- the koch brothers. or whatever favorite person you want to point to, that was number two. if you look at the websites of romney and obama, nowhere in the discussion of issues did they even mention the problem. i had a researcher look at it and is the first time in as far as we can see, when an issue in the top 10 of gallup's list was not mentioned by either candidate in the address of policy issues a promise to take up. they don't want to talk about this issue. it's too embarrassing to talk