their own pathway out. i'm happy to hear the caller found what worked for him and i think that rings true for other individuals. it's going to be a matter of what works for that person. what their priorities are. i do agree what he was commenting on in terms of finding out what is going to fill his time and focus when he's in the community. one of the factors we look at is recreation. we are guiding these folks to take out things that are problematic. who are they going to be spending their time with and what they going to be doing? leisure activities. hiking, that is individual and important as well. supporting positive behavior change goes along with that. commenting on taking away different potentially feel good things within a facility. change change is on

the premise of positive reinforcement. noticing -- recognizing pollock -- progress is being made. host: let's go to warren in florida. good morning. caller: good morning. one comment. i know it's not going to be the end-all beetle. .- and all beat all i think the right to vote is expensive to reenter into society. people have to have a stake in their own lives. if they feel it they have a stake when they get out, they can participate in society, i think it would help. host: two you have any thoughts on that? true. i think it rings in order for someone to participate in our society data before member -- they need to be a full member. i think about someone releasing from the criminal justice

system, they are faced with different labels and things they cannot do. as a matter of empowering someone i think that that does need to be fully recognized. having the ability to vote, being able to apply for a job without having additional stigma could potentially limit them firm opportunities and housing as well. talk about the role the private sector plays. employers in your community. mentionedector green our small business community that had come to visit a few weeks ago. employers, whether part of an organization or not, play a role. willand the box initiative talk about ways they can be a fair interview where it is not one of the initial questions around someone's history if they have had a criminal offense or

not. i think having that outlook that we are looking at the skills someone is coming to apply for a position in having that neutral stance plays a key role. one of the underlying elements from our american job center's curriculum is return on investment and it's a matter of training and preparing customers at the center so they are able to offer solid skills and work ethic and knowledge of what employers want so that match can be sustained for employment long-term. when we talk about the private sure at theng opportunities are available to all different sorts of individuals who meet the same .ualifications otherwise the american job center's curriculum focuses over the course of 16 weeks on job readiness skills development.

they can touch base on all the important factors and what is not important about them so that when they do the interview there practicing their skills for those interview sessions that we have volunteer teams that come in and assist them. a combination of those skills which can come more easily than the larger aspect of personal development. we have two superb coaches who staff our american job center and one of their talking points is that life readiness is often more challenging than job readiness. it's the combination of the job search and workforce development skills in combination with life readiness and personal development, communication relationships, personal appearance, things along that line. illinois.lie, in

caller: are the families of the incarcerated as they are getting ready to get out, are they given education to help them? to the have a way of contacting someone? can we get help as he's going down the wrong path? huge part of is a the reentry process. within montgomery county we have different ways we want to incorporate family in the reentry experience. when someone is incarcerated their family can feel incarcerated with them. about how to engage the family as part of our assessment process here within the tension to -- here within the detention center as well as in our prerelease program we want to solicit input.

whether distler sponsorship or they have an ongoing role or just as the initial calls from reentry staff. to have a conversation about what the reentry process looks like and what their goals are going home. what they can agree to work on. we have another partnership with the conflict resolution center of montgomerywhat the reentry ps like county and through mediation, it individuals can help prepare their plan with family members on how things will be like when they return home. that does not substitute for family counseling or other interventions but it starts the conversation and that is often the most difficult piece to begin with. in terms of communicating, we open our e-mail and our phones to individuals to reach us to pass along information. we are aware of confidentiality standards but we want to engage

with family as we have releases of information to do so for our clients. host: the reentry services at the montgomery county department for corrections and rehabilitation. thank you very much. we are going to dig down deeper coming up into mental health and services abuse available at the jail. joining us now is labor secretary tom perez to talk about what the labor department is trying to do on this front. mr. secretary, you visited montgomery county correctional facility, you so what they are doing. the labor department announced 10 million dollars in grants awarded for jail based employment centers to ready the inmates for the job market before the release. what do you make of what they are doing at montgomery county?

why do you feel that it is important to put money toward this? guest: i think the best way to reduce recidivism is to get people the skills to compete the day they get out of jail and to make sure they are connected to the workforce system. i had the privilege of serving in the montgomery county council from two dozen two to 2006. 2006.m 2002 to it has a tremendous return on investment. aboutality is, while 700,000 people leave federal and state facilities each year, something like 9 million people are leaving county jails and city jails. the focus is to make sure in these communities people ready to learn. wharton grain is one of my favorite people -- gordon green arden green is one of

my favorite people. we saw what works and we wanted to take it nationally. roughly 20 communities received grants and they are going can muster. ofhad a tremendous applications because people understand a smart initiative has to involve making sure people are ready to succeed when they leave county jails, state prisons, federal prisons. host: how will you know it is a success? guest: they are actually pretty simple. you track the number of people who are placed. what they are making, whether they are employed six to 12 months later. you also track credentials people obtained while they are in jail. rdenmember talking to wad

green and the number of people who are studying for ged's in county jails continues to be solid. these are the types of measures because when people have more credentials and skills, they are more marketable. another way to track is to see how many employers you're able to engage. if people are getting trained but nobody's hiring them, that is not success either. i talked to employers all the time. they believe in second chances. they have in many cases a skills shortage. they want welders and other people with talent and they believe in second chances. we've had great success. the largest private employer in the state of illinois is johns hopkins university. if i had ron peterson with us right now, he would tell us this

is an act of enlightened self-interest. he would tell you they have former offenders employed at entry-level positions, as phlebotomists, up and down the various job descriptions at hopkins. this is what we have to do across the country. this is a smart initiative by reducing recidivism. host: what would employers tell you about the challenges with hiring a former inmate? guest: a number of employers have a concern, this person got convicted for theft, what do i do? toolbox tols in the address some of the concerns you have. workforcece, every system in the 2500 american job centers have shared he bonds. will employer says energy to take a flier but what happens if that person steals from me,

the answer is to mow we will insure against that. -- the answer is we will insure against that. both a logistical items that need to be worked out and have been worked out and can be worked out. host: the news many saw recently that the attorney general announced that 6000 prisoners will be released from jail to deal with overcrowding. you have concerns? guest: i think it is being done in a methodical way. we have an over incarceration issue in this country. challenge in the our communities across the country in a way that was akin to dealing with cancer by building more hospitals instead of dealing with cancer by addressing underlying issues. i think it has to be done in the thoughtful way.

there are way too many people who are incarcerated who i think could do well in communities and that's why i think what is heartening to me about what we are is there is a bipartisan understanding that we need to be smart on crime. if feeling tool in your toolbox -- if the only tool in your toolbox is a hammer, everything nail.s looking like a host: we appreciate your time. we will continue with our conversation with staff from a gum or a county correctional facility. we are live from there this morning. it is about 30 miles from washington dc -- from a washington, d.c. athena morrow, thank you for

your time. what is adult forensic services? of thea section department of health and human services under behavior for health and crisis services. we work with individuals who come into context with the criminal justice system that have mental health issues. host: what is the percentage of population at montgomery county correctional facility that fall into that group of mental health and substance abuse? guest: the population we are dealing with is about 19% of all inmates who get hooked into our facility. what that means is they suffer from both mental health issues and substance abuse issues. if we were to only look at inmates who suffer from substance abuse issues, the percentage is a lot higher,

almost 80%. host: do you find that this trend is increasing? what if you seen over the years? guest: we have seen an increase not only in the percentage of folks coming in with those issues but a tremendous increase in the severity of the symptoms we see. even when we fluctuate as far as the number of arrests in this county, we have seen that the number of folks with mental illness has been going up. percentagewise, that number has stayed steady even as the number of arrests have gone down. we are dealing with an extreme situation. host: what are the challenges? guest: our challenges are tremendous. we have individuals who come into our jail for minor offenses and that is predominately things like transparency or disorderly

conduct. the population that comes in with severe mental health issues. they tend to stay longer in our facility because they may not be able to access resources we have for them being as ill as they are. they also end up staying longer because our judicial system tends to postpone handling those cases, tried to find a solution for when they're ready to come back out in our community. typically that population and sub staying longer in the jail than somebody without mental health issues for the same type of charge. host: the longer they stay, what challenges present themselves because of that? how do you treat the mental illness beyond therapy? do they have access to drugs? guest: of course.

we have a full array. we work collaboratively with the department of corrections and between health and human services and department of corrections we have multiple types of services in the facility. with a full mental health unit we can house offenders who cannot function in general population. we have a full-time psychiatrist, mental health staff, a number of specialized groups we like provide and supports we can provide for inmates. a levirate reentry planning that starts from the day they get arrested. we start looking for needs from the day they get arrested and we begin planning. the difficulty sometimes with planning in this population, because we are a different tension facility -- a detention

facility, it is unpredictable as to when they will leave. summer --ut up this some can post bond, some can stay longer and we never know how to prepare for reentry. we have to begin the planning early on and be as proactive as we can. while we are here, we try to engage them in treatment even if we find that they may not be engaged in treatment in the community. we tried to offer them options for treatments. host: we are inside the housing 2.4 at the montgomery county correctional facility talking with athena morrow was with the montgomery county department of health talking about the challenges with mental health inmates. we want to get your questions and comments.

.epublicans, (202) 748-8001 democrats, (202) 748-8000. .ndependents (202) 748-8002 we will go to brenda in cleveland, tennessee. haser: i have a son who mental issues and chemical addiction issues for most of his life. he is been in and out medical hospital. in and out of jail. this is going on several years. what president reagan closed all the mental hospitals and put everybody on an outpatient basis it did not work. they are too willing to put people in jail but they are not too willing to get mental health

-- mental health long-term. i'll dig we have any long-term facilities will left. my son is a borderline personality disorder. that requires therapy. i wanted to comment on that. but these people get to get mount -- once these people get to come out, will they have long-term services? is an excellent comment. we find that everybody comes in with different needs. one of the things therapists are trying to address is whether the specific needs of the individual who comes in. combat the history of substance abuse issues as well as the mental health issues . the approach is different depending on what the needs are.

we are fortunate in this community to have an array of resources that we can refer individuals to. for substance abuse we have access to 28 day program as well as longer-term facility that we can send folks if they need that level of service. we have an array of outpatient programs as well. depending on the need and intensity of treatment, we are fortunate to be able to refer and provide linkages as the first -- as the person gets ready to exit the jail. we have an in-house substance abuse program where inmates can live in a separate unit and receive substance abuse services for as long as they are in the facility. we are different and in that very fortunate. host: vicki, you are on the air. visited union

correctional institution in raeford, florida for the past eight years on a volunteer basis. my comment would be that at this institution, a medical survey was done about 10 years ago. it found that 90% of the population at this particular prison suffered from severe mental illness. that is a problem. a lot them in dorms for months or years because they cannot manage their behavior and it is disturbing to me. , in the southe particularly, prisons are rough and harsh and very little compassion on the part of the legislator or the voters to change anything. how can we impact of that so that the general population of voters understands that these people need compassion and

rehabilitation? caller: thank you so much for comments. we find that our population, who need special managing, is not as high as you mentioned. it would he along the same level as the rest of the country. we have about a 19% need to separate individuals with severe mental health issues, and handle them in a special unit. that unit has a lot of special services. mental health workers, psychiatry and psychiatric services that are intensive, and folks can stay in that unit as long as they are unable to handle placement and general populations. we are very fortunate in that sense. during that stay, of course, all the reentry services begin

linking them to community services that they need when they will exit. as far as what we could do about compassion, that is one of my favorite topics. i think there is a tremendous tendency to consider inmates as separate from us. in my experience, these are the us.s that walk amongst anyone of us could have committed an act that might, for one reason or another, have landed us in an institution. this is not a separate population, these are folks just like anyone else dealing with an illness. despite what might have brought them into the institution is a compassionate approach, and a chance to rehabilitate. we try to offer that. in this facility, our officers are part of our treatment team. they have a lot of training in dealing with mental health.

we approach individuals with a .ehabilitative motive in mind every time we approach them, we try to offer them options as to how to make different decisions and engage in treatment. host: we will hear from chris, pennsylvania, good morning to you, what is your experience with the corrections system in the united states? caller: i worked in the for 16ent of corrections years. i'm retired. i see a lot of the problems geared toough as more treatment. when they release people, the .rime goes up the news, you hear about it. it keeps going on. fixing it with treatment is not working. they go to jail in pennsylvania, take a test, sale on purpose, so they get mental health treatment. they don't have no real set

program for it. is they get in health and -- mental pennsylvania -- they assault staff, they felt other inmates, and they get away with it, they just the charges. a lot of the mental health people in pennsylvania, they are drug addicts. .hey come to prison on the street, they functioned ok until they got caught. host: a lot there. what are your thoughts? guest: a lot of times, we see inmates who come in, they stabilize. they are very motivated to do well when the exit. times they accept referrals that we make. sometimes they don't.

we cannot force treatment on somebody who exits. everybody has a choice. a court cannot order treatment, unless they convict someone. it is very important to try to motivate as much as we can and engage them in treatment inside the walls, if we can, before the exit. a lot of times, as motivated be, when the may exit, they may fall through the, crocs, or stop treatment. to thethe return facility, a lot of times. it is a very frustrating cycle that we experience. about gels talk more addiction services. what we visited the montgomery facility,rectional we sat down with a former inmate. he talked about one of the programs available. we want to show our viewers, and have you talk about it on the other side. [video clip]

programs called the jas -- gel addiction services. we learn to deal with ourselves, and then afterwards, helped someone deal with this situation, when they first came in. i was appear leader -- a peer leader. as inmates, we take care of each other, we give each other a hand. we do everything we can to make people feel comfortable. we would make sure that they have the support they need from each other. , talk about morrow why this peer-to-peer help is important, and doesn't work? -- does it work? guest: we believe it does. we call it jas. it is a modified therapeutic community. based on that, we try to engage the resources that we have amongst everyone who comes into

that unit. that involves inmates. our inmates have a lot of resources. they have a lot of experience in how to handle addiction. this is an opportunity for them to be in a sober environment, and participate in structured i say bees. they can support each other better than anyone else. of course, we have a full array whoheir fist -- therapists provide guidance and set out tasks, but we try to use every resource we have. just like carlos said, we find it invaluable for them to give each other feedback, encouragement, and ideas about how to go about solving problems. we also have, in our team approach, the officers. officer who oversees the unit is a final person in our team. a are the eyes of years of the treatment team when the providers are not present.

we utilize every resource we ave and find that to be supportive environment. many inmates find that to be one of the first times they have experienced that support, especially in a jail setting. host: hollywood, florida, june, what is your story? in jail. have a son he was given a 300 date sentence for a misdemeanor battery case. he got into a shoving match with a local bully in florida. prisons we are familiar with here in florida look not at all like the jails they have up there and maryland. what we are learning is if you want to get services from your jail, you need to get arrested in maryland. have withproblem we

so many people being in jail is because the district attorneys, and so forth, the people who did pile charges on top of charges. andle with minor offenses of going to jail for a long period of time so the sentences they get do not at all match the crimes that they commit. the other thing is that a lot of the problems we have with drugs country are committed by our politicians. we, the people of this country, are responsible for this problem that we have with drugs in this country because we have allowed our politicians to allow drugs into this country that have destroyed families and our communities. that is why we are responsible for cleaning up the mess, and not just punishing people who have problems with drugs. host: your thoughts?

guest: i think everybody experiences that in every jurisdiction where charges make it compounded, and one thing may lead to another. we find that once the inmates get to a point where they could start a sober and lifestyle, they have to deal with a lot of follow-up with charges. it takes them a while to clean ofcharges, get out probation. period of getting back. the caller is right. there are a lot of complications when somebody starts getting involved with the drug epidemic that we are dealing with. host: are the services that you what their typical for jails offer across the united states, or is this a new program, a new initiative? are gel addiction services program actually

started as a federal grant back in 1999. it is a very old program. at that time, i think we were among the first that were piloting this type of program. since then, i know there has been an increase of facilities across the country who are adopting this way of dealing with the sus abuse issue. abuse issue. i still think we are not among the majority. host: how did the grants work? guest: how do grants work, as far as -- host: how you get the money, how you're supposed to use it? ,uest: we provide a proposal depending what the opportunities are for different grants. in this particular instance, with the gel addiction services program, it is a very old program. we had a proposal for, at that

time, treat people with minor offenses. we were able to get a federal grant. ,ince then, our local community our local county council, has accepted funding this program. we were able to sustain it, based on the results of the evaluation. we found that it was effective andeducing some recidivism increasing participation in treatment. host: how effective? found -- now you are asking me to go back a long time. i recallime, if correctly, we found it was an .ncrease of about 10% actually, a reduction in 10% of recidivism from what was the norm at the time. numbers,uote because it was such a long time ago, but i can say it was a

significant reduction. host: from florida, you're next. caller: my question is do you give any kind of skilled mental healthe people? my experience has been, when people have some kind of skill, that helps their mental health, and their ability to be employable when they get out, which also helps their mental health. if they are just getting psychological training -- help, and no skills, that contributes to their mental problems when they get out, because they cannot do anything. guest: yes. we do, to some degree, work on skill building here. most of our approach year is trying to stabilize folks. if we can engage them, at least

in what is appropriate for them, some of them are appropriate for taking medications, some are appropriate for participating in groups. we try to engage them, as a inpping stone, to services the community. we know that managing a mental illness is not something that can be addressed in a short period of time. it is a lifetime issue. we try to do the engaging, motivating, and provide opportunities for continuing that in the community. host: kansas, david, democrat. caller: i would like you guys to listen to kansas's opportunity they have for people who come in. each criminal, they see if they have any mental problems . if they do, they send them to a

into ay that goes deeper program. they put them on a work release program, and they check into the same facility for mental health. after they go through a couple of years, if they see they can function in society, they let them go ahead. they have halfway houses to put them in. they also have it for people who are in jail, they send them to minimum-security. you cannot have a serious crime, like a violent crime. they will take those individuals, and put them into -- it is the kansas department rehabilitation

corrections. artie got, you have through evaluation from the court, and the court sees, yes, you are smart, but you do not have a trade. you can go to this location, they offer college classes for every kind of industry we have -- electronics, heating, , a bigg, automotive lineup. you go through this process each day. with most of the classes, you have to take a test each morning . they give you assignments to do at night, when you go from school back to your room. you have to do the assignment. when they come in the next morning, they make you take a test. if you don't pass the test, you .on't get out of the room other people who put the time out and doy, they go

the train that they are actually trained. host: i will have athena morrow jump in. what do you make of what he is talking about? guest: if i understand correctly, i think the caller is talking about services for people who may not have a substance abuse issue. that is something that my colleague spoke about earlier. this whole institution is focused on rehabilitation. we have an array of options for folks. inmates are encouraged to .articipate in this program they get incentives. they have access to vocational programs here, access to getting ged, access to college classes. they have a number of opportunities for learning skills that will be useful when they get out. i think that is what the caller was alluding to.

host: jim, texas, republican. caller: good morning. [indiscernible] prisonsld jails and look like if they would lock up people who are obese? it is a burden on our societal cost. i apologize to jim, it was very difficult to understand that phone call -- breaking up a bit. we will move on to the next caller. good morning. caller: i would like to speak on the problem before it begins. it usually begins with the youth learning to drink, smoke, and then they graduate into the drug .cene

they graduate into the drug say because they are taught the jury came. alcohol is fine, it is ok. you go to the churches, even the catholic church, they teach -- they say drinking is ok, a little bit of wine don't hurt you. these things are destructive. only religion that is teaching that this thing is wrong is islam. islam teaches you from the beginning that if you get involved in this type of lifestyle, you will find getting further and further in violence. these things are destructive. they will destroy not only the individual, the family, the neighborhoods, the world. host: athena morrow, how do you deal with people's history with alcoholism, the relationship to it, or other substances, and that addiction to it?

i'm not sure i understand your question. how do we deal with folks coming in -- , and asth their past the caller was alluding to, the culture that people grow up in. maybe how they view alcohol, or other substances. , in the amount of time that they are there, drill down? initialhen we do our assessment, we tried to be very culturally sensitive. we try to understand the history of addiction. everybody has their own way of coming into addiction. sometimes, like the caller said, he can be a cultural influence, or not. it can be an influence from the family of origin. could haveriends started earlier or late. it depends. that is part of our initial

assessment. as we identify the factors, we try to address them. relevantre culturally factors that we need to address, we are sensitive to that. i can't tell you that we specialize, and have a different intervention, but we try to be sensitive. if someone has a religious affiliation that we can help reconnect with, we try to help them do that. host: what is the assessment process like when someone first comes into the jail? guest: as soon as someone gets booked into the jail, they get a pretty elaborate questionnaire about their involvement in substance abuse and mental health. any of the responses there are positive, that result to a yes, someone has had a history of hospitalizations, or is taking medications, generally, they are

referred to our staff, who evaluates further within 24-48 days, that individual for their needs. we try to do a couple of things at that time. we try to identify substance abuse and mental health needs, to see if someone would qualify for divergence. we work closely with our assesses ift, which that person would be a threat to the community. obviously, we try to take the factors into consideration. if the person stays in the jail and divergent is not one of our options, we try to that match whatever we found out, whatever the needs of the person are with the needs in our -- with the services in our institution. what is divergence? guest: divergence is an

opportunity that an offender has, different junctures to have access to create services -- to community services, instead of waiting while incarcerated to get access at the time of release. for example, if someone comes in with, let's say, a minor offense, and they are appearing before a judge to set their bond within the first 24 hours, if we a treatmentem with agency in the community, we recommend that to the judge. the judge may be able to lower their bond, release them to the community with the condition that they participate in the program. that would be a post booking divergence. host: henry, tell us your story. caller: good morning. i have 18 years working in the federal and state system. , from myon is

observation, inmates who came in and our core order to complete a treatment program were more motivated. moreere a way we can get to be court ordered to complete the programs? host: athena morrow? guest: we have found that is a very effective way to motivate folks, especially those who battle addiction. that is a population that responds very well to court orders to participate in treatments. it is not full proof, of course, but it does help in providing some leverage that seems to be effective in motivating substance abusers. it is not necessarily an effective way to deal with mental health issues. sometimes severe mental health

issues do not respond well to those pressures from the courts. host: we are spending our morning at montgomery county jail, about 30 miles from washington, d.c. you can see them out there on your screen. there is a population of about 643 inmates at this facility. 570 males, 73 females. they keep them separate. the average age, 18-30 years old. 60% ofs approximately the population there, minorities. the majority of charges, androlled substance abuse distribution. we are talking with athena morrow about how the jailed deals with mental illness. we will go to tony, good morning to you. caller: good morning. how are you? host: doing well.

your question or comment? from the have retired georgia department of corrections. i was a counselor there for many years. the problem i have found is most of the inmates, they all come from a single family home, they all have no education, and they have no work experience. workdon't want no experience. they have all flunked out of school. we tried to get them into ged's, but they want to gain bank, and bang, that -- gaing and all of that kind of stuff. they don't want to participate, they want to be on the streets. guest: that is not my overarchingas in experience. there may be some individuals that are not interested, but the majority of individuals we have haveotivated, and

incentives. they have a lot of barriers to overcome. host: what are the barriers? guest: some of the barriers are social support, the lack of education, lack of leisurely activities that involve staying away from people where drugs are involved. it sometimes involves a change in lifestyle. as we know, those are not easy changes to make. you can provide opportunities, but it takes a while, and becomes a lifelong management issue. they need support in the community to change their life. host: you say they are motivated in jail to change. ton they get out, do you try stay in contact with them? what are you seeing? which depending on programs they get involved with, we have different programs. sometimes we refer folks to

residential programs or outpatients. there are facilities involved with monitoring their compliance. facilitiesnce abuse have analysis that is part of their protocol. they also, of course, involve them in various forms of treatment. the treatment providers are the ones that follow up with the inmates that we refer to them. host: we will go to jeff in caller: st. petersburg. good morning. what are your thoughts? caller:i am from st. petersburg, florida. i'm wondering what percentage of areland's prisons privatized, and what they think about the difference between her job being done in a privatized system, versus being in a state run system? host: go ahead, athena morrow. the firstannot answer part of the callers question. i'm not sure. we have athat

long-standing partnership among our departments here locally. our services are funded by montgomery county government. we have this deep collaborative relationship, and have been able to build on those over the years. i cannot speak to the state system. host: what is your day like on a daily basis? why did you get involved in this work? guest: i have been involved in yearsork for about 26 with montgomery county. it is a population that i am aboutvery passionate helping. i believe when folks come in contact with the criminal justice system, it is an opportunity, as they are in crisis, to provide them with hope. at ag able to offer hope

time, when someone comes in, feeling the impact of various environmental impacts that they is theen involved with right time. when there is crisis and opportunity, at the same time, the potential for change is higher. i find it to be a very dynamic area to work with. i find that folks are very interested in change. to beimportant compassionate, and offer options to this population. it is something that has always interested me. host: athena morrow with the montgomery county division of health. if you want more information about what you learned today, visit them online. that is the website on your screen to learn more. we want to thank athena morrow, and all the folks at montgomery county correctional facility,

very much for your time this morning, and allowing us to come inside the correctional facility them, and hear from all of on what they do on a daily basis and how they prepare inmates for life after jail. thanks to everybody there. that does it for today's "washington journal." we want to thank everyone for calling in as well for your questions and comments. we will be back tomorrow morning at 7:00 eastern time. enjoy the rest of your tuesday. ♪ [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] >> on the next washington journal, the president of on theton former economic issues in the 2016 presidential race, analysis of the democratic presidential candidates first debate from

adam green, and law professor stephanos bibas will talk about his cover story on mass incarceration in america. on c-span.. et coming up on c-span, presidential candidate john kasich makes a campaign stop in bow, new hampshire. jeb bush visits manchester, new hampshire. then laura donohue on balancing individual rights and national security. later, today's washington journal on the criminal justice system. >> all campaign long, c-span takes you on the road to the white house, unfiltered access to the candidates, at town hall meetings, news conferences,

rally santa speeches. -- rallies, and speeches. every campaign event recover is available on our website c-span.org. and republican presidential candidate john kasich made a campaign stop today and bow, new hampshire or he spoke to voters and answered questions about the economy, the federal budget and others. this is an hour. gov. kasich: fall is here. good afternoon. [applause] >> good afternoon, everyone. it is a real pleasure to be here today in old town hall in bow. i have been here quite a few

times. i'm sure not nearly as often as many of you in the audience. we appreciate you taking the time to come out for governor kasich's townhall meeting. i would like to begin by asking marge welch to lead us in the pledge of allegiance. >> i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic, for which it stands, one nation, under god, indivisible, with liberty, and justice for all. >> thank you very much, marge. thank you all for coming out. it is my pleasure to take just a moment to introduce someone i'm proud to call a great friend, john kasich. i was first elected to congress nearly 20 years ago.

i became a proud member of the budget committee. it was exactly where i wanted to be. if you want to make change, it starts in the federal government. we had an incredible, inspirational, and innovative leader in john kasich. he was not afraid to take on special-interest and tough issues, entitlement reform, tax reform, and trying to scale back the size of the federal government. a lot of people in washington do not like anyone to talk about this. but he never shied away from it. he was the kind of leader i wanted to be. fearless, tough, and very innovative. he has been a friend for a long time. many of you know his record in the state of ohio. taking that same kind of leadership, problem solving, tough, aggressive -- in a state like ohio that was on tough, tough economic times, turning things around. piece by piece.

taking a surplus -- taking a deficit and turning it into a surplus. [laughter] >> now. [laughter] >> the fact of the matter is that the great people of the state of new hampshire are much kinder to me when i make is all verbal miscue like that then john kasich ever would be. believe me, i appreciate your compassion. it was an $8 billion deficit when he came to the state of ohio. today, they do have a $2 billion surplus, creating over 350,000 jobs, and doing it while cutting taxes. that is a record of achievement and transformation that i think has really been matched in this country and i want him to take that leadership and vision and creativity and inspiration to

washington, d.c. that is the kind of leadership we need in washington today. we need someone not afraid to scale back the size of government, give us back our power, let us control the money, let us control the programs, get the economy moving with tax reform and by rolling back unnecessary regulations and unleashing the power of small business. these are things i have seen john kasich advocate for year after year and to do it successfully. not just talking about it and actually doing it. we need a president who can go to washington and get those things done. i believe that person is john kasich. ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to introduce my personal friend john kasich. [applause] gov. kasich: the man who turns surpluses into deficits. [laughter]

gov. kasich: he was the guy that stuck it to you. can you take that phone. if it is my wife, i will take it. if it is the president, i will call him back. [laughter] gov. kasich: just kidding, mr. president. this is really nice. john is a great friend. he talked to me about the fact that i should do this, run for president. i do not really think i would. many of you will say, we don't really know that much about him or we have never heard of him. i was kind of taking care of business in ohio and it was really a mess. 20% of our operating budget -- it would be like blowing a hole in your take-home pay. before i get all to policy, i will tell you a quick story, which some of my reporter friends in ohio are tired of hearing. that, a quick story. blue up in a little

collar town outside of pittsburgh -- the steelers won last night, by the way, i read in the paper. i don't know how you feel about it. you're all new england patriots fans. you know you're going to win the super bowl again. whether you blow the football up or not. yeah, somebody is hissing at me. there's a guy here named tom raft, he's a former attorney general. i didn't know he was going to be for me and he didn't know. i said until you endorse me, i'm putting a curse on the boston red sox. when he finally endorsed me, i took off the curse only for home games ch anyway, i grew up in this little town. his father was a coal miner. hi ground father died of black lung, lost a lot of his eyesight. my dad's fall was -- family was

really hard scramble. my mother was a very smarts lady but never was able to go to college. her mother lived with us. an immigrants from ewing salave'a, could barely speak english. the town where i grew up was almost all democrat. the town did not have great security. if the wind blew the wrong way people could find themselveses out of washing washington work. it's where i-got my values. the values i carried into politics, it would be sticking -- sticking up with those people because a up with lot of times no one represents that -- them. that's important because that i believe puts you in connection with the fears and the concerns and the hopefulness that people try who play by the rules,

to get ahead, try to teach people about how great our country can be. i left there and went to a small midwestern school. not sure that any of you have ever heard of it. it's called ohio state niversity. i was there for a short time and very frustrated by some things that were happening. big bureaucracy. red tape and all that. great place, i loved it, but it was trying. i wasn't doing well so i met with the president of the university. uncle emil told me you always start at the top. so i badgeered him to let me in. i went in to see the president. he had a very impressive office, beautiful rugs and chairs and all that. i said sir, i've been in school for about a month and i'm un decided here at ohio state but looking around amount everything

you have in this office maybe this is the job for me. hat do you to? he told me about his fundraising and academic responsibilities and said the next day he would go down and talk with president nixon. i said there's a number of things i'd like to talk to him about also. could i go with you? he said no. i said if i write a letter would you give it to him? e said he would. i wrote a letter to the president inviting myself for a discussion. i go to my mailbox a couple weeks later and there was a letter from the white house and i open it up and i go upstairs and i call home and my mother answers the phone and i said, the president of the united states would like to have a meeting with me in the oval office. my mother is shouting, pick up the phone, something is wrong with johnny. short, they tory buy me an airline ticket, i fly to washington, i get in

through the security, i'm sitting outside the oval office. a guy walks up to me, he says you get five minutes alone with the president of the united states. i tell you what i'm thinking. new jacket, new shirt, new tie, new pants, i'm not coming out in five lousy minutes. you're out of luck. they opened up the door, i walked in, i greeted the president, i spent 20 minutes in the oval office as an 18-year-old first-quarter freshman and the bad news is i spent 18 years in congress and f you add up all the time in the oval office, i peaked out at the age of 18. gov. kasich: bobby rahal is an indycar driver. he won the indy 500 and i took him in to see president reagan. when he won that race. we walked in the oval office and there is president reagan and bobby is melting and i met reagan in 1976 as a really young man and worked with him. the president looks at bobby

rahal, and says so you won the indy 500, did you? have you ever heard of of barney olfield? he was a great indycar driver, right? bobby said, sure. reagan said, one day i was driving my car on the california freeway and i like to drive really fast and i got pulled over by a state trooper and he walked up to the window on the driver's side and he looked at me and said, who do you think you are barney olfield? he said, no, but he sitting right next to me. if you'd like to meet him. that was typical of reagan. so i was a state senator at 26. i was the youngest elected in ohio. i knew no one. i built a team of people. there's a lady here in new hampshire who last week drove four hours to see me in vermont and she has been helping me since 1977. why? i have no clue. i think there must be something wrong with her. to tell you the truth.

gov. kasich: she has been a devoted partner of mine from the standpoint of, we want him to do well. that's really, really cool. those are the kind of people who helped me first get elected. i was a troublemaker, i shook it up in the state senate. i went through as in ohioan. not a republican, though i was. and a conservative. i wrote my first bunt trying to avoid a tax increase that the republicans were trying to do. that got everybody worked up. i went to congress at the age of 30. my mom and dad -- my hometown, politicians got into a lot of trouble. one time, i went to my class reunion when i was a congressman and one of my classmates walked up to me and said, johnny -- they used to call me pope -- he said, i understand you are a congressman. i said yeah. i'm feeling pretty good. he said, i voted for you to be one of the most likely to succeed. what went wrong?

gov. kasich: and he wasn't laughing. ok? i got elected to congress and my mother and father were mazed. my parents were just regular old folks. and here was there son going to work with the president. it was pretty cool. i served on the defense committee exclusively for my first few years. you remember the hammers and the screwdrivers and the wrenches that cost tense of -- i found that with some other congressman and that started the reform of the pentagon. i'm a believer in reforming the military, but making sure the military is strong. when you are a republican and reforming the military, how do you think that goes over? not well. so what? that's my job, to fix things, improve things. wasted money is not getting into the hands of our men and women in the military.

favre step on a couple of toes -- i don't really like to but i will. six years in, i got on the budget committee. john was talking about my work. my first year, i was in my hometown and i was filling up my gas tank and i had been to a couple budget committee meetings and i was very disappointed with what i learned. i said, the republicans did not have a good plan, the democrats didn't have a very good plan and i was squawking about it and this guy walks around the gas tank and says if it's so bad, what are you going to do about it? good question, right? like when you go home from college. you complain and your mom and dad say what are you going to do about it? it is pretty powerful. i flew to washington, i called my staff, i said we are going to write a budget for the united states of america. they said, there are a hundred people in the white house and we only have six. i said, i know that we are overstaffed, but if we stay out of each other's way. >> so i wrote a budget. the vote was 405 to 30.

i got the 30. i thought i was doing great. then each year, i started recruiting more and more people. those numbers grew. let me tell you. yesterday, we were at this big, public meeting. this guy says well, i'm trying to clean up things in my hometown and i'm really unpopular and i keep fighting spending. when you work inside of government and you try to change it, you don't win a popularity contest. but what happens is, if you're right and you're thinking appropriately, people will join you. i don't care what you are doing. i don't care what you are working against. if what you are working against and what you are for is compelling, whatever it is, you will start off all alone, but over time, people will help you. i teach that to my daughters. i have two daughters that are going to be 16 in january. they are still learning a lot. we just kept at it year after

year after year and i would upset the apple cart year after year after year. one year when president clinton raised taxes, we got together with a group of republican democrats to take a penny out of every dollar of federal spending and congressman sweat, who's here with us today -- this is his home. he deserves a round of applause for his work in washington, please. gov. kasich: i don't care what party you are in. come on, let me see some applause. look, we can't be a place in america where we can't find common ground with people who may not always share our philosophy or our party preference. we are not a parliamentary system like they have in england. if we want to switch to that, let's change the constitution. i'm not for it. dick was a good man and worked on this. we tried to get a penny out of a dollar and we were fought by

everybody. we came very close but we failed. we became the majority, i became the budget committee chairman. in writing every single piece of the federal budget, we finally got to a balanced budget agreement. it was the first time we balanced the budget since man walked on the moon. we did it for four years, paid down some of the debt. when i left washington, we had a projected $5 trillion surplus, all of which got spent. i just never thought they could spend that. i thought, that is inconceivable to me. being governor of ohio, i learned something else being an executive. maybe even being in washington. people want us to spend. it expands government. they are not all that interested in cutting it back. because there are always interest groups that defend what is going on. you have to have a tough spine. you have to be willing to put your neck out there. but in politics, that is what

you should be doing. it is a unique profession. it is a place where you should not be in it for a lifetime. you should be in it to do as much good as you can. the best way to do it is to get in and out of politics. that is the best way. that's really the coolest thing to do. anyway, i left for 10 years. i worked as an investment banker for lehman brothers. i traveled all over the country. i wrote books, made speeches. and then you all remember when i was a huge television star at fox news. gov. kasich: big. wasn't i? you don't remember that do you? i have tapes in the car. i'll legend them to you if you could watch. gov. kasich: then i got a call to go back in. however you feel, you've got to feel. i feel like the lord has blessed me. he has given me opportunity to

do many things that never would i have dreamt of living up in that little blue-collar town. my parents always said shoot for the stars, which is what i always tell young people. and really should tell everybody. now, when you feel like you have been blessed, it means you have to do something back. so i told my wife i was going to go back into politics and run for governor. she said, that is just great. gov. kasich: so i ran and i won and the place was a total mess. so we have gone from the $8 billion in the hole to $2 billion in the black. to up 3 50,000 jobs 46,000 jobs. $5 billion in tax cuts. wages have risen faster than the national average. our credit is strong. we are doing pretty well in ohio. people who live in the shadows, the mentally ill, the drug addicted, the working poor, we are attending to them, as

well. trying to help our minorities to be able to grow. more entrepreneurship to be more successful. i never thought i was going to run for president. i tried this like 16 years ago. i was just very young and inexperienced. i was up here, things were going pretty well, and i was at this house party and i was having this chat with this lady and i'm thinking, this lady is going to run this town for me. i know it. she looks at her watch, she says what time do you think the candidate is going to get here? gov. kasich: so i left and here i am back again. i love being back here. i like this process. on thursday, i'm going to unveil a comprehensive plan to get the country moving forward. it will have to do with fiscal issues, our debt. balancing budgets. it will have to do with shifting power from washington back to where we live --

[applause] gov. kasich: it will have to do with putting a halt on regulations. one of the things we're going to create is a common-sense court. where if you are getting hassled by the federal regulator, you will have somewhere to go outside of some government bureaucrat that is going to tell you you lose. we are going to be promoting the comprehensive energy policy, tax policy to provide more economic rowth. all of this is designed to -- and i probably left something out -- trade, reforming trade -- all of this is designed to create economic growth to control our spending and to restore prosperity in our country. now, it will be a pretty comprehensive plan. it will be a blueprint. i've only been a candidate for slightly over two months. like maybe two and a half months. we will fill this in as we get farther down the road. for example, i will absolutely have a program that will kill at least one department of the federal government.

i already know which one i like. we've got to work through it. these things are complicated. what i want you to know is we don't have any more time to waste. and trying -- coming up with something, ideas -- doesn't matter if you don't get them done. if you've got a program that says we are going to repaint the house this spring, but you don't have any paint, what good does it do? you have to have a program that is practical and you have to have a way to get it done. if you don't get it done, you are nothing more than a clanging bell. i'm not interested in that. i'd be wasting my time. i know how to get these things done. it is not because i'm so smart, but it's because i have people like the congressmen. congressman sweat said i will help you deal with entitlements. you have to put teams of people together who want to bring about ig change.

so i've done it a bunch of times and i would like to continue to do it to help the country to do better and to make sure that our kids are not continuing to be pushed deeper and deeper into debt. where we can get a more solid economy so people can work. work is dignity, isn't it? it is about family. it is about how we feel about ourselves. i think creating jobs is our greatest moral purpose. government can't but it certainly can create an environment where jobs can happen. so folks, no pie in the sky from me. reform proposals that i think an pass. i will put the spring work out on thursday that will spell out

the first 100 days of the kasich administration. that is hard to say that sometimes. that is a big thought, being president. some people run for president and they say, i've always wanted to be president. the reason i'm running for president is because we are back to the blessings and the gifts and i want to give back and help my country. but i do have to tell you, in a funny way, when i was a little kid, we had a christmas tree with a little electric train that ran under it and you could put the stuff under the tree. but under that tree was a white house. i was going through my closet the other day and there it was. if i don't win -- if i don't win, i will just look at it and imagine. gov. kasich: all right, questions. who wants to go first? yes, right there. >> i'm a retired federal employee. as a retired federal employee, i loved my job. gov. kasich: where did you work? >> i was an air traffic controller. i loved the job, but i did not like the bureaucracy, the inefficiency and the fact that there, unfortunately, were people they worked with that

could hide in the shadows because they wncht doing their job. it seems to me that within the government, there are good people and good departments, but there are a lot of people hiding in the shadows that are not doing their job, and i always thought if that could get that in itself would save -- how would you deal with it? gov. kasich: no question. first of all, i don't want to get too much into what i'm going to say on thursday. come down to the community college and you will see more. but as we move things out of washington and move them back to the states -- i will give you one example. we have 100 separate -- it may be more than 100 separate programs in k through 12 education that comes with springs -- strings from washington. i propose we'll bundle them up, send them to the states and you're in charge. then we've eliminated all this red tape, strings, bureaucracy and everything else.

then you can run it from here and not from washington, right? so as you begin to shift these programs out, you begin to deal with what you're talking about, which is all the strings and the bureaucracy. here's the other thing, i don't think we should hire any more federal workers. when people retire, don't fill their jobs. in ohio, we have the lowest number of state employees in 30 years. we didn't do it by firing anyone. you really don't want to fire people unless you are doing a really bad job or it is absolutely necessary because what does that achieve, really? some people have been replaced in ohio. the bulk of it is through attrition. what you do is you just tell people -- you jump in and you do more. learn the other person's job. there are two other elements. one, the leadership. is the leadership inspiring or are they dull, boring, and don't are? because leadership can motivate people.

finally, we have to figure out a way, which we try to do in ohio, to energize the people who do work in the government. you weren't a bad person in there, right? i'm glad you feel that way about yourself. gov. kasich: there is a reality that you are going to need these folks. they get frustrated by what they see. we need to be able to set them loose. allow them to be more creative, to take more risks. don't steal the -- take more risks. do things that are more aggressive and innovative and fun. because when people do that then their job has meaning. suspectsif all they do is go to work and punch a clock. -- clock and have no meaning then you have a morale problem. if they have a good idea, tell us what it is. if i say anything, i might lose -- that's hard to do. because people are like i don't

know. if i say anything, i might lose my job be or -- you have to give people permission to be who they are. ok? [applause] was that a tough job being an air traffic controller? >> i think it was a great fit for me. i loved it. i did not think it was a tough job. gov. kasich: you guided planes down? >> yes. >> really? >> yes. that is really cool. thank you. yes, ma'am. >> i'm an active member of the ministry. gov. kasich: what church? >> u.c.c. south church in concord and we just had a conference on the moral obligation to save god's in addition to causes of climate recent we know that extreme droughts and hurricanes and snowstorms. do you plan to decrease man's impact on global warming by

preventing the keystone pipelines and fracking? which will increase the carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. gov. kasich: i would build the keystone pipeline tomorrow, if i could. [applause] gov. kasich: but look. i appreciate what she is saying. what she is saying is we have an environment and, look, i flew in yesterday looking at beautiful new hampshire with the changing leaves. it is beautiful, beautiful. i'm going to be way up in the north country. beautiful. we don't want to destroy that. we want to take care of it. but we don't want to worship it. sometimes people leap to conclusions that i think are not accurate. for example, one of the things we want in our country, which i think you agree with, is energy independence. we don't want to rely on regimes in the middle east that are radical.

saudi arabia funds a bunch of radical clerics. we don't want to rely on that. we want to be energy independent in north america. we want to reduce the cost of energy in america so we can bring some of that heavy industry back to america. we are beginning to see some of that happen. that doesn't mean that we think that is inconsistent with being good stewards of the environment. do i think that man has impacted climate change? i do. to what degree, the jury is still out. that does not mean we don't pay attention to problems like mercury. we do pay attention to that. in ohio, we reduced emissions by 30% in the last 10 years. if i leave to judgment and it puts this man out of work, you don't want him out of work.

i believe being good stewards of the environment and still having economic development is not inconsistent. i also believe we should have renewable energy. wind, solar. iam going to have a proposal will have a proposal to put wind turbines in front of every state capital in america. the wind is there, we just haven't captured it. i think we should clean it but we should burn it. the other thing, being a member of the church, is that we don't want to worship the environment. i want to be a good steward. it is getting better.

fracking, we don't have a methane problem in ohio. stream.ground water gov. kasich: we are not doing that. i can have people call you and tell you exactly how we handle it. we have the toughest environmental rules in the state of ohio because it is not inconsistent to be able to frack and have a stable environment. i would rather not put my friends out of work. i think it is great. we will work on it together. much and we can we -- steps. steps

we have to be careful about it, but we don't want to go overboard if we don't have all the evidence. >> the obama administration and have a plan to upgrade our new shuttle -- our nuclear arsenal and a cost of approximately $1 trillion. that is a lot of money on weapons we really can't afford. as a taxpayer, i want those trillion dollars spent on rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure.

what would be your priority? gov. kasich: first of all, there is a lot of assumptions. i am for upgrading our nuclear .apability it is part of our deterrence. when it comes to the pentagon, i believe that we need to properly fund these weapons system. i don't want to have a no-fly zone in syria and not dominate the skies if putin decides he wants to fly a plane in there. we like to think we live in a but we haverld

people that want to destroy us. the nuclear deterrent is part of our nuclear arsenal. it is imperative, as we rebuild the pentagon, that we make sure we make the pentagon efficient. don't spend any more than what you need on things you don't need because it deprives our men and women in the military of having the resources that they need. >> the benefit to building these weapons goes to these corporations. gov. kasich: i could care less about the benefit to a corporation i care about a strong defense. >> they are lobbying people. gov. kasich: i was involved in limiting the production of the b-2 bomber. the pentagon wants to build 132 and i wanted to build 13 in the result was we built 20. thatnk you were with me on

and you were with me on that and wasson new -- and john sanu with me on that. i don't really care about the lobbyist. sometimes they will say something that is right, but they don't tell me what to do or my team. the minute you do that, you have lost the moral high ground. >> defense is all well and good, but our armed forces have really got the short end of the stick. when we have captains deployed in afghanistan who are getting letters saying you will not be continued in service at the end of your deployment. the potential right now for another 40,000 servicemen to be put on the unemployment rolls because there is no other way to say it, they are being laid off. beings systems aren't upgraded, numeral systems aren't being procured. how do you plan to get away from

-- we will collect the military-industrial complex in congress, that goes for the big weapons systems and ignores the little guy that has to use them. gov. kasich: when i was limiting the production of the b-2, i wanted to take the savings from that to take standoff weapons so that we didn't have to fly the pilots and put them at risk. secondly, our military has to be lethal but it has to be mobile. i wouldple, i said that never have increased troop levels in afghanistan, i would've used special forces to deal with people when we saw them pop up. one of the groups in the i work with them in the area of special forces. i always believed in special forces because that is the future of warfare. that doesn't mean you don't need a strong army. you absolutely have to have a strong army, we are cutting it

too low. i believe we have to spend more on defense. on thursday, if you come down to nashua, to the community college, you will see a number of what i think we need to do over the next 10 years in terms of being able to fit in. we have to have a good defense. we can't be week, we have to be strong. you have to build the things you really need, not something that somebody says, this is a great new system. they have to work. the other thing is -- i will give you one example. the roadside devices blowing our people up in iraq -- the military got together and i think in less than two years, they deployed a whole new system. they said we don't care about the red tape and bureaucracy, we need this for our soldiers and they got it. that is ridiculous.

we need a lot of common sense back from government. we need common sense on the tax code. let me tell you something else that happens. there were so many over-the-top requirements for how you change things. if you streamline a process, somebody writes a story saying there are conflicts and all this other business in these are bad. if we don't cut through the all this stuff, we can't get anything done. we need to streamline not just the pentagon, but the entire government. how about more technology? we are in the 20th century, not the early 20th century. sometimes i wonder why i am doing this to tell you the truth.

>> the other day we heard a conference about compromise. how do you stand firm on policies that we feel as conservatives are right and should not be compromised on? gov. kasich: do you have a family? do you have a husband? let me start with him. because i think i know the answer. when you are with your wife, do you get everything you want? do you ever have to give up anything that you really don't want to give up? you do? ok. you probably never do, do you? because i said that, somebody will attack me in the press. let's also get a sense of humor back in america, ok? i'm tired of all this nonsense. anyway, we somehow separate politics from life.

we think that in politics we should never give but in life we give all the time. do you have children? ok/ you have relatives though. who is coming over for thanksgiving? life is full of compromises, but you kind of know when that compromise is eroding your principal, don't you? that is the way you have to do it in politics. ideologue a stubborn that says my way or the highway. sometimes you have to walk away from the table. reagan was when meeting with gorbachev and gorbachev said, what we will do wars will get rid of star -- you get rid of star wars, we

will get read of all nuclear weapons. reagan knew we had to have missile-defense, so you know what he did? you look at gorbachev said, sorry, no and got in the car and left. and the soviet union fell apart because of our economy and technology. in 1995, i was involved in the government sent down because i felt it was our last time to deliver a message to get to a balanced budget. bill clinton -- i knew there were enough people there to get the budget balanced. sometimes, you have to give. you have to put yourself in the shoes of the other person, too. we fundamentally know that we don't need anymore government. we need less government. we know we have to reform the entitlement programs.

we're going to have to fix social security and there are four or five things we know are .n the table do you raise the retirement age, do you link the payments into how much you get out? do you go with a prices rather than a prices and wages scale? these are all technical ways in which to fix it. if i'm going to fix social security and i think i'm going to shove a republican plan through, it isn't going to work. realize that when people can say to themselves, i am here to serve the country and not me, you get an ability to the road strong feelings for the good of the whole. that is how you run life. somehow we get people that say,

"hell no, we're not changing." we end up not being able to solve a problem. sometimes it is no, but it should be no that often. except rack to deal with my almost 16-year-old daughter's. boy, is that a hard one for me. i have to compromise things there because my wife knows a lot better about what we have to do than i do. could you say that again? is, in order to do that, you have to win the nomination. there is a guy up there now, the front runner, and he keeps .hooting his mouth off i heard on fox news and some other stations that a person

like yourself or maybe jeb bush and some of the other candidates were talking about their record, what they have done in the past. i have heard you a few times and you have the next linda record in ohio. i think it is great. but i think that they want to hear what you are going to do if you are the president. and i think that right now it is so important, the country is in such bad shape, that we need someone like yourself. in order to do that, you have to win the nomination. i think it needs to be shaken up what is going on. maybe some of the proposals, some of the things you want to do, they are good things, but you are going to have to make it -- gov. kasich: yellen from the housetop. we're going to release things on

thursday. this is a very interesting process. national polls don't mean all that much. the only time they matter is when you are trying to get people to give you money and they ask if you can win. let's talk about how you build a political campaign. let's talk about how you build a house. do you go to the top floor of spindly that if something happens and the wind blows, the house collapses. my 19thmpshire, this is or 20th town hall meeting. we are building it from the ground up. some of it is true in iowa. work.hard you can't pay attention to all i'm not going to

say anything to get everybody all stoked up so i can get your vote. then i would not be true to myself. i'm going to go through this campaign as best i can raising the bar then lowering the bar because -- i will just give you an idea. one of the people, without mentioning his name, came out with a tax plan. it puts us $11 trillion in the hole with no way to pay for it. that will be known over time, i think. right now, i think we are in the american idol quarterfinals. ultimately, it gets down to fewer. i appreciate what you are saying . be talking about not only what i have done but a lot of the things that i am for. people need to know what it is i would like to do.

i appreciate what you are saying. >> you have seen the white house -- gov. kasich: i haven't seen it for a while. >> when you're in the white house, can you take a little piece of the zone with it? gov. kasich: you want to come down and visit? i will give you five minutes in the oval office. senator gordon humphrey is here. he is a great one, isn't he? >> plain talk, truthful talk. gov. kasich: you have heard me now for long enough. haven't i been plain enough? -- iis the other thing learned this when i got to be governor more than when i was a congressman. -- tone matters a lot.

you want to bring people together. think wee things i need most in this country is to reignite the spirit of citizenship. isn't that really what matters our country? the country is not great from the top down but good from the bottom up. i have never been accused of being weak or confusing. as so always been viewed strong. early on in my career, when i first got elected governor -- it is sort of funny how things turn -- i was invited to speak to a group of lobbyists, special-interest groups. i don't often think said we're going to have to do a lot of change here in ohio. a lot of groups are going to fight change. let me explain to you. you either get on the bus or we're going to run you over with

the bus. that is pretty direct. the media went and distorted it like i was talking to the people. i wasn't talking to the people, i was talking to the special-interest groups standing in the way of what we need to do to fix our precious state of ohio. some of them, we had a run over with the boss. election., i had an 86 out of 88 counties. i won a county that barack obama won. i got 56% of union households and i won by over 30 points. we are still trying to figure out those two counties. we are not. but i think it happens because we are stronger economically and people feel they are excluded.

we as adults are helping our children to be stronger and believe in themselves. we have to be fighting the .courge of drug abuse , talked to a guy this morning he told me his son got on .cstasy, the drug they searched high and low, in homeless shelters. they found his remains in new hampshire. he had been hit by a car and

killed and they found his remains. this sky and talking to, he says, i want to show you a picture. he took me into his office and showed me a picture of his son, and then he showed me a bag of refills he needs for his wife who had a breakdown when they found the sun. we have to figure out how to help them. be polarized. love one another, get along with one another. that is why i want to be a good leader. i can take one more and then i have to go. i have so many more miles to go before i sleep. i should write to that as a poem.

>> i would like to say thank you for coming. the last eight years, this government has put more people out of work, put them on medicare, medicaid, free phones, free this, that, and the other, and i think it has damaged our country a lot. many people do not want to work for a living. governor kasich: my mother had a great motto, and i follow it. it is practical. "it is a sin not to help people who needs help, but is equally a sin to continue to help people who need to learn how to help themselves." when we help able, we want to demand personal responsibility, because it is not fair to the people who are out there scraping and working to get by . nobody but grudges help to somebody who really needs it, but you cannot go on forever. we need to help them get up and to get walking and to be successful and become good role models for their kids. some people it is harder to help than others.

i just got to tell you, you grow up in a neighborhood, you will not see it in bow, but in some of our areas, including ohio, there are kids that wake up in the morning and all they hear our gunshots. these are kids we got to help, get them on their feet. everybody is made in the image of the lord. everybody has worth. to coddle -- coddle is not the right word, but to give and not ask for something back. in my state, if you get food stamps, you got to work 20 hours a week. unless it is a high area of unemployment, if you're able-bodied, there are exceptions to it, but if you are able-bodied, you got to do some work for it. some of the groups who are my friends do not like it. , they think that is harsh. i do not think it is harsh at all. you can do something for what you get from somebody else. so anyway, i think it is a mixture.

here is the thing -- i would like welfare to be run basically in the states, so your values can run the welfare program in new hampshire and our values in the buckeye state can be there. let's forget this one-size-fits-all and make sure that we can give people power to shape a lot of things where they live, from the bottom up, rather than the top down. so nice to be here. i have to go. and i hope that you can sign up, so thank you. [applause] [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]

[indiscernible] >> what specific cuts in federal

spending? >> i just retired from the oil business.

i get a little excited when i hear questions like the one you are asked. fracking in we are ohio and we manage it. people want energy independence, i agree. >> do you support banning abortions with no restrictions? i support life of the mother and insist. >> those of the only exceptions? gov. kasich: the three of them. rape, incest, and life of the mother. i am for abortion only in the case of rape, incest, and the life of the mother. thank you.

>> are you aware that someone said trump would have you as his running mate? gov. kasich: that's nice. all right, we got to go. >> [indiscernible] governor kasich: you did? we have to get you to help us. >> what has been your biggest bipartisan accomplishment while being governor? gov. kasich: a number of them. transportation was a really big

one. human trafficking was another big one. i could give you the whole long list but there are tons of them we have been able to do together. it is really important. in the the partisanship state of ohio a lot different when i was in politics back before i got out of politics. it is getting better now in ohio. we had just yesterday a former leader, she was up here actually holding a basic -- holding a .ohn kasich sign this is an effort where you plug together on a lot of things. started to figure out how we would improve transportation, none of them liked it, and now they are all the fathers of the idea and that

is perfectly fine with me. >> your message to new hampshire voters -- gov. kasich: let me give you one of the thing, and that was the unanimous vote on fighting the problem of drug abuse in our state. >> your message to new hampshire voters that are probably watching tonight's debate? gov. kasich: have fun. i probably won't be watching. i will roll out a plan on thursday, it will be a framework , and it will be a program i will say that we will try to enact the first 100 days. i say that,n because it seems like you are willing to reach across the aisle. gov. kasich: i will probably watch a little bit of the debate but probably not that much. i am doing politics all the time in every once in a while you don't want to do it.

>> one questioner raised the issue of, he loves you. how do you get your name out? you were up in the polls in the new hampshire polls. maybe slid back a little bit. gov. kasich: we're doing fine. we have a high positive, low negative. we have a great organization and we are doing fine here. we're doing better in iowa. it is about building a house from the bottom up. when iran for the state senate back in the great state of ohio, the weekend before the election a citizen journalist said i was a nice guy that i would lose by 30 points. you can always see the things that are being done in the underbelly. you can't always see the things getting done from the ground up. -- youdon't win it with don't win it with polls or name id or any of this other stuff?

what time are the scorpions coming on the bus? c-spancampaign long takes you on the road to the white house. we are taking your comments on twitter, facebook, and by phone. every event we cover is available on www.c-span.org. washingtonext holtz-eakin on the first debate. talk aboutgreen will

the debate. washington journal live each morning on c-span. >> presidential candidate jeb bush to manchester, new hampshire today to talk about health care. from the new hampshire institute of politics, this about a half hour. from the new hampshire inse of politics, this about half ho. jeb bush: thank you. thank you to this great university. this is my third or fourth visit. the primary season is young. i'll be back, i'm sure. it is a joy to be with you all. i'm here to talk about something that is really important.

how do we turn what we have into a 21st century health care system? not just insurance, but the system altogether. how can we envision what a health care system can look like in 2025, rather than protect the version of 1975, which in effect is what we have now. america, really if you think about it, is a place of discovery and innovation. if we fix a few big things, we can transform ourselves because we are the most dynamic country in the world across the spectrum of policy to make policy better for ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren. this will require a new approach on how we allow people to stay healthy, how we reward that. support life-saving medical discoveries and care. let me give you some personal anecdotes. next week, or the week after next, on the 20th anniversary is an event that my wife, columba, and i have been involved with to