great american story continues to reach across borders and oceans, races and religions, politics and party lines. >> then on real america, the march on washington. information agency film for jobs and freedom. this year marks the 40th anniversary of the nasa viking landing on mars. historians recently discussed the viking program, which landed the first spacecraft on mars on july 20 19 76. >> the events were exciting. when it landed it was almost powered up.

two photographs were to be taken so they could be delivered forly quickly back to earth nasa to be able to confirm that the lander had in fact landed on mars. >> then historians look at president harry truman's leadership. speaksdeleine albright with a history and about harry truman's public commitment to service. >> this is a guy who should have gone to college, a great college, deeply wanted to, couldn't. president hee wanted to help others. >> for our complete american history tv schedule go to c-span.org.

the 20thevent marking anniversary of the signing of the welfare law, public policy researchers and analysts discussed the future of federal welfare programs. posted by the cato institute, this is about an hour 45 minutes. >> i am not talking this time around, i'm going moderate the panel. i have real experts on here who are going to turn this over to because you will enjoy listening to them. the second panel we want to build a little bit on what you just heard. we heard a little bit of looking back at some people got some ideas of how they would make changes. we want to focus this panel in particular on not just what we have done but what do we do now? welfare reform is 20 years old. there is entire generations of people in college who do not

remember welfare before welfare reform. it is a question now when we talk about how to we deal with the poor, how do we fix things, how to make things better in the future that people are not looking back some much as looking forward. i am hoping we have discussions now about what are the next steps for welfare reform, what is the next version of welfare reform. i think it will look different than in the past. the panel will help answer that question and i will read everybody off and we will move one into the other and keep it moving swiftly along. we start with device president -- the vice president for family income support policy. you have heard them referred to a lot already. they are a sharp group in terms of this. i read their research all the time. she always sees finished work analyzing poverty trends. before joining the center of policy priority, she was part of

another very good group in terms of good numbers crunching and data. she also worked for the urban institute, the department of health and human services on reform issues and for the d.c. commission on social services. she has some practical level experience which is important. we will hear from michael strange who is the director of economic policies and resident scholar at the american enterprise institute. i stole some of their survey data earlier today. he works on labor economics, applied microeconomics, and social policy. he has been published in a wide number of peer-reviewed journals and policy journals. and of course most of the major newspapers. and has done a great deal of work on welfare reform and poverty issues for aei.

rebecca is the managing director for the property to prosperity program at american progress. she worked for they national organization of social security claimants. an acronym that i cannot even pronounce. she worked on disability which is another issue we have heard addressed here. she is very prolific in terms of the tv and debate world. we don't do screaming here. it is a different world. we're looking forward to her as well. and a senior editor at the claremont review of books and author of two books. this should fit in well here. his works appeared in a wide number of newspapers and peer-reviewed journals across the country.

we expect a lively discussion here so i will get it out of the way and turn it over to donna. i think it is under -- important to understand where i come from. i want to start with background for myself. i've spent the last -- i have been involved with looking at welfare reform since it started. i have been mainly doing work in

the field looking at the implementation of welfare reform and particularly tanf. you heard conversations about the work that kathy even did on how people make ends meet and i was one of the interviewers who did work on that book. i did work on afdc. one of my key focuses is on work and think about how we do a better job of helping people who have trouble entering the labor market. i think on welfare reform it is a good time to take a step back. what i want to do is i think one thing that is important is my experience of being in the field is there are three distinct periods since tanf was implanted and the reason is that is important is that i often think that we have a positive story that comes from the early years. in the first four years, 1996 through 2000 we had a booming economy. states really changed and

shifted their welfare offices toward work. we saw work programs being developed that had not been before. we had lots of job opportunities for people including people who had more barriers to employment. we also saw the beginning of people using full family sanctions, which is people losing benefits who could not comply with work requirements. the caseload declined that we saw in the early years was not on because people were getting work. then we had this second period, and that is when we had the first recession hit. what really happened is we started to see this shift and more movement of the fun -- of the money. states had so much flexibility, they had budget holes they needed to fill during the recession and tanf became a slush fund.

we started to see much more movement away from those core purposes. and then what happened then is in 2005, tanf was reauthorized and we had the dra and we had declining work opportunities, we had what came to be impossible to meet work standards which i will talk about in my recommendation. we had the great recession hit, we had even bigger budget holes and money out of tanf's core purposes. very quickly i think what is also important to me in thinking about what are the facts that i subscribe to that my recommendations come from. one is that heather mentioned is that tanf serves very few people. it serves 28 for every 100 people in poverty. there are 12 states, and that number will certainly almost increase, and a number is below 10. in louisiana, there are about

five families out of every 100 who receive assistance who are in poverty. that number is very low. we also know that benefits have gone down dramatically and we have not had -- benefits have not increased and in most states benefits are extremely low. you have heard this morning, this slide is an important side which really does show the employment trend and why i think it is important to keep those three periods in check. ec this gap between never married mothers with children and single women with no children under the age of 18. that gap was closed in 2000. in 2000, those lines started to move together. what you have is two groups of women who have similar levels of education who have almost identical employment trajectories. what i take away from this is that there was this movement, we

are on a downward trajectory for almost everybody who has a high school diploma or less. that is a labor market issue we have to start paying attention to. here think is another thing that is important is what this does is to look at the number of single mothers who are not employed. we've seen a lot about people who are employed and saw that go up. you also see the number of single mothers with no employment during the year going up. the bottom line is to show what is happening to tanf. we have 2.4 times as many mothers who are not employed at all during the year that we serve on tanf. we have a group of women, single moms were not in the labor market and are not getting any help. that is something we need to be worried about. you have heard before there is eight cents of every dollar of tanf goes to work programs.

states are not spending their money to help. there is a lot of people who could be helped by that but are not. not only does it not go for work, it does not go for childcare and it does not go for basic cash. so given that set of facts what do we need to do to change tanf so we can focus on the facts that we have for today, not on the history but on today. i think what we need to be doing is we need to focus on two goals, and ron mentioned this in his presentation this morning. we need to be focused on how to we provide an effect of safety net and how do we create effective work programs? that is important for two reasons. one is that we do have families who hit on hard times and it is their kids who suffer. heather mentioned this at the

end of her presentation. we know a lot about what happened when families, kids grew up in poverty. if they do not have access to a safety net they end up in a very precarious situation. they may use some of the strategies that really allow

them to make, have more income, but they end up in very unstable situations. that is one reason why that is important, but the other reason why it is important is there are not a lot of resources available to help people who need help getting into the labor market. if they are not getting help from tanf, they're not likely to get help from other places as well. we have a poorly and declining funding stream that goes toward workforce programs. so tanf, by not serving families, we have not provided a safety net but we also have taken away the opportunity to do what tanf was intended to do which is to help families get into the labor market. the other thing that ron talked about earlier, you cannot make progress in each of those goals unless you really address how tanf funds are spent. what are the changes we could make that would make a difference? first is that states are not held accountable for serving families in need. states could serve, those numbers are going to go down. we will see more families who are serving five out of 100 families. we need to create an accountability measure.

we need to hold states accountable for providing assistance to people who need it. if it imagine that could be coming up to the national average over some time or setting some minimum standards. the other is sitting minimum benchmarks for benefit levels and eligibility requirements. one of the things we have seen as states needed the money is they have made the eligibility requirements tougher. two examples, one thing that indiana did is they made a much harder for families to come in the front door and have a very stringent work requirement which many people cannot meet. their caseload has plummeted. arizona has over the last several years gone from a 60 month time limit to a 12 month time limit. they did that for budget reasons. right now people in arizona can only receive assistance for 12 months. we think we need to set some minimum standards there so that we again have a safety net that can help families. and finally we feel it one of

the things that is important is creating a recession response fund. we had extra money during the recession because of the tanf emergency fund created, and states were able to do with providing more cash of people needed it, they were able to provide subsidized jobs, we had 265,000 jobs that were provided, they could be used for emergency assistance. we need to have some that kicks in quickly when we hit the next recession. this has to do with how do we create effective work programs? one, you have to have people in the program in the first place to help them. this is probably the most controversial recommendation that i have, but from being in the field, the one thing that we have to do is we have to replace teh tanf work participation rate with an employment outcome measure. if we don't, we will not see change. what i see in the field, states tying themselves in knots trying to meet those rates which are meaningless and i will give you an example of what i mean. the chart that i showed you of the number of women, single mothers not employed. in indiana that went from 59,000 in 1995, 1996, it is at 97,000. it has almost doubled. we have almost 100,000 single moms in indiana who are not working, had no work in 2014. on their tanf caseloads they served 10,600 families. 2200 of them were subject to work requirements. 687 of them actually met the work requirements. 612 of them were in subsidized employment so they were working.

indiana served of those 100,000 families, single parents did not have work, they in their programs were able to engage 75 of them. that is not what tanf is about and it needs to change. the other is that what we have seen in our workforce system is a movement toward much more education and training because of the change in the labor market. tanf has stayed in this workforce world and it means that we are constraining tanf recipients from being able to get the education and skills that will allow them to succeed in the labor market. it also means states do not seek

coordination and collaboration as a possibility because it is too hard because of tanf constraints make that difficult. finally, this is one of the things that ron said is that we really need to encourage states to identify effective strategies for helping individuals with significant employment barriers find employment. when welfare reform was debated, there was a lot of concern about the families who were on tanf for long periods of time. many of them had significant barriers, depressions, kids with special needs, history of substance abuse, and that is a very group of families that have been left behind. if you look at tanf, they are job-search programs without a lot of help to help people overcome those barriers and help them make those transitions and we need to think about what are the pathways that would work to help that group of families get to work. i think ron's ideas of waivers was a good one to start. we need to figure out ways to integrate them more fully. finally what i want to talk about as i said to start there is no we can accomplish anything

if you do not change the way state can spend their funding. some of it is taking away some of the flexibility they have. we have two recommendations. one is requiring states to direct more of their tanf funds to tanf score purposes. nationwide it is half. you will find states that are all over the map. and really trying to think about how can you push states in the direction so they are spending more on those core purposes and the other is we know that the block grant has lost its value. it is 30% less than it was when he was initiated. it is thinking about how can you add funding and how you can you do that targeted to those core purposes and not an increase out allows states to spend that anywhere they want. one of the lessons we learned, tanf is not a model for other programs. work requirements, we have an argument, do we leave people behind? looking at a study one of the

previous presenters, there is 10% of single moms who were worse off than before welfare reform. that is 2 million kids. we are putting 2 million kids that we are putting in precarious situations. if you look at the next 2 million they were even and then there is some increase. you lead you see this difference between some people who were helped and some who are worse off. we need to worry about this kids who are worse off because they are the ones who have the least likelihood of succeeding in the future. the other is one thing we have to recognize is that we put a lot of stock in what states

would do and the did not live up to the promise. there is a wide range of ways in which states could use their funds. we need to think about what would happen if you gave states more flexibility with other programs, would we have worse outcomes or where would we end up? they were lucky to have an incredibly robust labor market but after that they have moved away from that. they are struggling to figure out how they can do the right thing and we need to think about whether or not we know enough and whether or not states are the right ones to come up with the ideas in this flexible world to move people to work. [applause] >> thank you for having me. this is been a great morning and an important topic. it is an honor to be included in

such distinguished company. the subject is going forward, what should welfare look like? i will construe welfare very broadly and argue we need welfare reform for men. if you look basically at what is happening among men in the workforce, you see that their workforce participation rates have been going down dramatically. only 4 in 10 of adult high school dropouts have a job. the labor force participation rate of moment prime age workers has dropped from over 97% when these statistics again after world war ii. today that is 88%. we that is a tremendous decline in the share of prime age men who are working. unemployment among minority youth is shockingly high month ranging from 25% to 50% depending on the business cycle.

a lot of that is concentrated among men as well. there is a problem of men working, particularly low skilled men, men without a lot of experience. why is that happening? there is a mix of supply and demand factors. roughly the left gets is half right and the right gets this half right. there are serious barriers to work that men face. women face the, too -- i am focusing on men. there are barriers that keep men out of the workforce. specifically or if you look at programs like social security, you see -- you get a good sense of the problem. there are also demand factors. globalization is extremely important in reducing employment among men. when businesses have to compete -- when labor markets are globalized so businesses can choose to take advantage of workers in very different parts of the world, different labor markets, that pushes down wages

for low skilled men and that pushes many low skilled men out of the workforce. technological change is the most important demand-side factor that is affecting male employment. you see businesses not wanting to hire as many people in certain occupations, in certain industries. and those employment losses are concentrated among lower skilled workers. think about a bank and imagine the bank has a ceo, cashier, and custodian. technology comes along, we do not have cashiers anymore, we have atms. as technology continues to

advance, we're going to find a way to clean the buildings with fewer people. the ceo becomes more valuable. and so it is those lesser skilled workers that are being replaced, the same thing is happening in factories. you can argue that manufacturing is a white-collar profession because you sit behind a computer and tell the robots what to do, as opposed to the idea that most people have from after world war ii. the labor market is experiencing many changes. and those changes are broad, big, global changes and those changes are related to policies here at home. what is the most important? if you think about a simple economics 101 test, we know that the number of men who are working has declined.

if that was driven by supply change, by men just not wanting to work, you would expect to see wages increase. if that is primarily driven or in large part driven by demand change, business not just wanted to hire as many lesser skilled men, you would expect to see prices decline. the price in the labor market is just a wage. but we have seen are significant clients in inflation-adjusted wages. since 1979, real wages for men with only a high school degree have declined by 20%. one of the things we learned from scott winship's research is statements like the one i just made or more complicated than we often understand. the general story that wages for lesser skilled men have been falling, wages for college graduates have been rising, and

that is due in large part to the changing nature of what firms are looking for in workers. in addition to being affected by supply-side issues. i think it points us in the right direction for welfare reform in the 21st century, and i am focusing on welfare reform for men. so what should we do? i think we should remove barriers to employment. we have a serious problem, for example, with occupational licensing. it is the case that occupational licensing is a good thing. you probably would not want a brain surgeon who did not have some sort of license, although i would think there are some libertarians who would argue otherwise, but a broadly consensus view, and as michael mentioned in the introduction,

occupational licenses for hairdressers and others are barriers to entry, keeping people out, keeping people out of jobs. reform of programs, disability insurance is an obvious candidate for reform. there are likely a large number of people, a large number of men, enrolled in that program that could be working, at least to -- we normally view it as binary. you either can work, or you cannot work. there are factors like factory accidents. you cannot go back to work.

in a services economy, we can think of disability as a continuum, and if there are some jobs that disabled americans can perform and would like to perform, then public programs should not be keeping them out of that, even if it is not 40 hours a week. minimum wages, i think, are only going to be, a larger problem going forward. as a consequence, both changes in the labor market, that are pushing down wages for lesser-skilled workers, especially lesser-skilled men, and the direction things have taken, raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour is reckless and irresponsible. it is an increase that as far outside what current economic estimates of employment impacts can confidently forecast, and it is a policy that might help the middle class, but it will leave

the most vulnerable members of the society to pay the consequence, so removing barriers to employment and stopping new barriers from presenting themselves i think is very important. in addition to removing barriers, i think we need to incentivize work. the gold standard here seems to be the earned income tax credit. right now, there is an earned-income tax credit that offers over 6000 dollars for single mothers with three children. again, a lot of this depends on family size and what you are talking about, but say, roughly, $6000, and roughly $500 for single adults with no children at home, a lot of whom are men.

i think it is important that we give assistance to families with children than not, but we could expand the benefit to childless adults, while still maintaining a gap between childless households and households with children. this would serve two important purposes. it would pull people into the workforce. we know these have pulled people into the workforce, and there is every reason to expect it would happen if we do this, and, of course, the earned-income tax credit is an extremely effective anti-poverty tool, affecting children every year, and it is very well targeted. unlike the minimum wage, it goes to low-income households. it does not go to the middle class. we need to build skills. this one is much harder to do, i think, from the federal level. there seem to be some promising work-based programs targeted at lower-income adults,

lower-income men, as a way to kind of marry classroom training with what they want to increase employment and increase wages. the nice thing about these workplace training programs, they are determined by local businesses, not by bureaucrats. if a business wants a worker to do something, they post a vacancy, and the workplace -- it is the business determining what needs to be done at the business. it is not the bureaucracy attempting to divine what needs to be done. so i think there is a lot of promise there. and finally, i think as part of welfare reform for men, there need to be changes in our culture, and this is difficult.

i have some sympathy, but a culture that supports marriage, supports family, that supports fatherhood, that supports providing for your kids and being a role model in their lives and meeting your obligations i think is very important, and that is an uncomfortable thing to talk about today, but i think it is important. i think it is only becoming more important, and i think if you are talking about non-employment among men and nonparticipation among men, i think it stands to reason that if we had a stronger culture around being a good parent and meeting your obligations to your children that you might see an increase

in participation or an increase in employment. that is a conjecture. what can public policy do about that? i think that is a different issue that i think leaders can do -- can make some progress in. so i will close by addressing why this matters. there are economic reasons why we should be concerned about low employment among men, and i think you can justify a lot of policies on purely economic grounds. the growth rate of gdp and of income and living standards is tied very much to the workforce. if you look at the 1970's, 1980's, 1990's, that increase was driven entirely by women entering the workforce, and at the same time that was increasing, the workforce participation among men had been declining the whole time, so we

do not have a third gender out there that we can bring into the workforce. that means that the two genders we have -- i don't know, maybe we do, but there is no equivalent to what we saw in the 1970's, 1980's, and 1990's, and that means if we want to have a growing workforce participation rate, we will need men to reverse that trend or at least have it level off. i think that provides enough justification for many policies. if you are concerned about society, if you are concerned about civil society, if you are concerned about creating a society where individuals enjoy a mutual dependence on others and have mutual obligations to others, if you think that is

important as a matter of social justice, it is hard to have that kind of a society with men not working, with men not participating in the workforce, especially prime-aged men. as we have heard many times, people who are not working are much more likely to be in prison. people who are not working or much less likely to meet their obligation to their families, and more than that, if we care about dignity, and if we care about people living a full life, you know, for men, a lot of times that means paid employment. that is how a lot of men contribute to society, and true, it is remunerated financially, but that does not change what is happening at a fundamental level. if you care about men living

full lives and enjoying that dignity, then taking steps to increase workforce participation are among men and taking steps to increase employment among men become of paramount importance. thank you. [applause] ms. vallas: good morning. we are approaching lunchtime, so maybe it is good afternoon. my name is rebecca vallas, and i will say that it has been fun listening this morning, because there has been a lot of bipartisan participation.

i'm hoping to continue that as we continue about where we go from here. i find it incredibly useful having a conversation about poverty more broadly. to start with a realistic snapshot of who is poor in america, who is "sub-poor" it -- whoare "in the poor." and fivepoor." one showed and by that measure living in poverty. how the official poverty measure doesn't capture the much larger share of individuals in this country who are struggling to make ends meet. that is because that poverty measure is set at such an austere level.

when you look at what experts considered to be the cost of living, what it takes to maintain a basic standard of living, we are talking that family of four needing $50,000 at least to meet their basic needs. twice is what we are currently measuring. 33.4% three americans, are struggling to make ends , meet. this is consistent with the federal reserve board. when you ask people if they are having trouble making ends meet, one in three people are facing that dilemma. i will also add that it is a widely held misperception that poverty is about us and them, a binary, that the "poor" are americans stuck for life behind some line. in truth, poverty is musical chairs. half of all americans will

experience at least one year of poverty or of teetering on the edge of poverty at some time during their working years, and that number rises to four out of five americans when you count a year of being unemployed or of a head of household being unemployed or of having to turn to a safety net. meanwhile, there are a few americans live persistently below that poverty line. when you look at the time between 2009 and 2011, fewer than 4% were poor all three years in a row. now, this comes as a shock way you hear these numbers, until you look further. the three main drivers are job loss or having your hours cut back, and then life experiences. in short, for most of us, poverty is not a lifelong

identity. it is a common lived experience, so i will throw out another number, which may sound incredibly high until you listen to the tax. 70% of americans will need to turn to the safety net at some time in their life, and i am not talking about social security. 70% of americans will need to turn to the safety net at some time in their life, and i am not talking about social security. i am talking about snap, unemployment insurance, and others. it may strengthen our safety net, but it is not limited. it is more important than ever to help individuals and their families with the ups and downs, with the vicissitudes, if you

will, of life, and i do find it critical to start from a place of understanding poverty in america before we go to policy. we are not talking about a class a broken people. we are talking about a broken economy. now, as ladonna pointed out, the booming, full-employment situation -- 20 years on, the evidence is clear that there is a cautionary tale, not a model for other programs. you heard from her how it reaches precious few family in need. fewer than one in four for help, down from two thirds. snap is about 80% of families in their time of need. the program is woefully helpful

-- unresponsive to recession and even declined in some states. helping participants get into jobs is not even a measured outcome today, nor is poverty reduction, despite what this program is purportedly about, and as you heard at length again from ladonna, 95% of snap funds go to help families purchase food. it also does a very poor job supporting married and cohabiting families. and there is the maintenance of families as something you want this program to achieve, the program generally does not serve two-parent families. only a portion receive help from

tanf today. it is incredible in reaching a -- ineffective, reaching a very small and declining fraction of struggling families of kids. benefits are so meager that even the lucky few who receive tanf are still unable to meet their basic needs, and that is because in no state does tanf provide benefit up even half of the poverty level, and we are talking $10,000 for a family of three. even income from tanf and snap is not enough to bring people to the poverty line in any state. so in light of this, a proposal to model programs after tanf, something we hear a lot about, whether in the housing assistance or health insurance, would be nothing short of a blueprint for exacerbating poverty and inequality in this country, and one additional note on work requirements.

continued calls for extending work requirements to other programs as a panacea are not only unrelated to what these policies achieve, but they are also premised on a fundamental misunderstanding of what the individuals and families who find themselves needing to turn to public assistance are experiencing, what their lives look like. more than 90% of the households that receive assistance are elderly, disabled, or working households who are not kept out of poverty by the too-low minimum wage, and that is something we will have a friendly disagreement about. one other thing that i think is important to mention is the inclusion of counterproductive penalties that prevent families from having even modest precautionary savings. not only does it keep them from building what they need to get ahead, making it more likely for

them to have to remain on assistance or have to return to it, but the policy is also, as the evidence shows, incredibly wasteful from the perspective, -- administrative perspective, and the research finds nearly half of americans do not even have $400 in savings, and that means states are wasting taxpayer dollars by trying to find a needle in a haystack. and one set of remarks with disability insurance, because that has come up today, before i think we go from here, and i will let the commissioner say more, but the perception that somehow everyone is going on

"disability," and for anyone in this room who thinks it is easy to qualify for social security disability benefits, i would urge you to speak to someone who has tried to access the benefits they have earned or someone who has handled or still handles those cases. that is something i did for years as a legal aid lawyer before i entered the public policy world. listen as i tried to explain what it takes to be disabled. you have to have a physical or mental impairment that is expected to last at least 12 months or to result in your death, and you have to have that impairment in such a way that you can document that you cannot do any job that exists in the entire national economy in significant numbers at a level where you can earn even $1090 per month. that is what we are talking about, and the vast majority of

people who apply for these benefits, despite the fact that they earned them, do not qualify and do not receive assistance, and thousands of people die each year waiting for those benefits because it is so hard to document that disability. this is something to keep in mind when we think about this perception that people are moving onto this program. examining this question about the decline in the labor force participation rate with men are attributable to di, they have found there is virtually no relationship. i am happy to talk to anyone who wants to hear more about what it takes to qualify for this program. so where do we go from here? i think the tanf 20-year anniversary is a time to reflect, not just for kids and families, and strengthening tanf should be a priority going

forward, but i think it is an opportunity to keep tanf in perspective as one part of a larger anti-poverty policy agenda that we could aim towards. i think this is particularly important given economic instability now being such a widespread experience due to decades of flat and declining wages, with gains of economic growth increasingly in the hands of those in the top 1%. other things in addition to the tanf-strengthening that donald laid out this morning, if we are having a conversation about how we want to move people from welfare to work, we would be missing a huge piece of the puzzle if we did not think about

jobs and wages and folks who have been left out of the labor market, so we have heard -- about jobs and wages for those folks who have been left out of the labor market. certain groups continue to face elevated rates of underemployment and unemployment -- those not in school and not working between the ages of 16 and 24, people with criminal records, people with disabilities -- research would yield dividends when it comes to pushing towards full employment, but we also need to focus on pathways for those left behind, and i would hope we would be thinking about apprenticeships, about national service, but also about subsidized service. -- employment. from tanf, one thing we should learn about is what happened at the height of the great recession, putting thousands back to work and helping them get things on their resume so

they can move forward. raising wages. this is not necessarily bipartisan, but the minimum wage has been stuck for over six years, and when you think about what it takes for a minimum-wage worker to earn the same things today as they did in 2009, they now have to work an additional 244 hours to have those same real earnings. that is what we are talking about. raising the minimum wage to $12 would not only lift millions out of poverty, it would also yield substantial savings in public programs, such as food stamps. we would save billions over 10 years if we were to raise the minimum wage in that way. i would just say it is great to see the expansion of some

programs, but evidence does make clear that this policy has to go hand in hand with raising the minimum wage. we need work policies so working families do not need to be making choices between work and caregiving, and that includes paid family and medical leave, particularly with the birth of a child being a leading driver of poverty in this country. also, having flexible schedules is critical. taking a look at how the ragged edges of the job market, that is something i think we need to keep in mind, and i think we should look seriously at opportunities to harness the child tax credit as a tool for investing in the next generation. we need to strengthen tanf, but we also should be looking at policies to increase income, and

as pertains to children in the first few years of life, this is something a number of groups have been looking at, and i want to look at what michael talked about about removing barriers. occupational licensing is critical, and i think we need to look at the criminal justice system and poverty in this country. research has shown that if not for the trends that we have seen in mass incarceration between 1980 and 2004, our nations poverty rate would have dropped by 1/5. you cannot ignore the intersection between the two, and on the back end of that puzzle, what we have now is one in three of americans have some kind of criminal record, and this affects nearly half of american children, who now have

at least one parent with a criminal record, and because of the barriers to housing, education, and more, those children find their life chances affected. we cannot ignore the second chance policies, particularly for children, and then i would echo the message that we need to be careful as we think about the lessons learned from tanf. whether health insurance or the lack of affordable housing, we have real opportunities in the new administration to think creatively and even bipartisanly and trans-partisanly to do this. this is for families struggling to get by. thank you. [applause]

>> thank you for being here, and thank you to the cato institute. i'm going to speak at a level of generality about political purposes and premises that shape the debate over welfare. not quite two years after the law we are discussing today was enacted, the new york times denounced the state of idaho for having reduced its welfare rolls by 77% over the preceding years.

according to one academic expert quoted in the article, idaho has effectively made it the worst place in the nation to be poor. that is and was a contestable assertion, but also a clarifying formulation. the clear implication is that the goal of welfare policy is to make a state the best place in the nation to be poor and a nation the best place in the world to be poor. "the times" argued that government strictly limits the amount spent on welfare programs and the number of people enrolled in them. it follows that increasing welfare spending and enrollment is the key at making a place good for the poor. it is possible, however, to stipulate the goal but also to

-- goal of helping the poor but also to arrive at a different conclusion about the meaning of the imperative. an alternate account would be the best place to be poor is where you would likely to be poor briefly as opposed to securely and respectfully. a dynamic economy with numerous opportunities to begin and switch careers or start and expand enterprises and powerful social norms that offer the poor sympathy and encouragement, qualified by the tough love that reproaches people for choices, habits, or dispositions that

increase the likelihood they or their children will become poor and reduce the likelihood that their children will escape poverty. in theory, these two approaches to optimizing the circumstances and prospects of the poor seem mutually exclusive. in practice, america has tried to synthesize them. much of the ambiguity reflects the nature of the american experiment, which values both inclusiveness and individualism. e pluribus unum and "don't tread on me." like bill clinton, fdr rejected false dichotomies so much as to call into question true dichotomies.

he was presented with two drafts of a campaign statement, one calling for lower tariffs, one calling for lower tariffs, and -- higher tariffs, and roosevelt's response was to turn to the speech writers and say, "weave them together, boys." a spiritual and moral disintegration, fundamentally destructive to the national fiber, and he went on to call welfare a narcotic and subtle destroyer of the human spirit. on the other, he could introduce the second bill of rights in his 1944 state of the union address. the eight entitlements it

endorses can be divided in half. the first involved individuals fending for themselves, and then the prerequisites for a decent life, whose possession, in fdr's telling, had no relation to fdr's productive areas. you are not on your own with respect to housing, medicine, economic security, and education. a functionally and morally adequate safety net would guarantee these necessities to all, whether or not it appears they are willing or able to fend for themselves. there is not much point, after all, in declaring a right to welfare benefit unless you also insist that the needs of some give them a decisive claim on the wealth of others.

the welfare state we have built to pursue these objectives now accounts for nearly three fourths of federal government outlays. the office of management and budget's human resources superfund comprises these six functions, meant to achieve the goals fdr laid out. i include in today's discussion programs often inaccurately described as middle-class entitlements, such as social security and medicare, because assisting those who are not poor is a feature of america's welfare state, not a bug. it was famously said a program that deals only with the poor will end up being a poor program. in his view, the medical -- political viability of

welfare programs, the whole panoply. th it is to crisscrossed the sky with dollars for that which is mathematically impossible with and a enormous but still finite amount of wealth, that it can be taxed and transferred in such a way that nearly every household ends up as a net importer rather than a net exporter of governmentally redistributed income. in 2014, the federal government spent $7933 per american on human resources programs. adjusted for inflation and population growth, that figure was twice as high as federal spending for those purposes in 1989.

three times as high as in 1974. nearly four times as high as in 1971. and five times as high as in 1968. state and local governments also pursue what was laid out. the census numbers -- government at all levels spent about $10,500 per american on welfare state programs broadly defined. roughly $42,000 for a family of four. this calculation excludes state and local government outlays on education, which amounted to $877 billion in 2013. in addition to money the government spends to promote the

goals of the bill of rights, it also fashions tax incentives that subsidize private spending for such purposes. federal tax exemptions, for example, promote medical insurance and care, home ownership, and economic security, costing the federal government nearly $500 million in forgone tax revenue. furthermore, a significant though harder to quantify part consists of government enactments that do not entail government spending or subsidies but the use of carrots and sticks to get some citizens to help others. one example would be the american with disabilities act, minimum wage laws, rent control laws, and what requires real estate developers to incorporate low income housing into developments.

in the 72 years since president roosevelt proclaimed to this, efforts to realize the goals have grown dramatically. over the past half-century, they have become the central concern of american government. to recapitulate something michael said earlier, we are left with the most interesting boring graph in american politics, which argues that all of these incentives and regulations have done very little to reduce poverty, presumably the purpose of the whole endeavor. for the past 45 years, the proportion of americans who are poor or nearly poor has fluctuated in a narrow band from 1/6th when the economy is strong to 1/5th when it is weak.

a bewildering array of programs. wasting money is bad, but for an exceptionally affluent nation, probably not fatal. our welfare state has grown faster than our economy, but both have grown a great deal. my own back of the envelope calculation says this would have to continue for the rest of the 21st century before america's welfare state becomes scandinavian in size and scope. that eventuality may never occur and may not be all that dire if it does. i would rather live in denmark than in some other places.

a welfare state also has assets that may not be so ample. there are those who could be making contributions if we did a better job of lifting people out of poverty and preventing them from falling into it. another is the confidence americans feel about the governmental competence and integrity. like the wars in vietnam and iraq, wars on poverty engender create cynicism. with a risk to being rude to my cato institute hosts, i would describe myself as a conservative, an equivocal libertarian.

the creative destruction of capitalism is particularly creative for some and particularly destructive for others, a problem that cannot be ignored if government is to be sustained and vindicated, but it is not enough for the welfare state to mean well, and the point is to accomplish things. the contrast between growing efforts to end poverty and negligible reductions of poverty does argue that a welfare state divided against itself cannot stand. i believe that much of the american welfare state's chaos results from its fundamental incoherence.

we have treated two propositions as ingredients in a mixture, not alternatives. the results, predictably, have been a mess. fdr to the contrary, it appears there are some things we cannot weave together. thank you. [applause] >> thank you. we will take some questions. if you can wait for the microphones to come down, we will take them. and starting off for the first question or two. i want to go back to the beginning, which is sort of what is the goal?

is our goal to reduce the suffering, so their suffering is alleviated to some degree? is it somehow to enable them to get out of poverty, or is it some combination? i know some will say it is both, but i ask you to weight them, and why don't we go down the line and start with ladonna? ms. pavetti: i do not know that i can weight them. i think there is an issue with changing life trajectory. we focused on individual behavior much more than we

focused on changing the structural issues thta lead people down the path that they take, so when we make the distinction between personal choices and structural choices, i do not think that when somebody makes a choice -- we think of making a choice to not complete high school -- that that is a fair choice when they have not been given opportunity, so i think we need to think think that we have to think .bout the structural issues until we can help people move substantially forward, then we have to be able to provide a minimum level that allows people to provide food, housing and to meet their basic needs. >> i think it's a hard question.

postulate helps to normative statements and see if people agree -- can you not hear me? is this on? ultimately, we are a democracy. on these issues and should be debating them. have as a basic standard that no one who lives -- who works full times and lives in a household should live in poverty. if that person can only get a job for seven dollars an hour, the rest of society should chip in. that is one normative statement.

in a nation as wealthy as ours there should not be extreme poverty. no matter how badly you screw up, you should not start to death or your children should not start to death. perhaps a more contentious statement, but it should be at least debated and certainly one that i agree on. like that tooblem decide what kind of a safety net we want is a useful way to go about answering the question. >> i think that there are a few ways to think about this. there is how we feel normally and economically. if you care, as michael articulated about the basic

principle that no one in this country should -- i would go farther and say if someone who is earning $7.25 an hour -- i would go further, that someone who is working should not be homeless, that we should have rejection. if you look at the cost of child poverty in this country, it is $672 billion each year in gdp, so even if you do not care about the moral aspect, this is an economic issue pertaining to tanf. the argument that we need something that can protect all of us from a situation that might befall almost anyone, and that four out of five number i think hammers it home -- it is not just about mitigation and deprivation. there is a burgeoning body of

research making it clear. you can look at the earned income tax credit, food stamps, tanf. when it comes to improved health and educational outcomes and increased employment and earnings in adulthoods for those families. i hope that the q&a takes us they're a little bit. a program i neglected earlier which really needs to be discussed, i think, hand-in-hand with tanf is unemployment insurance. statistically, it is likely that we going to see a new recession. i apologize for being a bearer of doom and gloom.

if you look at who these benefits reach, we are now at a historic low of just one in four jobless workers protected when they hit that time of need, and that needs to be a conversation hand-in-hand with tanf, because of we look at programs dealing with joblessness and helping people get back on their feet, we cannot rule out u.i. >> i would say whatever policy needs we ponder, they must be considered alongside the political and social damage that comes from quietly, implicitly broadcasting the notion that if you have got a problem, we, the government, have a program that rights -- unlike what jefferson and the people who wrote the declaration of independence said, there could be rights to

anything we think you should have, so in line with my more or less prepared remarks, given the abundant efforts and policy already in the direction of mitigating poverty and preventing people from falling into bad circumstances, our focus should be not on innovations or augmentations but on simplifying and streamlining into bad circumstances, our and consolidating, doing fewer things and doing those things better than we currently are, and my final thought is that i believe once the government

addresses its role or responsibility in mitigating poverty that the challenge of helping people out of poverty, of giving them the resources to fashion good lives for themselves is largely a social rather than a governmental and political function, so i believe the most acute need there is not anything that any candidate can offer but something that can work from the bottom up rather than the top down in america, by voluntary groups, by churches, by people concerned about neighbors and co-worshipers who will reinvigorate the social capital required to help people along when they hit a tough patch.

mr. tanner: there is one thing about keeping the safety net intact, but, say, you cannot use food stamps to buy seafood, or you can only take $25 per day out of an atm if you are on tanf. we still treat them like they are three-year-olds. we cannot expect people who are poor to take responsibility in their life, so we have to give them health care and housing, and we cannot give them cash, because they might misuse it.

should we be -- the poor need more moral guidance, more direction in their behavior, making correct decisions, or should we be giving people more responsibility and say, we are going to help you -- anybody want to jump in on that? ms. vallas: i will. there are so-called welfare databases so we can track people, complete with their names and their addresses, who are these welfare recipients, and, thanks become a that has not gone into effect, because that would also be illegal.

i think what we are seeing in this era of really aggressive bureaucratic entitlement, because that is what it is, is not just something -- in this era of really aggressive bureaucratic entitlement, because that is what it is, is not just something. i take exception. i will return it in kind. there is a sense on the left that people cannot be trusted with their money. i think there is a sense that proposals and policies can gain medical popularity and actually be feasible to move forward. i think that is why we have seen that tendency. and i think because and consequence of the movement in this direction has been to affect people who experience hard times, and i think does that not only make it harder for

us to build political and public will to assure a robust safety net that is in everyone's self interest as well as broader economic interest, that it really labors under apprehensions about who is it who struggles to make ends meet, and i think we have to look at the reality of poverty in this country, and apologies to anyone i might offend, the fox news person saying it is a person eating bon-bons on the couch. ms. pavetti: a lot of the constraints and sort of the tough love policies assume that everybody can go out and get a job tomorrow or that they can get help from a church or whatever, and in my 20 years plus of doing this is not the reality that i think people face. i think the reality that people face is that if you have one little blemish on your record, whether it is criminal, or you have mental health issues, or

you have a disability, all of those things really lock you out from the labor market, and just to give you some statistics, there is a program in new york city that was actually rigorously evaluated, trying to take people with barriers who were on tanf, providing them with services to help them move into the labor market, and they had statistically significant impacts, and what they did is they moved it from 27% to about one third, so 33%, and that means two thirds were never able to find when it, and the labor market has a role to play in that, so as we struggle with -- licensing is one, but i think there are many more things that go into employment decisions that we do not take into account, and we really assume that people have much more control over their ability to earn their own income than they do.

mr. tanner: the cato institute on this, i also wonder to what degree you can have a functioning labor market when you put more regulations -- a $15 minimum per hour, and you have to have paid family leave and have to have family health care, and you have to provide vacation, and you have to provide sick days -- to what point in time doesn't say they cannot provide the productivity to offset all of those costs -- at what point in time does it say they cannot provide a productivity to offset all of those costs? mr. strain: the public policy to make it easier for people to get jobs, to reduce barriers to employment, similar to what you laid out, especially if we have an expectation that people are in some sense choosing between working or not working, if we are able to create an economy to absorb those workers, and it

answer to your question, we should never dehumanize a class of people, and we certainly should not dehumanize the poor and think them as -- and i say this to my liberal friends about also the rich, dehumanizing them. a social policy. it is distasteful. at the same time, the money that is spent on low income programs, it does not come from the money tree. it comes from the people who earn that money, and the people who earn that money do have some right to exercise some paternalism. now, stopping people from buying seafood or whatever is, at least on face value, pretty silly, but saying you cannot use this money

on alcohol, you have to use this money on -- maybe we do not want you using this money on coca-cola, or at a minimum, use this money on food, let's say -- i think that is pretty reasonable. at the heart of the reason why i think welfare programs work is that it combines paternalism and a little bit of hassle with health and assistance and rewards, and thinking about -- going forward, i think it is appropriate to create a balance there. mr. tanner: ok, let's go out to the audience now. i am sorry. mr. voegeli: if this is about productive america, and under the current regime, the now

20-year-old regime, it is too difficult, there are too few opportunities, the walls are too high, i go back to the entirety of what we are doing to -- whether it is or is not a right. if your organizations were given czar-like powers over welfare policy, which is a rough estimation of where we will be in january. [laughter] in a blank sheet of paper world, get rid of tanf and reintroduce aftc.

this time do it right and notrously, not where -- with welfare as an entitlement but a much higher floor to guarantee that no one who is on afdc as anything other than a reasonably comfortable life. even in that world we still have a divided congress. >> the thought experiment is that you are running the show. >> i will go to the audience right now. >> i wanted to pick up on the conversation you are having about what you need. when i have found was it's not just a job but all of the things around the job, the flexible work hours or the flexibility

when you have childcare issues or school issues to deal with. it is the lack of coordinated transportation where the mom cannot afford a vehicle. i found that four -- that poor parents are not that much better. we want our children but there are a lot of couple occasions. >> would have to move to a? . that?yone respond to >> i agree. i think it is. that's why when we think about core purposes we think that childcare. i don't think it is just repairing people for work but helping people to be successful at work. everything you mentioned is a part of that. >> i would agree. one quick point is i think it often gets articulated as though

paid leave is something nice to have or even permission to have a sick day, that is something it is nice to have as a cushy benefit. your job is on the line if you miss a day of work, if you call in sick, if your kid is sick. that is what we mean when we say making choices between work and caregiving. it is not just about do i go to work today? oh maybe i will work from home, maybe i will take a sick day. you will lose your job, if you take care of your family. >> it is a cost. >> i am not saying it is not, but we way -- -- but we way with the cost is worth. >> what ideas does anyone on the panel have on what policies we can adopt to address poverty that would i just poverty by increasing economic growth and wage growth and job creation? if you look at the data, we never recovered to normal since

the last recession. we do not recover to normal levels of wage growth. what is the best way to address economic policy to get the economy growing again? what ideas does anyone have to adopt policy? >> why don't we run down -- anybody? we need a reduction in the tax -- that is slowing a economic growth. we may never return to levels of economic growth from the past. we are not going to see the labor force increase significantly. right now it is on immigration that is keeping our population even stable. i think we are not going to see increases. michael, you talked about that already. minorities have moved into the labor force, we are not

considered again. we are moving toward automation as of the tools for growth and productivity. i think we may not return to the the 4% to 5% growth of the past. to the degree that we can, i think it is going to require changes to tax and revelatory policies. in the middle. >> have welfare programs hurt through violating subsidiaries -- i think mr. -- have a violated the strength of the family by substituting for the role of the father or the extended family? >> i think that was the believe that was what was going on. one of the things we do not have the answer to is thinking about

what happened with canada is we kick the floor from other people. if you look at the issue that michael raised about people being out of the labor market. if you look at the opportunity, 16 to 24 years old, disease our kids who grew up in a whole new world. they were not a part of the old welfare system. have we missed an opportunity by designing that right? sorry -- to help create better futures for our kids. i don't think we have the evidence. we may have evidence in the other direction. >> i would love to jump in. i'm glad you asked that. often the core welfare state

gets described as the "hobby state." it is something that has been possibly for decades. i don't know if folks in this room are familiar with a book called all the single ladies by rebecca tracer. it is worth a read as we think about the trajectory that a single woman has seen over the course of the last few hundred years. she argues that for many centuries, husbands had a wife he state. my colleague, heather, would go -- husbands had a wifeey state. my colleague, heather, would go further and argue that american business for a long time had a silent partner in the stay-at-home mom and wife. a lot has changed. we are no longer living in the mad men era. we need to be having a serious conversation about is updating our public policies so that we recognize that we now have in many cases to parents working, or we have a single head of household who was working who is that mother. i would argue we need to think about that.

>> i think it is an important question. there is no doubt that if we elevated the welfare state, if we eliminated the assistance to the poor, that we would see an increase in private charity. that would happen. we would see more men providing for their kids and taking in a more active role in the lives of the kids. but having said that, these programs did not just spring out of thin air. they were started for a reason. we started social security because the elderly were dying of hunger and were dying in tenement houses and disease. it was not that long ago in the 1960's that there was real starvation level harvey among children all throughout the -- level poverty among children all throughout the united states.

it is the case there is a sense in which men are being displaced within the family. churches and other charitable organizations are being displaced in society. we should take that seriously. we should design programs that encourage men to provide for the kids and that encourage the organizations of civil society to provide for the communities. that should never obscure the fact that the family and the church -- as a matter fact were not enough to create the kind of society that we want. >> let me respond to that. i hear this a lot. it is a problem of nonmarital birth. my question is who are these women supposed to marry? a lot of the problem is the men available in these communities are not particularly attractive

mates. they're unemployed, criminal records, criminal histories, there are a lot of issues like that. i remember the bush administration was good to do a lot of things putting up billboards saying "marriage is good." it is not that women don't want to get married, it is often that they lack suitable partners. i just want to put that in the context of the discussion. >> what i was going to say is i think the point from the previous question is that it is important to keep in mind the evidence that rebecca showed. we have increasing evidence that providing the eit see, snap benefits, not only has an immediate benefit of making sure there's actually income and there is food on the table, but it has long-term benefits that

really extends into adulthood of people having better educational and comes -- educational outcomes. in 20 years, we are going to have a whole new set of evidence about the important of income and the importance of what happens in child's early years. it will shape our discussion about what we should be doing to make sure those basic needs are met. i think the positive will outweigh any negatives you think would happen. looks i wanted to speak to your question. -- >> i wanted to speak to your question. get away from the binary view of single versus merit as though those are permanent status is. or as though people are giving birth to sing a mom's.

when you look at the -- to single moms. there are more married parents living in poverty than there are never married karen's living in poverty -- married parents living in poverty. in the past, single versus merit and the billboard version is really important so we can be thinking about how to keep families who are together, get -- together, together. you find that rising inequality declining union membership and poverty, actually -- actual material deprivation are huge drivers of family dissolution. whether merited or cohabiting is helping family stay together and to stay strong -- whether married or cohabitating is helping families stay together and to stay strong. [no audio]

[no audio]>> right now, we will take you live to virginia where we plan to hear from vice president shall nominee mike pence. speaking from a college just west of washington, d.c. this started a few minutes ago.

some introductory remarks are underway. we expect to hear from the vice presidential nominee in just a few moments.

>> we are live here on the campus of a trick henry college in -- of atricure henry college henry college. we expect to hear from the governor of indiana, mike pence

in a few moments. later on we will hear from senator tim kaine from florida and we will be taking your phone calls after we hear from mike pence in virginia. mike pence is making his way north from richmond. earlier he tweeted this, one of his stops at millie's diner, a local institution, while in richmond virginia, cannot wait to dig into the devil's mess. we will assume that is in entree. earlier this week he was in charlotte, north carolina and this headline from the charlotte observer there in the speech that mike pence made, trump will

be tough on trade,. we also have a tweet from joni ernst, the iowa republican senator hosting her second in iowa att and ride the iowa state fairgrounds. let's take a look at her invitation for all of us to attend. >> i am senator joni ernst getting ready to kick off my roast and ride. >> donald trump is expected to attend the event as well. this stating-- donald trump to attend the roast and ride. as organizers get ready for the second annual roast and ride.

it is a little bit more nonpartisan, said ernst. it's really all about veterans. she said this year will feature presidential nominee donald trump. we are waiting for mike pence to appear at patrick henry college in percival, virginia. looking at the democratic side, today was the first national security briefing for hillary clinton. this story from nbc news, hillary clinton stopped at an fbi office in white plains new york saturday morning for her first intelligence briefing as her party's nominee. the meeting lasted just over two hours and she went in alone without any aides. she regularly received national security briefings as secretary of state that this was her first since securing the nomination.

mrs. clinton has been reaching out to a number of republicans for support. this story from "the washington post." is headline, paul wolfowitz so concerned with trump he may vote for clinton. paul wolfowitz who served as deputy secretary of defense under president much and is often referred to as the architect of the iraq war says he may vote for hillary clinton. he told the german newspaper that he might vote for the democratic nominee because of the threat that donald trump security.poses to >> your live in percival virginia waiting to hear from mike pence, the republican vice presidential nominee and the governor of indiana. state onng this swing the campus of patrick henry college.

we expect to hear from him very soon.

and gentlemen, please welcome to the states the president of the student b anthony list -- -- susan b anthony list -- [applause] >> just think about it. patrick henry college and mike pence on a saturday afternoon. does it get any better?

don't you know what he means when he says these are my people? i know that i do. honored toredibly introduce my friends, the governor of indiana and the next vice president of the united states of america. we all feel the same way. you will get to know him better, you may already know him but when he communicates with the crowd, he is who he is and he has that energy and enthusiasm that has ignited the ticket and has made my work really possible and better than it was before. knocked onhave just their 600 door at their 600th

home to discuss their ticket and mike pence has added value. the enthusiasm that he brings, , that is as a human being part that resonates and trump's heart itself. there is something genuinely happy about this man and it does make you ask the question of why is this man so happy? isn't that strange? how can you be so happy? i think patrick henry college gets it. do you think it's because he sleeps a lot, eats healthy all the time, has plenty of time with his family, gets to read the books he wants to read, makes his on schedule. do you think it is because he has been a tremendous congressman, is talented, charismatic. he has all of those human qualities. those are great, but that's not it. he knows jesus.

this man is a servant leader. i have the great privilege -- yay for jesus. i have had the great privilege of knowing him for quite some time through some interesting decisions that he had to make and he has faced those decisions as akaren and the kids moment of discernment about what his call is, not what can i grasp for now but what am i called to do. what is my purpose in life? that's very different from, what is the bet -- next role i can play to aggrandize myself, me, me, me. this is why he stands as a pro-life trailblazer, a defunder

of planned parenthood when it wasn't cool. [applause] we know now some of the grotesque and horrible things that have occurred and that they are some of the greatest writers of abortion in the nation. there was a time when it was not known and he was a trailblazer. then he became governor of the great state of indiana. my favorite thing that he did he lead and signed into law a bill that protected the unborn disabled children of this nation. -- is there a more vulnerable human being in god's creation than a disabled child in the womb? who should we have the first obligation to protect?

mike pence knows who that is. he fought hard to get it done. and alongtitutional with the rest of the bill of rights that hillary clinton has assaulted, it is -- the bill of rights is under assault. what they say is unconstitutional is constitutional and a rereading of the constitution on election day is among the first things i hope that this ticket will do. adding mike pence to this ticket was an affirmation of donald trump's own pro-life commitment to pro-life judges, to beginning by banning late-term abortion in this nation. high time and past time. planned parenthood with the best partner you can imagine in mike pence. you know that he is a well-rounded guy. he has led in indiana by

enacting the largest tax cut in indiana history and balancing the budget. he has promoted and pushed choice. i've don't think you can find a more proactive defender of the military. home, his go, h -- son who was a lieutenant in the marine corps. mike pence knows how to take on tim kaine. what a contrast. he does the entire ticket. there has never been a contrast greater than these two ticket s. let's keep that enthusiasm going and encourage this servant leader. that happiness, that joy that exudes everywhere, no matter where he is. it's not on rational -- it is

not unnatural, it is supernatural. he can be a part of the greatest awakening that this country deserves. just like in the scripture when the master asks, what did you do with the talents that i gave you? the good servant allowed them to grow. the same for mike pence. i believe his master says to him, well done my good and faithful servant. since you are faithful in small matters, i will give you great responsibility. come share your master's joy. let's welcome that joyful warrior, governor and soon to be vice president, michael pence. [applause]

gov. pence: hello, virginia. ihave to tell you how proud am. proud b anthony would be to be associated with this great champion of life. it is a joy to be with you today. hay.t to thank jack

to patrick henry college, for your great hospitality. [applause] you so humble to be with today. it was a little more than a month ago, standing with my wife at my side, that i accepted my party's nomination to run and serve as the next president -- vice president of the united states of america. my friend marjorie was overly kind as usual. she knows that the introduction i prefer is a little shorter. i am a christian, the conservative, and a republican -- in that order. [applause] i served 12 years in the congress of the united states. i have been four years as

governor of the great state of indiana. in all that time, there was one person who most personified those priorities to me, who inspired me in my time of congress. i saw him work on behalf of our values and human rights on the world stage. he was a mentor to me and is to this day. i hope all of you here in virginia know how grateful all of america is that frank wolf came from this place and served this nation. frank, would you mind coming up? [applause]

thank you, frank. i joined this campaign in a heartbeat. late at night at the governor's residence, the telephone rang and i heard that familiar voice on the phone. he said, mike, it's going to be great. [laughter] i said yes because you have nominated for president and man who never quits, who never backs down. he is a fighter. he is a winner. until recently, it seemed like he was out fighting for the american people all on his own. now this party is uniting, this and we willuniting, elect donald trump to be the next president of the united america.

people ask me about this good man and say what is it about him? i have from south of highway 40 in indiana. we put things plain. i think donald trump just gets it. he is the genuine article. he is a doer in a game usually reserved for talkers. when he does his talking, he doesn't tiptoe around all the thousands of rules of political correctness. he says it like it is in his heart and his mind. the american people hear him loud and clear and know that he will make america great again. the funny thing is, the party in power seems helpless to figure out my running mate. of course, i'm talking about the media. [cheers and applause]

you know what i'm saying? it's like the media and the democrats -- they keep telling each other the usual message will work. they think, we've got him this time. they wake up and next morning, turn on the tv, and donald trump is still standing and fighting for the american people and fighting to make this country strong and great again. the man never quits. every day, it seems like it is almost two on one out there. i have to turn on my television with a stick. [laughter] parsinga is so busy everything donald trump has said in the last 30 minutes, they keep ignoring what the clintons have been doing for 30 years. [applause]

[crowd chanting "lock her up"] gov. pence: they are busy people. let me help them out a little bit. we all follow the cascade of controversies and questionable conduct that flows out of the clinton years and experiences. in the last few weeks, e-mails can to light that seemed to provide direct evidence that favors were done by state department officials to major donors of the clinton foundation. the fbi, several months ago, try to open a criminal investigation and public corruption. the obama justice department shut him down. the fbi found 15,000 more e-mails that hillary clinton didn't turn over. judicial watch just released

over 700 pages of e-mails that showed a top aide to hillary clinton gave direct access to foundation donors. the other night, hillary clinton did a tough interview on jimmy kimmel the other night. she joked about it. -- she saidat do a that her e-mails were so boring. we found out in the last few days, all those boring e-mails were deleted with a software it, which wipes b out any possibility of finding any emails. this morning, seven months after the federal judge ordered the state department to release hillary clinton's schedule, the obama administration said they would not get around to that until after the election. the clinton's response to all of

this, they will no longer accept foreign or corporate donations if she is elected resident of the united -- president of the united states. let me get this straight. it would be a conflict of interest to accept foreign and corporate nations to your foundation if you were president, but it wasn't a conflict of interest to accept foreign donations to your foundation when you were secretary of state? [applause] the american people are sick and ined of pay to play politics washington, d.c. it is the kind of politics that will come to a crashing end the day that donald trump steps into the white house. we all know it. we know that hillary clinton should shut down the clinton foundation immediately and the justice department should

appoint a special prosecutor to get to the bottom of this. come november, we can set it all right. when donald trump becomes president of the united states, the days of this rigged system for the favored few will come to an end, and donald trump's only special interest will be you. say, for the sake of preserving the highest standards of integrity in the highest off ice in the land, let's decide, here and now in virginia, that hillary clinton will never be elected president of the united states of america. [applause] it really is extraordinary. for all of the controversy's

swirling around the democratic candidate, it's not the worst of it. the worst is the record, at home and aproa -- abroad. has hurt ourobama reputational around the world and worsened the economy. if you took a picture of a map of the wider middle east in 2009, and compared it to that part of the world today, you almost could not tell it is the same place. terrorist attacks at home and abroad. grim and heartbreaking scenes among our allies. history teaches us that weakness arouses evil. i would submit to you that hillary clinton and barack

obama's foreign policy of leading from behind, moving red lines, feigning recess with russia, and paying ransom to terrorist-sponsoring states is a testament to this truth of history. when donald trump is president of the united states, we want be paying ransom to terrorist or terrorist-sponsoring states. they will pay a price if they threaten to harm the american people or our allies. hillary clinton's record on foreign affairs is incredible. -- after they american soldier won the hard-fought gains to secure a stable iraq, it was hillary

clinton and barack obama who precipitously withdrew our vacuumwho allowed the for isis to be formed. it was hillary clinton who secure the who secure disasters agreement in iran. it was hillary clinton who left americans in harms way in video,i, blamed it on a and when she was questioned about it, she said before a senate committee, what difference at this point doesn't make? as the proud father of a u.s. marine, anybody who said that, anybody who did that, should be disqualified from ever serving as commander-in-chief of the united states of america.

[applause] we cannot have four more years apologizing to our enemies and abandoning our friends. america needs to be strong for the world to be safe and i want to promise you donald trump will lead on the world stage with american strength and the world will be safer as a result. , heill rebuild our military will restore the arsenal of democracy, he will bring our allies together in hunt down and those who hunt our people in freedom at the source. if it has been a story of weak leadership abroad, it's just as we get home.

we find ourselves today in the weakest economic discovery -- recovery since the depression. the lowest labor force participation since the 1970's and merely 7 million more americans living in poverty today than when brought -- barack obama became president. we got up this morning and found out official washington just rounded down the last quarter's numbers. now i think it's 1.1% growth in the economy and hillary theton's plans are more of same. more taxes, more regulation, ine than a trillion dollars new spending, $1 trillion in new taxes and she thinks obamacare is a good start. how she asked today would pay for those programs, she actually said we are going

where the money is, after the super wealthy, after corporations, wall street. judging from our speaking fees, she certainly knows where to find them. the only problem with our big spending, big government plan is this. the problem with socialism is you eventually run out of other people's money. [applause] they tell us this economy is the best we can do. nowhere near the best we can do, it's just the best they can do and when donald trump becomes president, we will get this economy working for all the

people of virginia, all the people of the united states of america. [applause] donald trump has a plan. the detroit economic club. looke you get a chance to at it. we are going to simplify taxes for everyone, streamline deductions, and lower taxes across the board for every american. we will end death taxes and lower taxes on businesses large and small so companies in virginia can compete with companies all over the world. on day one of this administration, donald trump

will sign an executive order issuing a moratorium on any new federal regulation and he will appeal every obama executive order stifling our growth in this economy. [applause] with the donald trump as president, we will have a negotiator in chief. the time has come to the world to be on notice. we believe in free trade in this country but we will have somebody who negotiates deals that were for the american worker and the american economy first. lastly, the day donald trump and i walk into the west wing is the day the war on coal comes to a crashing halt. we will develop the resources of our land and call forth its strategyhin energy

that will drive an american economy. a lot of economies are projecting great things about his agenda but not hillary clinton. hillary clinton said the projections about less taxes and less regulation, ending the war on coal, smarter and tougher trade deals, she said expectations were wildly unrealistic. the only thing wildly unrealistic is electing the same people with the same bad ideas and expecting a different result. [applause] donald trump and i know just like we have seen in indiana when you let people keep more of what they earn and get government out of the way, you make the right investments in bridges and education,

america gross. america works and it will again. on day one, we will be looking for congress to put some paper on our desk and donald trump will repeal obama care. the last thing i want to mention is another aspect of this election is as important as a strong america in the world is, -- ronger economy the liberties enshrined there. as the selection of roaches, we -- approaches, this next -- and wewill likely

better think about that. [applause] think about what that means to our constitution, to the liberties enshrined there, what it means to limited government. and i stand without apology for the constitution, the and a laudable right to life -- and alienable right to life. [applause]

>> some problems there with our signal from virginia. the speech today by the republican vice presidential nominee mike pence. the governor of indiana. when that signal straightens up, we will take you back there live. let's try to go back. > for the sake of the second amendment to the constitution of the united states, for the sake of all our god-given liberties, let's decide here and now as well in virginia that the next president making appointments to the supreme court will be president donald trump. [applause] >> it's very challenging.

that we do well to remember a simple truth, one that i was raised on. and that is there will always be more in america that unites us than will ever divide us in these united states. [applause] i was raised to believe in that. my grandfather came to this country from ireland and took a

train to chicago and drove a bus for 40 years. the proudest man i ever knew. i was named after him. i cannot even imagine what that irishman thinks looking down on this country he had the courage to come to when he was my son's age. [applause] but there's a legend in our family that his mother walked him out the front door of a two room house that i visited many years ago and she looked to the go tond said you have to america because there's a future there for you.

i know in my heart she met more than a future. she meant about was opportunity. >> apologize again. signal problems there from virginia. we got the majority of the .emarks from the presidential the vice presidential nominee mike pence and we would like to hear from you on what you thought of mike pence and his remarks today and what do you think of the vice presidential candidate in general?

and does it make a difference who the running mate is in regards to your choice for president? those numbers on your screen and we welcome our radio listeners today. you can tweet us or leave a comment on our facebook page. helen has been waiting patiently on hold for a few minutes. >> donald trump don't have a chance to win this nomination because of the news media. donald trump tells it like it is. would the american people take him at his word.

hillary clinton won't even go .ut and take press conference she is nothing but a crook. mike pence is a great man, he is up caliber, he speaks from the heart and that is more than i can say about tim kaine. he raised virginia's taxes, american people to wake up. they need to wake up. >> thank you for calling. one need a joining us now. juanita joining us now. >> thank you for this opportunity to speak. i am a citizen born and raised in tucson, arizona and i am for donald trump for the same reason

that he speaks from his heart. he tells the american people johnwe didn't hear from mccain. they didn't speak the truth. standnow, we need to together and vote for trump. mike pence is a conservative and ,e need that, we need a person without god, we have nothing and to hear this message that he is for black people also. we areeverybody to know pro-trump. praise god. marry in massachusetts on the line for independence. >> thank you so much and i want to thank donald trump and mike pence. i've never seen a man take so many hits.

donald trump came out the strongest in a landslide. he stood his ground and the people listen to donald trump and that is what i started to do. -- jeb bush. i started to listen to donald trump and he is a world-class billion, a generous soul and he's representing the united states and for one dollar, he is willing to work. hillary clinton once an increase in islam. i would hillary clinton want to qualified million

citizens who are registered gun owners during world war iii? islam is massacring christians more than the first generations. their massacring innocent women varying them alive, shooting them left and right. why would hillary clinton want to disarm the united states of america? democratic color thing -- caller in cleveland. go ahead. >> i just wanted to comment. i have a democrat all my life but i'm switching to donald. >> why?

>> i am switching over to donald because he seems to know what he's talking about and i voted for barack obama and look what he has done to the inner cities. >> thanks for calling. a reminder to everybody once you were on the air, make sure your tv is muted. john in illinois. >> i'm a republican. i just wanted to prove how much of a liar hillary clinton is --n she says she will bring when there is all of these call mine towns and she said she will , whichll of these jobs

the only thing they ever knew was coal mining. what are they going to bring, 7-eleven's? how are they supposed to get these jobs there? that's all they are is liars. bring the coal mining back to where they belong. >> good afternoon. i am voting for donald trump. i didn't vote for obama both times. my feeling about hillary is she's not even in the 21st century. she's in running so many times, she is has been. i can't understand why young trump is going to save us. i have voted for republicans.

i don't understand why the republicans don't stand behind them. don't they understand what is going on? i am a history buff and if you have all the signs, if hillary gets in, we will have war and this time according to my relatives, it will be on our soil. my uncle used to put bombs in the planes in northern france and the other one was there when he opened up italy and they went in with the concentration camps in towns bombed out. why are we fighting a war on television with these young children? people died. all types died and disappeared. this is war.

>> let's get a democratic viewpoint now from neil in tennessee will stop -- tennessee. >> i've only got one comment. childrenied about my and my grandchildren. trump, isten to donald hear armageddon, i hear the end. he scares me. people.s a lot of >> anything in particular he has said that frightens you? >> just about everything he says about the nuclear weapons and all of it. and with russia. it scares me.

glenn in michigan on the ts line.en >> i just want to say, anyone who is scared by donald trump is either a total coward or just plain foolish. that is nonsense. all this fear mongering against trump. it is recycled garbage, the same kind of stuff in 64. it really is despicable. hack,y clinton is a total a bought and paid for wall street establishment hack. republicans -- establishment republicans are against trump is because of the entire establishment that is scared.

they are scared their special privileges might be taken away, including the media. i am not talking about your network. your network presents things as they are. ,he media in general advertisement driven media, they are totally in the pocket of the .linton machine a total disgrace what the so-called mainstream media is nowadays. >> jackie next, a republican caller in california. -- was a democrat

all my life and i watched hillary and her testifying and i was appalled at everything i heard. was hoping for somebody to come along that would change things. but they don't do anything. they are all unhappy because they didn't have enough money to live. all of a sudden, i heard donald trump talk and i started watching him and before the .rimaries, i made a quick call

and 19 great grandchildren. of course i am concerned about all of them. is i like all say my family to tell the truth. not to lie. do? the allies lies very you. more lies and more lies and i have always preached to my emily that the truth will set you free and the little children from the time they are little, i always told them when they got in trouble that if they told the truth, i would not punish them and i kept my word. mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, any woman out there that once their children

to see the next president of the united states be someone, we cannot prove this, that. proved is thatve she lies. clacks -- >> we moved to greensburg, pennsylvania. but im a democrat listened to the program tonight and anytime there is anything important on, it was blocked out. we could not hear and the democrats did that. i'm a democrat but i'm going to be a republican. thanks. --

>> we take you live now to iowa and donald trump attending the joni ernst event at the iowa state fairgrounds. ♪

>> thank you very much. thank you, governor full. thank you. [applause] i am thrilled to be in iowa. so many good friends. i have become friends with so many people in iowa and i will tell you iowa is very fortunate to have some of the best and most dedicated public service in the country, including governor , lieutenantad governor camera notes, state gop chairman jeff and senator chuck grassley and of course, a person i've gotten to know very well who is a tremendous person,

senator joni ernst. tremendous. [applause] an incredible roster. you are very lucky. a lot of states would like to have that roster. i also want to take a moment to thank the bikers. we have [applause] hikers in the audience. they have been so good to me throughout this campaign so i wanted think all of the bikers. i really appreciate it. fantastic people we have and what a fantastic country we live in. more than anything today, i went gratitude because all over the country, we have had tremendous support to our amazing veterans. a lot of them in the room. thank you. incredible.

i will not let you down, believe me. they had a letting you down for many -- have been letting you down for many years. together, we will win this state in november and we will win the white house american people. [applause] the white house will soon become the people's house. that is what it will be. we will tackle and fix the problems that have gone unsolved for many years. schools, crumbling infrastructure, broken borders, wasteful spending, and a government that doesn't work. [applause] the campaign about big ideas designed to help everyday

people. everyone, it's going to help everyone. these are the people who work hard at don't have a voice. their voice has been taken away. it's also a campaign about restoring honesty and accountability to government. the whole world has been shocked by the continuing revelations regarding hillary clinton and her pay for play state department and other things. announced that her importing calendar records will not be released even know they have them to the public until after the election because there is too much stuff on that. they want it after the election. terrible. corrupt,tection from a

rigged system. [applause] as i have said many times, it's hard to tell where the clinton foundation and and where the state department begins. the clinton corruption scandals have been really there for a long time and it's been sad for america. the deletedserver, e-mails. the deleted e-mails, 33,000, the secret schedules, the lying to congress. it's all just too much. we will have a great victory november 8. [applause]

a great victory. thank you. how much more can voters take? not much more. hillary clinton thinks she is entitled to be president. by the way, she's got very bad judgment. even if she thinks that, she's got bad judgment. she thinks she's above the law and has proven that but the truth is just the opposite. her criminal conduct home in her failed interventions overseas simply make her unfit. she is unfit to serve in the oval office. [applause] i believe that america is ready to turn the page on this very sorted past.

we don't want another four years of obama or clinton controversies. they are not only dangerous but exhausting our people. up with it all? the clintons have had their time on the stage but now it's time to close that chapter in the history book and open a brand-new beautiful chapter. thank you. thank you very much. is why this is such an exciting year to be a republican and to vote republican. we will do a great job. the gop is offering the voters a chance to break up the corrupt establishment and create a new american future.

last opinion, this is our chance. this chance will never come justices ofmember, the supreme court, remember that. again. never, ever come it will never happen again. i really believe you will not have this opportunity again. these are the same people who pay bill and hillary clinton 100 $50 million for speeches and some other things. hillary clinton's campaign is all about protect things the powerful. and i understand that very well. campaign is about protecting those who have no power.

together, we are going to work. we will give working people a voice for the first time in many decades. we haven't had a voice in a long time. let's talk about what it all means. they can seekat medical care at either ava facility or a private medical doctor or with us paying the cost. [applause] we have had such incredible veteran support. again will we allow a waiting for the care they need from a doctor who is a fine doctor but you cannot

get to ever see your doctor. you wait six days, seven days, nine days. protect those who protect us. these are great people. center of our change, it's also a plan to fix our rigged economy. the government just revised the growth numbers. they just announced the number was announced was so bad and it had to be re-adjusted downward.

they do things that you don't want to know about but they make it impossible for your businesses to compete. we are going to make a change. going to make america grow again. that begins with supporting our .amily farms right here in iowa do we have any farmers in the room? stand out. [applause] farmers.lot of beautiful.

one of the most beautiful landscapes in the world. family farms are the backbone of this country. end the epa.to we will get rid of a lot of those regulations that don't mean anything. the thing that most surprised me is going around all over the country and talking about that massive tax cut but the mass of small business tax cut or the reduction by a lot of regulations. 100 percent of the people i

spoke to feel more strongly about the regulations. >> we are going to protect the ,enewable fuel standard aluminate job killing regulations like the waters of the united states and provide desperately needed tax relief. lied to youama renewableort for the plan. you can trust hillary clinton for less than obama. she will sell you out and has

already sold you out and her donors will be the only ones happy. you see it happening. almost 97% of farms in this country are family-owned and family managed. it's not only a great american tradition but a vital component of america's economic and national security. yet hillary clinton wants to shut down family farms just like she wants to shut down the minors and steelworkers. she will do this not only through radical regulation but family raising taxes on farms. the rates as high as 50%. just so you understand, i am cutting taxes massively.

she is raising taxes massively. [applause] pain, she will tax family farms again at death by as much as 45%. on top of that, her anti-energy agenda will drive up the cost of energy. we get it. we all get it. that includes our plan to lower the tax rate on family farms down to 15% and to stop double

taxation on the double family ensure theing to family farm tradition in iowa continues to thrive and flourish with your children and your grandchildren and you will be looking down and you will be have a full -- happy. we hope you are looking down, anyway. we are going to make a very powerful and great trade deal. we will have fantastic trade deals. we have the worst trade deals.

hang in there. we will be there soon hopefully for you for the -- year. i have been happy to have the support of the evangelical community. incredible people. i hope we can continue to count on evangelical support on november 8. we are going to do some thing very special. i'm protestant. i'm respite to.. -- presbyterian. we will get rid of the johnson and then didn't, which is a disaster.

we will let them speak again. we want them to speak. right now, they cannot speak because they will lose all the benefits they used to have four. 1954, complete disaster. it is so important that everybody in the evangelical community and other religious communities get out and vote on november 8 because this will be a one-time shot. it's going to be gone. 1954. only put there in so important you get out and vote november 8.

know how much the evangelical community is deeply committed to helping those in poverty. my economic agenda can be summed up in three words, three beautiful words. jobs.jobs, then't even have to mention tremendous construction workers in this room because i think i have every single one of them. ?o you know how much i built you have a lot of construction workers in iowa. i was surprised to see how many. i am asking for the support of all americans who want more opportunity, higher wages, safe

communities, competent leadership, and honest government. very simple. [applause] we are going to send you special interests packing and we will once again have a government by and for the people. we sometimes forget republicans are the party of abraham lincoln. pretty good president. i said i'm going to be the most presidential president you ever had and i thought about abraham lincoln. abraham lincoln is pretty good but that is a great republican.

thatings me to a subject is important and personal for me. nothing means more to me than making our party the home of the african-american vote once again. there are millions and millions of african-americans in this who have succeeded so greatly and who deserve a government that protects and honors their incredible contribution. so many have been so successful. also have to talk about the millions of african-americans who remain trapped in poverty. they are trapped. i have spoken to a lot of people in recent days about the deplorable conditions in many of

.ur inner cities as a father and an american, it is ends my sense of right and inng to see anyone living such conditions. they are living in terrible conditions. bad. percent of african-american ,hildren are living in poverty including 45% of children under the age of six. in detroit, half of its residents do not work. in milwaukee, almost four in 10 african-american men between 24 and 54 are not employed in have no prospect of employment.

just yesterday, the cousin of duane raid -- wade was the victim of a tragic shooting in chicago. four and mother of killed while pushing her infant child in a stroller walking down the street. breaks all of our hearts to see it. it's horrible. it is only getting worse. this shouldn't happen in america. [applause] we send our thoughts and prayers to the family and we also promise to fight for a much, much better tomorrow.

more than 2700 have been sinceng victim in chicago january. we cannot as a society tolerate this level of violence and suffering in our cities for them those who would deny that, and there are many people that do, many of them are not good reasons. but this is a national crisis, a crisis that requires urgent action. none of these people should be even allowed to run. they are a disgrace. for decades and decades, failed democratic policies, the policy

of hillary clinton has created this high crime and crushing poverty. in so many communities under democratic control, we have bad schools, no jobs, high crime, no hope. it can't get any worse. to those suffering, i say vote for donald trump. i will fix it. african-americans, hispanics, vote for donald trump. i will fix it. [applause] and i added it in all sincerity, what do you have to lose? worse.ot get any

tell you what you have to gain. millions of jobs, far better schools, safe community well you , with yourur child wife or husband, by yourself, and not be killed and shot, mugged. we will have safe communities again in the african-american voter has seen what has been happening over the last three weeks with me and we have a lot of support out there. they are very tired of what has been going on. it has been going on for decades and decades. how quickly people have forgotten that hillary clinton

called black youth super predators and they were very insulted but now people have forgot. i am running to offer a better future to the citizens of detroit, baltimore, chicago. everybody. we will have one great country greater than ever before. [applause] and what is sad is that african-american have given so much to this country. they fought and died in every war since the revolution, lifted the conscience of our nation in the civil rights mend, sacrificed so much for the national good. now is a time to put a new agenda into action that expands opportunity, ensures equality,

and protects the rights of each and every citizen, including african-american citizens. stopve to help, we have to the crime, the bad education, health and housing, solve our inner city problems and we will. i will fix it. [applause] this includes one of the most important rights of all, the right to live in safety. i will work with communities with police and federal law enforcement to make communities safe and secure for all of our people. we are also going to end the discrimination that traps parents and kids in failing government schools. our schools are a disaster. the republican party and me is a

party of school choice. you will see a big difference. there is another civil rights issue we need to talk about and that is the issue of immigration enforcement. every time an african-american citizen or a hispanic citizen or loses, their job to an illegal immigrant, the rights of that american citizen have an totally violated. they are losing their jobs. it is an economic question. equal protection under the law must include the consistent application of our immigration laws. will protect american citizens and lawful residents of our country.

federal law protects the ability of american workers to seek jobs and employment. when government suspends those costingion laws americans their job, they have been denied the protection of their laws. in recent days, the media has missed the whole point on immigration. they haven't missed the point. [applause] all the media wants to talk about is the 11 million people or more or less. they have no idea what the number is. priority and really for the well-being of everybody but in particular the 300 million

and more and all of our hispanic citizens and african-american legal residents who want a secure border, they want drugs to stop flowing into they wantunities and a great, growing economy. they want a job. my goal is to provide good jobs and even great jobs. safety to every hispanic community, african-american community in the country. but really, what is it? it is to every single community. if we don'tthat secure our border. we cannot do it. on day one, i am going to begin swiftly removing criminal illegal immigrants from this

country. including removing the hundreds and thousands of criminal illegal immigrants that have an released into the united states and the united states communities under the of the obama clinton administration. [applause] these international gangs of's -- of thugs and getting cartels will be i promise you from the first day in office, the first thing i'm going to do, the first piece of paper i am going to sign is we are going to get rid of these people. and are greatg law enforcement, they know who they are. they have been living with them for years and they don't want to put up with it anymore so we are

going to get rid of them day one. [applause] we start [applause] terror will be over. and it will be over fast. remember, our law enforcement, who by the way, should get a tremendous hand for what they have to put up with. they are great people. i have met with so many of the top elites. they know these people. they know the good ones in the bad ones. we are going to get rid of the criminals one hour after i take office. [applause]

i'm going to bring them back where they came from. always errk, we will on the side of protecting the american people. we will use immigration law to prevent crime and will not wait until some intermittent american -- some innocent american has been harmed or killed before taking action. we will move justly, but we will move fast. there won't be any games. [applause] people.e bad [applause] mr. trump: what a team. we are going to build a great

wall on the border and the two ,erify --national e-verify reform welfare entitlement, and have an exit entry system to ensure those that overstay visas are quickly removed. we don't enforce our visa expiration dates. then we have borders and nothing but crime. i'm also going to cancel all unconstitutional orders, executive orders that you have -- we have aout bit of an excessive excessive order president -- and the power of the rank-and-file patrol border officers to do the job they were meant to do. what is hillary clinton going to do, governor? not much, right? she has placed amnesty in the

first 100 days combined with her elimination of virtually all routine immigration enforcement. in other words, totally open borders. this is a massive crime wave. it's not that happened if i got elected. alarmingly, she has pressed -- has pledged president obama's executive amnesty directly disregarding a supreme court injunction. she pledged to add another executive in misty in violation of both congressional law and u.s. constitution. these actions from hillary clinton will trigger a crisis greater than almost anything we have seen. this will be a constitutional crisis like we have not seen in our country. in effect, she is pledging to

abolish the law making powers of congress and assume the powers of an imperial leader. an imperialk she is leader. she does not even look presidential to me. she certainly doesn't. this executive amnesty would bypass congress to allow millions of work permits to those ineligible to receive them. hillary clinton's legislative plan is to give illegal immigrants access to obamacare social security, medicare, and u.s. welfare. man does not like that very much. her plan will functionally and enforcement of the visa overstay rules, another open open border degree. she will close down detention centers border crossings, meaning she will have an open southern border that will bring nothing but crime and destruction.

this is not to mention that she in syrian0% increase refugees flowing into our country. [boos] and she can't even say the words radical islamic terrorism. she supports century cities and catch and release policies that are getting americans killed. we will end that so quickly. i need the support -- will i have the support? you are not a big one for sanctuary cities, i know that. i've met with many of these grieving families, including a family that is truly incredible. the family of sarah ruth, a straight a student. a young beautiful woman who was killed by an illegal immigrant released from the border by obama and obama administration

with horrible policy. and then released again after the killing. i have been so inspired by the courage and bravery by so many families. i have that family with us today. i would like them to step up and say hello. these are incredible. [applause] >> 30 weeks ago today we were watching our daughter walk across the stage getting her bachelors.

not to know that 15 hours later she would be killed by an illegal alien. they arrested him. the judge set a bond of $50,000 a week after my daughter was killed he is running free. everything we do, while the fight we are doing is to save the next person from having to go through what we are going through. life cannot be just another life that was lost because of the obama administration. like mr. trump said, they let us down. they had him, they let him go, they had him again, they let him go. i want to thank you so much for all his hard work, everybody that has tried to help keep the story out, prevent this tragedy from happening to another person. it willry gets in, continue to happen to everybody.

go trump. [applause] mr. trump: what incredible family. the crime is unbelievable. there is a reason we just got endorsed by 16,500 border patrol agent. they know the system better than anybody. they want to see a strong border. we need a strong border if we remain a country. i want to thank them in particular. dangerousplan is very

and divisive and radical and reckless. it's wrecking the innocent lives of so many people. we will have an unprecedented comes allowing people to in. if i am elected, we are not can have a crisis. we are going to have a strong great country again. the choice hopefully will be clear to the people of iowa and throughout the country. a vote to trump is have a nation of laws, a vote for clinton is a vote to have dangerous open borders where anybody can just walk in and do whatever they want. on every issue our campaign is about making life better for working people. we can't accomplish that goal without breaking up the special interest monopoly and giving the power back to all of the people.

that is what we are going to do. many have said that the establishment media assault on me -- assault on me has been the greatest that they have ever seen in the political history. i feel it. i know it. even today some major papers filled to mention how strong our poll numbers have become over the last two weeks. we are doing very well in iowa. we happened to be leading. [applause] but they refuse to print it. they have no choice eventually. the media is totally dishonest. rigged system trying to deny people the positive changes they deserve. they take phrases and

statements, chop them up out of context, and discuss them for days and days. always trying to demean and do.ttle, whatever they can movement, because we have a movement, this is maybe the movement they have seen in the country. many have said that. we are going to take our country back from this death spiral that it's currently in. imagine if this much media attention was spent telling the truth about the real problems facing our country. imagine if the media spent as much time telling the story of sarah ruth, one of the great young people. things beingly said by hillary clinton and our

-- they are spending hundreds of million dollars on phony false ads. and most people know it, or we would not be doing so well. she is funded by the big banks and wall street donors. nothing more than a desperate attempt from a failed leader. she lost badly to barack obama when she won. i think she will lose badly to donald trump. [applause] she is clinging in order to keep the rating system going. there is nothing they won't say or do, no lie they won't tell, no amount of money they won't spend to try and bully voters into giving them what they want. they lie like i've never seen anything before.

the commercials are phony, they are disgusting. and even people on her side are citing that is going to far. this november the american people are going to reject the cynicism of the past and embrace the optimism of the future. we have a great future. [applause] the old attacks are not going to work anymore. the clinton fear mongering is not going to resonate with anyone. gotten farase has left. i want to empower the people. hillary clinton wants to scare the people. empowering people begins with 3 simple words. going to soar. we are going to make our country powerful.and so

we need the power. other people will not want to mess with the united states of america. [applause] make will rise, we will new friends abroad, and we will achieve what we have not achieved before. we will achieve a lasting peace through strength. we will be a country of laws and success. our cities will be safe, sound, and secure. our government will be ethical and responsive. rule by special interests will be over. over. the rule of the american people will begin. let's get out on vote on november 8 and create the future our children deserve together. we will make america strong again together we will make

america wealthy again. make americaill united again. again. make america safe we will make america great again, greater than ever before. thank you very much. thank you joni ernst. ♪ [applause] ♪

♪ always get what you

want ♪ ♪ but if you try sometimes you might find ♪ ♪ you get what you need ♪

♪ ♪ you can't always get what you want ♪

>> tim kaine spoke about small business during a business incubator visit in tallahassee, florida. he spoke at a voter registration tribe and rally the campus of florida agricultural and mechanical university in tallahassee. both of those events on c-span. sen. kaine: hey, good morning. i am tim kaine. [applause] senator from virginia, and hillary clinton's running mate, which i'm writing about.

the third time i've been in florida since added to the ticket. my wife the past two weeks ago was the secretary of education in virginia. she stepped down to go full-time on the campaign trail. we are in florida doing events in tallahassee. we would do voter registration rally with students. we wanted to come by and see you. we had a lot of experience working with incubators and small business development. anne in her capacity as secretary of education. hillary clinton and i rolled out this start a business plan. but hillary clinton at the convention grew up in a house ran a small fabric

printing business. she remembers she and her brothers pitching in to do some of the business. i grew up in a small house in business city we ran an iron working shop. that was 12 employees in a good year, and five employees in a tough year. what we know is that since world war ii, the growth in jobs in this country has been in small businesses. about 2/3 of new jobs are created by start of and small businesses. many go on to become large and medium sized. you can measure the health of an economy by, business and economy to start a business? it easy to start a business? i am pleased to be joined by so many here. we have been talking about how this is a, ridge community.

-- this is a talent rich community. they come to the community college. capitalmayor of a state inundate university town. . what can we do to keep talent here and abroad have the economy so that government will be nuclear in the state capital? -- will be a pillar in the state capital? the great thing is you have the mind power among students. you can convince them to stay, that is what is all about. that is what hillary in clinton and i have been talking about. one, we want to make it easier to start businesses. just the act can be confiscated. -- can be complicated. as governor, if you wanted to start a business, you had to go to this department to get a license, this other department

for registration. we went eight turbotax one-stop shop where you can get your state and local registration and application a lot easier. easy to start up a business is important at the federal level stop we can streamline what we require for businesses and work with cities and states so that they can make it easier to begin. we heard that it's hard to get financing especially if you are new. new and trying to start up, this stuff. new technologies like crowdfunding has been creative. but there is a lot we can do at the federal level through the small business administration, making sure we have the right sets of rules about credit unions and community banks. they tend to be the lending institutions of choice.

the third that hillary in the team came up with, i can claim no authorship of this. now on and individual tax return, you can file standard or -mice seductions? -- or itemized deductions? the clinton plan includes the same thing for corporate taxes. instead of a company keeping the records of all the overhead to determine what is a legitimate deduction or not, give businesses a hoice. if they want to file a more standard form, that will be best. not all businesses, especially startups can get all the accountants to put it all together. say ist thing i will that the key to business is you, the talent. we really believe as part of a

that educational innovation from brca through -- and on, exposing kids at an early age to the different ahead ofth i have -- them. we have to broaden the pool. even if tuition free for americans that do not have the means. this is something we are focused on. needless to say, looking around the room seeing who you are, you are going to be more successful if you let the talent come to the table. you have to build a community of respect. in this country we have the talent to solve an issue we can face as long as we let the talent around the table. if you start dividing people against each other, blame game,

name-calling, then you find that you cannot solve your problems because you are not letting the talent pool be only can be. hillary clinton gave a speech in reno about how the rhetoric on the campaign from the other side, that it would be ok for a nominee of a major party to radical someone with a -- to ridicule someone with a disability or trash them because they are mexican-american, or that someone of a religious faith should be treated second-class. this is a fundamental issue. women's equality august 26 is today. [applause] since the early 1970's, it was august -- this was the day the 19th amendment was ratified. it only took us on a 44 years to say equality would be our goal. 144 years to say equality would be chemical.

talent is more important than oil or any other resource. that is what leads to economic success. you can be more you can be by listening from others. that is the society we have to have. anne and i are happy to come and talk specifically to these great businesses. thank you to the folks with the idea to do this. >> it's good to talk about something so critically important. i would like to thank dr. magnum.

can we give him a round of applause? i want to say a special word of thanks about my wife. we are on a university campus. nne just steps dennis secretary of education in virginia after working her entire career to help young people. she wanted to do what i am doing. she wanted to go full-time between now and november 8 and do all we can to elect hillary clinton the next president of the united states. [applause] an interesting bit of trivia. august 26 in this country is women's equality day. give it up for women's equality. it's women's equality day because on august the sixth 1920, the federal government certified that enough states had ratified the 19th amendment to the constitution, giving women the right to vote.

and 96 years later we are about to make the first woman president of the united states. [applause] and that is what is so very exciting for me to be on the ticket. when hillary asked me about a month ago, i was so proud to work with somebody. president obama she would be the most qualified to be the nominee of a major party in this country. i am proud to be a partner with hillary clinton. like a lot of strongmen in this country, my political career has been built on a foundation of strong women like my wife, campaign managers, agency heads, voters, donors, volunteers -- now i am a strongmen ready to that support to make sure our strong woman hillary clinton is our next president. two people feel the same way? -- do we all feel the same way?

this is a wonderful historically black college with a great tradition. hbcus in virginia. state, your homecoming opponent this year, hampton university. [boos] hey, we are all in the family. [laughter] hbcus play in important role in producing 65% of minority engineers in the country. overwhelming numbers of minority physicians, dentists, veterinarians, scientists. hbcus have a role as important today and tomorrow as it was fam universities like were founded. give it up for all of the hbcus that are such an important part of this country. hillary clinton and i understand the importance of hbcus.

that is why we have initiative to grow jobs in the 21st century to invest $25 billion in hbcus so we can keep training the talent pool for the 21st century. that's together with pre-k education, career and technical education, debt-free college for americans. that's something we can do. [applause] and these are the issues at stake in this election. there are a lot of issues at stake in the election, but since i started off about women's equality day, let's just take equality. let's just take the principle 1776 which isin the north star of a nation, when virginians put that in the declaration of independence, nobody was looking that way. wisdom tothey had a

put that out as a northstar that would measure our progress as a people. eyars, we have been knocking down one barrier after the next trying to live more like we said we were going to live in 1776. that something more to think about on women's equality day as we approach this election. hillary clinton was a law student at yale. she could have done anything but worked with the children's defense fund. she went to south carolina to racial disparities and the juvenile justice system. went to alabama to investigate disparities in the school system. as a young lawyer, anne and i worked with legal aid in richmond, virginia. and i was a civil rights lawyer battling against discrimination. donald trump was starting out at the same time. his firm was getting sued for

racial discrimination in the issue of housing. this is a fundamental difference between the two tickets. it's fundamental to the values we hold as a nation. possessing hillary clinton is a first lady of arkansas the maternal and child health. million low income kids could have health insurance. as a senator fighting for military families, fighting for first responders. as a secretary of state making sure that women and children have the attention of the u.s. government. hillary clinton has had a correct -- track record for equality in the causes that we hold dear. donald trump has a different point of view. he has ridiculed people with disabilities. he has ridiculed people if they were mexican-american.

he has said anybody that is muslim should be treated as second-class religiously. that is not the way we do things in this country. [applause] donald trump was a main guy behind the scurrilous, and i would say bigoted notion that present obama was not even born in this country. donald trump has continued to push that irresponsible. from all the way --irresponsible falsehood from all the way til now. hillary clinton gave a speech in reno nevada calling out donald trump on the fact that he has supporters like david duke connected with the ku klux klan. they are going around and saying donald trump is their candidate because donald trump is pushing their values. the ku klux klan values, david duke values, donald trump values are not american values. we have to do all we can to

fight back and win and say that we are still about heading toward that north star that we set out so long ago. the reason for this rally, you have a superb reputation of any university of student activism. end of getting people to understand the critical importance of voting. national starting a movement with hbcus as colleges come back into session to talk to students about registering and voting. we want sam you to lead the way. are you ready to do that? it is a very important thing. we have seen in states all over the country significant efforts by governors and legislators to narrow down a right to vote. to narrow down early voting, to increase id requirements, to

basically make it tougher for people to vote. you might have seen a few weeks ago there was a court decision about north carolina. that the court found highest officials in the state had acted "with surgical precision to make it more difficult for african-americans to vote." for anybody that cares about small 'd'democracy, to put burdens in the way and reduce participation in a discriminatory way has to call us to righteous action, righteous organization. so we can show that those tactics will not succeed. we can do that in florida and virginia. center dot all over the country. --we can do that all of the country. you'reou this -- if trying to persuade others about their pictures of the clinton-king ticket -- cli

nton-kaine ticket or persuading them to vote. s don't pay attention to the tv ads, but they still believe the person-to-person. somebody you are in class with. a family member. even calling as a volunteer and talking to somebody that you don't know. when you hear that you are a volunteer, this is what they think. well, they did not have to do this. it's important to them. maybe it ought to be important to me. when you encourage people to vote, give your somebody say to you -- if you hear somebody say to you, i don't think my vote matters, i want to tell you what to say to them. the other side sure thinks it matters because a lot of people are doing an awful lot of work to put structures in ways to reduce votes of african-americans, young folks. if they think your vote matters so much that they want to make

it harder for you to vote, and i hope you conclude that your vote is unable. because they sure think it's valuable. voters of support of all ages. let me tell you the dates in florida. every states rules are different. many of you students are from florida originally, but some of you might not be. here are the rules. the last day to register to vote in florida is october 11. that is the last day. between now and october 11, register. florida will be one of the closest, possibly the closest battleground states this election. second, register by october 11 and early voting. in person early voting starts saturday, october 29. it goes to the following

saturday, november 5. early voting is important because some people are working where it's difficult for them to vote on that one day. those are the two dates to remember. and ber by october 11, there for early voting october 29 through saturday, november 5. one more thing -- is there anybody who might be willing to volunteer to help us win this race? just give us a shout out. [cheers] alright. and i know many of you probably already have. if you have not volunteered and want to, all you have to do is text "together" to 47246. toin that is "together" 47246. if you do that, you will be like up into the campaign close encounters of the current

kind. -- was encounters of the third kind. thisll show you that election is a complicated season of surprises, but we know attitudes of work. florida has shown in 2008-2012 with its historic support for president obama you can deliver the goods,, save the day, and the bring victory home. we are asking for that again november 2016. let's make history every day as we move this nation forward. thanks so much. thanks so much. [applause] ♪ >> for campaign 2016, c-span

continues on the road to the white house. >> we need serious leadership. this is not a reality tv show. mr. trump: we will make america great again. >> ahead, live coverage of the presidential and vice presidential debates on c-span, the c-span radio app, and c-span.org. the first presidential debate live from hofstra university in hempstead, new york. governor mike pence and senator tim kaine on october 4 debate at longwood university in virginia. sunday, october 9, washington university in st. louis posts second residential debate. leading to the third and final between hillary clinton and donald trump taking place at the university of nevada las vegas on october 19. coverage of the presidential and vice presidential debates on c-span. listen live on the c-span radio app or listen anytime on

c-span.org. >> if you have been following gretel erlich's writing, you will know her stunning essays about the american west were her astonishing memoir of being struck by lightning. among various awards and honors, she won the 10 thoreau award awarded to writers that demonstrated excellence in nature writing. journeys to various places are both physical and philosophical. among her recent books is "facing the wavave" account of her travels in japan -- after the substitute meltdown of the

nuclear power plant. she does here to talk to us about greenland, about climate change, about rotten ice. as noted today on npr, if you think today is hot, you are right. if you think this year is hot, you are right. the latest temperatures from nasa and noaa say the first six months of 2016 were the hottest on record around the planet. erlichng in 1993, gretel traveled in every season. the four months of perpetual dark and greenland, the four months of constant daylight, in the twilight seasons in between, traveling up the west coast, often by dogsled, and befriending the resilient and generously with along the way -- generous inuits along the way. she reminds us in her stirring

essay "letter from greenland" published in harper's, what happens at the top of the world affects all of us. we are deeply honored to welcome gretel. in conversation with someone that she knows well, her husband. someone whose voice you no doubt have heard over 36 years he spent with national public radio. neal conan worked in new york, lakeiscovered yours in placid and sarajevo and presidential impeachment. he served as various times as various roles in "all things considered." you probably miss him as close as "talk of the nation." 24 hawaiian public radio to have him as -- lucky for hawaiian public radio to have them as a host and macadamia nut farmer. [laughter] please welcome gretel erlich and neal conan.

[applause] neal: when you first went to greenland in 1993, you brought a couple of books with you. they?ere 2 of 13 volumes of a traveler from the 1920's by dogsled from greenland all the way to point hope, alaska. if it wasn't for rasmussen, we would know little about arctic culture. neal: what did we learn from him? [laughter] gretel: everything. inuit people originally came across the bering land bridge from northeastern siberia. year by year, perhaps 20,000 years ago.

first to alaska, then the archipelago of what we call the northwest passage. that was normally the traditional passageway east. they ended up in greenland roughly 5000 years ago. it is one language. but a lot of dialects. some variations according to where they were and what he needed to do to get food. but it is the only single culture that spans 6000 miles across the top. and those people -- it wasn't like they said, we aren't going to move to santa monica, i don't really like that each. [laughter] they did not know there was anything else except ice. neal: i got to go with you to greenland couple of years ago . one of the things i was astonished by, we went to a city somewhat less than halfway up the west coast. you think you are pretty far north, but you are not.

there's a long way left to go. gretel: king west greenland, it's about halfway down. the island of greenland is huge and long. i began going to the northernmost villages. degrees at about 77 latitude north. because--re neal: because of rasmussen. there was a young man, he has a danish name, but he was totally inuit. he had done the same trip as rasmussen did. only in the 1970's. thinking, he laughed at

me and he said, that trip was very hard. you don't want to do that, just stay here with us. you will see plenty, which i did. neal: if you could, bring up sldie 11. gretel: while we are waiting for the-- [laughter] that is my favorite picture of myself ever. it was about 20 below that day. we had been on a long trip, the coldest of which was 59 below. 20 below felt really good. we decided to stop and sunday. -- stop and sunbathe.

[laughter] neal: what were the villages like when you first saw them? gretel: agreement does not have a lot of villages, but they were vibrant. these were subsistence villages and 75 people. the dog population was way larger than the human population. bigou can see, we travel on freight sleds, that 10-4 feet long. and they are pulled by 15-20 dogs. neal: in a fan. hitch, in a fan shaped because there are no trees. these dogs are wild, they are not taken into the house as they are in alaska. the canine population in these -- it wasas the most

the symphony every night. it was howling and howling. in one town they were chained up on long chains because they did eat a few babies in the old days when they were loose. they were right against a big rock wall. the echo, the sound of them howling and talking to each other was delicious. it was never something that you tried to get away from. it was part of the music of greenland. neal: i was astonished when i was there to realize how little of life is on land, and how much is at sea. gretel: yes. what people don't understand, because greenland is different because of other arctic nations. all travel is done on sea ice.

this is north of the kennedy channel, it is relatively narrow. on a clear day you can see old mare island from greenland. nothing grows there. nothinge no berries, .they live on the flesh of marine mammals. rifle.ve a rusty they receive them as a present for trying to help robert. get to near the north pole. and they still have more wall with harpoons -- still hunt narwahl. pans, foxlar bear fur. they make harnesses, they make

this lens and their own kayaks. villages.industrious there is something going on all the time. neal: this is a conscious decision. they could have snowmobiles. gretel: yes, they have banned snowmobiles. they live exactly the way they want. they chose to keep all the modern traditions, and i asked them why, and they say they work better. inhave tried for 5000 years greenland, why would we work something that -- why would we change something that works so well? neal: the hunters that go out, they are not hunting for themselves or her own family. gretel: statement in extended -- they hunt in extended family groups. it is a shearing society so that there is no want. widows, hunters that have been injured, orphans -- everybody.

the danish schoolteacher, whoever. and anybody else like me that used to come in the springtime. we were all given food. it wasn't sold, it was given. neal: you talk about the culture that unites these peoples across the top of the world. there is a concept that you write about in your books. it's both a person and an idea. the firstild sila, word in greenlanddic that i learned. it brings both -- it means whether, the power -- it means eather," the power of nature, but also consciousness. all of nature, the marine mammals that they eat. it goes beyond that -- the souls of animals that appear in the

masks that they make for dances. you will see one face that could be able to face, -- be a wolf's face, but with a seal coming out of the mouth. ae wolf has eaten the soul of seal so that in a way it is any holistic circular world in which there is no domination of one to the other. you are all out on the ice you are all there out on the ice together. neal: the first time you went out hunting with them, what was it like? gretel: i was not squeamish. there was a young woman who later became a prime minister of greenland who had grown up in villages and i met her. she was supposed to come up as my translator. she speaks seven languages. she did not show up. typical. [laughter]

gretel: i thought, i have come a long way so i might as well go. i went out with two strange men who do not speak english and i did not speak and still don't speak greenlandic. i asked the owner of the guesthouse house if i would be ok and he said, do you think i would send you out on the ice with people who would not take the absolute best care of you? i said, i'm sorry. i will go. off we went. for a month. [laughter] gretel: the first question is, where does one go to the bathroom? there are pieces of rough ice. some rough ice. one of them took my hand and said he knew a few words. ,he said right here would be , good. [laughter] it was extraordinary.

neal: the trip was catered? gretel: of course. right. boiled seal. that was good. that trip we just had seal. [laughter] one year -- i have been doing this for 20 years with the same group. one year we had an onion. after about the second week, he pulls out this onion. a danish onion, he pulls out of this backpack. we all sort of stood around it. take this big hunting knife and -- it was so exciting. [laughter] course underneath the of fat, and it has all of those vitamins and

minerals that a human being needs. so we just eat that and eat some meat and off we go. neal: what do the dogs eat? gretel: the same thing. they get fed first. and i have been on trips when there was only enough food for the dogs and i always brought packages of instant soup. you see you will not survive , without the dogs. they are your transportation. they are taken care of beautifully. neal: you are visiting this thriving society that is largely intact. gretel: totally. , huntingintact traditions. neal: when did you realize things were changing? gretel: it was 1996. another fellow and i were going across there are two islands and , some friends of his were out there.

everyone was going to join and hunt together. everybody does things as a group. on our way out -- it was spring. so there was that much snow on top of the ice. usually the dogs can smell that there is water or something but they did not. suddenly, i heard this crashing. we are going along and i heard this crashing like goblets being smashed. i did not know what was happening. suddenly, i saw dogs disappear. that ares 20 dogs pulling us and they start disappearing and we are trying to get away and there is a hole in front of us -- the other guy jumped off the back. they use a big steel pole that ice.an chunk off the anyway he put it in the back and , wrapped the seal sking thong

around it to hold the sled back. and he yelled at me, stay where you are. he told me to hang on. i was hanging on like a cowgirl. this is before you get bucked off. and the sled was inching towards this hole. he put his feet across and with one hand started pulling dogs out of the water. with one hand throwing them. , these are strong guys. and they are so incredibly brilliant and efficient. you can't believe your eyes. then he got most of them out and stepped off the sled on a piece of ice that had already broken off and he's a big man and when he stepped on it, that ice started going down like an elevator. i thought, goodbye. then he leapt from that back

onto the sled and got the dogs to turn a hard left and yelled at them and off we went. no one ever said a word. later, we traveled for a few hours. so far, so good. so i asked him, if we were going to die. he said, maybe. [laughter] and then there was at the end. you know, i just thought, i am in the presence of these extraordinary people and there is nobody left like them in the whole world. and if i die here after they have done everything they can do to save all their lives, i happily surrender. neal: the ice was weak because

warming had started to chronically, meaning there was less and less ice every year. gretel: that is what we did not understand. there were scientists that knew nning, butce was thi we did not. i just didn't know. after that, i knew something was wrong. they knew it, too. and they sort of said find out , what is going on. so i did. i started a long process of educating myself about sea ice and the greenland ice sheet which is another story. ,and then about the feedback systems that create more and more warming. the cycle is ongoing. it is going on every day because it is so exponential.

not just sea ice but the entire world is becoming a hot place. neal: there are even days where , you described it was 59 below zero but the waters are stormy so ice is breaking from underneath. gretel: yes. cold wouldhink that be ok. gretel: the first incident was 1997. by 2004, it was basically all over in terms of sea ice in greenland. it was -- yes, when we took off, we were going off on a month-long walrus hunt. it was 35 below zero. it got colder and colder and colder. for a while the ice was ok. the first camp we made, the ice was so thin. that undere a bat --

our feet. we were told to walk single file and carefully. during the night, he harpooned a walrus and it was brought back to camp. we were staying in little huts. sometimes they bring little huts and we were staying in this hut with 58 dogs and eight people. and this animal was dripping blood. i thought of it as a metronome that was marking what i thought of as aboriginal time. so this is time without days and , schedule. it was only going between one meal and the next, hoping you will find enough food in the next place you go. and it kind of lulled us into a sense of, the ice is bad and it is breaking up from underneath. because it is a much storm your

tormier place s than it used to be, but maybe it will be ok. then it was not. we went on to a village and we were supposed to go out to an island and we were told there was no ice at all. none. and the look on their face, i just knew they understood that it was basically the end of ice and the end of their lives as they had known it for thousands of years. neal: you mentioned the village? gretel: what was that? neal: what was the village like? gretel: small. my friend's wife was the great granddaughter of a schoolteacher. i asked her how many students she had and she said two.

sometimes just one. [laughter] did speak a little english. she said, i am proud to be a little bit american. it is a tiny, vibrant village. should i tell the rest of the story? i can't believe the questions he is asking me. [laughter] this is not how it was supposed to go. [laughter] is going very well. we will get to the rest of the story later. you went on this trip with a big group of people. and just that one walrus. gretel: that is all the food we got. so the rest of the trip, as we were moving down the coast of greenland, everything behind us was breaking up. all of the ice. so when we turned around, there was no ice in front and very little ice in the back. we had to go up and over part of the ice sheet which is really

dangerous, kind of exciting. big crevases. we got to the top and we took air going off of the other side and then we went down the stream bed. it was frozen. there were these big boulders and there are no breaks -- so theyn these sleds, put rope on the runners. he put his knee down to slow the sled down and his foot was hitting boulders. anyway we got to the bottom and we did find a place where the previous hunters had left food on the drying rack. so this would have been dog food. they were so relieved that the dogs would have something to eat. we had consumed the walrus. and then we spent the rest of the month just trying to get

home. it took weeks. and it was at the end of that, the previous slide where you see me sunbathing, we finally made it out to the islands and made it back to the northernmost village in the world. it is where that gentleman was from. but it was a disaster. and the families came down when we got back and they saw that there was no food for them. you know, they are very cool people. there was no outward display of disappointment. just, ok. let's unpack the sleds and everyone went home and it was quiet. neal: what happens to a food sharing culture that is fed by subsistence hunters when there is no food and the ice that is the transportation system and

indeed their world -- when that begins to go away? gretel: the culture dies. in a practical sense, the lesser hunters, you know there are natural hierarchies everywhere, shote lesser hunters their sledd dogs -- dogs because they could not feed them. they figured it was better to have the best hunters in the village out and try to get food. all the young people, these are young people who have been trained to be hunters. you're a national treasure if you are a great hunter. they were all sent south to vocational school or to learn to be a helicopter pilot or electrician or teacher or whatever. things they had no interest in doing. little by little, the villages started thinning out. more became consolidated where

there was a clinic. the little villages that were so precious came to nothing. almost a shakespearean story. everybody had left except for two hunters. they went out together in a boat in the open ocean. and it is very hard to hunt seals when it is open and it is dark and you cannot see the animals. they were out there and a loaded gun went off and shot and killed one of the men. and the other one so distraught , and lonely, a sense of existential solitude, shot himself. he is no more. [gasping]

neal: over time you've gotten to know more and more about the science behind this. if we can bring up slide 3. and you have gotten to know some other people who work on the ice. including, you will see, the and thethe ice -- strikingly handsome soundman. [laughter] gretel: he has worked at the university of colorado for years and has gone back to switzerland. but he told us an astonishing thing -- that water vapor is now the most prolific greenhouse gas because permafrost around the top of the world, both terrestrial and the frozen things under the sea. they are melting. there are 570 sites on the east

coast and atlantic ocean methane bubbling up and is everywhere. things are melting and it looks it lifts moisture up into the air. this moisture travels across the top of the world. it changes. it is not all about global warming. it's also about climate chaos. i'm sure those of you who keep up with the news know-how stormy and crazy things have become. neal: hottest month ever. go ahead. gretel: you go ahead. you are asking the questions. [laughter] gretel: i am just here to please you. [laughter] neal: as you have learned more about the science, the effect on the sea ice has been so dramatic.

you described it as -- where it used to be nine months of sea ice, nine months for these hunters to travel to the various hunting grounds. to find the wall risk, the seal the seal.lrus, and now there is as little as two. gretel: the ice used to come in mid-september and go out mid-june. now sometimes in march or april or may or january. you never thought about the ice, it was just there. so this year it was a cold year up there and everyone was excited and they maybe had three or four months of hunting. but then i got a tweet from a young glaciologist and he said , i do not know what is happening but this omega-shaped clump of warm air is heading

north up over greenland. then a friend of ours said, yes, on april 8 this mass of warm air came and all the ice melted. it was over. and so, you know, it does not really matter if they have one month or six months, they can't depend on it. it would be like if every grocery store in la was closed indefinitely or every once in a while they opened. you can't understand how to live. everything starts coming apart. neal: what does it matter for us here that this fascinating and vibrant culture is dying? know i just, you , think of the pairing of climate and culture. that cultural diversity has

intertwined and is as important as biological diversity. so that having these people, who are -- they are against all odds living a traditional life but fully cognizant of the modern world. that with a language intact. they have a way of knowing themselves and their world with language that not only describes a place but tells you how to behave when you get there. how to behave with the weather. how to make sure the concept of "sila" is alive in everything you do. that this awareness of consciousness all around you is alive. therefore there is a sense of respect and dignity and of action that makes a culture

thrive. so you lose that. which is, to me, immense. have mostly we killed off all of the indigenous cultures that we came across in the lower latitudes. it makes it even more precious that there are some still alive. and also in terms of just our weather, i call it bad weather. i'm sick of the words climate change. i just call it bad weather. that the arctic drives the climate of the world. the most important word is albido, which means white. the reflectivity of the snow and couldl over the world, it be in colorado, it radiates 80% of solar heat back into the

space. the arctic heat has been keeping our latitudes temperate. it is a natural air-conditioner. it has been functioning for a long time. 10,000 years. and as things start to melt and sea ice disappears, as the greenland ice sheet collects ash from wildfires and soot from industry in china and algae blooms on top of the ice, it can absorb more heat and deflects less heat. so you have all these feedback systems that seem insignificant and fragile but when they start adding up, you get a hotter and exponentially as we are all experiencing. the arctic is important in just about every way you can imagine. neal: you went back to greenland in 2012. what was it like?

what had changed? oh, everything. when we used to go out on these hunts, even in 2004, people were still jolly. there was a lot of kidding around. communitieske rural people were teasing each other , and the prospect of getting food for the village and the dogs were great. they were beautiful. and it was great to be out of the village and living on the ice. in 2012, i went in may, they only had ice for that month. but we were all going to this place the ice edge, usually a , time of celebration. wide es apart in these canals and it is where the life comes. a pod of beluga whales and walrus and little birds are flying. it is joyous.

because during winter, it is a frozen sheet where we did not see life. not a happyas just time. there were no jokes. no one was laughing. i traveled with the brother-in-law of my friend, he had a shattered ankle when he went across the ice sheet by himself to hunt musk oxe because there was nothing else to feed the dogs. he shattered his ankle and it took two weeks to get to the hospital. so he was not in great shape. we went to the ice edge. his twoger guys, younger brothers they got a , couple of walrus and then, you know, we made camp.

and then suddenly during in the night, these other hunters come in back of us. that is never done. they were usurping our hunting territory. but greenlanders are cool, they never say anything. and the next day i hear all the screaming and the dog howling and this man is beating this dog with a snow shovel. just over the head. i have never seen any kind of violence like this in greenland. i jumped up and tried to run over. i do not know what i was going to do. he grabbed my arm and said, no. you might be hurt too. anything.said actually the dog survived, but the mood changed and the next morning we left. we were so horrified by what we

had seen. and then on the way back to the village, mamaret was trying to untangle the lines. you know, you step in the middle of these lines, because the dogs go underneath each other all the time and have their own society. he was trying to untangle them. the dogs ran ahead and caught his bad leg and he was dragged for a long way. i was on the sled and i tried to stop the dogs, but they did not know me so they did not stop. and finally they stopped. but it represented to me the end of life on the ice, the end their culture.

the end of the days when everything -- even when things went wrong, it can happen quickly in the arctic. you are at the mercy of the weather. jokeven that was always a oh yeah, we are caught in a , blizzard. but they were always happy because they could go out another day. and everything would be all right. and that was just gone. it was a really sad day. neal: yance once told you something about the ice. yeah.: one day we were standing there looking out over the ice. he said, i don't see the ice wanting to come back. the ice is everything we are. without it, it will be a disaster. without ice, we are nothing at all.

neal: in a couple of minutes, we will take questions if you would like to join the conversation. the number is -- gretel: shhh. [laughter] paris? did we mention first we saw yence and , mamaret in paris. we all went for the climate change conference. just after the terrorist incident. they were there. gretel: yes. should i talk about it? neal: yes. gretel: we were going to do several events and a small film in which we brought a dogsled to paris. and we had a dog trainer training 10 white standard poodles to pull the sled. [laughter]

gretel: it was in jolly are times beforeier the things in paris. we thought people might find it slightly interesting. yence was going to get off and give a talk about how the arctic drives the climate and what has happened to his culture. it was to raise awareness while having fun. of course, the horrible things happened. we were all staying in the 11th arrondissement and we were a few blocks from the places where people were mowed down. and poor yence and mamaret were terrified. you know these are courageous , people but they said, i don't understand why people who have nothing to do with each other who came from another country , are killing people. i don't understand why they would kill each other.

that was hard to explain. rented, well we made it into a six bedroom loft and we were told to stay in our neighborhoods which we would anyway. anything else would be a betrayal of the solemnity after this. and we ended up -- i got to cook for them. i cooked every night for them. the glaciologist came. and david came. i was cooking for 5-15 people every night. which is a pleasure in paris because the food is so great. havingwould say we are salad now. i was joking. i always had lots of meat. it was a wonderful exchange given all the sadness with all

that was going on in the world. at every level of -- you know, i had been eating walrus and seal for 20 years and now they had to eat my food. you know, they just reminded us that they had been displaced in a way that people already are displaced, not only from wars and political oppression, but also from climate. many of us will be climate migrants. and we were just so astonished at how gracefully they accepted their fate. neal: it is interesting, the people who were the engine of the agreement that was finally reached in paris were marshall islanders and other islanders in the pacific that said any

agreement would come too late for them. that even if we shut off the carbon generation right now, there is enough baked into the system that it would be too late for them. is it going to be too late for greenland? gretel: yes. it is too late for all of us, really. we can slow things down. we can work on things. but it is not going to be the same world. we have lived in this interglacial paradise. absolute paradise. and that paradise is now lost. it is going to be a different world, a challenging world. many great things will be lost. many cultures, many cities, many people. but you know, as the head of glaciology at cambridge who i

,appened to be in a plane with said it is too late to stop global warming. but now it is to deal with the consequences and work very hard at that and diligently. inventininvestment -- gly. there will be social justice problems that will go beyond what we have imagined so far. ow? can i end it n neal: yes. gretel: there is a wonderful japanese man who came there following a climber in the early 1970's and he stayed on. and i went to see him. he is a wonderful man. there only two people left where he is. and it used to have 65-70

people. i said, how are you going to survive? he said, i don't know. perhaps just on beauty. [audience gasping] so i will end with that. we live in a different world but it is still beautiful. [applause] neal: i think the staff is going to be coming around with microphones. >> three questions. are there any pictures of the town? i have never seen greenland and i cannot imagine what it looks like when you land in a town? any slides? gretel: no. you can go online. >> no worries.

are people emigrating in large numbers? where are they going? leaving,hey are not they are just going south. >> neal, can i listen to your show on the internet? it there an app for your station? neal: there is. go on to hawaii public radio. it is especially good if you sleep in late. >> ok. i do, actually. neal: i am on tuesday, wednesday, and thursday. minute.e pacific news >> fabulous. thank you. >> fascinating talk and so good to have the respective histories of the both of you. i was wondering if the greenland government is trying to -- obviously they can't change all of global warming but if they tried to say we will try to maintain the town and some of

hunting,, etc. -- etc., sort of supporting it just because it is such a precious and unique culture? gretel: they would not need to because it is the greenlanders themselves who dictate how things are going to be. they rule themselves. they don't have a lot of people like us telling them what to do. yence is in charge of maintaining tradition. you can't do it without ice. it is not there. and they will, you know, people like yence and his family will stay until the bitter end. no matter what. it is the younger people who are leaving. neal: the greenland government is leasing areas to search for oil and there is quite a bit of extractive industries on land in terms of iron ore. that sort of thing.

>> the name greenland has always sounded like marketing or a euphemism and now -- i wonder if the inuit refer to the territory by that name or some variant on that name and if it is going to get greener? gretel: it is getting greener. i'm thinking of moving to south greenland and growing hay and raising sheep. [laughter] gretel: the word for greenland means big island. it is a translation from a viking name. yes, actually trying -- what was his name? red was trying to lure people to live there. silly guy. >> thank you very much your time. i do enjoy it. and i really enjoy your

anecdotes. a question about the happier times 20 years ago. a question about, how is it like being a child and adolescent growing up in the village? how was that? gretel: fantastic. it is the childhood anyone would have wanted. partly because, you know there , are six months of 24 hour a day light. and also there are no cars in the village. not in the little ones. children can wander anywhere. there is nothing that will hurt them. the odd polar bear might come in, but they know how to behave. during the summer, there are no restrictions on when they have to go to bed. they are just out and when they get tired they go home. , then theyget hungry go home and eat.

i have never heard a child complain. a five-year-old sitting on yence's lap, one time he was cold. ok, so his grandmother was next to me and put the boots over his the dogsled was moving and then he smiled. they were taught how to do everything so by the time they were seven they could handle a whip. it was an auditory signal. they could throw a harpoon or fire a gun. -- if the fish were caught, they knew how to prepare them to eat. they knew how to do everything. >> could you touch on how romance happened or relationships formed? gretel: it is a village.

[laughter] gretel: it is interesting. they had a house which was just for teenagers. no adults were allowed there. the teenagers could go there any time. you know they went to school and , stuff. on the weekends they would go there and they were allowed to to do whatever they did. so it was this kind of wonderful society. you are alone out there so there were not too many bad things that could come in. but you know children and young , adults were really respected. >> my question is what do you cook with? how do you cook it? and in what? what do you burn? i am assuming oil or something. gretel: these old-fashioned

swedish stoves camp stoves with , a single flame. they carried a spaghetti pot. it was in the back of the slide -- sled. this is modern. and yes, they brought gas imported from denmark. and they -- to get water, the multi-year ice out on top of the new ice, we would buy a piece iron bar we the would take off chunks and put them on the sled. we would cut them up smaller. the first thing you do when you make camp is but a chunk of ice in the pot to melt. and then you drink because you

are very thirsty. and more is put in for cooking. and everything was boiled. >> what did they do before all of these things? gretel: they ate at raw. -- it raw. they still do. i was, two women on the beach 3:00 in the morning i saw them butchering a seal and they took out the liver and were holding it up and signaled for me to take a bite. it was steaming. >> what did they do for water before that? gretel: that is a good question. blubber. thank you. yes, blubber. [laughter] gretel: i have been traveling for about a month. there is no wood.

in alaska, not greenland. neil: there were some wood supplements. gretel: yes, blubber. there are people who still tend blubber lamps. it is how they kept warm. it gives off a little bit of a flame. they had vikings to help them. the inuit people had slightly different influences. >> did you say that greenland is going to be drilling for oil? neil: they have lent out leases to explore. they have not found any.

but yes, they have leases to explore oil. gretel: many felt this was a terrible idea. they can do what they want. >> ok. i will compute that for a minute. i was wondering about the sleds, they were made up wood? gretel: brought in by ship from denmark. so when i first got there, there was a once a year supply ship to the northern villages. and i spent one summer with a man and his family and he had built his own shack. danish guy. he said, i was halfway through building my house and the supply ship could not get here because it was too cold. it iced too early. we had no nails in the entire village for a whole another year. it teaches patients.

-- patience. >> finally, the inuits across the area, are they in communication with each other across the different countries? gretel: yes. that is a polar conference happens every four years. they let me go. i came with the greenland contingent. it is not open to other people. it operates like the u.n. everyone has headphones because the dialects are so different. and then the russians who speak russian. it is a very dynamic group. they are very much involved. yes? >> i would like to thank both of you and congratulations for the excellent presentation. gretel: thank you.

>> i have a question. -american, andn according to maya, man has taken advantage of all the resources of the world and the world would end in the 2000. but not exactly 2000, after 2000. now according to the glaciologist, is an estimate about how long the world will be able to survive if we still try to make it survive? thank you. gretel: if there is, they have not told me. [laughter] gretel: but i would be the last to know. i don't think so. one more. >> a lot of pressure. i am sorry everybody.

i was wondering if you found that the cultures were superstitious or did anything , i guess outside of the normal? gretel: i mean -- the: tell the story about shaman and the polar bear. gretel: yence is a special person. he has some -- he is a natural leader. he would never call himself a shaman. he thinks that is not appropriate for the 21st century. one time when we were holed up, we were weathered in and he began telling a story. he said, i was in my tent. normally we are in tents with a canvas over the two sleds.

i was in the tent in the dark and the dogs started barking and i went outside and saw a polar bear. i grabbed my rifle. and i went running toward the bear and suddenly, and in the bear was at the top and the bear turned around and i saw that it had a human face. saide said, so i -- he has -- times, that there bear has beckoned me to come with it. i am a modern man and i cannot leave my family or leave my society in a time when so much is -- we are trying so hard to survive in the modern world. it just would not be right.

i could not do it. of going overad the hill with the bear -- gretel: he is the equivalent of a senator for greenland. he goes to conferences all over europe. but he loves nothing more than being out with his dogs. he still has all his dogs and that is his nirvana. neal: thank you all for coming. we appreciate it. [applause] [inaudible conversation]

>> on newsmakers, the naacp

president discusses the relevance of the naacp today, voting rights in 20 fixed-income and the presidential candidates and their response to a pledge to protect black lives. newsmakers, sunday at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. throughout this month, we are showing book tv programs during the week. in case you are not familiar with the weekend features, book tv takes public affairs programming and focuses on interviews and book discussions. lookpth, a live three-hour , it airs therk first sunday of every month at noon eastern. afterwards, there is a one-on-one conversation with the author of a newly released book and an interviewer that is a

journalist or legislator familiar with the topic. afterwards airs every saturday. and we will take you across the country visiting book festivals and book parties over the others talk about their latest works. book tv is the only national network focused on nonfiction work. , for seriousspan2 readers. >> in his weekly address by president obama talks about the zika virus. and senator alexander has the republican response, talking about the affordable care act in tennessee. earlier thisma: year, i got a letter from south carolina -- a south carolina woman who is expecting her third child. she was extremely concerned about the zika virus and what it might mean for other pregnant women. i understand the concern.

as a father, the letter has stuck with me and it is why we have been focused on the threat of the zika virus. today i want to take a few minutes to let you know what we are doing in response and what more we can do. last year, one of the most recent outbreaks of zika started in other countries. agencies like the cdc has been preparing for it to arrive in the u.s. in february, more than six months ago i asked congress for emergency resources that experts say we need to combat the get, like mosquito control, tracking the virus, accelerating new tests into vaccines, and monitoring women and babies with the virus. republicans did not share the extreme concern, they said no. instead, we were forced to use resources we need for fighting

cancer and other diseases. we took that step because we need to have irresponsibility to protect american people clobber that not -- but that is not sustainable solution. congress has been on a recess without doing anything to protect americans from the zika virus. so we have done what we can on our own. our primary focus has been on protecting pregnant women and families preparing to have children. and the cdc has been working with florida and other states. other agencies have moved to develop a vaccine. and we are working with the private sector to develop more preventto test for and infections. for weeks, the cdc emergency response team has been on the ground, working with the excellent public health officials in florida. those with a strong track record fighting those diseases like zika, they know what they are doing. there is a lot more that people should do and it begins with basic facts.

zika spreads mainly to the bite of a certain mosquito, and most infected people do not show symptoms. but it can cause serious problems when pregnant women become infected. even if you are not the, you can play a role in protecting future generations. because zika can be spread through unprotected sex, it is not just women who need to be careful. that includes using condoms properly. if you live or travel where zika has been found, protect yourself against mosquitoes that carry the disease. use insect repellent, even after you come home. pantsong sleeves and long to wear -- to make bites less likely. if you can, get rid of standing water where the mosquitoes breed. and to learn more about how to keep your family safe, visit cdc.gov.

every day that republican leaders wait to do their jobs, that is another day the experts must wait, and that has consequences. efforts,weaker control and it puts more americans at risk. one republican senator said there is no such thing as a republican position on zika or a democrat position on zika, because mosquitoes bite everyone. i agree and we need it more republicans to act that way. it is about young moms. today, actually's new baby is healthy and happy and it needs to be priority number one. that is why republicans in congress should treat this like the threat it is and make this their first order of business when they come back to washington after labor day. it means working in a bipartisan way to fully fund the zika response. a fraction of the funding will

not get the job done. you cannot solve a fraction of a disease. experts know what they are doing, they need the resources to do it. so to all americans, make your voice heard. you should know as long as i am president we will do everything we can to slow the spread of the virus and put our children's futures first. thank you. senator alexander: when openedeans woke up and the newspaper, the headline read, very near collapse. it was not about a bridge or a foreign dictator, the foreign -- the collapse was the description of the obamacare exchange in tennessee, which more than 230,000 people used last or to purchase health plans. what does, very near collapse mean? it means my this november when -- this november, when they are

signing up for plans there will be fewer plans to choose from and they will be more expensive. this picture will be the same for many americans. next year, tennesseans will pay an increase on average between 44%-60 2% more for obamacare plans. even for a healthy 40-year-old, non-smoking tennessee and -- tennessee prison on the -- person on the exchange, the premiums increased last year and next year it will be $333 more a month. and even though the policyholder does not pay all of it, the taxpayer will because a large version of obamacare premiums are subsidized with tax dollars. tennessee had to take extreme measures to allow increases saidse insurance companies , if you do not raise rates, we

need to leave. and if it happens, then those in tennessee will only have one to choose from. that is what is happening in states all over the country. obamacare plans are locked in for next year. according to the consulting firm evolution health, those purchasing insurance in the exchange regions next year may only have one insurer to choose from. people buying on the exchanges will have only one insurer to choose from in five states next year. alabama, alaska, oklahoma, south thelina and -- according to family foundation. in political reports, many --nties are poised to become because no insurers can afford the health plans. that leaves 9700 people in arizona with no obamacare plan options for 2017.

before obamacare became law, republicans asked -- said that this would happen. in february 2010, i spoke for republicans at a white house summit on health care and warned president obama that the premiums for individual insurance would rise under his proposal. but warnings are not much use now, americans need action. as the governor of tennessee said, the federal government needs to address the situation. they created the problem, he said, so they will need to address it. in other words, the next congress, in a matter who is president, will have to deal with the mess that obamacare has caused and the pain of the american people. americans have a choice in this election, they know what democrats will do if they are in charge. democrats will increase the

control of the private health insurance structure. they will spend more taxpayer dollars to prop up the collapsing exchanges. republicans have a better idea. we want to help americans struggling with the cost of health care insurance immediately. we would do that by giving states more flexibility to give individuals and families options to purchase low-cost, private health insurance plans outside of the obamacare structure. the problem of solving obamacare takes more than a five-minute radio address, but helping americans struggling to purchase private health insurance is something we should do immediately. in order to avoid a near collapse of the nation's health insurance market, we needed a republican

>> coming up sunday morning, white house correspondent on the campaignvelopments in 2016. the white house's relationship with congress following the august recess. at -- lend will look howie lend will look at donald trump's plans for veterans. journal lifeington beginning at 7:00 eastern sunday morning. join the discussion. "the brain is called electric." the author is boston globe reporter malcolm gay. what is a bci? malcolm: