plus, a broadway producer at the helm of the nea. >> lehrer: that follows, the president in a time ofis. >> lehrer: it's been a busy 13 days for president obama, since a failed christmas day attack on a u.s. airliner approaching detroit. the incident occurred just hours after the first family departed for hawaii, to celebrate the holidays with family. instead, most of mr. obama's time was spent in briefings, and secure conference calls. and each day, details emerged on the nigerian suspect and the u.s. government's failure to prevent the attack. in two statements to the american public, the president labeled it a "a systemic failure" and launched a full review. yesterday, back in the white house, he met with his national security team. he said it's his responsibility to find out why the system failed and to fix it. today, white house press secretary robert gibbs offered this, by way of context. >> the president has taken actions to deal with a whole set of crises that he had when he came in. he understands that. he had to make a lot of tough decisions that may or may not be political

chge was a mantra of the campai and i think he wanted change at the nea and he going to get it. rocco landeman thanks for letting us ce to talk. >> it'good to be with you jeff. >> ill: for the record, the national endowmentor the arts is o of the funders of the nehour's arts coverage. >> lehrer:gain, the major velopments of the day. two more demratic senators pl to retire after this year, chris dodd of connticut and byron dorgan of north dakota the nigerian susct in the airlin bombing plot was indicted on charges includin atmpted murder. and pakiani officials reported u.s. drone strikes killeat least 13 peoplnear the border th afghanistan. the newshour is always onle. ha sreenivasan, in our newsroom, previewshat's there. hari, >> sreenivasan: we have re inghts from "washington post" reporter chris cillizza on t retirements of docratic senators dodd and dorgan dante chin stopped by to discuss new research on th impact of immigrion on political battlegrounds acro the country, that's onur patchwork nation page. on art beat, a conrsation remembering abstract artist kenneth noland wh

but this is art created with your tax dollars through the nea. healthcare for all.octrination and bribe. >> and bribes. the final pieces of the puzzle, glenn spelled out all week. they will try to silence you. if that doesn't work, they will try to turn the politics of destruction. glenn pointed out last night that candidate obama promised a new era of positive politics. but we have seen some nasty attacks under his administration. attacks on the left, from the left. and they even went after -- ready for this -- senator joe lieberman's wife when they did not like what the senator was saying about healthcare. as we saw during the tea parties and town hall meetings, they will mock you, ridicule you, put you down and try to forget you. but don't worry, we are still listening to you. when the left might want to reconsider fdr as their hero next. >>> sometimes when you want to understand what is going on in the world today you have to look back at the events of the past. we're doing that. a new book out about the 32nd president, franklin roosevelt talking about a massive

the chairman of the nea has joined us. he's a part of president obama's team. and we're delighted he's here. he and i just had a meeting recently. and we're going to collaborate on some things for really promoting the arts because we know that the cultural activities in communities are so important to the work that all of you do. i'm going to make some very brief remarks and spend most of the time with you on any questions or comments or issues that you would like to talk about. i think it's more important for me to listen to you. so i add my welcome to all of you, to washington. i think it goes without saying that you all have some of the toughest jobs in america. we think of the jobs that exist here in washington, whether it's the president or vice president or members of the cabinet. but you're on the ground every day. you're in the neighborhoods. you're with real people. and nobody knows more than you do that the real -- the needs of america. and so i'm just really delighted to have a chance to be with all of you and to listen to you. i know the recession h

very commits are a few of those achievements that people would associate with federal funding and the nea. i greatly appreciate people coming out today. have you got to speak with you for a few minutes. got to sign any copies of this book or to answer any questions that you might have. thank you for being part of this audience and part of this occasion and thank you for interest and support for heritage foundation. [applause] >> thank you, michael. i do have to say if anyone wants more information on antitrust what is called an incredible machine that puts it in just a perfect way seemed that there is free will on antitrust you need to pay attention to. don't charge too much that's prior to coaching. don't charge to the left predatory pricing. at all costs don't charge the same, but collusion. if you can only get one b

the nea has just written a study that talks about the crying need to get more young women in what they call the stem class, science, technology, engineering and mathematics. but how are we going to get more young women to take computer and technology the classes when 71% of teachers interviewed said that the boys do well because of their aptitude and girls do well, hmm, pause they really, really -- because they really, really, really work hard and because it's good luck. and every study has pointed out that unless young people become computer savvy by the time they're 1212 years old -- 12 years old, they are really going to be frozen out of the workplace. now, let's look at the workplace. another area where the united states did pretty well. gender discrimination abounds whether it's the gender pay gap that starts, incidentally, right after college and incleese creases over -- increases over a the course of a lifetime, whether it's discrimination against older women in the work force or whether it's the fact that in 2005 the bureau of labor statistics stopped collect canning data on wo

. >> i'm not sure whether i was invited to serve on this panel because i'm vice president of the nea because i'm a sixth grade teacher from utah and we can stretch the dollar until you can see through it. i taught for 20 years and i have saved a lot of pennies in my utah classroom, and i've witnessed first-hand a lot of decisions that were penny-wise and pound-foolish, and good lord, we had better be smart enough to know the difference. there is too much at stake to get this wrong so i just want to say how much i appreciate you but consider this important enough to hold this form and for all of you that think it is important enough to attend, because i am sick and tired of failing to make things better. you know what nea we are really really could that fighting what we consider to be that bad things and when you defeated bad thing your victory is that you get to keep what you already have, and how was that a victory when what you have is not good enough? i don't want a win to mean we get to keep what we have got. i want a win to mean that what we have gets better and it is not going

i don't think those policy rtues are anywhere nea large enough to juify going with a much less proessive tax. >> ifill: when you talk abt this tax, jonathan grube when you talk out this so- called cadillac tax, what is actually taxed? at is included in snit. >> what is actuay taxed is the dollar value of heth inrance plans that exceeds that threshold. let's take a simple exampl imagine that mhealth insurance costs $26,000 a ye for myamily. whathat means is i'll be xed on 40% of the $3,000 difference between t $23,000 threold and the $26,000 cost of my plan. or i'll pay abt $1200 a year. that is veus the current tax break i get about $9,000 a year othat plan. so is scaling back a bit. i think the main argent for it, think josh laid it out very well. it's a trade-off between. it is less ogressive although not at much less progressive but somewhat less than what proposed in the use. the other hand, it's generay viewed as one of the very few things know can actually helwith health care cost control which ian important goal of thisill . >> ifill: josh bivens,hat if you are a company that has

and i want to -- i know the chairman of the nba is here -- nea is here. please stand up.he has joined us. he is part of president obama's team and i am delighted he is here. he and i had a meeting recently and we are going to collaborate on some things for really promoting the arts, because we know the cultural activities of communities are so important to go work that all of you do. i'm going to make some very brief remarks and spend most of the time with you on any questions or comments or issues that you would like to talk about. i think it is more important for me to listen to you. i add my welcome to all of you to washington. it goes without saying that you all have some of the toughest jobs in america. we think as -- of the jobs that exist in washington, whether the president or vice-president or members of the cabinet. but you are on the ground every day. you are in the neighborhoods. you are with real people. and nobody knows more than you'd do the needs of america. so, i am just really delighted to have a chance to be with all of you and to listen to you. i know

carolina chart earth teachers were involved with the north carolinaa, which is our way of keeping the nea and wondering in what parts of your customers and what is continuing educate law that have createt evidencely into a caking kind of advocate cri work they do also provide some of those professional development activities. >> so it's important for charter schools, whether they do it through the networks they are associated with. a kips school or a spier public school that they have plentiful professional development for their futures and in terms of the way the schools operate. make sure the futures have a dwoice, some about to teach ole fosm and meaning more broadly that any kind of contractal relationship recognized the autonomy of the charter school. it would be a really bad mistake to fold christmas into the by and large collective pargening contracts we see in most of our big cities. so i want to china to look at ways for expressing our family and get the kind of development is just say that. never equipped when -- that's one of the zates a lot of people think would do well in rac