unless you're a total swede in scandinavia scandinavia. this looks more natural. >> then an hour before i go to bed i plug my phone in the kitchen and gotten a old school alarm clock so i on't have to have it in my bed and that calms me down. >> you can hear in the there? >> no, i leave in the there and i gotten a old school alarm mecl ok so i don't need myhone to be the alarm. >> you can explain that to me afterwards. >> yes, this is me. so i do a little bit everyday of exercise. >> you do a lot ef-morn very morning. >> i don't do a lot but when i do that 30 or 40 minutes i feel like it makes you look and feel the best. >> but tell then what time you do it. >> i do it at like 5:00 in the morning. >> and never miss it. and we know what motivates you and we talk about this all the time but it's -- >> music! crank it! my name is no, my number is no, you need to let it go is tha megan? this is hoda, all right, because it's an optical illusion. >> i'll wear a two piece. didn't start wearing them until i was in my 40s anyway, never wore a two p

scandinavia. >> scandinavia isn't a real -- >>thy think it is. >> any of the scandinavian countries are charging a lot of money for everything. >> gas in scandinaviathe you know what out of you so they can provide cradle to grave but as far as kroner is concerned, they want it although i think they use the euro now. >> right. but the swedish bikini team might be worth it just for that. >> i don't know anything about that team other than they must be very cold. >> it's frigid. >> swedish bikini team. anyway, i wis i could show all of these people because they're marching now the cuba thing that we just saw earlier in the program. >> yeah. >> because once you get a big central government telling you what to do, it doesn't stop them. >> that's true. >> all right. jesse watters, everybody. see you on thursday. >>> "factor" tip of the day, very bad situation in the american airline industry. the tip moments away. don't let dust and allergies get between you and life's beautiful moments. with flonase allergy relief, they wont. most allergy pills only control one inflammatory substance. flonase controls six. and six is greater than one. flonase changes e

scandinavia throughout scandinavia there is something called the open prison where people are able to go and come from prison and work jobs on the outside, spend weekends with family and come back to prison and really have as close to a normal incarcerated life as much of a paradox is that is as possible and they also have other prisons that are a bit more traditional in that they have a wall. i visited one that had a roll around and its traditional in that respect, but it is gleaming and beautiful and has every form of rehabilitated programming and therefrom job-training to a music studio to cooking class, really giving people an opportunity to reinvent themselves and genuinely enact this thing we call rehabilitation. host: should life sentencing frequent around the world? guest: absolutely not. america is inimitable in the way that we give out life sentences. we are actually one of only nine nations to give out life sentences and the death penalty. our sentences are longer than any other country in the world and in most of the countries i visited a life sentence did not even exist. it existed in theory, but once you hit 25 years is considered a life sentence and that includes norway and even countries like brazil and south africa where we might think of prison conditions as much harsher than ours. again and again, i mean, the great sadness of that reality is that again and again studies have shown us that longer sentences don't make us safer. people a jet of crime. they are costing us money and they are feeling years and years of people's lives for no good reason. host: when you say people age out of crime, what do you mean? guest: in other words we know that people hit a certain point in life where they are less likely to commit crime and that's known as the aging out of crime theory and yet we still keep people in prison in their 50s and 60s when a studies have shown their likelihood to commit crimes again is very low. host: what do you say to a victim's family who after maybe 15 years of someone who is convicted of murder is let out? guest: i'm glad you asked me that because i am asked about victims all the time and i start the book, the journey in rwanda with victims because i firmly believe that the first thing we should talk about when we talk about crime is not the offender, but the victim and i look at rwanda as a way that on alternative to prison system community course that systems of restitution and reparations were created that benefited the victim instead of necessarily punishing the offender, which is our traditional approach and i went to rwanda and then south africa to really think about this framework and ultimately what i found again and again and also included in the studies i looked at is the idea that our criminal justice system as it stands now is not benefiting victims as it should, which is actually the fundamental problem with it here victims are not having their needs met. they are not at the center of the justice system. sending someone away to prison, which we assume will be healing for the victim is more often than not is not healing for that victim, so i think it is encumbered upon us to think about ways to heal the victim and to allow that victim a better opportunity to be served by a criminal justice system that is not doing a good job of that now. host: baz dreisinger is our guest. incarceration nation is the name of the book and will he is calling in from new orleans. lee, you're on the air. ahead. caller: i was wondering what her position would be about legalization and medical eyes in drugs similar to what has happened in portugal, whether that could have an impact on on the incarceration rates being so high in the united states. host: before we get your answer, what is her-- her answer what is your answer? caller: i support legalization and i think the portugal approach would probably be the best and build on the best to legalize all drugs and medical eyes a certain portion of and i think that would really have a major impact on incarceration, but i'm not sure she studied the incarceration issue better than i have, so i'm not clear. host: thank you, sir. guest: i am in agreement with you. i am in favor of the regulated legalization of most substances and i certainly think and we have seen this again and again in terms of what studies are telling us that this would reduce the recursive-- incarceration rates dramatically took not just here, but globally. it's important to keep in mind that our drug policy has reverberated through the globe and many countries i have visited, they are countries that have mimicked the us is tough on crime policy when it comes to drugs. but, i will say that it is important to remember also that even if we let all of the drug offenders out of prison, if we changed our laws around drugs, which is critical, we would still have an estimated approximately 1.5 million people in prison, still enough to make us up there at the top and so the changes have to extend beyond drug laws and we have to rethink the role rules and regulation around for. we have to rethink all of the ways that we are dealing with quote unquote violent offenders and not just nonviolent offenders. host: where did your interest in this topic come from? guest: a bit about roundabout story, but i was doing a lot of work on the culture of crime and i'm an english professor and i have written quite a bit about hip-hop culture and america popular culture and did a series of stories that led to me being invited into prisons to give talks and from the first time that i did that i could not look away. i think being in an educational context in a prison and being among people whose enormous potential uc is not given an opportunity to flourish in the world just depress me profamily that we are losing some of our best citizens and our best potential contributors to society. host: next call. j from portland, oregon. baz dreisinger is our guest. caller: you gave a pretty good overview of the european model. what particular in the us is the most progressive state? guest: well, i think it would-- it depends on what we are talking about with regard to what particular issue. beaumont has some progressive policy around drugs uncertainly the legalization of marijuana in various states from colorado to california where we are makes a tremendous difference, but overall, we are not in a very good place in any state and the reforms that have to happen have to happen in a broad scale nationwide. host: will, torso, oklahoma. go ahead, will. caller: i appreciate you taking my call. i'm in oklahoma and we have very stringent laws. in the state of oklahoma we used to lead the nation i believe in female incarceration. per capita, of course. we did lead the nation and mail-- male inmates, not talking about jail, prison, felony convictions and my question is of all-- [inaudible] >> the united states, the nation leads incarceration as a whole oklahoma led the incarceration rate. certain crimes and felonies in other states etc. i spent two years in prison for 2 grams of marijuana. i'm not a pro marijuana guy. i got caught and him guilty. for two years i was shocked. i said your honor, seriously and here's what my attorney told me and i wanted to share this with you and i will let you comment. we have to stop locking up people we are mad at and lock up people we are scared of, by the crimes, people crimes against people, violent crimes, those are the folks we need to have incarcerated and stop locking up people for these petty crimes, but in the state of oklahoma -- host: will come i think we have that idea. let's hear from our guest. guest: thank you. i agree with that statement although i would say this, we need to look harder at who we are afraid of our who we think we are afraid of and we knew to remember the people in prison are people in prison and we imagine often times people say what do you do with the rapists and murderers, someone who is habitually committing murder is a very tiny percentage of the prison population. the bulk of what i see in the us and i have seen globally are people who are essentially by way of poverty and racism being produced from prison cells and as a result it's not about necessarily their bad choices, but a nation with bad policies that are producing systemic racism and poverty that craze the prison population and this is mirrored throughout the globe whether we are talking about blacks and latinos in the us, blacks and so-called colored folks in south africa, the hill people in thailand, all people who have been failed by our system, so we should be careful around this nonviolent versus violent crime division because it's a far more complex issue than it sounds. host: baz dreisinger, what super max and who is there? guest: super max is a dramatically solitary confinement driven prison that is supposedly for the worst of the worst criminals and i put that in quotation marks. america invented the super max in the 1980s and then this model became imitated around the world and is used in estimated at about a dozen countries and its extreme solitary confinement for 22, 23 hours it day. i visited a federal super max that has been built in brazil in the last decade or so that was literally a living hell on north where people are going insane before your eyes because we know again, from psychological studies around super max that that level of solitary confinement damages you permanently and i also learned there something that mimics the us as well, which is that we say it's where the worst of the worst, but often it's use as a political tool to punish people or something as sort of flight and looking at aggression officers the wrong way can land of someone in solitary confinement and thereby damage their psyche for life and leave us with the liability-- as being society of welcoming that damaged person back when i come home. host: next call for our guest comes from carol in texas. hello, carol. caller: hello. host: please go ahead. caller: my question was, what would you recommend states do with crimes that are drug-related? how should they handle those? host: we talked about that a little bit earlier, but if you would, quickly. guest: i don't dramatically distinguish between dealing with crimes that are drug-related or not and for one as we talked about earlier i'm in favor of the legalization of most of substances and a whole different policy around them. drugs should be treated as a public health issue and not a criminal justice issue, but i can add that i think even when it comes to what are categorized as a violent crimes i don't see prison as a morally, economically or socially responsible response and if we thought more in terms in this whole host of things we need to rejigger to get our prison system-- our criminal justice system where should be, but if we put community policing and justice and restitution in a different paradigm at the heart of our system i think our world and the global world would look very differently. host: mark is in seattle. mark, go ahead with your question or comment. caller: i'm interested in the way felons have their voting rights taken away and i'm wondering how common that is in the rest of the world. it seems like an additional way to punish people and a strip them of citizenship. guest: great question. i can honestly say that in almost every country i visited at a certain point someone when i was in one of the most awful prisons, the most painful places someone would look at me and say something along the lines of, i can't believe in america you still have the death penalty or in america i can't believe you have life in prison and one of the things i heard quite a bit was, i can't believe someone comes home from prison and cannot vote in many states in america and that is an extremely rare thing and it's shocking to many countries who believe in the idea that when you come home from prison you have your rights restored. it's on a appalling problem that's connected to the larger crisis of reentry altogether, which is that we send people to prison and we stigmatize them for life and that is something again that america does well. host: baz dreisinger, what do you think of the recent conversation we're having in this country about prison reform and the fact that the koch brothers have also advocated for some prison reform? guest: on the one hand i'm excited about it. it's wonderful that this is such a part of the public discord and it's wonderful we are seeing a level of bipartisan-- unprecedented level of bipartisan-- i keep my cynical hat on because much of the conversation tends to be economic in nature and that investment is that we have to reduce our prison population because we are going broke and that is true and i'm advocate for not wasting our money, but i think if it's just about finding something cheaper we can easily find a cheaper way to mass incarcerate and given that i believe prison system is oppression i think we can find a cheaper way to oppress people, so a big reason i wrote this because i wanted to address is on a more social level, on officials-- philosophical level so that not only about dollars and cents and we talk about the bigger issue at stake. host: the book is called: incarceration nation: a journey to justice in prisons around the world. the next call comes from persia-- in california. please go ahead. caller: i was wondering about the aspect of the privatization of prisons and the concept of prisons for profit. can you address the subject? guest: sure. i'm glad you asked. i get that question a lot. private prisons are in the public eye now. one of our democratic candidates, bernie sanders, was to abolish private prisons. i look at private prisons in australia, which is the country that has the largest percentage of people in prison in the world and i think we know and i mean anyone who has looked at this issue in a superficial way we know private prisons are dangers in that they are making money off of the incarceration of human beings, the warehousing of human beings and most frighteningly they have tremendous lobbying power with billions of dollar industry that has control over legislature, push for crime-- tough on crime sentencing and this is a terrifying reality and it is true in australia. again, i should say private prisons are something we started in the us and the world copycat it as a model. bow, the thing i often remind people around this issue is that when it comes to the intertwining of capitalism and prisons, this happens whether we are talking private prison or state prison. state prisons are making enormous money. there is a lot of industry and capitalism in mashed in the state system as well as we are talking about, phone companies, prison labor, items made in prison around the nation and around the world, so it's a very dangerous combination whether private or public. host: gregory is up and show-- sherman oaks, california. go ahead, gregory. caller: hello. i came in late to the discussion, so possibly you have discussed this. my question concerns whether or not you have been a victim of yourself of any serious crime and if you have or haven't how this has affected your attitudes and ideas on this topic? in my case i have been physically assaulted on one occasion, held up at gunpoint on another occasion and on another occasion i had my home burglarized and 22 pieces by one or more burglars and i have also had relatives and friends physically assaulted, one of them was permanently injured, and elderly woman in her 80s when someone try to take her purse. host: gregory, with that all said, how has that affected your view of incarceration, three strikes you are out, other type issues like that? caller: well, i'm a political liberal and i have tried to stay as liberal and open-minded on these topics as i can. for example, i'm opposed to private prison for profit. i'm opposed to this scandal of phone companies making money off of criminals. i am for prison to college pipeline and for every good thing we can do and i think scandinavia holds up the model, which seems incredibly progressive, but i also had the attitude about criminals and people that can't behave well and hard and by terrible experiences such as myself and these people close to me and i am still trying to reconcile the z's, so i wonder if ms. dreisinger, you're been a victim of any serious crime of the type i described in my experience and if so-- host: thank you, sir. let's hear from our author, baz dreisinger. guest: that's a thoughtful response and i really appreciate that and i empathize with your victimhood and what you have been through and i would say i personally have not been a victim and i talk about this in the book and earlier i mentioned i start the book in rwanda focusing on victims and the needs of victims and continued that thread throughout the book because i firmly believe that victims should be at the heart of our criminal justice system and i would say to you that's you deserve to live in a society where you are not victimized and

scandinavia and other countries. >> well, okay. but if you want to in scandinavia other countries. >> that's what bernie sanders is talking about. and to some extent hillary clinton. >> they pay quite a bit in taxes, but they get a lot. and the problem here is that people pay a lot in taxes and they don't get very much for it and that's a problem. so you do actually get healthcare and free education and your retirement, paid for and all of these other things that we don't get. >> we don't get it because we have a different system and many, many more people. >> well, maybe we need to have a different system than. >> that's what bernie sanders is saying. bernie sanders is elected president. he would crash the economy. and it would be armageddon because businesses would just pull out of here and you know it. but hillary clinton you don't know what she wants to do because you are right. she is running left. to compete with"nçÑ sanders. you know, in her past she hadn't been aró radical. now she is a semi radical. last word. >> she a moderate. >> moderate radical. >> she

scandinavia is not socialist. the prime minister of denmark went after bernie sanders and said stop calling us socialist. sweden, denmark and scandinavia. john: got rid of labor laws. >> that accommodates their large social welfare state. that's what bernie sanders is talking about, their large social welfare state. john: how many of you have would consider voting for bernie sanders? >> no! john: no one here? >> government planning an industry or entire economy it tends to result in the same sets of consequences, long lines, rationing, lower quality care and less innovation. if you want less innovation then we can embrace those systems. but if you bant wants a cure or cancer and hiv, you have to have innovation and free markets even in the healthcare system. john: polling found millennials start to turn against socialism the more money they make. >> if millennials started to make between $40,000 to $60,000 a year, their support for socialism decrease. they start working longer hours and start paying more in taxes. buy a house, have kids. they want to be rewarded for those efforts. that's what most americans think. >> on the popular net

scandinavia? last year, i was at a meeting in washington, d.c., and i made the point that college in scandinavia is free. they said, no senator, you are wrong. they said, and finland, it is not free -- they pay us to go to college. [laughter] all right, what does that mean? it means that if we are smart about the future of this country, we want everybody to have the ability and the desire to get as much education as they can. that is common sense. [applause] sen. sanders: we want to encourage young people to get an education, not discourage them. when you make public colleges and universities tuition-free, you do something that is pretty revolutionary. i grew up with a family that did not have a lot of money, my parents never went to college. that is true for many families today. there are kids right here in wilmington in the fourth grade and in the sixth grade whose parents never went to college, don't have any money. the idea of thinking they can go to college is as realistic as them thinking they are going to the moon. it is not within their purview. they are not thinking about it, and therefore they are not not studying and not doing school work the way they should. but if the word is out in this country that every kid, regardless of the income of his or her family, will be able to get an college education if they take their schoolwork seriously, we can revolutionize education in this country. [applause] sen. sanders: so is not only making public colleges and universities tuition-free, not only dealing with dysfunctional child care system. every psychologist who studies the issue tells us the most important years of human development are zero through four, is that right? that is when we develop intellectually and we develop emotionally. and yet, we are working class families, mom goes to work, dad goes to work, people are frantically searching for good-quality, affordable childcare, and it is hard to find. think outside of the box. think outside of the status quo, and ask yourselves why we do not have the best quality pre-k system in the world. [applause] sen. sanders: think what america looks like. think what america looks like when mom goes to work, when dad goes to work, and they know that their kids are getting quality care from well-trained, well-paid instructors who are proud to be childcare workers. [applause] and think of what happens when we don't do that, when kids into the first grade unprepared intellectually or emotionally. this is called changing our national priorities. this is called investing in our people, rather than in corporate america or wall street. [applause] sen. sanders: so not only do we need a strong childcare system and a first-class public education system, we also have to deal with this crisis of a student debt. that is why i believe that people holding student debt now should be able to refinance that debt at the lowest interest rates they can find. [applause] sen. sanders: now, there is nothing radical about what i am saying. the vast majority of the american people agree with what we are talking about right now, but our critics come back. this gets back to joe biden. critics come back. they say, bernie, you are a nice guy, you want free education, lower student debt, create a first-class childcare system in america, great ideas, bernie! how are you going to pay for them? i will tell you how we are going to pay for them. over the last 30 years, there has been a massive transfer of wealth in this country from the middle class to the top 1/10 of 1%. we are going to transfer that money back into the hands of the middle class. [applause] sen. sanders: we can lower student debt, we can provide free tuition at public colleges and universities by imposing up tax on wall street speculation. [applause] sen. sanders: this country bailed out wall street after their greed and illegal behavior nearly destroyed our economy. now it is their time to help the working families of this country. [applause] sen. sanders: this is not a radical idea. and like many other ideas, we don't go forward unless we are prepared to think big. [applause] sen. sanders: to say that everybody in the united states of america who has the qualifications and abilities should be able to get a higher education is not a radical idea. it is a common-sense american idea that will make this country stronger. [applause] sen. sanders: i have been in this campaign all over the country. i have been to flint, michigan and talked to parents who have seen cognitive damage done to their beautiful children as a result of their kids drinking poisoned water, lead in the water. i have been to detroit, michigan and talked to people who have seen their public school system on the verge of collapse. i have been to baltimore, maryland, where there are communities where 40% or 50% of the people are unemployed or underemployed. people all over this country and in the african-american community are asking me a very simple question. they say, bernie, how can we always seem to have money to spend trillions of dollars fighting a war like the one in iraq that we never should have gone into, but we are always told that we don't have the money to invest in rebuilding inner cities in america? [applause] sen. sanders: and you know what? you know what? those people are right, it is always the way it is. there is always money for war. there is always money for military expenditures. there is always money for tax breaks for billionaires, but somehow there is not enough money to rebuild inner cities or to pay attention to the people in this country who are hurting the most. well, you know what? we are going to change that dynamic. [applause] sen. sanders: this campaign is listening to the latino community, and they are reminding us that there are 11 million undocumented people in this country, many of whom are being exploited today because when you don't have any legal rights, your employer can do anything he wants. gq, take away your wages, work you, take awayat your wages, work you in ways that are illegal. and that is why we need to pass comprehensive immigration reform and a path to citizenship. [applause] sen. sanders: and if congress does not do its job in passing that legislation, i will pick up where president obama left off and use the executive powers of the presidency to do all i can. [applause] sen. sanders: this campaign is listening to some people whose voices and pain are almost never heard. and that is people in the native american communities of this country. [applause] sen. sanders: i don't have to tell anybody here that from before when this country became a country, when the first settlers came over here, the native american people were lied to, they were cheated, and treaties negotiated were broken. i don't have to tell you that we owe the native american people more than ever we could pay. [applause] sen. sanders: they have contributed so much to the fabric of this nation, and among many other things, but maybe most importantly, they have taught us the profound lesson that as human beings, we are part of nature. we have got to live with nature. we cannot destroy nature and survive. [applause] and yet, if you go to reservations around this country, if you go to many native american communities, you find unbelievably high levels of poverty, unemployment, young people committing suicide at horrific rates. if elected president, we will change our relationship with the native american people. [applause] sen. sanders: if we think big and not small, we ask ourselves another very simple question, and that is, how does it happen that every other major country on earth -- united kingdom, france, germany, italy, holland, scandinavia, canada, whatever. every one of those countries guarantees health care to all of their people as a right. [applause] sen. sanders: we are the only major country that does not guarantee health care to all of our people. so let me be as clear as i can be. i believe from the deepest part of my being that health care is a right of all people, not a privilege. [applause] that whether you are young or old, rich or poor, you have the high-quality health care as a citizen of this country. the affordable care act has done a number of good things, and i'm proud to be on the committee that helped write that bill. but we can do more. we are now spending far more per capita on health care than any other nation. yet 29 million people still have no health insurance. many of you are underinsured with high deductibles and copayments, and every one of us continues to be ripped off by the greed of the drug companies. [booing] sen. sanders: do you want to hear crazy? this is crazy. right now in america,

, as a country in scandinavia and western europe, is the only ministers.t has 15 other countries may have former leaders, but iceland is daily country in western europe and scandinaviat has ministers that are actually in office now. i guess that is one of the reasons. of course we have a massive financial collapse in 2008 that really shook icelandic society, and many people simply woke up. and we have massive demonstrations that i was a part of back then, unlike some of the other icelanders, the protests two days ago were really unique because in icelandic, like in many other countries, it is very difficult to get people to come out to protest unless their livelihoods are threatened in one way or the other. so this was a protest against what people since with the ethical collapse that was the 1%d -- revealed by or's of iceland. percenters of iceland. i cannot tell you how i felt to see so many come forward and massive demonstrations, the biggest in our history, to show the rest of the world that not all icelanders are of the same nature as the leaders of iceland. amy: birgitta jonsdottir, you're a member of the icelandic parliament. your party, the pirate party, acc

scandinavia? last year i had a meeting in washington dc, college in scandinavia is free. they said, no senator, you are wrong. finland, they pay us to go to college. all right? what does that mean? it means that if we are smart about the future of this country, we want everybody has the ability and the desire to get as much education as they can. that is common sense. [applause] we want to encourage young people to get an education, not discourage them. when you make public colleges and universities tuition free, you do something that is pretty revolutionary. i grew up with a family that did not have a lot of money, my parents ever went to college. that is true for many families today. there are kids right here in wilmington in the fourth grade and in the sixth grade whose parents never went to college, didn't get the money. the idea of thinking they can go to college is as realistic as then thinking they are going to the moon. it is not within their peripheral vision. they are not thinking about it, not studying and not doing school work as they should. if the word is out in this country that every kid, regardless of the income of his or her family, will be able to get an college education if they take schoolwork seriously, we can revolutionize education in this country. [applause] so is not only making public colleges and universities tuition free, not only dealing with dysfunctional child care system. every psychologist who studies the issue, the most important years of human development are zero through four, is that right? we develop intellectually and we develop emotionally. and yet, we are working class families, mom goes to work, dad goes to work, people are frantically searching for good quality affordable childcare, and it is hard to find. think outside of the box. ,hink outside of the status quo and ask yourselves why we do not have the best quality pre-k system in the world. [applause] like.what america looks think what america looks like when mom goes to work, when dad goes to work, and they know that their kids are getting quality care from well-trained, well-paid instructors who are proud to be childcare workers. [applause] happens whenwhat we don't do that, when kids into the first grade, unprepared intellectually or emotionally. this is called changing our national priorities. this is called investing in our people, rather than corporate america or wall street. [applause] so not only do we need a strong childcare system and a first-class public education system. we also have to deal with this crisis of a student debt. that is why i believe that people holding student debt now should be able to refinance that debt at the lowest interest rates they can find. [applause] now, there is nothing radical about what i am saying. the vast majority of the american people agree with what we are talking about right now, but our critics come back. we go back to joe biden, critics come back. they say bernie, you are a nice guy, you want free education, lower student debt, create a first-class childcare system in america, great ideas, bernie. how are you going to pay for them? i will tell you how we are going to pay for them. over the last 30 years, there has been a massive wealth growth from the middle class to the top 1%. we are going to transfer that money back into the hands of the middle class. [applause] we can lower student debt, we can provide the tuition at public colleges and universities by imposing up tax on wall street speculation. [applause] this country bailed out wall street after their greed and illegal behavior nearly destroyed our economy. now it is their time to help the working families of this country. [applause] this is not a radical idea. and like many other ideas, we don't go forward unless we are prepared to think big. [applause] to say that everybody in the united states of america who has qualifications and abilities should be able to get a higher .ducation is not a radical idea it is a common sense american idea that will make this country stronger. [applause] i have been in this campaign all over the country. i have been to flint, michigan and talked to parents who have seen cognitive damage done to their beautiful children as a result of their kids drinking poisoned water, led in the water. in the water. i have been to detroit, michigan and have talked to people who have seen their public school system on the verge of collapse. i have been to baltimore, maryland where there are communities where 40% or 50% of the people are unemployed. people all over this country and in the african-american community are asking me a very simple question. they say bernie, how can we always seem to have money to spend trillions of dollars writing a war like the one in fighting a war like the one in iraq we never should have gone into, but we are not told we have the money to invest in rebuilding inner cities in america? [applause] what? know you know what? those people are right, it is always the way it is. there is always money for war. there is always money for military expenditures. there is always money for tax breaks for billionaires, but somehow there is not enough money to rebuild inner cities were to pay attention to the people in this country who are hurting the most. well, you know what? we are going to change that now. [applause] this campaign is listening to the latino community. and they are reminding us that there are 11 million undocumented people in this country, many of whom are being exploited today because when you don't have any legal rights, your employer can do anything he wants. you, work youheat in ways that are illegal. and that is why we need to pass governance of immigration reform and a path to citizenship. [applause] congress does not do its job in passing that legislation, i will pick up the president left off and use the executive powers of the presidency to do all i can. [applause] this campaign is listening to some people whose voices and pain are almost never heard. that is people in the native american communities of this country. [applause] i don't have to tell anybody here that from before when this country became a country, when the first settlers came over here, the american people were lied to, trees were ms. negotiated. --own the american people native american people more than ever we could pay. [applause] they have contributed so much to the fabric of this nation and among many other things, but maybe most importantly, they have taught us the profound lesson that as human beings, we are part of nature. we have got to live with nature. we cannot destroy nature and survive. [applause] and yes, if you go to reservations around this country , if you go to many native you findcommunities, unbelievably high levels of poverty, unemployment, young people committing suicide at horrific rates. if elected president, we will change the relationship with the native american people. [applause] if we think big and not small, we ask ourselves another very simple question, and that is, how does it happen that every other major country on earth -- united kingdom, france, germany, italy, holland, scandinavianada, whatever. everyone one of those countries guarantees health care to all of their people as a right. [applause] we are the only major country that does not guarantee health care to all of our people. let me be as clear as i can be. i believe from the deepest part of my being that health care is a right of all people, not a privilege. [applause] that whether you are young or old, rich or poor, you have the right to a high quality health care. as a citizen of this country. act has donee care a number of good things, and i'm proud to be on the committee that helped write that bill. but we can do more. far more perending capita on health care than any other nation. 29 million people still have no health insurance. many of you are underinsured with high deductibles and copayments, and every one of us continues to be ripped off by the greed of the drug companies. [booing] crazy want to hear a thing? this is crazy. right now in america, one out of five americans to go to the doctor and g

scandinavia? crowd: free. sen. sanders: last year, i was at a meeting in washington, d.c., and i made the point that college in scandinavia is free. they said, no senator, you are wrong. they said, in finland, it is not free -- they pay us to go to college. [laughter] sen. sanders: all right, what does that mean? it means that if we are smart about the future of this country, we want everybody to have the ability and the desire to get as much education as they can. that is common sense. [applause] sen. sanders: we want to encourage young people to get an education, not discourage them. when you make public colleges and universities tuition-free, you do something that is pretty revolutionary. i grew up with a family that did not have a lot of money, my parents never went to college. that is true for many families today. there are kids right here in wilmington in the fourth grade and in the sixth grade whose parents never went to college, don't have any money. the idea of thinking they can go to college is as realistic as them thinking they are going to the moon. it is not within their purview. they are not thinking about it, and therefore they are not not studying and not doing schoolwork the way they should. but if the word is out in this country that every kid, regardless of the income of his or her family, will be able to get an college education if they take their schoolwork seriously, we can revolutionize education in this country. [applause] sen. sanders: so is not only making public colleges and universities tuition-free, not only dealing with dysfunctional child care system. every psychologist who studies the issue tells us the most important years of human development are zero through four, is that right? that is when we develop intellectually and we develop emotionally. and yet, we are working class families, where mom goes to work, dad goes to work, people are frantically searching for good-quality, affordable childcare, and it is hard to find. think outside of the box! think outside of the status quo, and ask yourselves why we do not have the best quality pre-k system in the world. [applause] sen. sanders: think what america looks like. think what america looks like when mom goes to work, when dad goes to work, and they know that their kids are getting quality care from well-trained, well-paid instructors who are proud to be childcare workers. [applause] sen. sanders: and think of what happens when we don't do that, when kids into the first grade unprepared intellectually or emotionally. this is called changing our national priorities. this is called investing in our people, rather than in corporate america or wall street. [applause] sen. sanders: so not only do we need a strong childcare system and a first-class public education system, we also have to deal with this crisis of a student debt. that is why i believe that people holding student debt now should be able to refinance that debt at the lowest interest rates they can find. [applause] sen. sanders: now, there is nothing radical about what i am saying. the vast majority of the american people agree with what we are talking about right now, but our critics come back. this gets back to joe biden. critics come back. they say, bernie, you are a nice guy, you want free education, lower student debt, create a first-class childcare system in america, great ideas, bernie! how are you going to pay for them? i will tell you how we are going to pay for them. over the last 30 years, there has been a massive transfer of wealth in this country from the middle class to the top 1/10 of 1%. we are going to transfer that money back into the hands of the middle class. [applause] sen. sanders: we can lower student debt, we can provide free tuition at public colleges and universities by imposing up a tax on wall street speculation. [applause] sen. sanders: this country bailed out wall street after their greed and illegal behavior nearly destroyed our economy. now it is their time to help the working families of this country. [applause] sen. sanders: this is not a radical idea. and like many other ideas, we don't go forward unless we are prepared to think big. [applause] sen. sanders: to say that everybody in the united states of america who has the qualifications and abilities should be able to get a higher education is not a radical idea. it is a common-sense american idea that will make this country stronger. [applause] sen. sanders: i have been in this campaign all over the country. i have been to flint, michigan and talked to parents who have seen cognitive damage done to their beautiful children as a result of their kids drinking poisoned water, lead in the water. i have been to detroit, michigan and talked to people who have seen their public school system on the verge of collapse. i have been to baltimore, maryland, where there are communities where 40% or 50% of the people are unemployed or underemployed. people all over this country and in the african-american community are asking me a very simple question. they say, bernie, how can we -- how come we always seem to have money to spend trillions of dollars fighting a war like the one in iraq that we never should have gone into, but we are always told that we don't have the money to invest in rebuilding inner cities in america? [applause] sen. sanders: and you know what? you know what? those people are right, it is always the way it is. there is always money for war. there is always money for military expenditures. there is always money for tax breaks for billionaires, but somehow there is not enough money to rebuild inner cities or to pay attention to the people in this country who are hurting the most. well, you know what? we are going to change that dynamic. [applause] sen. sanders: this campaign is listening to the latino community, and they are reminding us that there are 11 million undocumented people in this country, many of whom are being exploited today because when you don't have any legal rights, your employer can do anything he wants. cheat you, take away your wages, work you in ways that are illegal. and that is why i believe we need to pass comprehensive immigration reform and a path to citizenship. [applause] sen. sanders: and if congress does not do its job in passing that legislation, i will pick up where president obama left off and use the executive powers of the presidency to do all that i can. [applause] sen. sanders: this campaign is listening to some people whose voices and pain are almost never heard. and that is people in the native american communities of this country. [applause] sen. sanders: i don't have to tell anybody here that from before when this country became a country, when the first settlers came over here, the native american people were lied to, they were cheated, and treaties negotiated were broken. i don't have to tell you, also, that we owe the native american people more than ever we could ever repay. [applause] sen. sanders: they have contributed so much to the fabric of this nation, and among many other things, but maybe most importantly, they have taught us the profound lesson that as human beings, we are part of nature. we have got to live with nature. we cannot destroy nature and survive. [applause] sen. sanders: and yet, if you go to reservations around this country, if you go to many native american communities, you find unbelievably high levels of poverty, of unemployment, you find young people committing suicide at horrific rates. if elected president, we will change our relationship with the native american people. [applause] sen. sanders: if we think big and not small, we ask ourselves another very simple question, and that is, how does it happen that every other major country on earth -- united kingdom, france, germany, italy, holland, scandinaviacanada, whatever. every one of those countries guarantees health care to all of their people as a right. [applause] sen. sanders: we are the only major country that does not guarantee health care to all of our people. so let me be as clear as i can be. i believe from the deepest part of my being that health care is a right of all people, not a privilege. [applause] sen. sanders: that whether you are young or old, rich or poor, you have the right to high-quality health care as a citizen of this country. the affordable care act has done a number of good things, and i'm proud to be on the committee that helped write that bill. but we can do more. we are now spending far more per capita on health care than any other nation. yet 29 million people still have no health insurance. many of you are underinsured with high deductibles and copayments, and every one of us continues to be ripped off by the greed of the drug companies. [booing] sen. sanders: do you want to hear crazy? this is crazy. r