there were a number of covert actions sponsored by the reagan administration. i know about most of them because they were written about in "the washington post." that's where you find out about covert operations. none of them succeeded. and toward the end of the reagan administration there were serious conversations at the highest levels about what should be done. the secretary of state wanted to use military force. let's just go in there and remove this fellow, he is an embarrassment. we can easily get rid of him. the reagan administration rejected that, and instead said let's negotiate, let's send someone down to panama a deal, if you step down, we'll drop the indictments in florida and promise that you won't have to suffer threats from american law. but george bush was then vice president. took the very unusual step of criticizing what the president of the united states had proposed. that became a minor issue in the 1988 presidential campaign. as a result, nothing came of those negotiations, and panama was a real issue when bush became president in 1989. tim

under the reagan administration, they required us to do a pilot. in a law enforcement agency, the impact that it had on us was that on a typical oil change for a vehicle went from about $5 to about $20. anticipate if you did it after hours or on a weekend or holiday, there was an additional surcharge for any kind of work that was done under a-76 program. it's a frustrating experience in being able to manage our vehicle fleet. it's a 24-hour law enforcement operation. the program was canceled. so i -- this is not based on a study, it's actual pilot program that was run in the sector, and i was the chief at the time.

in any event, the work was put in and during the end of the ford administration and thanks to the later the reagan administration, the kinds of investment that were needed were actually achieved although the four years of the carter administration actually reduced defense capability during that period. a third thing i am not going to get into extensively and is libertarianism. i guess we all wish we could live in a world where we could all be libertarians and have a small federal government. but unfortunately, that's not the kind of world we live in because the first responsibility of government is to provide for the security of the people. and we live in a world that is dangerous. we live in a world where weakness is provocative. we live in a world where the idea of another country providing global leadership forces one to say, well, which country do we want to do that if not the united states? and that's tough to answer. you look around the world, and there are relatively few countries that think like we do, that have the same values, that have the same capabilities that we do, and so i think mo

the reagan administration did successfully reduce the number of tax energy provisions but it did not accomplish all of their goals. so with that spirit in mind, i think we can look at what we have done with oil and gas revenues. in fact just today, just today it came out that exxonmobil tops fortune 500 top list. and you can see right there, the five biggest oil companies record profits were more than $1 trillion over the past decade. in fact exxon's profits were up 35%. that is good. in 2011, from 2010 totaling that 35%. $41.1 billion. chevron and conocophillips and other oil companies were number three and four but they have had a good year. at the same time these oil companies are raking in record profits, home care health organizations are on a financial brink because of medicare's low reimbursement. be no medicare does not pay the cost of the service that is provided. home health care aides are nervous because the cuts from the sequester may push their organizations off a financial cliff. they will find themselves out of work. when they in the states are out of work they are not

if you think about how contentious those issues were in the reagan administration, particularly late reagan, and how they really became almost nonissues or moved in a positive direction as in the case of south africa, that didn't come about just by magic, you had to think that through. so i would look at the transition a little bit more closely for what hints it gave of what was to come later. >> so let's throw the floor open to questions from you. please wait for the microphone to catch up to you. fred? >> i came in a little late, phillip, so i didn't hear your remarks. but one question i think this panel could clarify is doing teaching in the anti-terrorism sort of era, growth of the taliban, the increasing strength of osama bin laden after that period of time when he was shepherding the arab brigades in afghanistan when the mujahideen was trying to drive out the russians. the account seems to be fairly steady from steve call and others that reviewed it that at the end of the soviet era in afghanistan, the united states really pulled back. we won the cold war, we won the covert acti

whether congress or the reagan administration, you note even in the reagan administration there were voices of a different faction, a different wing in the party. how did that affect the way choices were made when these issues were debated as you said not only between the parties but within the parties? >> jeff, your book is -- >> sure. i think conservatives had to think about what was going to appeal to people in their party. and then to go on to sell it to the public as well. this actually disciplined conservatives and made them realize the need to actually persuade people of their views rather than simply rally the troops and impose it over any kind of opposition. and here again i think ronald rangen that was his lieutenant governor. and the only man whose opinion on politics reagan respected i think. i think reagan saw the need from -- after the goldwater defeat that if a republican was going to triumph it had to cooperate with the moderates, and it had to make the case for unaffirmative conservatism that could solve some of the nation's problems. >> and reagan, we often forget,

under the reagan administration, they required us to do a pilot. in a law enforcement agency, the impact that it had on us was that on a typical oil change for a vehicle went from about $5 to about $20. anticipate if you did it after hours or on a weekend or holiday, there was an additional surcharge for any kind of work that was done under a-76 program. it's a frustrating experience in being able to manage our vehicle fleet. it's a 24-hour law enforcement operation. the program was canceled. so i -- this is not based on a study, it's actual pilot program that was run in the sector, and i was the chief at the time. so i am in opposition to this amendment. >> members in favor say aye. those opposed, no. >> the ayes have it. the amendment is agreed to. >> mr. chairman, i would ask for a roll call vote, please. >> roll call vote has been requested. a roll call vote is ordered. let me just tell you, that was the last amendment we're debating. we will have a block amendment, then we will have our roll call votes, we're approaching the finish line. will t

whether we're talking about congress or the reagan administration. even in the reagan administration there were traces of a different factions. how does that affect the way choices were made when these issues were debated between the parties and within the parties? >> i think conservatives had to think about what was going to appeal to people in their party and then go on to sell it to the broader public. this is a disciplined conservatives and made them realize the need to actually persuade people of their views rather rally the troops and impose it over any kind of opposition. i think ronald reagan is the exemplar. this was not the single greatest vote-getter. that was robert finch. the only man whose opinion of politics reagan respected. i think reagan saw the need after the goldwater defeat that if republicans were going to triumph, it had to be a big tent party and make the case for affirmative conservatism. >> we talk about how the rhetoric tested -- deteriorated. it was reagan who imposed this 11th commandment, thou shalt not speak ill of anoth

from the progressive era through the bush and reagan administration. they were to the right of center but did not challenge the consensus. do we refresh and restore the traditional american consensus? that is what obama represents in this election. >> plenty of things to think about in the run-up to the election. thank you for joining us. he is known as the godfather of soul, and careless performer and talented musician. according to a new biography, he was also deeply troubled individual. the life and music of james brown's sheds light on the musical genius by examining his complicated life. we hear now from the author of the book. >> my book is titled "the one." it was the secret to his music and his being. he hit the first beet harvest. -- he had the first beat the

reagan had done both sides of the hyphen in this scandal, both the iran side and the contra side, even though he had done both sides secretly, hoping nobody would find out, the reagan administration's after-the-fact justification for what he had done and why he had done it was that under reagan's commander in chief powers as president, it was perfectly legal for him to do anything he wanted to do, no matter what the laws were of the united states, because he was president. it's crazy, right? i mean, this was a disaster. there were high-level indictments, administration officials went to jail. amazingly, reagan himself avoided impeachment, but when it came time for congress to investigate this scandal, it was pretty much a slam dunk. they condemned not just what reagan had done, but the outrageousness of that defense. the idea that he could get away with breaking any law, just because he was president. it was not a close call. it was not seen as a particularly partisan verdict by congress, when congress investigated this scandal. but there was one dissent. there was a minority report, a dissent to congress' findings was filed by one congressman, who said that actually, he agreed wit

>> the reagan administration supported huge tax hikes, and i thought isn't that why god invented democratshe real deal then. are you a ron paul fan? >> no ron paul is a libertarian. and he is very clear about that. libertarianism is a distinct fill -- philosophy. ronald reagan as a politician although he had to make compromises. william f buckley was not a politician and did not have to make compromises, he was a true philosopher. he understood conservative philosophy, he was a polite man, a gentlemen. he flew off of the handle a couple of times. >> yes, he did. >> yes, he did. but even [ inaudible ] even a pink fairy by today's standards when you are calling your opponent moron, monkey, pig, nazi, pink fairy was nothing. he was a gentlemen and conservative, and we're almost extinct. i hate to say it but i'm a sort of dinosaur. >> come back to america michael fumento, attorney in the reagan administration and conservative journalist whose piece is on salon.com and should be a must read for all of liberals, conservatives and moderates out there. thank you for your time. >> my pleasure. >> c

. >> how many ships did we have at the end of the reagan administration. >> at the end of the reagan dministration there was a move to build up the navy into the, well, it was aimed to be 600 ship navy and never quite got there but i will put our 300 ship navy up against that. >> rose: because? >> because of the increased capabilities of those ships, because -- >> rose: because of technology? because of some many other things? >> because of technology, because of -- because the build whereupon then was against a soviet threat that stressed sub marine warfare, that was against a large combatant enemy fleet. it just simply isn't one of those out there today, and the ships we are building can do a variety of missions, can -- they are not single mission ships, they can do almost anything that -- they can do anything they are called upon to do. they are incredibly flexible, they can do everything from air operations over afghanistan to humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, to partnership building using the same people, the same platforms, the same, the same training. and i have even

the carter administration at the beginning of the 1980s. after the carter administration effort money was scarce, oral history work languished. the miller center, for example, didn't do any serious oral history work on the reagan administration and frankly, no one did. it just wasn't done, until actually the miller center circled around to it many years later. so when i became director of the miller center, oral history work languished for understandable reasons. we made a concerted effort to revive it. the target, the first exam particular for how to revive it would be the work on the bush 41 presidency. you can immediately see the fundamental problem. the fundamental problem is you want to run a serious oral history project. there's no source of funds for it. it's not what undergraduates pay tuition for, so you don't easily tap the college's money to do that. there is no government money available. private foundations aren't interested in it. there's no money for it. so the source of money to do this project actually had to come in this case from the bush library foundation. it's important for viewers and people here to understand the bush library foundation is not an entity of the united states government.

trade and investment negotiations with japan china latin america and europe in the reagan administration and served as vice chairman of president clinton's commission on trade and investment in the asia pacific region one of your recent articles is called trading jobs for military bases where you're basically saying that the u.s. secor five this its economic interests in the name of geopolitics. a very very good recent example the obama administration has just announced a so-called pivot to asia so the idea is that the u.s. is switching the focus of us military a geo political activity from afghanistan and iraq middle east to aid to the pacific and to china to the china region and doing that in a way on their minds its ability to continue to invest to be competitive with chinese production or with japanese or other asian production well if we take china as an example we know that the u.s. administration is also going out of its way to persuade china to buy less earing in oil for example. what sacrifices could they possibly be offering to the chinese in your opinion you're right the u.s.

over sixty thousand just in the last ten years and move manufacturing offshore and when the reagan administration stopped and forcing penalties against employers who hired non-citizens entire industries like construction and meat packing that were once great places to get a good union job into the middle class became low wage bastions of largely spanish speaking labor the early result was obvious with the ross perot campaign later the pat buchanan tea baggers and tea partiers excuse me yelling about immigrants showed the cracks in the libertarian ideology and now the occupy movement and the ninety nine percent spring everything else are coming together with labor to just say no those libertarian nonsense over the pot in europe a common currency has prevented nations from being able to control their own economic destiny leading to disasters in greece spain ireland and italy all countries that never bought that libertarian line and instead kept their own borders regulated in their currencies under their own control like iceland the scandinavian countries until the banks years ago screw themselves a

the americans did the same particularly during the reagan and clinton administrations by doing away with over two hundred years of protections trade policies unilaterally eliminating tariffs and tearing down laws and regulations that protected labor and small businesses from the giant transnationals interestingly the asians mostly knew this was starry eyed crap the chinese moved from a failed form of communism to government sponsored and heavily regulated capitalism the taiwanese south koreans and japanese all kept their tariffs and trade protections in place although they often disguised them as for example reverse vat taxes or through regulatory barriers and ironically sort of the germans they protected their manufacturing industry by keeping national ownership trade barriers and laws that required big companies to have half their board of directors come from the ranks of the labor unions that worked in their factories they protected their workers by aggressively stepping in with things like the kurds are program short week is what it means in english policies that so when the great bu

little bit from some documents, the roosevelt administration and read some testimony from the truman administration that will show you that what was a foot in the reagan administration was in some respects not that new at all. to put this in context i want to just note that all of us are probably heard about the battles at the roosevelt administration had with congress, vis-À-vis quarterbacking. what you may not fall so close is that a parallel battle just as intense at the time probably comparable to debates today about the affordable care act reflected the roosevelt administration interest and we organized the executive branch. roosevelt was clawing for a 40 to reorganize the executive branch, when congress let that down just as it did, interestingly enough, the roosevelt administration did not take another run at court packing but did take another run at executive reorganization. if you care more about exactly what happened you can read a book that i've written that is about to be published but it's not on sale today. but i want to instead draw your attention to very interesting set of documents that i found buried under stacks and stacks of papers

conservative wing in the democratic party, whether we're talking about congress or even the reagan administration, where they were voices on different faxes and different wings. how did feekt the way where these issues were issued -- sure i any conservatives had to think about what was going to appeal to people in their boston and then go on to sell it to the broader public as well. i think it's disciplined conservatives and made them aware of the need to persuade, rather than impose it over any kind of opposition. ronald reagan was the exemplar. he was the best vote getter. it was his lieutenant governor robert finch, and the only man familiar on politics reagan really respected i think. and i think reagan saw the need from -- after the goldwater defeat, that if republicans had to cooperate, and it to an affirmative conservatism that could some sof of the nation's problems. >> the reference was pretty terrible in the early 60s. it was reagan who posed this 11th kmanment. it tended to moderate the conversation and probably the philosophy a bit, too. >> al has a book coming out in the next couple

to try to but by the hybrid equity neal is something that pretty much didn't exist before the reagan administration the first big l.b.o. was in one thousand eight hundred point this is a vast huge economy what you describe is tiny percentage cleaning out and sometimes painfully tiny different corners of it now as they're cleaning out it is taking small businesses that can't defend themselves and wiping them out the vast majority of general motors in the ways of situation when in the end remastered you already have the businesses that bain took were companies that were healthy small healthy companies they couldn't go up against general motors they didn't go out and start out on all the bain capital's relationships were voluntary the kinds of interactions that bain capital had with companies where those not to they were user should not do that not true that may be true that there were some people there always winners and losers in any kind of a negotiation so here's the question go to buy a house here people want to have a produces winners and losers and you guys are like gung ho for capitalism it le

oberstar: but even a decade after it was enacted, the reagan administration came in and cut the grant program to a loan program. and funding diminished over a period of time. now, we still have 1/3 or more of the nation's streams and lakes that don't meet the standards of the clean water act. we have to advance the cause. that is the big challenge ahead of us. you just don't think of raw sewage in waterways in a developed country, and yet, that's what we have, and not just in pittsburgh, but all over. narrator: pittsburgh is situated at the confluence of the allegheny, monongahela, and ohio rivers. these three rivers are vital for industry, recreation, and drinking water. and each year, billions of gallons of combined sewer overflows discharge directly into those rivers. hecht: we're now having to face the consequences of the choice that was made to put in combined sewer systems. narrator: in 1994, the government adopted a combined sewer overflow policy to reduce csos nationwide. cities with combined sewer overflows now face an enforcement action called a consent decree. under a conse

to have a waiver in order to buy it from a non american supplier and so you know during the reagan administration giving the waivers became routine and so we you know to to get lower prices for government and the result has been in part i mean it's combined with everything else to blow all this up now you're saying these trade deals even invalidate a law that's still on the books that's right basically for any of these agreements and you know speaking of what we can do as well as holding your member of congress accountable for the old ones and basically saying just you have to say it to them i won't vote for someone who gives away my jobs or has to really be very direct they can be a little bit sick about this because there's a huge tsunami of corporate cash and lobbying that sort of surrounds them when these trade votes happen they really have to hear from people at home there are members of congress who have lost their seats over this and it's going to take some more of that kind of accountability but right now the mother of all nafta style trade agreements is being negotiated the trans-pacific