Were coming together on all kinds of new interesting policies. You can see that entire interview with Arthur Brooks tomorrow at 10 00 a. M. And 6 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Long, cspann takes you all campaign long, cspan takes you on the road to the white house. Meetings, news conferences, rallies, speeches. Were taking your comments on twitter, facebook, by phone. Every event we cover is available on our website at www. Cspan. Org. Republican president or candidate jeb bush made a Campaign Stop in concord, New Hampshire this week for a town hall meeting with local residents. A jerke about a balanced preventing government overreach, worlds. Engagement in affairs. This is 1. 5 hours. Hello, everybody. Good evening. I see a lot of concord folks here. I and chairman of the debate committee. It is an honor for me to be here today. As the committee man, i am neutral but i have the privilege of having friends running in this race and i have no better friend than our guest tonight. It is an honor for me to come and spend sometime. We love our primary. I think the people of concord do it better than anyone. We summer and winter these candidates. My privilege tonight is to introduce another good friend. He is someone who does a terrific job for the state of hampshire. That is chuck morris, the president of the New Hampshire senate. He brought us a well thought out budget this year. [applause] thank you, chuck. Thank you for having me. Like every citizen in this day, state, ie, in this take what i do very seriously. When i am looking at candidates, i take it very seriously when there are so many that have strong values that would be great president s of the United States. I have sat down with many of them, they have great ideas. They have great ideas for what our country could be. I am here today because one stands head and shoulders above the rest, that is jeb bush. [applause] i am proud to say that i am cochair of the Jeb Bush Campaign for president. We are going to make it work here in New Hampshire. What we need in washington is change. We need a washington that runs like what we believe here in New Hampshire as republicans, and what jeb bush did in florida. He made a huge difference. He reduced taxes every year that he was governor. He grew the economy. He grew jobs. That is what we want as republicans in this country. We want everyone to better themselves. I am proud to introduce the next president , jeb bush. [applause] would you remain standing for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america. And to the republic for which it stands one nation, under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Jeb bush your endorsement is very meaningful. Thank you for coming out and welcoming me. I am from florida. It is great to be in a place that honors the space program. [laughter] it is really good to be here. [applause] if you think about it, america always has been an aspirational country, hasnt it . We have always done things that defied the imagination of the rest of the world. Being able to launch put a man on the moon, which was the aspirational goal in the 1960s when the russians excuse me, soviet i get them confused these days because Vladimir Putin is acting like a soviet. When they launched the rocket into space, it lit a fire under america. We sent a man to the moon. It was an incredible engineering feat. We do that regularly. We need to keep doing it. Whether it is to explore the stars or brain. Think about it, i meet people all of the time that have loved ones with dementia or alzheimers. We have not seen the kind of Forward Movement in the discovery of medicines to be able to take care of alzheimers. In a state of florida we have a Voucher Program for kids that have learning disabilities. There have been a surge of children with autism. In our case, we can send those parents, if they are not satisfied with the public school, can send their kids with state and local money to a private school. There are all sorts of challenges. The Mental Health challenges we see playing out in our communities across the country. Imagine if we were aspirational again. I think we have lost some of that spirit. We would have aspirational goals to discover the diseases that are neurological. We are on the verge of the greatest time to be alive, is what i believe. We have to start acting like we have done in the past, to fix a few big, complex things in order to rise up again. This is not the time to have people feed your anger or angst. There is a legitimate reason why people are angry. Look at washington, d. C. I made a mistake, i was asked on a sports talk show. I was asked my views on the washington redskins. I said, there are a lot of big pressing problems here, i dont think we need to be so politically correct, to try to, through government take the name off. If that is what they want, leave them alone. Lets worry about the complicated nature of taxes. The left went crazy, as you might expect because they are more politically correct these days. Someone sent me an email and said jeb, the term redskins is not pejorative, it is washington. If they are going to change their name [applause] i dont know what you would call it, Northern Virginia redskins. Washington is broken. It is ridiculous, we have three day work weeks. How many people here decide theyre just going to take a week off or not show up at a committee hearing. You would have a deduction in pay. Washington should have that as well. Elected officials should service with a servants heart. They should be doing their work. [applause] elected officials should not finish their job and go out the back door and lobby the people they were serving with. There should be a sixyear on lobbyist. Just as there is in many places. There are 29 states that have advocated a balanced budget amendment. I hope we get to the point where we have one. It will not happen in washington, but the state that people can demand this. Government needs to live within our means, rather than their means. If we focused on bringing people together to force consensus on how we get to a balanced budget with that constitutional requirement, i guarantee if i was president , we could do it. We need a line item veto power for the next president. They call me veto corleone when i was the governor. I guess that was being like being called the washington redskins. The speaker of the house called me back, i embraced it. 2500 separate line items in the budget, not to be punitive. Not to say you are not on my team and im sending you a signal. Simply based on the principle that if spending does not go through the proper process, it should not exist. A limiting the pork, what we call turkeys in florida, was a way that we proved that Government Income needed to grow slower than personal income. I turned the whole state and system, tallahassee upside down when i was governor. The result was, over eight years we cut taxes every year, totaling 19 billion. We reduced the state governments workforce by 11 . 13,000 fewer government workers. We challenge the system of employment. There is no more lifetime contracts of employment in state government. You can fire someone for incompetence for cause in florida. [applause] this was not being punitive, this was based on government should be the servant, not master. In washington dc, they have lost sight of this. Think about the veterans administration, jim. Think about is going on there. Have a system of owners in the executive you have a system of bonusing the executives va. Ide the th they were going to be given a bonus for the wait list, they forgot to provide care for the veterans. They reduced the waiting list by taking them off of the list, some veterans died. Do you think people get fired . Three people got fired. Do know how many people work there 330,000. The sheer incompetence because of the scale and scope of government right now is impairing our ability to fix problems. People are angry for a good reason. The question is, are we going to stay angry, or fix it . I know how to do this. I did exactly the things that people want to see washington do in tallahassee. The results, we were one of two states to go to aaa bond rating. The United States has had a downgrade to aa. It is not the reflection of the greatness of our country when you see structural deficits under president obamas watch there will be more debt acute related than all of the 43 president s prior. To restore americas greatness which we are on the verge of doing, we have to bring back veto corleone from florida, to washington dc. We need to bring back the phenomenal fact that government is the servant, not master. We are the host, they are the parasite. If we get sick, the parasite dies as well. You cannot create Economic Activity through government. If you listen to last night to the debate, you might have thought that all power resides in washington. All forms of regulation create prosperity. Taxes make it better. More spending through washington make things better. Here is the deal, workforce to his patient are lower than they were in 1977. Because of obama principally, 6. 5 Million People more are working parttime. The majority of which want to work fulltime. We have unemployment they talk about 6 , the fact is it is doubledigit. Income today is lower for the first time in a recovery 2000 lower in disposable income for families. 6 million more people are living in party. Who is fooling who . The progressive liberal agenda has failed us. Now we have to offer an alternative of reforming taxes, signifying code, power back to people. Promoting the bigger businesses that have the lobbyist and all of the special interests in washington that make it easier for them to survive, but make it harder for the duration generation of job greatest to exist. For the first time in american history, more businesses are being closed than formed. It is because we have advocated all power to washington dc. The job of the next president is to lift europe by fixing how a tax. We tax. Making government work as a servant. Fixing our entitlement problems that will overwhelm the next generation of people, and the text next generation. This is not sustainable, but if we fix and grow at 4 rather than 2 , people will have a chance to dreams again. Guess what the interaction of people, all of us together in a dynamic country, free of government mandates and rules and taxes, the way we have it today will have create more things that will move our heart and drive us forward. We will find cures for diseases. We will lead the world in so many different ways. I trust 300 Million People in a crazy fashion, interacting amongst ourselves in trial and error, than any Government Program ever created. I hope you do as well. If we grow at 4 , which i believe we do, embracing the energy revolution. Fixing our entitlement problems. Being frugal with government spending. Challenging how government works, we can get there. We are never going to grow at 4 unless we recognize we are living in a perilous word world. Each day another story comes out to prove it is perilous. It is perilous because we have abdicated are responsible it is as a world leader. This president does not believe that American Leadership is a force for good in the world. With all respect to him, he is dead wrong. This country leads. We create a better chance for peace and security. If i am elected president , here is the deal we will rebuild the military, treat our troops with respect. We will arm them. [applause] the objective here is not to duty strawman thing that barack obama says, if youre not for his nuanced sophisticated view, you are a warmonger, that is not true. Leadership means we are not the world policeman, but we have to lead. People have to know that we have their back. Imagine being the Prime Minister of israel right now, under attack by organized effort by palestinians to try to destabilize jerusalem. Where thomas is dealing its oats again in the gaza strip. Without an ally the i have your back kind of relationship we should have for israel, we are casting them aside in alliance in their minds. They will take action, as any country will. We should have their back. There should be no gap between the United States and israel. [applause] all of our friends need to know that we have their back. Our enemies need to fear us. In the last few days ive heard people say wont we create a problem if we push back on what on putins actions in syria . They are now actively promoting and supporting the brutality of the assad regime. This afternoon i read an article about a cuban general now is playing a part. They are recreating this access of opponents to the United States to the point where we have serious problems. We are worried about offending putin . He is a bully. He should be worried about offending us, not the other way. We need to stand strong and tall. That means we will create more security. Today in syria, millions are leaving the country. 200,000 have been killed. There are refugees forced back there that will either be raped, held as slaves, or killed. The United States needs to lead. If we stand for anything, it is the value of human life. Today people wonder where the United States is. The void is being filled in a way that will create problems for the next generation. We have to be engaged in the world. Our friends need to know that we have their back. Our enemies need to adjust to the reality that america will be there for a long while. We need to restore intelligence capabilities. We need to provide support for military troops. We need to do it in a loud and clear way. If you want to get to peace through strength, you have to restore americas leadership in the world. That gets us back on track to creating high sustained Economic Growth where people are lifted up. [applause] the final thing i want to say to you is, look, this is not about the big personalities on the stage. It really is not. It is not about Anyone Running for president , all 75 of us. [laughter] it really is not. It is about people like you single moms i meet all over this country that have a child in a failing school. They want to go to a highperforming charter school. What a voucher to go to a private school to afford the same things that people of affluence have. It should be a right for every mom and dad to pick the school that best meets the need of their child. [applause] it should be. It is about the small businessman, husband and wife team that i met in denver, they have a company of four people they were they told me they were about to go out of business because of obamacare. The confusion this brings for their own business. It is about the military family wondering whether the leave whether their loved one is going to come back home. Will havetate stay to be extended because we got at the military force. We shrunk it anytime we need to rebuild it. It is about a lot of people that are one or two paychecks away from utter disaster. It is about a friend of mine i met in 1998, at the time we were not friends, she let me have it in a town meeting. Hopefully this will not happen today. She let me have it. She told me i did not care about families with kids with development of disabilities. I could not convince her, so i said, i tell you what, in the next month i will give you four days. You can schedule my life and teach me. I want to listen first. I want to hear what it is like. What she told me was, the greatest fear that she and milton have is whether they will outlive lucy. I learned a lot in those four days. I went to those group homes and i saw what it is like to have the dignity of an independent life. I would to work places where people with develop an old fashion Developmental Disabilities were getting jobs and the customers loved it. The employees found joy. Everyone is an asset in this country. Everyone has value. Everyone has a chance to contribute. They left believes that people are liabilities that they need to manage from above. We believe in the human spirit. We believe that everyone has a godgiven ability to make a contribution. All of our policy should be organized around that. That is what i learned. Now she was an independent, her husband was a democrat, they are my strongest supporters because we changed the system. 30,000 families in florida receive benefits for their loved one. 30,000 more families today do not worry about whether they will outlive their child. [applause] listening and learning is important. I worry about the people i have met on my life journey that just want to be lifted up. They want a chance to live a life of purpose and meaning. People like miss meriwether. She used to be largest Voucher Program in the country. Now about 70,000 kids get a private school indirectly with public money. When she was in third grade she is now 25 years old, she was held back. Her older brother had a runin with the law. Her mother was lost. She was angry. No one ever told her she was smart and capable of learning. She was effectively like hundreds of thousands of kids, being cast aside. Because we challenge the orthodoxy of our times and created the first statewide Voucher Program in the country. One of those is this program. Her godmother found out about it, and she got to go a christian school. It is constitutional, just for the record. When she was told that she was capable of learning, when she was told she was an asset rather than a liability, when to its ultimate purpose in life and that she was loved, she accelerated her learning to take back the third grade, and she did it again. She was the first in her family to graduate from high school. She was the first in her immediate family to graduate from college. There are 250,000 children in florida that are grade level readers. I challenged everything about how the Education System worked. I took on the two teachers union. Do you see the scars on my head. We won. We opened the system. Kids like her, i dont know shes a democrat or republican, it doesnt matter. She now has a chance to rise up. Imagine a country that focuses on the fact that all of us are assets. How do we achieve success. The whole focus ought to be lifting people up. If you run a campaign of right the right way, and you have a principal centered leader that knows how to fix this thing, this will be the most extreme extraordinary time to be alive in this world. I believe that my heart, i hope you all do as well. I humbly asked for your support and vote in the most important primary that exist in the United States. Thank you all very much. [applause] yes sir. I have not seen a Michele Bachmann tshirt in a while. Thank you, governor bush, pleasure to have you here. I want to ask you about is the other state, iowa, i am asking because it affects the constitution. Hodges, weaver, jones, those laws deny a person the right to defend themselves and a in a criminal misdemeanor trial. They are not allowed to see evidence against them or defend themselves. Jeb bush that sounds like it violates the bill of rights. I want to ask you where you stand on that. Jeb bush without knowing the specifics, the bill of rights trumps state law, plain and simple. Whether it is the Second Opinion amendment and you have states trying to overreach and restrict gun rights to lawabiding citizens. Normally that is settled in the federal court. I dont know the specifics. The bill of rights i was the chairman of the National Constitution center for a few years. I had a chance to fall in love with the constitution again. Normally you will learn about it as a kid, it is different, kind of interesting. You do not realize the power of the constitution. It plays out in our lives each and every day. It is an incredible blueprint for a free society. We may be the only country that has a set of rights to protect us from our government. It is powerful. As long as we are selfgoverning, this document will keep us free and maintain the greatness of the country. People will rise to the challenge of innovating and pursuing their lives in a free society. I cannot tell you specifics of the iowa laws. It has never come up. I will have to learn about it. Thank you for the question. Mic is coming your way. I have two questions. Jeb bush when you make it one question, twoparts. Ok, to increase the military, how are we going to fund that . Howdy feel about refugees from syria in the United States . Jeb bush the First Response responsibility of our National Government is national defense. If you had to pick the one thing for them to do, what would it be . I dont think it would be carrying the mail. I dont think it would be amtrak. I think it would be protecting our shores. The way i look at this, whether you have it or not, look at this from the perspective of a zerobased budgeting. That is the way you should look at it, as a leader. I would fund the First Priority first. I would challenge the orthodoxies of other things. The Defense Department is to be challenged, just as much of the veterans administration. The v. A. Has a hospital they started for 3 million. Now they have 1. 8 billion. You cannot make that up. Ill think the president of the New Hampshire senate would allow a governor to run away with that kind of spending. There would be oversight. In washington it is kind of out of sight, out of mind i guess. We can reform the Defense Department. The military programs they are implementing are extremely costly, they take too long. There is a lot of challenging to save money. We also have to grow the economy at a faster rate. If you grow it at 4 , it brings in revenue more than exotic forms of taxation the left proposes. Last night, i dont know if anyone is keeping a meter on the promises of taxes raised of spent. Bernie sanders has proposed 18 trillion in spending. He is warming up. Growing the economy will create more revenue than people imagine. You get the denominator growing, the numerator does not look as bad. You deal with the structural problems on that side. As a relates to syria, here is the deal. The First Priority for our country is to create a strategy to take out isis and assad. That should be the first strategy to deal with refugees. [applause] i proposed one. I went to the Reagan Library and proposed it. Ive proposed a nofly zone. If assad was going to continue to bear upon the innocent people in his country, the United States could destroy his air force and the ability to land planes. That would solve that problem like that. Now it is more complicated with russia. We need to lead the world. There should be one army, the remnants of the Syrian Free Army that we have promised to help and avoided. All of this we need to get back into the game and create a unified effort with safe zones to deal with this challenge. We have that capability. You saw what happened early this week or late last week. Isis is now it looks like isis has killed more than scores of people in turkey. This is spilling out into the region. The region needs to be engaged. Turkey, jordan, they have millions in refugee camps in these countries. We need the persian gulf countries involved. They should be financing a majority of this. We need to unleash our air force by having former air controllers and people who know exactly where to launch these. We need to tell lawyers to take a step back. This is protecting our national security. The best way to deal with the refugee problem is to deal with the source of why we have it. We need to make sure people are screened, but we should participate in that as well. I do not think we should abandon the core values, the goodness of our country. I do not think were that small. We have to recognize that we have internal problems, for sure. I get that. Whatever the number is being proposed if the option is murder, rape, beheadings, that is the option for many of these people, we should play a role in that as well. We should be leading the world to eradicate these problems the caused this. The europeans can play significant role in this as well. Germany is accepting 8000 refugees. This is going to be a huge problem, to use a term that other candidates use. Those problems will play out unless they get engaged to help create a more stable syria as well. Yes sir. I dont know i have a need to say this. Your brother made a lot of difficult decisions. By and large i did not agree with all of them, but i think he was a great president. Jeb bush you can say that all you want. As it relates. Jeb bush he is a mighty fine brother. We know that if the Obama Administration had followed through with your brothers decisions related to iraq, probably we would not be in this mess today. One question, twoparts. Where do you differ from your brother . The other question is related to education most republicans prefer to have educational decisionmaking devolved to the states. You are a strong supporter of common core that leads to a lot of decisions in washington. Jeb bush where i differ for my brother, i am taller, and younger. Probably not as smart. The context for president s are always different. My dad was president in the year 1989. 2000 was different. The difference in my brothers administration was, we got attacked. He became a wartime president. I think he did next remarried job keeping us safe i think he did an extraordinary job keeping us safe. [applause] spending more than any of the governors that are running and its adjusted for which we were serving, it was adjusted for population growth. A per cap that basis we cut spending. When i left there was 9 billion of reserve, that was 35 of. Eneral revenue we might have had eight four tropical storms or a financial meltdown. These things matter. I was a committed conservative the way through and thats what i would be as president. Allas a governor, i wanted the authority on education. All of it. Have taken a lump sum from washington d. C. , give me the title one money for the low performing schools. Give me the monies that go for learningwith disabilities. Childhoodl the early literacy, head start, give me me whateverey, give my percentage is, give me an outcome that you want me to leave me alone. Thats what i would have wanted. 80 policer of the bureaucrats in of education in tallahassee were there to fill the 10 of theor money we got from washington d. C. Believe in common core, if the states want them great. If they want different standards, fine. Make them high. [applause] we had the greatest games in learning of any state in the it out. Check im not prone to exaggeration. Compared to others at least im not prone to exaggeration. Greatest gains of learning happened because we raised standards, we had real gradedability, we schools a through f, 100 based on student learning. And dad knew an f was not as good as an a. Showed improvement they got 100 per student more. Parents weren f given vouchers to go to a school. T this idea that when youre in and, thatde, you can somehow there will be some get yountervention to through the day, you cant do science and math if you cant read. Driven. Hat was state thats the way it should be. There should be no federal ofolvement in the creation standards, content or curriculum. [applause] governmentral doesnt reauthorize the k through 12 law, which will put a lid on the federal governments involvement, then ill do it by because this is important. Can we get to the bigger thirdsation, which is a of our kids are college or career ready. Good . Inks thats think of the shattered lives en with that result. Thats where we are. Weve dumbed it down so much to be above average withnow were threatened lowering standards to get into college, lowering the content for reading and math. So youre redoing High School Math and reading at college level. Then were putting Student Loans of studentse backs who cant graduate with a years. Ar degree in four thats the path were on. To reverse that we need to have expectations and zero tolerance for the attitude that some kid can learn and some kids cant. Because in florida we proved thats otherwise. We were 50th out of 50 in graduation rate. Bad. Be good. We couldnt even whisper for name your favorite state. Years, almost 20 years of straight improvement because of where our accountability system. Theres a better way to do this, but it needs to be state led and driven. Someone over here, yes, sir, in the back. Its a little dark back there. Following the same vein of education, as a College Student to the debateg last night for the democrats and wants sanders said he free college education, Hillary Clinton says she wants lower interest rates. Would you deal with the education of education in college . News,sh first, the good if you have children in florida, instate florida students have of any stateition in the United States. And its because we have two things. We have a Bright FutureScholarship Program thats merit any person that has a g. P. A. Of x and an s. A. T. Of why ride. Full you still have to pay for the out of pocket costs. We put a cap on tuition and thanks now, we it, but its been enhanced dramatically under governor scott, we now have a where schools are measured on outcomes. Universities actually have to produce what we expect them to. [applause] we measure degree completion in for publicy universities with fulltime give lend students, we measure a fouryear degree completion in six years. Sixyear we call it a degree . This is ridiculous. Fulltime equivalent credits now mean 12 credit hours. Now, i dont have a lot of s sympathy for this because i and ited in two years, worked. And i wanted to do it because i madly inated, i was love with my wife of 42 years now, i want to get out of this myff and get going with life. Luckylot of kids get that like i did. But you can graduate and work, think about it, 18 hours, that load for college. You couldnt get it now, you couldnt get those credits in schools because teachers, professors dont teach the same way they might have in the past. But 18 hours and assume for a moment that youve actually studied an hour for every hour that you took, i dont remember that in my case, but maybe day. Up to 36 hours. I dont ever remember in my than 36fe working less hours any week since 21 years old. This is ludicrous to tell a 21yearold kid, or 18 or kid that they cant do more than what theyre being told they can do now. Should get fouryear degrees done in four years. You want to save money for Student Loans . Get the throughput faster so that students can graduate at a rate, then make sure theres accountability. In florida we have this system where we have a pool of money each year it grows and its the accountability money. If you have degree completion dont meet the objective, you get money taken away and the schools that do better get money given to them. So now we have a s system where is competing to do the things we want more of, which is majors but majors in degrees that actually can give someone a job and doing it in four years rather than six. In the system around that with and thernment support tuition support, create something thats probably the best deal that people will get florida, whether it Community Colleges or higher ed than any other interaction theyll have with government. Theres lots of those kind of ideas that exist in this the federal government should get out of the way a little bit and be a thener for innovation from bottom up. Across the spectrum of policy [applause] the government in washington is to come upsigned with a creative idea and their impulse is to take power away. Power away you take the innovative spirit away as well. Over 50 states, despite the good intentions, never works as trying a New Hampshire way and a florida way and a different way. Just know instinctively whatever the subject matter that comes up tonight and in most ways, i default first to shifting power back to the states. Rather than have the government be the end all and be all. And focus then on the priorities. Keeping us safe, building a a counterintelligence. The infrastructure that is thatnwide, the things really matter for our safety and for our growth. Thats what i think the federal should work on. Yes, maam. [applause] my motherinlaw is here, shes very worried about our resources. And whether or not theyre going out. N and with all the immigrant and if we coming in bring in refugees and so is that it is . Much what your concernhare about protecting the natural weources, in fact i think have a duty where the dominant planet, ourhe were is a gift from god, children of god. , i believe we have a duty protection. Ion and the good news for america is were a big, big, big country abundance. And we can grow our economy, we be respectful of the Natural Environment and find common ground. My ill resort back to experience in florida. In florida we had the largest land purchasing programs in the country. Its called florida forever. And it was a bipartisan in our state that every year we would buy floridalion of pristine before it got developed, before someone a developer would come and buy it and be able to put housing on it or whatever. Thatwas in the eco systems we needed to protect, florida is a lot different than New Hampshire, ive been traveling beautiful state. Our trees don change colors in florida. Ive never seen more beautiful mountains and hills than you have here. [applause] floridas got some good things going on, but it also has a very fragile environment. A duty and its a value of our state to protect wild florida, and we did it. Way we could do it was to grow our economy, because that provided the resources for us to make this commitment. If you think about the everglades, if youve ever been in south florida, there is no other place like it. Its a resource that is unique to the world. Faunas got all sorts of and critters and fish that need to be protected, its also our supply. Its another place where there is not a conflict, but you need itshare the resource and do in a respectful way. Under my watch we began the up the of cleaning everglades and protecting the water resource for nature as growingfor the population. And i think thats the way you do this, you do it respectful of you also recognize that weve got to allow people, much about all the other things that go on, the thing i worry about the most is much money people have in their pockets. Im not worried about my rear end. [laughter]. Im worry about peoples wallets. Theyre not full. Really struggling right now. Theyre one or two paycheck as from having big changes in their lives and we should be sensitive to that, because onernment is putting a lid peoples aspirations in that regard. So every time i think about the the country or in my case when i was governor, i was mindful of the fact that we should be growing incomes at the time. Hat about here. Jeb bush yes, go ahead. Actually came down from the seacoast, i was a student down wanted to offer my question jeb bush youre yielding your time . Yes. Jeb bush well done. You, governor, thanks for being here and thanks for your years of public service. All, whatsrst of your ministry . Im from durham, new a chach lane at the ministry at the university of New Hampshire and to my left is cheryl the associate chaplain Catholic Student Center in durham. Were all children of god. Are. Ush yes, we absolutely. That was a stupid joke. Time. Ake them all the we would just like to offer a simple prayer, like you, were faith, and the issue that really concerns us, wee that in aser hummably as we can. We bray for our leaders to ease suffering in communities affected by Climate Change to a just society, god of all creation. We pray for the poor and vulnerable, those most affected by Climate Change, and fossil fuel extraction. Of all creation, hear our prayer. Pray for those mining, Natural Gas Pipelines and off shore oil drilling, god of all creation, our prayer. Finally we pray for our leaders to open their hearts to climate justice. God of all creation, hear our prayer. And governor, id love to just, as a visionary leader, did some great things in florida, id like to know how you would help us lead facing the Climate Change and those most affected by it. Jeb bush i appreciate you being here, thanks for the yield, that to a very elegant way to get the task at hand. I gave reallyer applies to this issue as well. I think we can solve more our economy is growing, when peoples income is and so theen, solution cant be to hollow out Economic Activity. Reduce carbonuld emissions and we could all increasingly move towards poverty. I dont think thats the answer for our country. In fact, thats kind of the path were on, disposable income in this country is now 2,000 lower ago. It was six years in a recovery thats never happened before. And we have these big struck sturl changes going on around the world and some people can ist write this off that this you have to get used to it, the end of an american era, you just it. To accept i dont, i dont believe thats the case. So heres how i would answer i answer itn, and as a resident of miami. Probablyhat my home is 12 feet above sea level, so im high point in our community. Gets. About as high as it if you have over some extended period of time if you have and then youvels have rising tides at high tide florida that was not designed for any kind of ther increase in tide, first thing i think we have to do is to adapt, to create adaptation, to recognize that we should have an insurance policy, if you will, adopt to these things. Secondly the proper role for government in this is, in my is to spend more point on basic research to identify the Disruptive Energy Sources that will be competitive with all the others that we use now. That plays see how out. If you follow Energy Policy in natural gas, because of fracking and adraulic drilling, has had dramatic increase in reserves, gone downice has fivefold. Its gone from double digits halfto two to two and a dollars a thousand cubic feet. And its created an abun dab energy that actually has reduced Carbon Emissions by 10 in the last decade as we convert from cole and other heavier sources of carbon challenged its also the other sources of energy. So solar has seen a dramatic costs. On in its because the baseline now has gas. Ed, thanks to natural wind is competitive today. You place like iowa where have ample wind, consistent wind, you now have wind being without any subsidies. And its because in our country least, investing in these longterm things and then creating environment where down cost andrces change creates the desired effect. Intersectione where we need to be, in my mine. And thenroblems growing our economy at the same time. No, that would be not be my suggestion no, it would be a bad deal. It would abe horrible deal. Pricesd increase utility by exponentially. The people that would be hurt by that are low income people and moderate income people, the people that this Faith Community and everybody else i know of cares about. [applause] you mentioned entitlements. We all know that Social Security is not going to go on forever if we dont make any changes to it, its probably going to run out money in 7 to 17 years depending on who you listen to. Bet kind of things would you doing specifically to make sure that doesnt happen and to make for ourial security seniors and kids and grab kids. Answered thist, i question my very first trip to responding toby someone that asked the exact question as you did it and in the back yelled at me, its not an entitlement. And its actually not an entitlement. Its a supplemental retirement system. So before anybody yells at me, i clear, entitlements would be obamacare, medicaid, medicare. Entitlements based on ortain criterias, income age. But Social Security is an actuaryially unsound retirement system. It wasnot that way when created when Life Expectancy was was 65. Etirement age it was the most conservatively [laughter]. I grew up in texas and i can remember not my parents you but talk about Franklin Roosevelt like he was a socialist or something. Thats the most conservative idea that, imagine if someone proposed that in washington d. C. Right now, they would be ryan or someone like that, not on the left. It . Ow do you fix well, the same way we fixed it in the 1980s. Get people together from both parties, but the simple way of doing this is to for higher income people and to moderately over an extended period of time raise the retirement age. Peoplethe path that most agree is the way to solve this. And protect it and preserve it for those that already have it. Forward,ould be going for every month, youve taken up a month for every year and over you would phase it in. That would bring about solvency for Social Security, just as it the 1980s. The same process applies. The bigger challenge i think is and medicaid, which are growing at a rate that is the rates three times of all the other spending. And the power of compounding to consumeis going everything else. Today, or yesterday i proposed a way to deal with medicaid which was to get it out of the hands states toton, allow take the medicaid dollars, plus thei. Going forward, take kids insurance money, the socalled s chip monies, put it a lump sum and take the obamacare subsidies done through them together put and allowing the legislatures states to craft 21st century insurance policies that on catastrophic coverage, low premium coverage, of h. S. A. s. Ount assume for a moment that poor informedtually make choices when you give them information, that theyre not this ideayou know that somehow people in poverty cant make decisions for poverty. S, perpetuates its wrong. Ive seen too many examples where the opposite is the case. Poor people are poor, theyre know, theyre capable of making decisions. So i think thats the bigger challenge. Going next two weeks im to unveil a plan as it relates to medicare. [applause] yes. I have a question. You have people with medicaid and you have obamacare and you who workle like me fulltime, cant afford dont qualify for obamacare and im buy polar and i fight every day to get medicaid, to try to get medicine, because its not cheap. Its expensive when you have things like this and you want to be a productive person. Getnformation or me to insurance i have to qualify for disability. I can work, im just as capable i can help person, run your campaign, i can do anything. Moon. Fly to the jeb bush hey, im looking for someone. But the point is im actually doing my working, im job. I dont want to just accept government money because i have this small thing, but people like me fall through the cracks ask thats not fair. Us . Do you want to help jeb bush two ideas. One, in the Health Care Plan i unveiled yesterday, which repeals obamacare and replaces it with a new system, we would credits to every person that does not have company insurance. Would be equal in,hat they could purchase you know, whatever means they could have. We biefl took the credit amount and then if you took, if you allowed the states to go with new plans, states could add to that. Business, because this either or problem that you face as an individual, and ill to that, it also applies to Small Businesses. So businesses either provide the boat insurance, with all the mandates and all the costs, or they don provide anything. So in my plan, i would say Small Businesses could also make contributions to peoples individual insurance, their employees, so its not either or. And they would get a tax deduct shun for that. And the final thing is s. S. I. Disability. Youre completely right that it needs to be reformed. Its bankrupt. Theres a Social Security trust fund that is already bankrupt. Grown dramatically. And one of the challenges is you means are disabled, which you cant work, or you dont get anything. And there are ways for people that have partial disabilities, which sound like, im certainly diagnosing you here, but a partial disability, that there partial payment. And that just makes common sense. But thats not how, that would law, and ihange in advocate that because that would lessen the cost of s. S. I. Disaability and would get people back in the work foargs. Theres some other ideas about trapped notre working. Have you heard about the penalty . My wife would say that im the marriage penalty, but [laughter]. If you have a spouse thats working parttime or not working get back ineeds to the work force or wants to get back in the work force, every their firstearn, dollars are taxed at the marginal rate of their spouse, of the person that is working fulltime. So they could be paying 30 , wage be close to a minimum to work parttime. And that cost impedes many people from getting back in the work force. I think we ought to allow for to file individually, to eliminate the marriage penalty. With socialto deal security, is to recognize that people, even if youre allowed to be retired, its a supplemental retirement system. It means that youre not going to necessarily be able to live off that alone. Years old and7 you want to work or you have to continue to pay in through the employees portion of the payroll tax. For like 50dy paid onto, toght, from 20 67, i propose as a way to generate more work and more for people to allow for people 67 or older not have to continue to pay into the payroll because thats their retirement, pocketsright to their allowing them to grow. We have an earned income tax credit in our country that is the best means to deal with that are near or at the Poverty Level to get them to work. Talk aboutpeople raising the minimum wage, i think 15 was the high bid rate debate, itin the will kill a half a million jobs. Trust me. Left and right thats pretty much the argument. True. s because auto makes, innovation takes place and people have to howr their cost asks thats they do it. Earned income tax credit for people that are single, which doesnt exist now and say from 20 to 25, if you got that youd have hundreds of thousands of young people being able to work and get their first rung on the ladder. These things requires a change because the well intended ideas and laws in 1950, maybeed in 1975, they dont work in the world were in today. Need a total transformation of the relationship government has as andelates to regulation taxes. Good luck. Yes. Im sorry, well do two, because youve been holding your time. P the whole hi, governor. I want to ask you this since were standing right here. My name is liz, and in 2005 we were both watching an amazing of ence inaudible since then i decided to join the fellow asizens of the United States a citizen for space. What are you going to do to get congress on board increasing the budget from under one percent to States Program back to the United States making us the leading country in the world, and not just russia and china. [applause] jeb bush you may remember as governorst years there was a expendable launch plan that was being built. And the state of florida actually put up a sizable amount this, i think we put up 50 million bucks to lure it of the, cant remember if or lockheed, it was grumman, to design this so it would replace the some. Be an interim to the next launch vehicle that would look like you could launch youd come back and have dramatic reductionings in cost and have access to space at a would allow for discovery, science, all sorts of tongs that would allow us prosper and lead the world. Well, that was in the first year of the Obama Administration that was killed. By theaccess space russians. I dont think thats a smart idea. This is the same country that is running circles around us in all parts of the world that views menace,ed states as a not as an ally. And any time they would want, may not fb their commercial so, any time they wanted they could shut down our ability to access the space station. Clearly we need to are antic to access space. And i would take it beyond that. The scientific discoveries that come from connecting with space are incredible, and im biased, it, im from florida, its a great deal. But i think we need to be more aspirational again. This will sound kind of odd, but the years ago in one of debates gingrich, speaker about comelked onizing colonizing the moon. And those crowds get rowdy, that. Leave it at and people started laughing. In the other debate people atning for president laughed him as well, and im thinking really . I think its pretty cool. About having big lawflty as pir asal goals. Country, a generous country, and the benefits of this are far more than people realize. To persuade people that there are benefits in the planetd now, benefits on earth when we have a zeal for discovery and create a strategy it. Nd nasa should not try to be all things to all people. Partner with the dreamers in the private sector. The elon musks and others. Its not going to be perfect. You cant plan out everything. Risks, thesegerous are not risk avers enterprises. Canpartner with people that bring an intensity and creativity to the process as well. I was thinking you were going to bring up the tragedy that place, ill never forget that, when i went as governor of the state of florida on the to thefor a tribute astronauts that died, and i wasnt it . S 2005, for Christa Mcauliffe . No, the other one. In the 2000s, it was horrible. And its a recognition that this dangerous endeavor. But its worth it to be engaged in it. Yes. You remember what your question is . Yes. Its two parts. The first part, i heard you talk reform. Out tax lot aboutu talk a like tax reform, and like i may be incorrect, but from my understanding the tax system works so you have the tax taxkets as a progressive rate, correct . Jeb bush yes. Progressivep being because the Capital Gains tax rate is less than all the tax rates and mostly rich people stock market, so they have less taxable income. So due to that the rich people end up paying less taxes and it end up being regressive. So the one, youretion is talking a lot about rich people creating jobs, okay, so thats brought thatavent up today, but people with that have money normally create more people that dont. Jobs,yre going to create reach people dont cray jobs, right, but that doesnt happen, why, because rich people insist in the stock market. What are you going to do to notntivize rich people to invest in the stock market but to invest in the economy and create jobs . Two, what specifically are you going to do to close tax people . R rich my last part i got a three part. Its two and a half. Poor people can make their own decisions. Im asking you, one, do you think a cultural poverty exists and if you do not think a culture of poverty exists then how come the average white more money than the average black family and latino family, and if theres no youural poverty what would attribute this disparity to . Jeb bush first, we do have a of poverty, we have al poverty. Ion to assume theres no way for people in poverty to make for themselves, self validates that intergeneration al poverty, and i reject that hand. If you want to lift people up, you need to give them the power themselvesices for rather than trap them in a situation of interdependency, witht has nothing to do race, nothing at all. It has to do with people being born poor, staying poor because systems on top of them that put lids on their aspirations. If you want to live people out there are three things that would be helpful. One, allow them to live in safe communities. Poverty have higher crime rates, makes it harder for the community itself to rise up. Need to have stronger families. Stronger families matter. Need to make sure that jobs are available. And four and perhaps most important, you need to revolutionize education so that everybody has a chance to be successful. [applause] on taxes, on taxes, we do have a tax rate when you consider that the top one percent pay 45 of all taxes in country. Thats a fairly disproportionate amount. My proposal says were going to reduce rates for everybody, and you make 40,000 or less, a family of four, you would be pay income taxes. The middle class will get a 33 cut in their rates. Everybody would benefit from this. We would put a cap on, the have they you may marginal rate may be higher than the effective rate, which is the making, right . Whether its Capital Gains, theres other things as well. That people of higher income take advantage of interest deductions, they take advantage of charitable deductions, they take advantage of, not in the or florida, of state and local tax deductions. They take advantage of all the carve outs and special deals, all of which are probably well intended, but the net effect is the effective rate for higher income people. Soplan puts a cap on that that you cant deduct all that you could have deducted before. Would eliminate warren buffets story that he says he than his administrative assistant. On the if you put a cap deductions that you get, you rate. Have the higher and on corporate rates, which is where a lot of jobs would be im suggesting, going from 35, the highest Corporate Tax rate in the 20 ,trial kriezed world to but allow for full deduction of all capital investing. To create jobs, allow for investing in our own worldwideliminate taxation and have, and eliminate interest deduction, so that arele that are investing the ones in the jobs that youre talking about are investing in the real economy. Investing in the financial marketings. My plan also cause for the of the special deduction that private equity inms get, or people business, the socalled carried interest where they get capital their business. They should pay ordinary income like everybody else. Thatthink the proposal ive laid out identifies some of the good points that you bring glad you did bring them out. Thank you. [applause] i got to go. One more. Sir. Question on women in combat. Being there for a year, i dont idea,its really a good major, the the two marines and the army. Possibly the navy and the air force, thats different. When youre flying planes or helicopters its a lot different the ground very up close and personal. Jeb bush exactly. Ofhow i would go about any these social issues, if you these are significant issues in the Defense Department and the military. Would not impose a political ideology on the military, or a social belief. Rely on the commanders in the field. This has to be a process where you respect the commander in chief has to create the strategy, has to balances, checks and thats how our system works. But you cant micro manage the military. You have to make sure that every optimum on what is the morale for our troops to allow them to be the safest and the powerful military force, so that the perception and the our projection of force makes it less likely that we do it. That should be the priority for the commander in chief. So i would listen to the folks making thise decision, not telling them come up with the result i want, get a feeling sometimes thats kind of where we are. Listen firstlly before making that judgment, and you bring up a good point. Conditions that make it hard for me to imagine, but if one could convince me that the besteve it was in interest for the optimum morale for our fighting forces, then i certainly would consider it. But i think right now theres centralization and of just about everything in washington. I would trust them to make that military. The we have one more. Yes, sir. Is the birthday of general dwight eisenhower. [applause] bush he was a good man. Who would have known that. 1950, i was privileged to be at the boy Scout Jamboree in pennsylvania, and later he had words ty strong he had some pretty, the eisenhower,wight later had pretty strong words to military the growing industrial complex. It seems thatng, some of the republican candidates just want to keep growing the defense budget, and foremost, well do whatever it takes. Even if other things have to be sacrificed because thats most important, i hear. Would you be, willing to set some limits and will you make sure that corporations that bill Weapon Systems dont influence our politicians . Absolutely. Thats a very good point. Point to aht up this certain extent in that every as spending aspect of spending needs to be in washington. When you have this, apparently, the most powerful sky, better tonight russians, better than the its cost, you know, the costs are more than anybody imagined and it taken more imagined. Anybody one of the things thats going on in washington d. C. Right now, senator mccains committee and is looking at procurement reform, which i think is essential. Big hugef having these complex Weapon Systems, whatever they are, that require maybe two contractors, only, the only people that can get it are big aggregators, if you will, what we ought to do is approachre strategic to this and then build on it. And theres lots of reasons for one is speed,ost, to getting the equipment out into the field as fast as possible. It, youre much more agile if you start small anded it and as important, think how Fast Technology is evolving. Building these big sophisticated weapons systems, the biggest most expensive one, and they take way allow fordoes not competition, and the costs seem to be always, theres always overruns. Then the technology has to be refreshed any way. This in increments and allow the technology to grow as we innovate and new technologist emerge. Theres all sorts of, across the you see tech mo inical advances in certainly Information Technology but also g. P. S. Technology, all the require a Weapon System to be effective. Theres dramatic changes. Of certain metals, you know, the storage of energy theres all sorts of things that if we did it the right way, and i totally support this, it would also get many more contractors onto the create a mored competitive environment, more competitive process so that the big guys don dominate. Thank you all very much. Id love to shake hand with as as i can. E [applause] indistinct conversations